#my fatal flaw is actually that i will never actually give anyone consequences for treating me like shit

[redstrewn]

The 7 august 2023 redstrewn perception of Leander

Before you read:

Nothing in here is new. It's all things I've already rambled about and theories others have already shared. I'm just dumping all my thoughts in one place.

I'm crass so there's gonna be sexual jokes in there

Disclaimer 1: This perception is based on many theories by other people. I don't claim to be the original speculator for these ideas.

Disclaimer 2: Plz don't yell at me for my insane delusions of Leander. You dont have to agree and I don't expect you to.

Onto my perception of Leander.

In my opinion,

His hogging of MC is due to the following:

Primarily, their power.

He has plans for it I think. The hands could have connections to fogfall (Vere, paraphrased from memory: "You're like me: not quite human, not quite monster." Vere emerged from fogfall. The soulless that attacked MC seemed more interested/distracted by their hands).

Leander could be interested in fogfall serving him—increasing his ability with magic, which is a distortion of/messing with reality. He's got motifs of what's often considered the territory of god(s) that mortals aren't to meddle with, lest they suffer terrible consequences. (Heaven, underworld, life cycle/resurrection, immortality/eternity, crossing planes/boundaries, dislike of the unknown.)

Along with his apparent egotism from his uquiz result, his erased fatal flaw, repeated use of the word "hero," and "Mages lust for power. It's always their downfall," I think it's not unreasonable to assume he intends to meddle with exactly the things mortals are told not to mess with. He's described as a rebellious mage after all (I think. Going from memory here).

Leander is taken aback by MC's power, noting its contrast from other curses he's dealt with. Considering it can completely overtake another's mind and, in my opinion, also affected Leander before he got ahold of himself (his expression dropping and seeming to reach for MC's throat), it seems to be highly powerful and thus...something exactly a mage would lust for.

Secondarily, their vulnerability.

People have many differing opinions on Leander: whether he's a yandere, if he treats MC like special or if he's just like that to everyone, if he's actually an asshole or just naïve, etc. But there's one thing that's pretty much indisputable and canon: he's got a mad savior complex. He and his Hounds act as Lowtown's helpers and his attitude to Vere in his relationship chart spells this out clearly.

Enter MC. Completely hopelessly clueless on even the most basic customs of Eridia. Desperate and broke and with nobody to turn to. To top it all off, he can give them something no one else can: normal touch that they're starving for.

If that isn't the ultimate wet dream of a guy with a mad savior complex, I don't know what is. Pretty sure he would've cum on the spot after MC responded "yes" to his question, "Am I the first person you've touched like this?" if he didn't care about weirding out MC LMFAO.

Thirdly, his egotism

Truthfully, this is related to his savior complex—it derives from egotism.

He loves attention and dislikes being ignored canonically. To MC, he is special to a metaphorically and literally magical extent: because only he can continuously, over a possibly infinite future, offer them something they've never had in their entire life.

Won't an egotistical guy get excited over that?

MC is special to him because he knows he is special to MC. He knows his magic can't cure them. But he can offer a taste of it the way no one else can.

Fourthly...loneliness?

"Despite his popularity, he isn't close to anyone." Like the saying goes, being alone in a crowd (Bloodhounds in his case) is the loneliest feeling of all.

So why isn't he close to anyone?

It's on purpose

Eridia's currency is information. Baring oneself (metaphorically at least) to anyone poses more risk in this city than elsewhere. He's a leader. Leaders need followers. Followers need someone to believe in. For people to believe in someone, they must have good reputation. Baring his flaws poses risk to that.

Nobody want him lol

I think it would be funny if he's popular and has a good enough reputation that people respect and adore him...but know that they're better off not getting with him lol. Vere looked into his soul and fucking hates what he saw. I don't have enough evidence for this take. Just that it would be fucking hilarious.

Was he chasing after the other LIs because he's lonely?

He seems to be the type to chase anyone down (or at least anyone that may be able to offer him something) whether that's just to gather information talk over drinks/dinner or recruit them into his Bloodhounds.

So, okay, yeah maybe it's not just that he's lonely but he also gets to gather more information by picking people's brains. And also he gets to add onto his growing gang that does his bidding. And also he could convince and influence others to do things he wants (like he does with MC! "Noooo haha MC stick with me the rest can't help youuu").

He could be both lonely and networking like the business major that he is 🤷‍♀️

What's his fatal flaw?

