Why? Can you give a reason, or is this just a "my puritanical upbringing says this" kinda deal?
I'll admit I don't have a prepared essay with explicitly laid out points, and as much as I say that jokingly I'm sure my argument would be a lot more persuasive if I took the time to articulate my beliefs like that. Call it laziness, a subconscious protection of my own biases, or just an inability to properly articulate an abstract social idea I haven't really written about before, but I just don't really feel like writing that up.
Still, I feel like the call to Puritanism reveals a bit of a misunderstanding here. I'll clarify, as I suppose I have not successfully done before, that I am not a supporter of preventing children and adults from having platonic relationships, nor am I a supporter of strictly controlling what specific types of relationships are the "okay" types, beyond a certain common sense threshold. (To further clarify, this appeal to common sense is only intended in reference to obvious taboos such as pedophillia and other exploitative relationships; our current discussion is not within such bounds, and so I hope not to give the impression that I am presenting my own view on the nuances of friendship within this discussion as "obvious" or "common sense.")
I'm pretty sure this all comes down to semantic bullshit, honestly. I'm sure there a plenty of relationships between children and adults that people call friendship that I would have no issue with; my issue lies in calling those relationships a friendship. A feel like using friendship as an umbrella term for close relationships built on mutual trust and platonic affection is overly simplistic, and in fact makes it harder to deal with the moralistic outrage of puritanistic folks.
Like, if I were to imagine myself having a more angry conservative viewpoint on this, I'd have been arguing that Joe shouldn't be chatting with Aisha at all; only interacting as long as is necessary to satisfy his responsibilities in regard to her. No IMAX movie time, no talking about personal stuff, etc. Puritan me would see that as friendship and demand it end, probably to be replaced with something more socially authoritarian.
I don't agree with that though. I think, within the odd set of circumstances Joe and Aisha have found themselves in which make it hard to equivocate their situation to more mundane examples, they're pretty okay. I'd liken it in some ways to being like siblings, personally close with some natural separation on account of differences in experiences and appropriate responsibilities. In other ways like something of a mentorship, with Joe feeling responsible for making sure Aisha doesn't go down a bad path, in as much as he doesn't have the right/ability to stop her against her will from risking her life. On a "professional" level, they could even be called peers of a sort since they're both capes and can relate to each other as such. And there's a lot of overlap with friendship there, but the areas in which their relationship does not overlap with the expectations of friendship are just as important. And I really do mean that in a positive sense. Joe doesn't trust Aisha with the full knowledge of his mental burdens as one might a close friend, imparting onto her a sense of social obligation to worry and be there for him in some way. Joe doesn't make himself a part of Aisha's life in equal part to how she's made herself a part of his, as one might with a friend. Joe makes it clear that Aisha is not really a teammate/peer to Apieron and her actions as a cape (while allowed) are subject to his (and his clones and AIs) judgement on when it is appropriate for her to engage, as opposed to how one might treat a partnership with a trusted friend. And this all good, because Aisha is an irresponsible inexperienced middle school girl who does not need all this cape bullshit blended with the ordinary experiences/social development of someone her age.
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