WTH?! Kingsman - "Shoot the dog."

This weekend I watched "Kingsman: The Secret Service" on HBO.  It was a generally fun, over-the-top spy movie with tons of absurd situations about which I happily suspended disbelief and just went with the story.  One thing in it, however, really rubbed me the wrong way.  The lead character Eggsy, a candidate to join this super-elite spy organization, has been given a dog to train and raise as part of his own spy training.  The last test of his readiness to become a Kingsman is when he is handed a pistol and told, "Shoot the dog."  He is unable to, and is summarily dismissed, then upbraided by his mentor and told that he's thrown away this amazing opportunity.  The gun, it turns out, held only a blank, but he didn't know that.  Wait? What?  What, exactly, was the point of this test?  If every other member of this organization has "passed" this test, then they are all either psychopaths, or pathologically willing to follow nonsensical orders. In either case, they probably shouldn't be running around the planet with weapons and the autonomy to do horrible things at will.  I sincerely thought, as I watched the scene, that it was a test of character, and that the "correct" answer was to refuse to shoot the dog.  After all, they've spent much of the film up to this point emphasizing that these agents are "gentlemen."  But nope, apparently they want psychopathic gentlemen.  It really damaged my enjoyment of the entire film.

As an aside, at point-blank range, even a blank can cause injury or death.