"Mages lust for power. It's always their downfall."

🎵 Love's gonna get you killed. But pride's gonna be the death of you, and you and me 🎵 — "PRIDE." by Kendrick Lamar

God complex! Savior complex! Egotism! The deadliest of the seven deadly sins! The sin of Satan himself that caused him to be cast out of heaven! The cause of Icarus's great fall! The damnation of Faustus! Give it up for HUBRIS everybody!

It's all about arrogantly believing you can handle or know better about greater powers you're told no one should or can.

Gosh, how embarassing this would be if people knew your fatal flaw was considered the worst of all flaws...and about being the biggest failure too. If I was an egotistical guy worried about my reputation, I'd scratch out my fatal flaw too.

Does he care about MC at the time of demo?

He cares about them a lot! Because of their power, his savior complex, and his egotism! The loneliness probably helps. He's special to them so they're special to him!

So he likes them?

Sure! He loves how much their power can do for him and how much they feed his ego!

Wait what? Is he just using them?

😬🤭 Don't worry, he's lonely. He'll probably end up actually caring enough to honestly think about what's actually best for MC and not just his selfish intentions...eventually...at some point...maybe?

But he's jealous! He likes them then, yes?

I mean...I wouldn't want to lose a source of great power and ego boost to anyone else as an egotistical mage, personally. Especially not my rival that I'm actively trying to kill.

This perception of Leander is too dramatically horrible. He can't be as uncaring as you think.

I think he likes to think he cares! He probably likes thinking of himself a hero who does no wrong and only does what's best. Even if the means might be a little unconventional or reprehensible to some people.

But I also think he's highly fucking delusional about it all. Probably why people get deranged/insane vibes from him.

I think his head is so far up his own ass he can't fucking see he's clearly being more selfish than he might like to think. He's so convinced he knows better, runs away from his cushy home, runs away from enrolling into the elite institution to do his own thing and make his own group to run his own set of people. He says something like, "I'm just as good as the Senobium. Better, even."

That's some audacious shit! That sounds like a man who doesn't know his own shortcomings. And he is according to his uquiz and the fucken slashing of his fatal flaw. HUUUUUUUBRIIIIIIIIS. He's delusional about himself: his feelings, intentions, knowing what's best, whatever.

I want to fucking swing a bat against his thick skull, honestly. He'd make a great piñata.

End note

Honestly thought this post would be longer but I don't know what else to ponder about this rascal.

[ofalltheginjoints]

[mc-critical]

What are your thoughts on Ibrahim? For me it went from indifference and dislike in season 1 to liking in season 2 and becoming my favorite male character in season 3 tbh. Actually the only good male character by season 3 (season 4 has many other options too). He is probably the most complex and well written character and I really sympathise with him. His arrogance was his downfall but if Suleyman wasn't such a bitch it wouldn't have been lol. He wasn't wrong in that imo. He was a slave, a fisherman's son but his intelligence and skill took him farther than anyone else and it's not wrong to be proud of such a feat. He deserved the pride more than just about anyone, even Suleyman. What I dislike the most about him is his treatment of Nigar after their relationship ended. She's my favorite character and although their relationship itself was my favorite in the whole show (other than Nurbanu and Selim) it ended really badly

Ibrahim is one of my most conflicting characters on the series: one time I feel like I don't get the appeal, especially not the stans in one Bulgarian forum, he doesn't elicit such a strong emotional reaction in me as he does in others, but then once he hits an incredibly strong arc and I begin to analyze his character and all its dimensions, I come to love him for what he is and realize how much effort has gone in conceiving and developing him. He's certainly the most well-written male character that isn't a sultan or a prince in the entire franchise. (the sultans aren't the brightest, but the bar is so high when it comes to their writing. There isn't any of them that is badly written. The princes are also well developed, but now that I think about it, Ibrahim surpasses some of them as well!) He's delightfully fleshed out with every detail; his actions, while morally ambiguous at times, are very understandable and you can clearly see the deeper, nuanced reasons why he does what he does. His arc was a sight to see from beginning to end and watching it reach its inevitable tragic conclusion was heartwrenching. At a point he became so important to the narrative, whether it was intentional or not, that the show (or actually, S03B in particular, because S04 was absolutely fantastic!) began to lowkey miss something without him. He had such a strong presence that couldn't be matched by anyone else after him.

