2011-05-12: Going Out

[l33tm44m]

Though, honestly, I've distrusted and disliked Ian from this moment on: http://www.errantstory.com/2003-09-24/150 He's never even met an elf, but he has no hesitation at all about labeling them all as monsters and spreading that view to others. Once again, he has the opportunity to behave with grace towards his fellow living beings, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and it doesn't even occur to him. He chooses hate without ever stopping to consider the alternative.

I find that very hard to admire or excuse, and I certainly can't blame it on power he didn't have yet.

-_-'

If he HAD met an elf before that, he'd be DEAD. Just look at Sarine's "grand entrance." She asks for the half-elf by NAME, and when he approaches (giving her the full "benefit of the doubt"), she kills him FOR NO REASON, then glares at the crowd in the tavern and walks away. Going by that alone, (not to mention the behavior of Meji's own father and every other elf that has to "dirty itself" dealing with humans) and Ian's assertion is well founded.

You say you have the same condition as Ian's mother? Please tell me you're not around small children. Ian points out that his mother beat him and his sister around PLENTY. He was desperate to take his sister OUT OF THERE, but she was too sick to move. Upon finally finding the cure, surprise, surprise, his mother killed her, and then herself in a nice FIRE! Even without Anilis slowly but surely wearing away at his psyche, this kind of misfortune upon misfortune will unhinge anyone.

[Imp-Chan]

Though, honestly, I've distrusted and disliked Ian from this moment on: http://www.errantstory.com/2003-09-24/150 He's never even met an elf, but he has no hesitation at all about labeling them all as monsters and spreading that view to others. Once again, he has the opportunity to behave with grace towards his fellow living beings, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and it doesn't even occur to him. He chooses hate without ever stopping to consider the alternative.

If he HAD met an elf before that, he'd be DEAD. Just look at Sarine's "grand entrance." She asks for the half-elf by NAME, and when he approaches (giving her the full "benefit of the doubt"), she kills him FOR NO REASON, then glares at the crowd in the tavern and walks away. Going by that alone, (not to mention the behavior of Meji's own father and every other elf that has to "dirty itself" dealing with humans) and Ian's assertion is well founded.

Meji met Sarine. She isn't dead. Even if Ian were right, my point wasn't that he was wrong about the elves, it was that he didn't for one moment consider the possibility that he might be.

You say you have the same condition as Ian's mother? Please tell me you're not around small children. Ian points out that his mother beat him and his sister around PLENTY. He was desperate to take his sister OUT OF THERE, but she was too sick to move. Upon finally finding the cure, surprise, surprise, his mother killed her, and then herself in a nice FIRE! Even without Anilis slowly but surely wearing away at his psyche, this kind of misfortune upon misfortune will unhinge anyone.

I have a similar condition, not an identical one. And yes, I am around small children, I'm surprisingly good with kids. The condition does not produce identical behavior in all people, and I am both medicated and motivated not to behave abusively. I just recognize that if I hadn't gotten help, I might have behaved similarly to Ian's mother. But once again, you've missed the real point, AND made a similar mistake to Ian's in the process. I don't say Ian's mother is right to behave in the way she does, I say that Ian is WRONG for treating her like she can't be a better person. He just hates her, and goes no deeper than that.

-_-'

[ChunLing]

I'm not going to say anything about the implications of moral condemnation of a guy for having emotional problems that make it hard for him to deal with other people with more severe emotional/mental problems. That discussion is already way too personal in the current thread.

However, on the subject of "foldspace" inside of an atmosphere, the relevant concept is "creases" and the necessity of avoiding having anything go through them. When you distort a patch of something basically flat to bring some parts closer to other parts than they otherwise would be, you want to keep most of the something as close to the original flatness as possible to avoid distorting whatever parts you are trying to bring closer together. That means that some of the something will end up a lot less flat than usual, and whatever happens to be in that part of the something will get very distorted. It really is simpler if there is nothing on that part of your something.

Also, I'm thinking that a long-term career in the military was not part of Bani's life plan in the first place. That probably reflects a fairly realistic understanding of her personal aims and what a military career can offer.

[Imp-Chan]

I'm not going to say anything about the implications of moral condemnation of a guy for having emotional problems that make it hard for him to deal with other people with more severe emotional/mental problems. That discussion is already way too personal in the current thread.

Quite right. Suffice it to say, Ian clearly had mental/emotional problems to begin with (whatever the cause and however excusable), it is not solely the god juice at work.

