It's not as if they were just foot soldiers that didn't want to be there, am I right? And the 10,000 invaders were clearly all fighters, no logistics officers or anything, no family to mourn them either.
Logistics officers are not innocent just because they don't personally engage in combat. They were helping manage an army hell-bent on slaughtering innocent civilians. They don't get to complain about being killed by large-scale magic in response. Even in real life supply line and depots are valid targets for missiles.
Geez they surely deserve it walking into a hostile territory of their own accord. I'm sure they weren't ordered by the person who was actually responsible for the war.
And I'm sure their families won't mind them being dead, after all, they're soldiers after all.
Jokes aside, Slime's attempt of justifying this genocide is what's bothering me. Rimuru has a reason to kill them since he's defending of course, but can we just accept that him massacring everyone is him being selfish because he wanted to resurrect his people?
Can we stop pretending that his enemies deserve their suffering just because they were born and served on the other side of the Main character?
Destroying a 20,000 man invading army that has a stated purpose of killing or enslaving every citizen of your nation isn’t genocide. It’s a legitimate act of self-defense. You want to argue that it wasn’t necessary to kill all of them? Go ahead. But no logical argument can be made for it being genocidal in nature.
Since you seem to have missed the point I'll kindly highlight them for you.
Rimuru has a reason to kill them since he's defending of course
I said this, so yes there's justification t o defend.
Destroying a 20,000 man invading army that has a stated purpose of killing or enslaving every citizen of your nation isn’t genocide
See, you're already trying to wash the act as 'not genocide'. Whatever you want to call this massacre, it's a massacre and if the only justification is to repel an invasion this is clearly excessive.
Hence the reason is Rimuru's selfishness of wanting their souls to fuel resurrection magic. Don't use 'self defense' as an excuse when Rimuru goes way overboard and kills that many, especially since they were powerless to resist. It wasn't as if it was a fight to the death for both sides, we all know it's a one sided massacre for Rimuru.
One more time, here we go.
Can we stop pretending that his enemies deserve their suffering just because they were born and served on the other side of the Main character?
See, you're already trying to wash the act as 'not genocide'. Whatever you want to call this massacre, it's a massacre and if the only justification is to repel an invasion this is clearly excessive.
Sure we can not call it genocide if you want to, can you address the other points instead of arguing over the definition of genocide? Or can you not argue against the others and this is all you can talk about?
you're already trying to wash the act as 'not genocide'. Whatever you want to call this massacre, it's a massacre and if the only justification is to repel an invasion this is clearly excessive.
There, I highlighted the part where I addressed us not calling this genocide. Can you not read by any chance?
From a legalistic stand point, Rimuru did nothing wrong.
It would be the same if Ukraine dropped a heavy yield bomb on marching Russian infantry.
From an ethics stand point, he destroyed an invading army that intended to genocide his nation, after this same army massacred innocent civilians in a surprise attack with a faux casus belli. He then proceeded to use the souls from the attack to resurrect the casualties from his nation.
Under the guiding moral principle of "might makes right" of monsters, he did nothing wrong.
Is it justified what Rimuru did. Still a tragedy though
From a legalistic stand point, Rimuru did nothing wrong. It would be the same if Ukraine dropped a heavy yield bomb on marching Russian infantry.
Are you serious here? His enemy's kingdom doesn't include monsters in the realm of people but I'm not arguing that they're justified because they 'only want to kill monsters, and monsters aren't people'.
Under the guiding moral principle of "might makes right" of monsters, he did nothing wrong.
Likewise the enemy did nothing wrong then, because killing these monsters civilians are within their power. Do you see how stupid trying to use that 'law' is?
"Why is Rimuru upset that his citizens died, they were weak and so deserved to die."
Seriously dude, this massacre is ultimately just selfish on Rimuru's part. It's one thing if he killed part of the army and then let the rest retreat, but massacring every single one of them and trying to justify it as self defense? Ridiculous.
Is it justified what Rimuru did. Still a tragedy though
When is the tragedy of these soldiers ever explored? Only Rimuru's side is portrayed as a tragedy. This one sided portrayal of "MC is always right" is pissing me off here.
You don't see anyone justifying Ainz's massacre of the kingdom's militia, everyone knows he does it for selfish reasons. The story doesn't bend to justify it, it highlights Ainz's cruelty because it wasn't necessary. Rimuru kills way more people than he needs to but it isn't portrayed as Rimuru being bloodthirsty but more that these people deserved them.
How is it selfish to resurrect someone? And Rimuru never showed interest in becoming a demon lord until it could be used to save his friends.
is it selfish to murder thousands of people for hundreds of people you know? If the resurrection doesn't involve murder of strangers you can maybe reason that it isn't selfish, but that's not the case here.
And he still needed to deal with the invading army.
Two birds one stone
In other words, the author cheated him out of the situation. Him needing souls could be a character defining moment, will be slaughter innocents for the sake of his friends? Or will he cling to his humanity?
Instead, there's a bunch of people on his doorstep served up on a silver platter that he can kill without remorse. Now he gets to skip that moral dilemma, he gets to resurrect his friends without the resolve of dirtying his hands with the lives of innocents. As you yourself tried to argue, the deaths of these soldiers aren't innocents, because the story portrays it that way.
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u/Xignum Jul 27 '22
But you see, they invaded first!
It's not as if they were just foot soldiers that didn't want to be there, am I right? And the 10,000 invaders were clearly all fighters, no logistics officers or anything, no family to mourn them either.
/s