Poll: An unlocked car is stolen, who is to blame?

[Story]

I had a fun time with a friend the other day watching Princess Mononoke and I expressed my love of the movie for the gray morality it has. He's a very logical thinker I'm an emotional one so it was a nice debate over if there was really a bad guy in the movie. He posed a moral situation and asked how I felt about it.

A person purposely leaves his car unlocked and it gets stolen, who is to blame?

I said it was the person who stole it and he said it was the person who did not lock the car.

What does the Escapist think?

Edit: Typos in the poll oops.

 

[Story]

There's a pretty clear distinction between carelessness and illegal behavior. Blaming the owner of the car is something I would expect to hear from people who say that personal responsibility is the magic silver bullet to all of society's ills. But a dumb decision on the part of the victim does not make the actions of the thief okay or any less illegal.

essentially what I said to him. I think blaming the car owner in this case is an example of victim blaming even it that person wasn't the perfect victim to blame. The fact that there is malicious intent in stealing the car and none in leaving it open pretty much made the car owner blameless in my eyes.

He said it's like putting too much faith in people. I'd rather believe people are not willing to do illegal things than actually do it.

 

[Sonmi]

Who did he claim was the bad guy in Mononoke? As far as I am concerned, all of the characters have valid reasons for their actions, and it's more about nature and Man than good or evil, really.

The only character we assume is purely bad, IIRC, is the unseen Samurai lord attacking Irontown.

Also, both are to blame. The thief for being a thief, and the car owner for being careless. Obviously you shouldn't steal cars, but it's also your responsibility to look out for your stuff. Don't leave your doors unlocked, don't leave your wallet alone, don't leave your young children unsupervised. The victim is still a victim, granted, but it doesn't absolve him of being irresponsible.

 

[Elijin]

The guy who leaves it unlocked might make it easier, but lets jump back one or two steps.

Is someone who thinks its okay to steal a car, only going to steal it if its unlocked? Probably not.

So the careless action made things slightly easier, but locking the car was unlikely to change the outcome. Someone who is breaking the law in this way probably isn't doing it to prove a point about locking your doors.

 

[Story]

Who did he claim was the bad guy in Mononoke? As far as I am concerned, all of the characters have valid reasons for their actions, and it's more about nature and Man than good or evil, really.

The only character we assume is purely bad, IIRC, is the unseen Samurai lord attacking Irontown.

Also, both are to blame. The thief for being a thief, and the car owner for being careless. Obviously you shouldn't steal cars, but it's also your responsibility to look out for your stuff. Don't leave your doors unlocked, don't leave your wallet alone, don't leave your young children unsupervised. The victim is still a victim, granted, but it doesn't absolve him of being irresponsible.

He said it was Lady Iboshi (mistress of Iron Town). He felt that she deserved more than what she got for what she did. I see where he came up with the conclusion, Iboshi is a very cold and calculated person with a big ego to boot. Didn't help too that the carnage on her side was worse because her weapons and methods were more destructive than anything the forest could have done (at least on screen).
I argued that people can still do bad things and still do good. Lady Iboshi is a very good example of this.

 

[Story]

He said it's like putting too much faith in people. I'd rather believe people are not willing to do illegal things than actually do it.

Faith in people sounds like a non sequitur. The victim's carelessness is indeed their responsibility, but the thief has made clear their disregard for other people's property rights. What was his rationale for this?

Oh, he thinks the opposite of me; that most people are greedy with an intent to harm if given the opportunity. Seems self defeating to me (probably with its own set of issues) but I wasn't looking to change his mind on this I just wanted to open up discussion.

 

[Sonmi]

He said it was Lady Iboshi (mistress of Iron Town). He felt that she deserved more than what she got for what she did. I see where he came up with the conclusion, Iboshi is a very cold and calculated person with a big ego to boot. Didn't help too that the carnage on her side was worse because her weapons and methods were more destructive than anything the forest could have done (at least on screen).
I argued that people can still do bad things and still do good. Lady Iboshi is a very good example of this.

Eboshi did what she did to protect and feed her people, most of them rejects of society, lepers and ex-prostitutes. I disagree that she was cold at all, if anything she was quite a warm person as long as man was concerned. She just didn't care much about nature, and nature didn't really care much about her or her kind either.

She really only goes overboard because nature fights back against man's natural progress, and because the Emperor calls for the Forest God's head and has her by the balls.

