Not when Asher’s life is one of the ones Blaine is threatening. Remember, Blain had to blackmail Asher into cooperating by threatening to tell his grandfather something that would make him “more disappointed” with Asher. Considering said grandfather is apparently the head of the criminal organization, something that makes him mores disappointed than choosing to leave the family business of crime could very much have lethal consequences for Asher.
Anon200
While amber dad was an asshole and probably deserved it. Asher didn’t do it out of the good for them. her father could have been used by the fbi/police to take down the mafia he was working for or atleast used as a witness for a plea deal.
Who totally deserved it and really brought it upon himself?
RassilonTDavros
Blaine deserved it, yes. But Asher’s motives were far from pure. Blaine knew of Asher’s involvement in the plot, and Asher wanted him shut the hell up for good.
Zach
Benefiting from killing someone isn’t inherently evil.
He was blackmailed into his participation, what moral argument can be made that he shouldn’t protect himself?
C.T Phipps
Asher’s greatest flaw is that he believed Blaine when he said no one would get hurt.
Agemegos
I would say it is that when he did not believe Blaine’s absurd assurance he turned to the Mob and not to the police to stop Blaine.
But the way the police work in this world perhaps it was even the better course of action.
JBento
I mean, the police are on the take for the Mob, so it’s basically the same thing.
FacelessDeviant
I’d say Ashers greatest flaw is how easily he sanctioned the death of another person.
Alanari
Killing someone however, is inherently evil.
Chris Phoenix
So… I take it you haven’t yet had to make decisions for a loved one in a horrific medical situation, then.
Yes it’s a different topic, but your statement was so broad and so absolute that it included this situation… and it shouldn’t have.
Alanari
Deciding to do palliative care instead of curative care is not killing, even though both result in death. It’s accepting that whatever is actually killing the person has won.
Eldritchy
My take on it is “Someone who can kill or order someone to be killed in cold blood is someone that is, if not evil then definitely dangerous and should not be trusted.”. Because this is not about Blaine being a shit-under-someone’s-boot kind of human. It’s about Asher handing out death sentences while fully knowing what he is doing. That kind ruthlessness can quickly turn against you if you get involved with it.
Demoted Oblivious
Chris’ point stands. Blatant all encompasing statements like, “killing is inherently evil,” really betray a lack of understanding of all the nuance in our messed up world.
Also, comparing choosing palliative care to the ‘evil of killing someone’ shows a rather disgusting lack of empathy for those in that situation. There are harder decisions than opting for palliative care, and Chris’ point was not restricted to just that scenario. But if word games are all it takes to make something ‘not killing’, I’ll remember this if I ever need to throw a rope to a kid trapped in a well. “Sorry kid, I’m gonna go for a pint instead. I’m just accepting that the water you’ll drown in has won.”
Yes this example is absurd, as is the independant claim that killing is always evil.
Thrabalen
“I mean, I *could* apply the brakes, but let’s face it, inertia and this Ford Explorer have clearly won.”
Minim
What about in self-defence, or in defence of another? Is that evil? Or what if you killed someone in a genuine accident?
JBento
No, it isn’t, nor do I have any idea why you’d think that. Are you saying that, e.g., killing someone who’s about to detonate a bomb that’ll kill dozen is evil?
JBento
Ooooh, do I get to kill Hitler as he goes full fascist after the Reichstag? Are you of the stance that the Allieed troops were evil, because they killed Nazis?
The military in Myanmar, after coup’ing their way to power, are killing protesters in the streets who want the election results respected. Is killing the military to restore democracy and save the lives of legitimate protesters also evil?*
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!
*As a side note, the Myanmar situation is why you get rid of fascists hard and fast, and not do what Aung Suu Kyi did, which was let them have a bit fo fascims, as a treat. It’s never just Poland, as if “just Poland” wasn’t bad enough.
