#not to compare blorbos to real life but like. it reminds me of this phenomenon where privileged ppl in privileged countries
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Something else that makes me sympathetic to Pharma's situation is like. Idk if there's an actual term for this or if someone smarter and more academic wrote it about some real life context that actually matters.
But, so we've already established among Pharma stans that the circumstances at Delphi were blackmail/torture with no real way out that wouldn't involve Pharma being responsible for people getting killed (either killing patients for the deal or having everyone die bc he failed his end of the deal).
And I feel like while "he's still in the wrong because he killed people" is part of it, another sort of implicit part is the idea that Pharma should've been willing to take more personal risk, maybe even risk dying? I mean, Ratchet does ask "why didn't you just detonate it near the DJD" (to which Pharma responds that he did try to get Sonic and Boom to do it, but they refused) so like
Idk I feel like we do have this social notion of martyrs as a very romantic ideal, people you can praise for being so brave and strong and righteous that they ended their own lives for their cause, while you can also coo about how sad and tragic it is that dying is what it took for them to do the right thing. But at the same time I feel like in reality, having an expectation that people become martyrs is kind of a toxic social norm bc like. It's very easy to demand that others sacrifice their lives for some Ultimate Moral Good when you yourself aren't experiencing the same hardships as they are. And ultimately it is kind of fucked up to tell someone "the moral thing you should've done was risk your life/kill yourself" because asking someone to pay their life to do the right thing is no small request. And sure, the typical response would be to call them a "coward" for caring more about saving their own skin instead of doing the right thing... but again, death is a really scary thing and self-preservation is a really strong instinct, so it kind of feels like having this binary view of "you're either a Brave Hero who sacrifices your life for everyone else or a Dirty Coward who's too scared of dying to do what's right" is kind of fucked up?
I guess the best way to describe it is that if someone willingly gives up their life as a sacrifice to others, it can be a noble thing because it's a choice they made willingly, but if it becomes a Moral Standard that in order to be a Good Person you have to be unafraid of throwing your life away and if you aren't willing to die you're a Cowardly Bad Person, that's when it becomes toxic.
Idk, I guess how this ties back to Pharma is that he was never in a position where he expected to make these kinds of moral decisions/ultimatums. He's a doctor who doesn't even get into combat, his job is to heal and not to kill, he's behind the front lines in a hospital that's supposed to be a safe, neutral place for him to heal people. So in the face of suddenly having a "murder people on behalf of me, or I murder everyone you swore to protect" ultimatum thrust upon him, I understand why Pharma wasn't """"""""""brave enough"""""""""" to "do the right thing" (whatever that would've been in the case of Delphi). You could argue that maybe a frontliner soldier accepted the burden of possibly dying for their cause and they've become used to it as someone who lives that reality every single day, but I feel like for Pharma, who's a doctor and a protected non-combatant (from what we can tell), that sort of risking of his life/living with the fact his life could be snuffed out any day isn't something he would've been prepared for at all.
And for me personally, from an outsider's perspective, it strikes me as kind of unethical to go "oh well he should've just detonated the bomb himself even if it killed him" bc again, there's a difference between witnessing a moral conundrum as a bystander versus being the person living with it and being under time pressure where it's do-or-die. Just as part of my personal standards, I feel like death is such a huge consequence/burden of someone's actions (literally you are no longer alive, any potential you had left is cut short, you cease to exist on this plane) that it feels rather callous to go "Well you should've just been willing to die for your beliefs if you really cared that much!!!"
#squiggposting#pharma apologism#this is only like tangentially related to pharma honestly#not to compare blorbos to real life but like. it reminds me of this phenomenon where privileged ppl in privileged countries#will tell ppl living in zones of war and strife 'oh well if you don't like your gov so bad just revolt against them'#like oh yes tell me how easy it is to stand up against the threats of torture and death#surely the only reason people would want to avoid that is bc they're cowards or don't want to stand up for their beliefs#contrary to what nationalism would have ppl believe. 'wanting to not die' isn't a moral position#everyone wants to live. no one wants to die. it doesnt make you a bad person to be scared of dying#esp (going back to blorbo's) in a situation like pharma's where every option he had ended in death#the death of his patients or the death of everyone at delphi or his death personally#on top of the fact he's a noncombatant who hasn't been desensitized to violence/risking his own life#and is dealing with a trained group of killers that he can't possibly match on physical terms#so yeah actually i don't blame pharma for what he did#he made shitty decisions in a shitty situation but was ultimately a victim#also if you want to view the blackmail deal from a framework of abuse#it is also fucked up to basically tell someone they werent brave enough to just kill their accuser or ask for help#isnt the entire point of such situations that the victim is both powerless to stop the abuse#and too afraid of asking for help/thinks they cant ask for help. and thats why they dont just get out#idk sometimes the best moral judgement is to forgive someone or view it as 'complicated'#sometimes regardless of the good or evilness of their actions the best choice is to not make a judgement#or to err in favor of a forgiving/'i cant speak for your experience' judgement#anyways the fact is that the rosy fantasy of being a brave noble soldier who sacrifices for the cause#rarely stands up to reality where youre just terrified and powerless and dont know what to do#and suddenly the rosy glow of The Noble Cause isnt comforting in the prospect of horrible torturous death
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