MuonNeutrino wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:28 pm
I don't excuse the things Eric's done. He *is* a slaver and a rapist, and those things are most definitely wrong. And yes, there are a few who seem to try to treat keidran more kindly (although
Tom had something to say on the topic of Saria being anti-slavery).
Well, even disregarding Saria, I bring you the concept of
the Resistance, which I don't think is something Ephemural just made up whole cloth.
But getting back to Saria, I would say it's a lucky break for the story that she appears more abolitionist than she was intended to be. If you look for example at the parallel of slavery in the US, it doesn't matter to what dark time in that history you go, you will find people speaking out against it. A time where
everyone just accepts chattel slavery as a given cannot exist in a society that's still supposed to be human, and I don't think that getting a species like the keidran into the mix would be enough to change that. Having that present in the form of someone sympathetic like Saria is, I think, a good touch. Even if it was an accidental one
MuonNeutrino wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:28 pm
Of course, now that he's had his nose rubbed in it and been made to actually think about the morality of his actions it changes a bit. I don't blame someone for accepting what they'd been taught, but if they *do* begin to evaluate their actions and still decide to not change, I would legitimately regard that as a moral failing on a personal level. The jury is still out on this aspect, though (see below).
I would go one step farther, and say that carrying on in a life of luxury built on and perpetuated by owning people is in itself a moral failing. Ignorance may be bliss, but it's not blamelessness.
MuonNeutrino wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:28 pm
I'd actually push back against this a bit. First, we don't actually know if he profited from their sale or not, because we have no idea what the terms of the sale were nor the value of the money he gave them. It's entirely possible that he gave them the equivalent of their sale price. We don't know if he 'short-changed' them in any way - it's possible, for sure, but it's also possible he did the exact opposite.
I will mostly defer to Ddraig's points (especially the one about it being established that what Trace -- who tips with gold coins -- had at hand was not sufficient), but I will also say that if it was the full amount, surely he would have said as much.
MuonNeutrino wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:28 pm
And second, and more importantly, I'd actually argue that this is *exactly* the act of someone who could be starting to realize that owning people might be wrong. The key is his statement that he was paying them
'for services rendered' - it's not just charity, it's not just because he feels bad about what he did, it's not just for saving stuff from the ship, but rather it's compensation for what they've done for him.
I read him as meaning 'payment for your services [since being freed on the ship]', not any preceding time, but certainly it's ambiguous. I don't think it's supposed to be lifetime wages, though.
MuonNeutrino wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:28 pm
He's already admitted that he now realizes it's wrong to suppress someone's free will using the collars, which is a start at undermining one of the aspects of slavery
I think
he always knew it was wrong.
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aitaituo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:06 am
The closest theory to objective morality is the genetic morality hypothesis.
I would be comfortable saying that morality emerges from the same place as human nature, or as part of it. And human nature never changes, just human circumstances. The Golden Rule and similar concepts have always existed.
What that says about individuals, even as a thought exercise... I don't rightly know.
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Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
I have such trouble resisting a discussion.... If I respond again after this with another long chattery post, please scold me.
Please scold me as well. I have neither the time nor energy for this, yet here I still am.
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
Keeping it short and posing some questions to think on, as best I can:
I don't think it's really because of the age difference, but rather because of seeing Natani through his own role -- the panel we see there is the time right after they lost their parents. The age difference had become less relevant by the time of the link, and Natani much less helpless, but that's still the memory Zen was focused on. (Which makes sense; that moment defined his whole life. It just should not have also defined Natani's, at least not in the way it came to.)
This presumes that the event did not and had not had a profoundly influential impact on Natani at the time already.
No it doesn't. See the last sentence fragment of my nested quote, bolded for your convenience. I pretty much agree with your characterization of how it did, or at least very plausibly might have, affected Natani before the link.
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
Probably true, but don't underestimate their perspectives on the difference between 'flailed a bit in a regretful attempt at violence', 'tried to poison a poison-immune person' and 'literally stabbed a sword through my chest'.
It's true that Zen never attempted specific violence against Keith (just the general violence of 'trying to kill this group of people he's part of), and that if one looks for balance in these things, Keith rather has one up on Zen. But on the other hand, the delivery method for the poison was an arrow in the chest, so that part of it balances out, and I think Zen would rather that he took the sword in answer than Natani.
I think he's intellectually okay with what happened, given how things turned out, and since it happened the way it happened -- very abruptly, from behind, never saw it coming -- it's not like he has a bitter memory of Keith overpowering him or any such thing. I really don't think there's room for serious beef there. How they both feel about Natani is a much more important factor.
