Anchovies
Posts: 421
8/31/2017
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Heart's Desire spoilers below.
Kukapetal wrote:
Mr. Jerkface I don't know where you get this impression of the King with a Hundred Hearts. They're quite melancholy, but they've spent the last several thousand years as a sapient island.
[spoiler]The bargain with the Masters was entirely the Manager's doing; the traveler who would become Hundred-Hearts may have been entirely at peace with the fact that their time on the earth would eventually end. If you want more details of the King's story, you can find those in my journal (this entry, and the two preceding it).
They may seem a bit of a heartless shut-in, but that's partially because they lost their curiosity when a piece of their heart(s) was stolen by urchins. Once the king is made whole, Polythreme becomes a place of beauty, every timber and nail singing with joy.[/spoiler]
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Perhaps our role on this planet is not to worship God — but to create Him.
—Sir Arthur C Clarke
Lionel Anchovies. Character on indefinite hiatus.
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
8/31/2017
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Oh I don't think the boyfriend is as bad as the manager, nor do I blame him for what the manager did. He just seems like a lousy person. Literally the only characterization he gets (no, being hot isn't characterization :P ) is that he stopped loving the manager for the one thing that wasn't his fault. He doesn't condemn or shut the manager out for committing a horrendous atrocity on his behalf. Instead, he's mad that the Space Bats violated the spirit of the agreement and turned him into an island. And takes it out in the man who was trying desperately to save him because he couldn't get a better deal. Causing his supposed beloved no end of grief by taking his anger out on him and shutting him out. This is all about him and how he feels and the heck with how everyone else is or was affected.
The guy is a jerk, which makes the manager's obsessive pining all the more annoying.
John Moose wrote:
Those are fair points. I still personally wouldn't call him evil, just utterly unfit for rule - however, as he probably never wanted to be king, I can't be too mad at him for doing a bad job at it. Besides, he seems very intent on doing good now. Evil's a very strong word. He's not saying he'd do it again because he'd like to see all the suffering again, or that he doesn't care - he's just admitting that he still could not stand to let his love die if he could do something to stop it. By a &quotwould sacrifice anything to stop their loved one from dying&quot definition of evil, one would be hard-pressed to find a mother on Earth that is not evil.
He is both unfit to rule (which is why I've never understood the people calling for him to be a mayoral candidate because he "has experience ruling a city" ) AND evil. They're not mutually exclusive. And while his motive may have been sympathetic, that doesn't excuse it. The man was too weak to refuse the space bats and accept the fact that his boyfriend was going to succumb to his illness, and so he condemned his people to tyrannical rule by space monsters and then death in the lacre pits. That is evil. And he'd do it again. He is evil.
edited by Kukapetal on 8/31/2017
edited by Kukapetal on 8/31/2017
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Aberrant Eremite
Posts: 362
8/31/2017
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Anne Auclair wrote:
Are you calling London's beloved and everlasting Empress evil?
I am! Didn't you see my opera?
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Hieronymus Drake: Gentleman scholar, big-game hunter, scar-faced aristocrat. Remarkably sane, all things considered.
Tanith Wyrmwood: Longshanks cat-burglar; Bohemian author; now, perhaps, something more. Bubbly, expressive, and affectionate. It’s not only still waters that run deep.
Telemachia Lee: Gentle lady by birth, brawling Docker by choice. Good company in the drunk tank.
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John Moose
Posts: 276
8/31/2017
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I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree - I'm really not comfortable equating weakness to evil.
Also, from a utilitarian standpoint, the survivability of "being born in the first city" went up, not down, from him making the deal. He condemned his people into what was likely a rather long life in the relative freedom of the Neath, where some of them probably founded a new and lasting nation judging from the cuneiform carved on Glory's shell, until most died in the lacre vats - as opposed to dying in their forties anyway.
If I was an ancient mesopotamian and had the scenario set out for me - either live a couple decades on the surface and then go spend an eternity on the Far Shore, or go down into the deeps and who knows how long I'll still be around or what I'll achieve, I'd be saying my goodbyes to the sun without much hesitation.
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Aniline
Posts: 144
8/31/2017
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menaulon wrote:
I think the game has recently added more about the Manager, so he is definitely not just about his old love.
[See OP for spoiler]
Finally, some leniance may be given despite his crime because he was the first to commit it, without an ability to know possible consequences. That said, he is definitely a bit obsessed.
Him being involved in it makes me hate him even more. You don't atone for your crime by assuming a position of power in the resistance against the primary beneficiaries of said crime.
