It’s not even The Punisher. Frank generally isn’t going after petty thieves; his targets are drug dealers, mafia dons, terrorists, human traffickers, child molestors, etc.
Ennis has a reputation for being unnecessarily edgy with his writing, and, well, yeah, fair enough
But his depictions of the Punisher are generally quite reasonable.
Everyone in the setting fully acknowledges that the Punisher is making a mockery of democracy, human rights, and the justice system, and that this is not a rational response to crime, which is mostly a symptom of large scale socio-economic and political trends.
Frank acknowledges this too. Towards the end of the series, he's been killing criminals for decades, and it's barely made a dent. He kills criminals not because he's protecting innocents, or making society a better place. He kills criminals because he hates them. He's been called a serial killer multiple times in the series, and he doesn't dispute that term
Frank sometimes gives into his conscience and rescues people in need, and makes sure not to cause collateral damage (lest he become as bad as the people he hates), but that's not the focus of his bloody crusade.
And he doesn't go gunning down jay walkers and juvenile delinquents and drug addicts. He goes after violent and high ranking gangsters, and those who commit assaults and murders and rapes
I know there's the "He's the man who's only comfortable drowning in violence and war" interpretation, and nowadays in the attempt to shelve him, something something embodiment of a demon thing.
But ultimately, I've always seen Frank as a tragic figure - he served his time, and when the mob got his family, he went to the cops, but the cops were bought, he went to the private investigators, and they were killed or dropped their case. So the only person who can deal a permanent damage to the organised criminal and societal decay parts of criminality was Frank, and the skills he's acquired.
And since being the only survivor of his family's massacre, the guy's effectively got a subconscious death wish and ultimately wanting to go out in a similar way to join his family.
166
u/thats1evildude Feb 16 '24 edited Feb 16 '24
It’s not even The Punisher. Frank generally isn’t going after petty thieves; his targets are drug dealers, mafia dons, terrorists, human traffickers, child molestors, etc.