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dreamingofthewild · 2 months ago

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I feel like people often misunderstand why Gale chooses to stay behind after you side with the goblins. And to an extent, why he also stands by a romanced character in their evil ending.

Gale choosing to stay doesn’t imply that he is easily corruptible, secretly evil, or weak-willed. Given the limited time he has to find a secluded spot to avoid collateral damage from the orb when ceremorphosis hits, he doesn't really have much of a choice but to think about survival.

Gale has been living with a death sentence due to the orb, one he has been trying to mitigate, so he has had a long time to think about his mortality and he doesn't want to die—especially not while he still hasn't been forgiven by Mystra. His decision to stay with the party, even under morally dubious circumstances, underscores his pragmatic approach to survival rather than an inherent inclination towards evil.

Gale is undeniably drawn to powerful individuals. However, beneath this attraction lies his tendency to see the good in people and rationalise things.

Gale’s capacity for love is profound and intense. His love isn't just affection; it's worship. His romantic devotion is incredibly passionate yet self-destructive. It places Gale in a position where he might find himself in an unequal power dynamic again without him realising it.

His tendency for romantic idealism can prevent him from recognizing toxic patterns. Ultimately, Gale’s decision to stay with such powerful and potentially evil figures is not about compromising his morals but rather about being blinded by love, not wanting to give it up easily and a deep understanding of the complexities of human nature.

In the events of the game he still doesn't fully recognise that his relationship with Mystra is problematic. It stands that he might not realise that he is getting himself into a relationship with another unequal power dynamic.

It might also be that he doesn't want to abandon his loved one, just like Mystra abandoned him. This doesn’t mean that he is going to compromise his own morals, however. He chooses to support and stand by the person he loves, as long as they stand by him. He will challenge them, but he will act with the empathy and consideration that Mystra never afforded him. Once again, his own experience and desire for agency are most likely guiding his choices.

His devotion and hope are beautiful yet tragic, making him a deeply romantic character prone to repeating past mistakes in his quest for love and acceptance.

He does have a darker side which is attracted to knowledge and power. But it's easy to forgot that his intentions are never immoral or malicious.

When it comes to love, knowledge, and power, Gale has a significant blind spot (moral blindness maybe?). Ultimately, he just wants to love, live, and be accepted for who he is, rather than what he can do for others. His desire for happiness and to see his loved ones happy often drives his decisions. As well as a confidence in his own abilities and ability to handle situations.

So, yes, Gale might stay with his romanced partner even in an evil ending. But this doesn't mean he is evil himself. It simply reflects his humanity and the depths of his devotion. Strong emotional bonds can lead someone to remain involved with a deeply flawed and morally ambiguous partner.

It will be a toxic romance, but Gale's willingness to stay with a morally ambiguous love interest reflects not in his morality but in his approach to love. If he'd had a normal relationship and didn't have the orb then his reactions might have been different.

#Becuase I am tired of people using the fact that he stays in an evil playthrough and with an evil character to say that he is #morally corruptible and secretly evil #He is not he is just devoted and understanding to a fault #I am implying that I think Gale is an I can fix them person #A willingness to survive and blindess in love doesn't make his morally dubious #gale of waterdeep #Bg3 gale #Bg3 #Gale dekarios #Meta post #Also the evil endings and his lines towards durge support this

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thydungeongal · 1 month ago

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Hi, same anon obsessed with morality.

Okay, I admit that my ask was a bit too emotional because non-evil original roleplaying games exist even in sword and sorcery style (World of Dungeons and Oracle are some I would recommend), and existence of Gondal setting testifies that it's not a male thing in any way.

However, my probably naive concern goes a little further - I don't play D&D, but I use it for monsters and settings. It's hard to invent absolutely everything from a scratch, you know? But this leads to an ethical concern I have - doing this is still feeding into D&D hegemony and embracing Gygax's and Arneson's rotten legacy (though I am starting to think that Gygax was a lesser evil, holy fuck). And let's not fool ourselves here - derivative games like Pathfinder or Knave are still their legacy (though maybe Cairn isn't, I am not sure).

So like, what are options of games that are generic fantasy that have a lot of monsters and settings to steal and that are also both not "D&D but different" and aren't objectively evil?

I know literally a handful of candidates, so I am asking your followers to share. And no, Warhammer isn't such game.

What I remember is:

Fantasy Age is not without a sin, but it's presented as "you can depict these demi-humans as equal people or you can be a hitler, it's up to you", so progress I guess?

Jackals is built on OpenQuest and is pretty generic if you exclude it being about bronze age, but I remember some potentially creepy details of how it treats demi-humans

Blue Rose looks the most morally fine, but it's not exactly generic

Lightmaster is ugh, because it doesn't have inherently evil demi-humans, but it has inherently different demi-humans who are always savages, so it's a thin ice (though otherwise it's a blast)

D6 Fantasy doesn't really have monsters in core book, but there are probably third-party bestiaries that may even not be vile

GURPS does have bestiaries of fantasy creatures, but I don't know anything about their morality

IDK about rolemaster, but you said that it's not good.

So like, which extremely ethical non-OSR heartbreaker that was published ever am I missing? Should I look into Das Schwarze Auge, or does it suck the same way?

Ultimately I think you're thinking about this too much to your own detriment. It's good to be aware of the fact that lots of (especially older) fantasy stuff does carry some fucked up expectations and approach it with a critical eye so you don't end up replicating it, but if you become single-minded in your pursuit of the perfect, unproblematic fantasy RPG you're not only setting yourself up for disappointment but also denying yourself a lot of stuff that's good but flawed.

Anyway, not a game but a supplement for OSR games, but Skerples' Monster Overhaul is pretty good in this regard and does this via simply accepting the revolutionary paradigm of "orcs are just some guys."

Another game out of the left field, Chivalry & Sorcery is really surprising in this regard, because it's the sort of game that gives off vibes of being written by "the presence of women in a medieval setting is extremely inaccurate" types, but the authors actually make a point of saying that player enjoyment and comfort should always take precedence over adherence to historicity when it comes to issues like players wanting to play women or queer characters. But it's in its treatment of orcs and trolls (and as far as I've understood, dwarves and elves too, but I haven't read that supplement yet) where it gets really cooking. Chivalry & Sorcery is a game written by medieval history nerds and they wanted their game's worldbuilding to adhere to a medieval European paradigm. So when it came to adding orcs into the game the authors asked "how would orcs fit into the worldview of a medieval Christian?"

The answer is that just as medieval Christian philosophers mused that if cynocephali or those guys who only had one big foot were to exist then surely they must be just some guys, orcs would also have to be just some guys. This means that they would be human in terms of having been created by God and tracing descent to Adam and Eve and also could receive the eucharist and be saved.

Anyway, all of which is to say that the middle ages were woke,

#thydungeongal answers

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follows-the-bees · 2 months ago

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Parallels between Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Castiel from Supernatural

Spike and Castiel are not only similar in their introduction in the show but also their journeys and storylines/character development both on screen and behind the scenes.

Behind the Scenes and Introduction

Both Spike and Castiel were only cast to be in a few episodes each. They were supposed to play more evil-leaning characters that were then killed off.

Both their introductions turned out to be epic and fans fell in love with them right away. This caused both characters to be kept longer on the show. In fact, they were kept and made main cast members until the show ended.

Behind the scenes, creators of the show were mixed about keeping these characters. Eric Kripke has stated how much the introduction of Misha and Cas was a benefit to the show and Winchesters, but later down the line, Cas was killed off in a way that was supposed to be permanent. He was brought back later that season.

Joss Whedon on the other hand, was not too thrilled about Spike's popularity. He viewed vampires on the show to serve in as metaphors for the problems the main characters/teenagers go through and wasn't planning on spike being a love interest (same with Cas' character).

The Journey

Both Spike and Cas start out as powerful beings and enemies of the protagonists.

Spike remains an enemy for several seasons while Cas becomes an ally by the end of his first season on the show.

Over the course of the show both Spike and Cas are powered down.

Spike receives a chip on his head that stops him from biting humans.

Cas first loses most of his power when he's cut off from heaven, later becomes human, then an angel with burnt wings, during later seasons inexplicably losses powers without any explanation.

Love Life/Emotions

They both catch feelings/emotions throughout the course of their journey.

Spike gains his soul to prove himself to main protagonist Buffy.

Cas gains human emotions and feelings that while inherent to him and encouraged by fellow fallen angel Anna, is ultimately pushed over to fall by protagonist Dean.

Spike and Cas fall in love with main protagonists, Buffy and Dean.

In Buffy, we get to see this played out. We see them fall in love, sleep together, and the usual relationship push and pulls. But they are separated at the end.

Most of Cas' and Dean's love is done through subtext and text the last few seasons. That is, until the end of the series when Cas has both a character revelation and tells Dean he loves him — while fundamentally changing how Dean sees himself and also Cas learning to love and embrace himself — something he's struggled with all show. They are separated at the end of the show by "death" as well.

Personalities

Both are rather blunt and tell things as they are.

Both are badass, can kick your ass, but have sweet dispositions and are kind to those they love.

Both are plagued with self doubt. Spike's is shown in flashbacks to when he was a human.

Death

Both characters have revelations before their "final" deaths.

Spike and Cas come to love and accept themselves while also sacrificing their lives for the romantic love interests.

This sacrifice not only helps to save Buffy/Dean lives but also fellow family members/Scooby gang and the entire world. This selfless act is done at the end of the series.

Resurrection

The character of Spike is brought back for the fifth and final season of Angel, the spinoff of Buffy.