Eldritchy
On the topic of appeasment, you people should keep a close eye on Biden and his “Oh the Chinese are only mass-murdering people because of Cultural differences”. He sounds a bit too much like Chamberlain to my liking.
JBento
Holy shit, seriously? *goes to Google* Hoooollllyyyy fucking shit, I always knew Biden was trash, but I really thought “we’re not going to do anything about Kashoggi’s murder because the US doesn’t sanction foreign leaders, no sirree, it has nothing to do with oil on the cheap, nope, nothing whatsoever” was as low as he’d go for at least a couple of months.
Prime pick, there, Democrats.
Sidenote: Not “you people”, I’ve dodged the bullet of being American. Hard pass on that one.
Eldritchy
Oh good for you!
thejeff
So what’s your government doing to stop the military in Myanmar or the Chinese from mass-murdering people or to respond to Kashoggi’s murder? Or are all these things America’s responsibility somehow?
JBento
Last time I checked, Kashoggi was an American citizen killed on American soil, so, uh, it definitely is. On the China front, at least we’re not making excuses for it.
thejeff
Kashoggi was not an American citizen. He may have been a permanent resident or have been working on a special visa. It’s not clear.
He certainly wasn’t killed on American soil. He was killed in the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul.
JBento
You’re right, sorry. That’s weird, I don’t know where I got that idea – the usual culprit is that I’m confusing people, but I DEARLY hope there isn’t another journalist that got axemurdered and dismembered recently.
Spencer
How many men have I killed?
Not men.
I kill fascists.
– Gritty, beloved mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers
Jungle Dwayne
“…And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” [asked Granny Weatherwax.]
“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example.” [answered Mightily Oats.]
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”
–from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.
Spencer
I like this quote for my day to day life but fascists ain’t people.
You see a dragon sleeping atop a mountain of gold and the only moral course of action is to cut its head off.
JBento
Woah, woah, woah. What if the dragon’s scales are shiny?
Orange Lantern
By that logic all soldiers in a war are inherently evil, while the people sending them to do the killing are not. And where would you draw the line? Is killing all life evil? Then we’d all be in heaps of trouble, morally.
A little too simple when put that broadly, isn’t it?
Killing is inherently bad I would subscribe to. But evil requires intent.
Tony
It sounds like you’re saying it’s ok for Asher to let him die because this helps Asher avoid responsibility for other things he did?
There are a lot of arguments why it was fine for Blaine to die, but uhhh I’m gonna say that one doesn’t fly.
Orange Lantern
I wouldn’t try to shift blame in this case. Blaine‘s death was more a result of his own misdeeds than anything else. Who happened to be the messenger in this case wouldn’t really matter much to my morals. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Live by the sword, die by the sword and all that.
Eyebrow
I’d go further. There are those who say the only safe and reasonable response to effective blackmail is murder.
This might or might not be moral, but it is obviously a known risk to any intelligent blackmailer.
Miles
He wasn’t so much protecting himself as taking care of a loose end fir the family business.
BBCC
He wanted to make sure Blaine couldn’t tell about him stealing that money, more like. And y’know what? Fine by me, that kid will end up either trapped for good at best or dead in a ditch at worst if his grandpa finds out he took that money. Mobsters don’t tend to like that much.
thejeff
Yeah, but …
It’s okay because it’s Blaine. Not just because of the blackmail.
If someone else had found out and was blackmailing him for some less horrible purpose than kidnapping and murder, I don’t think Asher would have been justified in having him killed – even though the consequences to him would have been the same if his grandpa found out. But would Asher still have done the same thing?
JBento
Or also, would someone less horrible than Blaine had blackmailed Asher for the same purpose with the same thing? You’re right tthat we can’t run variables on Asher or the situation (unless Willis decides to recycle the situation, but that’s just meh, unless we want DoA to become Asher: A Character Study).
OTOH, Mary has ALSO engaged in blackmail and I don’t think people would go “meh” if Ruth or Jennifer had had her killed.
