DE: But officer....

[bjornwilde]

In honor of all the Les Mis folks, how does your pup feel about the law? Is it a guideline or inviolate? Will they take matters into their own hands if they see someone breaking them? Do circumstances influence their interpretation of the law or is the law black and white?

Comments

[a1enzo]

Guardians are about protecting their world and people, not, strictly speaking, about law enforcement. They are generally in favour of the law, since for the most part it also exists to protect people, and they will frequently work closely with local police forces, but they have their own operational parameters.

Enzo, in particular, would hold the law as more than a guideline but less than inviolate: it is a rule to be followed unless the breaking of it would clearly do more good. And yes, if he sees someone breaking the law in a way that doesn't actually help people, he will definitely step in.

[never_shall_yield]

I'll answer for the others later, once I have braved the school run. But a quick Javert answer:

Basically, Javert/Law = OTP.

Except they are currently going through a painful divorce, and bets are even on who'll come out the winner.

[varadia]

The Law is not mocked.

[nocarename]

*eyes pup list*
*yes, even the ones I only play in sandboxes*

The law is... handy, yes and should be followed if it's not too much work or wrong.

But an unjust law is no law that should be followed and choosing between following the rules and saving a life is no choice at all.

It's surprisingly consistent! Ako did start out more law abiding, but she started hanging out at a bar and was pushed at fell in with a bad crowd.

[never_shall_yield]

...fuck, I forgot. HE'S GOING TO KILL ME. *runs*

Because for some reason, everyone wanted to talk about this in their own voices....

[damncompass]

Joshua: Laws, no matter what my father's friends would have said, are a good thing. However, there are times and things that are much more important than the law. Hell, we couldn't do half of what we do at the Warehouse if we followed the law strictly. No, I'm not going to kill people wantonly, but if I have to steal their thing because it's making people go cray, I'm going to take it from them. I'll try to find a way to pay them for it somehow.

Helena: Laws are only as good as the people who make them, darling, and as people are imperfect, so are the laws. Laws also always reflect culture, and if your culture is oppressive or intolerant, there will be a lot of people defying that culture. I do so prefer modern American ideas on law. Well, most of them at any rate.

Valentine: It's all down to enforcement. Laws are great, but if you have assholes or idiots enforcing them, then you might as well not have the laws. Government, however, that's a whole other kettle of fish that you probably don't want to hear my opinions on.

Fantine: Laws only work if there's compassion behind them. If there's no compassion, no understanding, laws are a tool for the powerful to oppress the weak.

[gavin62truck]

For Tommy it definitely depends on the circumstances. There have been so many examples in canon where he either blurs the line between lawful and unlawful (I'm not saying 'good' and 'bad') or steps over it completely.

He has two brothers who are cops, and he often leans on them to get him out of petty offenses like parking tickets (oh and drunk and disorderly conduct in public), or asks them for favors to help his friends if they need it (like his coworker who kidnapped his own daughter from an abusive foster care family). So manipulating the law to suit his needs, or evading it through loopholes is a thing. However, Tommy draws the line at murder, because he can't kill anyone, not even those who've been responsible for the deaths of his own friends and family members.

Also, it's been known that firefighters sometimes step in for cops when cops aren't on the scene. So if you're shoplifting the last avocados in the store and thus putting Mexican Night in peril, you'd better watch out, because Lou certainly has his priorities straight.

[justdyedit]

Jess has to agree with that last bit. NEVER mess with the guac!

[bjornwilde]

Ben sees laws as the household rules for society. Sometimes those rules suck but they're still the rules. He will take matters into his own hands if he sees a need and has gotten in trouble with the cops for doing so. Sometimes situations call for bending laws but he will pay the consequences if need be. The SHRA act doesn't count.

Jess sees laws as things to consider and work with if they don't get in the way. She will totally take matters into her own hands, even if things look vague.

Val will act in her conscience and accept the consequences if laws are broken. Laws shouldn't be violated but sometimes situations require it.

Anton follows the Treaty no matter how much he thinks it is flawed, the alternative is worse. I am using the Treaty here as human laws don't come into consideration for him and his peers.

Quinlan, as a padawan and jedi, tends to try and follow laws and sees them as important. But the Jedi code and the greater good are more important than any single planet's judicial system. As a smuggler, laws are obstacles to work around.

