Power and guilt
Apr. 17th, 2015 05:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI dreamed a long confusing no plot mess where there were two of Phil Coulson, one in the usual black suit and one in the white, and I was working for the black suit and shot the white suit guy. And now I feel really guilty? Like, it's not wearing off just because this was fictional and also a dream? Or even though he was only dead for long enough for someone else to confirm he was dead, then I healed him with magics when no one was looking.
I just feel like my brain needs scrubbing and also to maybe apologise forever.
Also in the dream the next thing that happened is Rumple from Once Upon a Time offered to make me a splice like from Jupiter Ascending. I watch neither of those and blame my tumblr reading list entirely. But also, if the Dark One is offering you an upgrade, probably you are on the wrong side right then.
But I still took the leaflet, because temptation, it is tempting.
I wandered off wondering what kind of upgrades I'd particularly want.
And once again, feel like I need to get clean again, cause ew, bad deal, bad man.
Also the price would be epic and you'd have to watch your back forever. Blergh.
... but in a world where shit like that is happening, how is not taking the power more good? Like, obviously not killing people is more good than killing people, but if people are getting killed all over then possibly it is not morally superior to choose to be so powerless you can't even take sides?
I read and got really bored with a three book epic where in the first book a boy finds out his father had Grand Cosmic Powers but, oh no, was mean! And then he refuses the power, because he might hurt someone! And then he takes three books of pissing around before he does exactly what everyone knows from the start he would do and takes the power. And coincidentally nobody gets hurt. Like, he thinks he hurt people, but it all gets handwaved because facing consequences would be for another genre. So that was just very boring and it's on my To Sell pile now.
But then I have this dream where I get offered slightly less grand slightly less cosmic power, and my reaction is all eeew, and also nope and guilt because it's an offer in response to me hurting someone.
So possibly my lack of empathy with his dilemma is all because of understanding what genre he is in, where he has no such advantage? Like, you know he's going to upgrade, and you know that will save the day, and you know that basically the entire thesis of the book is going to be that this one white guy is the only one who should or even could have the power, so anyone like womens who seem to have the power will in the end only be able to help if they're being nice to him, not help in the grand scheme at all, because wrong kind of people for that. So possibly it's just that I'm fed up of white guy angst, like, oh no we have all the power but it's because we are mean, maybe we should just pretend not to have the power, that'll work out... until book three...
I'm definitely fed up with the structuring of that kind of story so that nobody else can do anything and you can't just redistribute the power. I mean, they have to invent a whole hell of a lot of rules to make that a rule. In the real world then anyone can study, anyone can build, anyone can train, all the currently available upgrades can work for all the different kinds of people. The only thing stopping power being wielded equally effectively by everyone is the currently existing systems of inequality. It's not built in. In no plausible SF world can it be built in, because even if you're going to go all GATTACA with humans potentials, the perfect people won't divide up along race or gender lines. Disability, yes, because the definitions are screwed, that's what the whole film was about in its screwed up way, but not the other systems at all. When the laws of the universe work the way they are observed in this universe to do, power can be distributed any which way humans allow. So a certain proportion of fantasy worlds, where the laws of the universe are flat out different, rewrite them just so as to prove their racist sexist theories, and it sucks.
... actually I'm sure far fewer authors sit down and decide to make their fantasy laws racist and sexist than actually end up doing so. I mean, ideology worms its way into everything, accidental structural inequalities writ large can be a thing. It's just pissing annoying. Especially when the idea is that some people are just born more able to wield power than others, but then somehow all those special ones are white men, and they have the whole burden of going out and saving everyone, boo hoo so sad so difficult. Grow up and notice your own tropes, fantasy, that shit isn't cool.
I also get steaming mad with Buffy when she's all sad of being the Slayer. I mean, clearly the part where everyone is trying to kill her is suck and when she's annoyed of that then that's fair. But everyone is trying to kill everyone in Sunnydale, especially everyone her age, as seen in every episode ever but especially graduation day, and when she's sulking about being the Slayer then she's sad she's actually got the power to fight back. They did notice, the whole "Thank god we're hot chicks with superpowers" line. And then they shared the power around, yaays! ... but I've seen people be mad sad that they did that without asking permission? And there is a basic issue of autonomy there, but the argue I've seen lines up the whole Prophecy Girl sad of being due to be ate thing and says it's no fair putting other girls in that firing line. But the whole entire season was about actually they're all getting killed anyway. This is true of random people all the time, this is true of potential slayers specifically that season, people are being killed anyway. Only difference is with Slayer power they can fight back. That's all they distributed. Not the potential to be a victim, not the beacon of Over Here I'm Yummy, those girls all had that already, they just got the power. So, you know, yaay?
