I'm pretty sure I've already expressed my disagreement with how dev views Daniel's death. I just make arguments about what the game has shown about the events that makes me disagree. You don't have to convince me of MC's in-game viewpoint. I know. I just don't like it and I expressed why, according to what the game has shown us.
If you just didn't like it, I wouldn't be arguing with you. Who cares. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm refuting your arguments because they're wrong. You twisted Caleb's view to fit your own, used it when it suited you, then brushed it off when it didn't. Now it's "I just don't like it". Alright.
I would bet that if you made a poll about Daniel's death, after seen all the flashbacks, the majority of players would still answer it was the right thing to do.
So a bunch of people would choose to ruin a person's life to satisfy their values. That tells you nothing. It's textbook argumentum ad populum, but worse: it's attached to a moral dilemma that by definition can only be resolved individually. There is no objective right answer here, just differing values and their consequences. A poll doesn't validate anything. It just shows how many people are willing to project their own worldview onto someone who clearly doesn't share it and for whom it would be destructive.
Caleb is written to treat it like the most despicable act a man can ever commit.
That line crosses from interpretation into melodrama.
Caleb himself views what he did as morally catastrophic. But the game presents his pain as personal and complex.
Even present Marie, who has been a bona fide tyrant destroying lives left and right, says something along the lines "I've never done anything as bad as what you did". That something being getting rid of her rapist. And that insane viewpoint seems to be accepted and propagated by the game. This is where the disconnect is and why me and quite a few others are pointing it out.
Marie calls Caleb's act worse than anything she's done, but then she's also a tyrant destroying lives left and right. So which is it? Is she a credible moral authority, or a manipulative cult leader whose words shouldn't be taken at face value?
Marie usually throws those lines when Caleb challenges what she's become. It's deflection, a classic whataboutism. Sometimes she accepts his act and turns it against him ( "I was misguided, let's say. Naive." ), sometimes she weaponizes his guilt because she knows it cuts deep.
Caleb isn't a passive victim. Even when he's hurt by her words, he sees her manipulations and exposes them. There's a moral debate going on between them. But just because he's right doesn't mean she can't respond in kind. These are psychological fight from someone who knows exactly where to stab.
As for your exact example, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. She thought he would agree with what she's doing because of his act in the past. And between the lines, she, of course, twists the knife. The entire scene she is manipulating and mocking him.
The game doesn't propagate her viewpoint and paints her as a damaged, corrupted, dangerous person capable of pain, cruelty and lies. The writing doesn't ask you to take her word as gospel. If you're drawing wrong conclusions from what she says, that's on you.