Cas' fate is left more vague. In the final episode of Supernatural, when Dean is in Heaven, Bobby tells him Cas helped Jack rebuild heaven. Cas is not on screen again after his death. This leaves it open to interpretation is he helped Jack just by being his father or if he is physically out of the empty and there in heaven helping his son.

Bonus!

Angel's and Castiel's greatest happiness parallel

Angel and Cas are both "cursed" with losing their souls/lives when they get to experience their greatest moment of happiness. This moment of happiness is tied to their love interests.

Angel loses his soul when he and Buffy first sleep together.

Cas loses his life when he tells Dean he is in love with him. When he comes to accept himself and realizes that happiness isn't in the having but in the being.

Overall

Since both shows were produced and aired on the WB (first season of SPN till WB merged and formed the CW) and are similar in genre and audience intention, it makes sense that the shows would have similarities.

From inception to finality the characters of Spike and Cas had parallel journeys. From starting as souped up beings, becoming fan favorites, to becoming more complex characters, more human like, to main character, to love interests to main protagonists, and ultimately sacrificing themselves to save the world.

This was originally posted here.

#btvs #spike btvs #spike #spn #supernatural #castiel #btvs meta #supernatural meta

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feladi-fority · 11 months ago

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haven't posted in a while, but I completed Undertale Yellow a while ago and none of my friends have and I need to scream into the void about it SOMEWHERE! Spoilers abound

So, Flowey. He's really well written in this. In Undertale proper we don't get to see much of him and what we do see is really 1 note. He scares you, tries to manipulate people, and tries to hurt people for his own amusement. In Undertale Yellow though we get to see how immature and impatient he is. Whenever Clover does something Flowey doesn't approve of he lashes out even when doing so directly impedes his ability to manipulate Clover, such as killing Marlet at the end of the neutral route. Flowey is a terrible manipulator, putting in absolutely zero effort to understand Clover, instead blaming them for his own plan not working. He talks about how much he hates Clover and relishes in their death but Flowey has done nothing to understand Clover, instead just viewing them as a problem to brute-force a solution to. All of this is, of course, consistent with who Flowey was in Undertale but it's so much more textured with how much screen-time Flowey gets.

Additionally, I find the implications of what I can only describe as Flowey's Blackspace. During the meta-Flowey fight his attacks are monstrous versions of himself, many of which are killed as part of his attacks. He pulls out his own pedals, cries to attack, and kills images of himself. Then there's the section where you walk through piles of Flowey corpses which call for help. The dialogue the later corpses give is ambiguous, but lines like "this must be it" in the context of the rest takes on a dark implication. Flowey seems to hate himself and view himself as a monster who deserves to be cut-down (he has that in common with his dad lol). Maybe then Flowey's plan to destroy the world via collecting the souls is ultimately self destructive, a way to go down with the world, and rid himself of the possibility of coming back, a true completion through obliteration.

Now I need to talk about Marlet. She's fucking great. She has this deep sense of maturity to her character which was really cool to see. It isn't all that clear in the pacifist route as there we mainly see her inability to get things done and her self-hate, but on the more violent routes we see her constantly trying to empathize and resolve conflict with Clover by understanding them. I think it's incredibly note-worthy that Marlet is the only character who recognizes Clover as a child who shouldn't be capable of committing such violence, and the implications of that fact. Marlet doesn't let her emotions stop her from understanding people and doing the right thing, and I really like how that was executed.

I loved the themes of this game. I expected the game to tackle similar themes to Undertale, either just recreate theme entirely or at least tackle something similar to Undertale's very meta exploration about what it means to care about things. Instead this game goes for an old classic, the cycle of violence, and I think it executes it very well!

Throughout the game characters interact with this theme in different ways. Clover (on the vengeance route specifically), and Ceroba parallel each-other in this way. Ceroba objectifies humans due to her position as a monster separated from humanity and growing up with an adversarial relationship to them. Chujin finds it extremely easy to hate humanity for a slight against him and enacts violence on humanity due to perceiving them as inherently evil due to historical mistreatment by humans and personal experience. This violence horrifies him in the end, but still in his attempt to get vengeance he perpetuates the cycle, projecting his hate towards humanity onto Ceroba who goes onto hurt more people because of it. Clover on the vengeance route is in a similar position, objectifying monsters due to being a human separate from them and learning of slights against humanity by them. Clover finds out monsters killed 5 humans (either all children, or some of them children) and is able to easily objectify them for it due to their position. Clover enacts disproportionate violence in reaction to the violence monsters committed against humanity in reaction to the violence humanity enacted against monsters by sealing them underground. Asgore remarks at the end of the vengeance route that Clover's actions will result in many more deaths on both side's parts, and he's right, Clover provided more reason for another Chujin to come about and enact more violence on humanity which in turn would provoke a response. Violence creates violence creates violence.

Flowey, under this framing, becomes an embodiment of the cycle. The game cleverly uses the power of resetting as the mechanical manifestation of this cycle. Flowey continues to reset events over and over and over letting Clover get killed over and over and over, just as the cycle of violence repeats, so to does the game itself. The game resets, new runs provide new content, certain events are enshrined in this game's concept of fate. The fate here is just that things cannot change with more violent inputs, Flowey can never get what he wants because he's incapable of doing what Marlet could do. Flowey can't change fate because he's what's locking it in place, he's the logic of violence that forces the world to over and over again punish characters and kill them, but Marlet through her empathy and compassion at least tries to break the cycle, she tries to get Clover to stop hurting people and break this repeated cycle of violence, and she does the same for Ceroba and Chujin to less success. How fitting then that Flowey kills Marlet in the neutral route.

Pacifist Clover is the parallel to Marlet. They face the cycle of violence and chose to understand and help others despite it. The vision for breaking the cycle that Undertale Yellow provides is empathy and compassion, choosing to not give into anger at horrible things done to you as to not perpetuate that being done to more people in the future. It's a really well-executed theme, I love this game.

#undertale #undertale yellow #ut yellow

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raxistaicho · 7 months ago

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just saw a post stating that edelgard starting a war is 100% wrong, essentially stating that being a revolutionary is Evil no matter the context

it really is incredible just how absurd theyre willing to go with this narrative that shes a bad person, as if a good percentage of media doesnt inherently glorify revolutionaries as heroes and idols to be celebrated. but when edelgard does this, it suddenly becomes wrong, a crime. how curious is that, right?

like its really clear that these people just dont give a damn about the story of fodlan at all because its VERY CLEAR that this is a country on the brink of collapse. i dont know how you can look at fodlan in any capacity and not see the cracks beginning to form. this is a country where child soldiers are not only encouraged, but REQUIRED in order to keep up with bandit attacks and slaying demonic beasts. multiple paralogues state that children with crests are married off, to the point where sylvain literally calls himself a studhorse at one point. ingrids paralogue is about defending ingrid from being KIDNAPPED and likely forced to marry a man at knifepoint. multiple cultures like sreng and duscur have been stomped on and treated like dirt, treated like "cared for" slaves at best and violent savages at worst, to the point where a man escaping back to his homeland is seen as "refusing kindness". FODLAN IS A BAD PLACE.

but no! apparently war is ALWAYS evil, even when the alternative is letting this state of affairs continue. war is ALWAYS evil, even when it saves innocent lives from the machinations of those who would do us harm. war-- No, let me be clear about what this person means. When they say "War", what they actually mean is "Violence." Violence is always Evil. That's what this means. It's that old adage of "Violence never solved anything", except that this is a statement used by pacifists to demean all violence rather than just cruelty.

If you look me in the eyes and tell me that you wouldn't hurt anybody, ever, then all it tells me is that you haven't got the heart to actually care about people. Is violence tragic? Yes. Absolutely. But denouncing it entirely is... It's beyond inhuman. It's apathetic about human life to the point of insanity. There are stories dating back centuries - Millenia, almost certainly - about how men and women will fight against gods and demons just to save one person from a fate they didn't deserve.

"Violence is Evil." No. Violence is Emotion. It can be used to attack and it can be used to defend. It is not, and cannot, be evil of its own accord. It is a tool to be used at the discretion of its wielder.

Evil, TRUE Evil, is Apathy. Evil is when you have all the power in the world to help people, to change the world, and you don't. When you see genuine human suffering and you don't feel the urge to step in and help. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

just saw a post stating that edelgard starting a war is 100% wrong, essentially stating that being a revolutionary is Evil no matter the context it really is incredible just how absurd theyre willing to go with this narrative that shes a bad person, as if a good percentage of media doesnt inherently glorify revolutionaries as heroes and idols to be celebrated. but when edelgard does this, it suddenly becomes wrong, a crime. how curious is that, right?

Generally speaking, Edelgard detractors try to deny that she's revolting at all through some description pedantry, even though ultimately what she's doing is fighting the very social groundwork upon which Fodlan rests, and,

So yeah. They get so hung up on the part where she's a person in power herself and ignore that she intends to change Fodlan utterly, and for the better. Rhea and Seteth frequently call her a traitor or other synonyms. She is a revolutionary.

Also, people just become enamored with the ideal of peaceful protest, when the reality is... sometimes things gotta get bloody.

Yup. It's been said time and again, but for a setting in an FE game, Fodlan's in a remarkable state of turmoil long before the war kicks off. Usually things are peaceful before the aggressor nation makes it move.

So Fire Emblem as a series is in a weird place in how it treats war, because frankly it wants to have things both ways. Obviously the writers don't want to extol the "virtues" of warfare so on the face of things, the series tends to portray an anti-war message, but this is an SRPG at the end of the day, so while Emmeryn's appeals to peace were powerful and cause a good number of Plegia's soldiers to dessert, you still use violence and war to stop Gangrel, Walhart, and Grima. The writing rejects violence for a good cause even though violence is how you fix everything.

