Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

[Kaizuki]

If they aren't suffering from being denied their eternal rest which also doesn't have suffering, why does it matter?

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Y'know, I guess this might have more impact coming from me?

I talked with Firn at length during the lock about all kinds of non-spoiler things. And we were discussing the post he was planning on making (which became the post that he did make) regarding the thread. And in the draft of that, he had this:

You may call it railroading or not, but frankly, I've made mistakes with how I've handled this situation, and I apologise for that.

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And my reply to that was this:

I have no idea what mistakes were made on your end w/ rionna possibly because i really just tend to accept it when you give WoGs
so Ima shrug at that part

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And then Firn replied with this:

I could have been clearer, up front.
in my writing, that is.
Instead of escalating.
I know how important first reactions are.

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me:

about what? (...)

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Firn:

about the kind of person she is IC, yeah

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So, let me paint you the picture that I understand here, Conjured.

Firn was incredibly fucking busy for most of a month or so, covering basically the entire time he was writing Rionna. It showed everywhere, especially in the wordcounts, IMO -- recall how every Rionna post was, like, 900 words max? Yeah. And then it also apparently showed up in places it wasn't obvious to us -- we tend to think of Firn's writing as being infallible, because his writing is frankly amazing and he tends to have very complex and yet very consistent characters.

So, let me reiterate, Firn was massively busy, Firn would like to have been clearer in his writing... a massive debate over whether Rionna is "ok" or not pops up... Firn writes a post saying "don't try to excuse Rionna's actions."

I'm also going to tell you this: Firn extensively considered just outright retconning Rionna's posts.

Do you... kind of understand what I'm getting at, here?

Firn doesn't railroad for the sake of railroading: he's Firn, he's a badass, he doesn't need to railroad us. When Firn went out and said "don't try to excuse Rionna's actions" he was trying to make up for authorial... not necessarily error, per se, but a misstep in the writing. He meant for it to be clear that Rionna's actions were inexcusable, but wrote the relevant posts during a time when he was under a ton of stress and didn't have lots of free time, and ended up not painting that picture as well as he would have liked to.

So he tried to correct for it, and then... that stuff happened.

That's my understanding, here.

... Implicit in this is that Rionna's actions are not supposed to be excusable, btw.

 

[OctarineShrike]

Y'know, I guess this might have more impact coming from me?

I talked with Firn at length during the lock about all kinds of non-spoiler things. And we were discussing the post he was planning on making (which became the post that he did make) regarding the thread. And in the draft of that, he had this:



And my reply to that was this:



And then Firn replied with this:



me:



Firn:



So, let me paint you the picture that I understand here, Conjured.

Firn was incredibly fucking busy for most of a month or so, covering basically the entire time he was writing Rionna. It showed everywhere, especially in the wordcounts, IMO -- recall how every Rionna post was, like, 900 words max? Yeah. And then it also apparently showed up in places it wasn't obvious to us -- we tend to think of Firn's writing as being infallible, because his writing is frankly amazing and he tends to have very complex and yet very consistent characters.

So, let me reiterate, Firn was massively busy, Firn would like to have been clearer in his writing... a massive debate over whether Rionna is "ok" or not pops up... Firn writes a post saying "don't try to excuse Rionna's actions."

I'm also going to tell you this: Firn extensively considered just outright retconning Rionna's posts.

Do you... kind of understand what I'm getting at, here?

Firn doesn't railroad for the sake of railroading: he's Firn, he's a badass, he doesn't need to railroad us. When Firn went out and said "don't try to excuse Rionna's actions" he was trying to make up for authorial... not necessarily error, per se, but a misstep in the writing. He meant for it to be clear that Rionna's actions were inexcusable, but wrote the relevant posts during a time when he was under a ton of stress and didn't have lots of free time, and ended up not painting that picture as well as he would have liked to.

So he tried to correct for it, and then... that stuff happened.

That's my understanding, here.

... Implicit in this is that Rionna's actions are not supposed to be excusable, btw.