[To be brutally honest though, I find his dynamic with Hürrem in terms of screentime to be kinda overrated. Not that it's bad or anything, quite the contrary - their chemistry was great, they were consistent and fun to watch, they had quite a few great scenes that were definetly more than Hürrem and Mahidevran's, I dare even say this is one of the most solid antagonistic dynamics of Hürrem's writing-wise, but I just find it sometimes gets way too much credit? It's weird, I know.]

The most interesting thing about him is, without a doubt, his fatal flaw that I... actually don't think is arrogance. It's not up for argument that Ibrahim can definetly come off as arrogant, but the arrogance is rather a manifestation of his fatal flaw, not his fatal flaw itself. I believe that it's precisely his inferiority complex that is the root of his vulnerabilities: as you said, he's been only a fisherman in Parga, and his background is both a source of memories where he can recall his more "innocent" days with his family and a tough spot for him where he is consistently reminded of something that is already in the past after all he has achieved. He did want to return to Parga, to see who he used to be one more time, but after that it's as if he never gets a chance to forget, to put it behind him. He pretends he has forgotten, but that consistent reminder of how he has started seems to be constantly haunting him to the point he begins to remind himself of it. It's not only people like Figani, Iskender Çelebi or the other members of the divan in early S01 that don't let him forget, it's as if he himself doesn't want to forget. It's undeniable that he had climbed up to heights he wouldn't dream of and the role of a grand vezier needed getting used to and to be dealt with with care. On one hand, we could argue that he reminds himself of Parga as a way to preserve his moral compass, in a way, to realize when and how he has screwed up or remind himself of the limitations of how far can he go, for Süleiman is his friend and companion who he wouldn't want to disappoint. But on the other hand, the more he rose in the hierarchy, the stronger became a wish for him to exceed these limitations placed upon him by everyone around. Süleiman is able to give him everything if he wishes, so why not let it happen? Then he's going to prove to everyone, prove to his inner demons, this sense of inferiority that he, in fact, can not only become the most politically adept grand vezier there is, but a person who has his own country within the country and can rule it with ease. The political arena ultimately becomes a target of his inner conflict where he projects more power than anyone else, is most influential and does the best in order to gain the goal, not only to gain SS's approval, but show that, yeah, he can do his best for the role he's put in, fixating on the Ottoman country he claims to be a ruler of and his apparently endless rights. It turns into a coping mechanism where he can escape his past and background and he gets so sucked in it that his self awareness becomes less and less. That's where his arrogance comes from and I feel that if he didn't possess that complex of his, he would've managed things way better and had more self control, as a result. He was a very good politician in the show, setting in motion many good strategies (his strategy gave them the Mohacs victory after all), having a strong, pragmatic mind and many innovative ideas and if he didn't try his hardest to convince himself he's worth something that isn't just the story of the fisherman in Parga, Hürrem wouldn't stand a chance against him.

This inferiority complex is the reason for his infidelity, too. He loves Hatice dearly and he never expected that she of all people would do the very thing he dreads the most. Her pulling rank on him came as such a shock for him that it seemed he would never forget or forgive. It put infinetly more salt to the wound, deeply hurting his ego and the self-esteem he was just beginning to gain. That's why he let himself in Nigar's hands for so long, for she would only want to please him, for that relationship would have no limitations whatsoever and wouldn't restrict Ibrahim in any way. It was something that was his, something the dynasty would never touch or learn about. I love Nigar and Ibrahim's relationship, too. Principally, I'm not a fan of love triangles at all, but that one is a notable exception for how wonderfully, but crushingly psychological it is. It wasn't added in only for the sake of the drama, it was set up for very long and it was like the characters actually got there through their own actions and they had to truly face that struggle to flesh out and evolve. But there wasn't genuine love there, not in Ibrahim's part. That was his biggest weakness speaking, causing the illusion of love, not the real feeling of it. He wanted to preserve this relationship as the fisherman in Parga, but to me, it felt like he showed something more similar to his own confident assertions of the power of a grand vezier than actual regard for Nigar's feelings. It all was a lie he wanted to believe, because of his ego's denial, and he believed it so much he told Nico that Nigar was the person he truly loved in E51. And when he did get out of the lie (the monologue in E57), see how he reacts differently in front of her now - he turns off every single try of hers to give him affection, he reacted very badly when he learned she was pregnant, it was as if he wanted her to wake up from the dream and move on, too? And due to his inner conflict that perpetuates his arrogance grew even more in S03, he got over Nigar, but not over her child. Esmanur's birth made him return to and enforced his old habits that made him consider that child as another piece of solace, something out of the dynasty, also only his, trying so desperately to have her live with him and Hatice. The infidelity and the way he treated Nigar after he realized the error of his ways are ones of the worst things Ibrahim did, along with Leo (now, I get he wanted to knock Hürrem down a peg, but that was admittedly much for me.) and while I understand why these events and interactions came to fruition, I can't justify him for them.