Thalia...I'm not sure human, modern law is a consideration for her, any longer. She follows Artemis' law now.

Hank believes in laws and I can't see him actively breaking them. This might be more out of fear of getting in trouble at this point than any sort of morality.

Andrea believes in the laws and rules she agrees with. If she doesn't, then she works around them.

[alexiscartwheel]

Carol is very in favor of law and order, most of the time. She's been known on occasion to go against orders when she really doesn't feel right about following them. But on the whole, she's spent most of her adult life being The Man.

Mary isn't that big of a fan of the law, or at least with English estate law, since according to the law all her father's money and property will be inherited by her fourth cousin just because she happened to be born female.

Stiles's father is the law. Which has made him very, very good at bending it. He is in favor of justice but sometimes laws are... inconvenient? And not very fun?

[cameoflage]

Aradia is not a huge fan of the law. First of all, with no adults on Alternia proper, the laws of the Empire are difficult to enforce for kids. This is probably for the best since Alternian law is as brutal as Alternian everything else. Also, redbloods like her are on the bottom rung of a heavily stratified society; I have no doubt that even when the law isn't explicitly written to fuck lowbloods over, it's enforced more punishingly for them.

However, since first the trolls' empire and then their whole universe was destroyed by the events of canon, this has ceased to be relevant, and there's not much law in the Medium except on Prospit and Derse (and also wherever Terezi goes). This suits Aradia just fine!

Dr Thurlow routinely breaks the law for personal gain, they just don't want to get caught. If they saw someone else breaking the law they wouldn't much care about that part, except possibly to squirrel it away as blackmail material; they might be bothered for other reasons, but illegality wouldn't really enter into it. Thurlow considers the law to be, at best, a way to officially certify that someone's been a rotten bastard and punish them accordingly; they think people should do the right thing because it is the right thing rather than because they'd get in trouble if they didn't. (The amount of corruption in Fallen London's law enforcement does not help.)

They do believe strongly in fair trials, though, and they think society needs to have at least some basic laws to function (largely because you need a way to deal with the rotten bastards and discourage other people from imitating them). But at the end of the day they're Chaotic Good at heart. (Sometimes closer to Chaotic Neutral, but still.) In favour of ethical behaviour and justice, but sceptical about whether the law can deliver on its promises to enforce either of the two, and not interested in upholding the law independently of those things.

[kd7sov]

Felix kind of figures the law is for other people. He'll obey it as long as it doesn't conflict with anything he wants to do. Possibly this will come back to bite him at some point, especially now that he's settled in someone's jurisdiction.

Fluttershy... ... ... ... I really don't know. Sheriff Silver Star is, I believe, the only indication so far that Equestria has laws per se, rather than simply leaders.

[not_my_sandbox]

The law is only inviolate when it is in Amascut's favor, otherwise it ranges from a guideline to unnecessary to unjust.

The law is unnecessary, says Evil Chicken.

The law is why we can have nice things, opines Fairy Fixit, but she adds that the law can be too narrow about who is included in that group called 'we' and wrong headed about what constitutes a 'nice thing'.

[herr_bookman]

Laws are words set down by people in authoritative positions, and thus easily abused and circumvented through interpretation--largely by said people, who have the education and enforcement to back that up. Autor would love to be one of those people.

[gavin62truck]

Addendum: RL proof that firefighters are a versatile bunch of kickass do-gooders -- https://twitter.com/NYCFireWire/status/289808665945440258

[alexiscartwheel]

I feel like Carol probably pushes Jess to be lawful, and Jess probably pushes Carol to go with her gut. :)

[vivien]

For Tom Riddle, Lord Ostium of the House of Arch, laws are great - in theory! For other people! The Underside has no law, but Tom strongly approves of guidelines for civilized living. So long as they don't run in opposition of his and Door's needs.

Ingress will be the law once she's a Herald. Since she's from the Underside, however, she'll be much better at understanding all sides of a conflict than others might be.

Bela Talbot follows all the laws. Of course!

Gilderoy would if he could remember them.

[justdyedit]

I fully endorse this! I figure Jess's first instinct comes from her training (cough HYRDA, cough Taskmaster) and she knows not to trust it, so she thinks "What would Carol do?" Assuming she has the time to.

[street_sparrow]

The Underside has one law. Don't break the Market Truce (i.e., don't commit violence at the Floating Market). Canon implies very unfortunate consequences for infringement.