To really pin her as "Evil", you would have to pin nature as intrinsically "Good", which as we see isn't really the case.

 

[Story]

He said it was Lady Iboshi (mistress of Iron Town). He felt that she deserved more than what she got for what she did. I see where he came up with the conclusion, Iboshi is a very cold and calculated person with a big ego to boot. Didn't help too that the carnage on her side was worse because her weapons and methods were more destructive than anything the forest could have done (at least on screen).
I argued that people can still do bad things and still do good. Lady Iboshi is a very good example of this.

Eboshi did what she did to protect and feed her people, most of them rejects of society, lepers and ex-prostitutes. I disagree that she was cold at all, if anything she was quite a warm person as long as man was concerned. She just didn't care much about nature, and nature didn't really care much about her or her kind either.

She really only goes overboard because nature fights back against man's natural progress, and because the Emperor calls for the Forest God's head and has her by the balls.

To really pin her as "Evil", you would have to pin nature as intrinsically "Good", which as we see isn't really the case.

Oops I thought I had spelled her name wrong.

And yeah I agree with you completely here I also brought up these points. He suggested she was just manipulating those unwanted by society to get what she wants. But I do actually think she cared for them and showed this in several different moments of the film.

 

[veloper]

Now suppose a scenario where the driver wasn't the owner of the car, but only rented it, or borrowed it from someone: sometimes willful stupidity obviously warrants punishment.
Thing is that going back to the original scenario, losing the car was the expected, negative consequence for the car owner. The thief is still a criminal, but the owner is not blameless. I see two separate misdeeds.

 

[Sonmi]

He said it was Lady Iboshi (mistress of Iron Town). He felt that she deserved more than what she got for what she did. I see where he came up with the conclusion, Iboshi is a very cold and calculated person with a big ego to boot. Didn't help too that the carnage on her side was worse because her weapons and methods were more destructive than anything the forest could have done (at least on screen).
I argued that people can still do bad things and still do good. Lady Iboshi is a very good example of this.

Eboshi did what she did to protect and feed her people, most of them rejects of society, lepers and ex-prostitutes. I disagree that she was cold at all, if anything she was quite a warm person as long as man was concerned. She just didn't care much about nature, and nature didn't really care much about her or her kind either.

She really only goes overboard because nature fights back against man's natural progress, and because the Emperor calls for the Forest God's head and has her by the balls.

To really pin her as "Evil", you would have to pin nature as intrinsically "Good", which as we see isn't really the case.

Oops I thought I had spelled her name wrong.

And yeah I agree with you completely here I also brought up these points. He suggested she was just manipulating those unwanted by society to get what she wants. But I do actually think she cared for them and showed this in several different moments of the film.

You can simply counter this assertion by asking "What does she want?"

She's not an ambitious character, she doesn't seek immortality the way the Emperor is, she doesn't even seek gold like Jigo is (another interesting morally ambiguous character, far better candidate for the title of "antagonist" of the movie in my opinion). She just does what she has to do to keep Iron Town and its inhabitants alive and safe. She has no malice whatsoever, and therefore can't really be called evil.

 

[Story]

He said it was Lady Iboshi (mistress of Iron Town). He felt that she deserved more than what she got for what she did. I see where he came up with the conclusion, Iboshi is a very cold and calculated person with a big ego to boot. Didn't help too that the carnage on her side was worse because her weapons and methods were more destructive than anything the forest could have done (at least on screen).
I argued that people can still do bad things and still do good. Lady Iboshi is a very good example of this.

Eboshi did what she did to protect and feed her people, most of them rejects of society, lepers and ex-prostitutes. I disagree that she was cold at all, if anything she was quite a warm person as long as man was concerned. She just didn't care much about nature, and nature didn't really care much about her or her kind either.

She really only goes overboard because nature fights back against man's natural progress, and because the Emperor calls for the Forest God's head and has her by the balls.

To really pin her as "Evil", you would have to pin nature as intrinsically "Good", which as we see isn't really the case.

Oops I thought I had spelled her name wrong.

And yeah I agree with you completely here I also brought up these points. He suggested she was just manipulating those unwanted by society to get what she wants. But I do actually think she cared for them and showed this in several different moments of the film.

You can simply counter this assertion by asking "What does she want?"