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Fair. I thought I acknowledged that with the "terrible, perhaps justified yet should not be excused" thing I said in an earlier post and my talk of Stannising her/fine lines(Edit: I realized I'm not sure I said anything about fine lines, what I meant was

Puella Magi Adfligo Systema | Page 5754

A route that simultaneously understands her past actions were perhaps justified yet does not excuse them because they were farked up too.

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)

Edit: Apparently Firn was going for something worse I just realized you may have been getting at?

My current perception is or was something like.

1. She's Vlad the Impaler in a Hobbesian state of nature.
2. She's judging people/being a vigilante while her incentive structure rewards killing and from a Deontological standpoint that's terrible/should not be ignored.
3. There's a nebulously definable suffering independent desecration factor to what she does(This is what I think people are appealing to when they say actual souls) that I can concede may be problematic from a Deontological standpoint but if I can't fully grasp it I may as well just be calling it icky so it just fades off into the background in favor of her judging people while having a bad incentive structure for judging people.
3.5. The suffering of her shades is an unknown quantity. If they are suffering, that is a basis for signficantly more harsh judgment as the distinction between her and Kyubey gets blurry. This line of thought is heavily predicated on the assumption the state of her shades is as Riona says, they aren't suffering, that they're basically Blindsight zombies.
4. The Utilitarian Side of ethics and the desire to minimize suffering throws all of this into morally gray/perhaps justified territory assuming her shades don't suffer.
4.1. Prisoners are people you need to keep cleansed in a Sabrinaless world
4.2. A kill is finite suffering, a witch is infinite suffering.(Edit: Not sure if this point is redundant or not)
4.3. People who go around witching magical girls should be judged for condemning others to infinite suffering. People should know a judge exists for the sake of deterrence/fewer magical girls being forcibly witched.
4.4. [Seymour from FFX Grade Nihilistic insanity warning]Every magical girl claimed is a magical girl spared the infinite agony of witchification(Of course this assumes her shades aren't suffering).

 

[mCooperative]

(Random thought from a few days ago: The invisitext messages we've found. At least one of them, I'm pretty sure, is straight up one of the messages that flash on the screen randomly thorough Rebellion. Maybe that's what those messages are, cards that flash by throughout the play. Being a humanized Walpurgisnacht, a script-power-related entity, would explain why we can see them?)

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I noticed this awhile back (I think I posted it as an aside here somewhere, but I don't entirely remember) when I was rewatching Rebellion; yes, yes there's at least one of those invisitext messages that are very much one of the random Rebellion pop-up messages. The question of who they come from and why we can see them though... **shrug**

 

[Kaizuki]

Fair. I thought I acknowledged that with the "terrible, perhaps justified yet should not be excused" thing I said in an earlier post and my talk of Stannising her/fine lines.

Edit: Apparently Firn was going for something worse I just realized you may have been getting at?

My current perception is or was something like.

1. She's Vlad the Impaler in a Hobbesian state of nature.
2. She's judging people/being a vigilante while her incentive structure rewards killing and from a Deontological standpoint that's terrible/should not be ignored.
3. There's a nebulously definable suffering independent desecration factor to what she does(This is what I think people are appealing to when they say actual souls) that I can concede may be problematic from a Deontological standpoint but if I can't fully grasp it I may as well just be calling it icky so it just fades off into the background in favor of her judging people while having a bad incentive structure for judging people.
3.5. The suffering of her shades is an unknown quantity. If they are suffering, that is a basis for signficantly more harsh judgment as the distinction between her and Kyubey gets blurry. This line of thought is heavily predicated on the assumption the state of her shades is as Riona says, they aren't suffering, that they're basically Blindsight zombies.
4. The Utilitarian Side of ethics and the desire to minimize suffering throws all of this into morally gray/perhaps justified territory assuming her shades don't suffer.
4.1. Prisoners are people you need to keep cleansed in a Sabrinaless world
4.2. A kill is finite suffering, a witch is infinite suffering.
4.3. People who go around witching magical girls should be judged for condemning others to infinite suffering. People should know a judge exists for the sake of deterrence/fewer magical girls being forcibly witched.
4.4. [Seymour from FFX Grade Nihilistic insanity warning]Every magical girl claimed is a magical girl spared the infinite agony of witchification(Of course this assumes her shades aren't suffering).

