Kelsier, Good Guy/Bad Guy

[+ILuvHats]

Wow, this thread is lighting up... 

Just to add a little to the conversation, it's important to realize that like most psychological disorders recognized by the DSM, psychopathy is a spectrum. Nothing's ever cut-and-dry, and there are some arguments for Kelsier being on the spectrum that are almost impossible to ignore. It would almost be more interesting to argue over how severe his psychopathic tendencies are.

 

[+ZincAboutIt]

6 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Well now I'm wondering if I'm crazy. I would be unhappy about the situation, but the fact that I killed a would be murderer would not make me lose a second of sleep. It would probably make me sleep more soundly in fact, knowing that there was one less person out there that might try to murder me.

I don't think you're crazy. People are all different and morality isn't as ironclad as lots of people think. I think perhaps I might not be the best to debate this point heavily, since I don't much care whether or not Kelsier is in the "good" or "bad" camp. I like darker characters and I like a person who is more than one "thing," so Kelsier is probably in my top 5 all-time characters, if not my favorite. As this conversation proves, what makes someone a hero or a villain exists on a movable scale that is different to each person. The desire to justify or demonize Kelsier's actions isn't something that I am very intent on, I just love that he can be (and is) both. Now if the question is whether or not Kelsier has a normal reaction to regular murdering, the answer is a resounding no. Kelsier is not normal.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

That's perfectly valid for the people who work for House Venture who ran the pits. Even for extending that to the government. 

Kelsier extended that to all of the nobility and anyone who works for them, which in itself is abnormal as the nobility is where he grew up. It is not standard to dehumanize people who you have lived and befriended and known. 

Dehumanizing an enemy that you don't know is one thing. Writing off the humanity of people who you have interacted with is another. Kelsier still has no issue with this and states regularly that "all nobles are the same" despite the fact that he both should know better from experience, and if it were true, every person he knows is corrupted by being part noble to begin with. 

The standard reaction and Kelsier's are not the same. 

All nobles are part of the government. All soldiers work for the government.

They may have noble blood, but they do not live as nobles. They have no skaa slaves. They do no frivolously murder skaa. There is at least some small argument for calling them good people. While I don't agree with Kelsier's assertion that all nobles are the same, it could be argued that neither did he (or at least that he lacked conviction it it) since in the end, he saved Elend.

[Calderis]

Just now, ILuvHats said:

Wow, this thread is lighting up... 

Just to add a little to the conversation, it's important to realize that like most psychological disorders recognized by the DSM, psychopathy is a spectrum. Nothing's ever cut-and-dry, and there are some arguments for Kelsier being on the spectrum that are almost impossible to ignore. It would almost be more interesting to argue over how severe his psychopathic tendencies are.

Which is typically my biggest issue. He's obviously not a full blown no empathy, delights in pain and torture, serial killer psychopath. 

I just get annoyed at how frequently people paint Kel as far far more noble and selfless than he acted. 

3 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

I don't think you're crazy. People are all different and morality isn't as ironclad as lots of people think. I think perhaps I might not be the best to debate this point heavily, since I don't much care whether or not Kelsier is in the "good" or "bad" camp. I like darker characters and I like a person who is more than one "thing," so Kelsier is probably in my top 5 all-time characters, if not my favorite. As this conversation proves, what makes someone a hero or a villain exists on a movable scale that is different to each person. The desire to justify or demonize Kelsier's actions isn't something that I am very intent on, I just love that he can be (and is) both. Now if the question is whether or not Kelsier has a normal reaction to regular murdering, the answer is a resounding no. Kelsier is not normal.

Hell, I don't even think good and evil are "real" beyond the mental and societal constructs. They serve a purpose sure, but it's all variable and subjective. 

2 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

All nobles are part of the government. All soldiers work for the government.

What? In so far as they pay their taxes sure. The government is the Cantons. Not the nobility. 

[SwordNimiForPresident]

3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

What? In so far as they pay their taxes sure. The government is the Cantons. Not the nobility. 

The Cantons are the departments of the government. The nobility are the ones that directly oversee the skaa. They seem to be the ones that perpetrate most of the rape and murder. It seems odd to have to explain why this group of people were bad. Slavers, rapist, murderers. They seem to check all of the big boxes for me.