One of the Edelcrits runs a whole-ass thing picking out anti-war lines from Heroes as though this somehow throws shade on Three Houses, when the reality is it's throwing shade on how things are done throughout the whole series. They behave as though self-defensive violence is always justified and never spirals out of proportion.

Exactly. It's all about what the violence is doing and how severe it goes. Edelgard fights to bring rights to the people; Rhea fights to maintain her power and Fodlan's status quo. The fact that Rhea is the one defending herself doesn't change that she's fighting for a bad cause.

Very true, and Fodlan is a case study in that.

Thanks for the excellent ask!

#ask #fire emblem three houses #edelgard von #edelgard positive #edelgard discourse

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dailyanarchistposts · 6 months ago

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A.2.15 What about “human nature”?

Anarchists, far from ignoring “human nature,” have the only political theory that gives this concept deep thought and reflection. Too often, “human nature” is flung up as the last line of defence in an argument against anarchism, because it is thought to be beyond reply. This is not the case, however. First of all, human nature is a complex thing. If, by human nature, it is meant “what humans do,” it is obvious that human nature is contradictory — love and hate, compassion and heartlessness, peace and violence, and so on, have all been expressed by people and so are all products of “human nature.” Of course, what is considered “human nature” can change with changing social circumstances. For example, slavery was considered part of “human nature” and “normal” for thousands of years. Homosexuality was considered perfectly normal by the ancient Greeks yet thousands of years later the Christian church denounced it as unnatural. War only become part of “human nature” once states developed. Hence Chomsky:

“Individuals are certainly capable of evil … But individuals are capable of all sorts of things. Human nature has lots of ways of realising itself, humans have lots of capacities and options. Which ones reveal themselves depends to a large extent on the institutional structures. If we had institutions which permitted pathological killers free rein, they’d be running the place. The only way to survive would be to let those elements of your nature manifest themselves. “If we have institutions which make greed the sole property of human beings and encourage pure greed at the expense of other human emotions and commitments, we’re going to have a society based on greed, with all that follows. A different society might be organised in such a way that human feelings and emotions of other sorts, say, solidarity, support, sympathy become dominant. Then you’ll have different aspects of human nature and personality revealing themselves.” [Chronicles of Dissent, pp. 158]

Therefore, environment plays an important part in defining what “human nature” is, how it develops and what aspects of it are expressed. Indeed, one of the greatest myths about anarchism is the idea that we think human nature is inherently good (rather, we think it is inherently sociable). How it develops and expresses itself is dependent on the kind of society we live in and create. A hierarchical society will shape people in certain (negative) ways and produce a “human nature” radically different from a libertarian one. So “when we hear men [and women] saying that Anarchists imagine men [and women] much better than they really are, we merely wonder how intelligent people can repeat that nonsense. Do we not say continually that the only means of rendering men [and women] less rapacious and egotistic, less ambitious and less slavish at the same time, is to eliminate those conditions which favour the growth of egotism and rapacity, of slavishness and ambition?” [Peter Kropotkin, Act for Yourselves, p. 83]

As such, the use of “human nature” as an argument against anarchism is simply superficial and, ultimately, an evasion. It is an excuse not to think. “Every fool,” as Emma Goldman put it, “from king to policemen, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weakness of human nature. Yet how can any one speak of it to-day, with every soul in prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?” Change society, create a better social environment and then we can judge what is a product of our natures and what is the product of an authoritarian system. For this reason, anarchism “stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.” For ”[f]reedom, expansion, opportunity, and above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 73]

This does not mean that human beings are infinitely plastic, with each individual born a tabula rasa (blank slate) waiting to be formed by “society” (which in practice means those who run it). As Noam Chomsky argues, “I don’t think its possible to give a rational account of the concept of alienated labour on that assumption [that human nature is nothing but a historical product], nor is it possible to produce something like a moral justification for the commitment to some kind of social change, except on the basis of assumptions about human nature and how modifications in the structure of society will be better able to conform to some of the fundamental needs that are part of our essential nature.” [Language and Politics, p. 215] We do not wish to enter the debate about what human characteristics are and are not “innate.” All we will say is that human beings have an innate ability to think and learn — that much is obvious, we feel — and that humans are sociable creatures, needing the company of others to feel complete and to prosper. Moreover, they have the ability to recognise and oppose injustice and oppression (Bakunin rightly considered ”the power to think and the desire to rebel” as “precious faculties.” [God and the State, p. 9]).

These three features, we think, suggest the viability of an anarchist society. The innate ability to think for oneself automatically makes all forms of hierarchy illegitimate, and our need for social relationships implies that we can organise without the state. The deep unhappiness and alienation afflicting modern society reveals that the centralisation and authoritarianism of capitalism and the state are denying some innate needs within us. In fact, as mentioned earlier, for the great majority of its existence the human race has lived in anarchic communities, with little or no hierarchy. That modern society calls such people “savages” or “primitive” is pure arrogance. So who can tell whether anarchism is against “human nature”? Anarchists have accumulated much evidence to suggest that it may not be.

As for the charge the anarchists demand too much of “human nature,” it is often non anarchists who make the greatest claims on it. For “while our opponents seem to admit there is a kind of salt of the earth — the rulers, the employers, the leaders — who, happily enough, prevent those bad men — the ruled, the exploited, the led — from becoming still worse than they are” we anarchists ��maintain that both rulers and ruled are spoiled by authority” and ”both exploiters and exploited are spoiled by exploitation.” So “there is [a] difference, and a very important one. We admit the imperfections of human nature, but we make no exception for the rulers. They make it, although sometimes unconsciously, and because we make no such exception, they say that we are dreamers.” [Peter Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 83] If human nature is so bad, then giving some people power over others and hoping this will lead to justice and freedom is hopelessly utopian.

Moreover, as noted, Anarchists argue that hierarchical organisations bring out the worse in human nature. Both the oppressor and the oppressed are negatively affected by the authoritarian relationships so produced. “It is a characteristic of privilege and of every kind of privilege,” argued Bakunin, “to kill the mind and heart of man … That is a social law which admits no exceptions … It is the law of equality and humanity.” [God and the State, p. 31] And while the privileged become corrupted by power, the powerless (in general) become servile in heart and mind (luckily the human spirit is such that there will always be rebels no matter the oppression for where there is oppression, there is resistance and, consequently, hope). As such, it seems strange for anarchists to hear non-anarchists justify hierarchy in terms of the (distorted) “human nature” it produces.

Sadly, too many have done precisely this. It continues to this day. For example, with the rise of “sociobiology,” some claim (with very little real evidence) that capitalism is a product of our “nature,” which is determined by our genes. These claims are simply a new variation of the “human nature” argument and have, unsurprisingly, been leapt upon by the powers that be. Considering the dearth of evidence, their support for this “new” doctrine must be purely the result of its utility to those in power — i.e. the fact that it is useful to have an “objective” and “scientific” basis to rationalise inequalities in wealth and power (for a discussion of this process see Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature by Steven Rose, R.C. Lewontin and Leon J. Kamin).

This is not to say that it does not hold a grain of truth. As scientist Stephen Jay Gould notes, “the range of our potential behaviour is circumscribed by our biology” and if this is what sociobiology means “by genetic control, then we can scarcely disagree.” However, this is not what is meant. Rather, it is a form of “biological determinism” that sociobiology argues for. Saying that there are specific genes for specific human traits says little for while ”[v]iolence, sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviours” so are “peacefulness, equality, and kindness.” And so “we may see their influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish.” That this may be the case can be seen from the works of sociobiologists themselves, who “acknowledge diversity” in human cultures while “often dismiss[ing] the uncomfortable ‘exceptions’ as temporary and unimportant aberrations.” This is surprising, for if you believe that “repeated, often genocidal warfare has shaped our genetic destiny, the existence of nonaggressive peoples is embarrassing.” [Ever Since Darwin, p. 252, p. 257 and p. 254]

Like the social Darwinism that preceded it, sociobiology proceeds by first projecting the dominant ideas of current society onto nature (often unconsciously, so that scientists mistakenly consider the ideas in question as both “normal” and “natural”). Bookchin refers to this as “the subtle projection of historically conditioned human values” onto nature rather than “scientific objectivity.” Then the theories of nature produced in this manner are transferred back onto society and history, being used to “prove” that the principles of capitalism (hierarchy, authority, competition, etc.) are eternal laws, which are then appealed to as a justification for the status quo! “What this procedure does accomplish,” notes Bookchin, “is reinforce human social hierarchies by justifying the command of men and women as innate features of the ‘natural order.’ Human domination is thereby transcribed into the genetic code as biologically immutable.” [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 95 and p. 92] Amazingly, there are many supposedly intelligent people who take this sleight-of-hand seriously.

This can be seen when “hierarchies” in nature are used to explain, and so justify, hierarchies in human societies. Such analogies are misleading for they forget the institutional nature of human life. As Murray Bookchin notes in his critique of sociobiology, a “weak, enfeebled, unnerved, and sick ape is hardly likely to become an ‘alpha’ male, much less retain this highly ephemeral ‘status.’ By contrast, the most physically and mentally pathological human rulers have exercised authority with devastating effect in the course of history.” This “expresses a power of hierarchical institutions over persons that is completely reversed in so-called ‘animal hierarchies’ where the absence of institutions is precisely the only intelligible way of talking about ‘alpha males’ or ‘queen bees.’” [“Sociobiology or Social Ecology”, Which way for the Ecology Movement?, p. 58] Thus what makes human society unique is conveniently ignored and the real sources of power in society are hidden under a genetic screen.

