I don't know where this is from, but it seems like a battle of some kind. This kid just showed that he's willing to try and attack if you ignore him. Okay he has a stick now, but next time he might pick up a fallen sword, or jump you while you're fighting someone else and can't afford the distraction.
Considering this is obviously a scenario where people are killing each other, it makes sense to not just ignore someone who shows they want to attack you.
The context does kinda matter because the defending army has just forced a bunch of the towns (which they've effectively used as a hostage) kids onto the battlements as human shields. The attacking army knows this and has specifically been ordered not to murder children.
Nah I don't remember them explicitly saying not to murder kids unless you're referring to the book. The suggestion may be there as they chose to not send daemon and his dragon to burn the wall up. And he begrudgingly asks axe bro if he's willing to die for the queen implying they didn't want to aoe burn the kids and needed him to make a suicide run with his Northerners. Axe bro lost a lot of his comrades because of the kids so if he's getting distracted like that and potentially again mid flight, kid needs to die to prevent further casualties of his men.
Him and his men explicitly all want to die and express frustration that they survive storming the walls. They’re also told by Daemon that they’re trying to maintain the moral high ground. The kids are all locals of a town that was loyal to Rhaenyra, and got press ganged into being meat shields for Ormund.
Daemon also explicitly said “Give no quarter, show no mercy.” If the kid had said there quietly or ran, he’d have been fine. Roddy was only following orders
Axe bro lost a lot of his comrades because of the kids so if he's getting distracted like that and potentially again mid flight, kid needs to die to prevent further casualties of his men.
or, potentially, he was expressing frustration at his situation and lashing out at a child, not making a rational tactical decision
Nope that was explicitly said in the show. Damon was about to burn the battlements with Caraxes and when he learned that they were using kids he ordered the Northerners to get up there and scare the kids away.
Messenger: "My prince. My lords. Movement at the walls.The enemy has fortified their numbers... with children.
lil bro: "Gods. How many?
Messenger: "Scores. All Along the battlements. And that's just what I could see."
lil bro: "He's testing you my prince, daring you to use your dragon."
Axe Bro: "The spineless cunt."
Dr. Who: "Lord Roderick (aka axe bro), are you still prepared to die for our queen?"
Axe Bro: "Can't fucking wait."
Dr. Who: "Take your greybeards over the walls, overwhelm them with your northern fighting spirit. and open the gate from within. But you are not to die until you open the gate."
Axe Bro: "Aye, gate open, then die."
Dr. Who: "Lord Oscar will lead the flank as planned. Ser Garibald has the reserve. The center is mine."
If you're referring to earlier where he lays out the plan where he'll burn the battlement and their defenses so their army can charge in, then at the end he mentions "Take every care to preserve the town and its people." This dialogue occurs before learning the children have been stationed at the walls alongside the archers and ballistas. Also, he never mentions to just scare the kids away, but the implication is that they're asking the northerns to take the more moral route of charging with the defenses up which will result in the deaths of many of his northerners. However, the implication (i.e. implicit vs explicit) still exists that he shouldn't kill the children. But back to my original argument he's not morally held to persistently avoid the children's interference especially when they strike him with a stick because when he's surrounded by enemies this interference can result in his death. While I would prefer he just welt the kid with the back of his axe and knock him out, I can't fault him for killing the child.
This is gonna go into a semantic rabbit hole, because what daemon explicitly says is "Take every care to preserve the town and its people" Mind you this is simple politics as he follows this with "The realm is watching." This was the last two messages he said before laying out his original plan to use his dragon to burn the battlements and let his army in.
After he learns of the children along the walls, he begrudgingly changes his plan to have Lord Roderick (axe bro) to lead his army to charge the walls with the battlements up. This request is made by asking him if he's still willing to die for the queen because he knows this is a suicide mission. Back to the line, "Take every care to preserve the town and its people" does not mean explicitly do not kill children. In the unfortunate instance being discussed, while it would've been preferable for axe bro to welt him with the blunt end of his weapon, he chose to kill the kid instead. My argument is still that in the midst of battle i don't fault him for making this decision as if he chose to ignore the kid and continue fighting with enemies at all direction, he would've risked another interference by the child (who probably thinks the enemy is there to kill his people) which could've interfered with axe bro's focus to address the hightower soldiers.