BBCC
Well, sure, but that changes the circumstances a decent deal. You have to weigh the blackmail vs how serious what happened was and vs who’s doing it and why. However, in this case? Fine by me.
misanthropope
man. a guy can deserve a punch in the mouth and AT THE SAME TIME you don’t have the right to punch him in the mouth.
BBCC
IRL, I’d agree with you. In fiction? Nah, Asher’d deserve cookies and beer for getting him killed.
cmasta1992
Hard disagree. If someone had checked Blaine properly earlier we might not have had to escalate to getting whacked. Nip that shit in the bud.
misanthropope
oh ok now go identify the baby who is going to grow up to be hitler and strangle it.
It’s not really about being involved in the hit on Blaine even though the mob ties don’t help. Asher’s just a shifty dude. He sold Sal out, he created the opportunity for the kidnapping. I know there are a bunch of excuses for him like “He was only 13” or “His grandad would’ve probably killed him maybe!” but he’ll always choose himself first. He created that vague blackmail scenario by stealing money from his grandpop in the first place. Dude’s sus.
Sal doesn’t seem to completely trust him and she’s a pretty good read on character. Neither do I.
C.T Phipps
I don’t think Asher ratting Sal out should be any more held against him than the fact Sal threatened Ethan with a knife.
It’s everything as an adult that’s the problem.
Sirksome
Sal doesn’t get slack for that. Neither does Amber for stabbing her in the hand. It’s not something they should be punished for since they were kids but it still factors into their personalities. Amber still has deep trauma and rage issues, Sal still makes stupid and shortsighted decisions, and Asher will probably still think of himself first in any pressure situation.
segnosaur
Both events (Asher ratting out Sal/Sal threatening Ethan with a knife) were both negative acts. I do think there are 2 differences….
– The motivations. Sal was doing bad things, but she was doing them to help an injured friend. Asher acted just for shits and giggles.
– Sal genuinely seems eager to make amends with Ethan. Asher doesn’t really seem to care.
BarerMender
Well, he did apologize. And took a punch in the phiz because he deserved it.
cbwroses
He took a Walky punch.
In the other universe, he’d be lucky to survive.
In this one, I’m betting that’s like .33 a Sal punch.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he calculated the outcome and decided he would look good for not retaliating, vs actually feeling he deserved the hit.
That’s just the feeling I have of his character, that even his seeming sincerity is carefully weighed and measured.
Maybe that feeling will change as we see more of him.
Needfuldoer
This. Sal went out of her way to atone for her past. Asher just ignores his and moved on.
JBento
Sal didn’t go “out of her way” any more than Asher did. They did exactly the same thing, which was when presented with the person they harmed, they confessed and apologised.
Do we know for sure that it was Asher that gave the order to kill Blaine?
I just assumed it was someone (anyone) relatively high up in the mob who gave the order, for the simple fact that their stooge was drawing unwanted attention to himself.
BarerMender
It wasn’t in the bag that Asher did it. He did receive notification when it was done, from Lester or grandpa, it wasn’t clear.
Regalli
Asher assuredly told SOMEONE that he’d been roped into Blaine’s Ridiculously Bad Plan, since they contacted him after the hit. (He also had to know it was coming, since otherwise ‘It’s done’ from some random number/one of Gramps’ cops would have gotten way more of a reaction than we saw.) I feel reasonably confident he knew the Blaine situation being dealt with would end lethally, if only by the time he woke up the next morning to hear the money launderer had gotten arrested for kidnapping a bunch of people including trying to kidnap the campaign manager of a sitting Congresswoman, who set up a dead man’s switch on Twitter outing Blaine at morning primetime, and also he murdered a guy. But depending on who Asher went to, ‘hey the stooge threatened me into helping with his evil plan, I have no idea what it is but I’m pretty sure it’s dumb and way too attention-getting’ was… probably enough to seal Blaine’s fate, even before the degrees of dumbness were known. If he didn’t know it was a possibility… honestly I don’t buy Asher totally believed Blaine in his ‘no one will get hurt’, but he didn’t see a better option and hey, everyone turned out fine right? So it doesn’t REALLY matter. (The kid who died got thrown off a fire escape BEFORE Asher actually did anything, he doesn’t count.)
