Death and how your character handles it.

[Makyn Loneseeker]

So, recently, I remebered a previous RP with which Makyn was asked if he had killed, and how he felt about it. He deals with killing just fine, though his first made him throw up. Later on, though, he sometimes shakes awake from nightmares, as his mind went back to those kills.

 

So here are some questions for you:

- How does your character deal with killing?

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

[Cynel1]

How does your character deal with killing?

-Cyneler is a Solider He is Forced to Kill in the Line of Duty.

 

 How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

- He Felt some remorse after this first kill.

 

Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

- For a while he Started to have PTSD induced Nightmares from the Killings.

[Max]

Canonically, neither of my characters have taken a life yet (Although, Pairo might have indirectly through arson) But I'll answer theoretically!

 

- How does your character deal with killing?

Pairo is unapologetic and a wee-bit divergent. He'd probably absolve himself of all guilt and place the blame on the victim. 'They shouldn't of gotten in the way.' 'They should have ran.' 'They attacked me first.'

Max on the other hand wouldn't resort to killing if he could help it. He's more the type to incapacitate his enemy or beat them to submission. He's more mindful, I think, of life and the value of it. He couldn't stomach the burden of murder.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

Pairo wouldn't be too in his feelings about it. He (ridiculously) justifies everything he does in his head.

If Max were to kill someone, it would've been a complete accident. He'd probably freak out.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

Definitely not for Pairo. It would be yesterday's news.

Max... he'd probably mull over it the rest of his days.

[Manari]

Manari has been dealing with loss of life and having to learn to kill since a young age due to the territorial conflicts and clan wars her tribe was involved in when she was young. However, she is also a traditional Keeper huntress and was taught that you hunt to survive and not for sport or profit.

 

It's all come together in her current mindset to form a personal code that causes her to harm or even kill anyone she personally feels is a threat to the safety of herself, her clan, or her Twelveswood. Unfortunately she's killed enough to no longer feel much doubt or regret about it afterwards.

[Ignacius]

Ignacius was almost born to kill.  Though he wasn't initially raised to be a soldier, when the Garleans took his family and pressed him into service, he proved to be exceptionally capable.  He was in the field and killing at a time when most people were still in school and doing just fine about it.

 

Not that it's led to any long-term damage short of Orleans seeing all life as transient and bereft of value.

 

That's the biggest problem with Orleans.  He's been exposed to so much death, destruction, and mayhem that he simply sees it as a natural state of the world.  He killed the only person he felt something resembling love for.  He now kills for money and money alone, because killing is all he's ever been good at and killing is all he's really ever been trained to do.  It's still up in the air whether or not he'd have been fine if left to his own devices and his own family, but more than a little of his killer instinct is completely natural.  Maybe he would have ended up being a killer anyway.

 

Ignacius completely compartmentalizes death, seeing it as akin to animals killing each other for food in the wild.  So complete was his training or natural state of being that he has done this ever since the first life he took in combat.  He rarely thinks about it afterwards except in vague abstracts.  He is completely remorseless.

 

Just about the only reason he refrains from killing, when he does, is because it often attracts undue attention from local authorities.  He isn't a serial killer, and he doesn't derive pleasure from it.  To him, it's simply a tool in his toolbox, the means to his ends, just another fact of his life.  He will kill and continue to kill until something finally manages to kill him first.

[Asmodean]

Asmodean isn't a killer at heart and will go out of his way to not kill, but if the person should die ( murderer, slaver, someone out to kill him, ect) he will end a life. He, however, never treats the act as something that should be common place for him. His first kill was for a job to protect a traveling merchant.

 

A contract had be put on the merchant, something Asmodean was not informed about, and as such he had end a few lives during the journey. It clearly had an effect on the young man for a time but now he had come to terms with it as a fact of life... at time he will have to kill or else be killed. A sad truth for Asmo but something he had come to except. 

 

Asmodean at first he wasn't deeply effected as one might seem but he has come to the thinking for those who lives have ended, he has to live to carry on their memories but this isn't just for those who he's killed.

