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Noblesse Oblige [Znt/SI]

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I gotta admit, I'm kinda getting tired of Henry's 'Hero in his own mind' shit. There's nothing in particular he's doing that is all that unjustified, he's crushing noble power and enabling an absolute ruler and generally paving the way for what will likely be some kind of world where commoners have more rights and nobles aren't trapped in static roles. He's saving Albion. He's doing what he has to do.

But the way he's likely very cognizant of what Isabella's doing in the background, the fact he's probably killed the fathers of numerous little girls and walked away from the consequences without a thought... Whilst involving himself in 'pet projects' like this to a degree that supercedes any rational explanation with the 'heroic' excuse in his own mind of 'a little girl is crying'? That really makes me think less of him.

Like, if he's pulling a shady political maneuver, acknowledge it in his own mind, don't lie to yourself to make it seem more pleasant. If he's not pulling a shady political maneuver, there are a hell of a lot of crying little girls with less exalted ancestry and worse circumstances he's pretty much consistently ignored.
 
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nohat said:
Umm, no. The child of woe significantly weakens Charles claim to the throne because it puts his succession in doubt. Joseph would love her existence, and the threat to Josette's safety would have come from Charles or his own supporters.
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That would be a hell of a lot more convincing if Charles wasn't killed off in canon by Joseph, his wife weren't driven insane by poison intended for Tabitha, and Isabella weren't handing out suicide missions to her cousin on a regular basis. Charles' entire family was in danger from Joseph and Isabella.
 
So, is it just me or is the writing in this story becoming more and more like a translation of an Anime script? I mean, the sentences and dialogue work, technically, but they're getting increasingly... clunky I guess is the word? Am i wrong here? Obviously the source material is an Anime, but Shadesnights previous fics have generally avoided reading like bad translations.
 
drake_azathoth said:
Like seriously, you hid your other daughter away from her psychotic cousin who in canon was sending the legitimate daughter on suicide missions by blackmailing her with your wife's death? The same wife that was driven mad by poison intended for Helene? And you kept Josette safe from the sociopathic King? Bravo, Charles, at least you did right by one of your girls. If there was a coin toss, Josette was the winner.
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Joeseph wasn't king back then. Charlotte was too little, and the mess hasn't spilled. Back then, Joeseph was still the guy who lacked self-esteem and was aware he's the unfavorable brother, hence why, he stepped down from the throne to give the crown to Charles. There was no scheming, he didn't have the heart to play the game.

Charles knew he was the favorable brother... why did you think he followed the tradition? Remember, Joseph's mad scheme mess hasn't happened yet. Because he thought the throne would go to him, that their father would choose him ultimately in the end. Sure there were reasons like his lackeys and compatriots amongst his supporters that would try to get rid Josette in a horrible way, hence another reason to follow the tradition of getting rid the other twin amidst unstable political time.

But shit spilled when their father did not budge and chose Joseph in the end. That hurt Charle's pride, probably a reason he refused the crown when Joseph gave it to him. Of course, that was like a slap in the face for Joseph. The only good thing he could ever do for their country, their family, and for himself, and his brother refused. Continues being a saint.

You know what happens. He died.

After that... that's when the poisoning of Charle's wife happened and Isabella issues sprouting up, Joseph's callous and cold-hearted schemes, and Charlotte forced into suicide mission for the sake of her mother.
 
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Sapphire Basil said:
Joeseph wasn't king back then. Charlotte was too little, and the mess hasn't spilled. Back then, Joeseph was still the guy who lacked self-esteem and was aware he's the unfavorable brother, hence why, he stepped down from the throne to give the crown to Charles. There was no scheming, he didn't have the heart to play the game.

Charles knew he was the favorable brother... why did you think he followed the tradition? Remember, Joseph's mad scheme mess hasn't happened yet. Because he thought the throne would go to him, that their father would choose him ultimately in the end. Sure there were reasons like his lackeys and compatriots amongst his supporters that would try to get rid Josette in a horrible way, hence another reason to follow the tradition of getting rid the other twin amidst unstable political time.

But shit spilled when their father did not budge and chose Joseph in the end. That hurt Charle's pride, probably a reason he refused the crown when Joseph gave it to him. Of course, that was like a slap in the face for Joseph. The only good thing he could ever do for their country, their family, and for himself, and his brother refused.

You know what happens. He died.