The sort of apologetics associated with appeals to “human nature” (or sociobiology at its worse) are natural, of course, because every ruling class needs to justify their right to rule. Hence they support doctrines that defined the latter in ways appearing to justify elite power — be it sociobiology, divine right, original sin, etc. Obviously, such doctrines have always been wrong … until now, of course, as it is obvious our current society truly conforms to “human nature” and it has been scientifically proven by our current scientific priesthood!

The arrogance of this claim is truly amazing. History hasn’t stopped. One thousand years from now, society will be completely different from what it is presently or from what anyone has imagined. No government in place at the moment will still be around, and the current economic system will not exist. The only thing that may remain the same is that people will still be claiming that their new society is the “One True System” that completely conforms to human nature, even though all past systems did not.

Of course, it does not cross the minds of supporters of capitalism that people from different cultures may draw different conclusions from the same facts — conclusions that may be more valid. Nor does it occur to capitalist apologists that the theories of the “objective” scientists may be framed in the context of the dominant ideas of the society they live in. It comes as no surprise to anarchists, however, that scientists working in Tsarist Russia developed a theory of evolution based on cooperation within species, quite unlike their counterparts in capitalist Britain, who developed a theory based on competitive struggle within and between species. That the latter theory reflected the dominant political and economic theories of British society (notably competitive individualism) is pure coincidence, of course.

Kropotkin’s classic work Mutual Aid, for example, was written in response to the obvious inaccuracies that British representatives of Darwinism had projected onto nature and human life. Building upon the mainstream Russian criticism of the British Darwinism of the time, Kropotkin showed (with substantial empirical evidence) that “mutual aid” within a group or species played as important a role as “mutual struggle” between individuals within those groups or species (see Stephan Jay Gould’s essay “Kropotkin was no Crackpot” in his book Bully for Brontosaurus for details and an evaluation). It was, he stressed, a “factor” in evolution along with competition, a factor which, in most circumstances, was far more important to survival. Thus co-operation is just as “natural” as competition so proving that “human nature” was not a barrier to anarchism as co-operation between members of a species can be the best pathway to advantage individuals.

To conclude. Anarchists argue that anarchy is not against “human nature” for two main reasons. Firstly, what is considered as being “human nature” is shaped by the society we live in and the relationships we create. This means a hierarchical society will encourage certain personality traits to dominate while an anarchist one would encourage others. As such, anarchists “do not so much rely on the fact that human nature will change as they do upon the theory that the same nature will act differently under different circumstances.” Secondly, change “seems to be one of the fundamental laws of existence” so “who can say that man [sic!] has reached the limits of his possibilities.” [George Barrett, Objections to Anarchism, pp. 360–1 and p. 360]

For useful discussions on anarchist ideas on human nature, both of which refute the idea that anarchists think human beings are naturally good, see Peter Marshall’s “Human nature and anarchism” [David Goodway (ed.), For Anarchism: History, Theory and Practice, pp. 127–149] and David Hartley’s “Communitarian Anarchism and Human Nature”. [Anarchist Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, Autumn 1995, pp. 145–164]

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kakuzatos · 2 years ago

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kobeni’s devil

!! spoilers for chainsaw man !!

so, episode 9 came out and i watched it with vigor. as expected, kobeni slayed this episode and didn’t disappoint me with her moves. damn, she was quick. you really can’t have a pure hatred for kobeni, it will always have love in the mix.

and while i was thinking about her, i got curious about her devil again. really, what is this big secret... why was she the only one who got out alive after 100 chapters while other characters like aki and power were ultimately killed off? she surely has relevance in the plot and there is a reason why her devil is concealed as a secret. a devil like that would be thought of as a dangerous one because kobeni can’t even say its name.

naturally, i go to a full-on zoning out session thinking of the many possibilities of kobeni’s devil.

i. well, first, i thought of the possibility of her being a devil that has a human-like appearance like makima, yoru and fami. that is a good theory, but her having a family and a brother denounces it a bit. i’m not saying that devils don’t have families and aren’t capable of being raised by one (makima was raised by the government, that’s why she’s like the way she is, if that ever counts as a family). i’m not particularly fond with this one, though, since kobeni is pretty much the most human person in the whole cast. i mean, look at her.

scared shitless. if she was a devil, she would’ve been happy. devils thrive on fear, they don’t live with it. that would be pretty fun, though.

ii. moving on. she could have a contract with the death devil. it’s probably the most overstated theory and for good reason. first of all, i’ve read this comment in a reddit post about a totally unrelated, regardless interesting, observation on chapter 113.

the comment reads:

Getting back to my tangent about the Four Horsemen: the Four Horsemen are unique because, unlike normal devils, who only use fear, the Horsemen are each able to use one of the four emotions unique to humans, listed by the Doll Devil in ch 63:

Conquest uses Worship (aka reverence). So long as humans revere her, they hold her in a "higher place", allowing her to control them. Put from her POV, that means that, so long as the human is "lower" than her, she can control them.

Conquest bends the "rules" around devil contracts in two ways. The first way is obvious - she can force "lesser" humans to submit to her contracts. The second way is by being able to claim ownership over other devils. This means that, unlike a normal devil, Conquest can use other devils like as though they were part of her own body. This gave her the ability to use Angel's powers as though they were her own. This also means she could offer the bodies of other devils in her contracts, as we saw with Aki and the Gun Devil.

War uses Guilt. The greater the guilt she feels, the stronger the weapon she creates. The irony here is that War is so selfish and so absent of the understanding of right and wrong that she's unable to feel much guilt over anything she does. She blames Pochita for her current weakness, but really, she's inherently pretty weak compared to the other Horsemen, just because of this anti-synergy with her own power.

War bends the "rules" by forming completely lopsided "contracts". Like Makima, Yoru removes the human's consent from the equation - if she claims ownership, so long as it's something she can touch, she can weaponize it. But the person turned into a weapon gains nothing from it, the only benefactor is Yoru. Completely one-sided "contracts".

Famine uses Adoration/Respect. We'll see what this means exactly later, but I think I kind of touched on it in my other comment. War and Famine are a yin and yang duo - Yoru is "night", while the heart of Justice "shines with light". And while Yoru is completely selfish and devoid of the understanding of good and evil, Famine seems stuck doing things for others (in other words, is "selfless"), all while being very concerned with the understanding of good and evil. Yoru's power is based on guilt, aka, being able to sense the evil in yourself. So hence, I suspect Famine's "Respect"-based powers are based on being able to sense the good in other people.

Famine bends the "rules" by also forming completely lopsided contracts. The difference is, while Yoru only takes... as Yuko pointed out, Justice only gives. My guess is that, if Famine senses that a human is "good", she can form zero-cost contracts.

Death uses Pity. Pity is the feeling you get when you watch other living things suffer. The idea that Death gets stronger from feelings of pity sends shivers down my spine...

This is especially the case if it's true that every Horseman is trying to cancel out the source of their own power. Conquest's dream is to form equal, nonhierarchical, relationships, which flies in the face of a being whose power is based on hierarchy. So if Death wants to be rid of the "source of its power", too, then wouldn't it have to get rid of all suffering?

notice something about death. death is also powered by pity. kobeni is pretty damn pitiful in almost all her screentime, manga or anime, except her fabulous show in episode 9. but she did experience a lot of torment and she is generally seen as pitiful. maybe, just maybe, that pity she gets from other people is what feeds the death devil. and having to survive all what happened in the past arcs, i wouldn’t be surprised if she ever was involved with such a mortifying devil like the death devil. she dodged death in multiple occasions, it’s like death sided with her. another thing, in hell or chapter 63-64, the darkness devil didn’t even try to kill her. maybe it’s scared?

it’s also such a fun concept to think about. this traumatized girl who is about to shit herself has a contract with the death devil. fucking metal. the thought alone deserves its own book.

iii. kobeni has a contract with the luck devil! a lot of people agree with this one! i don’t know if it’s good luck or bad luck, though. she seems to somehow have both, so i’m not sure. many people do lean into the idea of a “chance devil��, but i’m pretty certain, if that was the case, it would be the “bad luck” or “misfortune” devil. if there was a luck devil, why would anyone fear good luck? it would’ve been extremely weak because, in retrospect, no one would fear good luck.

so, bad luck. in this article, it stated that kobeni somehow feeds the bad luck devil with her own bad luck and fear, explaining why she doesn’t sacrifice her body parts.

although this is good, personally i don’t favor it too much. fujimoto is known for his chaotic direction of his manga and always being spontaneous that you can’t predict it, but it’s done so, in a way, that it’s orchestrated. hints are left, foreshadowing is present; it’s chaotic but makes sure to make sense to us too. a good story should make sense while maintaining its unpredictability. so, a death devil is already hinted. a bad luck devil is not. (yet)

well, this theory will just have to wait for a while. maybe, there will be a time when a bad luck devil will appear or get mentioned.

iv. in this post, kobeni is theorized to be contracted with a devil connected to survival. for one, if that devil were to be connected to survival, it could either mean: a fear of death or a fear of getting hurt.

a fear of death relates to the death devil.

a fear of getting hurt relates to a pain devil of some sorts. a pain devil would be cool because it will be powerful. almost all humans are scared of being hurt and will make a bit more sense in the storyline, considering that her line of work is potentially getting hurt and seeing others getting hurt because of her. pretty neat theory!

v. same post in iv, there’s a comment where she might be have a contract with the knife devil. although, there is no evidence to back this up, her main weapon of choice is a knife. in a way, it makes sense.

v. car devil. no questions. in fact, according to u/LeynaSepKim, it was even foreshadowed in chapter 5, in their post.

all are only speculation! feel free to correct me or add some other theories. the only thing we can do to form more theories and solidify existing ones is to wait. we have yet to see her full potential. she is shown to be athletic in the anime and the manga, but not her power in its entirety.