[KHMarie]

Serylda may have been raised to disregard the death of those around her without remorse like her Ishgardian adoptive blood, however the compassion in her heart inherited by her real kin was never something she could easily keep from surfacing.

 

- How does your character deal with killing?

She deals with it with the mindset of "it must be done." Everything she does is in the name and honor of her foster family. However this does not change the fact she does not like killing, and that she thinks very highly of life.

 

She tries very hard to avoid this, but she will almost always tear up over having to kill a human or a beast after the deed is done. Her heart is far large than the steel she wields, proving to be a large weakness of hers.

 

She also deals with each kill by writing the name/being/appearance of whom she took down.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

Probably one of the few, if not only, times she ever really broke down. She was made to kill a mere rabbit, and yet she felt as if her duty far out ranged her abilities and emotions. She worked to overcome that, so she could also prove that she was just as worthy to hold the duty of being the chosen Dragoon of their clan as her brother. She has since come a long way.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

She killed beasts long before she had ever killed any humans, and in those times when she was still just a child, she did find that those she ended would stay in her thoughts. When she was much younger, she would have nightmares on the beasts she killed, her guilt practically consuming her. Her family, wanting to obviously try and help her overcome this, gave her a journal to record who she killed. They stated that in Ishgard, for those who would struggle with keeping a calm mind in the midst of these situations, they needed a place other than their mind to keep these thoughts so they could focus on their priorities.

 

This method was typically used among very young Ishgardian children; however seeing as she was not of their blood, being detached was not a trait that could be easily obtained if not already inherited/learned by mid teens.

 

She has since recorded every kill she has had to commit. She has come far where she feels little remorse for killing smaller beasts, but still writes the names [if she was able to learn their name] and appearances of any humans or large beasts she takes down. She considers this her way of honoring them, so they would not be forgotten.

[Grott]

- How does your character deal with killing?

He's not a sadist, but understands the necessity. FFXIV takes place in a chaotic time. Things happen. 

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

Proud. He's a knight. He went off to battle as a squire at thirteen and felt he was helping his family and the war effort by killing something.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on?

No. Not really. If it was something incredibly horrific, he might feel bad about it, but he doesn't have nightmares or PTSD. He knows this is war and some people have to go. He wishes it didn't have to be that way, but he's not going to be a saint about it.

 

 

Overall, Uther isn't a stranger to death, but he doesn't go around killing people for the sake of killing. It's not something he speaks about lightly, but it isn't something he'll shy away from. He's a former knight and a member of Misericorde, and it's a cruel world. He can't afford the luxury of pacifism.

[Zac Evans]

[align=center]- How does your character deal with killing?[/align]

[align=center]Being raised on a farm Zac was no stranger to killing animals for meals, but he never enjoyed or felt neutral towards it. It always made him feel guilty. This didn't mean he stopped doing it, he simply never lingered on it. When he came to Eorzea though and began needing to kill living breathing people is when he started developing. . . . problems.[/align]

[align=center]- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?[/align]

[align=center]It was a Limsan pirate he first killed when he was sailing to Eorzea. The ship he was on was attacked, and while Maelstrom guards on the ship did a fine job of keeping the pirates away from where the passengers were, one slipped by. In all honesty, it was a complete fluke he managed to kill the man. On of the pirates apparently lit a blackpowder bomb in the adjacent room during the fighting, and when it went off it took out a section of the wall, causing both Zac and the pirate to be knocked back. The pirate got up first and lunged at Zac only to fall on the point of his sword. When the fighting died down, Zac was thanked by his fellow passengers, but was in shock over the entire situation. [/align]

[align=center]- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)[/align]

[align=center]He likes to pretend it didn't happen. he's quick to change the subject when people bring it up and even quicker to walk away when they insist on not letting the matter die. In rare situations he can even get violent over people not allowing the subject to change or allow him to flee the situation. In all honesty, Zac's terrified of death and all its trappings. When ever he sees a dead body he starts seeing the people he's killed and begins thinking about who they were, and if they had a family. If there's anyone to mis them and so on and so forth.[/align]

[Aduu Avagnar]

How does your character deal with killing?

