A Story of Logic and Immorality
Updated: May 22
Today I watched a cutscene in a video game that had a relatively logical plot structure. However, the immorality of the scene caused me to view it as less logical, because I believe that acting intentionally immoral is illogical. This is because it can raise a lot of unwanted opposition, as it clearly did in the cutscene.
The cutscene was about an army of deadly assassins, led by a man named Dolph, burning apart a village of sentient, isolationist beavers. The beavers had decided to maintain their isolationism because they wanted to live a quiet life and not indulge themselves in the conflicts of humans.
When the protagonist and company confronted Dolph for voluntarily burning down the village, Dolph explained that he was following orders from his superiors. He said that the extermination of the village and its people was necessary because "they are not a part of our kingdom, and our kingdom is there solely for its loyal subjects."
I found Dolph's explanation to be illogical. First, it is illogical to kill innocent people simply because they are not part of your kingdom.
In other words, he justified his attempt in ethnic genocide because this specific minor ethnicity was not involved enough in the matters of the kingdom, in order to be considered a part of it, even though it was indeed a part of it geographically.
I can understand Dolph logic behind his immoral act - those who are not an integral part of the nation, allegedly shouldn’t exist, because insufficiently-involved ethnicities/races are unnecessary for a nation’s desire for national unification.
Of course, even though I understand the logic behind the act, there is no way I would agree with it being moral and just - those who seek a quite and isolated life, shouldn’t be cleansed solely because of their desire for peace and harmony. The intention behind the beavers’ isolationist policy is far from justifying their extinction, and there is where I disagree with Dolph’s decision for ethnic cleansing.
And indeed, because committing immoral deeds can easily ruin a person’s or an entity’s good name and respect, after the sentient beavers’ village was saved by the protagonist and his army - after a long period of isolation, the beavers decided to fight for the protagonist cause - to overthrow the current government which, by the way, have overthrown the protagonist’s parents from the throne through their assassination.
