Loy Young

Wars

Remember, in the Soul Game heroes may not to hurt the innocent, yet, on the battlefield as well as in the family room, this rule is often violated. Breaking the rule destroys heroes emotionally. Long after they are relieved of duty, the faces of the innocent victims haunt them, reminding them that they lost that round of the Soul Game in which everyone is accountable for their actions.

Religious wars, always with God on each of the sides, send naïve gullible heroes to die for an idea. But their reckless aggression is fueled by prejudiced and arrogant hatred and rage, blowing up innocent bystanders as young as school children, even of their own faith. Since their triumph is not fueled by passion and compassion, they fail the Soul Game. That is not goodness triumphing but evil destroying evil. Two evils do not make a good.

I found it very interesting that in a video aired just some weeks ago the second in command of Al Qaida claimed that they never killed the innocent, just their enemy. Of course, in the Soul Game, a hero must first prove that the enemy is evil. Only then can you kill and kill and kill, all in the name of goodness.

Villains obviously have no such constraints; that is the rule of the game. Whatever they can get away with, they will do, it is all part of the game. A hero must often use overwhelming force to stop the villain. But what if that is not allowed?

Final Test of Senior Hero

Many of our laws treat the villain as a victim whom the hero cannot hurt. If the villains put their arsenal in churches, schools or hospitals, using the elderly, disabled or children as shields, our senior hero is in a quandary. If he does not take out the stockpiles of weapons, bombs, missiles, many more innocent will be hurt. Eventually every senior hero is faced with the decision of killing innocent people or allowing the villain to get away this time so that he may hurt and kill many more victims hereafter.

What should the hero do? Some justify a bloody intervention with the good of the greater number, bypassing their feelings. But that is another trap, since feelings fuel all our deeds. Often the hero will sacrifice himself, to punish himself for killing the innocent. But doing so he did not triumph over evil but failed the test and died a victim.

It is crucial at that stage to include the feelings. Yes, the heroine probably need to kill some innocent people for the greatest good, but she may not isolate a part of herself in doing so.

Best of Good – Best of Evil

Does she kill with compassion, with love for the victims that now are becoming the sacrificial heroes, the martyrs for the cause? She will have to find her own balance, be willing to take the best of evil, which is to destroy, and the best of goodness, which is to build. She will have to destroy with love, with passion to build a better world where victims are not used as human shields. Imagine, killing with love, for a better tomorrow!

The heroine has already triumphed over evil but not falling into the trap that the villain set up for her. Now she has to deal with her enemy. Neither sitting down for a good heart-to-heart nor putting the villain behind bars solves the problem. On the contrary, it only paves the way for the villain to strike again, once well-meaning people take pity on him and release him.

These supposedly good people are exhibiting the evil in goodness. They will often sacrifice the hero, so that the villain can flourish. They protest that villains may not be killed; instead we must house them, feed them, and take care of them as if they were victims. And we become victim taxpayers ourselves, as our prisons fill up with even more murderers.

Taking a villain out of the game gets harder all along. Often the villains kill each other in jail, but not before they rape and torture each other. Villains have no problem killing anyone – victim, villain or hero. Perhaps a hero should hire villains to kill others, just as some movies have suggested.

But in reality, the senior heroine must pass this test, and stop outright villains, using superior force. One of my favorite heroes on a radio show I had in North Carolina was a lawyer in Alabama, a member of a non-profit organization, who literally stripped the Ku Klux Klan of its power. The organization took the Klan to court one at a time, and did not stop suing until the Klan’s members lost their farms and their money and had no means left to continue their hatred. The hero lawyer was fully passionate about his cause, and yet talked about his pity for the Klan members although he also was concerned about possible retaliations.

Frequently the hero sees that his hands are tied if he tries to triumph over villains in the open. At that point he or she may join secret services like the FBI or CIA that allow the hero to put on disguises just like the villain does. Often you cannot tell a hero from a villain, especially if he is infiltrating a villain’s gang.