Seems Like Someone's Rooting for the Wrong Side

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

There's no difference between fantasising about punching the idiot who walks out in front of your car, forcing you to slam on the brakes & actually getting out of your car & actually punching him? Well, I'd say there's a world of difference as far as he's concerned - cos in the first instance he crosses the road & carries on with his day & in the second he spends most of the day in casualty with a broken nose.

Of course there's a world of difference. That's why, while some of us might experience an impulse to punch someone's lights out when they cut us up, most of us wouldn't do it. Why? Because we know that it would be wrong. No, it does not make one an immoral person to think about it, but surely we recognise it as a momentary lapse?

And I might add that there is also a world of difference between fantasising about punching said person and fantasising about torturing and killing them.

Finding Sauron or an Orc or Smaug interesting literary creations is one thing. But sympathising with and supporting their (fictional) purposes is surely quite another.