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Listen, so, yeah, basically: the implication of what was said is that Firn's post telling us not to try to paint Rionna as having acted acceptably was basically Firn saying "I really didn't mean to leave it up for questioning whether Rionna was being evil or not. What's she's doing is evil, guys, sorry if I didn't make that clear."

Keep in mind that the point when he posted that was also during the time he was incredibly busy. Sucks to be firn eh? *pats firn*

Do you kind of remember that part where people were arguing (or verging on doing so) that Sabrina's perceiving the keeping of shades as Bad Bad was indicating that the shades were suffering? My expectation is that Firn wishes he'd just had Rionna say "my shades are suffering" instead of kind of roundabout having Sabrina perceive the keeping of shades as Bad Bad. But it might just as well be the part where Rionna was talking about how she "makes examples" of some magical girls, yeah?

The #1 point here is that it's heavily implied that when Firn said we shouldn't debate Rionna's actions' morality, what he really meant was "I wish I'd made it fully clear that Rionna's actions are evil."

The #2 point is that things will probably clear up in the near future, as Firn has said he's going to do some railroading to fix this and that might, for example, involve Rionna basically going "lookit me im an evil bitch."

The #3 point is that arguing the morality question right now is probably a really terrible idea, because it'd almost certainly be a better idea to wait until after next post -- I think.


Is any of this guaranteed? Ummmm... Kind of? I mean, I got Firn to okay the previous post. That doesn't guarantee it's 100% correct, just that he didn't mind me posting it. But I can guarantee two things for you:

1) Firn is a good and generally honest man, who doesn't engage in anything approaching intentional railroading without a really good reason, and the reason he's verbally given us ATM is that he feels he has fucked this up recently, by "not being clear enough up front."

2) He posted this after this first threadlock:

More importantly, some argue over the heinousness of Rionna's actions. Let me make this clear from an out of character position: Do not try and excuse her actions. You can justify them, perhaps, that she's working under a horrible system. She is, and so are Sabrina's friends. However, Rionna has done terrible things. She has not so far displayed any remorse for it. Don't try and both-sides the issue - it's not an acceptable thing to do in political discourse nor here. You're entitled to question her further, yes, or speculate that she might be faking or bluffing or whatnot. But she has absolutely done horrible things.

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So... yeah. It's a very reasonable assumption that 1) and 2) are linked to the same thing, and if that assumption is made, then... yeah.

Sorry if I'm rambling atm? It's late.

 

[OctarineShrike]

Listen, so, yeah, basically: the implication of what was said is that Firn's post telling us not to try to paint Rionna as having acted acceptably was basically Firn saying "I really didn't mean to leave it up for questioning whether Rionna was being evil or not. What's she's doing is evil, guys, sorry if I didn't make that clear."

Keep in mind that the point when he posted that was also during the time he was incredibly busy. Sucks to be firn eh? *pats firn*

Do you kind of remember that part where people were arguing (or verging on doing so) that Sabrina's perceiving the keeping of shades as Bad Bad was indicating that the shades were suffering? My expectation is that Firn wishes he'd just had Rionna say "my shades are suffering" instead of kind of roundabout having Sabrina perceive the keeping of shades as Bad Bad. But it might just as well be the part where Rionna was talking about how she "makes examples" of some magical girls, yeah?

The #1 point here is that it's heavily implied that when Firn said we shouldn't debate Rionna's actions' morality, what he really meant was "I wish I'd made it fully clear that Rionna's actions are evil."

The #2 point is that things will probably clear up in the near future, as Firn has said he's going to do some railroading to fix this and that might, for example, involve Rionna basically going "lookit me im an evil bitch."

The #3 point is that arguing the morality question right now is probably a really terrible idea, because it'd almost certainly be a better idea to wait until after next post -- I think.


Is any of this guaranteed? Ummmm... Kind of? I mean, I got Firn to okay the previous post. That doesn't guarantee it's 100% correct, just that he didn't mind me posting it. But I can guarantee two things for you:

1) Firn is a good and generally honest man, who doesn't engage in anything approaching intentional railroading without a really good reason, and the reason he's verbally given us ATM is that he feels he has fucked this up recently, by "not being clear enough up front."