I agree that had Süleiman not given him as much power, his inferiority complex would be highly downplayed, at the very least. He underestimated the possible consequences of Ibrahim's rise and it really doesn't look like he knows him as much as he thinks he does. Whether he did it to test him (SS's lasting reminders that Ibrahim gets closer to death) or because he loves him dearly and wants to embrace his potential ("I want you to use that mind only for me!") or both, it's like he gave him both too much freedom and too many boundaries at once. I mean, I understand why SS executed Ibrahim: his affirmations, no matter their backstory and how metaphorical they are, pose a definite threat for a padişah and along with his growing paranoia of betrayal, he couldn't be sure how far he was going to go anymore. It's as if Ibrahim crossed every line, openly acting like he controls the padişah and his state in front of the fellow pashas, efendis and ambassadors and that couldn't be controlled anymore. It's as if he had done his best efforts to bring him down to earth, but since none of it was working, he decided to act accordingly. The many "failures" of Ibrahim have been piling up in the narrative in the span of 81 episodes and I get why SS would finally snap for what was the final straw. However, doing so much unprecedented stuff for a grand vezier was bound to bring disasters for the padişah due to the chance in his mind that he would try to question or prevail over him, hence Süleiman should've realized that it was only natural one would want more and more. And that happened with S03 Ibrahim - he fought more and more with his inner demons, hence wanting to have more and more to be validated by the others and by his own ego that perhaps wouldn't feel satisfied regardless.

While his fatal flaw underlines his complexity, it also gets complimented by his many positive qualities: his love for Hatice was very sweet in the beggining and after the Nigar plot, it turned out to be really genuine - their reconciliation was very telling in that aspect; his relationship and loyalty to Süleiman deserves respect, even though his inferiority complex came in the way, he still would never give him up and never once lost hope in his recovery when he was in his deathbed and while that may become up for debate in S03, he would never openly stand against him and would gladly try his best to please him; his bond with Mustafa is amazing, too - I love how he practically raised that kid and gave him sound advice as well as his mother; that said, his relationship with Mahidevran deserves more appreciation and it is one of the most reciprocal and understanding, soft and "carefee" dynamics of the show; I love his dedication to his family and how he loves them as much and remembers them with the same fondness as ever before. In short, when going in depth, this multifaceted character has so much to offer, like, wow!

Okay, when I first watched the show, there was that point where I felt Ibrahim overstayed his welcome and I even wanted for Hürrem to finish him already (heh, those were the days! 😅) but now when I've rewatched and reexamined MC many times, I see that despite of his few negative traits, everything about this character flows so well and so organically and it's one of the characters in the series that have aged really well with time in my eyes. And I respect him so much for that.

[hiscyarika]

hey! so i've been seeing a bunch of discourse regarding Omera and how she tried to remove Din's helmet without asking him, but i haven't seen anyone show the same degree of hate towards Cara as they do Omera for basically doing the same thing. i'm curious, what are your thoughts on all this? love your blog/writing! 💙✨

Me: *has not been present on Tumblr for like a week because of school*

First of all, thank you for your kind words, anon! I’m so glad that you enjoy my content and I appreciate your support! 💙

And without further ado, let me just give my two cents on the subject 😌

Let’s go ahead and start with Omera, since she’s the one that everyone seems to be so concerned about. I think that Omera is a fantastic character! She’s protected and raised her daughter on her own for some length of time. She takes charge when Din and Cara try to tell the villagers that they have no choice but to leave, and she’s absolutely badass for being the only one in the village with the skill to shoot the way she does. Awesome character, and very well developed despite only appearing for one episode. I would absolutely be open to her appearing in Season 2 as someone that Din and the child go to when they’ve hit a rough patch. 

