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Hell is other angels

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Redshirt Army said:
And yet this remains a valid point. I don't know the SI's plan, but unless it's really brilliant, this is a huge risk - I can only hope the anticipated reward is suitably large.
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When your plan absolutely relies on CHAOS MAGIC being predictable and reliable, and failure of your clan could literally kill you, you need to take a step back and get your head on straight. Because it isn't on straight if you can make a plan like that and think it's a good idea.
 
Phant0m5 said:
An open note to the SI, not to be taken badly by the author:

GOD DAMN IT HIVER! STOP BEING SO SELFISH! :oo_O:mad:
You know what's going on in the world already. That means you have two options: Get out of Sunnydale, or get pulled into the plot, because hanging around the Slayer is probably your best bet for survival when there are things around that want to eat you. o_O

The longer you delay, the worse everything gets, and the more people DIE that you could have SAVED just by relaying some information. :mad:
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While I love your passion, unknown internet-person, I have to point out that while we may believe we'd take the risks, since we're not the one experiencing this shit, there's actually a fairly large chance any of us would be doing the same thing. Waffling about on whether or not to butterfly things widely can drastically decrease our chances of survival in a setting where death is all but assured.

Hiver's hesitance is understandable. Detestable from the outside, yes; but ultimately, we can say we would save them but in his place? I'm sad to say we'd hesitate all the same.

Bravery is easy when we're not in his shoes.
 
I just don't understand where this martyr complex came from.
Canon could change just because he is there? Sure I would be surprised if that was not the case.
There would be deaths that could be prevented if he acted or informed someone of it? Sure, but the opposite is also equally possible.
Buffy dieing would cause the end of the world? It's her series and she saved/will save the world a few times, doesn't mean she is indispensable to the world safety.
Are those reason enough for him to involve himself in it? Not really, even if we go with the "Buffy death would spell the End of all things" theory.

1) He doesn't have any responsability for the lives of strangers.
2) He haven't formed any emotional bond with any of the students let alone the cast, apart watching them live in a tv series decades ago.
3) What he bring in term of knowledge and power could potentially turn worse than canon without any benefit for him, or in the wrost case he could even bring the end of the world for real thanks to his fallen angel.

I can understand the shade putting hiver on the spot, but the absence of a rebuttal apart "I'm a coward" just doesn't work for me.
 
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Older-than-Time said:
While I love your passion, unknown internet-person, I have to point out that while we may believe we'd take the risks, since we're not the one experiencing this shit, there's actually a fairly large chance any of us would be doing the same thing. Waffling about on whether or not to butterfly things widely can drastically decrease our chances of survival in a setting where death is all but assured.

Hiver's hesitance is understandable. Detestable from the outside, yes; but ultimately, we can say we would save them but in his place? I'm sad to say we'd hesitate all the same.

Bravery is easy when we're not in his shoes.
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Holycrap Haha No. I'm sure you're right, and that many people would hesitate. I can say for certain that I would NOT. Oh, if this was a matter of personally going in to save the day, I'd be nowhere near the area. I may or may not get up the courage to at least try, at possible cost of life and limb; but no way it would be an easy decision. This, though? No way, jump in with both feet.

What's the worst that happens? Halloween averted, Xander does not know how to make bombs later, Mayor blows up everything. Incidentally, that only happens if you specifically withhold pertinent information, because forewarned is forearmed. They might let Halloween happen anyway, but have someone stay lucid to keep an eye on the town as best as possible to avoid fatal accidents. They might stop the Halloween spell, but look up bomb making in prep for the Mayor way in advance. Either solution would work, more or less.

Of course, there are some things that would turn out better if they don't know. For character growth reasons, or because not knowing is a big part of the process, like with Dawn showing up. But that's hardly any reason to avoid helping where you can.
 
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Phant0m5 said:
Holycrap Haha No. I'm sure you're right, and that many people would hesitate. I can say for certain that I would NOT. Oh, if this was a matter of personally going in to save the day, I'd be nowhere near the area. I may or may not get up the courage to at least try, at possible cost of life and limb; but no way it would be an easy decision. This, though? No way, jump in with both feet.

What's the worst that happens? Halloween averted, Xander does not know how to make bombs later, Mayor blows up everything. Incidentally, that only happens if you specifically withhold pertinent information, because forewarned is forearmed. They might let Halloween happen anyway, but have someone stay lucid to keep an eye on the town as best as possible to avoid fatal accidents. They might stop the Halloween spell, but look up bomb making in prep for the Mayor way in advance.

Of course, there are some things that would turn out better if they don't know. For character growth reasons, or because not knowing is a big part of the process, like with Dawn showing up. But that's hardly any reason to avoid helping where you can.
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I'd like to say I believe you, but this is the Internet. Instead, I'll list some possible consequences to his interference:
- The PTB decide he's interfering with their Big Plan and send one of their Balance Demons to take care of him.
- He does indeed help the Scoobies. In fact, he helps so well that the Council can't have him interfering any longer, send a wetwork team, who put a bullet in his head from a few blocks away
- Spike decides to ambush him and turn him, thus giving the Scoobies a Fallen in a Vamp body (at the very least) to deal with.

There are a few more, but forewarned also means being unable to see the changes you can't have guessed would happen.
 
Malbutorius said:
...

Calling it now Old Man Henderson.
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I can see it now, over that course of the night Old Man Henderson will stop at nothing, not even the horrors of the Hellmouth to find his gnomes.

