Babylon 5: Points of Departure

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Beastro
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Re: Babylon 5: Points of Departure

Post by Beastro »

J!! wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 2:00 am Well, that's the human viewpoint. Thing is though, that the Minbari are a culture of isolationist xenophobes; they're probably not very practiced at understanding any viewpoint other than their own, and their viewpoint is this.

The Minbari warrior caste didn't view us as worthy adversaries, or respected enemies, they viewed us as rats they'd been sent to exterminate. If you're an exterminator, and you hear a wounded rat calling out, you don't take it prisoner, you finish it off. And if a rat ever manages to use that fact to kill one of your coworkers, you're not likely to just shrug & say "well that's war for you".

And if your boss then makes that specific rat the new office pet, you might not be very kindly disposed toward the thing. Regardless of the fact that it was only trying to defend itself & it's kin.
It's one human viewpoint. The other one you describe is also one.

Alluding back to the comparison I made before, it was a Japanese one.

To many of them around WWII, the rest of Asia should have been honored to serve the Japanese. I mean, they were the Japanese! The center of the universe...... even if they totally did not adopt that conceit from the Chinese, because Chinese culture was totally an outgrowth of Japanese culture and not the other way around, because they're the center of the universe, dammit and not the Chinese!

Anyone they fought who surrendered shouldn't be surprised to be treated like shit or used as a not-so-practice-dummy for their katanas, since they lost. Anyone who loses and lives is beneath respect for not dying with what little honour they had left and due to that sin their welfare in Japanese hands was forfeit. If they didn't want to be treated that way, then they should have been honourable and died in battle or killed them-self before being taken like only an honour person worthy of fair treatment should be afforded, even if that means they'd only get a decent burial, maybe free of disfigurement and desecration if they provided them good sport.
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