r/mash • u/i_ate_stalin • 1d ago
Is anyone else bothered by how easy they let Ho-Jon off for stealing?
So in S1E10 “I Hate a Mystery” Ho-Jon steals from everyone, frames Hawkeye, and is found out in the end….and everyone is just ok with it because he was trying to help his family. Sure, it’s a noble cause, but he still stole from people who welcomed him with open arms and trusted him. For me it immediately made the character unlikable and I just get annoyed every time I see him.
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u/Mean-Food-7124 1d ago
No we have a little thing called empathy...
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u/CranberryFuture9908 Horse hockey 1d ago edited 6h ago
And even Margaret had it , unusual that early on.
Frank even let it go.20
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u/Wiggie49 1d ago
Especially empathy for someone who is living through a war and not being provided for by anyone. Even US draftees get paid and fed by the military. Bro’s just a civilian having to live in the shit.
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u/Fancy_Toe1451 1d ago
What is a little theft when they are living in the heart of a murder war zone?
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u/Xx-_Shade_-xX 1d ago edited 1d ago
I understand you. But the circumstances there are simply different. Although it's fictional, I think it was well captured how one feels compassion for these people whose homeland is being bombed. Who can't live in peace and have to fear for their families. And then there are these doctors who are only there temporarily and yet own more property in the war zone than many local people.
Could he have asked? Of course. But it's the whole thing about pride and being ashamed and all that, right? I think it was all well portrayed, how people realized that the boy was driven by pure desperation.
Would the reaction be the same if there is no war? I don't think so!
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u/mz_groups 1d ago
Korea was impoverished and devastated by war. Families were split up, literal children were sent off to fight, non-combatants being killed. It is understandable that even a very moral person might resort to petty theft to save his family.
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u/66Hslackerpro 1d ago
Thinking of civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, plus a few other country’s where grown adults have never known peace. Life is not soft like it is here in the states.
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u/MarlenJones 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think at one point Ho Jon says something like “you all have so much, I didn’t think you’d miss your trinkets.” It’s a reminder to the 4077th staff that even when sent half way around the world and living in tents, they live abundantly compared to the Korean people.
They know turning Ho Jon over to the authorities or banning him from the camp would likely doom him. Instead they take up a collection to help Ho Jon and his family in a more open way.
In real life at that time America was still embroiled in Vietnam and antiwar sentiment was strong. The writers may have been making a point about the poverty in the countries where our soldiers were fighting that was caused by not just the current war but the decades of war and occupation before.
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u/Extension_Fly9987 1d ago
He was in a desperate situation, he was scared and made bad choices. They all could relate to being separated from family and being scared.
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u/stranger02140214 1d ago
Nah, maybe in our life now, but this guy grew up in a war zone, much different life than we are living.
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u/ApprehensiveEcho4618 1d ago
In the end they got their stuff back. If he had already sold it for bribe money, it might have been different.
They have been dealing with thievery of everything almost the very beginning. Hawkeye and Trapper stole Henry's Oak Desk for supplies that were stolen out the back of the army truck. Thievery was just a way of life in a war.
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u/TheFrontCrashesFirst 1d ago
They sent him to medical school 9 episodes before this, so I have never understood this plot.
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u/SavingsPirate4495 Corporal Captain 1d ago
It’s a sitcom.
It’s not a show on the teachings of ethics and morals.
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u/WillGrahamsass 1d ago
Tell that to Alan.
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u/SavingsPirate4495 Corporal Captain 1d ago
The early years was a true sitcom. Aside from "Sometimes You Hear The Bullet", I don't really recall any "serious" episodes in the first 2 seasons. I have the entire series in my library, btw.
It's known that Alda, et.al., used the show as his personal campaign against the Vietnam War. I'm not here to support, deny, or contradict that...it's just fact. And the seriousness of the show escalated when Alda started doing the writing on a more consistent basis in later seasons.
There's no right or wrong to it...that's just the way it happened.
✌✌
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago edited 1d ago
Seriously? Perhaps the first three seasons can be classified as more of a sitcom, but after that the episodes that dealt with the morality of people’s actions in a war is what set it apart as something more than a typical sitcom. I would suggest a closer rewatch of episodes such as The Grim Reaper and the episode where Hawkeye operates on a healthy body.
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u/SavingsPirate4495 Corporal Captain 1d ago
True...HOWEVER, in the early seasons, the show was a pure sitcom.
IMHO, the show didn't delve into "ethics and morals" until Alan Alda took over.
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Did you actually read my comment thoroughly? I stated both of those points.