But then I think how Faith killed someone because her new upgraded powers made it a really easy slip of the hand... which it always is with a gun, but you can at least put a gun down. So there's down sides to being 'strong' on a Slayer scale, especially in those early moments when they don't know it. Probably accidentally killing people by hitting them the once is a thing many more people would nope on out of. Being annoyed of sharing that without notice or permission seems more fair.
Still, I've only seen that argue made with werewolves, when it's men. Or vampires kind of sort of, but in both cases it's not the power, per se, that's held up as a problem, it's the anger/hunger that goes with it, the lack of control. Have I missed a whole bunch of stories where, like, superheroes go out and look to be depowered for everyone else's good? Because everyone else is targets, sure, but I mean because they might screw up and hurt people directly? The Ultimate Spider-Man cartoons I just watched had a whole arc about his blood being stolen and used to upgrade people who turn out to be supervillains, and Iron Man does similar stuff with stolen tech, but again, that's about who should have power, and how the super hero is clearly totally that guy that should. Being all oops I maybe punch someone's head off maybe I should put the power down now, that I have seen not so often.
... it's very much how I'm feeling after this stupid lingering dream though.
But in movies or whatever then almost all the time if someone is all 'no guns! shooting bad!' then the arc leads up to 'thank you, I can kill again!' ... MacGyver has many flaws, but one reason I keep watching it is he is really consistent about the no guns thing. It's like on Doctor Who, I think in one of the audios it's 7 who says it straightforward, he says if you carry a gun then that's like having only one tool that can do one thing. The Doctor carries a screwdriver, which functions even more variously than MacGyver's swiss army knife, and they approach the world like it's full of a whole lot of different potentials. More approaches. Not getting locked in to who they can shoot and when. Is better.
The original Star Wars trilogy is good too. Like, he trains up to be a Jedi who can have huge great sword fights and all, but the thing that actually saves everyone is deciding not to fight. Approaching each other as people who can still care about each other. Much best.
The book series I mentioned earlier, Cycle of Fire, it built up to genocide, but it was all acting like that was a good thing because it was only the aliens that got killed. Which is creepy. Like, he was much sad when he thought he'd killed one human, but did not seem to notice he had exterminated a couple dozen alien species with ancestral memory passed down for thousands of years, so they lost absolutely everything, culture and lives and everything. And the happy ending of the book was that humans could go out and do it to the aliens homeworlds? Maximum creep. And very stupid, because the 'demon' alliance showed that multiple species could cooperate, just humans weren't. So the only ethical answer to that is to do the Doctor Who thing and find out why the humans are left out, and then fix it so everyone can work together. There's an obvious answer too, where every other species is telepaths with perfect memories so humans must not seem very like intelligence to them. ... I realise Doctor Who would almost always 'have to' blow up the enemies and maybe get mournful about how there should have been another way, but I can dream.
The thing with power is, if you refuse to use it, you're supporting the status quo. And the way things were in the dream, and in quite a lot of areas of reality, supporting the status quo is suck and pain and turning a blind eye on murder. Bad. But equally, the kind of power there is in a gun, the kind that narrows the choices to shoot/don't shoot, that I do not want, and refusing the gun seems ethical and reasonable. But refusing to engage at all does not.
So if I get offered power, the first thing to notice is where the hooks and strings are. I wouldn't get in hock to the Dark One, that works out poorly pretty much by definition. But the second thing to notice is, what could I do with this? Like, even fire powers can be hearth fires as well as industrial smelting or the old classic fireballs. Earth powers can be epic versatile. Wind and water had a Stormwarden thing going on. Powers can be constructive, not just destructive. But some versions make that a lot more difficult to notice than others. So what I'd want is a power set a lot more like a swiss army knife than like a gun, and better than both would be, not just the sonic, but the barely mentioned universal communications that allow engaging with other cultures on more levels.
In that particular dream though I already had power enough to heal bullet wounds, so I think mostly I didn't need upgrading, just to use what I got better.