Coldly, and matter of factly. It's his job, and he is good at it. Anyone he has killed has been a target of importance to either himself or Ul'dah.

 

How did he feel after his first kill?

Given it was his sister, pretty damn shitty.

 

Does your character mull it over later on?

When he doesn't drink himself into a drunken stupor, yes, he has nightmares where he see's the face of every person he has killed. They stopped for a bit recently, but have come back since.

[Erik Mynhier]

- How does your character deal with killing?

Well, and professionally. On the field of battle or in a quiet mission, Erik is a stoic and clean killer. Now on a handful of occasions he has killed in anger, and it was brutal and messy. I have in the past used these "anger kills" to show his "highlander side". As the game paints highlanders as harsher then Erik is with the Ishgardian influences of his upbringing.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

It was during the invasion of Ala Mhigo, he was thirteen, and caved in the skull of an Imperial mage with a stone. As he and his mother were running for their lives, he had no time to deal with it at that point. The anger of that time insulated him from guilt, though both before the event until he became a part of Ul'dah's mercenary armies, he was a soft and gentle child, so it changed him.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

Not really the acts themselves, but he does wonder, when time allows he does at times contemplate how different his life would have been had he become a full time priest as he had wanted and was destined to before Gyr's fall.

[Maril]

- How does your character deal with killing?

Strangely Nailah always seems to do things like that with a calm head on her shoulders. She has issued several kill orders, and I think the fact that she's had other people do it for her has spared her in part from some of the grimness. However when she took a life by her own hands, she never reacted much to it - it was in self defense, and more of a reaction than anything. She is at heart chaotic neutral, and survival is her main motivation - so the justifications of self defense appears to be enough to keep it from haunting her.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

I'm not entirely sure she felt anything, if I am honest. She does not to the present day feel guilt, if anything emotions of disgust may be targeted at the memory of how it felt to sink a dagger into someone else.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

Not as per se. With some of her kill orders, she may worry that it's getting traced back to her. She has nightmares - but they are not about the actions she's done against others.

[Faye]

- How does your character deal with killing?

 

Faye doesn't usually kill anyone herself anymore (she has people for that!), but she's very swift, tries to eliminate anyone as quickly and painlessly as possible. She believes it's "for the greater good" because for criminals who refuse to reform, death is the only option.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

The first time she killed anyone was in self-defense. She comes from a military family, so I think she was better prepared for the experience than she would have been otherwise. I don't think she regrets killing the person since it was necessary for her own survival, but she was a little traumatized by the experience no less.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

 

Not consciously; she pushes it out of her thoughts and is more or less in denial about it. It does linger at the back of her mind, however, and breed doubt.

[Sounsyy]

- How does your character deal with killing?

 

Usually a bottle of wine and a hot bath do the trick. Sounsyy doesn't like killing, but she's become very good at it over the years. As a mercy, she always tries to make her kills quick, unless they deserve worse. Which is usually reserved for Garleans.

 

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

Enraged. Sounsyy took her first life at the age of 11 in Ala Mhigo during the Garlean occupation. She killed the man who killed her father, so justifiable in her mind. However, the kill didn't make her feel any better. Instead, it made her feel more powerless, small, and worthless. So she had to kill more Garleans.

 

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

 

Sounsyy suffers severe PTSD (and alcoholism). Most of this comes from the loss of close friends and people she feels she could've saved, but there are some kills in her past which come back to haunt her every waking moment. Or... come back to take a finger.

[Leanne]

- How does your character deal with killing?

 

Leanne has a very strict mentality of killing only if she deems necessary and/or in self defense, thinking of life as something to be treasured. She doesn't like it, but if push comes to shove, she's not afraid of it, and is as respectful as she can be about it. Her kills tend to be quick and clean, consequence of her archery. One arrow to a vital organ, a point laced with poison, anything to bring her opponent down swiftly.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

Bad, yet humbled before her kill. Her first target was one of the several animals that roam about in the Shroud. It was taught to her to respect the life that you are/you've taken, for it is giving theirs to extend your own or others.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on?