[vivien]

I was thinking more in the legal system type of law, but yes, absolutely.

[genarti]

*cracking up*

WELL.

Enjolras first, given the intro! He, obviously, is okay with breaking the law. (See also: this icon, from a meeting of the illegal society he heads up, as they plan to overthrow the government.) That's not to say he doesn't value the law; he takes justice very seriously, and feels that law ought to be something which is just, democratically determined (one way or another), and equally applicable to everyone regardless of birth or wealth. He's entirely fine with breaking laws he considers unjust in the service of attempting to bring about that kind of society, though.

Trowa really does not care. He's not the same kind of idealist as Enjolras; Enjolras believes in law, but considers that his own society is fundamentally immoral and unsustainable, whereas Trowa doesn't particularly believe in an ideal legal system either. He believes in fairness, but that's different. Trowa also sees himself as basically outside society, thanks to his childhood. So his attitude is "don't be a jerk, don't take advantage of people who don't make themselves fair game, and don't get caught by people who'll care."

River lives with space smugglers who sidle back and forth across the line of legality. So! There's a lot of variation in both local laws and how they're enforced, too. She's willing to roll with a lot. She sees herself as someone who can and should enforce certain matters of right and wrong, not so much outside the law as irrelevant to it. That said, she does recognize that some laws are important for everyone to obey, and that the general legal system is a valuable one and a major foundation of society.

Regan is law-abiding. (She is, as often, my outlier.) She would break a law if she really had to to protect someone important to her, but she'd agonize about it a lot. She... well. She has in the past reported a loved one for breaking the law! But that also went terribly for everyone concerned, so she would be a lot more reluctant to do that now.

Clare is outside of human society not just in her own eyes, but in her entire world's. The laws she has to obey are the organization's, and there are generally lethal penalties for going against them. Clare can and canonically will do it anyway, but she has to have very strong reason to do so.

[genarti]

Ha! That is an excellent turn of phrase, in Fairy Fixit's description.

[street_sparrow]

Giovanni: For the most part. Laws about such things as duelling aren't as strict in his time, but he doesn't go around wantonly hurting people, and he doesn't steal. The morality laws, on the other hand, he will later in life break with joyous abandon.

Sharpe: Is/has been a thief when necessary, and is a killer both in and out of the military context. However, he only breaks the law when he has to.

Harry Callahan: Totally law-abiding, but does acknowledge that not all laws are just.

Nancy: Steals people's food to keep herself and her little gang of waifs alive. But those people are black marketeers, she feels it's only fair.

Jonathan: ...mostly law-abiding, these days. He's had quite enough of the life of crime.

Michael Carpenter: Would challenge any law he felt was making people suffer, or any law enforcement official abusing their power. Otherwise, law-abiding to a fault.

Roshaun: Obeys the Wizard's Code. Does not necessarily obey planetary laws if they come into conflict with that.

Norrington: Used to be rigidly law-abiding. Then he wasn't. Now it doesn't really apply.

Gavroche: Believes that people have a right to steal if they're starving and the person they steal from can afford it. You don't steal from people as badly off as you are, and you don't steal with violence. These days, he's very opposed to gratuitous violence (it's a wizard thing) except as it applies to Thenardier - and he says he'd only hit him once.

[yakalskovich]

Urquhart: Laws are boring; keep them only to stay out of trouble and not attract attention while preparing for the serious law-breaking. Although, lately, Urquhart has been mostly retired as a law-breaker and hasn't broken the rules any more.

Poins: Laws are very boring; try to avoid having to keep them.

Teja: The law is made to be kept; if you have any problem with it, appeal to authority to have it changed. Try to sponsor debate in the assembly to get it changed. If there is no way that you can be heard legally, then you're living in an unjust system and are justified in overthrowing whoever is in power, with as much general support as you can get. Then, change the law. Not keeping it because you don't like it is not an option. Basically, Teja is your classical positivist.

Margolotta: Laws are interesting guidelines; tweak and twist them as much as you need to get things done.

Hannibal: Laws, yes, probably exist. For other people.

Tamara: What are laws? Can you eat them?

[genarti]

Entertainingly, Teja and Enjolras are basically on the same page here! Although presumably they disagree somewhat on the details of what is and isn't a just system and how you go about overthrowing an unjust one.