2) He posted this after this first threadlock:



So... yeah.

Sorry if I'm rambling atm? It's late.

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So Firn was going for something worse then "Terrible, perhaps justified yet should not be excused even if it is justified" then. Oh well. I should probably try and go to bed. Good night.

 

[The Narrator]

Well, Joan of Arc did ascend herself to Valhalla instead of witching, despite the fact that Madokami wasn't a thing in that iteration of the universe and Madoka wasn't going to be born for several centuries.

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I'm pretty sure that the only thing that's evidence of is that the writers of the manga spin-offs have no idea what they're doing.

 

[Spectral Waltz]

As I've said, I'm waiting on Firn's next story post right now.

I think the overall message is that Rionna is Irredeemably Capital E 'Evil' and we maybe should have just gone for the kill/gem somewhere between three and five posts ago, but I'm not about to put a stake in that prematurely. It does feel like we've been making something resembling progress towards turning her around in the last few posts, but for all I know we've just been spinning our wheels with only the appearance of actual progress.

So yeah, wait and see, not gonna jump to any conclusions.

 

[The Narrator]

If there's information that @Firnagzen wants us to have to influence our decision making process, I'm not comfortable receiving it secondhand.

And if that was his intent, then it's not just the last few updates that didn't communicate it well, because when we asked Nadia if Rionna was a bad guy, she implied that she wasn't.

 

[DB_Explorer]

I for one viewed/view Rionna has someone how has done heinous and frankly unforgivable thing BUT she's in extreme circumstances (along with every MG that knows the witch bomb) so it becomes a matter of getting her to stop NOW if possible and preferably peacefully.

If she says no.... well then thats when we continue negotiations by.... other means.

Still at this point i kinda want to see what the next post has and would perfer a vote that ge5s her to opinion on clear seeds, the happy magiced seeds and dewitching. Frankly if NONE of that elicits any type of compromise attempts from her she too far gone.

 

[Kaizuki]

If there's information that @Firnagzen wants us to have to influence our decision making process, I'm not comfortable receiving it secondhand.

And if that was his intent, then it's not just the last few updates that didn't communicate it well, because when we asked Nadia if Rionna was a bad guy, she implied that she wasn't.

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Narrator?

More importantly, some argue over the heinousness of Rionna's actions. Let me make this clear from an out of character position: Do not try and excuse her actions. You can justify them, perhaps, that she's working under a horrible system. She is, and so are Sabrina's friends. However, Rionna has done terrible things. She has not so far displayed any remorse for it. Don't try and both-sides the issue - it's not an acceptable thing to do in political discourse nor here. You're entitled to question her further, yes, or speculate that she might be faking or bluffing or whatnot. But she has absolutely done horrible things.

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I don't really feel like you made a reasonable response to my previous post, and it's a little -- well, actually, a lot -- hurtful. When I finished my post by quoting the part where Firnagzen specifically firsthand laid out in a threadmark under informational, at the end of a threadlock, that Rionna "has done horrible things" and "has not so far displayed any remorse for it", I didn't really expect the response to read "If that's true I'm not comfortable being told it secondhand, and if it was his intent, then it's not just the last few updates that didn't communicate it well." I can understand wanting the QM to say things up front, although I'd have liked a bit of leniency -- I was only saying any of it because I felt like I could soothe the thread with an act of clear communication. But, isn't it a little much to ignore my quoted firsthand source and throw mud at my argument? I mean, I'd like to think that Firn communicated pretty well in that quote that Rionna has been a "bad guy" -- and more importantly, because my thinking on that is certainly an opinion, I'd like to posit as basically a fact that that quote at least deserves a reply as part of any counterargument to me. Isn't it a little absurd to ignore the part where Firnagzen talked about how Rionna "has done horrible things" and "has not so far displayed any remorse for it" when it comes to talking about his intent and his success at communicating things in the last few updates? After all, it's not like the threadmark which includes that quote didn't trigger a thread notification when it was posted, and it's not like you're new here. Honestly, I was very surprised to see this response from you under those circumstances. Are you alright?

