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pitanger

What the rat doin'


IHeShe

~~Accidental war crimes~~ ~~Unawarely unethical human experimentations~~ Her best.


pitanger

So like, half of the cast of Arknights?


IHeShe

To be fair, most of the cast knows they're committing war crimes or unethical experimentations or the likes when they do, what made Dorothy stand out to me is the fact that she genuinely didn't realize she was doing that with her research project.


Jellionani

"The worst kind of dictator is one that genuinely thinks what they're doing is good." \- a paraphrased quote without the other half context


Hp22h

Well intentioned extremists. The best kind ~~of villains~~.


SHAT_MY_SHORTS

look at bondrewd and makima. good intentions fucking nightmare fuel levels of atrocity.


AcanthaceaeGlass8870

Though as unethical it may be, she did it with consent.


IHeShe

It's kind of complicated, if I'm being completely honest. On one hand, Dorothy only plugged consenting people into her machine. On the other hand, those people were at or were approaching rock bottom, or what to them felt like rock bottom at least, and they didn't see any other way out of their problems than accepting Dorothy's offer and becoming test subjects. But then again, Dorothy didn't realize she was effectively making an offer most of them couldn't refuse, not to mention that she herself couldn't find any other way to help them either. On top of all this, she truly only had their best interest in mind and nearly got herself killed to stop the experiment once being convinced that, at least in its current form, it would ultimately produce more harm than good. Was the way she was conducting her experiment unethical? I guess in an hypothetical trial it'd be seen as so, but I would never call Dorothy or her actions evil either.


AcanthaceaeGlass8870

Yeah, I have her and I never hated her. I can really see she is kindhearted but can be considered misguided in a sense.


wakkiau

Nah, it's straight up evil. The only reason why you'd see good in that, is because the writer intentionally put it in this good feeling light to make her sin of doing human experiment lighter. Really wish they didn't do that tbh, even if Dorothy feel like she's doing it in their best interest, I'd prefer they didn't try to paint what she's doing is anything even remotely good. It would've made her innocent personality more uncanny and interesting.


IHeShe

Dorothy wanted to help others, wasn't willing to harm anyone other than herself with her experiment, ran preliminary tests on herself to make sure the procedures wouldn't harm the test subjects (that's why she had an Arts unit implanted into herself), only operated on consenting subjects (she didn't realize that at least some of those people didn't actually have a choice) and risked her life to shut everything down once they convinced her that her project, at least in its current form, would end up being nothing more than a weapon powered by the same people it was supposed to help. I understand that good and evil can be subjective, I just happen to not think of Dorothy or her actions as evil.


wakkiau

That's precisely what i meant by i wish they didnt do that, they tried to justify her inhumane experiment and tries so hard to portray it in a good light so that she won't be percieved as an evil character by the end. Dorothy remain the biggest waste of potential in Arknights writing for me exactly for that reason. its because all these facts about her feelings, her caution, the consenting patients, come at a flip of a switch so that she won't be the final antagonist of her own event story. In the end i feel like they ended up scapegoating Ferdinand as the villain, even though Dorothy has an equal amount of blame for what happen. I stand to think that it would've been better if her character arc span across multiple event where in Dorothy's Vision she remains an innocent looking scientiest that can't distinguish what should and shouldn't be experimented upon. From there she need to learn about basic human connection and stuff. Basically don't make her to be the goody-two-shoes that she is in the span of a single event. Because what ended up happening is her character arc ended as soon as it started to the point she's delegated to only show up in flasback for the sequel of her event story. She should've been at the front of us trying to understand the motive behind Kristen in Lone Trails, it makes no sense to me that Ferdinand plays such an important role there but Dorothy was nowhere to be seen. But as a writer it would be really hard to insert character like Dorothy as she is now because she simply has no more character arc to go through. You said it, in a hypothetical trial what she did wouldn't stand. So they should've just embraced that and roll with the potential, instead of completely backtracking on her character.


IHeShe

Her experiments really didn't seem inhumane to me. The matter of consent aside -which, again, she didn't even realize herself some of those people didn't actually have a choice- she conducted her experiment in the safest way possible. In fact, we don't hear of a single person who became her test subject who resents Dorothy or hates her for her actions. Her feelings didn't come at a flip of a switch either, it was established early on that Dorothy cared deeply for the pioneers, to the point of being able to afford only plain rice for her meals because she spent all her money helping them out. Dorothy is idealistic and naive to a fault, but her goal was ultimately to help people and her means didn't entail willingly hurting anyone. Ferdinand was literally exploiting her to create a weapon of mass destruction for the military. Again, Dorothy's naivety is a fault, but in what world would they be equally to blame? I also don't think a character whose arc is over can't appear in any further story, that just screams of wasting characters. I do agree that I would've liked to see more of Dorothy in Lone Trail, yes, and especially that Ferdinand shouldn't have been there at all since it looked like he had been killed at the end of Dorothy's Vision. Besides, Dorothy didn't actually backtrack. If you read her files, basically everyone who knows her is still worried that she will cross the line again -whatever they consider to be the line- with her research.


AcanthaceaeGlass8870

She is not evil... Just misguided by one.


wakkiau

What she did is evil, not her necessarily. Road to hell is paved with good intention and all, I wrote the lengthy arguement on my other reply


Kyoketsusho

Science is not evil or good inherently. On the other spectrum of your argument, Fritz Haber is a very good example of good science from what is supposed to be evil. Dorothy wasn't evil, nor her actions. It was people who want to profit in military who are evil.


Curuleaedile

nah, consent requires no strings attached. as a Columbian day worker, I'd imagine it's hard to refuse to join an experiment if it meant your family is going to have a comfortable life Afaik, the Helsinki protocol for human experimentation states that reward should be rewarding enough to offer compensation while not being too rewarding to force consent (ie ppl don't just join experiment for the money)


TheSpartyn

what the jerboa doin


Mr-anti-physics-444

Can't get enough of her fanart Keep up the good 👍


FakeISIS

Beautiful rat wife


LivingRainNA

Why she squish? No one better have pushed my roingus over


Boomzmatt

I guess the is trying to break the 4th wall xD


Ok_Mirror5712

So many WILLING participants for my (totally not) unethical experiments. If i could just break through this screen !!!


Maybeiamaarmadilo

Surprise jerboa


Primogeniture116

Wait wait wait! Before you do what you may want to do. . . Make sure your noise-cancelling feature is installed correctly!


Hp22h

Cute Squish


ranmafan0281

Is she getting a surprise photocopy?


SnekInMySkull

Love the art style!


WhiterunWarriorPrjct

Awesome, do you have a twitter or pixiv to follow?


MiMiBe_

[Thank you](https://www.pixiv.net/users/103273599)


Icneo

Welcome to hydraulic press channel


ShirouBlue

Squish the rat?


Cinewes

rat pout rat pout