BBCC
Yeah, at best, Asher woke up, saw the news, went ‘well, he’s dead’ and texted Lester or someone else asking to be notified when it was done. At worst, well. It wouldn’t be the first time Asher reported someone doing something he was involved in.
Agemegos
To me it seems very unlikely that he had the power to give any such order, nor the money to procure a hit.
What seems far more likely is that he got in touch with someone approachable in his Gramps’ organisation and said “That stooge Blaine O’Malley showed up out of nowhere and tried to muscle me into helping him kidnap his daughter and half a dozen other college kids. Is that really part of Our Business? It seems kind of dumb, dangerous and pointless. Do you really want me to help him?” And that he did so knowing and counting on that that would get Blaine killed.
Regalli
Yeah, my question is if he reached out to Gramps or to an underling like Lester directly. He couldn’t call the hit himself, but no way he didn’t know the outcome of passing that info on, either way.
(He probably wouldn’t want it to be Gramps, BUT Blaine was a useful enough stooge to have met the boss’s grandkid and it’s hard to say how many details Asher KNEW. Kidnapping a random kid? Not inconceivable it flies under the radar. Kidnapping SEVERAL random kids? Harder to see it slipping by. Trying to get ahold of a Congresswoman’s campaign manager, who was the high-profile victim of a hate crime a month ago? Okay that’s making news. Did so with the perpetrator, some RANDOM GUY Blaine recruited for just this purpose, and he was dumb enough to use his real identity paying bail? He’s 100% dead. But if he only knew the Amber/luring out AG stuff for sure you can see it maybe being dealt with nonlethally, depending on just how useful he was, unless Gramps knew he’d tried to muscle Asher into this unnecessary bullshit. And Asher DEFINITELY needed Blaine gone permanently.)
Agemegos
My understanding is that in organisations that depend on a strict discipline, if they are to be successful, there is usually somebody of whom it is known that you can approach them when you have cocked up, to get things fixed, and through whom you can leak information about your direct superior to the top of the organisation. You usually still take some lumps, but if you tell the fixer-upper about it in time to stop the cock-up from turning into a catastrophe there is a consideration in return. There is usually somebody who has direct access to the chief, usually with less direct authority and fewer duties than you would expect considering their rank, whom anybody can approach, with whom it is possible to broach topics without context, and who can get information directly to Gramps without a formal approach.
If Gramps’ mob is like that, Asher probably has an uncle whom he can call, or Gramps has an old adviser whom Asher can call, who is more approachable than Gramps and who is used to being told things that might have to be passed to Gramps.
247 thoughts on “Return”
Ana Chronistic
not sure if want
can’t possibly work this well
Tan
Definitely do not want. All my nope. To all of this. Every aspect of all of this.
So. Much. Nope.
Clif
And they all lived happily ever after.
Geneseepaws
And they all suffered happily ever after.
Needfuldoer
I’m sure this plan will go just swimmingly and there’s absolutely no way anything will go horribly wrong at all.
Sirksome
Oh he’s here! I can finally say it!….
…I don’t trust Asher. That is all.
RassilonTDavros
I mean, plenty of us have been saying that already.
Bruceski
What gave it away, the part where he gave the order to kill Amber’s dad?
BBCC
For which he deserves cookies and beer, and I am not accepting alternative suggestions at this time.
FacelessDeviant
Shouldn’t that have been Ambers call?
If Asher wants to kill dads so badly, he can kill his own.
JBento
It stopped being Amber’s call when Blaine kidnapped the entire wing.
