Episode 084 Previous Episode	Next Episode
“Saying yes to anyone in authority, anyone with a badge, just like your parents taught you. My parents taught me something else, lying cold on the pavement. They taught me that the world only makes sense when you force it to.” Batman, The Dark Knight Returns “Who is responsible for a person’s actions?” Marilyn asked semi-rhetorically, once again sitting at the dinette set with Ledger and Everett. “The person who performs the action, the inspiration for performing the action, or those who create the necessity for the action?” Everett sat back, taken back by the magnitude of the question. “Am I, the Crimson Rose, truly responsible for what others do, or are they? Moreover, what role does their world play, our world, in necessitating that I, and they, that anyone, take these actions?” “It’s a composite,” Everett argued. “A person is responsible for their actions, but also those who encouraged them, and also those who necessitated it.” “If three different parties are at fault, no one can be held accountable,” Marilyn insisted. Everett drew back, considering her stance. “If the action, the result, is what we judge, then the person is accountable for their actions. No one else. If the motivation is what we judge, then those who create the situation are the ones who are to be held accountable. But no way you look at it,” she said, looking straight at Everett, “am I the one who is ultimately at fault for anyone’s actions except my own.” “But you’re creating the situation,” Everett argued. “You’re creating the situation of vigilantism.” “No, the situation is the abysmal legal and social environment in this country, in this world,” she disputed. “Everett, I’m not a criminal.” “According to the police you are,” he said simply. “The police are part of the problem,” she countered. “Marilyn,” he tried with a different tone. “It is a dangerous line of thinking to go down, to start looking at how things will be looked at rather than how they are looked at. That sort of logic can justify the most heinous of acts.” “Is what I’m doing…” she started. “This isn’t just about you,” he said. “And society can’t make exceptions. Once you make an exception, you have to decide who gets to make the exceptions. You? Me? Ledger?” “Wizard?” Ledger tossed out. Marilyn and Everett both glared at him. “Society functions on due process,” Everett said, getting back on topic. “If due process is flawed, then it needs to be changed. But, like I said, you don’t change something by ignoring it. You change it by working with it, working on it, working through it.” “But if a system is resistant to change,” she said, “working with it will never succeed.” She smiled and leaned forward. “Everett, Morgan once told me that the law exists to protect the status quo. If you want to change the status quo, you have to be prepared step outside the law.” “Marilyn,” Everett laughed. “Morgan is the last person in the world you ever want to be taking advice from. About anything.” “But he’s right,” she insisted. “The world needs to be changed. And the people who have ever changed the world are the people who broken with social conventions. George Washington, Gandhi, Jesus.” “Are you really comparing yourself to them?” Ledger asked. Marilyn paused and breathed out. “I’m following in their footsteps.” He finally nodded his head, accepting her answer. She turned to Everett. “The Crimson Rose is the best thing that’s ever happened to this city, save maybe you guys. People are aware of their civic life. People are aware, for what may be the first time, that there are people in this city willing to make it better. And that can, and will, spread. I’m taking action.” “You’re taking the wrong action,” Everett said. “Says you,” she returned assertively. Her charge stopped him. “Everett, I can accept that you don’t agree with me. I can accept that, even though what I’m doing isn’t all that different from you and the knights do, you look down on it. But at the end of the day, it’s not your call. It’s my call. It’s my life and I will do things as I think they need t be done.” She smiled. “If you don’t agree with it, I’m sorry.” She looked away. “Actually,” she said, “no I’m not. If you don’t like it, then to hell with you.” She stood from the table and walked to the kitchen area, opening the fridge. Everett looked at Ledger. “The little kitten’s finally got some claws,” Ledger said with a modicum of pride. Everett shook his head, looking away. Ledger watched his friend stew on the ideological fight he was in and looked to Marilyn as she took out three bottles of water. She returned to the table, sliding two to the knights. Ledger took his and started to open it when he noticed it was already open. He glanced between the three bottles, realizing they were reused. “Why?” he asked. Marilyn nearly coughed as she drank. “I’m sorry, what?” “Why do you do this?” Ledger clarified with a shrug. “I mean, why do you, do all of this? The World Alliance, the Crimson Rose, all of it.” She smiled thoughtfully. “Why’d you swear to the Oath of Chivalry?” “Every knight will give you a different reason,” Everett spoke up. “What’s your reason?” she asked, leaning forward, her crossed arms on the table as if supporting her. Everett stared at the tabletop for a moment, then opened his bottled water. He took a healthy swig and smiled. “It spoke to me,” he said. Marilyn looked amused. She glanced at Ledger. “I’ve heard this story,” he assured her. “I came back from the weekend stay at Fort Brag,” Everett said, situating himself more comfortably in his seat, crossing his right leg over his knee. “I just, uh, I just didn’t see myself becoming a Marine. After I’d been such a fan, after I’d looked up to them all through my childhood. Now that I’d seen them, up close, I just couldn’t…” He smiled, staring off as he thought. “And I was in the library one day and I was reading up on the origins of the Marines, and tracking them back through militaries throughout history and stuff. And I came to the knights and, I don’t know. And I read about the knights swearing to Chivalry.” “You know,” he said with a jovial tone, “it’s really hard to actually find the Oath of Chivalry. I mean, hundreds, thousands, of books talk about it, but to find the actual Oath. It’s hard. And when I did, and I read it, I just…” He laughed. “I probably wasn’t even a third of the way done with it when I had decided to swear.” Marilyn smiled, delighted. She turned to Ledger. “What about you? What’s your story?” Ledger looked down as well, a glossy look coming to his eyes. “My little brother was killed when I was nine.” Marilyn’s smile disappeared. She looked worriedly across at Everett, but he simply looked at her, confirming for her the intensity of what was being shared. “He got caught in a drive-by when I lived in Gary, Indiana.” He paused. “He was seven. Died. Boom. Right there on the spot. Head just…like a melon.” He sniffed as he thought. “That’s probably where my paranoia comes from. Because what that taught me was that there wasn’t anywhere that was safe. Safer, maybe, but not safe. Not truly safe. I started carrying knives to school. Started learning how to use a gun. My mom didn’t know about any of it. She was too busy with my sisters, and trying to feed us.” “What about your father?” Marilyn asked. “Don’t know, don’t care.” Ledger looked at Everett. “I’d already sworn to the Oath of Chivalry before I could drive. The, the weight of the paranoia was just too much for me. I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t sleep at night. But I found out about the Oath, about knights, when I was twelve. I read the Oath a lot in middle school. It’s actually how Roland and I became friends. Sort of. But uh, yeah. Something about the Oath was just, calming. It’s like it put things into perspective for me. For a while, I would read the Oath every night before going to bed.” He sniffed again and chugged his water. Marilyn looked down at the table. “I’m not going to pretend that what I do is all that noble. I’m just trying to stop crime, and trying to make people aware of their world.” She looked at Everett and Ledger. “But what I’m doing, actively making the world better, is as much a part of me as the Oath of Chivalry is to the two of you.” “The problem, Marilyn, isn’t what you’re trying to do,” Everett said. “It’s how you’re trying to do it.” “How won’t change, Everett,” she said. “Yes it will, Marilyn,” he said. “It will if we go to the police.”
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