2846 Pirates Of Penance.
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Since I was entertaining a guest I miscalculated the time needed to get this page done. Since it’s going up late I’ll spare you me rambling. Have a nice Monday and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
8 Comments
The original Penance Stare had absolutely none of the ‘must feel regret / have empathy’ nonsense that was added in later runs. It was simply “you feel the pain you caused to others, in the context that you caused it”. You murdered, you feel the murder from the perspective of the victim. Doesn’t matter if you are a sociopath or a masochist or whatever. You will suffer from the suffering you dealt out.
It only got nerfed by writers who wanted their edgy anti-heroes (Punisher to start with, and then others) to be able to be gritty and edgy without having to get taken out by the Stare like they should have.
Yeah, I always got the impression that it was mostly about, like, physical suffering, i.e., if you assaulted or raped someone, you would literally feel the physical pain you inflicted upon them. The emotional or mental anguish component of it wasn’t really part of it (I don’t think, anyway)?
I mean, even if the emotional/mental anguish component was always part of it (I honestly don’t know, I only have a passing familiarity), the idea is that it’s *forcing* them to experience the pain they have caused, so being incapable of empathy shouldn’t make you immune, if anything it should make you extra vulnerable because you are being forced to experience it for the first time.
I liken it to the Indigo Lanterns from DC, Indigo is compassion on the emotional spectrum, and every single member of the Indigo corps is an unrepentant monster, the worst sort of sociopaths who are utterly incapable of empathy and might even actively get off on causing suffering in others, but the Indigo ring *forces* them to experience compassion, it *makes* them understand exactly what they have done to others, to *experience* it. It basically brainwashes them to have a powerful aversion to causing suffering and practically compels them to try to atone for their sins.
To me, that seems to be what the Penance Stare *should* be doing, forcing people to experience empathy in the most violent way possible, *making* them experience all the pain and suffering they caused, you shouldn’t need to already be capable of empathy for that to work.
Which is actually kinda disturbing in and of itself. Seeing evil reduced to a blank-eyed stare and a muttered “nok” is like salted earth.
Frankly, the nerfing makes sense in that context. Like when Galactus got hit with it. It’s like, excuse me, I should just starve to death? He wasn’t OUT to “cause suffering.” So what point is an attack that makes you feel the suffering you caused if you were never out to cause it in the first place?
The target requiring the ability to feel empathy depends on the writer.
Heck, in the movie it works on a literal Demon
Not until the demon has a soul grafted onto it.
Oh, he’s SO in love with her… Look at that face!