FacelessDeviant
True. Although its not like Asher killed him in order to save anyone. He did it after the fact, to cover his organisations tracks.
In fact, he killed Blaine because Blaine got caught, not because he kidnapped anyone.
jflb96
Just because the rabid dog is yours doesn’t mean no one else can put it down.
cmasta1992
+1
JBento
I love this and I’m stealing it. The turn of phrase, that is, not the rabid dog. You can keep THAT.
FacelessDeviant
Blaine wasn’t killed because he was a mad dog though. He was killed because he posed a potential risk to an organized crime group.
So Blaine wasn’t killed to pay for his crimes, he was killed in order to cover up others crimes.
ValdVin
Is Itchy Glasses on My Nose Joyce a custom? If so, well done.
Ana Chronistic
the “stock” gravs all seem to have no background
FacelessDeviant
Yeah. I just had to have it!
EnerPrime
Not when Asher’s life is one of the ones Blaine is threatening. Remember, Blain had to blackmail Asher into cooperating by threatening to tell his grandfather something that would make him “more disappointed” with Asher. Considering said grandfather is apparently the head of the criminal organization, something that makes him mores disappointed than choosing to leave the family business of crime could very much have lethal consequences for Asher.
Anon200
While amber dad was an asshole and probably deserved it. Asher didn’t do it out of the good for them. her father could have been used by the fbi/police to take down the mafia he was working for or atleast used as a witness for a plea deal.
cmasta1992
Who totally deserved it and really brought it upon himself?
RassilonTDavros
Blaine deserved it, yes. But Asher’s motives were far from pure. Blaine knew of Asher’s involvement in the plot, and Asher wanted him shut the hell up for good.
Zach
Benefiting from killing someone isn’t inherently evil.
He was blackmailed into his participation, what moral argument can be made that he shouldn’t protect himself?
C.T Phipps
Asher’s greatest flaw is that he believed Blaine when he said no one would get hurt.
Agemegos
I would say it is that when he did not believe Blaine’s absurd assurance he turned to the Mob and not to the police to stop Blaine.
But the way the police work in this world perhaps it was even the better course of action.
JBento
I mean, the police are on the take for the Mob, so it’s basically the same thing.
FacelessDeviant
I’d say Ashers greatest flaw is how easily he sanctioned the death of another person.
Alanari
Killing someone however, is inherently evil.
Chris Phoenix
So… I take it you haven’t yet had to make decisions for a loved one in a horrific medical situation, then.
Yes it’s a different topic, but your statement was so broad and so absolute that it included this situation… and it shouldn’t have.
Alanari
Deciding to do palliative care instead of curative care is not killing, even though both result in death. It’s accepting that whatever is actually killing the person has won.
Eldritchy
My take on it is “Someone who can kill or order someone to be killed in cold blood is someone that is, if not evil then definitely dangerous and should not be trusted.”. Because this is not about Blaine being a shit-under-someone’s-boot kind of human. It’s about Asher handing out death sentences while fully knowing what he is doing. That kind ruthlessness can quickly turn against you if you get involved with it.
Demoted Oblivious
Chris’ point stands. Blatant all encompasing statements like, “killing is inherently evil,” really betray a lack of understanding of all the nuance in our messed up world.
Also, comparing choosing palliative care to the ‘evil of killing someone’ shows a rather disgusting lack of empathy for those in that situation. There are harder decisions than opting for palliative care, and Chris’ point was not restricted to just that scenario. But if word games are all it takes to make something ‘not killing’, I’ll remember this if I ever need to throw a rope to a kid trapped in a well. “Sorry kid, I’m gonna go for a pint instead. I’m just accepting that the water you’ll drown in has won.”
Yes this example is absurd, as is the independant claim that killing is always evil.
Thrabalen
“I mean, I *could* apply the brakes, but let’s face it, inertia and this Ford Explorer have clearly won.”
