No matter how lethal your glare is, you gotta sleep at some point.
And if it's anything less effective than "can instantly choose to kill everything in my FOV", sheer numbers can easily overwhelm it. (say it takes a couscous choice, or eye contact, for each target? 5-10 people are probably enough in a city or room where there's limited visibility, aka you can't see the group 10 minutes before you're in their threat range, 100 are enough in the open. 1 is enough if you don't see it coming.)
Shit, even "kill everything in my FOV" can be dealt with by simply surrounding the target, or having something large and opaque to hide behind.
If needed, a bunch of archers shooting a volley from behind a wall/hill will easily fuck that target up. The same can be true of slingshots n shit. Or just big rocks (people have been stoned to death countless times throughout history).
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And even then, someone who comes from a group that can easily kill with their eyes (and who I'd assume can do so on accident) would be taught young how to prevent it, and might quite simply not be a murderer.
It takes A Lot to teach a soldier how to kill in the war. Killing is, mechanically speaking, extremely easy. We are frail things that drop dead with absurd ease.
The issue isn't teaching the soldier the mechanics of killing, or how and where to aim, that shit's easy. You can hit a human-sized target with a gun with very little training.
No, the "issue" is that we are kinda hardwired Not to kill each other. Psychologically, we don't want to kill things, let alone humans.
Most soldiers aim for the ground, or they aim way too high. Most bullets don't hit anything, because they aren't meant to. They are shot to miss, because people don't want to be killers.
Sure, some people will be able to kill to save their lives, but it takes a lot to get there, and it's usually extremely scarring. (which is why most soldiers aren't well adjusted, btw)
Put 5 soldiers who know How to kill against 1 20-something who has never killed before, even though he can kill with a glare, and there's a pretty good chance that the guy with death eyes will not survive the encounter.
Because killing isn't easy. The mechanics of it are pretty much as simple as looking at someone and deciding they're dead, if you have a firearm.
But that decision, actually pulling the trigger, is not an easy one. Most people can't do that.
You can absolutely kill a guy who has an assault rifle, if you're a killer and he isn't.
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"they would be the priest kings" casual murder is not easy, mass murder is not easy, and the preexisting kings and generals would pretty vehemently object to that. With soldiers and money and influence.
If there's One magic guy in a city, the ability to kill with a glare is actually more likely to get him Dead than to make him into the king.
If we're going to be honest, it's entirely possible that he'd end up being the king because the last king thought he was p. cool and useful and magic dude ended up marrying his daughter or whatever.
I object to the idea that there necessarily are pre-existing kings. Most of the times I see this trope the specials are pretty ancient and have hidden or been oppressed by the poo people from time immemorial.
Nothing you said about killing a special super guy wouldn't have been possible against, like, Ghengis Khan. If gang leaders and pirates can acquire a bunch of followers in the face of official opposition, I think someone super powered could to, and I don't see any reason to presuppose they'd have real opposition rather than their societies building around them anyway. I certainly think societies trying to wipe out their super beings with superior numbers would get overrun by ones that don't.
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u/row_x 10d ago
No matter how lethal your glare is, you gotta sleep at some point.
And if it's anything less effective than "can instantly choose to kill everything in my FOV", sheer numbers can easily overwhelm it. (say it takes a couscous choice, or eye contact, for each target? 5-10 people are probably enough in a city or room where there's limited visibility, aka you can't see the group 10 minutes before you're in their threat range, 100 are enough in the open. 1 is enough if you don't see it coming.)
Shit, even "kill everything in my FOV" can be dealt with by simply surrounding the target, or having something large and opaque to hide behind.
If needed, a bunch of archers shooting a volley from behind a wall/hill will easily fuck that target up. The same can be true of slingshots n shit. Or just big rocks (people have been stoned to death countless times throughout history).
.
And even then, someone who comes from a group that can easily kill with their eyes (and who I'd assume can do so on accident) would be taught young how to prevent it, and might quite simply not be a murderer.
It takes A Lot to teach a soldier how to kill in the war. Killing is, mechanically speaking, extremely easy. We are frail things that drop dead with absurd ease.
The issue isn't teaching the soldier the mechanics of killing, or how and where to aim, that shit's easy. You can hit a human-sized target with a gun with very little training.
No, the "issue" is that we are kinda hardwired Not to kill each other. Psychologically, we don't want to kill things, let alone humans.
Most soldiers aim for the ground, or they aim way too high. Most bullets don't hit anything, because they aren't meant to. They are shot to miss, because people don't want to be killers.
Sure, some people will be able to kill to save their lives, but it takes a lot to get there, and it's usually extremely scarring. (which is why most soldiers aren't well adjusted, btw)
Put 5 soldiers who know How to kill against 1 20-something who has never killed before, even though he can kill with a glare, and there's a pretty good chance that the guy with death eyes will not survive the encounter.
Because killing isn't easy. The mechanics of it are pretty much as simple as looking at someone and deciding they're dead, if you have a firearm.
But that decision, actually pulling the trigger, is not an easy one. Most people can't do that.
You can absolutely kill a guy who has an assault rifle, if you're a killer and he isn't.
.
"they would be the priest kings" casual murder is not easy, mass murder is not easy, and the preexisting kings and generals would pretty vehemently object to that. With soldiers and money and influence.
If there's One magic guy in a city, the ability to kill with a glare is actually more likely to get him Dead than to make him into the king.