 

[DB_Explorer]

Thought - I think we should try to get something out of this meeting even if we get metaphorically burned becuase any info we get on clear seeds etc could help with dewitching. In my opinion making tea with a figurative devil is worth it if it advances that cause - so long as we remember who/what we are dealing with.

But I am of the mind were dewitching is an ends that allows a great deal in way of means. Main expections being actions that would create witches.

 

[Vebyast]

If there's information that @Firnagzen wants us to have to influence our decision making process, I'm not comfortable receiving it secondhand.

And if that was his intent, then it's not just the last few updates that didn't communicate it well, because when we asked Nadia if Rionna was a bad guy, she implied that she wasn't.

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If the part that you're complaining about is that you didn't know that Firn was swamped by conference deadlines and that that led you to analyze his writing wrongly, I sympathize, but I don't think that demanding that he publish his calendar and keep everyone updated on his workload is a reasonable solution, nor can you demand that he stop talking to his friends. Perhaps you could demand that all of his friends recuse themselves, but he's sufficiently friendly and this quest has run long enough that by now such a requirement would leave the quest with only a couple of participants. Instead, I'll just note that Kaizuki's conclusions were perfectly reachable from external observation: the Rionna updates were short, it took Firn more than a week to write the post-lock update, and Firn hasn't posted since then despite the importance of this period to PMAS.

 

[Firnagzen]

@The Narrator
Well, I actually planned to work on it with the next actual story post. Kai came to me asking for permission, since I was chatting with him about it - I granted it. Ultimately, clarification is coming in the next update. Rionna has done terrible, terrible things, and doesn't regret them. There's room to try and redeem or rehabilitate her, yes, but not to excuse her.

Now, the thing about Nadia is that she's seen some shit. Rionna isn't a mass murderer, doesn't mass oppress magical girls. The University Group and the Sendai Group, for example, wouldn't even have been blips to Nadia. And Nadia isn't omniscient. She can only know of the big things - Rionna quietly wandering off to execute a magical girl or two here and there? That's not something Nadia might know about unless she hears about it from elsewhere. Keep in mind she doesn't really stay in any given location for long enough to find out about this kind of thing! However, I agree that the implications Nadia left weren't conducive to this current confrontation. That's one of my mistakes. I could have implied Nadia's unreliability in this kind of situation before.

 

[Vebyast]

@The Narrator
Well, I actually planned to work on it with the next actual story post. Kai came to me asking for permission, since I was chatting with him about it - I granted it. Ultimately, clarification is coming in the next update. Rionna has done terrible, terrible things, and doesn't regret them. There's room to try and redeem or rehabilitate her, yes, but not to excuse her.

Now, the thing about Nadia is that she's seen some shit. Rionna isn't a mass murderer, doesn't mass oppress magical girls. The University Group and the Sendai Group, for example, wouldn't even have been blips to Nadia. And Nadia isn't omniscient. She can only know of the big things - Rionna quietly wandering off to execute a magical girl or two here and there? That's not something Nadia might know about unless she hears about it from elsewhere. Keep in mind she doesn't really stay in any given location for long enough to find out about this kind of thing! However, I agree that the implications Nadia left weren't conducive to this current confrontation. That's one of my mistakes. I could have implied Nadia's unreliability in this kind of situation before.

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Honestly? I'm going to disagree with you about this. The thread reacted so strongly to her that there were calls from normally-reasonable people to gem her on the spot. Well, okay, half of the thread reacted the way they were supposed to. You did not fail to convey that Rionna was a monster, nor did you fail to clarify that she was a monster in your word-of-Firn. You could have said so more directly, or put more effort into making your statements bulletproof and irrefutable, but you certainly were not negligent and it is not your fault that people found excuses for ignoring your message.

 

[Briefvoice]

Popping back into the thread because Firn posted and it triggered an alert for me.

I've been thinking about whether I wanted to say this and I guess I will. I can only speak for myself, but it makes me a little uncomfortable to have some QM telling me what as a reader I should think about matters of morality and crimes and what I should or shouldn't excuse. If the declaration is "the character of Sabrina will not excuse this no matter what you vote" then that's fine. It's a character and she has her own thoughts and feelings and it's meant as a restriction on the vote.

