NameIess

"Hm. I guess I could give those a read."

"I'll be honest, that one isn't really all that interesting. Belive me, I've read it a hundred times already."

"Memorized."

Nameless shrugged. "Already read it a bunch of times."

Nameless sighed, putting down tWoK. He really needed some slightly newer books to reread.

Nameless decided to get back to the basics and started rerererererererererererererereading tWoK.

"Okay. I have an idea. We just have to admit that this guy is a part of our psychosis. We've both been driven insane by our Brandonfandonitis, to the point that we've created a hallucination of a character that exemplifies the traits of a character we think could exist in a Sanderson book."

"Dude. He doesn't want a wise wizard character. He wants an old, gritty, cynical soldier to teach him how to kill people so he can take vengeance on those that destroyed his family."

Nameless peeked over the bushes. "Why are you eating a burrito? We need a plan to kill this guy before he starts a vengeance arc."

"Ah shoot, he's become sentient." Nameless threw a smokebomb and disappeared.

It was at this point that Nameless started feeling guilty and decided this was a bad idea.

The letter went on to explain that his brother had killed five of his sisters, before the sixth finally managed to kill him.

Then he got another letter. It seemed his fiance had shoved his beloved younger brother out the window while attempting to escape the koloss, and had been transformed into one of the beasts.

Very angry indeed. Untill he opened the letter informing him that his fiance had just been killed by a horde of rampaging Koloss.

"And the he dies. Perfect."

"Nah. We've gotta kill off his family in the worst way possible. Only way to properly show how 'awesome' he is."

"Eh, that seems kinda unserious. How about he has a tragic backstory instead?"

"TLT has been story before, and will be story again. The randomness will never be abolished forever. Besides, this is an actual rp. So in that light, we should make a beloved character whose tragic death inspires much conflict and character growth in everyone. How about we call him Oliver?"

"COME ON MAN, I NEED LASTING CONSEQUENCES FOR MY ACTIONS!"

"You know that the heart of the universe is like, way more powerful than Stormbreaker, right? And also, A SHRUG?! WHAT KIND OF AN ANSWER IS THAT?!"

"Aw come on," Nameless complained. "Why'd you have to erase all the narrative stakes by bringing in character revival like that? Now whenever anyone dies, the first thought that come so mind won't be 'oh no, that guy's dead' it'll be 'oh wow, how're they gonna bring him back this time?'"

I mean, assuming that no one has a convincing alibi, I'd try imprisoning them all for a while to see if any new evidence pops up, and if it doesn't I'd probably eventually let them go on probation.

That would make no sense whatsoever. My point is not that 'you must punish the guilty no matter the consequences'. My point is that when weighing three people who carried out premediated murder against one innocent, I believe that imprisoning the three guilty will do more good than the evil of imprisoning the one innocent. Punishing the entire town would obviously do more evil than good. I'm going to say no, because the landlord does have a reason that mitigates guilt. A landlord's duty, in the context of Roshar, is to decide how best to protect and care for his people. If the landlord has decided that the best way to do that is to execute an innocent, I don't think that's a heinous enough crime to justify executing him in return. I'm not exactly sure what should be done to the landlord, though I do think that killing all four men is wrong, but I would be in favor of options such as removal of title, imprisonment, or no punishment, depending on the details of the execution and the landlord's reasons for doing so. (If those reasons happened to be 'I hate hogmen' and the hogmen were drawn and quartered, I would reconsider the execution thing)

Which I would be doing. I am preventing future crimes by ensuring that those that commit them are punished.

Looks bad? It is bad. The reason we punish people for crime is to reduce crime. If we don't punish the hogmen for their crimes what's to stop them from killing again? What's to stop others from seeing them and thinking they can get away with it too? I would imprison all of them, because to do otherwise would leave murderers unpunished. Perhaps in time I can get the three guilty to confess, or let them out on good behavior, or find some evidence exonerating one of the hogmen, but to let them all free is to invite more crime. The chances of one of the three hogmen killing again or someone else seeing their lack of punishment and killing because of it are too high.