fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, January 17]

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Ethics [Thursday, January 17]

"Today we discuss lying," Anakin said as he closed the classroom door precisely on time. "Everyone lies. 'Of course that doesn't make your butt look big.' 'You like her, I like her.' 'I'm totally okay with you moving on.' 'Everything's fine, why do you ask?' It's how the world goes around because no one wants to be trapped in a conversation where someone whines at you for hours on end about how awful their life is."

He looked around the room. "Trust me. Everyone's life is terrible. They're just not telling you about it. Be grateful."

He reached onto his desk for a piece of paper. "Today we're conducting an exercise to see how well you pass this particular social ritual, then we'll discuss whether you think it is necessary. We're playing two truths and a lie. I'll tell you three things about myself and you have to decide which one is the falsehood. Then you'll all tell three things and we'll see how well you can either read each other or keep things hidden."

He gave them a small smile. "I'm very good at this." He schooled his face to absolute neutrality, put his mental blocks up to bar any psychics in the room from gaining an advantage, then recited: "During a war at home I was known as 'The Hero Without Fear.' I named my children after people I met in Fandom. I've never been beaten in one-on-one lightsaber combat." His eyes challenged them to call him out. "Who's next?"

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Karal chose his next words with great care. "I can accept that the selfishness would be irritating, especially--" With what Luke has told me, he'd been going to say, but he stopped himself. "Well, yes."

He folded his hands, wondering if he was about to earn himself detention. "A person's selfishness cannot effect what you have been through, it cannot change your past. It does not belittle your hurt. To allow other people's failings to effect you so can only harm you. You cannot control what they do or say or believe. Their certainty that their's is the greatest pain which has ever been felt does not hurt you. It is your choice to see it as an injustice that hurts you."

Anakin had been trained too well as a Jedi not to recognize wisdom when he heard it.

"I don't go out of my way to try to have my feelings hurt," he said, but there was only half the bite in his voice that most people would have received.

"No, I didn't think you-- I wasn't trying to say that, I swear!" Karal was just about tripping over his words in his hurry to get that out. "But it's easy to fall into certain habits of thought," he was looking at Anakin earnestly, eyes wide, "and then you end up hurt when you don't need to be."

Anakin was reminded so sharply of Obi-Wan it almost took his breath away.

He reached out to ruffle Karal's hair. "I don't get hurt."

Big liar.

Karal smiled when Anakin ruffled his hair, ducking his head a little as he obviously relaxed. "Everyone gets hurt, it's part of what makes us people," he said lightly.

"I'm not people," Anakin said. "I'm Jedi."

Karal folded his arms and just looked at him. "And I am a priest. I know Heralds, who are nearly identical to Jedi. I know other Jedi. All have a duty to think and act beyond themselves, even if it costs them their lives. We're all still people, every one of us. And so are you," he said firmly, meeting Anakin's eyes for several long seconds before he started to flush.

He'd suddenly recalled who he was speaking to, and how. "And now I'm being unforgivably rude. Forgive me."

Edited 2008-01-18 05:35 (UTC)

Anakin's eyes had gone a little hard. "I've been trained all of my life to put emotions behind me. 'A Jedi shall not know anger, nor hatred, nor love,'" he quoted.

Naturally, being Anakin, he had interpreted it as "ignore it."

He didn't say the first thing which popped into his head. Telling the person he'd already annoyed that his teachers were unforgivably foolish was unlikely to go over well.

He didn't say the second, that it sounded inexpressably sad, for the same reason.

"The Jedi teach that?" he asked instead, wilting a little under Anakin's stare but determined to persevere until he was told to stop. "What does it actually mean?"

"That a Jedi should be better than a slave to his emotions," Anakin replied sharply. "We're not supposed to be bound by planetary allegiances or family."

He shrugged. "I was never a very good Jedi."

Karal digested that in silence, thinking hard. "No one should be a slave to their emotions," he finally said, hoping that the sadness he was feeling wasn't leaking out to bother Anakin. "But it doesn't mean they aren't allowed to feel them."

He looked down at his hands. Vkandis, help me find the words. "You love Luke, I know you do. I refuse to believe it makes you a bad Jedi. It could put you in a terrible position, having to choose between duty and love, but it doesn't mean you can't ever love anyone. And if the Jedi rules say you can't, well." He looked suddenly stubborn. "They're wrong."

Anakin's jaw set in a stubborn line. "I disregarded them and it led to absolute disaster for more than just my family," he said. "The Jedi have their reasons."

"I know what happened. Luke told me, not all of it, I know, but some. Maybe if those in charge of the Jedi hadn't told you you were doing something wrong in the first place by having a family, it wouldn't have!"

His heart was beating faster, and there was a burning behind his eyes he was ignoring as he searched for some way to reach Anakin. "My people spent hundreds of years stealing children from their families to serve the church, burning people alive if they were different, and setting demons against their enemies and their own people. If the children they took had the wrong gift, they burned them alive and sent the ashes to their families as a mark of how they had failed the church."

Karal had to stop and draw in a deep breath. "They had their reasons, but they were wrong reasons, they were wrong. Just because those in power say that this is right and that is wrong, and this is the way of things, and you must obey doesn't mean they're right."

Anakin stared, mouth agape.

"The Jedi weren't quite that bad," he said softly. "I'm sorry your church was."

Karal wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly intensely uncomfortable and wishing he hadn't said anything about Karse's history. "It's in the past. We remember, so it never happens again, and we try to atone," he said quietly, not looking at Anakin. "But the Jedi tried to separate you from part of your soul, from part of what makes you human."

"For a greater purpose," Anakin said. "We're encouraged to love, but on a macro level. All life has value, so no life should be valued above any other. Not ours, not our friend's, not our wife's. To hold on too tightly is selfish."

"Which is where duty must win out over personal love, but it does not require that it be abandoned entirely," he said softly, feeling weary. His head was starting to ache. "You shouldn't have to hurt, and if you do hurt, you shouldn't have to bear it alone."

"Master Jolee says that it wasn't always this way, and Jaina is certainly proof that it's not again in the Order Luke establishes, but it was how I was taught," Anakin said. "And I must honor the intent, even if I'm not planning on following it particularly closely."

Karal nodded, because he could understand that, and he looked up hopefully at the last. "You're not?"

"Luke didn't tell you?" Anakin smiled. "Rory and I are engaged."

Karal blinked in surprise. "Truly?"

"Truly," Anakin replied, smile widening. "Will you stop worrying about me now?"

Karal beamed back at him. "Sunlord, that's wonderful!" He couldn't help it, he hopped up off the desk and went to hug him. "I promise to worry less."

Anakin allowed the hug, tousling Karal's hair again before pulling back. "Good," he said. "I'm the adult. I do the worrying."

Karal blushed. "It's sort of my job," he said, still smiling, but it was more than a little sheepish now. "I'm sorry if I was rude."

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