Sabrina can think whatever she wants. I'll decide what I think of Rionna's actions for myself when I know the full story.

 

[Spectral Waltz]

@The Narrator
Well, I actually planned to work on it with the next actual story post. Kai came to me asking for permission, since I was chatting with him about it - I granted it. Ultimately, clarification is coming in the next update. Rionna has done terrible, terrible things, and doesn't regret them. There's room to try and redeem or rehabilitate her, yes, but not to excuse her.

Click to shrink...

My only issue is that you have been talking like clarifying this is meant to resolve things but... This doesn't really change much? I think we've all accepted that Rionna has done terrible things, we're more focused on the why and the how (if at all) can we redeem her?

Eh, maybe I'm just overthinking it, but this doesn't seem much clearer than it was before.

 

[Vebyast]

Sabrina can think whatever she wants. I'll decide what I think of Rionna's actions for myself when I know the full story.

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Firnagzen did not tell you that she was evil. He told you that she was not masking her true feelings when she cheerfully admitted to murdering muggles and probably dozens of magical girls without the defense of having decided they "deserved it" nor the concern to even consider that kind of question.

 

[The Narrator]

@The Narrator
Well, I actually planned to work on it with the next actual story post.

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I appreciate that. My concern was that a poster seemed to be implying, "QM told me in a private chat that we should vote a certain way," and that's a bit unfair to the rest of us, because we're basically cut out of the decision-making process. Looking at it more closely, that's not quite what Kai said, but it kind of came off that way.

My only issue is that you have been talking like clarifying this is meant to resolve things but... This doesn't really change much? I think we've all accepted that Rionna has done terrible things, we're more focused on the why and the how (if at all) can we redeem her?

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We've engaged in diplomacy with a lot of people who have done terrible things and tried to redeem them. I don't want to have to functionally execute or lobotomize this girl if there's an alternative.

 

[redzonejoe]

>.>
<.<

Yeah I'm not getting anywhere near this discussion again.

 

[Briefvoice]

Firnagzen did not tell you that she was evil. He told you that she was not masking her true feelings when she cheerfully admitted to murdering muggles and probably dozens of magical girls without the defense of having decided they "deserved it" nor the concern to even consider that kind of question.

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This is the actual quote:

More importantly, some argue over the heinousness of Rionna's actions. Let me make this clear from an out of character position: Do not try and excuse her actions. You can justify them, perhaps, that she's working under a horrible system. She is, and so are Sabrina's friends. However, Rionna has done terrible things. She has not so far displayed any remorse for it. Don't try and both-sides the issue - it's not an acceptable thing to do in political discourse nor here. You're entitled to question her further, yes, or speculate that she might be faking or bluffing or whatnot. But she has absolutely done horrible things.

Click to shrink...

 

[angelofwhim]

Argggggg please be kind to each otheerrrrrrrrr pleasee!!!

Nice Sabrina! Nice!

 

[Vebyast]

This is the actual quote:

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...

Rionna isn't a mass murderer

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"Just" a normal murderer.

Rionna quietly wandering off to execute a magical girl or two here and there?

Click to shrink...

Rionna has absolutely wandered off and executed magical girls here and there.

Rionna has done terrible, terrible things, and doesn't regret them.

Click to shrink...

Rionna has done terrible, terrible things, and doesn't regret them.

 

[DB_Explorer]

Vebyast does have a point in half the thread wanting to gem her straight off or something equivalent. My own confusion with events @Firnagzen was that each post seemed to lead no where and provided few ques on how to approach the situation. In real life I have body language and the like to help get an idea of the other persons responses to what I am saying.

Here it was just her throwing her actions in our face and saying we could not judge her. I actually thought she was being undiplomatic on purpose due to how brazen she was. Like she was trying to start shit. Hence my theory that she was pushing us away for fear of shattering what self justifications she had given herself.

For me at least I knew she was evil but I decided dealing with her due to her unique skill set would be worth if it could advance dewitching or clear seed research.