That being said, I didn’t appreciate the scene with trying to take the helmet off. Was Din seriously considering staying? Yes. Did he react much differently than when anyone else tried the same thing? Yes. And those two points have a lot of merit in this argument and I’m glad that people have brought it up. However, Omera did know that Din had not shown his face since he was a child. He says that to her very explicitly. And then he spends weeks on Sorgan never appearing to anyone in anything less than full armor and the helmet. He doesn’t eat or drink around people. To me, it’s very clear that there is a significance to his mannerisms even if Omera doesn’t know the specifics about the Creed and why Din behaves this way. My thing about this isn’t so much that she tries to remove the helmet, it’s more that she does it in front of the entire village. This whole interaction would have been much easier to swallow if it had just been the two of them in one of the little houses. 

I think the bottom line here is that it’s okay for people to have disdain for this interaction between Din and Omera. I personally have not interacted with anyone whose opinion seems to be founded in the idea that she’s a potential love interest which “may threaten our own fantasies about Din” so to speak. I also have not interacted with anyone whose opinion seems to be founded in the fact that she is a character of color (which, Din is a character of color as well, so I personally wouldn’t understand this argument even if I had come in contact with it). That isn’t to say that there aren’t people with these viewpoints, but I think that it’s really important not to assume that most people who dislike Omera or this interaction do it for such egregious reasons.

As for Cara, I also mostly enjoy her as a character! She’s got a lot of spunk. She’s a badass. And Gina Carano being able to just manhandle someone like she does in Chapter 8? Phenomenal. But she has her flaws too, flaws that I don’t think I picked up on until my second or third viewing of the series. But given the way that I write Kir’manir, and especially the way that I handle Cara in that series, I’ve had to really look at the way she interacts with all the other characters in the show, and there are actually more things that bother me about Cara than there are things about Omera (which makes sense because Cara has far more screen time than Omera, but still). 

One thing that really irks me about Cara is the way that she so flippantly responds to Din telling her the repercussions of taking off the helmet at the end of Chapter 4. When she says “That’s it?” she clearly has no regard for the high importance that the Creed has in Din’s life. And you could argue that’s because she doesn’t understand it. But just like with Omera, Cara has been around Din for weeks now, and I would hope that by then she would at least recognize the significance of adhering to the Creed, even if the consequences for breaking it are not fatal. 

I also have a really hard time with the way that she treats Kuiil. Kuiil makes it very clear that the work that he did for the Empire was against his will, and that he had to work for a very long time to be free from his servitude. And yet she is still very hostile and refuses to recognize that he’s not an enemy. Again, you could argue that she’s got a lot of trauma from what she went through as a shock trooper, and I don’t want to invalidate that at all. But I think it would have been much better for her to recognize that Kuiil never posed a threat to her. He wasn’t a soldier, as far as I’m aware, and therefore he wasn’t someone that had any direct impact on Cara or any of the other shock troopers. 

To wrap up Cara’s analysis, I have to address her attempt to take Din’s helmet off as well. And I want to be clear when I say that I actually have even less respect for Cara doing this than Omera. When Omera tried to take it off, at least to her it seemed like it was something that Din was considering going through with. With Cara, even though she was trying to save his life, she knew full well that keeping to his Creed was more important than anything else. He gave up a happy life on Sorgan with Omera and the child just to keep to his Creed. He was going to leave the child there if the other bounty hunter had not shown up. Cara probably has a much better idea of what it means for Din to be a Mandalorian than Omera ever did. And the sad thing is that if Din had been too weak to stop her in any way, she probably would have gone through with revealing him without a second thought. 

Both of these female characters have flaws, and I think it’s important not only to discuss them, but to realize that other people might not feel the same way as you do about the way that these characters behave. I think we as a fandom have forgotten how to disagree without having so much aggression behind our interactions with each other, and as someone who’s been here pretty much since the beginning of The Mandalorian’s fandom, it’s really disheartening to see this so often on my dashboard. It’s the reason that I have contemplated leaving more than once in the past few months. We need to remember that not everyone is going to agree with us on certain things, and that’s okay. As long as no one is being harmed, then it’s not worth having these arguments over all the time. If you like Omera and you want to see her as Din’s love interest in Season 2? That’s fine, but you shouldn’t expect everyone to see things that way. If you think that Cara is a bad character and you want to voice your opinion about it? Great. Do that. But also please remember that this is a TV show. These are fictional characters, and in the end you do not gain anything from shaming people for their opinions on certain characters. The end. 

