ST The morality of TFA

This thread is a spin-off from an earlier discussion featuring myself, McLaren, JabbatheHumanBeing, Satipo and clinteastwoodbradfield.

The debate: morally speaking, do soldiers have to follow orders?

Here are the last few posts:

 

I'd say him following the orders of a faction that on a whim will slaughter a whole village of innocent non-combatants and later blow up entire planets filled with countless lives is not the moral thing to do. That being said from a storytelling perspective I do personally think, and feel free to disagree on this, that there should have been more to his transformation and breaking away from his conditioning.

 

I think it could have been deeper maybe, but it doesn't bother me that it wasn't. It was quick, but visually well done and I can go with it, but I understand wanting more. As for the morality - surely the morality is not gunning down villagers. There is not one moment in the film, or any of the films I believe, where refusing to kill those who the films portray as on the side of good could be considered to be the immoral action to take.

 

Consider the Death Star gunners. Are we really to believe that, in the universe of SW, the gunners are blameless when Alderaan is blown up? If so, how should we feel when all those blameless soldiers are themselves blown up at the film's conclusion?

 

I think John's acting sells Finn's transition completely. Thinking intellectually about it between viewings may be less satisfying than the emotional impact of seeing it happen.

 

Star Wars isn't one of those films which lets the audience decide whose side they are on. The language, from the opening crawl, to peripheral material, to the concept of the Light side of the force and the Dark side,to iconography and design makes it abundantly clear that in Star Wars we have Goodies and Baddies - this structure is crucial to the storytelling and themes of the entire series (eg, Anakin doesn't defect, he, unquestionably, turns evil)
Partly as a result of this, the part of the saga that left most casual fans scratching their head a bit was the events leading up to the start of the clone wars, and the resolution of it - but even then, the lack of the actual events of the clone wars onscreen (in movies) aside from the first and last battle meant that the focus was still on Jedi/good guys against Sith/bad guys, with the clones vs droids conflict sidelined.

Quite aside from the fact that @McLaren's analysis of what a soldier should do if the order he's given is an illegal one is off base, and aside from that real world questions of the nuance in the philosophy of the ethical choices of a soldier who has a crisis of conscience are more interesting in the real world (or fiction set within) than in Star Wars, Finn's morality HAS to be seen through the prism that evil is already clearly defined. The First Order embodies it. Perhaps in a film that was structured entirely differently, with murkier motivations of the varied factions, you could build a case.
But remember; underlying it all is that Finn is absolutely not a soldier by choice. He didn't sign up for the first order and get disillusioned after reading a book. He was taken from his family and raised as a drone to carry out the whims of the remnants of an Empire (which was itself, obviously, an Evil Empire)

And let's remember, the simple moral messages in Star Wars aren't for literal transference; the message from Finn's refusal to shoot villagers isn't "if you grow up to be in the army, you can pick and choose what orders to follow!"; it's "when the people around you are doing the wrong thing, it's very brave to do the right thing"

 

This, more than anything, is the crux. It's worth emphasising.

 

I hope his turn gets an explanation. He was conditioned to follow orders and believe that the First Order was in the right. Will of the force maybe.

 

I think it's very unlikely that there'll be more of an explanation than we got; the way of looking it is that for story reasons we happen to follow the one stormtrooper who both has misgivings, and manages to act on them and get away. We just have to buy into that we're happening to follow the most interesting stuff happening in the galaxy at the time.

 

If I read his story right, from Before the Awakening, he was showing traits of kindness while being a superb trooper. Phasma pushed him harder than ever and made him work constantly, I believe to eradicate that behavior.

Morality is still individualistic in the end. A heart is not meant to beat in time with everyone else.

 

Trying to figure this out in the real world has baffled even the best philosophers for centuries. When is it acceptable to kill and not acceptable to kill? When does belief in cause justify normally heinous acts? Who decides in a conflict which side is on the side of right other than the sides themselves? Is conditioning an excuse for performing atrocities? In real life there are always circumstance that modify what many feel should be absolutes. Since these questions lead to very vague and ambiguous answers - or no answer at all - in stories told to us we depend on the storytellers to tell us which side is the side with the righteous cause. Even at times allowing protagonists to do some rather nasty things, but since we have been pulled into their side, it gets rationalized and justified.

Finn is a good guy. See him rebel against his conditioning and not kill the villagers which is good. See him then kill bad guys which is good. There are some complications since the bad guys were once his brothers in arms, but that was when he was with the bad guys. He is no longer. He is good. Next.

 

Yeah. I think it's as simple as an innate morality coming to the fore when confronted with the reality of killing innocents.

 

I both enjoyed and was a bit mystified by Finn's flip-of-the-switch revelation on the battlefield. The filmmaking of it, given the genre and the need for brisk and economical storytelling (Finn's cut scene with villager and child would have been a pacing nightmare), is done quite well but then the execution of his moral awakening vanishes into Finn's exaggerated, almost comical need to escape. Which could be a surrogate for PTSD or some other psychological malady of war fatigue, but his unabashed fear of the FO sidesteps what his sudden transformation is intended to represent... then Rey gets in trouble and all bets are off.

 

what I found questionable was his killing of his mates ( all of whom also presumably were forced into the army) , I mean these were his 'brothers-in-arms' he'd have grew up and fought alongside them for years , and he guns them down and doesn't seem to have a problem with it .

