Jean Grey: Marvel Girl, Phoenix Appreciation 2019

[Agni]

She didn't branwashed her. If you take the wiki definition, "psychopathy is traditionally a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits".

In our societies, psychopathy is a disorder that should be cured (if at all possible), if it push a person to commit crimes. Whatever the psychopath is willing or not to be cured. That pretty much cover the situation in Red: By all definition, Nova is a psychopath that killed large number of people and wanted to kill more. Jean cured her. The only question is if she had the right to do it without some legal authority evaluating Nova's condition and passing judgement on her first.

forcing nova to feel emotions counts as brainwashing in my books.
I get the point u are trying to make. But that hinges on the fact that Nova indeed was physically lacking the ability to feel empathy.
If it was that "she just didn't care about others" and not that "she couldn't care about others" then what jean did does not stand.

[Narasinha]

She didn’t cure her. She filled her with artificial nannites which can be deactivated. What happens if and when that happens? What Jean did was a temporary fix at best. Nova is still a psychopath

I fail to see your point. There is quite a lot of medicine that aren't a permanent cure. Especially with mental illness. Some mental illness can be "cured", or at least the symptoms alleviated, only as long as the patient take his medicine and that for his whole life. The alternative would be to kill or imprison Nova for life. Would it be any safer and any more permanent to imprison someone as powerful as Nova?

[mogwen]

In some case, lack of empathy is one symptom of mental illness and we try to cure those kind of illness. So yes, for exemple, if someone doesn't resent empathy because of a chemical problem, we may try to cure that illness with therapy and/or medicine.

Giving empathy to super villain would not help in most case: Most of them are not doing what they do because of a lack of empathy but because they choose to for whatever reason. What Red imply is that Nova is not fundamentally evil but that her acts are the result of an abnormal mental condition that can be cured.

Yes, it's what I think too, I see Cassandra Nova's lack of empathy as the result malfunction in her creation and what Jean did is just fix it.

[Narasinha]

forcing nova to feel emotions counts as brainwashing in my books.

Perhaps in your book. But in many societies, in the real world, there is cases where it is totally legitimate to force someone to follow a treatment to cure a mental illness resulting from an inability to feel emotions. If it looks doable, we try to cure psychopath/sociopath if their acts or conditions warrant it. And, among other things, that involve making them feel empathy toward others.

[Agni]

Perhaps in your book. But in many societies, in the real world, there is cases where it is totally legitimate to force someone to follow a treatment to cure a mental illness resulting from an inability to feel emotions. If it looks doable, we try to cure psychopath/sociopath if their acts or conditions warrant it. And, among other things, that involve making them feel empathy toward others.

I should have elaborated.
I meant forcing her to feel emotions she did not feel. Not that that she could not feel due to a inability.

[ExodusCloak]

Perhaps in your book. But in many societies, in the real world, there is cases where it is totally legitimate to force someone to follow a treatment to cure a mental illness resulting from an inability to feel emotions. If it looks doable, we try to cure psychopath/sociopath if their acts or conditions warrant it. And, among other things, that involve making them feel empathy toward others.

What's the cure for a sociopathic personality disorder? Or even treatment we kick people out of A&E as soon as they have a risk assement and even if they have a borderline personality disorder. CBT is not used for any of those and personality disorders aren't actually considered an actual pathology

[Narasinha]

She didn’t cure her. She filled her with artificial nannites which can be deactivated.

I will point out that, as you said, it's not something that can't be reversed. It was done to save other's life. But if a legal authority deems it necessary, it can be undone. No harm done. That seems way more legal and moral than sticking 30cm of adamantium claws into someone

[Snoop Dogg]

Computer! Define the term... slippery slope!

*B e e p B o o p B o p B o o p*

Who the hell is Cassandra Nova?

[Havok83]

I fail to see your point. There is quite a lot of medicine that aren't a permanent cure. Especially with mental illness. Some mental illness can be "cured", or at least the symptoms alleviated, only as long as the patient take his medicine and that for his whole life. The alternative would be to kill or imprison Nova for life. Would it be any safer and any more permanent to imprison someone as powerful as Nova?

Yes it would have, rather than just letting her off scott free. IMO Nova needed to be executed. I would have taken her imprisoned as an alternative.

[Narasinha]

Yes it would have, rather than just letting her off scott free.

In comics, they never stay in prisons for long, however secure they are supposed to be. Now that I think about it, they don't even stay dead for long.

[Portsian]

The debate about what Jean did to Cassandra is a new one, I like the discussions. Personally i don’t think Jean did anything wrong, she made Cassandra aware of the impact of her actions, the hurt she has caused. It is an interesting issue whether Cassandra Nova is now “cured”. Hopefully she is now in prison or something, as even if she lacked empathy, she still had capacity and is fully responsible for her actions. She has not had a new personality written in to her, just a new perspective. You can have empathy and still be an evil s*it.

I think Cassandra was overwhelmed by it, because it was the first time sge had felt it, she will get used to it, manage it. And maybe it’s a cuktural thing, but we don’t have the death penalty here in UK. So that for me is not an option. Cassandra was not clinically mentally ill when doing her actions. Full force of the law. However, I’d liked to have seen Jean just PUNCH her before giving her the ability to feel empathy, she was quite a physical fighter, and I’d like to have seen Jean lose some composure, then reign herself in.

[Narasinha]

Who the hell is Cassandra Nova?

A "mummudrai" so not human. That mean she is not considered as a person by human laws and so not protected by those laws. She is just fair game for anyone who want to give it a try

[Agni]

The debate about what Jean did to Cassandra is a new one, I like the discussions. Personally i don’t think Jean did anything wrong, she made Cassandra aware of the impact of her actions, the hurt she has caused. It is an interesting issue whether Cassandra Nova is now “cured”. Hopefully she is now in prison or something, as even if she lacked empathy, she still had capacity and is fully responsible for her actions. She has not had a new personality written in to her, just a new perspective. You can have empathy and still be an evil s*it.

I think Cassandra was overwhelmed by it, because it was the first time sge had felt it, she will get used to it, manage it. And maybe it’s a cuktural thing, but we don’t have the death penalty here in UK. So that for me is not an option. Cassandra was not clinically mentally ill when doing her actions. Full force of the law. However, I’d liked to have seen Jean just PUNCH her before giving her the ability to feel empathy, she was quite a physical fighter, and I’d like to have seen Jean lose some composure, then reign herself in.

As you point out that nova could have had the capacity for empathy and still committed the acts she did. Forcing her to feel those emotions is incredibly creepy.
I don't see how you can say that forcing her to feel empathy does not count as having her personality changed.

[Agni]

especially since the nano bots are going to keep making her feel it. It is clearly counts as mind manipulation.
If jean had give nova burst of realization of her actions and empathy and nova had the freedom over her mind after that and still continued to feel empathy it would have been a different matter.
As it stands however the nano bots are forcing empathy on her and once they are gone she will likely revert back to her old ways.
How this anything other than mind control?

[Havok83]

especially since the nano bots are going to keep making her feel it. It is clearly counts as mind manipulation.
If jean had give nova burst of realization of her actions and empathy and nova had the freedom over her mind after that and still continued to feel empathy it would have been a different matter.
As it stands however the nano bots are forcing empathy on her and once they are gone she will likely revert back to her old ways.
How this anything other than mind control?

Im confused about what your actual opinions are of Jean. Do you think she was wrong for what she did? Do you not think she was justified?