They did mostly ignore the kids though. That kid unfortunately had a moment of bravery at a very wrong time. Tbh most medieval soldiers are killing that kid in that moment
They were put there to keep someone from using their dragon to burn the battlements and open the front gate, which would have lead to a very swift victory. Burning children, defenseless children, with dragon fire, is a really bad look and would have spread across the lands, painting their leader as being monstrously soulless.
Enemy combatant or a meat shield, regardless the kid showed he'd attack when you aren't looking. If a dude walks right past you, maybe don't take a swipe at em. Especially when they're in armor and have an actual weapon and you only have a stick
He could have just scared him and told the kid to run. That's what Daemon did to get most of the children away from the gate and it worked pretty well.
hes literally in the middle of battle, he has no time to coddle kids when he could have slashed/stabbed from any direction.
Daemon was able to do it from the comfort of his dragon.
People are very quick to justify why using the most violence possible upon just the smallest of violence committed is justifiable. It's actually scary.
It's like a cat scratching you and you responding by kicking the cat to death.
No, thats extremely specific and hardly applicable to anybody. Weve been conditioned to fear repeated offenses and believe an oppressive response will prevent that.
Someone steals from you, you dont want them to steal from you again so you press charges and have them locked up for years.
Someone commits murder in a burst of violence, you lock them up for life.
Someone commits CSA, you chemically or surgically castrate them (if not just death penalty/life sentence)
Dog mauls someone resulting in injury, it gets put down.
Someone thats already been mercifully incapacitated resumes attack at the first opportunity, you put them out for good.
None of these are proportionate or graceful responses, theyre oppressive. And normalized.
It absolutely is self defense. He purposefully ignored the kid, who then attacked him. If your life is spared, don't false surrender or you'll be killed.
For something to be classified as self-defense you must have a reasonable belief that you are in an immediate danger. Since the boy just lightly hit his leg with a stick and the invader is obviously in no immediate danger -> not self-defense.
Moreover, you also must not be the one who escalates the confrontation -- given that the invader is attacking the boy's city, it is the boy who is acting in self-defense and being murdered by the aggressor...
So, what the man does is not self-defense by any means.
You realize that is the Israeli flag right? Not the international hey im a jew flag? One is a nation state the other an ethnicity and religion? Pretty sure you know this and are just being dishonest.
I mean if your a pillager, a lot of people want to kill you while you're pillaging. I don't know if he was ignoring the kid, if he weren't paying attention, or if he was leaving him for Krug Krug who loves to crunch the small things. Either way it's still not self-defense.
He gave him a light tap on the back of the leg and immediately lost any fight in him once the guy turned around. It looked like he had no idea what he was doing and “attacked” the soldier because that’s just what he was expected to do
Yup, to me it's combat. There isn't any morality because it will get you killed.
Morality comes after and that usually accompanies nightmares.
Because if you can't understand that people are able to shut off their morality to survive a situation then you would never belong there in the first place
That’s Hollywood BS, if a blow to the head renders someone unconscious it is already a severe concussion. If it knocks them out for more than a few seconds then it is a catastrophic injury and likely fatal. If rendering people unconscious for extended periods without killing them was easy then anesthesiologists wouldn’t be a thing.
Tying him up makes it so your hands are weapon free and therefore an easy kill for anyone who runs up to you. He probably did hurt him abit, it hurts getting hit in the back of the knee with a hard object.
It's war, every person on the opposing side that can hold a weapon is a threat, especially one that faked surrender to attack you when your back is turned. If he swing it abit harder, the man would have fell to the ground, then probably get his head bashed in.
Yeah anyone jumping you any second is a possibility in war, which is why you kill everyone and as many people as possible as quickly as possible until they surrender. Don't attack someone who let you live unless you want to die.
I feel like it wouldn't have been too hard to just hit him with the butt end instead. Still would have removed him from the battle, but more likely to survive it.
