V reflection & humanity

One point in class that I'd like to offer additional evidence towards was if V's killings were justified. I think our end conclusion was that he was amoral throughout his killing process, if not immoral. The fact that he offered to kill for Evey does not have to be seen as if V thought he would actually end up killing him. Firstly, we know he was a good pawn for V's plans and secondly, he had already well established that, as a principle, Evey did not like killing. So why, after she went through a reaffirmation of her principles and honor, would she start killing? Therefore, V's question about picking the rose can be seen as another test for Evey, making sure that right away she would continue to turn away from killing. Therefore V was only asking to reaffirm Evey's principles and in no way believed he was actually going to kill Allister. So this would take away a piece of the random killing V dabbles in.

However, I have another point to add to why his killing does not discriminate throughout what level of the government/police one is in. At the vignette at the end "Vertigo" V kills the admittedly heartless man through slapstick comedy. The need to kill this man is not evident, nor is it presented as a singular instance. This incidence therefore reforms the immorality of Vs killings. Personally I see V's assassinations more as amoral, he references no normal moral codes at all in his actions.


The issue of humanity has come up in several of our discussions, and has been in fact our theme lately. But I don't think anyone has of yet not consolidated these ideas. This is not meant to be the perfect list, but is inviting discussion and additions.

In V for Vendetta: Humanity seems to be based on the idea of human dignity. We mentioned that Delia is able to preform the experiments when she sees that the people don't look human anymore, they look pathetic. Also, the last 'inch' also seems an essential key to finding one's humanity. Humanity is presented as something that must be worked upon to maintain, but that every person has within them.

Dune: Humanity is not something that everyone posses, it is defined as he ability to overcome one's animal instincts and overcome pain. Therefore in the Duniverse's philosophy, all people would not have the same rights.

He, She and It: It plays with the idea that humanity is not invested in a human being, a theme that many stories dealing with aliens brings up. That what we call human and humanity, is not inherent only in homo sapiens but also in most thinking, sentient beings.
Through this interaction, I think comes the further understanding of what it means to be human. We use the adjective human to describe all types of higher order sympathies (human dignity, human decency, etc.), however we might be able to better describe these ideas as something less species specific. Although it might be interesting to imagine a world in which it turns out that these ideas are specific to humans alone.

These are just a couple incidents in which we have discussed the notion of humanity.