 

Rarely. She's not proud of killing and avoids it if possible, but she doesn't let it affect her.

[Mikh'a]

How does your character deal with killing?

 

Mikh'a has never killed anyone, and to be completely honest I hope he never does.

 

In regards to other people killing, however, it's purely based on the situation in which it has been presented to him. He, personally, is a pacifist in as close a sense to the word as he can get. He does not like, nor agree with violence and avoids performing it at all costs unless he absolutely needs to be directly involved. It's one thing to punch a monster in the face, it's another to punch a person. ( And we're talking legitimate monsters, not Beast Tribes. ) He took the route of healing to save lives, not end them. That said he understands that there is a certain necessity that comes with war. His friends, those people he spends time with both in and out of the Dauntless? Most all of them have killed, and despite his poking at them to try to find better solutions he does not, and will not hold it against them.

 

How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

He hasn't killed, but I can guarantee you if he ever does it will be devastating for him. I've imagined several scenarios where he HAS killed, and they all usually end with him brooding and depressed and for a short time non-functional. It usually requires someone to slap him back to reality though he'd never be the same again. Killing someone would destroy something inside of him. He begged to save the life of a murderer, after all, because he firmly believes no one deserves to die.

 

Does your character mull over it later on?

 

Mikh'a mulls over stuff like this frequently, and it usually further fuels his nagging after people like Ki or Osric. If he could just prevent one pointless death...

[Telluride]

- How does your character deal with killing?

 

For a man of his size, who has essentially been a survivalist for a good part of his life, and who is better with his weapons than most people know, Nathan tries to avoid killing - and violence itself, preferring to find any way he can out of a violent situation when possible at all, preferring charm and evasion to violence.

 

This attitude is a combination of his lust for life, his desire to spread happiness and mirth to people, and a conscious stifling of the memory of how he lost his entire family and troupe, and the little village where they were performing, to the Ixal.

 

However, anyone who can push him to the point where he has no choice but to use weapons will likely meet a different sort of person: cold and brutal. He legitimizes the few times (ICly, of course) he has had to be openly violent by telling himself that they insisted on bringing it upon themselves. Nathan is not a killer, and he abhors ending lives in general, but should he ever be put into a situation where he has to, it isn't even really the same man occupying his large form.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

Absolutely nothing, and that's what scared him.

 

Aside from helping to fend off poachers and brigands from his troupe when he was young, Nathan's one experience with cold, ruthless killing was he returned to the site of his family's slaughter, to try and come to terms with it. He met up with a few Ixal at the site... and in a cold fury, killed every one of them with nothing more than raw muscles and a large rock, taking a good few wounds for his trouble. He'd hoped to find closure, and did in one sense, but found in himself a capability for violence that saved his life, but which he hopes not to need again: it was neither exciting nor frightening, just empty and hollow.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

 

Occasionally, but it has also made him even more determined to be the man he wants to be, one to spread good times and cheer, rather than just a burly archer and pugilist. The world has enough death and pain without making more of it.

 

Just don't break his lute. Do that, and you might as well put on an Ixal mask and start squawking, as far as he's concerned.

[Darien Cadell]

Death isn't quite the same as killing. Qhora lost a lot of people to death before she started killing people.

 

- How does your character deal with killing?

 

These days, it's no more exciting or provocative than handing in a homework assignment - either simple apathy or a minor sense of accomplishment. It's just something she does. Whether it's in the field as an adventurer or on a mission for unsavory clients, it usually doesn't affect her much. Depending on the particular situation, though, she can get downright gleefully sadistic.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

Of an animal? She probably did dwell on it, but came to terms with it in a sort of 'this is how we eat' way. Of a person? It was devastating. It haunts her every second, awake and dreaming. But that had everything to do with who the person was, and less to do with the actual act. It was the combination of the two qualities that was massively destructive to her continued sanity.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

 

While there was a self-defense element that gives justification, she constantly considers how she could have avoided ending up in that situation in the first place. And its repercussions for her life shattered her identity. She's still having trouble deciding who she wants to be, and for her it resulted in an apathetic amorality behind a mask of smirking professionalism.