After that... that's when the poisoning of Charle's wife happened and Isabella issues sprouting up, Joseph's callous and cold-hearted schemes, and Charlotte forced into suicide mission for the sake of her mother.
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Joseph never offered Charles the crown. Charles did expect to be King, but the reason Joesph snapped and murdered him was because Charles acted like a good sport when the news was broken and gave him his full support like some kind of saint instead of showing the expected jealousy.

(According to Julio's vision inducing spell, Charles actually had a crying meltdown over not getting the crown later.)
 
It's probably the sleep deprivation kicking in, but the way I hope it works out is that the resolution is done in the same way that shade handles most things, via crafting a narrative.

Prefarably it would be through exagerating the truth.

The duke caused this mess. Maybe not through neglect or malice, but he caused it nonetheless and now for all his vaunted righteousness he has to actually earn back Jossette's love. Let Henry sort it out, a slow method of that will ingratiate Henry to Jossette but that's the price the duke must pay if he doesn't intend to lose at least one daughter by his actions again.
 
drake_azathoth said:
I gotta admit, I'm kinda getting tired of Henry's 'Hero in his own mind' shit. There's nothing in particular he's doing that is all that unjustified, he's crushing noble power and enabling an absolute ruler and generally paving the way for what will likely be some kind of world where commoners have more rights and nobles aren't trapped in static roles. He's saving Albion. He's doing what he has to do.

But the way he's likely very cognizant of what Isabella's doing in the background, the fact he's probably killed the fathers of numerous little girls and walked away from the consequences without a thought... Whilst involving himself in 'pet projects' like this to a degree that supercedes any rational explanation with the 'heroic' excuse in his own mind of 'a little girl is crying'? That really makes me think less of him.

Like, if he's pulling a shady political maneuver, acknowledge it in his own mind, don't lie to yourself to make it seem more pleasant. If he's not pulling a shady political maneuver, there are a hell of a lot pf crying little girls with less exalted ancestry and worse circumstances he's pretty much consistently ignored.
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Hear, hear.
I honestly agree with your statement here.
Though, let me add my own ramblings.
I felt that the reason on why Henry felt like this is because he see himself as the main character of this 'story'.
You know how main character in most anime stories be, always save the little cute girls, killing bad men, do stuff for the 'greater good'.
And Henry right now, is suffering that main character syndrome.
Truth be told, I honestly want to meet someone that will finally call that shit out. Because right now, Henry is surrounded by people who love him and let him do anything he wants.
He needs a rival, a rival that will know and call out his flaws.
Because if he keep having this mindset, he will likely start slipping at the slippery slope here.
 
MinorGryph said:
Joseph never offered Charles the crown. Charles did expect to be King, but the reason Joesph snapped and murdered him was because Charles acted like a good sport when the news was broken and gave him his full support like some kind of saint instead of showing the expected jealousy.

(According to Julio's vision inducing spell, Charles actually had a crying meltdown over not getting the crown later.)
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Oops.

But yeah, it was after Joseph's coronation that shit went down for Charles and his family. Long after the birth of Charlotte and Josette when Charles still thought he would inherit the throne.

In summary, no... it wasn't really Joseph's own fault that Josette was ignored. That was Charles decision alone, that was Charles who still believe the Crown would go to him.

We can blame the politics back then, how Charles supporters would try to help solidify his hold on the throne by getting rid of Josette, but ultimately Charles chose to play the game and so he made a choice to get rid the other twin.
 
drake_azathoth said:
That really depends on what exactly Henry does and how it impacts Charles.

Henry isn't the Child Protective Services, Josette isn't truly abused, and Henry's right to interfere with Josette's upbringing is severely limited by any rational cultural lens. Screwing with people's family is pretty damn intolerable- the fact a little girl cries does not give you the wherewithal to take her away from her parents, not even if you're the Prince-Consort or the Queen. Such is pretty much a declaration of personal vendetta AND likely to turn most of the other nobles in the country against you.

For example, in canon, Louise was TERRIFIED of her mother... Convincing Louise to run away from her would be plausible. But can you imagine how Karin the Heavy Wind would react if Guiche persuaded her to leave the Academy, renounce her title and family, and be adopted by the Gramonts?

All that completely leaves aside the fact that Charles probably hid Josette away to keep her safe from Joseph and his lackies. Neither Isabella nor Henry bring this up, but it is both the most likely and least painful rationale. I'm honestly not sure why, it may be impolitic and rather frightening to explain given the circumstances, but it would explain a lot and it's the truth. Hell, if I were Charles, I wouldn't even want Helene around Isabella. Bitch be crazy.

