#talk to me about tartacchino and you will get a year's worth of deranged psychosis

[libertasforte]

Oof yeah I forgot about & I agree with the part that Childe would not want to be taken care of.

She views herself as a masculine being (in some way) and she sees that ego extension of that part of herself in Childe. And so she classifies him to that side and she is tough to him - and this is probably something that Childe appreciates in some way and prefers to the alternative. (That sacrifice bit is random, but it’s like - she would sacrifice herself if she was a man - because she isn’t; she takes a random man and sacrifices him in her stead.) So as much as I think they are great caretakers for each other, Childe doesn’t want to be taken care of (and neither does Arlecchino).

And this is where I’m like - just get over yourselves and choose to be taken care of - but this is how the mommy&child dynamics come in, I think. Why it’s mommy&child if this is a relation of mutual care - I think this is a gender thing, like I think women are generally more taken care of by “society” (so like, random people) (under some definition of “take care”) than men, so the man is more dependent on that mutual care than the woman is. I think it’s more complicated than that, but anyway. And Arlecchino is so dominant. Lmao. Manipulative and controlling. (And anyway, in my head at least, they have gotten over the “take care of each other” part, which is why I had forgotten about this…)

I like what you’re saying with how Arlecchino is not Kind, but Good - however, this might be a difference in interpretation, or a difference in picking apart the nuance of certain words, but. I don’t consider Arlecchino to be Good, and I don’t think she considers herself to be Good. What I think is that she is Principled, and that her principles derive outwards from her ego. I think that she is logical and rational in an internal way that reads as insanity when it is seen from the outside (like a “rational agent” in economics - what is that; other than an insane person?) I think that she is moralizing; which is different from Good. Her role is that of the accuser; the adversary; who was never considered Good. I do think she is Harsh; but I also think she is Kind. She was Harsh to Focalors and Neuvillette. But she was still Kind in action, like bringing her her favorite cake.

I think that her character is about effectiveness. She is Harsh because it is effective. She is not Cruel; because Cruelty is not effective. The presence of Kindness is usually, always more effective than the absence of Kindness. And Kindness used for Effect is often called hypocrisy; the Harbingers call her as much.

Good is, very often, not effective; for that reason, she is often, not Good. It is effective to be considered Good; it is not necessarily to be Good. (And so, I think “ineffectual” would be the measure by which she uses to weigh Childe.) Another thing that Arlecchino might say is that it is more effective to be Feared rather than to be Loved.

And all this makes it sound like she is some sort of super Psychopath; she is not; this effectiveness is just the internal logic by which she operates and is baked into the bones of her character. She lives in a body with every part marked by Intent.

But her lack of Goodness is - and this is the question of her treatment of Childe - on a meta level, I think the question is like, would Arlecchino punish Childe (for being out of line) - and for me, my choice is, at least - I love her because I want her to be radically amoral.

(What does this mean? I think there’s this dynamic of how men police each other, and women do it to men too. You can argue all day about how Childe was a terrorist who tried to sink Liyue. But it just feels good to hit Childe (unfortunately for him) (problematic comment of the day). You keep on hitting him week after week and you start inventing evils for him to be accountable for. What I like Arlecchino for is for her ability to be articulate of things like this. For me, this clarity makes it so that it doesn’t feel entirely insane to be Childe. But when you get to this level, why would she care for someone who is in a worse position than her, especially if it comes at cost to herself? And so I feel like there has to be something that necessitates their relation of mutual care on Arlecchino’s side. But also I think they’re just two shattered parts of a whole -)

Recently, I started looking into the mythology of the Baba Yaga - she may be from Fontaine but she has been adopted by Snezhnaya - she is an evil being who, due to existing outside the norms of society, catalyzes change for the better. She eats children. I think that’s the direction I like for her.

At this point, also; is Childe good? (Not capital G Good - because I don’t think that ever applies to him.) 

Childe does not regard himself as good, he said as much. What I think of him is that he is a force of nature, like a tornado; or a hurricane. And the Harbingers regard him as such; which is why they keep him as far away as possible from their delicate plans. Childe saving Fontaine reminds me of the original meaning of the phrase “kamikaze” - this phrase originates from back when the Mongols were taking over the entirety of Asia; they tried to invade Japan too.

They tried to invade Japan two times. Both times, what happened was that there came a hurricane that sunk pretty much their entire fleet. It happened twice. If you had a nickel every time that happened, you’d have two nickels.

The hurricane killed many soldiers. They called it: kamikaze; the winds of god.

Although he is from Snezhnaya, I love that his talent books are from Mondstadt, for freedom; as a storm, as a hurricane, he is not just water, but also a child of the wind (and he even has his delusion for the lightning…)

Is a hurricane good or evil? Is it such a bad thing, to stare into the hurricane, and to call it beautiful?

What I like the most about Childe, his best and most redeeming quality, what has me going at times “wait but maybe Childe is the best person actually, morally” - (although I can see how from a different perspective, this could be what people hate about him, as it reads as an avoidance of accountability and responsibility -) is his ability to take any situation he is in, to take it at face value, and to care about it. “Tartaglia” is the man with many faces, and to be him is to care and give all to whatever and whomever is right in front of him, all the time. It is his ability to choose and affirm life.

To take the religious interpretation, maybe we can assert that all that God made is Good - and that it is human Artifice and Intent (as embodied by Arlecchino; the Devil) - that made Evil -

Aside. If Childe did die fighting the star-devouring narwhal, he also fulfills the modern meaning of the phrase “kamikaze” - in order to buy time to stave off an imminent disaster, cast down by the powers that be for a crime that he didn’t commit, to die in a watery grave…

Aside  2. You know how Childe’s Foul Legacy form is based off of the Japanese super sentai, who are Japanese superheroes? Just like how American superheroes originally represented the power and might of the American military, Japanese superheroes represented the power and might of the Japanese army. And he tried to sink Liyue, a Chinese harbor city. I feel like the reference isn’t exactly subtle.

Footnote. When I say good/bad, I’m defining it as how I think of their character, and not about their actions taken. When you look at the next effect of positive/negative value to the world (at least from what we know in the plot), then Arlecchino is probably good, and Childe is probably bad. But this utilitarian good/bad is different from the good/bad of their character as people (to use an extreme example, a guy who causes a car crash that kills 10 people isn’t necessarily a morally bad person). Like people who say that it’s fine that Childe tried to sink Liyue because he knew that Morax was going to stop it - like okay, maybe he is not morally bad, but at least he is incredibly criminally negligent.

Assigning a moral value to Childe presupposes his agency; as I said that Childe is a hurricane. As for Arlecchino, I don’t want her to be morally good; I want her to be beyond morally good. I want morality to be another tool in her toolbox.

thank you childe