#morality bites

Charmed | Episodes + Faceless | 2.02 Morality Bites

LEO: “Six months ago she er… killed a man. Cal Greene.”

PIPER: “The baseball player?”

PRUE: “This is crazy. I mean Pheobe would never hurt anyone.”

LEO: “She hurt him because he murdered someone. Someone Pheobe cared about very much. A dear friend who he… brutalised. But a technicality set him free. Pheobe was furious. Outraged. And that’s why she crossed the line from protecting the innocent to punishing the guilty. She used her power to kill Green, got caught and her magic exposed by Nathanial Pratt.”

As Taylor Swift would say, 🎶I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending…🎶

Vengeance is a one hell of a motivator to do evil. How did a passive power give Pheobe the capability to kill? Pheobe used witchcraft to exact vengeance but how?! Premonitions don’t kill people. They save people. She has saved lives through having premonitions, how it is possible one of them could take someone’s life away?

charmed meme: [1/10] episodes  ✧*:･ﾟ morality bites

October is the month of scares. Of horror and mayhem. Ghosts and villains. So it seems natural that we take some time this month to talk about morality. After all, the horror genre is rife with questionable morality. Lately, though, it seems like fandom wants to hold creators accountable for presenting amoral and immoral characters and situations and not explicitly telling everyone that those characters and situations are amoral or immoral. And, well, as avid creators and consumers ourselves, we have a problem with that.

We’d like to start by saying that we get where the criticisms are coming from. We understand that people worry that fans will be unable to differentiate fantasy from reality and, therefore, take the presentation of elements such as abusive relationships or serial killers as models of how to live their life. We understand that people don’t want fans to be hurt because they take something they see in fiction at face value. But it should be pointed out that this is not a normal circumstance. Children learn at a very early age to distinguish fantasy from reality, and continue to learn with the guidance of the appropriate adults in their lives until they are adults themselves.

What we don’t understand is when it became a creator’s job to act as the parent and the teacher. To be responsible for preaching morality to those who read their stories. At no point in time did creators make a pact to only write perfectly moral stories, and at no point in time did they ever suggest that anyone should use their stories as guides for how to live.

The truth is that perfectly moral stories are boring. In fact, if everyone behaves this way, there’s nothing to say. There are no villains. No bad things happen. Everyone acts wonderfully and then lives happily ever after. Hit the snooze button, because yeah, it’s a snore. The whole point of stories is to have a safe space to explore the darker themes that we’re all naturally curious about. They’re not supposed to be pretty and perfect. They’re supposed to be messy and chaotic. But that’s okay, because they’re not real. When you read a story, you are pushed to look inside yourself and confront what you’ve just learned, and nobody gets hurt in the process. You certainly can’t say that about real life.

Creators are not responsible for putting a flashing sign on their story that says that the people in it are bad and you shouldn’t emulate them. They aren’t responsible for pointing out that a relationship is unhealthy and you shouldn’t want to be in one like it. They aren’t responsible for telling you what’s right and wrong. As an adult, the only person who is responsible for curating your entertainment is you. If you’re a minor, then it’s the job of your parents and any other appropriate mentors in your life. While we understand that’s not always the case, that everyone doesn’t necessarily exist in a wonderfully supportive family, it is still not entertainment’s job to step in and fill that void. 

The problem is all in how Prue handles Sutter. Everything works up until the very end. Until she chases him down. Shoots his shoulder. Then telekintically flings him through the window.

Prue uses her power to attack a quote-unquote “innocent.” Not only attacks him - arguably intends to kill him, even if Sutter survived the crash. Yes, Sutter’s a tyrannical madman and needs to be in jail (or put to death depending on your belief in the death penalty), but the show specifically covers this in “Morality Bites.” Good witches do not use their power to punish mortals. 

Prue’s use of magic here seems excessive. The man is old and she already shot him in the shoulder. She could have easily taken him down. I’d even understand if she magically tosses him against the wall to knock him out. It could have been a great scene - she goes to throw Sutter through the window, wrestles with her conscience, then compromises by throwing him against the building instead. It would be a nice wrap-up to her argument with Cole. Instead she flings Sutter through the window without a thought to possibly killing a mortal. It contradicts everything she said to Cole and makes her seem like a big hypocrite.

Prue running to save the day also contradicts her goal of empowering the town. It would’ve been much more satisfying for Prue to play a smaller role as the town descends on Sutter, condemning him all on their own. Not to mention, a time traveler messing with the past on such a large scale is bound to have consequences.