Merja

Ouf, shall we give it a rest?

I don't take criticism about the way I'm dressed from my mother. I do, however, take it from my aunt. That is because me and my mother have gone through the 'American Beauty' "Are you trying to look unattractive?" bit so many times, that I am completely deaf to anything she has to say in regards to my wardrobe.

What that bit of trivial information is meant to exemplify is that it's sometimes easier to accept criticism from someone who hasn't offerred it ceaselessly and without demand for a very, very long time. It also helps when the tone of the criticism is non condescendent, non-repetitive, and doesn't start with an 'this mod is useless/tasteless/teh ebil of ebils!'

Also, one would think that saying the same things over and over would be tiresome - how about saying it once and being done with it? This situation reminds me greatly of soccer players protesting to the referee after the opposing team has been awarded a penalty kick. They always protest, but I'll be darned if I ever saw it changing a referees mind.

Taking criticism is an option, and not an obligation.

Giving criticism is much appreciated, being chocked with it is not.

Edit: 3 votes only? Common, is that *all* TfV can master nowadays? Up it at least to 14, you, guys.

We actually didn't try  

Nothing ties together as hate and love. They are the same emotion.

So, if Irenicus can experience hate, he can experience love.

That be the point.

Hundreds of years?  Losing his soul reduced him to "a life no longer than a human's."

While I honestly don't think the life no longer then a human's is true, and am under the impression that he has fought the curse to the best of his abilities and survived longer - however long he might have lived does not make my point in any way moot. Give a man who has had a leg amputated for 20 years the best prothesys (I have probably spelled that wrong as well, do forgive) - chances are he will not start jogging the day after he gets it.


As for 'q' in equation, I thank you very much. Not being a native english speaker I reserve the right to three typos and two misspellings a year.

Whatever gives you that idea?  Reading his second journal gives me the impression he is fundamentally incapable of seeing anything he did as wrong.

While reading his first in which he talks about missing nature's embrace and how painful the faint memories of belonging are you'd kinda get the impression he feels at least some measure of regret over his separation from his kin.

The way I see Jon's thought processes evolving from that point id deeply different from yours, and it does not exclude initial regret. I do not deny that Jon is selfish, in the way that children are selfish - they want things done their way, now.

What happens when a child gets punished for doing something wrong? Regret and anger at the same time, with equal strength. The anger does not prevail over the regret because children, although they might not understand how they erred, love their parents enough to give them the benefit of doubt. Jon does not love his elves as much, whatever feelings he has for them slowly decay and thus, given his condition, I would say regret has a pretty thin chance at prevailing over anger.

The tone he takes suggests, to me at least, that ever since his first bid for godhood he has never considered the possibility that he could be wrong.

To this I say an emphatic 'No.'

I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried to. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory. But it is gone... a hollow, dead thing.

I genuinely do not think these are the words of a man who has never considered that he was wrong. A man who never considered he was wrong would point out that she has wronged him by failing to comprehend his genius, and that he is above such petty emotions as love. Furthermore, if he genuinely had done no wrong, he would not regret the company of those he had wronged, nor felt his removal from their midst as punishment.

Ah what an opportunity for a drow rant, but I shall skip - this is drow way. They do not regret not being part of the elven community anymore, in fact they feel much better for it. They are in complete denial of their evil. Jon is not, in my opinion, but he does not see an alternative, and so he perseveres in the only action he feels he has left that ties him to his people. That is taking revenge.

[quote name='jcompton' date='Mar 26 2004, 11:02 PM']
[/QUOTE]
Merja was quite helpful the other day, presenting me with a thought exercise that helped us both recognize that, as the chronically guested Domi also points out, the last time Irenicus had a soul it was the critical piece of the puzzle he needed in order to fuel his murderous, destructive impulses (again.)

The idea of giving Irenicus a soul (again!) in the hopes he'll repent and seek absolution and become a pillar of society is rather like giving a very fast car to a bank robber on his way out of jail. Yes, he might choose to drive it to volunteer at a soup kitchen for 60 hours a week... but I'd suggest bolstering security at the First Bank and Trust instead. [/quote]
[quote]
Merja was quite helpful the other day, presenting me with a thought exercise that helped us both recognize that, as the chronically guested Domi also points out, the last time Irenicus had a soul it was the critical piece of the puzzle he needed in order to fuel his murderous, destructive impulses (again.)