... and if healing weren't the most useful thing, and I think that would seldom be the case but if, there's a whole section on powers in Vampire the Masquerade that points out that the ability to move flesh, bone, and blood around can be considerable more nasty than a bullet.
Still, fixing people is better.
I just feel like my brain needs scrubbing and also to maybe apologise forever.
Also in the dream the next thing that happened is Rumple from Once Upon a Time offered to make me a splice like from Jupiter Ascending. I watch neither of those and blame my tumblr reading list entirely. But also, if the Dark One is offering you an upgrade, probably you are on the wrong side right then.
But I still took the leaflet, because temptation, it is tempting.
I wandered off wondering what kind of upgrades I'd particularly want.
And once again, feel like I need to get clean again, cause ew, bad deal, bad man.
Also the price would be epic and you'd have to watch your back forever. Blergh.
... but in a world where shit like that is happening, how is not taking the power more good? Like, obviously not killing people is more good than killing people, but if people are getting killed all over then possibly it is not morally superior to choose to be so powerless you can't even take sides?
I read and got really bored with a three book epic where in the first book a boy finds out his father had Grand Cosmic Powers but, oh no, was mean! And then he refuses the power, because he might hurt someone! And then he takes three books of pissing around before he does exactly what everyone knows from the start he would do and takes the power. And coincidentally nobody gets hurt. Like, he thinks he hurt people, but it all gets handwaved because facing consequences would be for another genre. So that was just very boring and it's on my To Sell pile now.
But then I have this dream where I get offered slightly less grand slightly less cosmic power, and my reaction is all eeew, and also nope and guilt because it's an offer in response to me hurting someone.
So possibly my lack of empathy with his dilemma is all because of understanding what genre he is in, where he has no such advantage? Like, you know he's going to upgrade, and you know that will save the day, and you know that basically the entire thesis of the book is going to be that this one white guy is the only one who should or even could have the power, so anyone like womens who seem to have the power will in the end only be able to help if they're being nice to him, not help in the grand scheme at all, because wrong kind of people for that. So possibly it's just that I'm fed up of white guy angst, like, oh no we have all the power but it's because we are mean, maybe we should just pretend not to have the power, that'll work out... until book three...
I'm definitely fed up with the structuring of that kind of story so that nobody else can do anything and you can't just redistribute the power. I mean, they have to invent a whole hell of a lot of rules to make that a rule. In the real world then anyone can study, anyone can build, anyone can train, all the currently available upgrades can work for all the different kinds of people. The only thing stopping power being wielded equally effectively by everyone is the currently existing systems of inequality. It's not built in. In no plausible SF world can it be built in, because even if you're going to go all GATTACA with humans potentials, the perfect people won't divide up along race or gender lines. Disability, yes, because the definitions are screwed, that's what the whole film was about in its screwed up way, but not the other systems at all. When the laws of the universe work the way they are observed in this universe to do, power can be distributed any which way humans allow. So a certain proportion of fantasy worlds, where the laws of the universe are flat out different, rewrite them just so as to prove their racist sexist theories, and it sucks.
... actually I'm sure far fewer authors sit down and decide to make their fantasy laws racist and sexist than actually end up doing so. I mean, ideology worms its way into everything, accidental structural inequalities writ large can be a thing. It's just pissing annoying. Especially when the idea is that some people are just born more able to wield power than others, but then somehow all those special ones are white men, and they have the whole burden of going out and saving everyone, boo hoo so sad so difficult. Grow up and notice your own tropes, fantasy, that shit isn't cool.
I also get steaming mad with Buffy when she's all sad of being the Slayer. I mean, clearly the part where everyone is trying to kill her is suck and when she's annoyed of that then that's fair. But everyone is trying to kill everyone in Sunnydale, especially everyone her age, as seen in every episode ever but especially graduation day, and when she's sulking about being the Slayer then she's sad she's actually got the power to fight back. They did notice, the whole "Thank god we're hot chicks with superpowers" line. And then they shared the power around, yaays! ... but I've seen people be mad sad that they did that without asking permission? And there is a basic issue of autonomy there, but the argue I've seen lines up the whole Prophecy Girl sad of being due to be ate thing and says it's no fair putting other girls in that firing line. But the whole entire season was about actually they're all getting killed anyway. This is true of random people all the time, this is true of potential slayers specifically that season, people are being killed anyway. Only difference is with Slayer power they can fight back. That's all they distributed. Not the potential to be a victim, not the beacon of Over Here I'm Yummy, those girls all had that already, they just got the power. So, you know, yaay?
