Monaghan's Views On Redemption

Maybe not redemption, exactly, but good and evil, and things of that sort. Looking through Hitman: A Rage In Arkham, as Tommy reaches the wing of Arkham where they keep the serious nutcases, he starts thinking about how it would have been better if these guys were locked away forever. He even comments that they ought to have been strangled at birth, and that he's thinking about just killing all of them.

I'm trying to decide how to decipher that. The idea that it would be best that they never be allowed out of Arkham suggests Tommy feels there's a point at which you've done things so bad, there's no coming back, no atoning. That's in contrast to Batman, who's at least sometimes portrayed as not killing because he believes everyone deserves the chance to turn their life around*. For the real hardcases at least, Tommy's not so sentimental. Yet at the end of Hitman: Who Dares Wins, he talks to his best friend Natt about perhaps leaving Gotham for awhile, maybe doing 'something good' to make up for all the crap they've done. Tommy does believes he can atone (I'd guess that's from, as Natt points about, being raised Catholic), and further, that he needs to do so. So he doesn't think he's crossed that line like the Joker or Two-Face have. Except there are probably several people who wouldn't make much distinction between Tommy and those guys, except perhaps that Tommy generally kills for money. We know Tommy's body count numbers at least 200, which is not easily brushed aside.

Tommy distinguishes himself from those others because he doesn't kill "good people". Except, as both Natt and the Arkannone point out, that's nuts**. He makes that decision based on outer appearances (for example, never killing cops), or off a split-second's worth of information he can perceive. Saying "Yeah, I killed those guys, but they were all bad, so I can make up for it if I need to", is probably not the most solid ground to be standing on.

I suppose the difference is Tommy actually considers he might need to redeem himself, whereas its unlikely the Joker or Zzsaz spare time for such thoughts. Tommy doesn't know (at least not by the end of Who Dares Wins) how to go about making up for past misdeeds, but he's at least giving it some thought.

I'm not sure what to make of his comment that those guys ought to have been strangled at birth. Is that just hindsight talking, or does Tommy believe that some people are just bad, and if you could figure out who they were, it'd be better to kill them at the start, before they have a chance to start hurting others? If it's the latter, there are probably plenty of people who think the same of him. I wonder if his being an orphan has something to do with that. He very easily could have died, been left in an alley rather than on the doorstep of an orphanage. His life could easily have ended before it even started. So perhaps the guilt gnaws at him to the point he thinks that would have been better. Or, if he's still drawing distinctions, he thinks about how bad he had it, and he isn't a complete nutbar like Dent, so there's no excuse for these guys being as evil as they are. Maybe he kills "bad guys" because he knows how easily people can die, and the "bad guys" take other peoples' lives away too easily?

* And his foes do that sometimes. Catwoman, Harley, Harvey, Riddler. Most of them backslide eventually, but for awhile at least, they justify his faith. Or hope. Whichever.

** I have to think being told that by Natt was more jarring. Sure, Lords of Hell would be experienced in the realm of justification and self-deception, since probably all their servants practiced it at some point, but if your best friend won't back you up, that's a wake-up call.