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Ethics, Tuesday

The vast majority of the glitter had long since left Obi-Wan's hair and clothes, but there were scraps still left in his beard and in the folds of his robes. Luckily, not enough that it went trailing everywhere as he stepped into the class... but there was still more of it fluttering to the ground than he felt was dignified to admit to. "Last week," he said, "you suffered the stuff of a teenager's nightmares: being unable to lie. It would be prudent to reflect on that, I feel."

Anakin made a barely perceptible grimace at that. He wasn't big on reflection in general, and on examining involuntary word vomit in particular. "Sometimes we're keeping things to ourselves for a reason," he offered. "It's like ripping off armor to share personal stories with people we might not have voluntarily chosen in other circumstances."

"But the consequences of telling such lies can also be grim," Obi-Wan said. Not that he was looking at anyone in particular here. Anakin. "It might not be the best course of action to default to."

Because "Soooooo, I kind of got married?" would have gone over so well back in the day, Obi-Wan. "Perhaps not," he said with a seemingly unconcerned shrug, "but it is an understandable one. We won't ask you to tell us your secrets unless you choose to reveal specifics."

Yes, because that marriage had turned out to be such a brilliant idea. And who knew what consequences could have been averted had Anakin at least-- well, never mind that. "Instead, we want you to find a partner to speak with," Obi-Wan said. "Share a lie you once told that you decided to give up, and what motivated you to do so. Then discuss whether your reasons to keep the lie were valid - and whether the consequences of giving it up were as grim as you suspected."

As opposed to letting it wait until you'd already turned to the dark side over some visions you didn't tell anyone besides a Sith Lord about.

Well, it wasn't like anyone else knew Palpatine had been a Sith Lord either. Anakin shot Obi-Wan a look, then added with the mix of frustration and resignation that came from a decade of living in someone else's pocket, "And if you were lying about how badly injured you were, know that was always a bad choice."

'Not knowing Palpatine was a Sith Lord' was fairly high up on the list of things Obi-Wan spent a great deal of time kicking himself about, as it transpired. "Never lie to a healer," he agreed. Was Anakin talking about lying to anyone else about that? Pffft, surely not.

Anakin shot the class a "You see? You see what I put up with?" look, then waved his hand. "Go ahead and pair up and talk about what you learned, even if it's 'I shouldn't do a radio broadcast without access to quality duct tape.'"

Obi-Wan furrowed his brow and reached up to pluck some glitter out of his beard. "A radio broadcast...?"

Lie, lie, lie, Anakin.

Yes, kids, watch your ETHICS TEACHER lie bald-faced and without the slightest remorse to his co-teacher. "Nothing important," he declared. "Not your concern."

Obi-Wan shot him a quizzical look. "If that is what you believe to be true," he said mildly. "Class, please proceed."

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"Absolutely," Kathy said, trying not to look too relieved at getting a chance to partner with someone she knew. If she did end up talking about one of her few serious lies, at least it would be with a friend. "I was worried I might have to pull a 'look over there, a distraction!' on someone and run away."

Elsa looked rather relieved, herself.

"I was more worried that I was going to have to try to bribe somebody to let me have their partner," Elsa admitted. "I'm afraid I don't have many big exciting lies to confess."

"Me neither," Kathy said with a shrug. "More like lies of omission, you know? I mean, I haven't told my family about what I can do or what this island is like and I don't really see myself coming clean about that, ohhh, anytime really."

It would have to be some kind of end of the world scenario for Kathy to confess being Banzai to her family or something.

And Elsa now had double the Anna to keep her secret from, and she was more hell-bent than ever.

"The only human beings back home who knew about what I can do took that secret with them to their graves," Elsa replied, allowing herself a moment to look just half as sad as that statement made her before pulling herself together and smiling again, just a little. "I have a lot of experience with lying by omission."

"Maybe we could say that it's in keeping with the assignment if we lied about doing it?" Kathy suggested. "I feel like that's an argument we can make. Creative interpretation and all that."

"Or just talk about what we've learned about how hard it is to lie by omission," Elsa offered, with a wry smile. "That's actually pretty close to what we're supposed to be doing, isn't it?"

