Am I the asshole for being insistant about "wanting to murder the entire Romanov family"?
Around 4 months ago I was invited to see the school musical "Anastasia" by some theater kids that were friends of mine. I already knew the framing and content of the play is utter reactionary nonsense, but I decided to actually go yesterday night to watch to support my buddies.
The musical itself had good production quality, and there were some great unintentionally funny moments in there, too. I was dissapointed that the one communist didn't brutally blow Anastasia's brains out, but I definitely think the play gave me some resolve and inspires violence in me.
Anyway here is the main part, lol. It isnt the most precise retelling of events, but generally what went down, spare the details. After the play I was chatting with a bunch of the cast, and apparently one of them heard that I would have shot the Romanov family, if I was in the position to, (which they heard from a seperate friend that is actually socialist. ) I didn't deny it, and I actually fully leaned into it. "The Romanovs had no qualms on the treatment of their people. There would be no room for abdication, no humbleness to step down, obly death, ETC..." One giggled, another person gasped, "Do you feel no sympathy for them?" My friend (who played Tzar Nicholas) asked me something like:"Would you shoot the Romanov's even if it was me?! " "No sympathy. And yes, I would shoot regardless of personal connections" and I quickly left into the crowd. Since then, my friend has been avoiding me? idk he seems not happy with me. Am I the asshole here?
Either way, I would rather be perceived as an asshole than be a liberal in content.
You had an opportunity to make people reconsider the glorification of monarchs. Instead you allowed the conversation to move from being a hypothetical about historical figures to being a concrete situation about your immediate friends. And then you doubled down on murdering one of those friends, whose connection was that he was playing a character in a play. It’s not your fault that you got such a loaded question, but the only appropriate response was to deconstruct that question. I think you could’ve steered that conversation differently.
If it’s a surprise that your friend is avoiding you, then I think you’ve had a lapse of empathy while gaining precisely zero ground in people understanding your position better. Whether your care about him avoiding you is your prerogative. But it shouldn’t be a surprise.