The idea of giving Irenicus a soul (again!) in the hopes he'll repent and seek absolution and become a pillar of society is rather like giving a very fast car to a bank robber on his way out of jail. Yes, he might choose to drive it to volunteer at a soup kitchen for 60 hours a week... but I'd suggest bolstering security at the First Bank and Trust instead.
[/quote]



My astute debatig fellow forgets we also discussed how a few days of having a soul could not undo the harm done by hundreds of years of not having one.  
When you lose a limb, it takes you quite long to learn how to use the replacement I countered the point, now it is up to the gods to decide

Damn, and I have no cause to go on a Drizzt rant. Sourly disappointed me  

As for the bank robber analogy - we said that the decision of giving him a car or not depends on us 'taking the measure of the man and deciding which, based on his previous actions, motivations, and current stated intent he is most likely to pursue.'   From thee I take notes - so.

It is quite obvious to be that somebody who wants to play this particular mod has either judged that based on all the above statements Jon deserves a second chance, or just heard rumor of the devastating figting scripts Dorotea gave the boy, and wants to see how it feels to have Jon mazing/dominating/horrid wilting/disintegrating someone else for a change

Seriously though, this is not an attempt to slander Ellesime or glorify evil - I am still working on adding the glorifying evil part though, be patient. This is a game addendum based on something that we, the people working on the mod concieve as true and a direct interpretation of game facts.  While our interpretations of the quotes Dorotea presented above might not be your interpretation of those quotes, the bottom line is that they exist. They can be taken one way or the other with very much ease.

So based on those quotes, we think that he'd deserve a second, third, 2k+1-enneth chance. Some will agree with us, some most definitely will not - the idea of redemption per se, much like legalizing drugs or prostitution, abolishing death penalty and who came first? the chicken or the egg are endless debates. Valid arguments can be made for or against with no real chance of winning on either side.

In conclusion - we either drop the discussion and go to bed, or,  if help is the intention, as I do not doubt it is...

What I suggest we do is this - we are presented with the ecuation of redeeming Jon in this particular way. Like it happened to me on various superiour math exams, we don't get to wonder why we were asked that question. Nor do we get to say 'I don't really wanna know the value of X in that expression, you darned nitwit!' - aka We don't think Jon deserves redemption, therefore the problem does not exist.  We have the problem before us on the blackboard, and we are trying to solve it.

Dorotea is the writer and she has defined the terms on which we operate. If we dismiss those initial terms, there is nothing to discuss. If we do dismiss them, we don't want to solve the given problem, we want to solve another. Anyone is free to go redeem Jon in whatever way they think is suitable. But this is our way of doing it here.  

Instead of wondering why the ecuation looks the way it does, and why we are trying to solve it, we should see if her solution works, in her terms. That's what we do when reading a book or playing a game - we place ourselves in the temperature and pressure conditions created by its authors and we assume certain facts are real. And truly, in this case they are not far fetched.

Ellesime herself admits to having failed when delivering Jon's punishment. That is a valid starting point for saying - perhaps she would like to remedy.

Jon did love Ellesime. It is a valid starting point for saying - it was a crime of passion.

Ellesime did love Jon. It is a valid starting point for saying - perhaps she loves him beyond reason and would try to save him again and again.

Jon did at one point feel regret over his actons. It is a valid starting point for saying - perahps he might be brought to feel regret again.

If your answers to all above are -they are completely false declarations, play of idle mind and whatnot - then you cannot honestly help LR in any way, and you are best off leaving us evil silly critters to run free on the green fields of insanity. You won't be able to reason with us anyway, illogical minions of distruction that we are    

If you however accept that the facts of BG2 could POSSIBLY (in the best of all possible worlds, as Kant would put it) be interpreted in that way -our way - then we all should move away from LR's view of Ellesime, and into the actual writing. In the workroom.

I would love to see suggestions of the type - 'I do not think this statement is convincing enough', or 'This is not accurately put' or 'I think Jon would laugh his head off at this one, you beeping kidding me?', followed by helpful replacements of the criticized line, valid arguments...hm, actual help, not only pesimism and despair   


Your play, Mr. Compton.