Life & Death

[Universe]

So here's a random thought I had while thinking about Xerneas and Yveltal.

If you were given the choice of a power, between being able to give life or take it at will, which power would you choose?
Taking life and giving life can apply to anything and everything that a life force runs through - people, animals, plants, etc.

Giving life can be things like resurrecting the dead, saving those at the brink of death, reviving fields of plants, forests and so on.
Taking life can be things like taking the life of a chosen being or beings, ending the suffering of something, and so on.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

This wouldn't even be a question that I would have to consider at all. There is no way that I would ever take the life of another individual when I have the opportunity to give the life back to someone that I love and miss such as my grandpa. I would give his life back in a heartbeat. I don't know why anyone would choose taking a life over giving one.

 

[Orifiel]

I would rather give life to those who deserve it and to my love ones.
Taking life isn't really needed, if it's a reason on revenge, then you're no difference to the ones who took the life of the one who is important to you. So yeah, here *Gives life to a pillow*

 

[Dragon_Trainer_]

Taking life would be better...... Think about it...... You could rebuild the world as YOU saw fit..... Or you could become the light of justice....... Wrong doers beware, the hero is here..... However whatever power you choose, maintaining your anonymity is a must.....

 

[IggyKoopa]

I would choose neither (or if I can't, I would choose the power to give life and not use it). Taking life, obviously not, also considering that there are lots of other ways to kill people. As for giving life, that would just **** things up. I wouldn't interfere with nature's business like that.

 

[Legobricks]

I think I would have to understand the ultimate implications of life upon this universe before confidently answering... but it's such a complex, active force that I suppose it is its own solvent. Either choice could prove beneficial, but I think I'd rather give life, and bestow it upon places like Mars. I'm thinking of the biodiversity of galaxies, ideally, not just planets. Many different minds, many different solutions to existence's problems... something like that. It's somewhat of a theme for one of my own paracosms, actually. Incidentally, the ability to give life to oneself would make me immortal, no? So I could afford to be patient upon the matter if I chose that option anyway.

 

[Flushed]

I think from a practical standpoint, taking a life is very possible. Being able to give life is a very different thing though, and being able to do that would essentially enable you to both give and take life. But by the parameters of the question it would seem fitting to choose one, in which giving life for me makes sense. All things come to an end, and a lot of times we should not force death.

 

[Kanzler]

I'd choose the ability to give life - to give life back to music:



/daftpunkplug

 

[Kikaito plush]

I would give life as I and other people can spend time with loved ones who have pasted away again.

 

[AngelKeldeo]

I would feel really bad if I took someone's life.. so I'll take the power to give it instead.

 

[Boilurn]

The public's vote, Period. Why would I want to do something as morbid as taking people's lives? I wouldn't do this even to gangsters. Most of us would love a social life and think positive, rather than negative.

 

[AzuGazer]

hmm.. give life? take life? hmm...

taking life seems sweet :) i could finally rid my house of all them cockroaches :D

so yea... then again... giving life also has its good points...

like, if people start dying around me from some crazed maniac, it won't faze me :D

but when would that happen...

i feel like i would get corrupted either way, they both seem equally powerful. but for the sake of Halloween, i say take their lives. Thanksgiving and Christmas will be give life back.

 

[Trev]

I'd probably take life, and only use it to end someone's misery if they're suffering from something that can't be fixed. Or to kill a spider.

 

[Shining Raichu]

If you think about it, everybody already has the power to take life, but giving life is something much more exclusive and powerful. I would choose the power to give life, and then use it only very selectively. My greatest fear in the world is overpopulation, so I believe when someone's time is up, it's up. I would rather them die for the sake of the numbers game than to reanimate them for the sake of it, so it would have to be a very special case to make me use my power.

 

[Nihilego]

I don't see the use of being able to take life at will. I don't really want to get rid of anyone or anything and there are certainly people I'd want to bring back, so... yeah. Giving life, please! Usually I have more to say than this but it's such a simple question to me.

I'd choose the ability to give life - to give life back to music:



/daftpunkplug

0/10

 

[Nick]

Ideally I would choose to give life, but I feel like if push came to shove, the sensation of power that came with the ability to take a life would overpower me and I would choose that.

 

[Olodumare]

I think I would have to consider long and hard about the various aspects of both powers, given that to give life is to bring new atoms together to fuel more life, whereas the power to take life would garner more resources to less people.

I feel that I would rather take then give, for as sad as it is to say it the world needs butchers as well as shepherds, I feel that after becoming corrupted by such power, (and I know myself well enough that I would be utterly corrupted by such power) I think that my own theme of "justice" would end up with me removing quite a great deal of people from life.

 

[antemortem]

I'd hate to bring back people at the same age they died and make them continue to experience whatever killed them, be it disease or old age, but I'd also dislike the concept of bringing them back as, say, a baby (from the beginning, essentially) because then what would be the point? Giving life is a double edged blade and I don't think I want either end. I'd probably take lives because then I could destroy the banes of my existence with the snap of my fingers and who wouldn't want that?

 

[Sirfetch’d]

You bring up a good point, Ante. I didn't think that obviously by bringing someone back they would immediately resume the life that they were living and probably couldn't enjoy it for the pain and suffering for whatever killed them. I guess the ideal scenario would be just to leave things as they are, tbh by neither giving or taking a life.

 

[Guy]

Like Shining Raichu mentioned, we all have the capability of taking a life. It's all a matter of choice and whether or not something pushes us to such a dark place to take another person's life. In that respect, we also have the capability to give life, albeit new life, not the resurrecting kind. Although, with today's modern medicine we certainly have the opportunity to save lives.

If I had to choose, I'd want the gift of giving. Although ─ and I say this knowing that under certain circumstances I might go against my word ─ I would choose not to use it, but rather let life play out how it's meant to happen. It sounds nice, being able to give life to someone in their time of need or bring someone back, but there's a whole can of worms that comes with that gift as well.

Taking a life kind of seems easier to do, but you'd have to be in such a mind that you have little to no humanity in you in that moment that you'd want to take someone's life willingly.