Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The (13 page)

Since the community as a whole is being injured by a crime (which, you will note, rhymes with mime), the community would seem to have the moral power to forgive, at least in the absence of a direct victim. And the Avengers are representatives, in a way, of the community, so it follows that they do have some right to forgive Wanda and Pietro for their crimes. Notice, though, that this right of the community takes a backseat to the rights of the victims themselves. If the victims are in a position where they are capable of offering forgiveness (that is, they are neither dead nor comatose, still in possession of their faculties, and are not practicing mimes) and refuse to do so, the community must respect that (to some degree). There are cases where a refusal to forgive would be utterly unreasonable, and ones where arguably forgiveness should never be offered. (Here’s a hint:
mimes.
)

Forgive Me!

Once we know who does and does not have the right to forgive a crime, the next question is, when
should
someone forgive a crime? This question may be the trickiest of the bunch. There are actually two sides to it: first, what sorts of crimes can be forgiven and under what circumstances, and second, whether there are crimes that are simply unforgivable.

In thinking about the first problem, we have to realize that while victims of a crime have a right to forgive, they have no obligation. Only the victim can decide when and if a crime should be forgiven. Still, it’s possible to establish some broad guidelines about forgiveness. A person shouldn’t be too quick or too slow to forgive. Forgiving too quickly displays a lack of self-respect, while being too reluctant to forgive manifests a grudging resentment. In each case, the victim of the crime is granting too much power over themselves to the perpetrator. The victim who forgives instantly is almost agreeing with the perpetrator that the victim was worth little enough to justify the crime. The person who forgives too slowly, or refuses to forgive altogether, remains forever defined as the victim of another.
⁹

In deciding what should be forgiven and when, we need to consider not just the victim but the perpetrator as well. We often hear reformed villains speak about “earning forgiveness,” but this notion is false. To earn something is to acquire a right to it, and there is no right to be forgiven. Such a right would imply an obligation on the part of the victim to forgive, and that right simply doesn’t exist. However, by displaying remorse, performing acts of repentance, or making reparations, a perpetrator can make it more reasonable for a victim to forgive, even to the point where it seems unreasonable to withhold forgiveness.

Take Hawkeye, for instance: in his criminal days he harmed Tony Stark, so Stark has the right to forgive him—something he does quite quickly (perhaps too quickly). But suppose Stark had not been so quick to forgive—at what point would his refusal have become unreasonable? There is no clear answer, but in Hawkeye’s case, he clearly repented of his earlier criminal behavior and changed his ways, making him a likely candidate for forgiveness. Once he’s helped to save the world once or twice, he becomes still more likely. Once he’s saved Tony’s own armor-clad bacon a few more times, it seems that Tony would be unreasonable if he still resented Hawkeye’s earlier actions.
¹⁰

Hawkeye is a fairly easy case (if there is such a thing as an “easy” case of forgiveness). Suppose we look at something a little more difficult—what if the perpetrator of the crime is unrepentant? Could, for example, Cap forgive the Red Skull, or the Fantastic Four forgive Doctor Doom?
¹¹
From what we’ve already said, the answer is yes, of course they
could
, so the real question is whether they
should
. The answer seems to be no, unless they have good reason to believe that such forgiveness might actually spur the villain in question to become repentant. Part of the purpose of forgiveness is to reestablish harmonious relations. If the perpetrator is unrepentant and likely to remain so, then forgiveness will fail in this purpose. On the other hand, if the perpetrator has admitted wrongdoing and expressed remorse for it, or seems likely to do so given the right encouragement, then forgiveness can serve this purpose. To forgive the Red Skull or Doctor Doom, given their immense pride in their criminal actions (as well as their refusal to admit any wrongdoing, thinking themselves righteous and noble), would be equivalent to condoning their actions. But to forgive someone on the verge of repenting his or her actions might be the last bit of encouragement needed to start reforming them.

Forgiveness in the House Of M

We’ve discussed guidelines for forgiveness in terms of the people involved in a crime, the victims and perpetrators, but we’ve neglected the issue of the crime itself. It’s one thing for Hawkeye to make amends for his attacks on Iron Man, but it’s quite another for the Wasp to forgive her husband, Hank Pym, for hitting her, or for the Marvel Universe to forgive the Scarlet Witch for warping reality itself.
¹²
There are various degrees of crimes to consider, some of which are more easily forgiven than others. There are also a variety of factors to be considered, including the severity of the harm and the number of people impacted by a particular crime. To cut to the chase, though, let’s consider whether there are any crimes that simply ought not to be forgiven, ever.

As we consider the possibility of an unforgivable crime, we can take one of two approaches. The first claims that certain crimes are unforgivable by their very nature: there is something inherent in the crime itself that makes forgiveness unthinkable. For instance, we could argue that Hank Pym’s abuse of his wife was unforgivable, not because of the actual physical harm he inflicted, but because of the violation of their relationship that it represented. By that logic, Janet van Dyne should never have forgiven Hank, or was at least behaving unreasonably when she did. Also, some stories hint that the Scarlet Witch may have been molested as a child.
¹³
If it is true that Wanda was molested as a child, forgiveness for the perpetrator may simply be out of the question; that crime itself is too terrible to forgive, regardless of any circumstances in any particular instance of it.

