User blog:AustinDR/Moral Agency

So, you've heard me speak about moral agency when it comes to evaluating a villain who is a PE/CM. However, I feel that I may not have gone in debt with what I meant by this subject. In short, moral agency boils down to the character needs to be in control of their actions, they know that what they're doing is wrong, and, most importantly, they must be able to choose to act differently (i. e. if they are aware that what they are doing wrong, they can change if it's in their nature). So, a few things:

1. Children. Children in most works tend to lack moral judgment in their actions, thus they can't really be held accountable. One exception is, of course, Henry Evans from The Good Son. Not only does he know what he's doing is wrong, but he also developed his own ideology that if one were to abandon their morals, they can live freely, and commit vile acts that they'd otherwise be refrained from committing thanks to their morals.

2. Animals. For the most part, animals act on instinct and learned behavior. Regardless of how violent they can be, they lack a moral understanding. This is especially true with most predators, such as the Great White Sharks from Jaws. Now, there are a few exceptions, of course. For instance, there's Sharptooth. While we don't get much insight into his personality in the film, in the novelization, we learn that Sharptooth fancies himself as being above all of the other dinosaurs, and gets a sick pleasure out of killing other dinosaurs. Him repeatedly trying to kill Littlefoot and the others is also explained as him being pissed off at Littlefoot when he accidentally blinded his eye. Another example of a predator qualifying is It. In the novel, we get a glimpse into It/Pennywise's head where we learn that he thinks that he is superior to humans and the Turtle. In the novel, It explains that the main reason as to why he hunts and kills children is because their imaginations are more vivid (read juicy) than adults, and that he gets sick delight from scaring them, equating it to putting salt on the meat. Of course, there are more exceptions to the rule on predators, or animals, preferably if they're anthropomorphicized.

3. Demons: The problem with some interpretations of demons is that they are often seen as the physical manifestation of evil, therefore, they tend to be compelled by their nature. One instance of this I see frequently mentioned is Aku. The problem is that Aku was spawned from the The Black Mass which is itself nonsentient. While Aku could make deals with others, it's because of his nature that he tends to go against the deal. Basically, that's the reason why he doesn't qualify as either a CM or PE. As always, there are some exceptions. One thing that I use to evaluate demons, much like on the Cleanup forum for the CM trope is the work. The work needs to make it clear that the demon featured has moral agency or lacks it. One example that I can think of is actually one of my old candidates: Satan from Touched by an Angel. In the Christian understanding of demons, demons were originally fallen angels that possessed free will. This is the same concept with Satan from that one show. He has moral agency, as emphasized by one demon redeeming herself. As such, you could say that Satan himself does still have the choice to redeem himself, but he chooses not to out of spite for God. As for other examples...there's It. I don't know where this claim originated, but It is not a physical embodiment of evil. Nowhere is it stated that he/she/it is. King was fascinated with H. P. Lovecraft's works regarding those cosmic horrors, so he chose to base It on one of these eldritch abominations. As I have frequently stated when It was brought up in an argument over whether or not including It as PE and not some other demon like the aforementioned Aku, It does have agency. If anything, he most likely acquired his understanding of humanity because he had been in Derry for millions of years. Or then there's Bill Cipher. While there are some arguments to be made on whether Bill has Blue and Orange morality, he knows how humans tick and how to harm them, and he very clearly takes sadistic joy out of destroying their lives.

4. Mentally insane: While their actions would still impact the heinous standard much like with the other characters featured, if a villain is criminally insane, or too far gone, they can't be suspected to be in complete control of their behavior. The same with brainwashing. A villain who was brainwashed did not act on their free will. It's up in arms on whether the villain who hypnotized them in the first place counts or not.

5. Robots/Artificial Intelligence(s): Robots and other forms of artificial intelligence are usually programmed to act a certain way by their programmer. As such, robots in most works lack free will to go against their programming. There are, of course, some exceptions.

Hope this helps you understand what moral agency 9or agency) means in determining whether a villain is PE or not.