[cuideag]

How does your character deal with killing?

Delial has made her peace with the fact that killing is just another part of her life, like eating and sleeping. If she laments anything, it is the fact that many of the people who she associates with (and, lately, have come to fight for) are unable to cope with the fact that one death might save so many more lives down the line. She views it as a practicality to be used for the benefit of the greater good, and so she does not find it hard to think that there are people who are better off dead.

 

How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

Justified.

 

Does your character mull over it later on?

Rarely. There are special cases, however, and those are the ones that have lingered in her thoughts.

[shotgunbadger]

How does your character deal with killing?

 

Zutoto has actually been around 'death' as a concept a while. Being the child of a fisher and a chef she learned very young that some animals are pets and some are food, and had seen her parents gutting/butchering their products since early childhood. Still, obviously, that's not the same as killing a fellow sentient creature.

 

She's a magic user, and magic is very powerful and dangerous, she accepts that even when she's 100% in control death could come to the people she fights. Because of that she's fairly slow to fight at all, seeing her magic as a weapon that has to be handled with care (and her interest in Black Magic sure is reinforcing that). She has killed, she was a pirate for a time after all, she doesn't have a big body count but it's a non-zero amount.

 

How did your character feel after her first kill?

 

Tired. Her first 'real' kill (assuming grilling a fresh carp for dinner doesn't count) was in a pitched battle with another, much more vicious, pirate crew. It was a long fight from ship to ship that left a lot of people hurt or dead. She didn't even know she killed anyone until someone pointed out that she 'had her first' and congratulated her. She wasn't happy about it, but it was a 'them or me' type thing so she didn't exactly lose any sleep over it. She really just wanted to rest.

 

Does your character mull over it later on?

 

Yes. Even when it's justified killing takes a heavy toll on someone not raised for it, Zututo has had more than a few sleepless nights from flashbacks or the like. It doesn't dominate her life, but she pretty surely has some issues that she's currently avoiding working out.

[Vox_Aeternum]

How does your character deal with killing?

 

Eiran avoids actually needing to take lives as much as she physically can, sometimes even to her detriment. She understands the idea of killing being necessary (and her religious beliefs centering so heavily on ideas of death and life after death lessens the sting somewhat), but has difficulty with even the idea of taking an active role in things. She has no problem with combat, even at this point finding battles more entertaining and exciting than anything, but still balks at the idea of striking a final and decisive blow.

 

How did your character feel after her first kill?

 

For Eiran, her first kill had depressingly little fanfare. Just her, on the brink of death; a hostile stranger, similarly wounded; and a knife taken from the latter. She sunk in the knife, watched the light in his eyes fade, and only realised what she had done hours later, in a sudden wave of horror and dread.

 

Does your character mull over it later on?

 

 

Eiran's first and only kill haunts her to a far greater degree than she's willing to admit or display. In quiet moments of contemplation she finds herself wondering what else she could have done, or how things would be different if she had died instead. Most inexplicably of all (to her at least), she finds herself shedding tears in mourning of the man who had tried to kill her in some desperate attempt to loot a few coins.

[Hammersmith]

- How does your character deal with killing?

Depends, a lot, on the who and the why.  If you're a nobody, you're that.  A footnote.  A nothing.  A non-entity.  At best you'll be used as an example in some lesson in the future.  At worst your corpse gets used as a weapon in the immediate aftermath.

 

If Hammer Gives a Shit it's a weight that gets carried.  Usually brought up at a time that'll cause maximum injury for whoever's approaching it from the wrong angle.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

Shock. Awe. Elation. Surprise.  Confusion.  It wasn't surprisingly, the first one that mattered.  The first time opens a door.  It's what happens once that door opened up that shaped who Hammer became.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on?

