Dream with mind control in it
Jan. 17th, 2023 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo this morning's dream had Eliot Spencer get Winter Soldiered
(or actually probably more the Pathfinder thing I read last night that happens to Gray Maidens that try and just ignore the whole magic mind control era of their life, they develop a vigilante alternate personality, which...)
I realised that Eliot is far more interesting to me than the Winter Soldier.
Like yes Bucky is very... you want Steve to rescue him and reconnect, the movie makes that work, it's a powerful idea
but
fuck mind control.
As a story device, just, no.
As far as we know, if we understand human psychology at all, people have free will.
It's pretty important.
People make their own choices.
And sometimes they make those choices after they have been screwed over so thoroughly their data sets are all wrong, and sometimes they have been hurt so bad they need some help to get better
but
those stories about mind controlled soldiers say
they were just following orders
so it wasnt their fault.
But sometimes you have to not follow orders.
Because the orders were at fault.
And the Winter Soldier style can have powerful things to say about that - if you watch him make a good moral choice despite all the evil done to him and the lack of data he has -
but...
well, how do you make good choices with no data?
needs a different narrative.
Spencer just walked himself down.
Far as we know, he made some choices, he made some more choices, and he was all the way down in the dark.
And then he stopped.
I reckon people need to know how to stop.
That you can, even in the worst places.
And again, Winter Soldier can be about that
but it hangs it all on
it wasn't his fault.
What if it was?
Their orders came wrapped in a flag and told them they were saving the world.
And they became... that.
Eliot stopped. He found another way. He's doing redemption the hard way, and he's still got work to do.
That is by far the more interesting story.
Trying to do that story with Bucky skips past all the ways the story makes him the victim. Mindwiped and tortured and still blamed for it? Well that's a horrible mess.
So I woke up from this dream which was a little bit Winter Soldier and quite a bit Dollhouse, because once he'd finished his orders he went all... smiley. Gentle. Kind, but without any growl to protect it.
Sending the Soldier on missions not of his choosing is Wrong, but emptying him out to make him convenient between times is so very Wrong.
And the actual soldiers of the world need to know what home is like. Can't just divide them up.
In the dream it was a simples yet disturbing escape attempt. ES was sent out to kill someone's lover. Intimidation work. But, mistaken intel, they had no lover.
Sooooo... ES stepped in to fill the role.
Then nobody gets hurt but him, ever again.
But actually not the first time he's tried to take himself out of the equation, so all he does is jam his rule sets. Two geasa, one telling him to follow the order, the other insisting he stay alive. Could work with the gap to put himself in that position, find the angle where it follows an order. Cannot finish the mission. Would have to break the controls to follow them.
And if he doesn't finish the mission, he doesn't go all smiley cooperate again.
Wonder if his handlers will notice in time...
So it's plot, especially for E rated, but... nope.
It's just not interesting to have externally imposed imperatives like that unless they map back to how actual people work somehow.
People get choices.
That's the whole point.
(or actually probably more the Pathfinder thing I read last night that happens to Gray Maidens that try and just ignore the whole magic mind control era of their life, they develop a vigilante alternate personality, which...)
I realised that Eliot is far more interesting to me than the Winter Soldier.
Like yes Bucky is very... you want Steve to rescue him and reconnect, the movie makes that work, it's a powerful idea
but
fuck mind control.
As a story device, just, no.
As far as we know, if we understand human psychology at all, people have free will.
It's pretty important.
People make their own choices.
And sometimes they make those choices after they have been screwed over so thoroughly their data sets are all wrong, and sometimes they have been hurt so bad they need some help to get better
but
those stories about mind controlled soldiers say
they were just following orders
so it wasnt their fault.
But sometimes you have to not follow orders.
Because the orders were at fault.
And the Winter Soldier style can have powerful things to say about that - if you watch him make a good moral choice despite all the evil done to him and the lack of data he has -
but...
well, how do you make good choices with no data?
needs a different narrative.
Spencer just walked himself down.
Far as we know, he made some choices, he made some more choices, and he was all the way down in the dark.
And then he stopped.
I reckon people need to know how to stop.
That you can, even in the worst places.
And again, Winter Soldier can be about that
but it hangs it all on
it wasn't his fault.
What if it was?
Their orders came wrapped in a flag and told them they were saving the world.
And they became... that.
Eliot stopped. He found another way. He's doing redemption the hard way, and he's still got work to do.
That is by far the more interesting story.
Trying to do that story with Bucky skips past all the ways the story makes him the victim. Mindwiped and tortured and still blamed for it? Well that's a horrible mess.
So I woke up from this dream which was a little bit Winter Soldier and quite a bit Dollhouse, because once he'd finished his orders he went all... smiley. Gentle. Kind, but without any growl to protect it.
Sending the Soldier on missions not of his choosing is Wrong, but emptying him out to make him convenient between times is so very Wrong.
And the actual soldiers of the world need to know what home is like. Can't just divide them up.
In the dream it was a simples yet disturbing escape attempt. ES was sent out to kill someone's lover. Intimidation work. But, mistaken intel, they had no lover.
Sooooo... ES stepped in to fill the role.
Then nobody gets hurt but him, ever again.
But actually not the first time he's tried to take himself out of the equation, so all he does is jam his rule sets. Two geasa, one telling him to follow the order, the other insisting he stay alive. Could work with the gap to put himself in that position, find the angle where it follows an order. Cannot finish the mission. Would have to break the controls to follow them.
And if he doesn't finish the mission, he doesn't go all smiley cooperate again.
Wonder if his handlers will notice in time...
So it's plot, especially for E rated, but... nope.
It's just not interesting to have externally imposed imperatives like that unless they map back to how actual people work somehow.
People get choices.
That's the whole point.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-17 06:57 pm (UTC)Agree & love this nuance.