#kobeni #chainsaw man #theory #csm #csm theory #analysis #kakutxt #she's pretty sus

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greatbigolhampuckjustforme · 8 months ago

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Something that has been on my mind for a while but I haven’t seen get talked about at all:

In The Ultimate Enemy, I don’t think Vlad was a reliable narrator.

In the episode, Vlad explains that Danny was grief-stricken after the death of his family and friends, and he undergoes a procedure (performed by Vlad) to remove his emotions?? Vlad removes Danny's ghost half, which in turn uses the gauntlets to remove Vlad's ghost half, and Phantom fuses with Plasmius to create Dan/Dark Danny.

There are a few things I find interesting here.

Danny has been split before and found no issue.

During Identity Crisis, Danny's ghost and human forms get separated through the ghost catcher, resulting in Super Danny. Super Danny is a full-time superhero whose only purpose in life is to heroically save lives and protect the citizens of Amity Park.

Now compare this to the version of Phantom we're served during TUE. This version of Phantom seems so angry and vengeful, the antithesis of what we know Danny to be. Danny asked to have part of himself ripped out, and then lashed out when Vlad followed through.

I think Vlad exaggerated Danny's reaction here. Vlad is evil, and I believe he attributes this to his ghost self rather than accepting it as an inherent part of his person, so he assumes Danny is the same way. He doesn't realise that, like the Dairy King says, "not all ghosts are evil". Thus, he hyperbolizes the events that took place to make it seem as though it was Danny's inherently evil ghost half that ruined everything, not Vlad's own actions.

2. Danny wants his feelings to be ripped out.

Sure, Danny is a teen who just had his entire life pulled out from under him. Asking to have his human emotions removed might be something a 14 year old would ask for in the wake of the deaths of all the people he loves.

But to actually go through with it?

Ever since they met Danny has been wary of every action Vlad has taken. He knows exactly what Vlad's motives are, he knows the man is greedy and violent and relentless, he knows that Vlad is not someone that can be trusted. So why would he trust him with something like this?

This also leans into Phantom attacking him. If this part was true and Danny's ghost half did attack Vlad upon being separated, it stands to reason that maybe the procedure wasn't entirely consensual, and Phantom was acting out of self-preservation rather than just attacking because ghosts are evil.

3. Vlad is willing to rip Danny's feelings out.

Danny is grieving. I might understand him wanting this, but why did Vlad go through with it? The premise of the procedure is ridiculous at best, and I'm sure he knew how risky it was.

Instead of seeking help for this grieving and traumatised teenager, he used a strange invention to rip out Phantom, as if that would solve literally anything.

4. Phantom fuses with Plasmius.

Now, this is incredibly interesting, because they don't fuse by some weird coincidence or accident; Phantom separates Vlad from his ghost half, drops the gauntlets on the floor, turns intangible, and overshadows Plasmius while he's passed out on the ground.

What in the actual hell would the motivation be for this? I seriously cannot think of a single reason he would. Is it power? Phantom is plenty powerful on his own. Plasmius only really has the upper hand when it comes to duplicating himself, and even that is a skill Danny knows he can practice, so why do they fuse???

5. Phantom fuses with Plasmius 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Putting this separate from the other fusion part because I do what I want.

How does it work when a ghost fuses with another ghost? Phantom and Plasmius are never shown as having any sort of conflict, which is out of character considering their entire relationship is based in conflict. How do they suddenly get along when they share a single body?

Moreover, when they fuse, they take on a form that looks like Phantom, but with some of Plasmius's more ghostly features (forked tongue, green skin, etc.) even though it was Phantom taking over Plasmius's body. To me, it would make more sense, if these events were true, for the pair to look like Plasmius, but with a few Phantom-esque features.

That is, of course, unless that isn't what really happened...

6. Vlad cowers in fear during this.

As we've seen in the show, Vlad is not a cowardly man. He's cunning, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. He will never portray himself as weak unless he stands to gain from it.

So why do we get a clear shot of him absolutely terrified of the scene unfolding in front of him?

Perhaps it could be because he's suddenly powerless while in the presence of a powerful and malicious ghost. This explanation could make sense. Except then how did he survive? Especially given that...

7. Danny was killed by Dark Danny.

I don't know if that really does justice to what happened. Danny is seen cowering on the floor while the ghost stands over him menacingly. Vlad narrates that some things are better left unsaid, but the next thing we see is the mansion blowing up. Obviously, the implication here is that Danny was killed by the ghost, and then the whole place was destroyed.

Now, strangely enough, my first question is about how Danny was conscious during this ordeal. The whole series of events couldn't have taken more than a few minutes from start to finish, but even though we see Danny strapped down, gas pumping into his lungs to keep him unconscious for the procedure, he's suddenly awake, aware, and free from his restraints.

There is no way Danny would've been alert enough to act the way he did in the short clip that was shown.

8. The ghost let Vlad live.

This makes no sense to me either. The Phantom/Plasmius fusion killed Danny, but allowed Vlad to live, even though both were in the lab.

Okay, maybe Vlad's ghost half wasn't willing to kill his human half out of some leftover sense of self-preservation.

But wouldn't Danny's ghost half have the same instinct? Doubly so since he's so hellbent on protecting humans?

And not only did he not kill Vlad outright, but Vlad was also not killed during the explosion, which implies he got out beforehand. This could have only happened if the ghost allowed him to escape, since I have no doubt it would have noticed if Vlad tried to make a quick getaway while it was distracted.

Why would the ghost kill Danny with no remorse, but not ensure Vlad also perished?

So, what really happened?

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. The true events could be any number of things. Maybe Vlad did the procedure for his own gain rather than to help rid Danny of his emotions. It could be to try and mold him into the perfect son while he's grieving and easy to manipulate. It could be that he was trying to separate Phantom to implant into a half-baked clone. I'm not entirely sure.

But what I do know is that what we're shown in The Ultimate Enemy is definitely not what really happened, and Vlad, for one reason or another, is manipulating the narrative to make himself look like a good person and a victim, all while painting Danny to be the reason the world is under attack.

#danny phantom #dp #the ultimate enemy #danny fenton #vlad plasmius #vlad masters #analysis #text post #my post

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finshingpool · 5 months ago

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sundays philosophy explained very badly

and yes he seriously needs to go see a shrink.

!! spoilers for the 2.2 story quest!!

also hoyo is trying to be very subtle with the HI3 World Serpent reference.

first thing first, the positives. his ideology might be twisted but Sunday has never use his position of power to sabotage the opposing party (the backstabbing kind)(not that i know of💔). He seeks total dominance from a fair fight, ultimately to prove his beliefs superior.

he never outright rejects the ideas of our protagonist but instead use grounded argument to support his. its not a fight for total oppression of the people but a wrestle among philosophies, that he believes the worthier one will be judged by the people, the aeons, and fate itself.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

! kay so what is Sundayeology.

"a dystopia for the survival of the fittest, or a Sweatdream Paradise for all?"

the way i see it, Sunday wish to bring the closest form of equality into reality(dream xd). a place where strength, status, gender, etc. determined at birth does not affect the life that person desires. he wants to resist the flow of nature, an inherent evil in his eyes that calls itself Natural Selection. The method of such resistance is through Order.

"nature is always accompanied by predation and sacrifice... Its antithesis is known as Order."

how does Sunday define this "Sweatdream Paradise" of his? in his perfect world, nobody would need to work, and hence, would entirely avoid the hardship of reality. it would lead to a forced evolution where we would evolve into a life form detached from our physical state. This transcendence beyond the physical world mainly applies to the human spirit. without hunger and such as, human can cast aside our primal instinct and truly live a life striving towards self enlightenment. only in this hypothetical world do people return to their original self and when faced with their predetermined end, they would leave in the purest of spirit with their dignity intact. To feathered head, this is universal happiness.

so the whats!? mild food for thoughts, facing hardship degrade your dignity???

(might!! have an idea, where most people would assume 'growth' in a emotion sense, 'growth' in Sunday eyes is more on the spiritual side. therefore, in his world, by removing physical limitation where also removing spiritual pain)

"and it is only on these days, that people do not have to adhere to the law where the strong prey on the weak"

in true antagonist fashion, Sunday is a bit of a hypocrite, the status quo where "the strong prey on the weak" is erred but a system where "the strong govern the weak" is perfectly acceptable.

Sunday believes that the individuals that go against his philosophy are the exception, not the rule. as the weekend man himself put it, the ideals the Nameless fought for only represent a small percentage of the people/ 'the fittest' and their actions would negatively impact the 'anonymous and frail member among the masses'.

Sunday view our protagonist quest as quite selfish as they were only focused on striving for a Penocony they deemed right in their eyes, but disregard the perspective of the average Penocony residence (he thought he stood for)

💤⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

! Sundayeology pits against others (the ones i actually pay attention to)

Robin

it's clear robin was his first 'order awakening'(weird). her being shot in the neck and all shows him how Penacony or the universe at large cannot be salvaged through the path of Harmony.

