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Comment on Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

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I don't think he's replaceable. It's like house of cards without Kevin Spacey. Actually even worse, one of the best episodes was an episode completely voiced by Justin, of an entire society, and he managed to play so many different personalities of the same character. Never seen this level of voice acting.

It was pretty obvious that he's got issues. Had a scene where a writer literally confesses that he has bad tendencies and channels it all into his work (the gazorpazorp episode).

It's kind of sad that society and cancel culture don't allow bad people to do good things. If those were workplace allegations you really can't let someone like that work, but that's not the case.

I'm all in favor of him both losing most of his money to compensate his victims and continuing to work on Rick and Morty. But society can't handle nuance, and the mob judges people instead of actions. Literally nothing good happened as a result of this cancellation. Just blind mob justice.

People aren't black and white, bad people can do some good things and everyone sins. He deserves a punishment fitting his crime, and the purpose of the punishment isn't vengeance. If an action is good there's nothing morally wrong with letting a bad person do it.

I don't think he's replaceable.

He hasn't been writing for the show these past few seasons, so his only contribution is his voice. Voices are usually replaceable.

I'm all in favor of him both losing most of his money to compensate his victims and continuing to work on Rick and Morty. But society can't handle nuance, and the mob judges people instead of actions. Literally nothing good happened as a result of this cancellation. Just blind mob justice.

The show is still being made. Society hasn't lost anything.

It was already getting worse, at this point it's not really going to be Rick and Morty anymore. Ship of Thaddeus except different ship entirely.

Including the name, apparently.

Honestly I will probably use the term Ship of Thaddeus moving forward. It embodies the concept in a way I find deeply funny. I don't know if the author intended to write it that way or not (the uncertainty of which only serving to make it funnier) but I thank them for their contribution to my pool of available humor

He hasn't been writing for the show these past few seasons

That explains a lot. The shift in tone is very noticeable.

This isn't a punishment per se and I don't think it's particularly useful to try to roll it into more general complaints about cancel culture.

People are complex yes, and everyone's life is composed of both good actions and bad ones, sure. But there are connections and pattern that emerge, specifically and for example domestic abuse is closely related to other forms of violence and abuse. This position is one of relative power, and removing him from it is likely to make people working around that position safer.

And we don't like to admit it but role models are a thing! What message does this send? "You too, young abuser, can also run a highly acclaimed and culturally significant show regardless of your transgressions!" We have a ton of that, that sort of thing is more or less the norm in entertainment, business, and politics. To the extent cancel culture even exists it is a backlash to exactly that dynamic!

It's not like he's permanently blacklisted either come on. We see this over and over again in entertainment. He'll quietly disappear for a year or two then launch a new thing and get free press coverage of his "comeback" with virtually zero long-term consequences. Sorry about your show but Roiland will be fine.

It's likely to make people around his position lose their job. If there were safety issues at work, like I said, I'm 100% in favor of kicking people out for the first transgression in work. If there wasn't, your argument is pointless. You're just ignoring reality for the convenience of your vengeful rightousness.

Stop acting like you get some sick virtue points by enacting vengeance on bad people. Two wrongs don't make it right.

How about a message that even sinful people can still do good? Or that they should channel their flaws to something good?

As if I care for roiland being fine. Your message is that it's fine because the only ones being hurt are everyone around him.

And this has everything to do with cancel culture. It's happening to Harry Potter over nothing right now. It's all over the place. People cancelling the constitution because "slave owners", owning slaves is definitely worse than domestic abuse.

It's all nonsense. Either an action is good or bad. Bad action on bad people doesn't make it good. It makes you bad as well. Everyone sins. You don't judge an action by whether it's helping a sinner because then no action will be good. You judge it only by itself.

This is a new form of religious atheism where the mob is responsible for justice instead of God. And in my opinion, society is better when justice is served by an intelligent entity rather than blind mob.

It shouldn't be the mob's job to stone him.

You need to chill and stop extrapolating my values and worldview from a few sentences online. I'm a practicing christian so the concept of forgiveness is one of CENTRAL importance in my life and a daily practical and philosophical concern.

We all sin but not all sins are crimes do you get what I'm saying? Our reaction to the spiritual state of sinfulness is, needs to be, different from our reaction to the social transgression caused by it.

Forgiveness requires repentance, contrition, consequences. Forgiveness is not just letting something pass as if it didn't happen, though certainly sometimes it can be. Forgiveness also requires an active forgivER, which is not me in this case.

Roiland didn't do anything to me I have nothing to forgive. I am not god and cannot forgive him for his sins. This should be between him and the people he did harm, which is his specific victim here, but also the people around him depending on his stability and integrity in his professional role. Blowing up the employments of all those people with this transgression is part of its harm and something he needs to seek forgiveness for. But not from us.

Then let him get what he deserves, as fits the crime. I'm not even talking about forgiveness. Justice isn't stopping bad people from doing good, it's stopping them from doing bad. Again I'm all in favor of him getting justice. Pay his victims. Go to jail or whatever it is that's the punishment for this. But this cancel culture isn't justice.

And of course he's not supposed to seek forgiveness from us, that's my point. He needs to be judged by a judge. Not me, neither adult swim. Definitely not this mob justice.

One of the major points of religions is to prevent mob justice. To be judged fairly in an intelligent process, with a fitting punishment.

How is firing him from his job a fitting punishment? There's no law for that because there shouldn't be. The justice system has as a principle the concept of minimizing the consequences of uninvolved parties.

There wouldn't be so much hunger for vengeance if people believed others will get what they deserve.

Ok, this is a very good take even though I disagree.

The main issue is you can't have someone whose supposedly a sex offender, working with others and just ignore that he's a sex offender. Also, Rick and Morty is ultimately a piece of entertainment, and it's hard to be entertained if the guy writing jokes is allegedly gross and aggressive.

And the allegations are still just allegations, but from what I'm hearing they seem likely to be proven. If the charges are dropped I would argue Roiland should go back on the show and everyone should apologize. But even without the full picture he needs to at least temporarily step back because the toxic culture is still there; most people simply can't work with someone who they suspect what Roiland is accused of, and the trial is going to conclude and we will get a better picture eventually (and at least for the latter probably very soon).

In fact it looks like Rick and Morty is continuing and people are still fine with the earlier episodes fine even though much of the show is Roiland. That is applying nuance. And I agree that it won't be the same, but it's not going to be the same anyways.

sex offender?! Did I miss something? It says he's accused of domestic abuse, not sexual attacks. I've also saw messages suggesting he's very tactless and creepy, but I've seen nothing suggesting he's a threat to anyone around him.

accused of domestic abuse
but I've seen nothing suggesting he's a threat to anyone around him.

I don't think he's replaceable.

Rick & Morty started out as a Back to the Future parody where the joke was that Morty had to repeatedly lick Doc's balls. It's so bizarre it's kind of funny, for about a minute anyway (not an entire episode). The other shorts aren't really all that funny, IMO. You can watch it here if you want, but you will proabbly regret the time you spend on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngN7eJUQyXk

It seems to me that Roiland always needed other people to actually make his weird shit funny. Is he replaceable? Who knows; I'm not in the writer's room. Star Trek TNG got significantly better after Roddenberry left, and I think it's fair to say that a significant part of the brilliance of the original series mostly came from other people, and not Roddenberry himself.

Who knows what will happen. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion either way.

(No comment on whether it's fair that he's let go, as I don't really know all the details)

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