Like seriously, you hid your other daughter away from her psychotic cousin who in canon was sending the legitimate daughter on suicide missions by blackmailing her with your wife's death? The same wife that was driven mad by poison intended for Helene? And you kept Josette safe from the sociopathic King? Bravo, Charles, at least you did right by one of your girls. If there was a coin toss, Josette was the winner.
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Okay, first off I'm not going to argue that Josette unquestionably came out the winner in canon, that's completely clear.

Still, a great deal of the argument you present relies on hindsight, which can't be used to justify a character/person's actions unless they can see the future. Sure, we know what would have happened to Josette in canon, but Charles couldn't know that he was protecting his daughter rather than abandoning her. That was probably the rationalization that let he and his wife sleep at night and is probably true to a certain extent, but there's also the undeniable fact that the twins were political baggage. One of them had to go.

I'm not saying it was an easy choice, or even a bad one...but it should be taken into account that Charles had no idea how a daughter he gave up would turn out beyond being denied the advantages the one he kept had.

Your point about it not being Henry's place to interfere in these matters is very apt, however. He really shouldn't be borrowing trouble at a time like this, even to stop a little girl crying.

As much as my heart goes out to Josette in this situation, though, I'm also of the opinion that Henry should convince her to give it a go for a few more years until she's closer to being present with that title. She's a teenager at this point, and really shouldn't be making decisions about her future like this. She's only had...what? A year, maybe two, with her parents? Maybe ask for a vacation or two away from them to clear her head, maybe ask to go to the Academy of Tristain?

If, in a few years, Josette still has the same opinions, then she can follow-through with the fallen noble plan.

That will at least give her some time to learn occupational skills so she won't have to be a dependent.
 
shadenight123 said:
Controlling the mind of another person-how slippery of a slope could that be? Even then-it needed a corpse, didn't it? And only the Mind of God could do such a thing. How could I convince her? And if I unleashed her, then...what would I say? That it wouldn't be my fault? Or that it would?
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It might be fairly easy to convince her, just stopping her on the other hand from continuing down this slippery path is the real problem.

Because once you realize you can bring the dead back to life you start to want to help other people who had family or relatives who died and are still emotionally hurting from it.

If you keep going down this path you start to realize how easy it would be just to kill everyone so you can revive them so no one would suffer such heartbreak.
 
AZATHOTHoth said:
It might be fairly easy to convince her, just stopping her on the other hand from continuing down this slippery path is the real problem.

Because once you realize you can bring the dead back to life you start to want to help other people who had family or relatives who died and are still emotionally hurting from it.

If you keep going down this path you start to realize how easy it would be just to kill everyone so you can revive them so no one would suffer such heartbreak.
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is it really murder if they get better afterwords? Of course not, merely assault. Don't let the Supernatural Ku Klux Klan(the proper term for hunters) tell you otherwise.
 
Cold Burn said:
is it really murder if they get better afterwords? Of course not, merely assault. Don't let the Supernatural Ku Klux Klan(the proper term for hunters) tell you otherwise.
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Except that they really, really don't get better afterwards- quite frankly, being a mind controlled zombie is worse than being dead.

So really, the charge list would look something like this:
X counts of:
*Murder(It's still theft if you give it back afterwards)
*Necromancy(because any civilization that doesn't consider this illegal and/or Obvious Rule Patch it in needs to rethink itself- Also, illegal by Brimiric rules)
*Premeditated Mental Trauma(Can't really think a better way to put this, but if the person's still in there, it'd probably be quite traumatizing)
*Slavery(Because it's fucking mind control.)
 
CaesriusPolybius said:
Except that they really, really don't get better afterwards- quite frankly, being a mind controlled zombie is worse than being dead.

So really, the charge list would look something like this:
X counts of:
*Murder(It's still theft if you give it back afterwards)
*Necromancy(because any civilization that doesn't consider this illegal and/or Obvious Rule Patch it in needs to rethink itself- Also, illegal by Brimiric rules)
*Premeditated Mental Trauma(Can't really think a better way to put this, but if the person's still in there, it'd probably be quite traumatizing)
*Slavery(Because it's fucking mind control.)
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Sure it's still theft if you return the item afterwords. Protip: doing that via breakin is hilarious. But murder is ending a life when the governing body of your did not expressly OK the action. The thing is though that 'ending' means that it did not 'continue' beyond that point. Otherwise you 'paused' their life. Much like in a movie, or a book. And 'pausing' lives is not murder because that is what 'ending' lives is. Now if you had to inflict injury on a person in order to pause their life you are still guilty of assault and battery but not 'murder' because they did not die.