I just had no idea how to get to making said deal with her being belligerent. I am and was left wondering why she even came if this is what she was going to act like.

Thats my feedback on the posts.

 

[Kaizuki]

I appreciate that. My concern was that a poster seemed to be implying, "QM told me in a private chat that we should vote a certain way," and that's a bit unfair to the rest of us, because we're basically cut out of the decision-making process. Looking at it more closely, that's not quite what Kai said, but it kind of came off that way.



We've engaged in diplomacy with a lot of people who have done terrible things and tried to redeem them. I don't want to have to functionally execute or lobotomize this girl if there's an alternative.

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Excuse me, but would it be too much to ask for an apology? You leveled some pretty serious accusations against me there.

Popping back into the thread because Firn posted and it triggered an alert for me.

I've been thinking about whether I wanted to say this and I guess I will. I can only speak for myself, but it makes me a little uncomfortable to have some QM telling me what as a reader I should think about matters of morality and crimes and what I should or shouldn't excuse. If the declaration is "the character of Sabrina will not excuse this no matter what you vote" then that's fine. It's a character and she has her own thoughts and feelings and it's meant as a restriction on the vote.

Sabrina can think whatever she wants. I'll decide what I think of Rionna's actions for myself when I know the full story.

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I would suggest you scroll up to the top of this page and read the first few posts on it. I think you may find it very informative.

This isn't intended as a snipe against you or anything: I simply know you stay out of the thread most of the time.

 

[HeroCycle]

I don't think any amount of practice will turn other grief powers into our powers- they're not a martial art, they're conceptual powers of the soul.

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Fun fact - some established meditation and martial arts traditions explicitly claim on paper to use techniques that move or develop the soul or spirit. In a more practical sense, we have some IC examples or improving magic through practice. If the 'false' Grief mover can only take Grief from one Soul and dump it in another - that proves they have a minor kinesis over Grief. To succeed, we only need to teach enchanting a safe location for the Grief, not our full powerset. Thus, I ask that experiments happen to define if we can actually upgrade a girl with low-tier Grief powers.

Fair. I thought I acknowledged that with the "terrible, perhaps justified yet should not be excused" thing I said in an earlier post and my talk of Stannising her/fine lines(Edit: I realized I'm not sure I said anything about fine lines, what I meant was

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)

Edit: Apparently Firn was going for something worse I just realized you may have been getting at?

My current perception is or was something like.

1. She's Vlad the Impaler in a Hobbesian state of nature.
2. She's judging people/being a vigilante while her incentive structure rewards killing and from a Deontological standpoint that's terrible/should not be ignored.
3. There's a nebulously definable suffering independent desecration factor to what she does(This is what I think people are appealing to when they say actual souls) that I can concede may be problematic from a Deontological standpoint but if I can't fully grasp it I may as well just be calling it icky so it just fades off into the background in favor of her judging people while having a bad incentive structure for judging people.
3.5. The suffering of her shades is an unknown quantity. If they are suffering, that is a basis for signficantly more harsh judgment as the distinction between her and Kyubey gets blurry. This line of thought is heavily predicated on the assumption the state of her shades is as Riona says, they aren't suffering, that they're basically Blindsight zombies.
4. The Utilitarian Side of ethics and the desire to minimize suffering throws all of this into morally gray/perhaps justified territory assuming her shades don't suffer.
4.1. Prisoners are people you need to keep cleansed in a Sabrinaless world
4.2. A kill is finite suffering, a witch is infinite suffering.(Edit: Not sure if this point is redundant or not)
4.3. People who go around witching magical girls should be judged for condemning others to infinite suffering. People should know a judge exists for the sake of deterrence/fewer magical girls being forcibly witched.
4.4. [Seymour from FFX Grade Nihilistic insanity warning]Every magical girl claimed is a magical girl spared the infinite agony of witchification(Of course this assumes her shades aren't suffering).

