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The Darkstalker conundrum

I think we can all be honest that Darkstalker getting a THRID chance is... conflicting to say the least.

I want to share both my personal feelings on this aswell as how this conundrum also effects the characters because this entire topic is the elephant in the room.

I share my personal feelings. Darkstalker, without a shadow of a doubt does not deserve this. He completely blew his second chance by taking his possessiveness and hatrid to new extremes. Yes, he should have been killed completely for the sake of everyone.

Yet, the Darkstalker we see in PAIS is... definitely getting on the strait and narrow and has had his anger significantly reduced. It's to the point where his mind is mostly on being supportive towards Peacemaker instead of being vengeful. Good examples being Darkstalker recommending therapy(they have that in this world?) and being somewhat good at preventing spirals early on such as in chapter 22 which I will discuss more later. Although, when he does have anger he definitely hurts Peace shown in Chapter 39 where he helps in causing Peace to partially breakdown by aggressively reprimanding him.

Again. He's not perfect, but he is going somewhere.

So... the conundrum we face is this: He has done so much abhorrent things in the past that he should be punished for. But, at the same time he has shown real progress in improving himself to the point where he is different from what he was before. What should we think about him?

Ultimately, how I would answer this question is this:

To prioritize what is needed over what is deserved.

In effect this would mean withholding justice for Darkstalkers actions. But, I would say it's worth it because Darkstalker is different to the point where I can confidently say he won't be causing anymore issues. Furthermore, pursuing this would cause more harm then good. You would have to ruin a dragonet's life that was already crumbling and re-opening old wounds is going to cause zero help to a continent that was already recovering from the war. Justice would just adding fuel to the fire at this point. As much as I don't like this I think I would have to withhold justice and make that concession.

But, this is also just... freaking absurd... At that point... I guess just critically thinking about it is acceptable.

Ironically or Unironically this conundrum is also touched in the story. In chapter 22 Peacemaker does tackle his emotions on this subject deeply during his partial spiral during that chapter. Just like what I did, he acknowledges the wrong that he has done and also his feeligns on it. Asking himself "But why am I feeling a lack of...care?"  noting how he also only feeling emotions over the fact it could have hurt Mink. He even feels guilty about this asking himself "What is wrong with me?". What this goes to show is the story asks the conundrum to both the reader and the characters in the story. Furthermore, it suggests that the willingness to think about this issue is a sign of goodness even if it temporarily causes a spiral.

In the bigger picture the Darkstalker conundrum is a part of the truth conflict prevalent through the entire story. Specifically it is a part of these questions: How does knowing fragments of dark truths effect us? How does pursuit of piecing together the truth play out? And is it worth it to know that dark truth? Ultimately, what I feel is that the story gets at, is spotty knowledge of a dark truth hurts, more then knowing it fully and while it also hurts to go through that journey it is the way we find closure from the effects of those dark truths. Now, the story hasn't shown us the end of that journey yet and the end will show us if that journey was worth it. Which I am obviously looking forward to reading. But, I feel as if the story is leaning on 'yes' as an answer. Honestly, the truth aspect likely deserves it's own page if I am going to be honest. 

Looking back at what I wrote. This is basically me talking about my ideology and philosophy then going into the books ideology and philosophy in a semi-essay. Honestly, while I don't feel as if I gotten down everything I still think I have something decent.

I love how I can analyze this fanfic as a well written story.