Will he finally find his gnomes? Or, after the spell wears off will we find the scattered remains of most if not all of the vampires and demons that Buffy would later kill off as part of the Slayer's genocidal war against all things that go bump in the night
 
Henderson would be absolutely hilarious to watch. Think we'd see a repeat of the 'necronomicon bong' incident?
 
Thalton said:
Wow. Ummm. I haven't read dresden files so on a scale of 1 to 10 how truthful is she being.
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jwolfe_beta said:
If memory serves, outright lying is a human thing but entities like her can shade the truth until it basically is a lie.
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That's the Fae. The Fallen can lie and break promises as much as they want. There's consequences, but they can do it if they think the payout will be big enough.
Vox De Harlequin said:
We know she fell for "wanting free will".
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No we don't. That's pretty ridiculous if you think about it. If she didn't have free will she'd be incapable of wanting it. Not just lie, obvious lie.
Gindjurra said:
When your plan absolutely relies on CHAOS MAGIC being predictable and reliable, and failure of your clan could literally kill you, you need to take a step back and get your head on straight. Because it isn't on straight if you can make a plan like that and think it's a good idea.
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To me it seems like a last desperate gamble because the alternatives are death and being twisted into an insane monster.
 
Vox De Harlequin said:
We know she fell for "wanting free will".
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Which is hilariously meaningless. A little mental gymnastics can have that be truthful but referring to literally anything, because any action outside of Angelic nature requires free will so no matter what they wanted to do they wanted free will.

Vox De Harlequin said:
She at least appears to be trying to ingratiate herself to Hiver.
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Which is the 1st step in any Denarian's M.O.

Gindjurra said:
Assuming that everything a Fallen says is a lie is an excellent way to be manipulated by them. Why? Because they are not required to lie all the time, they can tell the truh if they want to. One of the best ways to lie to someone is to tell them something absolutely true in a way that they come to the conclusion you eant -- and every Fallen knows this.

The rule is not that Fallen always lie (or demons always lie), it is that they CAN lie. But they also CAN tell you the truth. Acting as if everything they say is a lie allows them to use reverse psychology on you simply by telling you the truth.
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And why are you quoting me for this? I freely acknowledged that it could be entirely true. It would just not be the whole truth and would still be manipulative. Which is almost exactly what you say here.
 
To me it looks like maybe he is dressing up as the unnamed protagonist of Doom 3 as he was supposedly a completely normal human who survived and stopped an invasion from hell.
 
Gindjurra said:
When your plan absolutely relies on CHAOS MAGIC being predictable and reliable, and failure of your clan could literally kill you, you need to take a step back and get your head on straight. Because it isn't on straight if you can make a plan like that and think it's a good idea.
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If he's really dressing up as Old Man Henderson then there's no way that any self-respecting chaos magic wouldn't take the opportunity to bring forth any increase on the Henderson scale of plot derailment, and the returns are actually so extreme that it's worth the risk, as Old Man Henderson essentially gets new mundane abilities as the plot demands through the power of his unbelievably long absurd 50 year backstory, and is immune to magic induced insanity through a mix of dyslexia, schizophrenia, general mental abnormality, stubborn orneryness, lots of drugs and luck.

He exists in the public consciousness purely by virtue of driving his enemies(read whoever he thinks took his 40 thousand dollars worth of lawn gnomes) before him through sheer audacity, a wide range of eclectic and useful skills including superior abilities in almost anything related to combat, and frequently getting lucky -in a manner that might actually translate over to reality given that the character started out as a role-playing character and thus his absurd luck came from dice rolls and not plot armor.

Though there are major concerns about Henderson not being distinctive enough for the spell to get the character right, or about Henderson killing some or all of the Scoobies(he accidentally, or purposefully kills dozens of player characters and non-hostile side characters/bystanders in game) Henderson actually manages to kill Hastur and cripple the Cthulhu and Hastur cults in a Cthulhu campaign using absurdly MinMaxed normal human abilities.

The GM didn't intend for this to be possible, so I'd think it worth the risk, both of harm to himself, and harm to others, when faced with the sheer number of side character and off-screen deaths present in Sunnydale, and the scale of forces stacked against the MC.

I saw someone on this thread commenting on Henderson, had seen a couple of references to him before, and looked him up.
I looked out upon the internet. It's too late for me. Save yourselves!
 
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Lunatic350 said:
Which is hilariously meaningless. A little mental gymnastics can have that be truthful but referring to literally anything, because any action outside of Angelic nature requires free will so no matter what they wanted to do they wanted free will.
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Whilst the concept of Free Will is never fully explained in Dresden Files, one explanation that I've seen that makes sense, at least to me, is that "Free Will" is the abillity to alter your own basic nature.
In other words, the ability for your True Name to change with time like that of mortals.
The lack of it does not preclude not being able to want it, under this interpretation at least.
It's also the sort of thing any being would want, if only to not be bound by the first person who finds some ancient record of them.

...
Gods Damnit! Why am I the voice of reason here!
This is not something that should happen!
 
Vox De Harlequin said:
Whilst the concept of Free Will is never fully explained in Dresden Files, one explanation that I've seen that makes sense, at least to me, is that "Free Will" is the abillity to alter your own basic nature.
In other words, the ability for your True Name to change with time like that of mortals.
The lack of it does not preclude not being able to want it, under this interpretation at least.
It's also the sort of thing any being would want, if only to not be bound by the first person who finds some ancient record of them.

...
Gods Damnit! Why am I the voice of reason here!
This is not something that should happen!
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That's actually a pretty decent summary of what most of the implications are.

The soul of a mortal is morphic. They can become something new. Angels can't. PIECES of angels can become adorable babies in skulls, but not actual angels.
 
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