[Calderis]

Just now, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The Cantons are the departments of the government. The nobility are the ones that directly oversee the skaa. They seem to be the ones that perpetrate most of the rape and murder. It seems odd to have to explain why this group of people were bad. Slavers, rapist, murderers. They seem to check all of the big boxes for me.

Except your doing the same thing Kelsier did and putting the nobility in a box. 

There were bad actors. They deserved what they got. Calling "the nobility" rapists and murderers and slaves is like saying "the rich are corrupt." sure you can say that about many of them, but generalizations are by their very nature wrong in this regard. 

[Inky]

I feel like what people miss is that in the situation that was Mistborn Era 1, Kelsier was a hero. He did good because what he was up against was genuinely awful. Now, in the modern era, where there isn't a huge cliche fantasy overlord to kill, Kelsier is in a different situation. He could easily go either way at this point. He's not a villian but he's not a true good guy either, and he could easily align either way

[SwordNimiForPresident]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

Except your doing the same thing Kelsier did and putting the nobility in a box. 

There were bad actors. They deserved what they got. Calling "the nobility" rapists and murderers and slaves is like saying "the rich are corrupt." sure you can say that about many of them, but generalizations are by their very nature wrong in this regard. 

Of course I am, I'm justifying his position.

They were all slavers, that cannot be contested. The Lord Ruler owned the skaa. The nobility oversaw them. That makes them slavers. You are correct that it is a generalization to say that all of them were rapists and murderers. If I were facing a group that was made up of half murdering, raping slavers and half slavers. I would call them murdering, raping slavers. Even their children, who are not yet old enough to actually be slavers, are living the lives they do on the backs of slaves.

8 minutes ago, Inky said:

I feel like what people miss is that in the situation that was Mistborn Era 1, Kelsier was a hero. He did good because what he was up against was genuinely awful. Now, in the modern era, where there isn't a huge cliche fantasy overlord to kill, Kelsier is in a different situation. He could easily go either way at this point. He's not a villian but he's not a true good guy either, and he could easily align either way

The same could be done for Era 1, all you would need to do is write a book from the PoV of the nobility. Mistborn terrorist is tearing down your way of life, incites a revolt in your property and finally, kills your god. He sounds like a pretty bad guy in that context, you just have to ignore that the person who's PoV you're seeing through is morally bankrupt. IMO, if Kelsier is a villain in Era 3, it will only be because of perception. His goal will still have a greater good in mind.

[Inky]

The "perception" thing is a rabbit hole. If you read the 

Spoiler

entirety of Stormlight from Moash's point of view, there would be no "storm Moash" stuff, because we'd agree with him. 

Hell, looking at Mistborn, Alloy of Law is just backwards Mistborn. 

[I think I am here.]

2 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

His goal will still have a greater good in mind.

I’ll put in my two cents and say the greater good is subjective. The master-computer in iRobot thought it was doing things for the greater good. So if Kel does something, no doubt it will be something he thinks is perfectly fine and for the greater good, but that doesn’t mean it’s not some bad deed disguised through his perception.

[Calderis]

2 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

If I were facing a group that was made up of half murdering, raping slavers and half slavers. I would call them murdering, raping slavers. Even their children, who are not yet old enough to actually be slavers, are living the lives they do on the backs of slaves.

Then I'm done with this argument. Those children didn't sign the government contracts. They may not even know the basis of their lifestyle. 

The moment you condem children for the acts of their parents is the moment I say there is no reason to the argument and I'm finished. 

[SwordNimiForPresident]

2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Then I'm done with this argument. Those children didn't sign the government contracts. They may not even know the basis of their lifestyle. 

The moment you condem children for the acts of their parents is the moment I say there is no reason to the argument and I'm finished. 

Fair enough, I've taken to much space in this thread anyway.

I'll finish by saying that the real psychopaths in Mistborn are the nobility. It is remarkable that Kelsier, Elend, Breeze and Marsh all managed to grow up in their society and not come out of it completely lacking compassion for people less fortunate than themselves.

[Bigmikey357]

Kelsier does heroic things in the most Lex Luthor-ish way possible. Remorseless.

There are some characters that hold great power and have a dark past. But when the rubber meets the road you can't truly see them playing on Team Evil for a given value of evil. Harry Dresden is an example of that kind of guy. If Butcher wrote a narrative where Dresden took the heel turn I think that would look like a betrayal of his character. Meanwhile if Brandon wrote Kelsier as a Big Bad character in Era 3 or 4 would anyone really be surprised?