[spoiler]Honestly, the whole Council has to go -- as it is, it's basically a LARP club for bored privileged Londoners.[/spoiler]
The crime wasn't selling the city to specifically evil space bats, the crime was selling the city at all. No one has the right to own and sell people. No one has the right to have "subjects".
The Duchess apparently went to metaphysical war (and lost) -- this I can, respectively, approve of and sympathize with, and her loss was still a net benefit to humanity. In that, she's a hero. Second City people who perished below are wartime casualties.
The Widow gambled to save her people ("her" as in her belonging to the people, not vice versa) and won: The Khanate does better in the Neath than on the Surface. Her being a woman in the Middle Ages, I can't hold her responsible for the initial predicament in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
Vicky is clearly a traitor. She doesn't hold a candle to Veils or the Catties, but every second of her not stepping down is another evil committed. I will support her against greater evils, but in the end she and the Manager have to try out that marvelous evergreen French invention (whoosh-chop!)
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Melantha Prescott, the Suspicious Statistician. "3% failure chances crop up nine times out of ten."
Francesca Ayers-Kernighan, bat-hunter, cat-whisperer
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
8/31/2017
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John Moose wrote:
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree - I'm really not comfortable equating weakness to evil.
I'll clarify that I dont think he's evil because he is weak, but rather because of what that weakness made him do.
Doing evil for a sympathetic reason is still evil.
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Anchovies
Posts: 421
8/31/2017
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Tangent: I think the Third City's bargain had popular support. In Sunless Sea, the First Curator, who is a very, very old tomb-colonist but not one of the God-Eaters, remarks "we hungered for the flesh of gods", which gives me the impression that the God-Eaters presented the notion of the contract to their people as a thing which would benefit the Third City by empowering its religious and political leaders.
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Perhaps our role on this planet is not to worship God — but to create Him.
—Sir Arthur C Clarke
Lionel Anchovies. Character on indefinite hiatus.
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folklore364
Posts: 136
8/31/2017
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Admittedly i'm entirely neutral on the manager outside of his involvement with the revolutionaries. The fingerkings though, they have to go. Great joy was taken in crushing the wretched existence from that parasite.
That said I do really really think the manager needs to move on. His boyfriend was made into a sentient island, and its been a couple thousand years now.
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A correspondent who hungers for knowledge. May have doomed london to war with Hell.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/folklore364
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Gul al-Ahlaam
Posts: 225
8/31/2017
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A king has a duty to protect his subjects.
Don't you think you've gotten this backwards? He's not a public servant, he's their divinely mandated superior. They serve him.
He can do with them as he pleases. They can rebel if they don't like it, but we have no indication that they did. Perhaps they preferred it down here in the dark? Many people do, after all.
Doing evil for a sympathetic reason is still evil.
Evil is a very childish idea, don't you agree? I would say that the Manager, if anything, is selfish. He cares about the man he loves more than anyone else, and desperately hopes to recapture that happiness, to undo his mistake, or (and this seems to be his preference) undo the consequences of his mistake. I find it charming and romantic, you may find it irresponsible and objectionable, but evil is a foolish way to describe it.
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The Uncanny Hierophant.
The Jewel-Eyed Prince.
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Aniline
Posts: 144
8/31/2017
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Anchovies wrote:
Tangent: I think the Third City's bargain had popular support.
Yes, but it's entirely out of the realm of human ethics so they didn't even need it. If someone offers you godhood and you have good reason to believe them, it is morally right to go through with it no matter what it takes.
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Melantha Prescott, the Suspicious Statistician. "3% failure chances crop up nine times out of ten."
Francesca Ayers-Kernighan, bat-hunter, cat-whisperer
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Amsfield
Posts: 176
8/31/2017
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I'd mainly like to say that I really, really liked this epilogue. A lot of nice surrealist dream beauty going on. Also moths. Moths are always amazing. My favorite thing about this season might be the significance of moths. I too had difficulty with the final choice, between deception and giving. My character isn't normally the type to sacrifice of himself for the benefit of others, but in the end the arrogance of the wording I felt justified losing a few CP of dreams. Happy with the reward too, and that it turned into a minor betrayal was fitting. (Although, come on man, I still saved you're dreams.) Taken with my choice in The Gift, it seem Amsfield likes literally being a part of something great; given that if he ever dies he intends to be a moth I'd say he has a fascination with metamorphosis too. In a game like this, I think the main thing I want is opportunities to further define my character (both by presenting choices that may bring out new facets, and just by reinforcing aspects already established) and this season really delivered.