Back to the discussion... I feel kinda dumb for it, but I've never quite understood the whole folding space and time concept. I mean, I understand it, but I don't really get it. Why can't you even theoretically just take a section of space and time, isolate it, and then create a door that goes directly to any other space and time, without going through or around or otherwise manipulating all the stuff in the middle? You just happen to connect the two points directly. Instead of folding over a piece of fabric and having to move all that material to skip across faster, you just take your special piece of fabric and cut it out, then you can touch it to every other piece of fabric you want and step from one to the other with ease. No moving along or hopping across the plane involved. If you cease to be a part of the whole, it's much easier to decide where and when to connect to it. Am I just dumb for thinking that should be possible?

^-^'

[Forrest]

Back to the discussion... I feel kinda dumb for it, but I've never quite understood the whole folding space and time concept. I mean, I understand it, but I don't really get it. Why can't you even theoretically just take a section of space and time, isolate it, and then create a door that goes directly to any other space and time, without going through or around or otherwise manipulating all the stuff in the middle? You just happen to connect the two points directly. Instead of folding over a piece of fabric and having to move all that material to skip across faster, you just take your special piece of fabric and cut it out, then you can touch it to every other piece of fabric you want and step from one to the other with ease. No moving along or hopping across the plane involved. If you cease to be a part of the whole, it's much easier to decide where and when to connect to it. Am I just dumb for thinking that should be possible?

There is scifi precedent for that kind of travel in Orson Scott Card's Enderverse. They discover a way of stepping outside of spacetime, at which point you are equally far (or near) to any other point in spacetime and can step back into it wherever you like in literally no time.

The problem with realistically extrapolating that from existing physics is that we know of ways of bending spacetime already (every mass in the universe does it naturally), but we have no idea about anything to do with cutting and stitching different bits of spacetime together. That's setting aside from a moment whether spacetime is really a separate thing independent of the matter in it, or just a relation between material particulars.

[eee]

I see him skipping straight to shouting at his sister when he finds out how serious her condition is, being negative even when she requests him not to be and failing to even acknowledge her opinions about the bright side of life, and then being absolutely and unremittingly scathing towards a mother who cannot help her condition (even addressing it in similarly dismissive terms to Riley and Leah, which is a whole extra realm of douchebaggery). He also mugs old men instead of even asking them for help, and he wouldn't have been fighting that elf to the death if he'd had the sense to run away with Jon and Meji, but he was already crazy enough to keep blasting away even back then. So yes, I think Ian was on the road to crazy town long before he got high on godjuice.

Maybe I see him as such a douche primarily because of how he speaks of his mother. I have a condition like hers. I walk a fine line between "can't help it" and "won't help it." Sometimes it's one, sometimes the other, sometimes it's even both. You know what doesn't help you to fight a condition like that? Judgement, dismissal, and scorn from your loved ones. In fact, the wrong dynamic can aggravate the condition a LOT, especially when you aren't medicated for it. I just barely lived through a time when I wasn't diagnosed or medicated, and my family had no clue how to respond to me or my behavior, and that left some pretty deep scars (both psychic and physical, and not only on myself). Is his mom right to behave the way she does? No, probably not, and I know it isn't easy to live with, but that doesn't make Ian any less of a dick for how he responds to it.

Consider Ian's level of medical knowledge. He's apparently got more than anyone else in his village because he was looking for a way to help his sister and studied what he could; but even so, does that means he knew mental illness WAS an illness? His mother's behavior may well have enraged him because he didn't understand it. His sister, yes, he knew she had a defective heart that was limiting her and killing her, because he could recognize the symptoms. But did he - DOES he - know his mother had a defective brain that was doing the same? If not, his behavior becomes understandable and due to ignorance, not dickitude. And if he doesn't know, and someday realizes the truth... Well the guilt he's probably currently experiencing (if he'd stayed home, he might have heard his mother start the fire. He'd certainly have had a better chance of getting his sister out than she, a physical cripple, had on her own. He probably considers his sister's death all his fault. Which may be part of the reason he's so ga-ga) will be greatly increased...

Though, honestly, I've distrusted and disliked Ian from this moment on: http://www.errantstory.com/2003-09-24/150 He's never even met an elf, but he has no hesitation at all about labeling them all as monsters and spreading that view to others. Once again, he has the opportunity to behave with grace towards his fellow living beings, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and it doesn't even occur to him. He chooses hate without ever stopping to consider the alternative.'

Almost every story Ian's been told or studied at that point would CONFIRM his point of view: Elves exist only to kill half-elves. The Errant war, where Elves killed any Elf or human who got in their way as they killed half-elves; the history of his village, formed from the few survivors of the latest Elvish genocidal attack on the original town; the few half elves who've made their way to the village since, telling of the Elves continuing to hunt down errants... Heck, Ian has never SPOKEN to an Elf who, if he didn't stop them first, hasn't tried to kill him. Sarine would have been an exception, and might have changed things dramatically if he hadn't blown her through the wall at the inn on sight. Ian doesn't consider an alternative because there's never really been anything to suggest to him there is one.

