>It reminds me of a study / urban legend / poll, whatever it was, age is not kind with my memory but it went something like:
>
>A husband agrees with his wife to pick her up at midnight somewhere and tells her not to walk home at that time for there was a very dangerous and dark park in the way. At midnight the husband is not there so the wife decides to wait, but after two hours of waiting, she decides to walk back home. When in the middle of the park she is assaulted and raped by some individual. So the question was who was responsible, and the majority blamed either the wife for not listening her husband or the husband for not being on time, while the rapist was kindly forgotten.

Same as in any dramatic content where the villain blackmails his, ahem, detainee to choose whom of his friends to kill first, and then until the situation is resolved the responsibility is squarely on the one who has to choose, not the one who created the situation and will actually pull the trigger. I have yet to see one where the victim would flatly refuse to get involved in the game and return the responsibility to the villain.

So... I figure the messenger in this case will not be shot, no matter how loudly few may claim that he has created the problem.