It's interesting that you word it that way. "The idea" of execution. The idea behind executions and killing an enemy as the result of a struggle are very much not the same thing. As long as the death happens as the result of an equal struggle on the battlefield, it is (morally) never the same thing as killing someone shackled and unarmed for satisfaction, justice or even killing's sake. There is a world's difference to me. There's a reason officers are far more often sentenced to execution than low ranking infantrists; despite the latter having way higher bodycounts at times.
Pragmatically, both actions result in someone being dead. But by that sentiment, marriage would also be hypocritical. People are never pragmatic, and so many aspects of life would suck if they were. Like I said before, you cannot/should not throw morals out of the window, cause that's what I try making this discussion all about.
P.S.: Discussion be as it may, kudos for your awesome avatar :]
In my mind I'm not chucking morality out the window, more like putting it into perspective. Lemme walk you through my reasoning here.
Every single human life means something, probably not in a huge universal, cosmic sense but thinking that way stops every single debate/discussion ever so we won't go there. It means something because, in general, we (as in humanity) value it. Every human being is like one Worth Unit (WU). Now regardless of how you kill someone or what your justifications are you deduct one WU from existence. That can't be mitigated or taken back, you have now erased one human being and all their potential and all their beautiful experiences and future experiences from existence. The only thing that can make it 'okay' or not a horrible, horrifying thing is if you do it to save a larger number of WUs in the future. Can you ever be sure, really 100% sure, that you, as a precipitator of death, have now stopped WUs from being erased in the future by erasing this one WU? No, you can't. That one WU might have turned around and became a farmer or whatever. But do you risk it? What if that WU goes on to erase like 600 other WUs and you COULD have stopped him?
Now to bring this back to DAI. You're saying that it's not the same thing to meet someone on an 'equal' playing field and killing them there vs executing someone. I'm asking; why not? The result is someone's death. The motivation is saving a greater number of people, presumably. And this isn't even examining motivation or responsibility. Our primary enemy in the game are the red templars or the red mages (are they called red mages?) they aren't even in control of themselves any more but we cut through them like a scythe on harvest day (not that I think scythes still get used much but aaaannnyyywaaayy) not because we do not realize this but because we HAVE to. If we don't erase these relatively innocent WUs they will erase many more innocent WUs.
Bringing this to judgement. Generally the people we judge in the game have done bad stuff, usually they've killed people. Or erased WUs. And I have to believe that concepts like justice and morality began as a way to protect what is 'right' and what is right, at the end of the day, if not the sheltering and guardianship of WUs? To make sure that the biggest percentage possible of WUs can have full and fulfilling lives unthreatened by erasure? So that's why I sometimes get frustrated when the idea of morality and justice and honor seem to become so entangled and complicated that they start to inhabit a cloudy realm high in the atmosphere so far divorced for what I believe their original purpose must have been, namely preserving WUs.
SO. If I sit in judgement of someone who has already erased many WUs and has no skills in which they can 'make up' for those they've erased and I have little to no reason to believe they will not erase future WUs then yes, pragmatically in my eyes, they need to die. It serves as a little smudge on my Inquisitor's soul because that person, however unlikely, could have turned around and devoted their lives to saving kittens or whatever but is that risk worth it? If they kill even one other person if they've been released or imprisoned and escaped that death, that little soul smudge, is as much on the Inquisitor as it is on them. Because it COULD have been stopped.
And thanks, the avatar is Sarolta Ban's work. She has mad skills.
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