Also I can think of fully functioning and, in many ways, idealistic societies which used animated corpses for their unskilled manual labor needs. After all that is much better than simply letting the body rot and instead resorting a working class is it not? Or does the word 'slave' bother you less than 'ghoul'?
 
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That ring needs to remain at the bottom of the lake. No good can come from that plot device, so don't even think about using it.
 
Cold Burn said:
Sure its still theft if you return the item afterwords. Protip: doing that is hilarious. But murder is ending a life when the governing body of your did not expressly OK the action. The thing is though that 'ending' means that it did not 'continue' beyond that point. Otherwise you 'paused' their life. Much like in a movie, or a book. And 'pausing' lives is not murder because that is what 'ending' lives is. Now if you had to inflict injury on a person in order to pause their life you are still guilty of assault and battery but not 'murder' because they did not die.
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Okay, at this point we're just arguing the semantics of what 'death' means, an argument that has been done by better people elsewhere. I'm not getting into that. Even then, you'll still need to tack an 'attempted homicide' onto that 'assault and battery' charge; in any other situation, whatever you're doing to them would result in an uncontestable case of 'death', and you're then going to use a never-within-properly-recorded-history method to bring them back. If anything at all were to go wrong, and they were not brought back, it would inevitably be bumped up to 'negligent homicide' at the best.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm on a watchlist of some sort, now, since I just googled the definitions of killing, death, murder, attempted murder, homicide, attempted manslaughter, manslaughter, legally dead, and when a person is considered legally dead.

Also I can think of fully functioning and, in many ways, idealistic societies which used animated corpses for their unskilled manual labor needs. After all that is much better than simply letting the body rot and instead resorting a working class is it not? Or does the word 'slave' bother you less than 'ghoul'?
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Personally, it's a matter of sapience and volition; animated corpses are... well, there's a different set of issues there(that I'm not going to get into), but in this context they aren't too bad. However, when they're as close to sapient as they appear to be with the Ragdoran spirit's Ring working, well. If they're sapient but unable to act of their own volition, it's slavery no matter what other words you use instead. If they're not sapient but still interact well enough to appear to be, you need to check for sapience again. You may be proven right, you may be proven wrong, but if a quick double-check causes significant problems, you may be relying on them too much. If they're truly not sapient, we're back to the aforementioned issues with generic animated corpses.

Also, Golems and even well-treated commoners have better upkeep costs than zombies. More efficient (and less soul-crushing to those who are sentimental) to just bury or cremate than to have to deal with the masses that actually respect the memories they have of the dead enough to not make a robot out of their corpse.
 
Couch-Gamer said:
When did this happen? I don't think he asked Isabella or anyone else to get the ring for him.
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At the same time as when he demanded she steal for him the Staff of Destruction, Tristain's black ops records/top secret magic, the Founder's prayer book, and various other plot relevant items (Derflinger was probaly on that list if he continued).
shadenight123 said:
I nodded, and pulled out from within my sleeve a couple dozen of parchments with the drawings of the magic academy of Tristain. "There will be a need for the Staff of Destruction from within the treasury of the Tristain's School of Magic, documents from within its secret archives and a ring held by a Water spirit within the depths of the Ragdorian lake," I awkwardly flipped a page, "Also, the Royal Tristain Treasury possesses the Founder's Holy Book, the original copy which is utterly blank-"
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Don't worry, the power of yandere will handwave any consequences for stealing this much shit from an allied country. Isabella won't let her darling Henry want for anything- if he feels homesick, then she'll bring Tristain to him piece by piece!
 
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shadenight123 said:
I could and would help her if the need arose, but perhaps if a solution could be found, one that made everyone happy-
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Checklist:

1. Excessive desire to see the impossible dream of "A happy ending for everyone"

2. Repeatedly sticks one's head into situations that have a high chance of killing them.

3. Magic mass produces swords and flings them at high speed.

Conclusion:

Yep. Shade is suffering Shirou Syndrome.
 
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