[sinesalvatorem]

My Best Explanation of My Father

I think I’ve finally, finally understood the basis of my father’s parenting style. Which is also why I can finally articulate its fatal flaw.

My dad recognised that there are certain virtues you need to know, feel, and reflexively practice. Things like thrift, honesty, reliability, hard work, perseverance, attention to detail, and not complaining instead of acting. So, he did the obviously logical thing and tried to instill them in me through explicit instruction.

The thing is, virtues generally can’t be taught. Knowing about them is only part of the problem. You have to be able to feel that they are true. And that can only happen when they’re harnessed in the service of doing what you actually value. Of bringing about the satisfaction of your own purpose, rather than anyone else’s. Of creating the world you want to live in.

Which meant I didn’t immediately get them. I would have to act in the world until noticing the patterns in my own actions made them click. The problem is, he was terrified of the ways I might hurt myself if I didn’t know these things. So he didn’t see giving me the opportunities to make mistakes until they stuck as being the most important things he could be doing if he wanted me to Get this.

And, well, I just didn’t live in a world in which this was true. My time wasn’t my own, so I couldn’t use it to pursue projects that might fulfill me. Instead I had to use it going to school or doing homework or working in the garden or on otherwise externally imposed tasks.

But the problem is, not a single one of those tasks inculcated a sense of meaning in me, because none of them affected my goals. They didn’t contribute toward anything. It was clear from primary school that I would do as well in school whether I showed up every day and did all the homework, as if I showed up once a week and never took notes. I was once bumped from grade 5 into grade 6 for two weeks and followed all the lessons perfectly, despite showing up in media res.

And yet so many hours of my day were directed toward this. I had to take notes in class. Would whether I took notes affect anything about my education? Empirically, no. Would doing homework affect anything? Empirically, no. Would studying for tests affect anything? Empirically, no. Would going to class affect anything? Empirically, no. I’d even do just as well on exams, despite all of this.

Every single time I tested whether something adults were forcing me to spend time on affected my education in any way, the answer was always no. Literally the only things in school which affected the progress of my learning were having conversations with teachers and getting new books. Everything else was a distraction, and I knew it was a distraction. And once you know that, it’s impossible to value the thing anymore.

So I always hated being in school, and in addition to this had to deal with the fact that all my peers had it out for me. But this combination of experiences - meaningless dead time loosely related to learning, and constant bullying - was allotted a huge amount of my time by forces external to me. And when it wasn’t that, it was something else my parents had decided I should be doing.

Furthermore, at the time, I didn’t have a very secure sense of property. Most of my things weren’t really “owned” by me, so much as they were treated as being on loan from my parents. My school treated it as axiomatic that any student’s belongings could be taken by teachers, and the other students took it that my belongings could be taken because I didn’t fight back at the time. (That’s another essay.)

I also didn’t have much persistence for anything I owned. We moved a lot, based on my parents’ plans, so pretty much at random (from my subjective perspective) I’d have to choose which things I’d have to abandon to move to a new place. And, of the things I carried, some of them were on loan from my parents, so who knew when I might stop having them? In my early years, I cried a lot any time the things I thought of as my possessions were taken from me. Over time, I just realised I had to stop caring about my things, because they weren’t really mine anyway.

My father is quite familiar with classical economics. He knew that in societies where people have an insecure sense of property, they also don’t value labour. He also knew that I wouldn’t have had a secure sense of property and I didn’t value labour. In retrospect, I’m kicking myself wondering how he didn’t put these two together. Or, if he did, why he didn’t make the obvious adjustment.

(Things started improving in this vein when I started getting a weekly allowance, but definitely the best thing they could have done would have been to give me more opportunities to earn more money, plus a belief that I’d get to keep things I paid for.)

So, I lived in a world where most of my time was taken by others, and nothing I made or acquired persisted. So I just gave up on the outside world. Turned off and dropped out as far as external circumstances were concerned. Why should I care about anything going on outside of me? It wasn’t like any choice I made would affect it.

So, instead, I exclusively paid attention to the inside world. I thought and studied and theorised. I followed whatever was interesting until I could find cool surprises. I solved problems only when the rewards of the action existed solely in my head. After all, if I solved a problem in the outside world, there was no reason to think that I would get to keep anything valuable that was produced.