Minim
What about in self-defence, or in defence of another? Is that evil? Or what if you killed someone in a genuine accident?
JBento
No, it isn’t, nor do I have any idea why you’d think that. Are you saying that, e.g., killing someone who’s about to detonate a bomb that’ll kill dozen is evil?
JBento
Ooooh, do I get to kill Hitler as he goes full fascist after the Reichstag? Are you of the stance that the Allieed troops were evil, because they killed Nazis?
The military in Myanmar, after coup’ing their way to power, are killing protesters in the streets who want the election results respected. Is killing the military to restore democracy and save the lives of legitimate protesters also evil?*
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!
*As a side note, the Myanmar situation is why you get rid of fascists hard and fast, and not do what Aung Suu Kyi did, which was let them have a bit fo fascims, as a treat. It’s never just Poland, as if “just Poland” wasn’t bad enough.
Eldritchy
On the topic of appeasment, you people should keep a close eye on Biden and his “Oh the Chinese are only mass-murdering people because of Cultural differences”. He sounds a bit too much like Chamberlain to my liking.
JBento
Holy shit, seriously? *goes to Google* Hoooollllyyyy fucking shit, I always knew Biden was trash, but I really thought “we’re not going to do anything about Kashoggi’s murder because the US doesn’t sanction foreign leaders, no sirree, it has nothing to do with oil on the cheap, nope, nothing whatsoever” was as low as he’d go for at least a couple of months.
Prime pick, there, Democrats.
Sidenote: Not “you people”, I’ve dodged the bullet of being American. Hard pass on that one.
Eldritchy
Oh good for you!
thejeff
So what’s your government doing to stop the military in Myanmar or the Chinese from mass-murdering people or to respond to Kashoggi’s murder? Or are all these things America’s responsibility somehow?
JBento
Last time I checked, Kashoggi was an American citizen killed on American soil, so, uh, it definitely is. On the China front, at least we’re not making excuses for it.
thejeff
Kashoggi was not an American citizen. He may have been a permanent resident or have been working on a special visa. It’s not clear.
He certainly wasn’t killed on American soil. He was killed in the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul.
JBento
You’re right, sorry. That’s weird, I don’t know where I got that idea – the usual culprit is that I’m confusing people, but I DEARLY hope there isn’t another journalist that got axemurdered and dismembered recently.
Spencer
How many men have I killed?
Not men.
I kill fascists.
– Gritty, beloved mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers
Jungle Dwayne
“…And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” [asked Granny Weatherwax.]
“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example.” [answered Mightily Oats.]
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”
–from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.
Spencer
I like this quote for my day to day life but fascists ain’t people.
You see a dragon sleeping atop a mountain of gold and the only moral course of action is to cut its head off.
JBento
Woah, woah, woah. What if the dragon’s scales are shiny?
Orange Lantern
By that logic all soldiers in a war are inherently evil, while the people sending them to do the killing are not. And where would you draw the line? Is killing all life evil? Then we’d all be in heaps of trouble, morally.
A little too simple when put that broadly, isn’t it?
Killing is inherently bad I would subscribe to. But evil requires intent.
Tony
It sounds like you’re saying it’s ok for Asher to let him die because this helps Asher avoid responsibility for other things he did?
There are a lot of arguments why it was fine for Blaine to die, but uhhh I’m gonna say that one doesn’t fly.
Orange Lantern
I wouldn’t try to shift blame in this case. Blaine‘s death was more a result of his own misdeeds than anything else. Who happened to be the messenger in this case wouldn’t really matter much to my morals. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Live by the sword, die by the sword and all that.
Eyebrow
I’d go further. There are those who say the only safe and reasonable response to effective blackmail is murder.
This might or might not be moral, but it is obviously a known risk to any intelligent blackmailer.
Miles
He wasn’t so much protecting himself as taking care of a loose end fir the family business.
