fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

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Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

Judging from what Raven had told him about Tuesday night and what several members of his class had seen, Anakin believed that this lecture probably couldn't have come at a better time.

"Today we talk about diligence, temperance, and forgiveness," he said quietly, "and we're going to use examples from the midterm exam to do so."

He flipped the hologram to life with a wave of his hand and it focused in on a shot of Palpatine's face. "The goal was to save this man, the democratically chosen leader of your galaxy, at the cost--if necessary--of your own lives. After the Sith Lord arrived, you certainly had the option of retreating and leaving the mission for someone else to complete. A Sith's job, after all, is to kill Jedi, and there were only two of you against him. When does diligence turn to foolhardiness?"

The holocam switched to footage of two Jedi, blue blades flashing, taking on an older man wielding a red lightsaber. The battle was moving at least three times as fast as the exercise had. The older Jedi went ricocheting into a wall, then the second one, fire in his eyes, closed in on their opponent. A few moments later the Sith dropped to his knees with two lightsabers held to his throat.

The Jedi wielding the lightsabers looked an awful lot like their teacher.

"Temperance," Anakin said softly. "Do you kill him now? He's dangerous. He held the head of a galaxy-wide government hostage. He injured your partner. He certainly tried to kill you first. Or do you capture him and leave him to the whims of the courts?"

He shook his head. "Finally, forgiveness. You save the chancellor, at great personal expense, only to discover he's not the kind of man you thought he was. Your act of heroism has managed to make the situation at home much, much worse. How do you forgive yourself for it? Can you forgive the others who put you into that position?"

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"Are there girls still trapped in Briarwood?" Anakin asked.

Karla shook her head. "I don't think so, no. I don't know for sure, since my memories stop with Jaenelle's, but...she wove a trap for them all that was triggered when her blood was spilled." So much blood. Pooling, running, falling, red everywhere...

She shook her head again, this time to clear her mind and continued. "'To each of them what they gave' was the only command she wove into it. Every bruise, every cruelty, every moment of terror was turned back onto each uncle, for him to experience. Not just actions at Briarwood, but any time he'd ever harmed another was given back to him to suffer. And once he'd taken back everything he'd ever done, the web would release him. I don't know how many will survive such a thing--mostly because I'm not sure how many girls actually survived Briarwood."

She looked up at Anakin, almost defiantly. "I'm not sorry she did that. I'm glad! I only wish that she'd made it so they experienced their crimes a hundred times before they were let go!"

Anakin held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I've inflicted harsh justice as well," he said.

"Oh." That brought Karla up short. She'd been expecting a lecture on being angry or maybe something about the proper authorities. "Umm. Good. On the chancellor guy, when you found out he was evil?"

It spoke a great deal about Karla's faith in Anakin that she would never believe Darth Vader of him without some serious and major proof. And possibly a confession from Anakin himself.

"When he tried to hurt my son," Anakin said, voice a little harsh.

Which had been eighteen years after he'd learned the chancellor was evil, but details.

Fortunately, trying to keep the details straight on the timelines required a degree in Advanced Mathematics when you were part of those timelines. For most outsiders, it was simply impossible.

"What is it with evil people and harming children?" Karla snapped. "If it really too much goodness and innocence for them to handle that they feel the need to go defile it?"

Anakin blinked. "Luke was older than Ben," he said, then shook his head. "Timeline confusion. Never mind."

Wow. That chancellor had been an absolute master, keeping Anakin in the dark for so long. But Karla didn't say that aloud; no reason to remind Anakin just how long he'd been duped for.

"I still don't understand," Karla said quietly, her eyes on her hands. "And I don't know which would be better--finding out there was or wasn't a reason behind their behavior. I just don't get it."

"It's really going to better not to dwell on it," Anakin counseled. "Trying to understand their brand of evil will only taint yourself."

"I feel like I should still try," Karla objected. "Rather than thinking that their evil is some kind of ineffable natural force like a tornado or earthquake or something."