I find that very hard to admire or excuse, and I certainly can't blame it on power he didn't have yet.

-_-'

OK, but what about now? Ian has been merged with an alien life form of great power, uncertain compatibility, and apparently some residual personality. The kid's brain is probably as messed up as his mother's was. And we - myself included - rail at him, call him emo, and are rooting for Meji to come and smack him down... which is probably necessarily, at this point, and the only way to stop him. But if Ian's the mentally ill one, now, where's the compassion and understanding for HIS condition?

[Imp-Chan]

I don't know how to make my problem with Ian more clear... it has nothing to do with the reality around Ian or his experiences, it's all about his approach to witnessing that reality. Which is to say, I feel he chooses not to witness it. What bothers me isn't that Ian fears the elves, it's that Ian doesn't seem willing to believe that any elf might not choose to be a murderer, despite the fact that he has direct evidence of several such occurrences (Sarine healed the other elves, but did not attack him when he went batshit in Saus, and he knows that Meji has not been murdered or even harmed by the elves on several occasions no matter how richly she deserved at least a little murdering). This is so clearly not a question of him just being cautious and thinking, "Well, they might not kill me, but why take that chance?" I would find that attitude absolutely appropriate in light of history and his experiences (though I'm having trouble thinking of a fight he didn't instigate, and generally I find that kind of caution unfortunate). Instead, he flat-out does not even consider a non-murderous elf as a possible part of reality. Ian has simply closed the book on learning anything about the elves contrary to what he already believes to be true, and he did that long before the first elf tried to kill him... and in a closed book, there's no room for redemption.

I want Ian to be better than that, and I am so disappointed because he has otherwise demonstrated an enormous capacity for compassion. His compassion isn't available to anyone he's already made up his mind about, though, and the result is he is going through life creating conflict and choosing hatred as he acts out against those he has judged. The violence in Ian's life is largely self-inflicted, and unlike everyone else in the cast, he isn't willing to admit that he is choosing his own behavior. He instead says that he has no choice, or has to stop the elves once and for all, or doesn't want to abandon Lyn to dealing with his mom alone, but he must go try this longshot chance to save her. He isn't taking responsibility for choosing, because he isn't looking at any of the alternate paths. They're still there, but he doesn't choose to acknowledge them.

Ian is quite definitely broken, but that only explains so much, and I don't know what kind of illness causes that kind of overzealous bigotry. I do know that illness doesn't entirely excuse it. The law, for example, makes allowances for when one cannot tell the difference between right and wrong... not by excusing those who can't, but by focusing on getting them treatment. The system recognizes that just because you didn't know you made the wrong choice doesn't mean it wasn't still the wrong choice, and if you can be helped to a place where you can see that it is more effective than punishment because you can't. The system recognizes that even crazy people CAN change and choose to be better than they are, if they are willing to be. Unfortunately, you can't help those who aren't willing, only they can make the choice.

I feel badly for Ian's experiences, but he's had loads of people trying to help him and giving him the same benefit of the doubt that he won't give anyone else. Until he demonstrates willingness to consider change, to consider that the universe is not absolutely as he sees it and that perhaps killing everyone who tells him no isn't the most moral decision he ever made, I still class him as evil. I don't dismiss the possibility of him being better, though, and that's what makes all the difference.

^-^'

[Slamlander]

...
Ian is quite definitely broken, but that only explains so much, and I don't know what kind of illness causes that kind of overzealous bigotry. I do know that illness doesn't entirely excuse it.

It is the same illness that caused the deaths of the three students in Mississippi, most of the violent deaths of black people in the South, The Holocaust, The Armenian Purge, The US Indian Wars, most of the other genocides in the real world, and in this universe, the Errant Wars. Unlike Archie Bunker, an equal opportunity bigot, which moderates the bigotry and diffuses it. Ian focuses his bigotry in a single direction, more like Malcolm X, who was just as bad a reverse bigot as Ian.

There is no cure for that sort of bigotry; no more than there is for the original bigotry that spawned it. The best that civilized people can do is to moderate and curb it until it is diluted by multiple generations of time. Even then, it can manifest, in society, again and in surpising ways.