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
Which is the comment of a protector, regardless of sex... and the justifications that follow it are distinctly not sexist ones, which was my point.
We seem to have gotten into a somewhat curious situation, since you're arguing against Zen being sexist, and that's not a position I generally argue
for. I do give a nod to sexism when it comes to the Magi bros, because it's clearly a theme on some level, but I don't think any kind of general sexim is actually required to explain anything about Zen or Natani in the comic. It can fit in to some things, and so I expect it's probably in there somewhere, but I don't think it's a definite necessary element. (Natani's behavior is quite adequately explained by him seeing femininity
in himself as weakness, and the mindscape sequence told us exactly why. It would take some reaching to generalize that very specific feeling about himself into sexism directed at others. He does scoff at Laura once, but... that's pretty scant evidence for establishing facts about his character past the obvious that he was jealous over Keith.)
I think we got here because I pointed out the few outright counterfactuals I saw in your narrative, and you doubled down on how something that's the opposite of what you originally said regardless supports your narrative -- and also because your entry vector to the thread was in opposition to people being harsh on Zen, which you presumably attribute to people viewing him as sexist. But that doesn't go for me in particular, and I don't think it goes for people in general, either; the opposition comes from how he, as unwittingly as it was, hurt Natani, and how he apparently then never realized that there was something there that should be made right, and indeed instead apparently needled Natani every time he showed any femininity, despite the fact that,
given the backstory of the early link, there should be no way he didn't know
how that made Natani feel. A... failure of love, might be the kindest way I can rightfully characterize it.
The Natani-is-female crowd additionally heaps on his sins the twisting of Natani's gender identity, which I think is... well, a bad read, but does logically follow if you presuppose that Natani is 'really female', whatever that means to the people it means something to.
Either way, it's been seven years of his life with this... misconception of himself burdening him. The way I think I put it once is that he's been struggling to stay afloat, when all along he could have just straightend out his legs and stood on the bottom. Too stupid to help himself, and Zen --
at best -- too stupid to reach out a hand.
It's all just kind of depressing, really.
He didn't allow himself to be convinced. He was not amenable to repeated argument. Natani forced his hand.
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
I feel like I pointed that out before and you just said "Oh but he did stop her!" No... he didn't... because she joined the order and the story progressed.
And you're insistent on attributing that to Zen's magnanimy, rather than Natani's determination.
How do you propose he would have stopped her? They did not even have a room for him to lock her into.
Belief by itself has little power to resist contradiction. How --
without risking harm to Natani, the one thing he cannot allow -- would Zen have stopped her from going around him, and joining the brotherhood? I do not think pre-emptively outing her to the people she absolutely cannot be outed to would have been safe, and I don't think Zen would have thought it was. And once she was in, she was in, and they were in it together.
How could he have stopped her, even if he would have wanted nothing more?
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
Have we considered here that the emotional overlay of this entire section might not be 'Zen's impression of what Natani was feeling', but rather more directly, a bleed across of what Zen
himself was feeling?
It seems perfectly clear that what's at issue
on page 931 is how Zen specifically viewed Natani specifically, regardless of where precisely that view came from. I've already said previously that I do not particularly blame Zen, at the tender age of whatever, and in a very dire situation (especially after Issac and before the link), having that view. It was understandable, if unfortunate. He tried his best, but failed, and failed in a particularly tragic way. That tragedy still looms, and I'm hoping to see it unravel, and to see it unravel in an uplifting way, because I would prefer to like Zen again as a character. Or if not that, then for Natani to grow further through the experience.
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
Remember that young Natani is not some omniscient spirit guide... it's just young Natani, looking back reflectively, but no more knowledgeable about Zen's own feelings and motives than anyone else who isn't him.
I do think young Natani should be viewed as near enough an 'omniscient spirit guide', at least until and unless she is either shown to be fallible, or somehow suggested to have an agenda. If she is all she appears to be, and I see no reason to doubt that, she knows precisely the difference between who Natani thinks he was and who she actually was, and that's an incredibly powerful perspective on the specific things she's been explaining and opining on.
I don't think it would be crazy to view her as fallible or motivated, but I do think it would have to be somehow corraborated to be plausible. (For the record, I think the most suspicious -- or maybe just the most odd -- she's been is one page ago, when addressing Zen. But I don't see a path from there to anywhere interesting, at least yet.)