BBCC
He wanted to make sure Blaine couldn’t tell about him stealing that money, more like. And y’know what? Fine by me, that kid will end up either trapped for good at best or dead in a ditch at worst if his grandpa finds out he took that money. Mobsters don’t tend to like that much.
thejeff
Yeah, but …
It’s okay because it’s Blaine. Not just because of the blackmail.
If someone else had found out and was blackmailing him for some less horrible purpose than kidnapping and murder, I don’t think Asher would have been justified in having him killed – even though the consequences to him would have been the same if his grandpa found out. But would Asher still have done the same thing?
JBento
Or also, would someone less horrible than Blaine had blackmailed Asher for the same purpose with the same thing? You’re right tthat we can’t run variables on Asher or the situation (unless Willis decides to recycle the situation, but that’s just meh, unless we want DoA to become Asher: A Character Study).
OTOH, Mary has ALSO engaged in blackmail and I don’t think people would go “meh” if Ruth or Jennifer had had her killed.
BBCC
Well, sure, but that changes the circumstances a decent deal. You have to weigh the blackmail vs how serious what happened was and vs who’s doing it and why. However, in this case? Fine by me.
misanthropope
man. a guy can deserve a punch in the mouth and AT THE SAME TIME you don’t have the right to punch him in the mouth.
BBCC
IRL, I’d agree with you. In fiction? Nah, Asher’d deserve cookies and beer for getting him killed.
cmasta1992
Hard disagree. If someone had checked Blaine properly earlier we might not have had to escalate to getting whacked. Nip that shit in the bud.
misanthropope
oh ok now go identify the baby who is going to grow up to be hitler and strangle it.
Sirksome
It’s not really about being involved in the hit on Blaine even though the mob ties don’t help. Asher’s just a shifty dude. He sold Sal out, he created the opportunity for the kidnapping. I know there are a bunch of excuses for him like “He was only 13” or “His grandad would’ve probably killed him maybe!” but he’ll always choose himself first. He created that vague blackmail scenario by stealing money from his grandpop in the first place. Dude’s sus.
Sal doesn’t seem to completely trust him and she’s a pretty good read on character. Neither do I.
C.T Phipps
I don’t think Asher ratting Sal out should be any more held against him than the fact Sal threatened Ethan with a knife.
It’s everything as an adult that’s the problem.
Sirksome
Sal doesn’t get slack for that. Neither does Amber for stabbing her in the hand. It’s not something they should be punished for since they were kids but it still factors into their personalities. Amber still has deep trauma and rage issues, Sal still makes stupid and shortsighted decisions, and Asher will probably still think of himself first in any pressure situation.
segnosaur
Both events (Asher ratting out Sal/Sal threatening Ethan with a knife) were both negative acts. I do think there are 2 differences….
– The motivations. Sal was doing bad things, but she was doing them to help an injured friend. Asher acted just for shits and giggles.
– Sal genuinely seems eager to make amends with Ethan. Asher doesn’t really seem to care.
BarerMender
Well, he did apologize. And took a punch in the phiz because he deserved it.
cbwroses
He took a Walky punch.
In the other universe, he’d be lucky to survive.
In this one, I’m betting that’s like .33 a Sal punch.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he calculated the outcome and decided he would look good for not retaliating, vs actually feeling he deserved the hit.
That’s just the feeling I have of his character, that even his seeming sincerity is carefully weighed and measured.
Maybe that feeling will change as we see more of him.
Needfuldoer
This. Sal went out of her way to atone for her past. Asher just ignores his and moved on.
JBento
Sal didn’t go “out of her way” any more than Asher did. They did exactly the same thing, which was when presented with the person they harmed, they confessed and apologised.
Agemegos
More likely a tip-off than an order.
segnosaur
Do we know for sure that it was Asher that gave the order to kill Blaine?
I just assumed it was someone (anyone) relatively high up in the mob who gave the order, for the simple fact that their stooge was drawing unwanted attention to himself.
