Now I'm not saying that all murderers never feel remorse, but I do think this Clark's reaction has to be consistent with the Clark of part 1, and I'm not sure remorse is consistent with that character.
I don't see quick to anger and holding grudges inconsistent with regreting a violent murder. I know plenty of people who fit that description (impulsive, quick to anger, holding grudges). Being impulsive doesn't necessarily mean that a person doesn't regret the results of their actions.
I'm repeating an argument here - but i can't get past the fact that most people who've lost someone to a murderer don't then go out and murder that person. Why should Superman be different?
Because that argument assumes that people have the same triggers, the same responses and the same thresholds. I don't think you can measure people by the same metric (doesn't mean we shouldn't have the law, but that it exists as a way to establish order, not to be descriptive of people). Someone might shrug at the loss of their job and someone might become depressed to the point of suicide. People deal with anger and loss in different ways. Some are environmentally conditioned and some aren't.
As for that particular example, most people are conditioned to let police and the law seek justice for them. I bet if people thought they could get away (that it was actually possible) with bringing the murderer to justice themselves we'd see more cases of that. Actually, what about before the law was implemented way back?
Who are the people who commit those, I mean in psychological terms? Are there signs in their earlier lives that indicated they could be capable os such an act?
I'm assuming that sometimes there are and some times there aren't.
We're all capable of doing terrible things if put under extenuating circumstances. I remember reading of an experiment where people were put in a make shift prison and half of the group were arbitrarily made the wardens. These were "average" psychologically stable college students and maybe about a couple of weeks into it they had to stop the experiments because things were getting out of hand. In another experiment an actor was to pretend to be in pain when someone pushed a button. They recruited "average" people and ordered them to press it with the knowledge that they were causing the person pain. Most of the people actually complied regardless of the screaming of the actor (without knowing he was acting).
So it actually doesn't take a psychologically disturbed person (unless ALL of these "average" people screened by psychologists are psychologically disturbed) to hurt another knowingly. Imagine if you aren't thinking right--being overwhelmed by rage, etc. I mean clearly it's irrational to rip someone's heart out, not only because its murder, but because of how involved the act is. To me it doesn't scream "remorseless machine killer!" it screams "I am not thinking straight." The same way a battered woman beating her assailant to death with a bat screams "I am not thinking straight." No, the victimization is not the same (before someone accuses me of saying that), but the feeling of rage behind the brutality rings similarly to me.
Human beings just aren't rational 100% of the time, especially in a traumatic moment. Couple that irrationality with a large amount of power and it's bound to be explosive.
The temporary insanity plea apparently has been a very hard one to use successfully in North American courts.
I'm not surprised. Something like "temporary insanity" does take away from the accountability of the person. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist though.
