Gaspard brings up a lot of good points. To add to it, I think we need to take a step back here to consider some different levels of character guilt/ethics/morality.Â
First, we have the "collared" characters:
Collared - Not Involved
Collared - Did Not Want to be Involved
Collared - Did Not Want to be Involved, but will follow orders
Collared - Will Follow Orders, including killing
Collared - Will Follow Orders, including killing, and aware of the poisoning beforehand
Next, we have the "hired"/"ordered" characters:
Ordered to be a distraction
Hired for Gil - Simply a distraction
Ordered to be a distraction, including killing
Hired for Gil - Simply a distraction, including killing
Ordered to be a distraction, including killing, and aware of the poisoning beforehand
Hired for Gil - Simple a distraction, including killing, and aware of the poisoning beforehand
Naturally, there are probably additional roles not mentioned here, which fall outside the category of "bad guys", but I believe this is where most of the discussion has been pointed (outside of which places were poisoned). I don't think a black/white guilty/not guilty standpoint can really be achieved with the setup.Â
Excluding character motivations, there are simply too many ways a person may have been drafted onto the "villains" side in this first arc to really be "guilty" of a crime they may not have even known was committed before it was possible to do something about.
Among other things, I don't think any of the "villains" would have been noticeable in a crowd, save for the ones that openly showed their faces. (Only Osric comes to mind at this point). Since I'm unsure how the other battles went, but I know that the encounter I was in, nobody on opposing sides even recognized the other side's characters. (Merc and Nat found out each other's identities rather quickly, but that would be expected. Mavhashi and Hornet I don't think recognized Nat, and would have seen Merc with/without a mask before. Kage was of course able to figure things out, which has had some RP in game/on forums to deal with the immediate effects.)
Lastly, we have the character ethics/morality, which I think can make all the difference. There are (or were) truly neutral characters like Merc who knew nothing of what was planned, how it would be done, or what could happen. I know at least in Merc's case, he didn't find out about the poisoning until Kage came pounding on his door for a "talk". I'm sure something similar has happened for other villain characters who were only intended to be a distraction, and were not there to kill/mortally wound people. Even for people who may have been prepared to die in battle/kill their opposing side, we wouldn't know if the planned death by poisoning would have been "ok" with those characters. If we look at the "compromised" characters, I believe we'd need to know more about their motivations and /why/ they've joined the villains before an OOC judgement could be passed, let alone some form of judgement ICly. At this point, the only character that is bad, intended to be bad, and has no regrets that I can think of, would be Jin'li, who will have judgement passed during this event.
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I think it might be going a little too far into a white/black point of view to immediately condemn all of the villains. Granted, if Merc's identity is found out and he is associated with the incident, there will need to be consequences. But as he would stand, he probably isn't seen ICly as anything but "that guy who's started fights in the Quicksand" and "that man with the mask who kept tormenting Kage". From an IC perspective, there was no intention for mass murder, let alone death. He was simply paid to be a distraction, which kept Hornet, Mahvashi and eventually Kage too busy to look for Jin'li. For the other villains, I don't know. It will have to be RPed out if their identities are exposed, and how the Ul'dahn government will deal with that. (With a sizable chunk of the RP Law Enforcement community part of this, I can't imagine a mass-hanging or death sentence being a viable solution).
TLDR version: I don't think we can judge all of the "villain" characters as being equally guilty. There are too many factors, such as if their identities were hidden, if they were being forced to commit atrocious acts under the pretense of blackmail/death, or if they even knew what they were being used to buy time for. It seems extreme to immediately cut all of them off ICly, with only OOC knowledge of their involvement, which may be an incomplete story at this time.
First, we have the "collared" characters:
Collared - Not Involved
Collared - Did Not Want to be Involved
Collared - Did Not Want to be Involved, but will follow orders
Collared - Will Follow Orders, including killing
Collared - Will Follow Orders, including killing, and aware of the poisoning beforehand
Next, we have the "hired"/"ordered" characters:
Ordered to be a distraction
Hired for Gil - Simply a distraction
Ordered to be a distraction, including killing
Hired for Gil - Simply a distraction, including killing
Ordered to be a distraction, including killing, and aware of the poisoning beforehand
Hired for Gil - Simple a distraction, including killing, and aware of the poisoning beforehand
Naturally, there are probably additional roles not mentioned here, which fall outside the category of "bad guys", but I believe this is where most of the discussion has been pointed (outside of which places were poisoned). I don't think a black/white guilty/not guilty standpoint can really be achieved with the setup.Â
Excluding character motivations, there are simply too many ways a person may have been drafted onto the "villains" side in this first arc to really be "guilty" of a crime they may not have even known was committed before it was possible to do something about.
Among other things, I don't think any of the "villains" would have been noticeable in a crowd, save for the ones that openly showed their faces. (Only Osric comes to mind at this point). Since I'm unsure how the other battles went, but I know that the encounter I was in, nobody on opposing sides even recognized the other side's characters. (Merc and Nat found out each other's identities rather quickly, but that would be expected. Mavhashi and Hornet I don't think recognized Nat, and would have seen Merc with/without a mask before. Kage was of course able to figure things out, which has had some RP in game/on forums to deal with the immediate effects.)
Lastly, we have the character ethics/morality, which I think can make all the difference. There are (or were) truly neutral characters like Merc who knew nothing of what was planned, how it would be done, or what could happen. I know at least in Merc's case, he didn't find out about the poisoning until Kage came pounding on his door for a "talk". I'm sure something similar has happened for other villain characters who were only intended to be a distraction, and were not there to kill/mortally wound people. Even for people who may have been prepared to die in battle/kill their opposing side, we wouldn't know if the planned death by poisoning would have been "ok" with those characters. If we look at the "compromised" characters, I believe we'd need to know more about their motivations and /why/ they've joined the villains before an OOC judgement could be passed, let alone some form of judgement ICly. At this point, the only character that is bad, intended to be bad, and has no regrets that I can think of, would be Jin'li, who will have judgement passed during this event.
---
I think it might be going a little too far into a white/black point of view to immediately condemn all of the villains. Granted, if Merc's identity is found out and he is associated with the incident, there will need to be consequences. But as he would stand, he probably isn't seen ICly as anything but "that guy who's started fights in the Quicksand" and "that man with the mask who kept tormenting Kage". From an IC perspective, there was no intention for mass murder, let alone death. He was simply paid to be a distraction, which kept Hornet, Mahvashi and eventually Kage too busy to look for Jin'li. For the other villains, I don't know. It will have to be RPed out if their identities are exposed, and how the Ul'dahn government will deal with that. (With a sizable chunk of the RP Law Enforcement community part of this, I can't imagine a mass-hanging or death sentence being a viable solution).
TLDR version: I don't think we can judge all of the "villain" characters as being equally guilty. There are too many factors, such as if their identities were hidden, if they were being forced to commit atrocious acts under the pretense of blackmail/death, or if they even knew what they were being used to buy time for. It seems extreme to immediately cut all of them off ICly, with only OOC knowledge of their involvement, which may be an incomplete story at this time.
