Do you agree that Emperor Lo Bu of Yi Ti is Near Pure Evil?

[boltons are sick]

For those of you who don’t know, there are several wikis for villains. One of them is called Pure Evil wiki (which, in short, is about villains with no redeeming or sympathetic qualities), the second is called Near Pure Evil wiki (Which, in short, is about villains with almost no redeeming or sympathetic qualities but they still can’t qualify for the Pure Evil wiki for some reason. However, there are other cases where a villain can be Near Pure Evil even if they don't have any redeemable qualities like slightly lacking moral agency or slightly failing the heinous standard of the series because they don't go the extra mile in terms of crimes). There is also a third wiki called the Inconsistently Heinous wiki (which, in short, is about characters who have committed awful crimes, but they still have too many redeeming and sympathetic qualities and excuses for their actions to qualify as Pure Evil or Near Pure Evil). The name “Inconsistently Heinous” means that the characters are too inconsistent in their heinousness to be Near Pure Evil and they need to have many redeeming and sympathetic qualities and/or excuses for their actions. Often times Inconsistently Heinous characters can even be morally ambiguous heroes in the stories they are depicted, but they also do some bad things along the way.

Lo Bu is listed on the Near Pure Evil wiki. Here is what he has done:

• He leads a campaign of genocide against the Jogos Nhai people and invades their plains with his armies. He plans to exterminate them all and shows no mercy to any of them, including the women, the children and the old, successfully slaughtering 1 million of them.
• He plans to continue with the genocide against the Jogos Nhai until all of them are dead before he himself is killed in battle with Zhea the Cruel which puts an end to his plan.
• While Lo Bu lacks the personal cruelty which defines many of the villainous characters from the ASOIAF universe, having a body count of 1 million and attempting to commit genocide on an entire ethnic group is something extremely uncommon even for ASOIAF and allows him to pass the heinous standard easily, because in terms of sheer body count or attempted body count he surpasses almost any other character.

And here is the reason why he can't qualify as Pure Evil:

• While there is not much written about him which means that his motivations are not very fleshed out, the text seems to indicate that he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who is avenging the raids against his people and is trying to protect them from future raids. The story spends a lot of time describing the raids of the Jogos Nhai against Yi Ti and how destructive they were. Over the course of 2000 years 12 cities, 100 towns and farms and fields beyond counting have been destroyed and many people have been taken into slavery. It's said that in the past a lot of Emperors and generals of Yi Ti have tried to subjugate different Jogos Nhai tribes through more peaceful means and to force them to forsake raiding forever only for the raiding to start again as soon as the Emperor or the general leaves and it's mentioned that the Jogos Nhai have become even more rapacious during the reign of Lo Bu's father, Lo Han. The text says that the reason why Lo Bu tried to exterminate them is to stop the threat posed by them and there is nothing which indicates he is doing it because he feels his political power is threatened. The text explains how they are suffering because of the raids, but doesn't say anything about his political power being threatened which indicates he is doing it for his people. However, this is a minor prevention because he is not just killing people who can fight back, but also women, children and old people. Furthermore, while the Jogos Nhai are in general a warring people, not all of them participated in the raids against Yi Ti since some of them are neighbors to other nations and are not neighbors to Yi Ti.

 

So, do you agree with the decision to list Lo Bu as Near Pure Evil or not?

[SaffronLady]

I mean, you could learn Python or something and let a script write these posts for you.

There is also the "paste as plain text" option to get rid of the white background.

[Aldarion]

No, I don't think he is pure evil. It all depends on why he was doing it... and if the Jogos Nhai were indeed a massive threat to his people, his decision can be understandable even if it doesn't fit modern morality.

[SaffronLady]

1 minute ago, Aldarion said:

if the Jogos Nhai were indeed a massive threat to his people, his decision can be understandable even if it doesn't fit modern morality.

Indeed. The Jews destroyed the Amalekites after all. Too bad there wasn't a United Nations back then.

[boltons are sick]

On 12/20/2023 at 4:56 PM, Aldarion said:

No, I don't think he is pure evil. It all depends on why he was doing it... and if the Jogos Nhai were indeed a massive threat to his people, his decision can be understandable even if it doesn't fit modern morality.

I wasn't asking if he was Pure Evil. I was arguing whether or not he is Near Pure Evil.

Characters who have good intentions can still qualify as Near Pure Evil if:

1) Their good intentions are not played too much for sympathy by the story.

2) They have caused far more harm with their actions than whatever potential benefits they are aiming for.

 

For instance, Sargeras and Zovaal from Warcraft both have good intentions as they believe they are protecting the universe from the Void Lords who seek to corrupt/destroy it, yet they both go very, very far with their actions (seriously, just read their list of crimes on their respective pages and you will understand what I am talking about), and the story also doesn't give them much sympathy which is why they still qualify as Near Pure Evil despite their good intentions.

If the story gives them too much sympathy over their good intentions or if the potential benefit their actions would bring outweights the heinousness of their actions, making them more justifiable, they would be Inconsistently Heinous.

In the case of Lo Bu, while his people were raided for 2000 years by the Jogos Nhai, there is no mention of them being threatened with extinction by them and Lo Bu's actions were quite excessive because he targets every single Jogos Nhai in existence for genocide, even though most of the tribes most likely haven't even participated in raids against his country, because the Jogos Nhai live in different tribes, most of which don't border Yi Ti.

He still has good intentions which is why he is not Pure Evil, but he was approved as Near Pure Evil.

There is even an entire category on the Near Pure Evil wiki called Extremists which is about Near Pure Evil characters who have some good intentions and it contains 108 characters.

Edited December 21, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

23 hours ago, Aldarion said:

No, I don't think he is pure evil. It all depends on why he was doing it... and if the Jogos Nhai were indeed a massive threat to his people, his decision can be understandable even if it doesn't fit modern morality.

lolololol. Bro. Brooo. No. There was no period of history in which genocide was widespreadly seen as a good/acceptable action. People didn't like it. That doesn't mean people didn't use many excuses to defend said genocides, but...no, that does not mean it was socially acceptable at the time. You seriously need to take some history classes from qualified teachers. Your ideas of the past are just...plainly false. 

[Jaenara Belarys]

This wiki stuff again?

[Gilbert Green]

During the 1000s of years he has spent in Hell, he has only sunk deeper and deeper into evil.  So even if he was not pure evil once, he is pure evil now.

So ... don't be evil.

[Aldarion]

On 12/21/2023 at 3:38 PM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

lolololol. Bro. Brooo. No. There was no period of history in which genocide was widespreadly seen as a good/acceptable action. People didn't like it. That doesn't mean people didn't use many excuses to defend said genocides, but...no, that does not mean it was socially acceptable at the time. You seriously need to take some history classes from qualified teachers. Your ideas of the past are just...plainly false. 

I don't think you understand what "pure evil" means.