.

 

In terms of Finn's characterization, I agree, but TFA clearly establishes a kind of fog of fear Finn experiences when it comes to the FO. In the MF cockpit, he uses Rey's head as a ladder when he thinks the FO has discovered them. Rey is a character he wants to impress--that's why he pretended to be part of the Resistance, and even the desire to be seen in a positive light gets blocked when he believes the FO is near.

 

This is an interesting discussion because I don't think his defection is all that successful, because more often than not I've seen people state that actually Finn is a bad guy in the movie because he starts off not wanting to kill, and then kills his "brothers"(who are very obviously attempting to kill him btw, Riot Trooper etc. etc.) Also I think you cant just have Finn take off the mask and make everyone else faceless, we need to see him interact with other troopers I think because now that we see Finn, anyone can assume that anyone else is a potential Finn. Also in BTA Finn is a Cadet and the film tells us this is his first mission so its unlikely hes firing on other cadets and rather other troopers who have been in the system for years and simply just don't care about wrongdoing, such as firing on villagers.

His defection has already happened but what needs to happen in VIII is that we all fully understand and Finn's relationship to them which includes Troopers, Hux, Phasma and maybe Kyle now

 

The villagers were defeated and unarmed when Finn refused to shoot them, the stormtroopers on the other hand are armed, dangerous and not only willing but actively seeking to kill Finn, which does add a wrinkle to the situation. At no stage is Finn particularly bitter or vengeful towards any one individual trooper (except possibly Patriotic Pete, who picked that fight in the first place) and he doesn't go around gunning down stormtroopers on a whim, only ever in fight-or-die confrontations. His original plan before befriending Rey was to get the heck out of Dodge and run as far away as possible from the First Order as a whole entity, which he hated and feared - more than he did the individual stormtroopers themselves. (Again, with notable exceptions like Phasma who in the expanded material gives him enough reason to hate/fear her personally.)

 

Thats exactly how I saw it as well, its just weird how these things get viewed so differently, if you put yourself in his position hes more than justified. Also I think the expanded material makes it very clear Finn is loyal to his fellow sqaudmates primarily, and could care less about the FO and there tactics.

 

Exactly. The First Order (as a conceptual whole) is clearly Not Good. They gun down innocent villagers. Kylo Ren killed an old man purely out of spite, he gained nothing from it. Finn rejecting that way of life is definitely not to be seen as wrong. Now I can understand why his fighting/killing former comrades causes more controversy but again, his original plan? 1) Abduct Pilot, Hijack TIE Fighter 2) GTFO, 3) Profit? It was only when the jig was up and they were under fire that he fired back. Every time between then and Rey's abduction he would always favour flight over fight, but end up fighting anyway because dammit this is Star WARS, it's there in the title that fighting's going to happen. He didn't suddenly go Punisher In Space and favour hunting down First Order followers and killing them, he never killed in cold blood even. Only to save his life or a friend's. He was even reluctant to kill Phasma when they had her as a hostage for heaven's sake. The man is not a saint but he's pretty nice given the life he had.

 

I believe that he was justified in killing his mates. Throughout the film we see that he is never the initiator of the fights and is only doing it because in a situation like that, any rational person will choose keeping their life.

 

Finn is the character who will replace Han Solo - he does not like responsibilities,he does not like violence / wars.
Finn did not left Empire because he considered "the empire is evil" - Finn left the Empire because he was afraid for his life.
Maybe in the later episodes of Star Wars Finn will just go make some money,spend the money to have a good time and so on.

 

Yes, the argument that Finn's acts are justified because he is obviously a good guy are not yet proven. From what we see in TFA, a case can be made that the New Republic and the Resistance are not necessarily the good guys. Let's start with the OT heroes:

Luke: sat out the events of TFA which is a profound statement seeing as he is Luke Skywalker. Not exactly a good guy action to not take action against "the bad guys."
Leia: not a Senator, maybe a titular General, leader of an extra-regular fighting force. She hasn't gone full Luke but, she's not working within the system either.
Han: a smuggler which means: law breaker, which means: not a "good guy"

ST heroes:
Rey: the only moral decision she makes is to assault Teedo and steal his stuff
Finn: situationally moral - takes a stand, doesn't want to take a stand, chases his hoped to be girlfriend around. Basically follows a selfish path.
Poe: has the map but watches the show instead of at least making an attempt to get it back to Leia. Actually, he's so 2D he might well just be an extra.

New Republic: allows an existential threat to exist and grow; allows an extra-military organization to operate within its borders; fails to do the most basic function of any government - protect itself and its citizens.

None of them seem very good to me. At best, they're maybe grey but, most of what lightness they have is from nostalgia and not from what they do in TFA.

 

Can you just clarify whether you're doing one of those "is the empire REALLY evil?" type posts, or whether you genuinely think that the First Order might turn out to be the good guys in universe (as opposed to based on an interpretation of what we see on screen)

Because, really, although you've posted at length and in depth, both of those are pretty bogus as far as analysing Star Wars goes, because Star Wars is literally about inherent good and evil (and the conflict of those who find their place within it)
Which side is good and which side is evil are clearly defined and not really interesting to debate