Geez louise dude. "There is knowing, and there's knowing"? What? You're suggesting he knows what extortion is but that he lacks the empathy to properly understand that it's something bad that he shouldn't be apart of? "He knows it's illegal but can't comprehend what it fully means"? What? You're suggesting he puts extortion on the same level as jaywalking? His parents are dead but death is a vague and distant thing? This is not just suggesting Bolin acts like a kid sometimes, you're ascribing him with literal mental handicaps. A teenager without the slightest hint of a moral compass. We try 14 year olds in this country as adults sometimes and yet Bolin is apparently incapable of the simple understanding that extortion and murder are wrong.
I don't think he's incapable of understanding, but I'm just saying that he doesn't see it as as bad a thing because he doesn't have experience with it. Everything is so 100% with you. Either he knows what it is and therefore knows ALL about it, or he doesn't have any capability of understanding what it is whatsoever. No, I'm just suggesting that there is a major difference between understanding how something works and going through the experience itself. He can think of the crimes as lesser than they are for not having personal experience with them. It doesn't mean he's mentally handicapped, but that's how the human mind works, especially those of young people.
Though I will agree that his extended knowledge of the gangs and everything does make it suspect that he wouldn't know ANYTHING. Maybe he was doing the mental gymnastics your accusing me of doing into thinking it's not that bad. In any case, if you are right, I'd still want an explanation for the way he was acting in that exchange with Shady Shim, because it's seriously bizarre how he behaves, especially if it's not his normal behavior.
Nah, one is a job you took with the reasonable expectation that you wouldn't ever have to do anything illegal or even morally questionable. Bolin decided of his own free will to join up with known extortionists and thugs for a quick buck. They're clearly different. One will never get you confused with a gang member, the other will.
What you expected when you first took the job is irrelevant. Whats relevant is that you see the criminal come in, and you are told to serve them. The only difference here is that you are already expected to do the job by default while Bolin isn't. But that hardly matters, because both you and bolin still have the same information available to you and the same choice: There is a criminal who you are being asked to work for, do you serve him or not?
As for the last thing, what does it matter who gets confused for what? Your morality is what you put out into the world, not what the world thinks of you. If everyone thinks Bolin is a criminal when he never actually did anything, he is not a criminal.
See, I disagree. If you get offered a job to work for known criminals, specifically physically violent ones who terrorize innocent people, you're walking the thinnest of lines between outright morally wrong and at best morally questionable. Especially when, in Bolin's case, it's for a quick buck which if Mako was to be believed could've been avoided by honest hard work that leaves no moral quandaries.
The quick buck in question was their livelihood, and it wasn't definitive that Mako would make the money, so it's somewhat understandable. I guess this is a difference of opinion though. The morality of an action stands aside from the other actions of a person. Bolin was working as a bodygaurd on the presumption that none of their activities would be illegal or immortal. Whatever they do in other times is a different business entirely, but at that particular moment, they weren't doing anything wrong, so they have nothing to condemn them over.
No. There goal isn't to punish benders who abuse their powers. It is pretty clear that Amon views bending itself as evil. Punishing criminals is probably just a PR move to gain support of more moderate non-benders.
And again, the Equalists aren't the American justice system. They aren't out to prove guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Besides, Bolin -was- abusing his power. Acting as a bodyguard for gang members is not a moral choice. The "I needed rent money" excuse wouldn't fly, because there were perfectly acceptable avenues for cash.
Their logic goes like this:
Benders abuse their power -> Benders are bad -> therefore, benders should have their power taken away.
The entire argument relies on the premise that benders are abusing their power. If no bender did that, they don't have a reason to think that bending is bad, and therefore no reason to think that it should be taken away. So, benders that don't abuse their power don't fall under the bad category, yet are being targeted all the same. If they also acknowledged that benders who don't do anything wrong also need to have their bending taken away because they are susceptible to abuse, then his logic would have been thoroughly sound, but he has not yet.
That the crowd in the show is enraged enough at the benders that they don't seem to realize this gap in logic even though Amon laid it out plainly. That's realistic, but that doesn't mean they are being any less unreasonable for it.
And I disagree about Bolin. Besides that I don't think working what is a harmless job as a bodyguard (again, presuming everything is kept legal, then the only trouble that there'd be is trouble someone else starts), being poor doesn't really work like that. Bolin didn't know there would be enough money from Mako's pay, and even if there was, Mako would have a difficult time getting it, while that money was right there. Even if we agreed about everything else, I certainly wouldn't begrudge Bolin for it. Honestly, even if I did agree that it was wrong, Bolin clearly isn't a hardened criminal hurting others out of malice and this seems to be a one time thing. Your saying he deserves a spiritual mutiliation because he did a one time gig done for desperate money that would have resulted in no one being hurt so long as they left him alone?
