[Groop]Groo is not a mass murderer

[Dana Gabbard]

I think it also has to borne in mind that the series purposefully doesn't 
glorify the life of a warrior. Sergio has spoken eloquently about this moral 
dimension - Groo has little contact with his family and few friends, wanders 
aimlessly and enjoys only the pleasures of food and frays. Rufferto is the 
most visible deviation from this pattern. The character was a happy accident 
that Sergio and Mark have made brilliant use of. I find hard to imagine Groo 
w/o Rufferto in the same way that Uncle Scrooge w/o Donald and the nephews 
is unimaginable.

Dana Gabbard
Groo fan since Pacific #1

>From: "Mo orst" <m00rst@hotmail.com>
>To: groop@groo.com
>Subject: Re: [Groop]Groo is not a mass murderer
>Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:48:35 -0800
>
>
>I thought about this idea for awhile, and came to some ideas.
>
>For Groo to be evil, his killing would have to include a dark element of
>sadistic pleasure.  The way I've always thought of him was more as a force
>of nature... an element to be avoided much like he's portrayed as the "hot
>potato" in Groo: The Game.
>
>I remember all those times where he charges into battle for no reason other
>than "the fray!"  I think there may be a sadistic element to his character.
>From one point of view, he may approach a battle as a beast he knows he can
>pleasurably manipulate and annihilate.  He enjoys it.  He relishes in it.
>He's slaughtered hundreds of thousands.
>
>He has also, however, gone to war for noble purposes.  Like when he emerged
>out of the burning library in issue 100, primed to punish the mindless
>treasure seekers.  Much of the time, his battles have been at the wrong 
>time
>for the right reasons, and often for the wrong reasons for issues for which
>he later had a change of heart.  In this he is a symbol or archetype for 
>all
>of us struggling to come to the right conclusions and struggling to fight
>the right fight (so to speak), and it is not appropriate to refer to him as
>a mass murderer.  He did after all live in a time of marshall law, and 
>often
>unjust dominion by magistrates and rulers.  Killing is a way of life in 
>such
>a world.
>
>"Mass murder" seems more like a term for modern times.  We don't call
>Ghengis Khan (sp?) or the Romans mass murderers.  We call them conquerors.
>A mass murderer is more of a predator in an urban or suburban setting.  Not
>a hungry vagrant skilled with swords who may or may not have a reason to
>defeat an army.
>
>Groo, as far as I can tell, usually doesn't kill anyone in a bar, for
>example, unless he's insulted or challenged.  He doesn't hunt people down
>and kill them without provocation, and he doesn't burn filled churches,
>monestaries, or barns down with the intent to kill people.  He causes those
>things on accident.
>
>The sadism in his killing, I think, is more a result of a childish mind.
>Many of us go through a "burning ants with a magnifying lense" phase of one
>sort or another when we're children.  Often, as in my case, its a touch of
>pyromania(look out Gary!).  Perhaps Groo is just a guy who never got over
>that sort of thing.  He was low on positive male role models growing up
>(orphanage owners and Toranto, for heaven's sake), and he was torn from a
>loving mother who doubtless would have instilled in him a different 
>morality
>on the taking of life.
>
>-Rock
>
>>I don't think he's a mass murderer.. he kills in battle. we send our boys
>>off to war, but when they come back we don't (usually) call 'em killers.
>>If he just went around killing people off the battlefield without being
>>provoked... then he'd be evil.
>>
>>
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