A Harry Potter Quest: He who was not

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

I for one hate characters who have their personality shift after just one secret and to me this option provides more interesting opportunities for character development than any other.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

Did Perenelle Flamel do something terrible, yes. But I don't think that is the sum of her being. She was selfish, ruthless, and terrible in achieving her goals, but Jacob's memories also show that she could be kind, caring, and a capable teacher. She was both of these things and neither. She was in essence human. Capable of both good and evil. If the evil outweighs the bad, that is for whatever judge there is in the next life to determine.

Jacob isn't responsible for her sin. We aren't wrong to exist.

Thinking about this. Not to say that creating human is not impressive, but do you really need to sacrifice souls of everyone that died on the island in the last 200 years for that ?
Dolly the sheep will be cloned in about 3 years. Imagine doing the most heinous magic for centuries only for some muggles to develop technology that could in theory achieve the same thing.

[X] She had become nothing but a monster – You had been created out of nothing but the results of evil. Those that had been betrayed died without knowing their fate. They had been sealed to nurture an experiment and to create something that was wrong to exist and now you must live with this burden, for it is on you to carry her sin until the day that you died.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

[X] She had become nothing but a monster – You had been created out of nothing but the results of evil. Those that had been betrayed died without knowing their fate. They had been sealed to nurture an experiment and to create something that was wrong to exist and now you must live with this burden, for it is on you to carry her sin until the day that you died.

The first line is important. What I like about jacob is his genuine goodness and
I think that's worth protecting.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

I don´t particularly like any option, but I don´t want Jacob to hate himself for something that was completely out of his control...

[X] She had become nothing but a monster – You had been created out of nothing but the results of evil. Those that had been betrayed died without knowing their fate. They had been sealed to nurture an experiment and to create something that was wrong to exist and now you must live with this burden, for it is on you to carry her sin until the day that you died.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

SpaceSloth said:

Thinking about this. Not to say that creating human is not impressive, but do you really need to sacrifice souls of everyone that died on the island in the last 200 years for that ?
Dolly the sheep will be cloned in about 3 years. Imagine doing the most heinous magic for centuries only for some muggles to develop technology that could in theory achieve the same thing.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I'm not actually sure if she sacrificed them outright--I was under the impression our soul was a composite one, stitched together from hundreds of individuals. In the pursuit of making a "unique" existence, someone who could truly have a unique "self," more souls would be needed. That might also be part of why we're generally more level-headed and wise compared to others our age.
Philosophically speaking, one could say that simply interacting with others rubs off on you, causing you to change and/or become more like the people you spend the most time around, that at birth, the slate of the soul is "Tabula Rasa," completely blank.
tabula rasa
heh
Also, you have to take into consideration what a "soul" actually is. We have no idea if souls exist in real life, but we generally understand our processes to be the result of chemicals and synapses and all other sorts of fantastic things that someone who actually knew what they were speaking of could tell you more about.
One has to wonder if cloning in the HP universe creates another soul, or if it simply results in a hollow husk of a body. How does biology feature into magic? If you transplant every organ in a Muggle's body with those of the magically-capable, will they be able to cast magic? I have no idea.

Raikazin said:

I think that's worth protecting.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

If you think that's worth protecting, then why take the choice that makes him actively reject his very being?

Raikazin said:

something that was wrong to exist

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The life of Jacob Basques is not a mistake. The birth of Jacob Basques will never be a mistake. Jacob is everything that he has lived and done, and then some; the sins of the father are not those of the son.

He will not reject the affection of those who truly care about him. He will not think that he does not deserve his family, or that his family is wrong to love him. I refuse to allow it.
I refuse to allow Jacob to be that selfish.
You do not repay the debt of life by hating yourself.
Very sorry, but this is a little personal.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not

[X] She had achieved what was great

[X] She had become nothing but a monster – You had been created out of nothing but the results of evil. Those that had been betrayed died without knowing their fate. They had been sealed to nurture an experiment and to create something that was wrong to exist and now you must live with this burden, for it is on you to carry her sin until the day that you died

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

Come people let's not make our boy emo.

Frankly I think you guys are making a huge fucking mistake here.

Yea sins of the father is not reasonable but the only kind of person that wouldn't feel guilty on learning what he's learned is a psychopath, at least the "Needed to be done" option is a rationalisation borne of protecting his own psyche from accepting the guilt that his existence is built on essentially something equivalent to murder. Emotions are not rational, the kind of mind that would jump to "Yea she was great, one of the few titans in humanity" as a response to learning that is not the kind of person I'd want to be or know.

You're all making a big mistake in thinking that avoiding that feeling of guilt however unwarranted is the best option of a bad bunch.