' the bird

nature vs order, an overarching theme in Sundays philosophy. if you played through the 2.2 quest you'd notice the bird flashback is a reoccurring theme. it really helps translate his complex ideas into fornite terms for me. to put it simply, the dove is wounded and Sunday wish to keep it alive by caging it up, it'd be too weak to survive in the wild, at least this way it would continue on living. however, Robin held a different view.

2. Firefly

i think firefly rebuttal during the big yap scene really hit home for me. #powerfulmoment #moved #touched #girlboss #SAM

without any hardship or challenge, people would never have the chance to overcome their weakness and therefore this "blissful world" would only act as an escape for the forementioned weakness

these adversities we faced is just the way of life and the right to deal with them should never be taken from us in the first place.

"the want to escape may be innate in the weak, but whether they are weak are not... it is not up to another to decide

perhaps in your mind, you also view me as 'weak'?"

SHIVER ME TIMBERS. THAT LINE WAS DELIVERED SO WELL ONNNGOD I WAS SQUIRMING.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

! some random references i wanna point out

⋆ SIMULATION CONSPIRACY RING RING (i watched far way too many wendigoon lately) if dreams are undisguisable to reality, whats wrong with that

⋆ The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: for the masses to achieve eternal happiness, one person must shoulder all their pain (oh sunday)

"the cost is minute, merely a personal.. and eternal sacrifice. If this paradise is to be maintained for everyone, someone must remain trapped in solitary wakening, until the end of the cosmos."

like come onnn, they're not even trying to hide it.

⋆ like i mentioned before, the whole thing is just a big World Serpent reference (with less pressure for survival, MUCH LESS BLOODSHED). Sunday you're NOT Kevin Kaslana.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

i like how everyone has their own interpretation of "why do life slumber?" for lil vro its " because we are afraid to awaken from our dream"

silly beans:p

~ a/n: i like how allat means nothing at all.

signing of for good

#rant #sunday #yap yap yap #hsr #sooingypookievooksbearsblubrlsjalf #review #?

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jsvausvqbd · 1 month ago

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Knowing the judge from hell draws inspiration from Dante’s Inferno really brings clarity into how Justitia works. A big point made in Dante’s inferno is this idea that the punishment received in hell is “just”, sinners do not receive any more or less than what they deserve based on how they lived their lives, and that’s exactly what we see: Justitia makes it so that the perpetrators become the victims of their own crimes, nothing more, nothing less. In Dante’s inferno, this is contrapasso, the main law that rules over hell. They experience first hand the vileness and nefariousness of their actions before being executed and presumably sent to hell for even more punishment to follow.

I hope they dive deeper into what demons really are/do. So far they’re being depicted as hell- workers rather than creatures that are inherently evil, which I personally really like- Justitia even corrects Han Da On and says that humans are the only responsible ones for the current state of the world. Since humans are the only ones with free will, unlike demons who seem to have a hierarchy of power and ultimately end up obeying orders from above (spider guy, can’t remember his name).

If she really is just a worker in hell in charge of murderers, then it’d make sense why she hates humans, she’s only seen the worst of them (this allows Han Da On to be the exception and the main driving force for her eventual humanization).

It’s also important to note/ remind us that Justitia is not a human, thus she has no need for human emotions such as empathy. Hence why she’s not able to cry when hearing out the victim and their families- this seems to be a turn off for a lot of people and that’s ok, but it’s important to understand why she’s like this.

Lastly, I’m very interested in seeing whether they’ll give Justitia a different background story, since she’s introduced to the children as a goddess. And she’s not a character from Dante’s inferno, she’s an actual Roman figure. Anyways I’m rambling now, good night.

#the judge from hell #I also want to know about possessions but I’ll write on that lateeeeeeeer #kang bitna #Justitia #dante’s inferno

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raayllum · 1 year ago

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Whenever you talk about Callum and Claudia and moral ambiguity, I always think of this quote

"A hero would sacrifice you to save the world, but a villain would sacrifice the world to save you."

I love your metas, and I thought you might find this interesting (unless you already had this one in the back of your head lol)

Now, part of this may be because I grew up with PJO - a series with a very heroic, brave, and loving main character whose in-universe fatal flaw is "To save a friend you would sacrifice the world" - but I tend to err away from this dichotomy of villain-hero and subsequent selfish-selfishness in general.

The hero "saving a loved one vs the the world" is an age old conflict and also an inherently fantastical scenario, as it's a literal trolley problem on a level no real life person will ever experience (there can certainly be similar things in IRL war when a lot of hard, otherwise unfathomable choices have to be made). And, traditionally, most villains cover up their schemes with notions of doing things for the Greater Good (hi Viren!) even if their actions are also things that are conveniently benefitting themselves. And typically, the hero is the Hero precisely because they understand that recognizing the personhood of the individual and that it's important to always value the individual (of which the many are made of) is a crucial cornerstone of well, valuing life at all.

This sort of trolley problem is something that TDP comes back to over and over again and most of the time, the 'right' choice is defending the life of the (innocent) individual under attack no matter the otherwise personal consequence.

Runaan: You let him live, but you killed us all!

Sol Regem: No, you have two choices. You all die, or just the wretched evil human dies.

To do otherwise leads to Sarai's death as a narrative punishment. (ATLA explores this too, with Aang being literally Killed the second he successfully, albeit reluctantly, gives up his attachment to Katara. Which is harsh but very indicative, I think, as far as narrative punishments go, and reaffirmed in the finale with Aang being given a third path precisely because he refuses to surrender his attachments a second time.)

That's not to say heroes never prioritize the greater good. Rayla is very world focused ("This could end the war and change the world!" / not taking Claudia's deal in 4x09) and Ezran exchanges his freedom/safety for the chance for his soldiers to be able to lay down their arms and it's a primary concern for him in S4 ("But the kingdom needs me" "The world needs you"). Callum smashes the primal stone to hatch Zym. But, most importantly, the Heroic thing to do is to choose to lay down your life, not solely offer up others', for those causes or choices. And Viren's hesitation and later inflated self importance (among other emotions) is his Original Sin, series wise. (Even the fact he refuses to give up the egg and offer it as a possible plea for Harrow's life; he'd rather sacrifice his own because of his own paranoia than risk giving Xadia a 'weapon'.)

In many ways, TDP says "The villain will sacrifice you for their notion of the world (who counts as a person, etc), and the hero will save you even at the potential cost of the their world, re: themselves".

However, because this is TDP, even this dichotomy isn't Simple or clear cut. Runaan and his troupe all willfully give their lives for an ultimately lost cause that will only create more suffering and was, per the words of the story and reaction of the other characters, completely Unnecessary; Claudia is certainly prioritizing the life of the individual, but with a complete lack of regard for any other life forms as a dark mage (and isn't thinking through the long term consequences, but more on that here).

TDP also calls into question the nobility or necessity of self or self imposed sacrifice, particularly in Rayla's character and where and how it can be taken to a dangerous level. For example, her walking away from the drake is a character regression, not a progression, precisely because it throws away the life of the individual (something she largely never did before) while also reaffirming that she's far too prone to throwing her own life away unnecessarily/unfairly.

So. Where does this leave us? And what does this mean for Callum and Claudia?

Well, I think there's a few consistencies:

1) Are you sacrificing yourself because you feel like you have to (obligation and guilt) or are you sacrificing yourself because it is the right thing to do (harm mitigation)?

This is probably where Rayla and Harrow fall the most. That's also not to say this dichotomy is solid, as it can definitely be flexible / bleed into each other (Harrow's surrender of his life in 1x03 is, I believe, both). But it is useful in differentiating when Rayla is being noble (saving Zym, 2x07, 3x09, possibly 4x09) vs when she's being self-punishing (1x02, 3x08, Through the Moon, definitely 4x09).

2) Are you sacrificing others in ways you would not sacrifice yourself? Are you sacrificing yourself in ways you would not sacrifice others?

This is where I think Runaan, Viren, Rayla, and Callum primarily fall into. Viren is the only one who really hardcore engages with the first question (yes, he'll sacrifice himself, but it's almost always with an edge of disregard to others and/or a sense of ego), with Runaan, Rayla, Callum, and Claudia all leaning towards the second one. "You're going to be better now, that's all that matters" "It doesn't matter what happens to me, live or die this dragon goes home" "If me dying is the only way for you and Zym to get across safely, then it's time for me to meet the end" and "I am already dead".

3) Are you actively chasing a self destructive/sacrificial pattern or is it something you are pushed into and then have to react to?

This is the key difference (most of the time) I think between Claudia and Rayla (first option) and Callum (second option). For me, I perpetually come back to the way Callum is willing to risk his life, most often, only when he has hope of survival (i.e. he lays down his life for Ez but also immediately argues that he should get to live; Rayla talks him down in 3x01 with two words and Callum immediately starts looking for another plan; he jumps off the Pinnacle with the hope of wings). This is in direct contrast to Claudia and to Rayla. Where Ezran argues in 3x02 that children shouldn't pay for their parents' mistakes, Rayla argues the exact opposite and that she should die in 3x08. The "pushed into a corner" Callum vs Claudia "seeking it out" seems pretty consistent, but I could see Callum seeking it out a bit more in S5, particularly in relation to the coins (but we'll have to see).

Closing Thoughts

To be clear, I don't think TDP is interested in giving a Definite answer about self sacrifice and selfishness vs selflessness (sacrificing yourself can be selfish; saving yourself can be selfless; selfishness is not always a vice and sacrifice is not always a virtue). I think it's a theme, as a subset of grief and relationships, that the story has chosen to Explore in a variety of different ways.

