Blue_Spawn wrote:You have to realize, that no matter how crazy something may seem, you just can't dream in such a way. It doesn't happen. The human mind is incapable of dreaming in such great a detail, it simply can't do that. Another big factor is that the human mind (once realizing when it is dreaming) has an almost full potential to wake up.
Had you read my thread
A Land of my own when you posted this? It is my experience that at least for some people, the mind
can dream in that way - if my own experience in Arnagest is in fact just a dream, then it's a damn realistic one!
My own perception of reality hinges on the belief that it is a dream
only while I'm not in it. In my capacity as a Lord of the Arnagest, I once gave the Syklonians authorisation and logistical assistance to cross the Arnagest Barrier Zone and bombard a world, known as Iresan Dalin, because its inhabitants were engaging in a project that would have destroyed the Balance. This action resulted in the death of my own daughter, who was on Iresan Dalin helping them at the time. I sent the Syklonians there with full knowledge of her involvement, even as she had ignored my warning to stay clear and not get involved. Does that make me a murderer, a procurer of the deaths of my daughter and millions of intelligent beings?
Now, to me, here on Earth, all that is just a dream. It only seemed "real" at the time when I was there. Now, if I were in a position of power here, say if I were the President of the US, would I have called for war on Iraq or Afghanistan as GWB did, in essentially the same way my Arnagest self called for war on Iresan Dalin? No, I most certainly would not - I am opposed to this Earthly war, the needless destruction of life in the name of expediency. If I wanted OBL or SH captured, I'd have used covert ops and minimised the damage to those countries and the cost to the US. I could have used the same tactics I would have used were I in GWB's shoes, on Iresan Dalin, but I did not. I'm a different person there than I am here, and I feel differently about things.
When one is confronted with a situation that all logic and reason assures one is patently impossible, as with my own experience, there is no way to tell how a person might react. This is where that sinister message about the question of ethics, that TC gets from the old man in Chapt. 2 of LFB comes in:
SRD, in Lord Foul's Bane, wrote:A real man - real in all the ways that we recognize as real - finds himself suddenly abstracted from the world and deposited in a physical situation which could not possible(sic) exist: sounds have aroma, smells have colour and depth, sights have texture, touches have pitch and timbre. There he is informed by a disembodied voice that he has been brought to that place as a champion for his world. He must fight to the death in single combat against a champion from another world. If he is defeated, he will die, and his world - the real world - will be destroyed because it lacks the inner strength to survive.
The man refuses to believe that what he is told is true. He asserts that he is either dreaming or hallucinating, and declines to be put in the false position of fighting to the death where no 'real' danger exists. He is implacable in his determination to disbelieve his apparent situation, and does not defend himself when he is attacked by the champion of the other world.
Question: is the man's behaviour courageous or cowardly? This is the fundamental question of ethics.
Can you truthfully answer that question? It's easy when the dream is obviously just a dream, a concatenation of random events brought on by one's subconscious fears, and is soon over and forgotten. But when the "dream" is coherent, specific and impactive, as in this case or my own case, then the answer to that question becomes much more critical.
My answer is, that the man is courageous, in a way very few of us ever could be. When faced with a situation that seems both real and impossible, the
only way to avoid becoming unhinged is to adhere, with every fibre of your being, to what you know is fact. The alternative is a passive acceptance that everything you've lived for up to that moment, everything you've learned about the world through your own painful learning, your own suffering and the suffering of others, all logic and reason, counts for nothing. And
that is simply cowardice. And, in my own methods of dealing with my experience, by holding this world as real while I am here, and Arnagest as real while I am there, I admit that I am a coward. Because of the sense of reality in it, because if I had been courageous and maintained while in the Arnagest that I was simply dreaming, ignoring my responsibilities there, the experience would have been a lot worse than it has been. And I could not deal with it in any other way.
So I'm convinced that TC would not have raped a girl in the real world, even if she tried to help him as Lena did. He more likely would have repulsed her, thinking she was mocking him, because that was what the real world had taught him about real people. By the time he raped Lena, he'd had more than sufficient time and experience in the Land to realise that what he was experiencing defied all the laws of physics and common sense. He'd seen a fantasy-book creature that could not possibly exist, heard a disembodied voice making nonsensical and abusive statements, an incurable disease cured by mud, and fires that burned and stoneware repaired by magic. Logic and reason had already flown out the window as far as he was concerned. Emotion was all that was left to him. So he gave his inner anger and fear expression by letting them out in a way he never could have in the real world - because it was
just a dream, it was not real. By raping Lena, by refusing point-blank to accept that what he was experiencing was real, and by committing himself to an act that he
knew was the most cowardly atrocity a man can commit, he displayed an incredible degree of courage in defying what he was experiencing.
I know that last statement is going to arouse a lot of ire, because most reasonable people won't see past the act in and of itself, to what it actually represented. That's perfectly understandable, because those people have never been in the situation of dealing with the real/impossible, and thus have never been directly faced with "the fundamental question of ethics". I have. And like Hile Troy, I've failed. TC had. And he did not fail - until the 2nd Chronicles, when he succumbed to the paradox in the same way Hile Troy did and the same way I have with Arnagest. The result of such acceptance was his ineluctable death. As it was with Hile Troy. And, I am convinced, it will one day be with me.
I will point out that had TC raped a girl in his own world, I would have thrown the book across the room and I would not be in this forum today. Such an act then would have simply been a pathetic excuse for TC's leprosy, and I would have dismissed it as crappy, misogynistic pulp fiction. But by portraying such an evil act in the context of the real/impossible as he has, SRD has masterfully posed a question few would have the knowledge to ask, let alone have the courage to answer. If you can understand the question well enough to truly answer it, you'll understand why TC did what he did. Then you could confront your own inner self in a deeply revealing way that would not be possible to answer without asking such a stark question. And you might be surprised by the answer!
The only difference between light and dark is the ability to tell the difference.