fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, September 3, 1st period]

Anakin walked into his classroom precisely on time and gave the students assembled there an appraising glance as the door clicked shut behind him. If you were late, you weren't getting in. "I'm Master Skywalker," he said in a voice that was intended to carry, "this is Ethics, and we're going to skip the introductions--I'll figure out who you are--and move straight to our first discussion."

He paced around the room, cloak flaring out behind him, as he handed out the syllabus. "Today's topic," he said, pointing to the top of the page. "Self sacrifice: knowing the difference between saving people and being a pretentious twit."

"Any time I ask a a group of people what they would do to save someone they love, they all blither on about how they would set the world on fire, lie, cheat, steal, kill, die, et cetera, et cetera. I've been at this school too long to believe that half of you haven't already been put into this situation and I'm in no mood to hear adolescent ramblings about how wonderful you were or might hypothetically be. Instead I want you to give me a concrete example of a time you admitted to yourself that a problem cannot be solved, and that to sacrificing yourself wasn't a statement, but merely pointless?" His gaze swept the room. "How long does it take for you to realize you can't fix everything by yourself?"

He would hear the replies and choose his TAs from there.

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"What if you are the problem?" Maron asked quietly, after thinking about it for a while. "If you can't fix it because just by existing you're the problem. There's nothing you can do but go on with your life."

"There's nothing you can do to help?" Elena asked, curious. "Are you a figurehead, or are there powers you can't control?"

"I can't change the fact that I exist," she said, a bit ruefully.

"No powers are involved," Maron continued truthfully, as far as she knew. "And figurehead is far too big of a word for it, though all facts as I understand them point to my being the problem."

"I didn't mean to suggest you could make yourself not exist," Elena said, lifting her shoulders. "I meant that either you're a placeholder, in which case the power structure is to blame, or it's something you're doing or being, which suggests alternatives."

She tried to put that into place.

"A child," Maron said, glancing sideways. "Whose parents have no time for them. Should that be called an issue of placeholding? Or something merely they are blamed for existing? Their jobs are more important to them."

Edited 2009-09-03 16:55 (UTC)

Elena considered that. "I assumed it was something more elaborate," she explained. "Someone in line for the throne that factions have declared war over. It's unfortunate that your parents are busy, but I'm not sure I'd categorize you, yourself, as the problem in that scenario."

Her grin was small, but there.

"My life is ordinary compared to a lot of students here," Maron admitted. Ignoring the stealing things for God bit. "Can't blame you for thinking me more exciting than I am! And perhaps it's not--but it's hard to say. It certainly feels like it's my fault."

Raven could totally empathize with that.

"Are you so certain that you are the problem?" she asked. "Or is it that you have just been told you are?"

Maron took a second to consider that.

"My conclusions are my own," she ventured, "but I have had no other explanation given."

"Perhaps your conclusions are not entirely correct?" Raven said. "Would ending your existence really fix the problem?"

"It would remove a problem," she said, frowning at that. "Though I can't say what it'd do for furthering others. But I'd never get rid of myself. It's not my fault that I exist."

"Of course not," Raven said. Not her fault, either. "I am glad that you would never truly consider that as a solution."

"It's not like there's no one who cares for me, right?" She grinned a bit, determinedly. "So, if I thought that was a solution I'd be hurting them--which would make me a very bad friend, indeed!"

That sounded a little familiar to Anakin. "Everything you do can't possibly be causing disaster," he replied.

"Maybe call it a familial disaster?" she said, tilting her head. "Though disaster is--harsh. Problem, maybe. I wouldn't say it's one for everyone else, though."

From what Finn said, anyway, everyone else was sort of the opposite.

"So it's more like your family is somehow a magnet for trouble?" Anakin said, looking sympathetic. Force knew the Skywalkers were a Greek tragedy in the making.

"Nothing so exciting," Maron told him. "My parents are too busy for a child, that's all. I'm in their way, just by living."

Anakin hissed in a breath. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She shrugged, smiling slightly. "I've grown used to it--I'm very independent. But it's not something that's fixable, exactly."

"It doesn't mean you've stopped craving their attention," Anakin replied. "Or needing it."

Not that he'd worked with some serious parental abandonment issues most of his life or anything. Really.

"No," she admitted, looking pensive. "But wanting something doesn't mean you'll get it. You learn to deal without."

Maron was very good at that. She hadn't even seen her parents since she'd been only nine, almost ten.

"As long as you learn to compensate in a healthy way," Anakin replied.

Because he knew healthy or something.

"As healthy as I can be," she told him honestly. "I try not to dwell."

Ethics [Thursday, September 3, 1st period]

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