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My take on it?
We are in a blind spot in our analysis. Hopefully, we will put up a vote that gets more useful information out of Rionna. Information should be our short term priority.
Depending upon that, our next more might be to pull in verification, using several possible sources. Sabrina isn't Rionna, so I want us to know and care when we make momentous decisions, not "iunno" as per Rionna. If we take a long road that leads to justice, that works too. We have to be smart, and not destroy the world while we save it.
This might be a very evil girl, but we decide our path through the world, not her. Stimulus - Response action is not exactly higher thought.
The concept is 'radicalization,' the position where an escalating aggression causes the other participating culture to respond in kind, and become damaged by abandoning their original philosophy. We can avoid being degraded.

1 and 4.3 form one argument that I consider may become supported as we gain evidence, and I am looking for that to happen. PMMM setting has it off camera, in PMAS we get to take the full tour of Kyuubey's funhouse.

3.5, I'm not sure it will become relevant? The decision to use force and execute in the name of Justice is a matter of paramount importance. If Rionna has gone over that line, I can't make her much more guilty than that. It mostly matters in terms of what we can do after to reduce the evil that is present. Such an act might be to deprive her of the shades.

Rionna is simply the anti-Sabrina "savior." This is pretty much point-by-point in the following ways?

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I want to re-iterate, for the reasons of "public image" and our own consistent position regarding Justice and civility when speaking with our own friends, we should obey normal diplomacy. We (backwards-like) accepted Rionna to our negotiation. It means she is our Guest. If at all possible, she should be known to have left us alive and in one piece. That minimum requirement is offered to you, unless someone wants to go further.

I for one viewed/view Rionna has someone how has done heinous and frankly unforgivable thing BUT she's in extreme circumstances (along with every MG that knows the witch bomb) so it becomes a matter of getting her to stop NOW if possible and preferably peacefully.

If she says no.... well then thats when we continue negotiations by.... other means.

Still at this point i kinda want to see what the next post has and would perfer a vote that ge5s her to opinion on clear seeds, the happy magiced seeds and dewitching. Frankly if NONE of that elicits any type of compromise attempts from her she too far gone.

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I'm pretty sure if Rionna was any futher in denial crocodiles would be a native species for her as the Egyptians build to either side of her.

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Serious Magical Girl confrontation is about Truth and Love. Perhaps I would love to make her accept the truth? OHH YEEAAHH!! It's time to enchant our
Griefhax version of the Sword of Shannara
for tomorrow's action scene. Set to record: This would be the way to make her part of our legend.

@The Narrator
Well, I actually planned to work on it with the next actual story post. Kai came to me asking for permission, since I was chatting with him about it - I granted it. Ultimately, clarification is coming in the next update. Rionna has done terrible, terrible things, and doesn't regret them. There's room to try and redeem or rehabilitate her, yes, but not to excuse her.

Now, the thing about Nadia is that she's seen some shit. Rionna isn't a mass murderer, doesn't mass oppress magical girls. The University Group and the Sendai Group, for example, wouldn't even have been blips to Nadia. And Nadia isn't omniscient. She can only know of the big things - Rionna quietly wandering off to execute a magical girl or two here and there? That's not something Nadia might know about unless she hears about it from elsewhere. Keep in mind she doesn't really stay in any given location for long enough to find out about this kind of thing! However, I agree that the implications Nadia left weren't conducive to this current confrontation. That's one of my mistakes. I could have implied Nadia's unreliability in this kind of situation before.

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It might help to reveal my expectation bias to you here, then?

Rionna only does horrible things on a few occasions abroad, so she is a "boutique" evil killer, and not big news. O.K., until I factor this in : the girls she kills are public menaces, often preying upon areas that cannot prosecute a fight against the Grief spreader themselves. No one abides this behavior, if they have any power over it. One way or the other, people would tell stories about those events, or the passing of the terror afterwards. Rionna is often the one to claim the lives of this category of criminal, it is her specialty. And she has left occasional examples made out of the losers. I'm sorry to make you work, but this seems like the controlling text?
Therefore, Rionna is not an occulted "Dexter" sociopath. She's halfway to being "The Hanging Judge." She has some minor fame (much less than Mami.)
Also, Nadia shared a flask with this girl. And totally missed on her character portrait. Hmmm. If that isn't due to Rionna's meddling, then I need to figure out why Nadia didn't understand what she was looking at. What the heck is in that cider, anyway??