fandomhigh | Destiny & Free Will, Week III [Monday, Period 4]

Class today met down at the pond, as Ghanima felt like feeding the flamingos.

"Today, children, we discuss semantics," Ghanima said briskly from her seat on the grass. "Although the words are used interchangeably in many cases, fate and destiny can be, and should be, distinguished." She smiled, kicking her heels slightly. "Don't groan at me. Semantics are your friends, I promise. When you know a word, inside and out, it becomes more than a word. It's a friend, a weapon, and a great source of fun at the expense of other people."

"Modern usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable". Fate is used in regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and that same sense of finality, projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as they will work themselves out, is Destiny."

"One word derivative of "fate" is "fatality", another "fatalism". Fate implies no choice, and ends fatally, with a death. Fate is an outcome determined by an outside agency acting upon a person or entity; but with destiny the entity is participating in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself. Participation happens willfully."

"Used in the past tense, "destiny" and "fate" are both more interchangeable, both imply "one's lot" or fortunes, and include the sum of events leading up to a currently achieved outcome. For instance, if we were speaking of a previous event, say, Boudicca's battle against the Romans, we could safely say that "it was her destiny to be leader" or "it was her fate to be leader", and both would be correct."

"Fate can involve things which are bound within and subject to larger networks. A set of mathematical functions arranged in a grid and interacting in defined ways is Fatelike. Likewise the individual statues in a larger work of counterpoint art are aesthetically Fated within the work. In each case Fate is external to every individual component, but integral to the network. Every component acts as Fate for every other component. The entire world can be seen as existing within such a network, a kind of mythical spiderweb controlled by unseen forces."

"Now, where does fate come from?" she asked. "In classical and European mythology, there are three goddesses dispensing fate, The "Fates" known as Moirae in Greek mythology, as Parcae in Roman mythology, and Norns in Norse mythology; they determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human destinies," she said, writing on the chalkboard. "Three sets of three, each fitting the 'Maiden/Mother/Crone' archetype, each from a different culture."

"So, let's chat. Semantics and harbingers of fate. I'm curious to hear what you think."

[OCD is up, go forth and have fun!]

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"Oh, I see." Eleanor felt a bit silly now for bringing it up. But it had just been that the whole victim aspect had struck a nerve. Primarily because she had been that victim.

"Yes, fate and destiny seem rather interchangable terms in that regard, don't they?" she agree, then went back to her notes. Wishing she could vanish into the pages for being so foolish.

And Valentine almost felt an instant stab of empathy for the girl, the way she just went back to her notes, feeling embarrassed herself if she'd come off in an affront, and quickly wanted to remedy it. "I think," she offered, quietly, with a faint smile for Eleanor, "it depends on who you're asking, too. Do...you believe in fate at all, Eleanor? I guess I'm just too much of a cynic."

She looked up, appeared to be thinking for a moment. "I'm ... not entirely sure," she admitted. "But perhaps yes? I've heard the stories of a few people I know personally that it seems very much indeed that some sort of fate or destiny was involved in their lives."

And she couldn't help wondering if the elemental spirits that had a hand in her own training also somehow had something to do with a fate of sorts.

"Well," Valentine offered, her expression open and listening, "how so?"

She could bring up her own past, but she wasn't quite ready for that yet. So she chose Reggie's instead.

"A gentleman I know was in the Royal Air Force during the war, and he suffered great injury after being shot down. He blamed part of what happened on the fact that he's a Mage, so he cut himself off from his magic completely. By doing so, that made him vulerable to outside forces which nearly cost him his life. But those circumstances ultimately made him realize that he had to take magic back up, which saved his life and that of one other. The end result was that he became an even stronger Mage than he had been before."

"Some might say that his story is a destiny or the hand of fate." She cocked her head a little at Valentine and shrugged, "Or it could be just a series of random events."

Valentine grinned just a little at the end of that. "Or coincidence," she said. "I lean more toward the coincidence, although it's hard not to appreciate the irony. Out of curiosity, how does he figure that his injury happened because he's a Mage?"

"That's a bit more complicated. Magic as I know and use it, follows the spheres of the four elements. Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Naturally of course, the elements have their compliments and opposites. Fire and Water are obvious counterparts. Air and Earth have the same."

She drew in a long breath, "He is an Air Mage, fairly natural for him to become a pilot and when he was shot down..." she trailed off for a moment. "You know of the Great War, I hope? Needless to say, he crashed upon ground that had been washed in blood. Such violence attracts elementals of the darker sort. Those elementals suddenly had him within reach." She paused. "I don't believe I should have to detail what kind of things they did to him. It was what lead him to shutting out his powers. He didn't wish for any of those things to track him down through magic."

"War seems more potent to those magical or sensetive, it seems."

Destiny & Free Will, Week III [Monday, Period 4]

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will

Re: Discussion: Fate, Destiny, and Free Will