As far as giving hope to a downtrodden populace, is making yourself into a God-like figure the only method to do so? It would be different if his followers propped him up to be a God-like figure and he reluctantly went along with it. It's quite another to go in with the express purpose of making a population worship you. That's some David Koresh type stuff to me.

[Karger]

I think we are confusing evil with dangerous, the qualities that make Kelsier effective are also the ones that make him someone none of us what as a neighbor.  Kelsier's qualities controlled and channeled effectively are literal lifesavers for many people.  Provided he can keep himself controlled I am willing to say that he is a good person.

[Calderis]

23 minutes ago, Karger said:

I think we are confusing evil with dangerous, the qualities that make Kelsier effective are also the ones that make him someone none of us what as a neighbor.  Kelsier's qualities controlled and channeled effectively are literal lifesavers for many people.  Provided he can keep himself controlled I am willing to say that he is a good person.

And I think thats missing the point. There are plenty of characters that are dangerous that would never do half of the things Kelsier would. 

Yes the qualities in question make him dangerous, but they also make him questionable morally. 

His own crew questioned his motives regularly. They knew him better than we do and they fully thought that his ambition and ego were a problem. 

Even look at what he did with Vin. Yes, he helped a beaten down and abused Skaa girl... Not because she was beaten down and abused, because he could easily have found more of those and worse, including the ones that were sold to brothels as Camon threatened to do to Vin. He saved her because he figured she was a Mistborn, and that was a useful tool. 

Yes the things he did were objectively good. That's never been a question. It's his reasons for doing them that are, and always have been, questionable. 

[Bigmikey357]

11 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yes the things he did were objectively good. That's never been a question. It's his reasons for doing them that are, and always have been, questionable. 

I don't think I've ever really questioned the motive for his actions, though I acknowledge that others might. What I always call into question are his methods. If a supervillian wanted to change his stripes and seek to do good but ran the same playbook he did when he was evil, the results would look remarkably like our favorite fearless crew leader. 

[Calderis]

9 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

I don't think I've ever really questioned the motive for his actions, though I acknowledge that others might. What I always call into question are his methods. If a supervillian wanted to change his stripes and seek to do good but ran the same playbook he did when he was evil, the results would look remarkably like our favorite fearless crew leader. 

Let me rephrase a bit, because I can see how what I said is misleading. 

The things that Kelsier achieved in the Final Empire were objectively good, but the ways he achieved them were questionable...

And unlike you, I disagree that his motives were good. That part, I still think revenge and his ego came first, and the long term good came second. I don't think his plan with the Lord Ruler was really any better than what we saw With Tresting at the very beginning of the story. 

Kill that guy, because it's what I want, and the fallout be damned. 

[Bigmikey357]

I will admit that motive is something of a blindspot for me when it comes to Kelsier. He smiles through so much and gives us so few moments of realness that I can never be too sure if what he's doing Final Empire-wise is a passion project, a salve to his pride and ego, a revenge fantasy or his genuine attempt to bring hope back to the masses. I suppose it could be all of them, I've seen evidence of all of them from him. I know he loves and believes in his crew and for me that was enough to take at face value.

[+robardin]

5 hours ago, ZincAboutIt said:

I love Kelsier for the grey area he inhabits. ...

His character is pretty much built to walk on the thin divide between "good" and "evil." He's very well written in that he encompasses both sets of traits needed for both heroes and villains. ...

I think part of what makes Kelsier so interesting is that while he inhabits our grey area, he doesn't actually have much of his own grey area for people. You are either friend, or enemy, and the dividing line basically states whether or not he'll be totally comfortable killing you with a big smile on his face.

Well put.

Or as I like to think of it, Kelsier is kind of the inverse of Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph, where as the villain of a cabinet-style arcade game, he gets reassured at one point that "just because you are a 'bad guy' doesn't mean you're a bad guy."

Kelsier? He's definitely a BAD guy, like John Shaft (shut yo' mouth!); he's a complicated man, but no one understands him but his <brother?>. That doesn't mean he's a "bad guy".

But it wouldn't someday preclude it, that's for sure.

[HSuperLee]

If Secret History has taught me anything, it's that Kell himself doesn't know if he's a hero or a villain. Franky, I think he's tried to dodge the philosophical implications introspection would bring.

