Tomura

in my opinion, there are things to consider when thinking about whether an action is good, and that is: your intention of the action, the action itself and how it affects others. all three of these things are equally important, as they can change a person's mind on whether what they did is bad or good, or at least will think that something is 'less' or 'more' bad or good.

for example one, let's say that william killed victor. he fully intended to kill victor, even going as far as saying "i'm going to kill you" before plunging the sword into his chest (this bit isn't relevant it's just for the lols). he killed victor because he found a basket of strawberries in the kitchen, since prior to this, william picked out those strawberries from the gardens and was planning to make a pie or some shit out of them, and now he can't because victor ate them all.

and example two, william killed victor (again lol). but this time, let's say that victor was a part of human trafficking, and was trying to shove a child he kidnapped into a carriage. and william, with the intent on saving the child, killed victor to save him.

in both of these scenarios, william killed victor, so the action is the same. in example one, he wanted to kill victor, and in the other scenario, he wanted to save the child. so automatically, the second scenario is the 'lesser of two evils'. while william did commit murder in both scenarios, the second scenario is more justified as he didn't want to kill anyone.

and now let's talk about the third thing i mentioned when deciding whether an action is good or bad, how it affects other people. in scenario one, victor is the co-founder of crown, an organisation where they plan to fight villainy with villainy, to save the people of england. by killing victor, many lives would be affected in the present, like those in crown who care for him and respect him, and those he would have helped or have helped in the past and future.

and in the second scenario, victor (this can be seen as anyone, not just victor, so we can ignore the fact that this isn't something canon victor would do, this is just a scenario) being dead saved the lives of so many potential humans being trafficked and sold off to people, which benefits people in the long run if you think about it.

and that's what crown is doing. the majority of crown (minus jude and alphonse ig and some others) aren't fighting villains with villainy by killing people, they're doing it to bring justice, and that happens to be murder, if that makes sense. the action is the same regardless, so in that doesn't matter. it's mainly the intent and how it affects other people.

they're not going around killing bad people or revenge or something of equal value because they want them to die, crown is serving the public, meaning they serve the people, or for justice and morality.

i think it was kant who said that for an action to have any moral worth, it must be done out of duty, which is kinda what these guys are doing. while they know that murder cannot be justified, they believe they have a duty to get rid of villainy, not to kill people, which is why they have moral worth, if that makes sense.

which is why i don't think the crown are 'villains' in that sense, especially not people like william, victor, liam, ellis, elbert or harrison. the others are up for debate. and honestly, i think vogel (minus ring) do a better job at being villains, especially darius. i'm reading the translation on his route on @/kurishiri, and honestly that man's a freak.

i get why william sees himself as the 'king of cursed' (it's either 'king of the cursed' or 'king of the villains' i don't actually remember but my opinion changes depending on which it is). he's a guy with the most op curse that's knows in game, but he contradicts his own curse by wishing people lived freely and indulged in their desires, good or bad, he don't judge.

if his title is 'king of the cursed' then i agree that he does deserve the title, but if it's 'villains' then imo he doesn't deserve it. man's a fraud. that title should honeslty go to darius since he describes what an actual villain is. his intentions are ass, his actions are even worse and since he sometimes targets random people, like those who wanted to join vogel (i think the men who failed were tortured and he would send the women off to get violated) it's SO BAD. but if we're sticking to just crown then ig jude.