BarerMender
It wasn’t in the bag that Asher did it. He did receive notification when it was done, from Lester or grandpa, it wasn’t clear.
Regalli
Asher assuredly told SOMEONE that he’d been roped into Blaine’s Ridiculously Bad Plan, since they contacted him after the hit. (He also had to know it was coming, since otherwise ‘It’s done’ from some random number/one of Gramps’ cops would have gotten way more of a reaction than we saw.) I feel reasonably confident he knew the Blaine situation being dealt with would end lethally, if only by the time he woke up the next morning to hear the money launderer had gotten arrested for kidnapping a bunch of people including trying to kidnap the campaign manager of a sitting Congresswoman, who set up a dead man’s switch on Twitter outing Blaine at morning primetime, and also he murdered a guy. But depending on who Asher went to, ‘hey the stooge threatened me into helping with his evil plan, I have no idea what it is but I’m pretty sure it’s dumb and way too attention-getting’ was… probably enough to seal Blaine’s fate, even before the degrees of dumbness were known. If he didn’t know it was a possibility… honestly I don’t buy Asher totally believed Blaine in his ‘no one will get hurt’, but he didn’t see a better option and hey, everyone turned out fine right? So it doesn’t REALLY matter. (The kid who died got thrown off a fire escape BEFORE Asher actually did anything, he doesn’t count.)
BBCC
Yeah, at best, Asher woke up, saw the news, went ‘well, he’s dead’ and texted Lester or someone else asking to be notified when it was done. At worst, well. It wouldn’t be the first time Asher reported someone doing something he was involved in.
Agemegos
To me it seems very unlikely that he had the power to give any such order, nor the money to procure a hit.
What seems far more likely is that he got in touch with someone approachable in his Gramps’ organisation and said “That stooge Blaine O’Malley showed up out of nowhere and tried to muscle me into helping him kidnap his daughter and half a dozen other college kids. Is that really part of Our Business? It seems kind of dumb, dangerous and pointless. Do you really want me to help him?” And that he did so knowing and counting on that that would get Blaine killed.
Regalli
Yeah, my question is if he reached out to Gramps or to an underling like Lester directly. He couldn’t call the hit himself, but no way he didn’t know the outcome of passing that info on, either way.
(He probably wouldn’t want it to be Gramps, BUT Blaine was a useful enough stooge to have met the boss’s grandkid and it’s hard to say how many details Asher KNEW. Kidnapping a random kid? Not inconceivable it flies under the radar. Kidnapping SEVERAL random kids? Harder to see it slipping by. Trying to get ahold of a Congresswoman’s campaign manager, who was the high-profile victim of a hate crime a month ago? Okay that’s making news. Did so with the perpetrator, some RANDOM GUY Blaine recruited for just this purpose, and he was dumb enough to use his real identity paying bail? He’s 100% dead. But if he only knew the Amber/luring out AG stuff for sure you can see it maybe being dealt with nonlethally, depending on just how useful he was, unless Gramps knew he’d tried to muscle Asher into this unnecessary bullshit. And Asher DEFINITELY needed Blaine gone permanently.)
Agemegos
My understanding is that in organisations that depend on a strict discipline, if they are to be successful, there is usually somebody of whom it is known that you can approach them when you have cocked up, to get things fixed, and through whom you can leak information about your direct superior to the top of the organisation. You usually still take some lumps, but if you tell the fixer-upper about it in time to stop the cock-up from turning into a catastrophe there is a consideration in return. There is usually somebody who has direct access to the chief, usually with less direct authority and fewer duties than you would expect considering their rank, whom anybody can approach, with whom it is possible to broach topics without context, and who can get information directly to Gramps without a formal approach.
If Gramps’ mob is like that, Asher probably has an uncle whom he can call, or Gramps has an old adviser whom Asher can call, who is more approachable than Gramps and who is used to being told things that might have to be passed to Gramps.