I do think that the black and white, good and evil crowd genuinely don't think that context matters. They think that a good child would have found a way out of that terrifying situation that did not involve violence.
They're ignoring the fact that Ray's first reaction on seeing Finn is to run at him swinging a staff, and she's an adult and (by their lights) a holy and pure hero.
They're also ignoring the fact that children in general are not little saints. Perfectly ordinary children hit each other all the time.
They're also ignoring the fact that little Armitage has just gone from a situation in which all he could do was be silent and obedient and terrified to one in which he suddenly has some options and some control. Anyone would be excited by that.
Of course, the scene is also setting him up to become an evil villain. Wendig using the words 'sinister thrill' is deliberately there to indicate that maybe giving an abused child a squad of killers and telling him he can do what he likes with them is not a decision likely to improve his moral fibre.
And Rax almost certainly does it because of that. Rax wants Armitage to turn out as bad as he can possibly be. So do all the other adults in the boy's life, and to leave out all the adult influences pushing the kid along to be the worst form of himself really is to leave out three quarters of the story.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2018-12-06 10:56 am (UTC)They're ignoring the fact that Ray's first reaction on seeing Finn is to run at him swinging a staff, and she's an adult and (by their lights) a holy and pure hero.
They're also ignoring the fact that children in general are not little saints. Perfectly ordinary children hit each other all the time.
They're also ignoring the fact that little Armitage has just gone from a situation in which all he could do was be silent and obedient and terrified to one in which he suddenly has some options and some control. Anyone would be excited by that.
Of course, the scene is also setting him up to become an evil villain. Wendig using the words 'sinister thrill' is deliberately there to indicate that maybe giving an abused child a squad of killers and telling him he can do what he likes with them is not a decision likely to improve his moral fibre.
And Rax almost certainly does it because of that. Rax wants Armitage to turn out as bad as he can possibly be. So do all the other adults in the boy's life, and to leave out all the adult influences pushing the kid along to be the worst form of himself really is to leave out three quarters of the story.