The other approach to unforgivable crimes maintains that there is no crime that is unforgivable by its nature, but there are some crimes that are unforgivable depending on their degree. For example, a single murder might be forgivable, but attempted genocide would not be. We can look again to the Scarlet Witch: in the
House of M
miniseries (2005), Wanda used her reality-warping powers to, well, warp reality, but this time on a grand scale. She attempted to grant every hero his or her fondest wish. In theory, that sounds great, but in actuality, it meant forcing the entire world to live a lie, one that robbed each and every person of their individual histories and identities. There are some mitigating factors: Wanda was in the middle of a breakdown and perhaps not entirely responsible for her actions. If we accept that, then there is no crime to be forgiven, because it is excused. If, however, the reality-warping was voluntary and intentional, with no excuse available, then we might have an unforgivable crime.

These two approaches are usually combined, which brings to mind the contributions of Wanda’s brother, Quicksilver, to this whole reality-warping business. In the latter stages of
House of M
, it is revealed that it was actually Pietro who caused the whole mess—albeit with the best of intentions. With Wanda’s reality-warping powers expanding and her sanity collapsing, many of the world’s heroes gathered to decide what should be done about her. When Pietro heard someone suggest killing Wanda to save the world, he went to his sister and suggested the bit of reality-warping that began the whole story line. In doing this, Pietro arguably performed both sorts of unforgivable crime. On the one hand, he was indirectly responsible for the warping of reality on the largest scale imaginable, and on the other, he manipulated his mentally unstable sister to achieve it.

The Paradox of Forgiveness

To be sure, not everyone accepts that there is such a thing as an unforgivable crime. French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) argued that if forgiveness is to have any meaning, it must be granted to the (seemingly) unforgivable.
¹⁴
Forgiving the forgivable is (relatively) easy, and comes with benefits; by forgiving a repentant and remorseful friend, for instance, we repair the friendship, generating a type of exchange. But forgiving the unforgivable is the only kind of “pure” forgiveness (similar to “pure” altruism), where there can be no expectation of reward. To forgive that which cannot be forgiven is to forgive without hope, or need, or want. If this is how we understand forgiveness and the unforgivable, then the crimes we have examined so far have not been unforgivable. In each case, those who would be called on to forgive have the possibility of establishing or reestablishing a relationship with the forgiven person. In order to find an unforgivable crime, by Derrida’s logic, we don’t need a particular kind of crime, but a particular kind of criminal: namely, an unrepentant one. Or to make the situation perfect, a deceased unrepentant criminal would be ideal—there is then no hope of the forgiven criminal having a change of heart.

Derrida’s discussion of the forgivable expresses what some have called the paradox of forgiveness though it is really the
paradox of forgiveness
and repentance. The paradox runs something like this: you can’t forgive an unrepentant criminal, because then you are simply excusing the crime. At the same time, there is no need to forgive a repentant criminal, because in repenting of the crime, the criminal has already taken steps to erase it.
¹⁵

Avengers, Forgive!

There is a potential conflict between forgiveness and a team called the “Avengers” that we need to address. To avenge and to forgive seem to be opposites. To avenge is to punish in order to right a wrong, while to forgive is to forgo punishment—or so it seems. In fact, avenging and forgiving can be united. Forgiving doesn’t involve forgoing punishment—it involves forgoing resentment and revenge. Revenging and avenging are related, but distinct. Avenging has to do with justice, and may be sought by anyone, not just the victims of a crime or wrongdoing. Superheroes usually pursue justice in the names of the people they are sworn to protect, not for themselves. Revenge, on the other hand, is personal. I cannot revenge a wrong done to you—no offense, but I probably don’t even know you. I can’t feel the kind of personalized harm necessary for revenge.
¹⁶

There is no conflict between avenging and forgiving because the Avengers (and avengers in general) can forgive as well as punish. For instance, there have been two occasions where an Avenger has been given the ultimate punishment—expulsion from the team—only to be readmitted later. Iron Man was expelled in the wake of the Armor Wars after he caused the death of the Gremlin,
¹⁷
and Hank Pym was expelled for a variety of bizarre actions, including attacking a foe who had already surrendered.
¹⁸
Both were welcomed back later; they were punished and then forgiven.

This is possible because punishment and forgiveness serve distinct purposes. Forgiveness is largely about reestablishing relationships, while punishment is usually about retribution. By violating the rules, these Avengers incurred debts to the rest of the team, and when they were punished they repaid those debts. Thus, Tony and Hank can be readmitted once they have paid for their crimes. Punishment as retribution can be thought of as making reparations for a crime—a step on the road to forgiveness. Still, while we may repay a debt by being punished, we should keep in mind that forgiveness can’t be earned like a reward or a paycheck, which a person deserves, but must be granted voluntarily by the victim.

Ultimately, this is what we should take away from these reflections about the Avengers: We cannot demand forgiveness for past missteps, nor can forgiveness be demanded of us. We can, however, make it more (or less) reasonable to grant forgiveness through our subsequent behavior. Just asking for forgiveness may not merit it, but it certainly helps if the request shows the victim that the criminal acknowledges and owns the crime. Those Avengers, like Hawkeye, who are former criminals and villains, never deny what they did in their past lives, and their continuing service as heroes shows that they are worthy of forgiveness.

NOTES

1.
Hannah Arendt,
The Human Condition
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 236–243.

2.
Avengers
, vol. 1, #9 (October 1964).

3.
Bishop Joseph Butler, “Sermons VIII and IX,” in
Fifteen Sermons
(London: Ware, Longman, and Johnson, 1774).