One of the main reasons I've always leaned towards Callum and Claudia paralleling each other more directly is 1) they always have (Claudia comes up with the switching spell in 1x01 because of Callum, and that's precisely what Callum executes when he says he's Ezran, for ex), 2) Aaravos' pawns ("a song of love and loss" "Aaravos chose as his instruments" "those who fail tests of love," etc.) and 3) Claudia is primed to be the one pushing for Aaravos to be freed.

This is somewhat sympathetic because it's for her dad, but Viren-Claudia have a complicated to unhealthy kind of dynamic, and Viren isn't really a character most of the audience cares about being saved (nor does he himself, and he's already been Saved once), so the sympathy can only go so far. However, it's still pretty clear that they're both set up to get atonement/redemption arcs to a degree. The easiest way to not have Claudia be incredibly demonized is for another, good guy character, to make the same/a similar choice for a similar reason. I've gone on record saying I think Callum will either make a conscious choice where he knows he could be risking Aaravos' freedom if it snowballs, or an active choice directly freeing Aaravos, simply because who else would have the incentive, who else has the foreshadowing, and it ties together the thematic overhaul of S4 pretty well, as well as Callum's associations with Freedom thematically.

Because valuing the individual over the world isn't Wrong, just like valuing the world over the individual isn't necessarily Right. It depends on bond, sympathy, circumstance, the attitude and role of the character you're saving and who's doing the saving and how. I've said it before that every character in TDP typically wants the same thing - to protect their loved ones - and so their methods - what they're willing to do or not do, and how they do it - is what creates the moral and ethical spectrum of the show.

TLDR; sometimes we sacrifice the right things for the wrong reasons, or the wrong things for the right reasons. Claudia still doesn't think/know that Aaravos is evil (because she is a Legend at ignoring red flags and her own prejudice); Callum does. Claudia doing all this to save her father out of her own desperation would offer up a nice parallel of Callum also doing something out of desperation to protect/save the people he loves. I think they both have a great capacity to be Wrong, while (in Callum's case) also somewhat doing the Right Thing. That's why it's Moral Dubiousness, after all.

And also why his Tales of Xadia bio spells it out for us 3 different times:

Liberty: I'm beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom.

Devotion: I value those close to me more than anyone or anything.

Has the lowest Justice (the defined desire to do What's Right) score of any of the main heroic characters in the trio or in the show, other than Lujanne

#tdp #the dragon prince #tdp's perpetual trolley problem #thanks for asking #requests #snake boi callum #ripple-rapple #tdp meta #analysis series #analysis #arc 2 #arc 1 #multi #parallels #theme: sacrifice #like to me it's not a question of If callum is going to do something Fucked but When y'know?

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fiddlepickdouglas · 1 year ago

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Disclaimer: This post is an interpretation of some of the Barbie movie's themes and messages, particularly struggles men are faced with. That's its focus. It is not exhaustive of all possible takes or understandings of the film, either mine or others. If talking about men as equal human beings is a problem for you, feel free to ignore this post and then block me. Otherwise, carry on.

One of my favorite parts of Barbie is when Gloria is doing Barbie's makeup toward the end and they're talking about overturning everything that the Kens have done to Barbieland, where Barbie expresses how she just didn't expect her Ken to act out so drastically. Gloria tells her it's because he has feelings for her, hinting that creating Kendom is how he tried to express those feelings and his upset with the constant rejection he's gotten. And when Barbie starts to say she's afraid of hurting him by going behind his back Gloria stops her.

I could praise that moment alone for showing how women need to stop apologizing for the feelings of others, but this is really key: Gloria doesn't trash talk Ken. She states the bad things he did but she never equates those actions with who Ken is, because they're not. I feel like any other film would've gone the route of "He's an asshole/You don't need him/Dump the douchebag/Why do you care about him when he's treated you like this?" (and to be fair I have a huge tendency to go that way myself)

Gloria doesn't even know Ken! But she was right not to immediately act like he was garbage. I don't know if she got that understanding from Barbie herself or just from being a long-term Barbie doll lover and employee at Mattel, but it stands out to me. We even see proof that none of the Kens are truly bad! In the beginning of the film they're just dudes (Just Kens, lol, I set myself up for that)! Dudes that don't even know what they don't know and can't be blamed for it.

Because the truth is that men are not inherently trash and their actions do not come from an innately evil place. Unfortunately for men, especially in the west, society has come up short in teaching them how to deal with and properly express how they feel in favor of power and saving face. Emotions hold bigger weight than they even know, but the modes they've been allowed are generally aggression, romantic passion, and cool. Nothing outside the lines. Imagine trying to sort a giant ball of complex emotions into one of those three things and stay normal.

Gloria understands that the lack of emotional maturity and regulation is where Ken's dramatic tantrum stems from. While she has experience with the patriarchy and knows how to deal with it because of the situation in the real world, I find it fascinating that her character is the one to understand both sides because she also has experience as a matriarch. (I could be wrong, but it seems like she's the breadwinner of the household. The role of her husband I have no commentary on other than que Dios lo bendice, el pobre no se puede hablar español).

So while Barbieland agrees to barely give the Kens back any power (an extremely accurate reflection of what women get in the real world), the film and its characters ultimately don't villainize or punish them further for their wrongs. Punishment isn't always the right action when someone is wrong (insert commentary on Barbie and Ken constantly getting put in jail in the real world vs. no such thing happening in their own). Sometimes it's simply helping them understand what they're dealing with and guiding them through the ordeal step by step.

Painting the Kens as all bad would've ignored what a Ken is. He is a doll just like Barbie. Ken's issue is that he's unloved and the only form of love he has been given to accept is romantic love. What he and all the other Kens begin to discover at the end of the film is self love, which is just as important, if not more.

Now I'm going to rephrase that last paragraph.

Painting men as all bad ignores what a man is. They are humans just like women are. Most men's issue is that they are unloved and the only form of love they've been given to accept is romantic love. What the men of this world need to discover is self love, which is just as important, if not more.

#barbie #barbie meta #gloria barbie #america ferrera #god i have such a crush on that woman #barbie spoilers

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kideternity · 6 months ago

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Okay now i've finished Adventure let me write up my full thoughts about the season. This will be less structured than the Tamers review and I apologise for that, I just kind of had a different watching experience with Adventure and thus sort of format my feelings about it in a different way idk. Whatever the case, here’s my full review of Adventure under the cut, and if you don’t care about that, then here’s the TLDR;

I liked adventure! I had a lot of fun watching it. It’s not a perfect season, but nothing is, and whilst I am going to take a break for now, I'm excited to start Digimon Adventure 02 in the foreseeable future.

-First, I do want to highlight things I really enjoyed. I really loved the animation and art style- I know its seen as very cheesy and dated and not the best animated (Most notable example that comes to mind is reusing the animation for special moves) but IDC, I love the cartoony style and I've always been very endeared to older styles of animation and how they make use of the medium.

-I liked the kids! I liked the kids a lot! They’re good kids! The cast of adventure is absolutely a highlight, and I can see why Bandai always goes back to them for use in future projects, whether or not that’s ultimately a good thing.

-Whilst I personally prefer the more Urban Sci-fi / Fantasy settings of Tamers and Savers, The Isekai approach lends itself to be a good way to immediately show off the digital world and the creatures within it, and to start exploring the worldbuilding within. I like the worldbuilding of Adventure! It felt kind of more purposely vague then Tamers and Savers, but it’s an interesting world they set up, and I'd like to see more of it explored

-I missed the global aspect of Tamers and even Savers. Though I can’t really fault Adventure, being as it was literally THE first season ever, for staying strictly in Japan. I just personally enjoyed how large and expansive things got in Tamers, and how people from all over the world were involved. I will say, I did appreciate Adventure also having more unorthodox or complicated family dynamics- such as Yamato and Takeru being the kids of divorce who aren’t able to 24/7 be around each other, or how Koushiro is adopted. It’s always a breath of fresh air to see media, especially for kids, tackle these sorts of things with nuance and grace.

-The soundtrack was absolutely gorgeous. Probably my favourite out of all of the soundtracks so far- there was just so much passion and emotion packed into each musical piece.

-Tone and themes were fairly consistent throughout, mostly due to the fact that Adventure doesn’t really have any sort of grand overarching messaging like Tamers or Savers did. I would assume, due to being again, the first season of anime, it cared more about plot and characters than trying to Say anything too radical. Hence, the themes follow pretty standard “good versus evil” tropes, as well as the power of compassion and community and optimism and hope that digimon usually utilises in each of its different stories across mediums, instead of anything more complex, like Tamers attempts at dissecting morality and violence, and Savers discussing the inherent value of lives that aren’t humans and trying to understand those not like you. Adventure plays it safe, and doesn’t get burned because of it, which I can’t fault.

-The villains are. Eh. They’re entertaining but none of them are necessarily very well written. The most well written villain was Pinochimon, and ignoring that i'm a biased party, most people seem to agree with me on this. Vamdemon was definitely the most intimidating and well built up antagonist. Apocalymon has a really cool and sympathetic concept, and I wish he had been focused on more. Generally, due to the nature of Adventure's “good versus evil” tropes, a lot of the villains aren’t really allowed any sort of nuance or are portrayed in a “They're Inherently Damnable Let's Kill Em” sort of way, which is unfortunate. Only Ogremon top of my head really gets any sort of minor redemption at the end without dying for it, ala Wizarmon, Gottsumon and Pumpkinmon.

-Like Tamers, Adventure is much more open to the idea of making horny jokes and talking about romance, which I do not enjoy, and it was by far the worst one when it came to that in my opinion. Why were there so many jokes about masc digimon hitting on Mimi. Stop that right this instant.

