fandomhigh | Ethics [January 5, 2012, 1st period]

"Good morning," Anakin said, sweeping into the classroom. "I'm Anakin Skywalker and this is Ethics. If you're in the wrong place, now's the time to get up and flee."

If you were in the right place, it wasn't bad advice either, depending on Anakin's mood. He paced in front of their desks as he spoke, Jedi robe swirling behind him. "Most classes this week focus on introductions, but there are a few familiar faces in the classroom already and I'll figure out the rest of you as we go along. Fandom, as you might have realized already, is a multi-dimensional nexus where beings from many different places and times come together." He made sure to look each student in the eyes as he spoke. "As such, what you may feel to be moral and immoral might be completely different than the person sitting next to you. I encourage discussion, even heated discussion, but it must be phrased in a constructive way. Responses like 'yes, but that's dumb,' 'yes, but you're dumb', or punching someone are not constructive."

He'd had all of those reactions before, of course, but this wasn't about the ethics of the Ethics teacher.

"We touch on unpleasant subjects in this class, some of which might not be all that hypothetical to your life's experience," he added. "If you prefer not to discuss a particular scenario, just let me know by shaking your head and I'll skip you until the next week."

Anakin clasped his hands together. "Now, let's begin: if you had to choose between killing one person in order to save five others, or doing nothing even though you know that doing nothing means that those five people would die before your eyes, what would you do? And what do you think would be the right thing to do?"

He glanced down at his notes. "Oh, yes. Finally, could Mr. Hawkins and Miss Gabrielle please see me after class."

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"Well, I don't rightly know if the second was my fault," Dorothy said. "But I once threw water on a wicked witch, which caused her to melt." She could have explained the part where the witch was on fire, but it seemed to distract from her point. "By all accounts she was truly wicked, even the guards in her castle were happy that it happened."

"The second was when the Nome King was poisoned by my chicken Billina," Dorothy said. "One little egg and this giant man of stone just crumbled, taking an entire mountain with him. And he'd transformed almost all of Oz into ornaments for his collection, so I suppose that was saving far more than five people."

She really didn't sound at all like she was proud of these things. There was a lot of regret in her voice.

"You knew that water would cause the first person to die?" Anakin checked.

Dorothy shook her head. "Oh, no," she said. "The hem of her dress had caught fire and... I'd just been trying to help. So maybe that isn't the best example."

"Those both seem like accidents," Anakin said, nodding. "My scenario involves making a deliberate choice. Would you choose to kill someone, or to just stand?"

Dorothy was thinking about this a little more clearly now, and not letting her own issues completely cloud things. She paused for a moment, and really thought about things. "I think it might matter who the five people are and who the one is," she said, even though it felt very uncomfortable to say that.

"How so?" Anakin asked. "What scenario would make you okay with killing another person?"

"Oh, I don't think I'd ever be okay with it," Dorothy said. "But if it meant saving Aunt Em or Uncle Henry or even Ozma or the Scarecrow? I don't think I could say that I wouldn't try everything I could to save them."

"So you'd kill to protect your family," Anakin guessed.

"I don't think I can say I wouldn't," Dorothy said. "But I'd really try to do anything else before that."

This troubled her, but she felt it would be imprudent to lie to a teacher.

Ethics [January 5, 2012, 1st period]

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