The other day, I mentioned that Krusk has recently received a shocking revelation about, and from, his wife. Krusk has spent much of the last two in-game months trying to reunite and reconcile with his wife, Holly. Recently, he accomplished just that, or at least he thought he had, but on the night after the crew took in A LOT of treasure, Holly attempted to steal that treasure, leaving behind a note revealing that she had betrayed him in more ways than one.
Naturally, Krusk feels betrayed and enraged, and the next time he sees his wife, he may not be able to restrain himself from trying to kill her. However, as I've thought about the situation, I've come to the conclusion that even though what Holly did was both immoral and illegal, she probably doesn't deserve to die for it.
Holly's letter revealed to Krusk that she had betrayed him, maritally. She had been unfaithful to him. Now, Krusk probably could have forgiven her for that. In fact, had they agreed to have an open relationship, he might have been perfectly fine with that. It still would have been immoral by our standards, but while infidelity is adequate grounds for divorce, it's not quite a capital offense.
Neither is robbery, especially not merely attempted robbery. Sure, Holly tried to steal a ridiculous amount of money from him, but she didn't actually get a penny of it, and she ended up escaping empty-handed. Holly might have earned some kind of punishment for trying to steal Krusk's treasure, but certainly not death.
Holly has a few other crimes and sins on her record now, but they're all fairly minor. She lied to Krusk, or at least withheld important information about herself, for about as long as he knew her (or thought he knew her). That is a violation of one of God's commandments, but it's not something one could justifiably punish her for, unless her lie somehow caused more harm than merely emotional harm. She also manipulated Krusk, which made her betrayal feel all the worse, but that's still not legal grounds to punish her.
However, Krusk doesn't care much whether he has legal or moral grounds for killing her. She betrayed him, and he is incredibly angry about it, so if he gets a chance, he will probably kill her, even though she doesn't actually deserve to die.
Morality exists on a sliding scale. Some good acts are better than others, and some evil acts are worse than others. Generally, the reward or punishment for any deed should be proportional to the goodness or badness of that deed. Major sins invoke major punishments and minor sins invoke minor punishments. Or at least, they should. Holly did things that were evil and/or illegal, and she deserves to be punished for them, but the punishment she deserves is not as great as the one she has coming to her.
Krusk should not kill his now-ex-wife, but he's probably going to, and he's certainly going to try. However, given an analysis of the situation, I've determined that killing Holly would be an evil act. Holly has wronged Krusk, but in this situation, killing her would also be wrong.
Unlike Krusk, we should learn to control our emotions and exercise wisdom and restraint. We should seek justice, not vengeance. It isn't easy to treat someone fairly after they've betrayed us, but we should certainly try, not because they deserve mercy, but because they deserve justice (as do we), and because, regardless of the circumstances, we should never answer others' sins with sins of our own. People will sin against us, but we should never use that, or our emotional response to it, to attempt to justify sinning against them. Instead, Krusk should forgive Holly, just as we should forgive those who sin against us, even in those rare cases when those sins render them worthy of death, and especially in the far-more-common cases when they don't.
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