No … that’s not quite true.
I try not to write people’s ideas off quite so easily, Ms. Ember. I’m interested in what you have to say, just…
Moral judgments are easy. People make them all the time-- even me. But, I mostly find that they just kind of get in the way-- not of doing what I want, but of seeing the connections between things and how they’re linked together. Seeing the world, in other words, for what it is.
I’m used to being judged, and found wanting: after all, most people find someone who deliberately tries not to make moral judgments deeply suspicious, and not without reason. Almost everybody has something to say about what should be … usually more than a little flavored by their own experience and their own perspective. I even kind of wear warning labels-- dressing in black, introducing myself as the Praefecta’s shadow: “I am not someone you will probably think is a good person.”
It’s okay. The judgments are inevitable. I try not to let them affect me, beyond mining them for insight.
That’s what I mean by “I don’t care.” … I recognize that your own moral sentiment is valid for you, and I don’t question its validity. I just also can’t let myself be blown around by it, so, I let it pass by.
Only …
… it seems like maybe you’ve been worrying about me a little. Which, I guess, I’m grateful for.
Arrendis thinks Mr. Nauplius is a classic narcissistic monster who’s been manipulating me. I … concede the possibility. It’s a risk I’ve been willing to take.
Why?
Because there’s one reliable way to kill an immortal, and it’s not with a magic sword. We’re only pseudo-immortals, but, there’s no reliable method for making death stick.
We can abuse and torture him, try to ignore him and hope he goes away, murder him when we have the chance … probably none of it’s going to work, though. Still, as long as we don’t get close enough to get dirty, it’s not really our problem, right? … And I can see that perspective. “He’s awful. Just stay away.”
I can kind of understand, also, not wanting to believe that he could really and sincerely believe every single awful word he says: the Red God, the Blood Age, the importance of sacrificing (murdering) people on the Altar of (the Red) God. It would be so much better, really, if he were just a faker, seeking attention. Just another psychopath (they’re .01 ISK for a dozen in this line of work) (he’d be kind of a standout as far as effort goes, mind)-- no help for it unless and until CONCORD does the sensible thing and pulls his license and his cloning contract and someone can finally just shoot him.
Psychopathy. Antisocial personality disorder. Don’t bother looking for humanity; he might as well be a different species.
How tidy. It’d be so much less messy than if he’s an ordinary empathetic messed-up (megalomaniacal, probably) human being who just believes a pile of horrible destructive things. Which … maybe someone might somehow find a way to make him see a flaw in.
That last bit is the saving grace. The rest is appalling. We don’t want to think of people as being capable of what he does. … Maybe I have kind of a dark view of people, but, actually, I think normal people are completely capable of being that dark. But if that’s true, maybe there’s a chance.
How do you kill an immortal? You persuade it to change what it stands for.
It was always probably going to be futile. I accepted that when I began. But, maybe if I could help him … maybe he’d actually stop.
As I say, it’s probably over, now. But I can’t regret being the sort of person who’d try something like that.
