Is Galactus evil?

[blah the Prussian]

So I don't know if this should be in entertainment of SD because it is philosophical but whatever.

For those not in the know, Galactus is a Marvel super villain who mostly opposes the Famtastic Four. His deal is that he needs to eat entire planets, with people on them, in order to survive. This, obviously, results in billions of deaths every time Galactus gets hungry. Here's the question, though: does this make him evil? After all, he does need to do it to survive. On the one hand, the utilitarian thing to do would be to not eat and starve to death, but on the other hand can we really expect him to die?

So yeah, discuss.

[kantoorfarina]

If someone is willing to kill billions of people for their own entirely selfish reason, I would say that makes them evil.

[The Geek]

I remember having this same thought about Lavos in Chrono Trigger. I'm not entirely familiar with Galactus' character, but is he conscious of the killing and does he care? If yes to the first and no to the second, then I'll definitely say yes. I give a bit of leeway to Lavos as there's no indication that it is sentient and conscious of the destruction it causes.

[Jotari]

If someone is willing to kill billions of people for their own entirely selfish reason, I would say that makes them evil.

Well he's a big giant space super being from the dawn of existence. The billions of people shouldn't really be people from his perspective. It's the equivalent of calling you selfish for killing the bacteria in a yogurt. That being said I'd probably lean more on the side of yes since his hunger leads to the total extinction of a lot of life (and culture). Individuals might not hold that much importance to something higher on the food chain but eradicating an entire species is generally frowned upon in my book.

[Moblin Major General]

Galactus can choose the planets he consumes, and is able to go above his nature and spare planets, like Silver Surfer's and later Earth 616. In newer stories, he's more often wielded as a weapon than being himself. I say no, because when he becomes conscious of the desperation of the species on a planet, he appoints someone his super powered vassal.

[Ken Masters]

Fill me in, what's Galactus intelectual status? Can he choose? Is he aware of what he does?

Regardless, he sounds quite Lovecraftian to me, so I'll venture to say that he's not attached to our human standards of "good and evil". Those are human concepts that we try to apply to things in our human world. However, how can we dare to apply our flawed and biased concepts to something that is not from our world? He's beyond that.

Edited September 6, 2016 by 20XX

[blah the Prussian]

Fill me in, what's Galactus intelectual status? Can he choose? Is he aware of what he does?

I'm pretty sure he's generally sentient, but at the same time he has to consume life forms to survive.

[Phoenix Wright]

does he do anything besides eat?

[Moblin Major General]

does he do anything besides eat?

No? Except for maybe talking to Silver Surfer, who he legitimately respects.

[Tetragrammaton]

People don't think they are evil when they eat fish or shrimp, so I say Galactus is not evil at all.

[Moblin Major General]

People don't think they are evil when they eat fish or shrimp, so I say Galactus is not evil at all.

But they grow a conscience when they take a good look and realize a species is going extinct. Galactus is at least capable or has done something similar.

[Ϲharlie]

His deal is that he needs to eat entire planets, with people on them

It's worth pointing out that the planet doesn't have to populated, but rather it needs to have the potential to sustain life.

[Phoenix Wright]

No? Except for maybe talking to Silver Surfer, who he legitimately respects.

if that's the case then the character is just kinda boring. even non-intelligent life serves a purpose.

[MacLovin]

Galactus is kinda what Marvel writers have termed a universal constant or necessity. There was this one story where Galactus was removed from the marvel universe for a bit and then that woke up something called "the hunger" which turned out to be far worse than Galactus.

Thing is, Galactus does what he does out of necessity. On the rare occassion he gets prevented from eating a planet, it's usually for some special reason.

Furthermore, Galactus does have some sort of respect for his more heroic heralds. (Silver Surfer, Firelord, Nova, Air-Walker).

kind of a shame he's under the F4 properties, otherwise, we'd be seeing more of him nowadays. Fox just can't get shit right.

Tho Galactus did end up inadvertantly cause the Secret Invasion by eating the Skrull's homeworld. Which had a massive domino effect.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Skurge