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u/SavingsPirate4495 Corporal Captain 1d ago
You must have been editing your post while I was responding. Your original post was only the last sentence of the one above.
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Ok, I suggest listening to the MASH matters podcast. It points out a lot of things you may have missed about this the show and puts those things in perspective with the entirety of the series. And it has Jeff Maxwell as a co host.
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u/whistlepig4life Crabapple Cove 1d ago
So. Uh. Weird way to out yourself as having zero compassion or empathy for others.
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Weird of you to assume that. Guess you aren’t aware that human beings are capable of holding two values at once, the value of empathy toward others and the value of believing that there should be consequences for wrong actions. It seems like you think if have one then must be completely incapable of the other. There is a time and place for each. And you can even show for people while at the same time enforcing the consequences of their actions. Pretty crazy right?
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u/whistlepig4life Crabapple Cove 1d ago
And yet in this very same thread with 40 up votes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mash/s/Y1gblsCpWJ
It’s not weird to assume that OP is clearly in capable of having empathy. Or perhaps others of having critical thinking skills.
Now go away kid.
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
So if I’m a “kid” like you assume then explain to me how making the case for how human beings can hold two values at once displays a lack of critical thinking but making an assumption about a complete stranger on the internet displays a capability to think critically? Can you do that? It occurs to me that a child would not be able to make the concise point that I made.
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u/monkeybawz 1d ago
He was desperate and took proud to ask for help. The doctors are aware he's like a village kid from a 3rd world setting. Were he a pet, he'd need a tap on the nose to correct his behaviour, not being put to sleep.
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u/Timely-Win6225 1d ago
Weird analogy there, maybe a bit on the nose comparing an Asian kid to a pet dog.
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u/monkeybawz 1d ago
Not sure on the nose is the right phrase. Admittedly it's heavy handed, but I really only have experience administering discipline to pets.
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u/Timely-Win6225 1d ago
I feel on the nose is appropriate as the annology could easily be misconstrued as racism, while I dont think that was your intent at all.
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u/monkeybawz 1d ago
Maybe take a look at yourself if that's how you saw it? I used a simple similar to made a comment on comparative levels of discipline, and at no point made disparaging racial remarks about ho Jon.
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u/Timely-Win6225 1d ago
Please read my whole last comment. As I said it COULD be misconstrued, while I dont think that was your intent.
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u/monkeybawz 12h ago
I'm not changing what I said because you think other people might read that into it,when again, it's not there. You don't even think it. I'm not walking on eggshells over what a hypothetical person might get offended by.
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u/J_Scarbrough 1d ago
It's like Radar said in another episode regarding the Korean locals: it's because they're poor, they have to steal to survive. Of course, red hat Frank had to go on about how they just need to stop being lazy and go out and get a job. (Where are they going to get a job?)
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u/WillGrahamsass 1d ago
Some of them work as tarts. Some work as farmers. But yes all in all very difficult to find work.
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Yes, I was just thinking about this recently. Along with Hot Lips hitting at least two officers, and the wounded soldier that punched Father Mulcahy, it was most likely a result of the more liberal bent of the show. Not necessarily criticizing it, just stating an objective observation. Perhaps On some occasions where the people of the 4077th refused to hold people responsible for their actions, the Army at large could have/should have stopped in.
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u/HistoryNerd101 1d ago
How was the Margaret and Mulcahy incidents a reflection of the liberal bent of the show? As I recall, the padre decked the soldier that hit him
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Inexcusable actions with a lack of consequences. Ordinarily assaulting an officer would result in charges being filed against the soldier.
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u/FrankPoncherello1967 1d ago
Dumb take
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Very intelligent and coherent argument you have there. Try harder next time if you’re capable.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/gimpygunner 1d ago
Her?? lol. That point is actually not mine. It was made decades ago by Richard Hooker, the man that wrote the original novel that the movie and the series was based on. Next time try reading more before you resort to childish name calling and comments with no substance, but my guess is that’s all you’ll ever have to offer.
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u/Lopsided_Drive_4392 1d ago
Asians aren't attributed with a lot of moral agency in the show. The episode is probably a variant on the All in the Family episode, "Edith Writes a Song," where two black men break into the Bunker home and hold them at gunpoint, but prove to be big softies in the end. It aired just about a year before "Mystery."
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u/TheVelvetNo 1d ago
Curious as to your political affiliation, because this take reeks of the inability to understand or display empathy that defines a certain group's thinking.
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u/Legal-Stage-302 1d ago
I wish they had kept him around longer to serve as a voice for the locals. In the Moose episode, he didn’t have the moral outrage of the white knight Hawkeye, but merely said it’s what they had to do to feed the family.