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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Jonas had lived a life devoid of sacrifice until the very recent years so trying to come up with a good example proved more difficult than expected.

"I discovered a horrifying truth once." It was the best he could think of even if saying the words caused him to avert his eyes onto his desk and try to rid his mind of the memory of his father killing that newchild. "Instead of doing anything helpful, I ran away because the truth was only known to me and one other. I wouldn't have been believed."

Escaped was more accurate but he'd been given permission to lie by the Giver so long ago that it was almost automatic to do so in certain circumstances now.

"And being believed was the important part?" Anakin replied, tilting his head.

"To me, yes," he said, nodding. "To everyone else, it wouldn't have made a difference. The truth I knew only happened because I was Selected to know. Before that, even I would have thought it was fine. The horrifying thing, everyone else thought it was completely normal. They didn't know it was terrible."

He shook his head slowly.

"But it was," he added, lest Professor Skywalker not believe him. "And it's probably still happening."

Edited 2009-09-03 15:42 (UTC)

"And yet it's absolutely futile to attempt to stop it?" Anakin asked, trying to get a handle on the problem without asking outright for details in front of a full class.

"It would have been absolutely futile," he said, thinking the heavy language was warranted here because that situation was that bad. "I would have failed if I'd tried and I would have been Released."

He was sure of that. Going up against the whole idea of Sameness, going against the Elders wouldn't have been classified as a simple misbehavior. He was sure even his mother would have voted for his Release without a second thought.

"Released?" Anakin repeated. "Is that like exile?"

"Exile," he repeated quietly, turning the word over a few times before he was able to pull a vague meaning from the crevices of his mind. The comparison between exile and Release was an easy one. "No, it's not like exile. I wish it were, though."

"What's it like, then?" Anakin replied, interested and a little worried.

Jonas looked around carefully, gauging if he wanted to actually admit this in front of a classroom full of people he didn't know.

"I don't know, sir," he said, answering honestly but still dodging the actual question in the best possible way he knew how. His classmates had seen their share of horrors but his was a horror that he'd accepted so readily for the majority of his life. It was difficult. "I've never been Released."

He had proof in that he was still alive.

Yeah, that was kind of the definition of Released Anakin had reached. Nice euphemism.

A tiny pursing of Anakin's lips was the only sign of his disapproval. "That was a difficult position to be placed in, then."

Jonas nodded briefly, keeping his eyes on his desk while he did so. "It was. Leaving was the only option."

His mother would have shaken her head at his language, telling him that wasn't true but she didn't know, hadn't seen, couldn't feel. It was the only option if he'd wanted to be able to live with himself.

"Will you be going back?" he asked.

"I can't." He shook his head. He'd escaped, let all the memories of sadness, pain, hate and other things overwhelm the Community. He'd left the Giver to deal with that alone. He didn't want to look his father in the eye. "No. It wouldn't be possible nor would it be wise."

Edited 2009-09-03 19:09 (UTC)

Sympathy flashed in Anakin's eyes. "Fandom isn't a bad place to start over," he said. "I haven't been home in years either."

He managed a brief smile that didn't quite go to his eyes but, these days, nothing much did. "Thank you, sir. From what I've experienced so far, I believe you might be right."

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