She's not an ambitious character, she doesn't seek immortality the way the Emperor is, she doesn't even seek gold like Jigo is (another interesting morally ambiguous character, far better candidate for the title of "antagonist" of the movie in my opinion). She just does what she has to do to keep Iron Town and its inhabitants alive and safe. She has no malice whatsoever, and therefore can't really be called evil.

Did that too, his response was "The iron and global domination."
And of course I said she returned at the very end of the film having been defeated. She had nothing to gain by doing this.
I wound actually call her ambitious though, she was one of the few with the guts to actually start iron town in the first place and with a reputation among her people for not fearing the god nor men I'm sure she wanted to up held the reputation.
And also I agree completely about Jigo. Funny enough he thought the army was completely unnessarry to the plot. I disagreed and thought it added more complexity.

 

[Sonmi]

Did that too, his response was "The iron and global domination."
And of course I said she returned at the very end of the film having been defeated. She had nothing to gain by doing this.
I wound actually call her ambitious though, she was one of the few with the guts to actually start iron town in the first place and with a reputation among her people for not fearing the god nor men I'm sure she wanted to up held the reputation.
And also I agree completely about Jigo. Funny enough he thought the army was completely unnessarry to the plot. I disagreed and thought it added more complexity.

She's clever and inventive, but she's satisfied with her position as Lady of Iron Town and doesn't seek to be much more, that's why I'd hesitate to call her ambitious, she doesn't really seem to want more than what she already has. The idea that she's seeking global domination is absurd too, there's nothing in the movie that points to that.

I thought that the whole subplot about Jigo, the Emperor, and the Samurai, while a bit confusing and vague, shows of irrelevant Eboshi is in the grand schemes of things. The forest spirits see her as the main threat to their existence, but in the end of the day she's really just a pawn to be pushed around by bigger unseen players. It emphasizes that the time of man has truly come by the beginning of the movie.

 

[Story]

Did that too, his response was "The iron and global domination."
And of course I said she returned at the very end of the film having been defeated. She had nothing to gain by doing this.
I wound actually call her ambitious though, she was one of the few with the guts to actually start iron town in the first place and with a reputation among her people for not fearing the god nor men I'm sure she wanted to up held the reputation.
And also I agree completely about Jigo. Funny enough he thought the army was completely unnessarry to the plot. I disagreed and thought it added more complexity.

She's clever and inventive, but she's satisfied with her position as Lady of Iron Town and doesn't seek to be much more, that's why I'd hesitate to call her ambitious, she doesn't really seem to want more than what she already has. The idea that she's seeking global domination is absurd too, there's nothing in the movie that points to that.

I thought that the whole subplot about Jigo, the Emperor, and the Samurai, while a bit confusing and vague, shows of irrelevant Eboshi is in the grand schemes of things. The forest spirits see her as the main threat to their existence, but in the end of the day she's really just a pawn to be pushed around by bigger unseen players. It emphasizes that the time of man has truly come by the beginning of the movie.

Again I agree she was clever and inventive. But I also think someone can be ambitious without an intent for malice. The idea my friend had of her wanting to take over the world came from a tease by one of the lepers. To be clear you and I are on the same side of the argument here. My friend is fine to feel differently about the movie. I was actually hoping for this kind of discussion from him since I know it is different from what he usually watches.

And very interesting perspective on the subplot, I never thought of it that way.

 

[the December King]

I believe at one point in the movie the Lady Eboshi proudly boasts that "This is how you kill a god", a statement that at the very least smacks of egotism and pride. And to nature, her actions were quite evil. But there was more going on than that. That the characters in the film weren't all so black and white was one of the more charming features of the piece to me.

A thief takes what isn't theirs. It doesn't matter if it is unlocked, unmanned, etc. The victim can be seen as careless, foolish, naive, sure- but they didn't commit a crime. That's my take, anyways.

 

[Phasmal]

Opportunity to steal shit is not free license to steal shit.

If someone commits a crime, they're to blame. No matter how easy or hard it was for them to do so.
I dunno, maybe I'm too black-and-white, but that's how I see it.

Like... if you left your car unlocked you'd be fine if there were no car-thieves around. So the person who steals the car is 100% of the wrongdoing.

 

[McElroy]

Isn't hotwiring a modern car almost impossible nowadays? If the owner leaves the door open AND the keys inside then that I'd call asking for it. Otherwise no, but it's an unnecessary risk they're taking.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'd call the owner an idiot for leaving it unlocked, but the thief should still go to jail.