Kathy glanced down at her notebook, where she'd written down the assignment because of course she had. "We're supposed to discuss why we decided to stop lying, I think. And the consequences of coming clean."

Sooo...not really, hmm.

"But I think we can both agree that our reasons for lying were totally valid!"

"And that we've both started telling some people about it," Elsa noted. "We should talk about why we did that here, perhaps."

"Most of my lying started here," Kathy confessed. "Back home, I didn't have much to lie about, if you don't count stuff like 'who ate the last cookie' or whatever. It's only here that my life got interesting enough to have to start lying." She looked at Elsa, chin propped in her hand. "How about you? What made you start telling people? The fact that other people also...have things to lie about?"

She wasn't going to come right out and say what Elsa's secret was, of course!

Elsa appreciated that! She was going to even be so kind as to return the favour.

"That helped," she agreed, nodding faintly. "And back in the spring, a few people found out about it anyway. It didn't make much sense to keep lying, after that. Though I'm not exactly yelling it from rooftops now. If anything, I've been even more careful since the new students arrived."

"I heard about a few of the new students," Kathy said carefully. "Like Barry's new little sister. His, uhh, Fandom-assigned one, I mean."

Right, because Elsa might have been confused otherwise.

"I can see why you might be inclined to keep quiet about things? If you didn't want to tell, I mean. For whatever reason."

"She and I have met," Elsa replied, smiling wryly. "So I might be... less inclined to talk than I was before."

Which was sad, because she'd been finally getting to a point where she felt as though she could talk.

"Which is going to be fun to explain to those who already know. But... most of them understand why, too."

"If you ever wanted to talk, you know how to reach me," Kathy offered, because she didn't understand. "Though, I mean, just knowing that it's a secret is enough to keep me from talking to anyone about anything, you know. I don't need to know all the reasons why I should be quiet to stay that way."

In case Elsa was worried.

"But is keeping something secret really the same as lying?" she asked. "Obviously by omission, of course, but I don't know if it's quite the same as being actively deceitful."

Look! A conversation they might be able to have, rather than hedging around!

"Isn't it? If the damage done is the same either way, what difference does it really make in the end? You can hurt somebody just as thoroughly by deliberately not telling them something. Believe me," Elsa replied, "I know. Both are a choice you make. The difference between one and the other, I think, is that one is far more likely to lead to you getting caught."

"Motivation has to count for something," Kathy said. "I mean, yeah, people might still get hurt, but I'd be a lot more likely to forgive a secret than a deliberate lie."

Granted, Kathy was the forgiving type regardless, but the point was valid.

"I think that would depend on the secret," Elsa noted, shaking her head a little. "And, like you said, the motivation. That said, I'm less concerned about forgiveness and more concerned about actual damage done. Sometimes, one or the other is a matter of life and death."

Elsa... also had a valid point.

"If it's a matter of life and death, can't you just say so?" Kathy asked. "I mean, telling someone that you'd really love to come clean but this is literally saving their life...that's pretty hard to argue with."

...

"You haven't met my sister yet, I see."

Kathy flushed a little and shook her head. "My parents wouldn't let me come back in time for the picnic. So I'm mostly meeting the new kids randomly in class and stuff. I don't think I'd even know your sister to see her, sorry."

Why did that require an apology? Who knew? It just did.

"She's... a force of nature. I don't think she'd take 'it's so you don't die' for an answer," Elsa explained, shaking her head. "I'm sure you'll know her when you see her. There's a family resemblance. Similar clothing. She's... very excitable."

"...I think she might be in my Style class?" Kathy said, trying to remember. "She a big fan of snow? Like, building snowmen and making snow angels and stuff?"

See Elsa. See Elsa go a little more pale.

"That... that would... probably... yes. Yes, that's almost certainly her. That would be Anna."

"Umm, are you okay?" Kathy asked. It took a bit of doing to Elsa to go pale-er. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Oh, no no, I'm fine," Elsa said quickly, moving right along into the 'lying' portion of the day's lesson. "You just reminded me of something, that's all. It's nothing important."

If her smile was any warmer, that whole 'eternal winter' thing would never have been a concern.

"If you say so," Kathy said, knowing better than to push. "Umm, do you think we finished the assignment?"

Re: Pair Up and Discuss

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Re: Pair Up and Discuss

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