But I could always keep knowledge and carry it around inside me. Knowledge was the only thing no one else could take away, so it was the only thing I cared about. My father always thought I was a wuss because I couldn’t take even minor pain. But the problem was, I couldn’t take minor pain for no reason. What, you want me to do this slightly painful work that will have exactly zero benefit to me? Of course I’m going to complain!

Meanwhile, at seven years old I was coming in covered in ant bites every day, because I couldn’t stop performing experiments on ant colonies to figure out how they worked. The collective agency of ant colonies was fascinating, and anything I learned about them was truly mine. That information belonged to me; earned by my own investigation. And if I really was gaining something from it, I could endure however much pain being covered in fire ants brought me. Just not the stubbed toe I might get from doing externally-imposed work.

But it’s really obvious why my dad’s lifestyle contributed meaning and virtue to him, but his attempt to propagate it didn’t contribute meaning to me. His family was actually living at the edge of their productivity. Any work he did was really work that would contribute to all of them. If he built furniture, he’d sit on that furniture. If he planted crops, he’d eat those crops. His actions improved his world, so he identified with them.

My actions didn’t improve my world. The chores I was assigned weren’t actually at the edge of our productive potential. Important things weren’t left to me until late in my teens, so in the meantime any work I did was work whose value I’d never see. It would never provide anything to me. Even working in the garden was completely meaningless, because I didn’t consume any of the plants we grew (other than sorrel, the one thing I liked being involved with).

Nietzsche’s idea of master morality vs slave morality is really just about this. Master morality is identification with your actions, because their consequences belong to you. You act because it will bring you benefit, so you want to act. Slave morality is alienation from your actions, because their consequences don’t belong to you. You act to avoid punishment for inaction, but action itself doesn’t bring you anything but the absence of punishment.

And as a child I had a huge amount of slave morality because I had the circumstances that foster the subjective experience of slavery. I’ll call this experience of the world ‘slave condition’. I gradually shook off this slave morality in various areas of my life, but it actually only started coming off at home by complete accident.

In my mid-teens, my dad started assigning me work in the garden any time he saw me walking around unoccupied. This pretty much destroyed my subjective quality of life. Until then, the only place I’d gotten meaning in life was being able to pace and think, and now I wasn’t able to because any time I tried to use for that would be stolen. So I just became suicidally depressed because continued life no longer contributed to any feeling of gain. During this time, I eventually gave up on complaining when forced to work, and instead just started internally fantasising about death any time I was working.

However, I think he misinterpreted this as me somehow having acquired the relevant virtues that correlate with not complaining, when what had actually happened was that I no longer valued my life enough to argue for it. But after a few months of this, he started trusting me to have more control over my life. And then, the moment I was exchanging this otherwise meaningless labour for control over my own life, I suddenly became way more enthusiastic about working.

Which of course was the point at which I started acquiring virtue, and my father started trusting me more, and I started acquiring more virtue. A virtuous cycle, if you will. However, what this means is that basically the entire course of my learning to be a real person happened between 15 and now. I’ve had 5 years to become a person, because for the first 15 years I was in the stasis of slave condition.

And you know what’s the most horrifying thing about this? It was an accident! The ideal way of raising a child, it’s now apparent to me, is to give them as much power to control their lives as possible - within moderate safeguards - while letting them keep or lose what they earn or squander. Basically, putting them in the master condition so they develop master morality. And then they’ll have all the virtue they need to succeed in the world.

Meanwhile, I was in the slave condition for the first 15 years, and so had slave morality. It’s only because my father accidentally pushed me over the edge from “low meaning in life” to “no meaning in life” and then mistook depressed nihilism for virtue once that I ever got placed in the master condition in the first place. And then I’ve spent the past 5 years trying to develop increasing levels of master morality.

But it is utterly horrifying that I could have just never made it due to this one simple mistake. The mistake of thinking that one must be a master to be allowed to be in the master condition, instead of realising that the master condition creates masters. I could totally be like one of my uncles right now if I’d either failed to get depressed or my father had been better at accurately judging emotions. I was saved by a coin toss. *internal screaming*

I mean, luckily enough, now I’ve got it. Now I’ve fully internalised that I can make my own world. Now I value working hard, because I get to keep what I work for. I love earning money so much - not even because of how much money I’ll have, but because I made that dollar. My life is on a clear upward trajectory, and it only took insights my father already knew, plus one that apparently he didn’t:

To truly value action, actions must bring value.

