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The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

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[X] That is... That is horrible. I am sorry you had to go through that... I don't judge you for the actions you've committed in the past. I'll be your friend until you are sick of me. *hugs*

Nokai was a child when she killed, trained to do so by her father so yeah she's not to blame for anything she did. Even if she says she don't regret it.

Horium said:
Erm, guys, I know that Nokai is our friend, and that her suffering pains us, but Sunholders are not the good huys here.

Also, Zhi, his family, this Sect and almost everyone he knows (bar Xu Yun) is Radiant.

In Sunholder vs Radiant, there is no doubt whom I am supporting.

I have absolutely zero intention of enabling Nokai's revanchism.

Honestly, Nokai still suffers from the double-think where she hates Radiants while still having Radiants as her best friends and allies.

She will have to compromise on her hate (and she has partly already done that) if she wants to remain out of Geng clutches.
The long-term career in the Sect is by far the best option available to her.
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She was a child soldier and have some heavy trauma from that time. Killing people, most likely regular mortals, having her whole clan/tribe killed and getting captured by Geng must have reinforced that whatever she did was fine.

It's also just been 4 months since she got away from the Geng clan, so it's gonna take a while before she adjusts.
 
zang269 said:
They are kidnapping people, that's a bad guy thing to be doing. The level of appropriate retaliation for what the Noontide Tyrant did back then isn't justification for what's happening four years ago or currently.

It's not revanchism if they're actively taking your people, that's taking land in the past. If they're still doing it, it's retaliation.

Nokai doesn't even hate Radiants as a whole, she's fully aware they're not a monolith. She's not going to regret killing anyone, either, because her attacked specifically in response to Sunholders being taken, and letting that just happen wouldn't be alright either. I don't really expect someone to regret it either, considering they probably didn't stop trying to civilize the Sunholders for any altruistic reasons, and maybe still haven't.
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Vesvius said:
Radiants say Sunholder monsters, savages, maneaters. Sunholders say Radiants weak, stupid, soft.
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Read this bit again. Radiants dehumanize Sunholders, but Sunholders obviously consider Radiants as victims.

Thry are a nomad raiding culture. Nokai was even a child when she was brought as part of a raiding warband, and taught to kill.

Sunholders are not the good guys.
 
zang269 said:
They are kidnapping people, that's a bad guy thing to be doing. The level of appropriate retaliation for what the Noontide Tyrant did back then isn't justification for what's happening four years ago or currently.
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So the fact that Sunholders regular pop over, kill people, take their shit, and leave doesn't matter because at least they aren't kidnapping people?

Again, both sides are doing equally fucked up things to eachother, there is no moral highground to be had here.

Sunholders are the good guys in their mind, it's not their fault these Radiants are such weaklings. Radiants are the good guys in their own mind, they gotta stamp our these roaming marauders and teach their children the "correct" way of living.

Both think the other side are monstrous and both feel justified in their actions
 
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[x] Radiants kill Sunholders, Sunholders kill Radiants, Radiants kill Radiants, and surely Sunholders kill Sunholders as well. Such is the nature of conflict in this world, so I don't blame you. However, if you want to exact revenge on the Geng, you will need the power to do so. Bide your time in the sect, and don't hesitate to request my aid as I have relied on you as well.
 
... I think people are thinking of the Radiant Empire a bit too much like a modern nation-state, where Zhi would feel kinship to other Radiants solely because we both live under and identify with the Radiants empire. And where killing and war are seen as wrong and dirty things.

While we do live under the rule of the Radiant empire (and even as part of the imperial core) Zhi's sense of loyalty, kinship and belonging is to the Kong Clan - not to the Radiant empire. We can see this in how to Zhi, knowledge of the periphery and the conflicts out there is a distant hazy thing like conflicts between other countries is to much of us. Zhi doesn't feel and kinship or loyalty to other Radients that makes killing them a unique crime - if it was distant members of the Kong clan we'd never met however...

This isn't to say Zhi is entirely ambivalent to his friend talking about having killed people. Just that those people being Radients doesn't hold extra weight for Zhi (even though Nokai would expect it to do so, since she has had her life defined by this Radiant vs Sunholder Dichotomy)
 
[X] The best medicine for pain is revenge on the people who caused the pain. You can't act against the entire Geng clan yet, but Geng Tu is conveniently nearby. Let me know when you're ready to beat Geng Tu into a jelly and I'll back you up.
 
Horium said:
Read this bit again. Radiants dehumanize Sunholders, but Sunholders obviously consider Radiants as victims.

Thry are a nomad raiding culture. Nokai was even a child when she was brought as part of a raiding warband, and taught to kill.