-Generally, I would say plot and character writing is a mixed bag. None of it is necessarily godawful, but you can tell that Adventure was very haphazardly and sloppily written. There’s a lot of inconsistencies in the writing- a lot of new characters or story elements are sort of abruptly added out of nowhere with no real build up and which sometimes ultimately don’t really matter all that much. It has definitely the worst pacing out of the seasons I've seen so far- Again, Building up momentum to then just suddenly stop and spill exposition on you. Savers and Tamers had issues too, but their handling of the plot was usually much tighter and the writing much more concise. Whilst I love the kids, and they do definitely get their own character arcs, none of them are written equally in that regard and often times it leads to situations where some characters get their arcs finished early and then stay stagnant for the rest of the season (Sora and Koushiro) whilst others only get major character writing near the very end (Yamato). It also definitely played favourites with some of them lol. Random things will interject in pivotal moments and the arcs for each different villain all have entirely different vibes to one another. Truthfully, it does come across as a much of mini stories hazily slapped together in an attempt to create a Larger Grander Narrative. Which, again, it was their first attempt ever creating an anime for Digimon, so I suppose I can’t blame them too much for this. It’s a miracle this took off so well in the first place.

Again, there’s definitely stuff I'm missing that i'd have wanted to say, but as a whole, again, I like Adventure! It’s not my favourite season of the digimon anime, and I can definitely understand the frustration for Bandai constantly milking it as a cash cow for the nostalgia points. But, I do think as a whole it holds up for the most part, at least for a kids anime from the late 90s, and Again, I don’t regret having watched it.

#digimon #dinu yells into the void #dinu yells in the void #dinu watches digimon #ill do a like #full tier list at the end when ive watched 02 #but so far in terms of my personal enjoyment #i think my favourite season is still Savers #with Tamers behind it and Adventure behind tamers #in terms of objective quality id say honestly all of them are like B+ shows #they all have their own flaws and problems but are still good entertaining animes #i think the point abt adventure being incoherent or inconsistent might also have to do with the fact it was probably the hardest season for #me to finish personally. i had to take a Lot of breaks inbetween arcs and episode #so that might be colouring my perspective my apologies

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sincerelystesichorus · 10 months ago

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astarion, anne carson, & autobiography of red - small character study blurb

In which I've written 40k words of Astarion character analysis fanfiction and I'm definitely still normal.

Astarion used to be blue, but ever since that night two centuries ago, he was reborn red. And he had spent at least the past century thinking that red was irreplaceable. It was – red, it was in his blood and the little blood Cazador would let him wring from rats, corroded and stained. His very life force. He was Cazador’s, his spawn, his jewel, his ruby. There was no cure for red. Not until you became the successful means to an end. He had been sure of it. Being red wasn’t good. It made everyone who wasn’t red, and that felt like most everyone, stare at you like you put off a certain aura… like they knew you were a monster that could only act off of instinct and emotion. And it was so frustrating, because parts of Astarion were blue still, knew what was better, but they were nothing in comparison to the suffocation of red. The emotions, and especially anger, fear, came on so strong. It was hard not to act on them, to test out what the boundaries of pure action were. Astarion knew the color and impulse all too well.

I expand way more on the idea of people as colors within my writing than Autobiography of Red does, where Geryon is the only one who is red. This further pushes Geryon's feelings of being separated from humanity in his narrative, but there's a lot of inherent evil and fucked up things within Faerun so I felt expanding on colors and specifically shades/hues was a better way to communicate this for Astarion.

Geryon's red is tied very instinctually to emotion though, and so representing red as a chaotic force of emotion in my fic didn't feel like too far a step. I took a lot of inspiration from Magic: the Gathering's color pie lol. While you never get an exact description of what's wrong with Geryon, you get a lot of the symptoms, reminiscent of some sort of innate childhood mental illness, on top of the obvious trauma present in his story.

Back to Astarion, though. I've just never not been able to code him with CPTSD, I think that's obvious, but I also know that poor bastard has a personality disorder skffkjdf. The game always hammers in he has no sense of self outside of his looks, which he can't even be sure of because he can't see himself. Astarion has to work his confidence and self-image off of memories of his body and face from two centuries ago, and from his master's word. Cazador has assigned him to this seduction role (or, I feel its at least implied that Astarion was ultimately forced into it because he was seen as the Szarr runt, he was pretty and easy to push around, and I'm also pretty sure Petras has a line about getting to eat dogs now and then?) and Astarion fulfills it because it's all he can do. All he feels good for. His actions aren't his own for two hundred years, and in a morbid way of coping with constant sexual trauma, he functions off of "Well, at least I'm pretty," but even that assumption comes from Cazador's rule.

Astarion had decided he was mostly pure red, splashes of black and blue coming in, bright and visible. The remnants of his past and an even deeper level of Cazador’s corruption, bruising his psyche.

Carson is again sparing with other color imagery as to fully emphasize Geryon feeling like this big red monster, but I love this little excerpt on fearful anger.

Black/shadow is already a strong force and theme within the game so it was easy to work with, acknowledging it as a sort of staining evil. Astrion has his later lines about how he never stopped viewing himself as Cazador's slave, and I think showing that corruption is obviously important. He's hurt but can still heal (as opposed to an ascended Astarion... who I have little if any hope for sdfkjdskf).

Cazador had spent the last two centuries branding it into his skin and mind, breaking his psyche to the point Astarion was worried there’d always be little cracks that remained. That he’d always be Cazador’s wilted poppy, ashamed and folding in on himself, his neck miserably drooped aside for the taking.

Cazador is Astarion's Herakles, and I think that metaphor works even better considering that whole little side lore with Vellioth in the ruins. Herakles kills Geryon because he must, Geryon is a way for Herakles to ultimately reach a life free of consequence, but it's not like Herakles is innately malicious in the act. He is hardened after already facing so many labors and the trauma that was forced on him by Hera that induced his journey in the first place.

Cazador wants power, some part of him is probably truly convinced he's easier on his spawn than Vellioth was to him (a lot of insults to Astarion are about his feelings and "whining", Cazador feels vindicated in his trauma and is far gone), and sacrificing Astarion is simply a part of that journey. There is no world where their destinies do not intertwine. Geryon will always be pierced by Herakles, and Astarion wouldn't be the Astarion we know without being pierced by Cazador (and without his ultimate decision to finally separate himself from him, or to become him.) Astarion, understandably, will never not feel some sort of shame or agony over this moment, from natural emotions and I'm sure years of Cazador victim-blaming him. He consented to Cazador's help that night after all, didn't he? (And we simply won't acknowledge the coercion.)

Astarion’s attempts to prolong the inevitable were shattered by thick layers of stone suddenly slamming in front of his face, muffling sound and casting him into a void. He could hardly hear Cazador’s foul laugh as he departed. Astarion waited all night for Cazador to return. And then all of the next day, and the next one after that. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Astarion started to agree that dying would have been easier. More peaceful. He had pondered hundreds of ways to attempt to kill himself while stuck in this abyss, the voices that had started developing only giving further inspiration, but it was impossible. He was sure. All he could do was wait. Beat and claw at the stone around him. Curse. Repeat. Sometimes he'd wonder. If he'd ever get out of here. If Cazador would remember after forgetting. If this would be his forever. The voices began to recite to him again. Just how long eternity can be.

I think this is the greatest and most obvious similarity between these two, within Carson's retelling. Geryon feels somehow trapped and doomed by the narrative from his early childhood, and receives some blunt confirmation of it when he faces early sexual abuse. This affects his entire life, his early relationships. Geryon can't be older than ten in this excerpt, but knows the pain of isolation because of his trauma and for feeling different.

Astarion was plucked up by Cazador right out of law school. While for us it's not all that young, for elves he was fiercely immature, basically just starting to come into himself at his first big-boy job. Astarion was likely raised with a lot of privilege that also made him a bit more naive, his book smarts not meeting street smarts, which has him meet his end. In his undeath, that basically flips, Astarion plays his manipulation games and indulges in petty crime and seduction, unable to dedicate himself to studies. He reads and he's witty, but can you imagine the Astarion we know as a judge? It's giving Divorce Court. It's giving Judge Judy. (Honestly maybe that's what got him whacked in the first place.)

Astarion is already constrained to what Cazador lets him be as a slave. He's less than a person, and his own body is one of his greatest trauma sources.

All of this, to be punished so supremely when making an act of slight self-preservation. Astarion wanting to maintain some of his principles and let someone go. It becomes his greatest regret, his worst and most defining punishment. It's how Cazador breaks him.

I restructure some of the circumstances within my fic, as to better tie in the main romance, but it still functions as a punished act of self-preservation for Astarion. I'm also sure most people are familiar with the pain that solitary confinement can bring, but if not, it's genuinely inhumane and dehumanizing. Lack of stimulation is extremely damaging to the psyche, I wrote in Astarion breaking into psychotic episodes while enclosed, but even in game, he speaks about going catatonic. I'm sure minorly from exhaustion after fighting, but also from the isolation. His mind likely just drifted and dissociated beyond belief, and I can't imagine it. This is my favorite piece of Astarion's story we are given, it really is just so pivotal and heartbreaking, to be punished for having freewill in the most objectifying circumstances.

In summary to Astarion Ancunin I just sorta feel like this I guess...

ddfsdfdk but yeah just emo about my poor boy feeling so weird and disconnected yet so drowned in his own emotions you know...

[my homage to autobiography of red, fic series page, my ao3 page]

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