Now that we know of the circumstances behind our birth perhaps we can turn our attention towards our ghostly goggles idea at some point. Not just for the bonuses they provide, but for learning more about the ghosts and ourselves. Sure, it won't happen this year since we want to get all our scores up, and it probably won't happen the next since we will want to focus on making the shoes and our own equivalent of the marauder's map, but perhaps we can look into it during our later years.

[X] She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

SuperSonicSound said:

Frankly I think you guys are making a huge fucking mistake here.

Yea sins of the father is not reasonable but the only kind of person that wouldn't feel guilty on learning what he's learned is a psychopath, at least the "Needed to be done" option is a rationalisation borne of protecting his own psyche from accepting the guilt that his existence is built on essentially something equivalent to murder. Emotions are not rational, the kind of mind that would jump to "Yea she was great, one of the few titans in humanity" as a response to learning that is not the kind of person I'd want to be or know.

You're all making a big mistake in thinking that avoiding that feeling of guilt however unwarranted is the best option of a bad bunch.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

We're not avoiding the guilt. We're just saying that what she did was kinda nuts. You can be impressed by something and still feel bad about it. Their not mutually exclusive concepts.

[X] She had become nothing but a monster – You had been created out of nothing but the results of evil. Those that had been betrayed died without knowing their fate. They had been sealed to nurture an experiment and to create something that was wrong to exist and now you must live with this burden, for it is on you to carry her sin until the day that you died.

8th pirate king said:

We're not avoiding the guilt. We're just saying that what she did was kinda nuts. You can be impressed by something and still feel bad about it. Their not mutually exclusive concepts.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

No you're not. You don't get to put your own beliefs into what that option means, the GM has explicit ideas in mind for what these options mean to Jacobs psyche its our job to piece together what those are, you're arguing that there's other ways to interpret it but that's not how it's written in the option.

She had achieved what was great – She was a woman with deep intricate beliefs and someone who had strived to bring those beliefs of hers to life. Where others would have lingered in doubt and hesitated out of fear, she had simply walked on, taking all evil up on her soul to do what was needed in the end. Perenelle Flamel had been one of the few Greats walking the earth, taking the responsibility where her husband could not.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It lionises her, it makes out that her ability to take on the 'evil' on her self makes her great, an impressive person.

Her beliefs were monstrous, just because she wasn't a monster in every facet of her life doesn't mean she wasn't one. Calling that kind of callous disregard of the value of others as some how being indicative of intricate beliefs instead of just standard selfishness is the problem. It's taking Jacob down a downright dark path that leads to him being more akin to Riddle than any one else and why did she do it? To see if she could? Wow good justification.

Fair enough if that's what you want but don't try and white wash what the option means. It means she's some one that Jacob admires.

[X] She had become nothing but a monster – You had been created out of nothing but the results of evil. Those that had been betrayed died without knowing their fate. They had been sealed to nurture an experiment and to create something that was wrong to exist and now you must live with this burden, for it is on you to carry her sin until the day that you died.

SuperSonicSound said:

No you're not. You don't get to put your own beliefs into what that option means.

It's very clear in it's effects on Jacobs psyche.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Aren't you doing the exact same thing as well then? You're applying your beliefs of what it means and applying it to his psyche. The only definitive thing it says is that he admires the balls of the woman in doing something the great Flamel was unwilling to do. It does not speak of condoning it nor of liking it.

Frankly, I'm not interested in having the MC take up sins that aren't his. Like if Jacob was the one that was performing unethical experiments, then he is free to castigate himself and call himself a monster as much as he wants. But that isn't the case, we are literally blameless. Perenelle's cross isn't for us to bear. And I believe that the QM will take the discussion into account. Most of the voters seem to interpret the options as "terrible, but great", where we acknowledge that what she did was questionable at best, but that she also did do something amazing, and that more importantly we aren't to blame for what actions resulted in our birth (which is literally true and not a lie). That is miles better than us thinking that we are an abomination that was wrong to exist. Jacob's life isn't something he should be ashamed of having.

8th pirate king said:

Aren't you doing the exact same thing as well then? You're applying your beliefs of what it means and applying it to his psyche. The only definitive thing it says is that he admires the balls of the woman in doing something the great Flamel was unwilling to do. It does not speak of condoning it nor of liking it.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

You don't wax lyrical about how deep some one is unless you're admiring them. Admiration comes with it the flavour of approval. There's no reasonable read of this passage, that doesn't see that interpretation.

ShyGuy said:

And I believe that the QM will take the discussion into account.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

That would be valid if this allowed write ins. That's not the case here. There are three very distinct options which serious consequences, we don't get to talk our way around that. There are serious down sides to all of the options. The option currently winning is the one that pushes Jacob towards a more sociopathic outlook.