Zukah's so generous with tridents, considering how badly he wants one.

Discussion (4) ¬

  1. ManlyManInTights

    Now Darius realizes a fundamental truth. (1) Evil & hopeless (non-helpable) cases exist. But he also needs to realize another fundamental truth: (2) evil &/or hopeless cases are in the vast minority.

    Yes, evil &/or hopeless cases exist. There will be some cases where the beings Darius tries to help are evil, and thus not worth helping. There will be other cases where the beings that Darius tries to help are not evil, and thus worth helping, but ultimately their case is hopeless and they can’t be helped. And then there’s the cases that are both evil & hopeless, where the being is evil (thus not worth helping) and also the case is hopeless (the being can’t be helped).

    But the evil &/or hopeless cases are probably something like 3% or less of all of the cases. Thus the overwhelming majority of beings Darius tries to help are good (or at least, not evil), worth helping, and can be helped.

    If Darius doesn’t recognize the 2nd fundamental truth, he’ll likely get unjustifiedly pessimistic, cynical, and depressed; leading to nothing good for him. This is the fundamental mistake that most cynics make: They recognize truth 1, but not truth 2.

    Now here’s where CELL comes in. They recognize truth 1, and do attempt to protect the public against it. But they tend to go overboard, not fully recognizing truth 2, and (likely) locking up many beings that aren’t evil, and could probably be helped. So while Darius might now take CELL up on their offer, becoming an agent of CELL, he needs to guard against taking the cynical CELL viewpoint, that the majority of portal spawn and general “weird stuff” is evil. He also needs to guard against adopting the cynical CELL “solution” methods to the “problem” of portal stuff: of either destroying it, or locking it up and throwing away the key.

    Not to say that the “universal” CELL “solution” method of either destroying the “weird stuff” or locking it up is always wrong (it’s likely justified for evil cases), but for most cases it’s wrong. It’s like cell only has a hammer and sees nails everywhere, when most of the cases are screws. Yeah, the hammer will work (badly), but a lot of damage will be done.

    TLDR: (a) Darius realizes (1) Evil &/or hopeless cases exist.

    (b) Darius needs to realize (2) that the evil &/or hopeless cases are in the vast minority.

    (c) Darius will probably join CELL now.

    (d) CELL tends to recognize (1), but not (2), and as a result believe “killing or locking up” as the “solution” to almost all portal situations.

    (e) If Darius joins CELL, he needs to guard against adopting CELL’s viewpoint and “solution”.

    • Ötty

      This is the most impressive, heartfelt and in-depth comment I’ve ever read on here and I want to thank you very much for making my day.

    • Christian

      I’m not sure it’s reasonable to characterize the shadow thing as evil for doing what it needs to do to survive. Its existence and the welfare and lives of its victims is irresolvably at odds, so they are absolutely justified in killing it, but calling it “evil” seems like a cheap cop-out of moral responsibility: “it’s evil, so we’re still the good guys”, when in fact it is a simple battle between predator and prey, not essentially different from a herd of wildebeests trampling an attacking lion and just as amoral.

  2. TheFakeMcCoy

    Agh, he’ll never get to keep that trident!

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