I expect this is still an ongoing problem, even now that I’ve emigrated. When I left, the only notable conflict between my parents seemed to be over division of labour. My father wanted my mother to do work she didn’t value, and thought she was lazy for not wanting to do it. But he doesn’t seem to notice that the things that bring value to him aren’t the same ones that bring value to other people. No one else in the family wants to work on the garden because the garden is effectively his hobby.

If you want people to be active and motivated, you have to let them do things that will actually improve their lives. You have to let them take actions that improve the quality of things they actually care about - not things you think they should care about. I hope my parents realise this in time for my younger brother to become a master on something other than a coin toss.

[aluckygamble-blog]

To Kill a Mockingbird Blog Post #3

We finished the book this week and it felt pretty great to check another thing off of my To Do list. So lets talk about the ending. 

Lifesaving Ham 

Scout was ham in her school play and I can’t stop laughing. It make me think of this: 

While a crappy part in a school play can suck, Scout’s ham costume actually ended up saving her life which was a very lucky coincidence. But we must set the life saving powers of he ham costume aside for just a minute to discuss the ending of this book. The ending leaves us with the age old question of “whodunnit?” But I would like to respond with the other age old question of “who cares?” I ask this question because of the speech Heck Tate gives Atticus at the end of the book,“I’m not a very good man, sir, but I am sheriff of Maycomb County. Lived in this town all my life an’ I’m going on forty-three years old. Know everything that’s happened here since before I was born. There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it’s dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead” (Lee 276). I am choosing not to speculate anymore Mr. Bob Ewell fell on his knife and that is that. I am going with the story that everyone agreed to tell. Regardless of the consequences that would have been brought down upon the real perpetrator of this crime, the real crime would have come in bringing the Finch children under the scrutiny of the town once again. They have been through enough. The minute Mr. Ewell stopped breathing the whole Tom Robinson ordeal was finished and the children though not as young and sweet as they were in the beginning were free. No one had won in this ordeal and everyone had lost, two dead men one innocent and one most certainly guilty. 

Shooting Mockingbirds 

Who is the Mockingbird? This is one of the central questions of this text and I believe the answer extends far beyond this story and far beyond the boundaries of 1930s Maycomb County. This is an issue that is still relevant and probably more relevant than ever. I’m talking about privilege. I referenced this in a pervious blog post. I said, “Continuing on with Atticus’s character development we learned during this section of the book we learned that Atticus is a terrific shot. He was great shot when he was young but he set down the gun as he grew up and would not teach his own son how to shoot, he left that task to his brother, Jem’s uncle. But why? Well as Miss Maudie explained it he put down the gun when he realized that God had given him an advantage over other living things. This is not just a statement about shooting but really social commentary on privilege. Atticus is a middle class educated white male he has a leg up on most every other member of the community but he never uses it to look down upon anyone. He treats everyone and everyone’s situation with sensitivity an respect and never uses his position to put anyone down. He was not realizing that God had given him a shooting talent he was realizing his privileged place in society.” Now I like to look as it like this, the gun represents privilege, and the mockingbird represents those who do not have it. The white residents of Maycomb County use their “guns” to put the African American members of the community down and into a place of lower status. This is because they look at the world through the sights of their gun all of the time which blinds them to the perspectives of others. This human blindness is well described in William Jame’s essay entitled On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings. We are all blind in our own special way, Atticus describes this in the first part of the book, he says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” This lesson remains throughout the entire book and is even more justified by William Jame’s essay.

A Thank You Note to Scout

I want to take this time to thank my assigned character Scout for what she has taught me throughout this story. 

Dear Scout,

Thank you Scout for squashing gender roles with your refusal to be what others expected you to be because it doesn’t matter if you act like a girl or dress like a girl. You were never confined by the boundaries of your gender or even your age. Thank you for be willing to understand the points of views of others and also being willing to learn from Atticus. Thank you Scout for showing me what it means to be brave by staring down a lynch mob and instead of resorting to violence you appealed to their human side. You an eight year old girl brought down a lynch mob simply because you realized their one fatal flaw, that they were human. Thank you for being sympathetic, intelligent, and though at times hot headed you were everything that you needed to be. It was a privilege to watch you grow up and in a sense experience this journey with you. So thank you Scout for everything. 

Lots of Love, 

Emma