As to the Manager, I read him, as I do just about everything in the Neath, as pretty morally neutral. If I could try and save a loved one by letting those around me live out there lives in what sounded like a subterranean wonderland where death doesn't last and that they experience love is what is required in exchange, I'd take that deal. On the other hand that isn't what actually happened, like at all, and the masters... well, they aren't exactly people, let alone 'nice people' and certainly not who you should allow to be in charge.
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Amsfield: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Amsfield
A devotee of pleasures intellectual and fleshy. Always fabulously masked.
Honoria Kastern: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Honoria%20Kastern
A hunter, a shooter and a fisher. Also a patriotic busy body. Mildly corrupted.
Maiser: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Maiser
A young firebrand of obviously criminal intent.
Venshik: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Venshik
Not a nice person.
Asmeria: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Asmeria
Quiet, thoughtful and possibly mad. Excellent listener though. Favours grey.
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
8/31/2017
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Gul al-Ahlaam wrote:
Don't you think you've gotten this backwards? He's not a public servant, he's their divinely mandated superior. They serve him.
He can do with them as he pleases. They can rebel if they don't like it, but we have no indication that they did. Perhaps they preferred it down here in the dark? Many people do, after all.
Doing evil for a sympathetic reason is still evil.
Evil is a very childish idea, don't you agree? I would say that the Manager, if anything, is selfish. He cares about the man he loves more than anyone else, and desperately hopes to recapture that happiness, to undo his mistake, or (and this seems to be his preference) undo the consequences of his mistake. I find it charming and romantic, you may find it irresponsible and objectionable, but evil is a foolish way to describe it.
to clarify, I'm using the term evil to mean "highly immoral" and I don't see what's so childish about having morals or rating certain moral transgressions as worse than others. But given that you think a king's subjects are his personal property to treat however he wants and that the manager's crime against humanity was "charming and romantic," it's clear we will never see eye to eye.
I have to be done with this now, as it's beginning to make me angry. Thank you all for an interesting debate.
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Pnakotic
Posts: 266
8/31/2017
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Tragedy, as a literary device, involves building characters who are larger than life and in most regards estimable (perhaps even superlative) except for some key flaw of temperament or morals that leads them to downfall.
The Neath is a graveyard of tragedies, except that they never really have to die, and instead live out eternity trying to make the best of a bad situation and move forward as best they can. Tragically (again) much of that moving forward involves choosing who else to throw under the proverbial bus in order to have the same done to themselves.
It's a pattern that extends from the Bazaar and her bats to the rulers of fallen cities and even, it would seem, most player characters, who have arrived down in the darkness through some selfishness, some unforgivable impropriety, some service to vice or unhealthy obsession. Even the apparent "monsters" of the neath, from the Cousins to the Fingerkings to the Empress's children to the lurking spectre of Mr. Eaten have some awareness of what they lack, or what seems fundamentally wrong within them, but lack any means to address it that aren't equally monstrous.
Fallen London is a theatre the bizarre, the mad, the broken, and the amoral and most paths are morally grey (and from what we've seen of the judgements, the paths which aren't grey are perhaps even more terrifying!) Moral paragons are few, if any, and our favorites reflect more our own value Judgements and internalized moral hierarchies than any "Truth" of the written world.
If you don't (or do) particularly like a character, that's nice and all, but few characters are written to be purely likeable or unlovable. Other players may see them differently, and for equally valid reasons. Above all, Fallen London is a delightful narrative, a piece of literary artistry performed by some very talented writers whose skill I much admire, creative liberties I will fiercely defend, and most importantly have demonstrated a laudable devotion to never subjecting us to a Mary Sue. Fallen London is a perennial delight thanks to their fine efforts.
edited by Pnakotic on 8/31/2017
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J. Ward Dunn, Glassman
Book of All Hours 9:99: Journey's end in lover's meeting. Progress is ascendancy.
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Kaijyuu
Posts: 1047
8/31/2017
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All the morally good characters in FL usually get put on a boat quickly (like, for example, the Last Constable). The ones that remain are some degree of grey. There are far more atrocious people and things in FL than our Manager, like the Masters.
I feel it a bit short sighted to judge people solely by the consequences of their actions. People have different opportunities, and if we look at their output it's going to be skewed. Someone with a minor personality flaw can cause major damage in the right circumstances, and someone with a major personality flaw may never have the opportunity to anything particularly problematic. The Manager strikes me as one in the former category. He's irresponsible and selfish and doesn't take no for an answer, but he's not sadistic or malicious.