Anakin pursed his lips and shook his head. "You really, really don't want to figure out how they got there, young one."

"But if I find out how they got there, maybe I can work to bring them back. Surely they can't be irredeemable!" She paused, thinking about whether or not she even wanted to bother to bring back Uncle Bobby or Dr. Carvay.

Probably not.

"Or stop someone else from going down that path," she suggested instead. "If I know what makes someone evil, maybe I can work at stopping others from making those same mistakes. Surely that would be worth whatever personal cost to me."

It was like talking to Luke. The idealism was wonderful, but Anakin feared for when realism smacked them both hard.

"Some people are irredeemable," Anakin said sadly. "They can only be turned back if they want to change, and nothing that I've heard indicates that these..." calling them men seemed an insult to proper versions of the species, "people wanted to change. Would your friend have inflicted such harsh justice if she'd thought they could be reasoned with?"

Right. Like Karla would ever believe that Jaenelle was capable of doing something wrong. ~~See: Genocide~~

"No, of course not!" Karla said immediately. "She did the right thing--she gave them justice."

"This goes back to my forgiveness question, too," Anakin said. "Because you have to forgive yourself. It's far too easy to second guess and try to figure out how you could fix something that, in the end, might not be fixable."

"How?" Karla asked. "How do you forgive yourself for not seeing something like that? For not protecting your people from that? I don't understand how Jaenelle's grandmother, the Queen of Chaillot, could possibly forgive herself for not knowing what Briarwood was, for sending her own flesh and blood there! How?"

And, in a softer voice: "How do I forgive myself for getting my friends mixed up in all of this?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask," Anakin said softly. "The man who I rescued, defended, trusted, looked up to almost as a father...destroyed the entire galaxy. He obliterated the Jedi Order. He murdered most of my friends, enslaved millions, ruined the lives of trillions. And I didn't stop him."

And, in fact, aided and abetted him. But he wouldn't be admitting to that.

"As for your friends, believe them when they tell you that they didn't mind," he continued. "Because that's what they'll say, and it will be true. Don't hold on to guilt for something you couldn't control."

Karla sensed there were some things which were going unsaid in Anakin's brief explanation of events, but didn't feel the need to push. She couldn't blame him for editing out bits of what had been a most painful betrayal.

"I'll try," she said. "But it's so hard. Unwillingly or no, I caused them pain and it hurts me to have done so. But...I'll try." She gave him a small, very uncertain smile. "I guess that's all I can do."

"A Jedi Master I knew was fond of saying that there is no try--you either do it or you don't," Anakin replied with a small smile in return.

"Isn't that a bit simplistic?" Karla asked, skeptically. "There's a big difference between not doing something and failing to do it. And even if I do fail now, so long as I keep trying, I may succeed in the future."

Please don't ask Karla's opinions on the Jedi Masters. So far, she was vastly unimpressed.

This was to a guy who had once been given orders to take out an entire stronghold using five clone troopers and an annoying Padawan and thought it was completely doable.

"It was mostly an admonition not to half-ass it just because it turned difficult," Anakin decided.

Edited 2009-11-06 22:00 (UTC)

Karla shot him a look that suggested she'd be rolling her eyes if he hadn't been a teacher ~~with few compunctions about thumping her one~~. "I'm friends with your grandson," she pointed out. "And his best friend. Clearly, I'm not scared off by a difficulty."

Well, they were!

"Besides, I'm pretty sure Ben would be willing to attest that I'm a stubborn pain in the ass when I want to be. Which is usually."

"And Ben is an expert on stubborn pains in the ass," Anakin said dryly. He had a finally honed sense of the ridiculous when it suited him to (and when it wasn't directed at him, obviously).

"He says it's a family trait," Karla said, a hint of her puckish sense of humor surfacing. "I'm sure he meant his mother's side, of course."

She gathered her school books and stood. "I'm glad you aren't angry, Professor. And I'll work on what we talked about today."

"Oh, you'd know if I was angry," Anakin said with a wry smile. "If you need someone to talk to...door's open."

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Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

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