The Lord Ruler gave his wife a death sentence. So, did Kell seek to overthrow him because it's the right thing, or because of revenge? Kell doesn't know. He did what he felt was right, but he never stopped to ask if he felt it was right for selfish or selfless reasons. And I think that really is the best way to look at Kelsier. While I think he considers the morals of his actions I don't think he considers why he's doing them. I also think he tends to justify things under the big picture. He didn't make a to do about killing killing people because in his mind it was a step towards taking down the Lord Ruler. In his mind it was just a step towards the net good. In other words, he seems to have an end justifies the means outlook. 

If I really had to pin down Kelsier's morals, I'd actually resort to the D&D system and put him in chaotic neutral. Now, normally I dislike the neutral alignments. I see good = selfless and evil = selfish and very very few people are able to exist in between that. Kell is one of those people. If we ever get a clear and decisive answer on his motives, I would reclassify him, but for now, I'm sticking with Kell being one of fiction's best example of a chaotic neutral character.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

Could Kelsier be Sazed's inspiration for the Path? He seems to have done more good than harm.

[+Invocation]

29 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Could Kelsier be Sazed's inspiration for the Path? He seems to have done more good than harm.

I think that's just Sazed trying to help along the tendency of humanity towards their Preservation side.

[Kingsdaughter613]

22 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I'm making this thread so I can stop derailing the Era 3 thread.

Here's a link if you want to catch up (or post about what you want to see in Era 3).

Era 3 Thread

Ok, to the subject at hand. Is Kelsier a good guy or a bad guy? I come out on the good guy side. According to WoBs, Kelsier is a psychopath, but if that is true, then he is a badly written character, in my opinion. I can't think of any specific instance of him doing something that would make me think he lacked empathy or remorse. Nothing in the books ever gave me the feeling that he was anything other than a revolutionary that was trying to make the world a better place.

He isn’t a psychopath based on the PCLR, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a neurological psychopath. Not all psychopaths are horrible people. It has more to do with how their brains work. 

Psycopaths are capable of turning their empathy on and off. They tend to be manipulative, egotistical, and view the world as it applies to themselves. They also, and this is the big one, have a LOT of trouble feeling guilt. Therapy with a Criminal psychopath essentially involves teaching them to feel guilty. A law abiding psychopath sees following the law as beneficial to himself and those he cares for.

Psychopaths do love. But their other tendencies mean that they may end up hurting those they care for. It’s very hard for them to see another’s perspective, though they can. They have trouble reconciling someone disagreeing with them, but not repudiating them, as they tend to see things as ‘with me or against me’; ‘my way or the highway.’ They also manipulate everyone around them and often fail to realize the emotional effect this will have.

I’m firmly convinced that Batman is a neurological psychopath. It explains a lot of the issues and behaviors of his character, and pairs nicely with him being, in his own way, as insane as those he fights with the potential to become just like them. I doubt the writers did this intentionally though! (Note to self: perform PCLR using Batman’s shown behaviors...)

Kell doesn’t quite make the PCLR, but he is close. He could pass; I decided that certain things didn’t get full points based on lack of knowledge (on my part)/forced by circumstances (on his). For example, Kell’s very existence was a crime; I wasn’t counting that! Kell mostly didn’t pass because he was in a steady monogamous relationship, though. 

I would say Kell is a neurological psychopath. I also think he wants to do good, views it as beneficial to himself to do good (because it makes him feel good) and so is technically good. He will remain there as he views things, but others may not agree with him on what ‘good’ is.

[Calderis]

29 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

He will remain there as he views things, but others may not agree with him on what ‘good’ is.

Which has been my argument for him being a potential villain/antagonist all along. 

Brandon has a penchant for writing well intentioned villains. The things they do aren't any less misguided for them having those good intentions though. 

I don't think Kel will ever be a two dimensional comic book villain, but with his tendencies he could very very easily be "the bad guy" while trying to do something he believes is beneficial. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Calderis

[Kingsdaughter613]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

Which has been my argument for him being a potential villain/antagonist all along. 

Brandon has a penchant for writing well intentioned villains. The things they do aren't any less misguided for them having those good intentions though. 

I don't think Kel will ever be a two dimensional comic book villain, but with his tendencies he could very very easily be "the bad guy" while trying to do something he believes is beneficial. 

Why do you think comic book villains are two dimensional? Many of them are highly complex; the best usually are. Some even switch sides and join the heroes. They’ve come a long way since the Gold and Silver age.