... The law, for example, makes allowances for when one cannot tell the difference between right and wrong... not by excusing those who can't, but by focusing on getting them treatment. The system recognizes that just because you didn't know you made the wrong choice doesn't mean it wasn't still the wrong choice, and if you can be helped to a place where you can see that it is more effective than punishment because you can't. The system recognizes that even crazy people CAN change and choose to be better than they are, if they are willing to be. Unfortunately, you can't help those who aren't willing, only they can make the choice ...

The law even does, and should, recognise when someone is unrepentant and irredeemable. Malcolm X, were he alive today, might have been placed in a cell right next to Charles Manson.

Poe has done an excellent job in bringing this out in Ian. Ian is the Poe-verse equivalent of Malcolm X. He is an uncompromising bigot who can actually point to real causes for his bigotry. What Ian doesn't acknowlege is that more bigotry is not the answer to bigotry as that only causes a viscious cycle of mutual bigotry that can only lead to mutual annihilation.

[Graybeard]

Consider Ian's level of medical knowledge. He's apparently got more than anyone else in his village because he was looking for a way to help his sister and studied what he could; but even so, does that means he knew mental illness WAS an illness? His mother's behavior may well have enraged him because he didn't understand it. His sister, yes, he knew she had a defective heart that was limiting her and killing her, because he could recognize the symptoms. But did he - DOES he - know his mother had a defective brain that was doing the same?

This bit of dialogue between Ian and Evelyn says he has at least given the matter some thought. For that matter, we don't know what was going on in Madeline Samael's head, either during the flashback or when she killed herself and her daughter.

It's tempting to say that any suicide or suicidal behavior is implicitly a form, or at least a manifestation, of mental illness. I'm not sure that is accurate, and I say that as one who has seen altogether too bloody many suicide attempts, many of them successful, among friends and relatives. (In my mother's family, it is a statistically significant cause of death.) In most cases, probably a large majority, that association is likely correct. But just watch someone who is writhing through the terminal phases of cancer some time and try to convince yourself you wouldn't just end it all in the same situation, if you could. What does that have to do with Madeline Samael's situation? We don't know, because we have seen so little of her on stage that we can't really say what was going on inside her head. But that's the point: we don't know what forces Ian has been subjected to, either.

Though, honestly, I've distrusted and disliked Ian from this moment on: http://www.errantstory.com/2003-09-24/150 He's never even met an elf, but he has no hesitation at all about labeling them all as monsters and spreading that view to others. Once again, he has the opportunity to behave with grace towards his fellow living beings, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and it doesn't even occur to him. He chooses hate without ever stopping to consider the alternative.'

Almost every story Ian's been told or studied at that point would CONFIRM his point of view: Elves exist only to kill half-elves. The Errant war, where Elves killed any Elf or human who got in their way as they killed half-elves; the history of his village, formed from the few survivors of the latest Elvish genocidal attack on the original town; the few half elves who've made their way to the village since, telling of the Elves continuing to hunt down errants... Heck, Ian has never SPOKEN to an Elf who, if he didn't stop them first, hasn't tried to kill him. Sarine would have been an exception, and might have changed things dramatically if he hadn't blown her through the wall at the inn on sight. Ian doesn't consider an alternative because there's never really been anything to suggest to him there is one.

Correct. Note further that Santuariel didn't finally become a viable sanctuary until they got away from the elves altogether and developed a hatred for them, according to the Chronicles of Heretic Knowledge. The fact that the half elves taught their children to hate and fear the elves not only explains Ian's behavior; it also worked (so far). I find the comparison to infectious disease useful and have used it before. I want to eradicate the malaria parasite from the face of the earth, because it kills lots of people, tried to kill my father, and exists with no other goal than to propagate itself by killing. You durn well better believe I "fear" the thing ("hate" is probably not an appropriate term to use with a single-celled organism), and that fear is rooted in experience, not prejudice. Elves are Santuariel's malaria, as far as Ian, and any other half elf alive up there, is concerned.

OK, but what about now? Ian has been merged with an alien life form of great power, uncertain compatibility, and apparently some residual personality. The kid's brain is probably as messed up as his mother's was. And we - myself included - rail at him, call him emo, and are rooting for Meji to come and smack him down... which is probably necessarily, at this point, and the only way to stop him. But if Ian's the mentally ill one, now, where's the compassion and understanding for HIS condition?

Well said.

[ChunLing]

I think that the discussion of whether Ian is right or wrong is less interesting than the question of how best to deal with him.

Thus far, there is exactly one proven tactic for dealing with Ian. Talking to him. Not at him, or around him, or past him.

True, I do not see any reason to stop Ian from killing elves. But if I did, I would vote on the "let's try talking to him" approach. Of course, the time to use that has mostly passed, since Meji is about to hit the scene and she is not exactly the kind of person that tactic will work on.