 

Yes. A lot.  And as such he'll fish into other people's past and set hooks in their own memories of killing to see what threads come up.  Then he'll start pulling.  Just to see what's attached and where it goes.  People aren't a puzzle to Hammer, but they are made up of a LOT of questions they don't seem comfortable with the answers to and he loves seeing how far that hole goes.

[DoomsdayClock]

At first I wondered who to answer this as...but for now I'll just do Lho'a, and maybe later come back to this as one of the others just to see.

 

How does your character deal with killing?

 

Lho'a talks a big game about killing. He knows his overchanged magic usage is a trump card in the chance to take a life, and will boast about how easily he can do so....but he has yet to ever actually kill anyone. In fact in the instances that have come up around him that involved someone dieing, he seemed overly anxious and nervous at the outcome. I've plans to write a scene about it and post it eventually...his inability to even kill a rat scurrying through his room. Despite this he still fancies himself as quite the dark one.

How did your character feel after his first kill?

 

I guess we will see someday, if and when it happens. The first time he saw someone killed was when his Matron slew an attacker who had started a fight in their home. He'd watched the whole encounter and demanded no one step in, but afterwards he was quite thrown off at the sight. He used what healing he could to ease the woman's pain as she passed, knowing he couldn't actually save her...and then he curiously moved his fingers through her blood and licked them clean. He claims he wanted to consume her last memories and feelings, but I doubt he can actually do anything like that...

 

Does your character mull over it later on?

 

These days he spends a lot of time trying to preserve life. While his people fuel battles and draw out conflict, he works to resolve things so that everyone walks away with their heads, to the point of actually saving the life of one who is likely one of his Clan's worst enemies at present. He has no idea were he stands on things, and panic drives him to action. He is doing his best to never have to decide which side of the coin he has to fall on..for now at least.

[Ryanti]

- How does your character deal with killing?

 

Ryanti's system of beliefs and values are certainly in the 'ends-justify-the-means" realm. Because of that, he is often faced with adversaries that are opposed to everything he does. He understands that he lives in a time where it is often the one that survives that not only makes history but writes the books as well.

 

Because people treated him like shit in his youth, Ryanti has lost a lot of empathy for people he doesn't know. So he certainly is not going to deny that killing often is the easy solution to a complicated problem.

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

 

His first kill was sloppy. It was botched, and it left Ryanti covered in the residue of his deed. Physiclly, his body was shivering, and he was crying. His anxiety levels were off the charts and part of him felt like panicking. But at the same time, he felt very cold, detached, and distant. What scared him more than the act of murder was that he felt nothing on the inside. He was 'cold crying' in other words. He didn't know how to handle it. His mind was confused at what was right or wrong but his body knew.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on? (Exe. The nightmares)

 

He has had his fair share of emotional challenges because of the acts he has done. It definately effects how he feels about the people he cares about. He is very concerned about how the people he values would judge him if they see the side of himself that kills for his work in the reality he lives in. How he can basiclly do it without batting an eye. In a way, he is sociopathic towards people he does not know or who oppose him. His body count has gone up since he started taking on classified missions.

 

He is extremely vulnerable to watching the people he cares about suffer or die. This is what gives him sleepless nights and crying in the corner of a bathtub. He is hesitant with alcohol for this very reason, as he hss a fear of that coming out. He is also afraid that all of those emotions would eventually come to the surface and he would have a sort of mental breakdown at some point eventually. But for now it is a quiet emptiness. A shadow that follows him around.

[Viola]

- How does your character deal with killing?

A Primal born of the wishes and prayers of a better life by oppressed and suffering lalafell have culminated into a rather merciless monster in the form of a Lalafell. Memenu Menu is not emotionless, but the ones she has killed she has no remorse.

 

 

- How did your character feel after his/her first kill?

As indifferent as her most recent; Death is an inevitable part of the cycle of life. A Primal's concept of death is much different to that of a mortal's; if she dies, she's returned to the aether, only to come back even more pissed off than before.

 

- Does your character mull over it later on?

No, as of question two's reasoning.