But then I think how Faith killed someone because her new upgraded powers made it a really easy slip of the hand... which it always is with a gun, but you can at least put a gun down. So there's down sides to being 'strong' on a Slayer scale, especially in those early moments when they don't know it. Probably accidentally killing people by hitting them the once is a thing many more people would nope on out of. Being annoyed of sharing that without notice or permission seems more fair.
Still, I've only seen that argue made with werewolves, when it's men. Or vampires kind of sort of, but in both cases it's not the power, per se, that's held up as a problem, it's the anger/hunger that goes with it, the lack of control. Have I missed a whole bunch of stories where, like, superheroes go out and look to be depowered for everyone else's good? Because everyone else is targets, sure, but I mean because they might screw up and hurt people directly? The Ultimate Spider-Man cartoons I just watched had a whole arc about his blood being stolen and used to upgrade people who turn out to be supervillains, and Iron Man does similar stuff with stolen tech, but again, that's about who should have power, and how the super hero is clearly totally that guy that should. Being all oops I maybe punch someone's head off maybe I should put the power down now, that I have seen not so often.
... it's very much how I'm feeling after this stupid lingering dream though.
But in movies or whatever then almost all the time if someone is all 'no guns! shooting bad!' then the arc leads up to 'thank you, I can kill again!' ... MacGyver has many flaws, but one reason I keep watching it is he is really consistent about the no guns thing. It's like on Doctor Who, I think in one of the audios it's 7 who says it straightforward, he says if you carry a gun then that's like having only one tool that can do one thing. The Doctor carries a screwdriver, which functions even more variously than MacGyver's swiss army knife, and they approach the world like it's full of a whole lot of different potentials. More approaches. Not getting locked in to who they can shoot and when. Is better.
The original Star Wars trilogy is good too. Like, he trains up to be a Jedi who can have huge great sword fights and all, but the thing that actually saves everyone is deciding not to fight. Approaching each other as people who can still care about each other. Much best.
The book series I mentioned earlier, Cycle of Fire, it built up to genocide, but it was all acting like that was a good thing because it was only the aliens that got killed. Which is creepy. Like, he was much sad when he thought he'd killed one human, but did not seem to notice he had exterminated a couple dozen alien species with ancestral memory passed down for thousands of years, so they lost absolutely everything, culture and lives and everything. And the happy ending of the book was that humans could go out and do it to the aliens homeworlds? Maximum creep. And very stupid, because the 'demon' alliance showed that multiple species could cooperate, just humans weren't. So the only ethical answer to that is to do the Doctor Who thing and find out why the humans are left out, and then fix it so everyone can work together. There's an obvious answer too, where every other species is telepaths with perfect memories so humans must not seem very like intelligence to them. ... I realise Doctor Who would almost always 'have to' blow up the enemies and maybe get mournful about how there should have been another way, but I can dream.
The thing with power is, if you refuse to use it, you're supporting the status quo. And the way things were in the dream, and in quite a lot of areas of reality, supporting the status quo is suck and pain and turning a blind eye on murder. Bad. But equally, the kind of power there is in a gun, the kind that narrows the choices to shoot/don't shoot, that I do not want, and refusing the gun seems ethical and reasonable. But refusing to engage at all does not.
So if I get offered power, the first thing to notice is where the hooks and strings are. I wouldn't get in hock to the Dark One, that works out poorly pretty much by definition. But the second thing to notice is, what could I do with this? Like, even fire powers can be hearth fires as well as industrial smelting or the old classic fireballs. Earth powers can be epic versatile. Wind and water had a Stormwarden thing going on. Powers can be constructive, not just destructive. But some versions make that a lot more difficult to notice than others. So what I'd want is a power set a lot more like a swiss army knife than like a gun, and better than both would be, not just the sonic, but the barely mentioned universal communications that allow engaging with other cultures on more levels.
In that particular dream though I already had power enough to heal bullet wounds, so I think mostly I didn't need upgrading, just to use what I got better.
... and if healing weren't the most useful thing, and I think that would seldom be the case but if, there's a whole section on powers in Vampire the Masquerade that points out that the ability to move flesh, bone, and blood around can be considerable more nasty than a bullet.
Still, fixing people is better.