Board Thread:Clean up Concerns/@comment-2175012-20171030003307/@comment-2175012-20171230220013

Mesektet wrote: Okay, seriously, everyone needs to stop using the word "heinous" like it is an objective term, it isn't it is a subjective one. Saying a Complete Monster must be heinous is like saying they must be gross. Everyone has different sensibilities so that is a fairly useless hard term to keep throwing around as an objective measuring stick. Something can be heinous by story terms because the society an action exists in sees it as heinous, ex, blowing out a sacred fire in a Temple might be heinous in that world, but we are judging classification from beyond the fourth-wall, so that is useless out-of-universe.

But back to point - If they feel bad for their actions it doesn't count. We aren't making a judgment of how good they are, just if they are completely irredeemable, soulless monsters, if they have no capacity for even base-line humanity, if they do the morally worst possible thing in all circumstances. So yeah, if a character feels remorse after the action, that alone doesn't redeem them as a villain but it does mean they aren't Complete Monsters. His wife can be a Complete Monster based on the circumstances, anyone can be. But what cements it is zero lack of remorse or positive qualities even when the character is given the chance combined with a concentrated effort to do the most harm in any/all situations.

Heinousness is an objective criteria, but it is true that it can vary from person to person. For instance, if Bob killed 15 people but has mitigating factors (like loving his family) he doesn't qualify. And then if you have Alice, who had killed 3 people and has no redeeming factors, she doesn't qualify as a CM / PE either because Bob is more heinous.