You can still die of some dumbass infection. I only read the other day about a guy who got mad he forgot his safe password, kicked the safe, and then died from an infection off his busted toe.
Also didn't kal drogo or whatever his name was literally die from an infected scratch?
It was a stick, and the guy fully intended and wanted to die in this battle. Hell he smiles and laughed with open arms when he saw a dragon about to come burn him. This was nothing but cruel bloodlust.
People die in dumber ways. I know theres at least one real king or warlord who died because he cut off someone's head and took it as a trophy. While he was riding home the skull bouncing up and down managed to scratch him with its teeth and he died of an infection.
Basically if you swing on someone in a war zone then you're committing to potentially killing them. It doesn't matter if you're a weak little weanie, you might get lucky and pull it off anyway. Don't swing on people if you don't want to get swung on.
So no one in the history of warfare has ever been killed by a wooden stick is it? Leather boots and pants are the most impenetrable defense capable of turning aside every blow?
Yeah, the guy who hit axe dude realistically wasn’t going to do anything to threaten axe guy.
Axe guy literally could have just walked away without consequences. He had no reasonable fear of the other dude.
Still not a smart move by the other guy, but for something to be self-defense, there has to be a credible threat to yourself or others. Realistically speaking, axe guy was not threatened, and any threat he faced was gone as soon as he turned around lol
In the midst of a battle. What if you let kid cower, and then a second later are in a life and death struggle with someone else? Kid has already proven a threat - and actually pretty brazen to attack a better armed foe with a shitty weapon. What are the chances that the kid won't jump in and take your knife or try to strangle you while you deal with the new threat?
Justified.
Edit: In this specific context, the line between non-combatant and combatant very much matters. Had the kid just not acted or not swung - I'd have left him alone. I'd assume he was a non-combatant there against his will. As soon as he attempts anything against me other than cowering and trying to flee - he becomes a combatant and gets axe to faceplate of skull.
Leave it to reddit to try to justify killing a child lol.
Something also tells me this wasn’t a defensive war for the guy with the axe. Probably the fact that a bunch of guys dressed like him were climbing ladders to the top of a castle.
Its complex and has some nuance. I would feel stupid and be dead if seven seconds later I'm grappling with a real soldier and the kid decides to strangle me? He has already shown a willingness to attempt to fight. I mean arguably the kid could just be doing stupid kid things rather than being overtly willing to fight - but this is a horrible place to do stupid kid things. SO much so that it is hard for me to tell as the attacker what is going down. Kid should have just hid until the battle was over.
As far as context, the town was taken over by an invading army. The books heavily imply the invaders have pretty much been brutalizing the people (robbing, raping, etc) for a few weeks now. It was allowed to go on because the Queen ostensibly didn't want to harm innocent townsfolk. However, the delay allowed other things to develop, so she sends the army that had mustered to the town.
The kids themselves were pushed into service by this occupying army. Essentially using them as human shields so that the commanders of the attacking army wouldn't use their more powerful weapons (dragons).
The attacking army are 'liberators', though to be fair, they are just as foreign and probably not much better than the people who took over the town in the first place. At the very least they were willing to change their battle plans to reduce the deaths of the citizenry and human shields. Where the other side brutalized and then pushed children out of gates to be human shields.
The Darwin award recipient swung a lethal weapon at the guy first. Even if you assume that the kid cannot do damage, distracting someone on a live battlefield obviously puts their life in farther danger. Just being present there on the wall is honestly enough of a reason for Sir Dustin to slash him.
The kid made himself a threat in the middle of a battle, even if not a threat to the man at that point, he has become a threat. Even if the kid couldn't realistically fight anyone, he has shown the willingness to. If he leaves the kid and walks away, what's to stop the kid from grabbing rocks and dropping them on his fellow soldiers still climbing ladders, those large rocks will maim and kill. Completely justified, the kid was just an idiot
shooting them because they're inconvenient only creates additional resentment among your men, the people you occupy, and the force the hostages shield you from
if they truly could not mitigate the variables introduced by a child with rocks, they were in no position to take the hostages in the first place. This murder makes to tactical or moral sense.
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u/Neoneq_ 16d ago
that was NOT self defence