I see a stick.
Simple, long and slender. A perfectly shaped blunt weapon that is carved, sanded and shaped for but a single reason.
To cripple.
Who it cripples is determined by the hand that wields the stick. In the hands of justice, the stick can be a force for good. It can stop the thief in his tracks, bring judgement upon the murderer.
The stick can cripple crime in the right hands.
But in the wrong hands, it can maim just as easily.
It can be sharpened to a fierce point, honed to a very different craft. The stick can kill. It can pierce the hearts of those that are innocent. It can attack those that fight for right.
It all depends on how corrupt the hand is that swings the stick. For a stick will always do its job, no questions asked. That is what it is designed to do, nothing more and nothing less. It has no power of its own, but lives out the will of those who swing it.
You are that stick, Jackson Cade.
A simple, yet effective weapon. Zeus is powerful enough to have many sticks at his beck and call, upholding his law.
You Eagles have been carved, sanded and shaped to do your job to the highest standard. No expense was ever spared in your training, for the powerful deserve the best sticks they can craft to defend their positions.
And like a good stick, when the order comes… You obey.
You leap into action, doing what you do best. You call it upholding the law, others call it pushing agendas.
Agendas that cripple and maim. Agendas that keep the poor poor, and the rich rich.
Just how corrupt is the hand that swings you, Officer Stick? Just how much blood is on his hands when you were simply following orders?
Or, like a good stick, have you never stopped to question the orders you receive?
Because you fight for justice, and good… right?
Surely…
In this world that you make black and white, I exist in shades of grey.
I see what your eyes cannot. I smell the stench of corruption, and hear the swinging of the sticks that create it.
Take a walk through the slums and tell me that there is justice in Arcadia. That you fight for good…
There is no good, or evil. Only power and those too weak to claim it.
While you remain a stick, you will always serve those powerful enough to bark your orders.
For justice or corruption.
Break the stick, Jackson Cade.
For as long as that is what you are, you will never ask the questions you need to find your own sense of true purpose.
I need no stick to bring about my justice. I am not corrupted by the vision of power, I seek no agenda beyond what is necessary for balance to exist in this corrupt world we call home.
That for a stick to become more than merely a chunk of wood.
It must first be broken.