Sunholders are not the good guys.
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You know, I read it again, and with more context it seems like Nokai is fully aware of the pointless cycle of violence and lies everyone tells themselves, and also sees the retaliation for unacceptable actions as necessary anyways, because there are no good guys, and the Radiants aren't going to stop until her way of life is destroyed.
Vesvius said:
"Sunholders Radiants not like. Radiants say Sunholder monsters, savages, maneaters. Sunholders say Radiants weak, stupid, soft. Radiants come to Wastes. Take Sunholders. 'Civilize' in camps.Try break. So attack Radiants. Kill Radiants. You take. We take. We kill. You kill. Sun rise, sun set."
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Nomad raiding culture is less of a thing that seems important, because every nomad culture is a raiding culture if you don't burn everything to ash. You've got to fight someone at some point, and if you don't move into their home it's a raid, even if you've got a really good reason, and the Sunholders have been fighting Radiants for a long time, it seems. The Radiants are a raiding culture too, they just build houses after they kill people.
Knight-Radiant said:
So the fact that Sunholders regular pop over, kill people, take their shit, and leave doesn't matter because at least they aren't kidnapping people?

Again, both sides are doing equally fucked up things to eachother, there is no moral highground to be had here.
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I'm actually going to say that yes, it's better if you don't drag off the noncombatants and survivors to brutalize them and dump them in a system where they'll always be second class citizens, hated, feared, and abused, because considering even the Noontide Tyrant let one guy run, there's no attempt at full-on extinction. I never said it doesn't matter, that's on you, but I am saying it's not equally fucked up, and the Radiants could have stopped doing that, or just not done it to start, and things would have been a lot better.
 
[X] On a level, you are slightly disturbed by the thought of Nokai as a child slaughtering your fellow Radiants. But the Nokai you know is your friend and you want to keep being her friend, even if it comes with annoying the Geng family. Tell her that as far as you're concerned, nothing's changed. She's still your friend, and you have her back.
 
[X]*Hugs*
-[X] Ask to learn her language
-[X] Offer to help her go through the Archives and find whatever information they have on her people so that she can refresh her memories and learn at least some of what she would have had she grown up among fellow Sunholders

I think Kong Zhi is... not indifferent, precisely, but not particularly thrown off by the ordinary suffering of people on the border. Even if his association with Nokai has made him think more deeply about the subject, it probably just shifted him slightly from "barbarians raid Empire to steal fruits of superior civilization" to "they raid us, we kill them, and the whole cycle repeats, but that's just how things always are in the borderlands".

This, however... the two things that would shake him here are that 1) whatever the Geng did to Nokai, it made the most seemingly fearless person he knows shake in terror at the idea of going back to it, and 2) her entire Clan was murdered and their history and traditions extinguished, with Nokai being actively prevented from trying to maintain them. And while point 1 is the thing Kong Zhi will have the more immediate reaction to, I think point 2 is the thing that will more viscerally horrify him given the importance he places on his own family, their traditions, and their legacy.

I kind of think stunned silence and inability to find the words to say will be a big part of Kong Zhi's response here, as represented by a mute hug being all he can think to do at first, because what really can you say? The closest equivalent I can think of is an oblivious but mostly well-meaning American or Canadian having an Amerindian/First Nations friend introduce them to the reality of the residential schools by recounting their own personal experience.
 
At very least I think we should ask for a promise to not attack the radiants indiscriminately if she ever gets back. Who knows, she might end up killing a Kong travelling the border some day.
 
[X] Sit down next to her and place Xue* in her lap. Say you think you understand. Ask gently if she's talked about this with anyone else. Try to be supportive.

*How or when did Xue get here, you have learned not to ask these questions.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
-[X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.
 
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[x] When I first saw you, I didn't understand how people could be afraid of you. I didn't know your history, or the history of my people. I've learned a great deal since coming to the sect, about how people can be monsters, and sometimes monsters might be people. What I know is that you've helped me without thought of repayment and at cost to yourself. I am still your friend, if you will have me, and I hope you are mine as well. *hugs* Also, Geng Tu is an evil bastard, and I hope we can make him regret ever coming here.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
- [X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
- [X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
- [X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
- [X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
- [X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.

Removed the hug because A. Zhi isn't a very huggy person. B. We've got a giant monster arm. A hug from Zhi is not comfortable at the moment. Agree with the message
 
[X] This is all so very wrong. You can't speak as to the Radiant-Sunholder conflict—you've seen how from the Moloth how atrocities can be perpetrated by either side. But no one should be forced to forget who they are. To forsake the ties to their own family.
- [X] *hugs* You're not sure what help you can offer, but if Nokai needs any, you'll be right there. She shouldn't have to go through this alone.

Yeah, this is basically what I wanted to say, just made into an actual coherent vote.
 
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