PreMed(ea)tated

To be honest, I thought of this title before I planned out what to say in the actual post, so if I’m rambling a bit…just bear with me.  And also, before I begin writing, allow me to clarify that the murderers I speak of are the ones whose victims are innocent.
I was looking up some basic psychology behind premeditated killing when I happened upon a Business Insider article (http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-evaluations-of-killers-reveal-5-surprising-lessons-2015-6).  Basically, what it says is this:
-Murderers are, in the vast majority of cases, not true monsters; they have humanity as well.
Now, I know that’s really hard to reconcile with our concept of what a murderer is (and to clarify, by definition murder is premeditated): a cold, heartless, inhuman being who steals away another person’s life on purpose.  But when you get down to it, Medea is a murderer.  Yes, people in ancient Greece thought of murder differently than we do now, but that doesn’t change the fact that Medea is a murderer.  Yet can’t we all see that she’s human, too?  Someone we can perhaps sympathize with on some level?  Medea started out with feeling the basic, human desire for revenge - a feeling we all have surely felt before as well.  She just took it a little (okay, a LOT) too far.  I think it’s important to remember, though, that being human doesn’t mean someone isn’t evil.
-Every murderer has a motive and a reason.
Sometimes that reason is completely incomprehensible to us non-murderers, but apparently these people think there’s some logical basis behind their heinous deeds.  For example, people who feel that they would be in danger if they didn’t commit murder.  Medea definitely has the motive.  She’s been betrayed by the man she loves, the man for whom she has given up nearly everything (including, I would argue, her morality) marriage vows have been betrayed, and her pride has been wounded.  There’s this random princess Glauce who’s “stealing” her husband (but OBVIOUSLY IT’S REALLY JASON’S FAULT, NOT GLAUCE’S) even though she knows the dude is married; she’s getting kicked out from another kingdom; she’s losing everything again.  Medea is mad, and she has a right to be.  She just…doesn’t have the right to kill four basically innocent people.  Oh wait, am I forgetting the brother who accompanied her as she was escaping her homeland?  I meant five, then,
-Murderers are damaged.  (Wow, you don’t say?)
Okay, the article claims that “It isn’t evil that drives people to kill,” but I’m going to go ahead and disagree with that.  There are some sick, perverted people out there, and I would 100% call them evil.  I don’t care if you’ve had the worst childhood ever; there are just some actions that are totally inexcusable (like almost any crime to do with children, basically).
“Garbarino likens the experience to shark attacks. No one would fault a 25-year-old who can't walk because he got his leg torn off by a great white when he was five and never received physical therapy or a prosthesis, he says. Many murderers go through the same debilitating hardships.”  To be honest, I think this is a horrible comparison.  Nobody is faulting the murderer for their bad experiences.  We’re just faulting them for the actions that they themselves took.  Yes, it’s awful that anyone would go through such a terrible time, but that doesn’t give you the right to murder someone!  Looking at you, Medea.
-Bad people can change.  (Yes, “bad people” is an understatement.)
Even the worst, argues the article.  And I’m not going to disagree with that.  I don’t think everyone can/will change, but I’m sure some people can.  The article gives the example of teenagers who commit/intend to commit crimes.  Interesting to think about whether Medea will change.  Or maybe she won’t.  After all, she did kill her own brother, and she didn’t change after that—instead she killed her own children, too.  But I’m not going to say that everyone is like Medea.  I believe people can change, though I’m skeptical of how often such transformations happen with murderers.