Practical Philosophy, Monday

[endsthegame]

Yesterday's revelation that they were releasing another movie about his life had not put Ender in the best mood. It was a harsh reminder that what awaited him back home wasn't always much better than what met him here-- at least at Fandom he could expect a certain degree of anonymity.

While he tried to keep the annoyance and frustration and numerous other emotions out of his work today, it was obvious he was quieter and more distant than he usually was. He picked a topic that was as comfortably distant from his own experience as he could find, without becoming irrelevant to their story entirely.

"This is our last class," he said. "Sooner or later, you'll find yourself at your last class, period. Fandom is a school and so your stay here comes with an expiration date. Are you glad about that? Relieved? Unhappy? When you leave, what will you carry with you of this place? Mostly negative experiences? Mostly positive? Why?"

Then he fell silent.

Comments

Re: Talk.

[notacokeperson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Karina just looked extremely dubious.

"I suppose it's totally cool having people be terrified of people with scary, uncontrollable powers. Or getting beaten up because of them. Or insulted and degraded."

None of which had happened to her, because Karina's closet where she hid her powers as a civilian was extremely deep.

"Yeah, we've got superheroes and they're cool and have powers," she said, her voice sharp and anxiety in her eyes, "but not all NEXT can be superheroes. Not all NEXT have that protection. Sure, I bet they get hate mail," and boy did they ever, "but they're symbols. It's the everyday people that get the worst of it, that are hurt by it. And people just spontaneously developing powers? That's weird. And scary. For every one person who thinks it's great, there's going to be a hundred that thinks it's wrong."

She was weird. And a freak. And a superhero.

Not that she was admitting to any of it.

Re: Talk.

[spin_kick_snap]

Now Kathy was all kinds of confused. "Okay, whoa, whoa. What's a next? Why should people be terrified? Are you talking about like some kind of Y-People thing?"

She shrugged at Karina, not unkindly. "The Mighty Dragon keeps his identity a secret and while some people don't believe in him, I don't think anyone's afraid of him. Well, except for the criminals he puts away."

Re: Talk.

[notacokeperson.livejournal.com]

"And you think it's just going to stay that way?" she asked, tilting her head. "Like, oh good, one superhero is enough, no need for more people with powers? What if criminals start getting powers? How long will people not be afraid of them?"

Re: Talk.

[spin_kick_snap]

"You make it sound like people just decide to wake up one morning and get powers," Kathy argued, folding her arms. "I don't know how it works. And, yeah, I doubt that everyone's gonna be okay with it. People have a damn good track record of Otherizing damn near everyone. But you know what? Ask your average gay teenager if he'd rather be bullied because of his perceived sexuality or because he somehow got awesome powers and see what he says. You don't have to be special to get death threats and degradation."