fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, January 5, 2nd period]

Anakin walked into his classroom precisely on time and gave the students assembled there an appraising glance--lingering a moment on a few faces--as the door clicked shut behind him. If you were late, you weren't getting in. "I'm Master Anakin 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, if I don't recognize you already--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 sacrificing yourself wasn't a statement, but was merely pointless." His gaze swept the room. "How long does it take for you to realize you can't fix everything by yourself? Have you ever learned that lesson?"

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Griffin frowned, this question hit home far too recently for him to be at all comfortable talking, so he put on a persona of nonchalance, hoping to seem the opposite of how he was feeling. "Sacrifice is pointless. It gives up control to those who don't value anything real." Get enough people killed on accident and it all seemed to turn into a power struggle.

Anakin's forehead wrinkled as what he was feeling from Griff countered what he was hearing.

"How does it give them the control?" he asked.

"Sacrificing yourself is like giving in," Griff replied, and it was in his experience. Realizing context would be helpful he shrugged and offered, "Depending on the situation, I guess."

"Any that you can think of an example?" Anakin replied.

"Hypothetically speaking?" Griff verified before sharing far more than he ever wanted to share with a group of students. "Say someone's got your parents hostage. They want you in exchange. If you give in, everyone dies and they win. If you don't give in and avoid self-sacrifice, you're killing your parents but living to fight back another day, when you're stronger, right?"

Anakin nodded. "Assuming that the third option of 'killing the kidnappers from a distance through a scope' was off the table, of course."

That was nice and healthy.

"Yeah, and assuming they had the kind of firepower to take down INS helicopters," he mumbled, incredible amounts of unresolved anger boiling under his skin.

Anakin picked up on the anger and it worried him. "Hypothetically," he repeated quietly.

Ethics [Tuesday, January 5, 2nd period]

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Re: Answer the discussion question [1/5]

Re: Answer the discussion question [1/5]

Re: Answer the discussion question [1/5]