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
I don't feel that what you're referencing makes the point you're trying to claim it does. I think it gives us every foundation for seeing Natani's existing self-assimilated sexism. We're seeing the same events and reading the same details, but we are receiving them differently, and coming away with different impressions.
How is it that you simultaneously reach the conclusions that Zen never bought into his culture's sexism, and that Natani did? When that culture would reinforce Zen and his role, and hinder Natani?
Something that this discussion has reminded me of is what Zen said to Kat not long ago; "
Ever since our folks died... I've tried to be the brother dad told me to be." What kind of brother do you think his dad would have told him to be, to his sister, in this sexist culture? And why is that still Zen's guiding star now?
I do have a proper, psychological, dark read on Zen, if you would like to hear it. But I generally prefer rose-colored glasses myself, and so I try not to wade deeper than I have to.
[Here is where the Eric section of the post would be; I thankfully refer you instead to what Ddraig said, what I will say to Ddraig below the below, and perhaps what I said to MuonNeutrino above. If you feel like something fell through the cracks -- and it seems entirely likely something must have -- you're welcome to ask me to revisit. Even though I probably don't want to.]
Niara wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:55 am
Eric, in doing what he's done, absent any law or court that will punish him, has at the very least forfeited his moral right to not be similarly violated.
And if one of his slaves should decide to take further issue with him, they would be absolutely justified in visiting similar depradations on him.
And the world goes blind. No thanks.
I'm not interested in your vengeance-justifying morality at this time... that's not how it works. You're free to it if that's what you want for yourself, but I think
far less, morally speaking, of anyone who thinks it's a natural right to visit violence, suffering or violation upon a person just because they did it first. It's not, and it never will be.
Justice can only be found in consequences. Eye for an eye is crude, but when you have nothing better in place, that's where you start. In modern times, he would (theoretically) be prosecuted for... forced labor and false imprisonment, maybe? I don't know if 'slavery' is on the books as a crime, but if not, all the components of it will be. He would quite likely pay exorbitant restitution, and he would probably go to jail. The main difference between that and 'eye for an eye' is that it's mediated by society, and the punishment is abstracted and proportional rather than direct. Rape would result in more prison time, and more restitution.
And since you felt the need to point out your low opinion of me, I suppose I should reply that I did not find it hurtful or discouraging.
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Warrl wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:09 am
My take on it is that there IS a single absolutely correct moral standard, and in any given situation any two people who both completely understand that standard and also know all relevant facts must come to the same conclusion about morality...
... but no such people can be proven to have ever existed. Probably in part because no such people
have ever existed.
Somehow, it always seems come back to Aumann's agreement theorem!
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Ddraig wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 9:24 am
Considering it would have been him (and, he would have believed, Mike and Evals; neither of which fighters) against two trained fighters and the former Grand Templar, I sincerely doubt he'd have been successful.
Eric does have a way of grasping the realpolitik of the situation.
I will further add that, even control spells notwithstanding, a slave cannot give consent because they by definition are not truly free to choose. It's the biggest power imbalance possible. The only way to not be coercive would be to free them (and then probably also to set them up to be independent of him.)
I will further further add
one more page Ddraig didn't link, and underline that this is how he treats someone who consistently and vehemently says no. And this last one is after a
month of interacting with Flora.
In other words, there isn't really much need for any of the subtler arguments, owing to the fact that he's abject garbage.
Ddraig wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 9:24 am
He's managing the risk, sure, but it's very easy for him to say "No, I had no idea. If he's freeing slaves, he's obviously against the trade and would say that to take down anyone in the trade that he could."
"What was I supposed to do, say no to the Grand Templar?"
Ddraig wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 9:24 am
I recall a page where Trace handed Eric a
bag of coins, which, unfortunately, I can't find at the moment,
I think you're probably misremembering
Trace planning his heist. I could be wrong, but I don't think we ever saw any part of the transactions.
Ddraig wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 9:24 am
I'll give him he's apparently made the realization of
oh crap, maybe I've been a bad guy all along, and is doing some introspection. What results from that we don't know yet and it will determine what side of the moral coin he ends up on (whether he goes back to what he was doing or if he does change, how much so)
Or he's being reconciliatory (as with the money) in the hopes that Evals doesn't smother him in his sleep or throw him off a balcony. I do think there's some sincerity to him, but... mostly what he is in that scene is deft. The slaves are so thrown by him treating them decently that it goes much farther than it by any rights should. Stockholm syndrome, abusive relationship mechanics, whatever you want to call it.