And like others have said, our liking of a character out-of-universe doesn't really have any relation to how we'd like the person if they really existed. There are plenty of incredibly popular villains who do despicable things in all sorts of media and that's fine. There are plenty of heart-of-gold people in media that are despised and that's fine too. Personally I find the Manager adorable.
edited by Kaijyuu on 8/31/2017
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Be of good cheer. Our contacts have assured us that your sins are forgiven.
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
9/1/2017
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Aberrant Eremite wrote:
Anne Auclair wrote:
Are you calling London's beloved and everlasting Empress evil?
I am! Didn't you see my opera?
I may have written a scathing review or two. Over dramatic treason, tut tut.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Passionario
Posts: 777
9/1/2017
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I can't help but wonder: when the Fifth City is no more, what will its dream representation be like?
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Passionario: Profile, Story, Ending
Passion: Profile, Appearance
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
9/2/2017
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Now that I've cooled off a bit, I'm going to clarify (I seem to be doing a lot of that in this thread) that I don't actually hate the Manager for being a bad person but for being a bad CHARACTER. I'm aware the game is full of morally ambiguous, gray, and outright evil characters and I love the vast majority of them for it. But again, they're not given a pass by the writing for their flaws of character, while the manager is treated purely as a figure of pity. And most of them have a personality beyond who they are/were sleeping with. The Manager does not.
As I said earlier, because of these issues, as well as the overly gushy (my friend and I are now referring to the boyfriend as "Mr. Impossibly Beautiful" due to how much the narration beats us over the head with it) and out of character (for the game) PG13 smut scene we were treated/subjected to the other day, I strongly suspect someone on the writing team might be a little TOO close to this character/pairing and could benefit from a bit more objectivity......or at least an attempt to give Mr. Impossibly Beautiful and the Manager personalities beyond "hot" and "obsessed with said hotness" :P
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Reused NPC
Posts: 259
9/3/2017
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Passionario wrote:
I can't help but wonder: when the Fifth City is no more, what will its dream representation be like?
Now that's a good question. London seems a lot more complex than the four cities past (if my current understanding of the Fourth City via the Silver Tree is close enough). That said... if the Sixth City really is Paris, it'll probably be much more recognizable than... whatever the Fourth City was named. I have to imagine that if London was put into dreams it'd feature the same bustling crowds, lit windows, and half-submerged Big Ben... There's a lot more distinct things about it. (Although maybe that's just due to the fact that that's where we are now.) Perhaps the roads will have been twisted into even more of a labyrinth?
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ReusedNPC, a d__ned lunatic.
Edmund Viric, a rather dreamy sort.
"I won't stay long, I shan't stay long! Tell me a secret."
--the Baldomerian
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Gul al-Ahlaam
Posts: 225
9/3/2017
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Mr. Impossibly Beautiful and the Manager personalities beyond "hot" and "obsessed with said hotness" :P
I think the issue is that most of their character development is subtle, conveyed through turns of phrase and the contrast between their words and actions and the other perspectives you can get on them, since both of them tend to play their innermost feelings fairly close to the chest.It's also that they're developed mostly in obscure or retired content. Heart's Desire, The Calendar Code, last year's Election, the 40 Renown option for Revolutionaries, even Old Seeking have some amazing moments that pry into their personalities and beliefs (hell, Hundred gets a bit of very interesting development in Zubmariner too).
I think it's less that he's underdeveloped and treated as a figure of pity as it is that that's how you see him personally, and confirmation bias colors your reading of the text to that effect. Just a thought.
edited by Gul al-Ahlaam on 9/3/2017
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The Uncanny Hierophant.
The Jewel-Eyed Prince.
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
9/3/2017
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Actually, I developed that opinion of him due to how he is portrayed, not the other way around. There are plenty of other jerk characters in the game who I enjoy because they are written far better, and plenty of jerk characters I end up pitying because the narration treats them more fairly and I can end up appreciating all aspects of their characterization. All I get from this guy is "Look at the woobie! Feel sorry for the poor woobie! His story is so tragic! He loves his super hot boyfriend SO much and can't be with him! Doesn't that just break your heart??" And that makes me push back because, while that is indeed sad, he's done some really bad stuff too, and the game doesn't care. It feels like emotional manipulation. Like the game is outright telling me "This guy's done horrible things and doesn't care but we want you to like and feel sorry for him because he has a sad backstory."
It's such a blatant double standard compared to how most of the other characters are treated and that's why he comes across as a Creator's Pet to me.
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