"Evil is very mysterious, Fitz. It'll save you a thousand times in a row only to suddenly decide it would rather see the look on your face when you realize you've been betrayed."
Kirei smiles.
"That's why you shouldn't make friends with evil people."
"I hope you tried out for your school drama club, Kirei. It'd be a shame if they missed out on a star. Evil isn't any sort of 'mysterious', if it was, it might be less embarrassing. Cruelty, greed, lack of care for others - there's a long list of 'evil' and it tends to be a lot less complicated than 'good'. And, going to be honest, if the Doctor was evil, he wouldn't manage to carry off some sort of long game like that. He can't exactly be called master of delayed gratification. Forget the numerous times he's been tortured, if someone really wanted him to suffer they'd make him wait five minutes before opening a gift."
He loves the Doctor, with all his heart and through times of joy and times of trouble. He'd also say that being locked in a cell with him for more than ten minutes is complete justification for murder.
"And, personally, if I'm saved a thousand times in a row, I'd count that as a pretty good streak."
"Something can be mysterious in one way but banal in another. It's not even a contradiction because you would think evil being so boring and stupid would lessen its appeal—but for some reason it doesn't, judging by the amount of it and how easily it spreads. And even those who aren't boring and stupid can be tempted."
Kirei hasn't even noticed he's spontaneously sharing real, mostly unfiltered thoughts. A rare phenomena.
"Are you sure the Doctor isn't evil in a different way? There are different types. It doesn't always have to come armed with strategies and long term plans."
"I wouldn't think it'd lessen its appeal, because a there are a lot of boring and stupid things people find embarrassingly appealing. Hey, maybe that's your real problem, Kirei, your expectations are off. And, besides, people believe that evil is mysterious and forbidden, and that's another appeal. Especially if you're unhappy in a life of being 'good', and so think that evil could fix what's lacking."
He waves his hand.
"That's changing the terms. We were talking about trust, not about evil."
But why is it appealing? So much so that it was even able to seduce prelapsarian Adam and Eve, who were supposed to have been made good and only known happiness. How did it happen? Where did it come from? That's the mystery.
"We're talking about evil because I said you shouldn't trust it," Kirei says and tilts his head. "Well, I suppose there are a couple things about it you can trust. One is that it'll leave a trail of destruction in its wake, which must be fine for you, at least in the moment, if you're riding ahead of it with him."
He'd initially raised the possibility of the Doctor being evil only to be incendiary, but it's apparently even worse than he thought. Fitz is probably doomed. The current state of affairs can't last. Since the nature of evil is to consume everything around it as fuel, that will likely be Fitz's fate as well, unless the Doctor becomes self-aware enough to stop it.
"I don't know if I should say that's such a one size fits idea of evil or such a individual based view of evil, because I think either works, and both are questionable arguments."
"I don't know the Doctor, so I'm speaking as generally as possible and from a secular point of view. If evil weren't destructive—and I mean particularly destructive and extreme—the term wouldn't be necessary. What's controversial?"
"The banality of evil is a theory that has plenty of flaws, but there is one point that I think it underlines, which is that it can be more a matter of entropy than explosions. There are a lot of systems that are, pretty blatantly, evil, but are also just kind of accepted as how life goes."
Kirei blinks and stares. "A system founded on bureaucrats organizing and facilitating mass murder is still destructive. That's why it's 'evil.' Whether people accept it or not is irrelevant."
He won't let Fitz distract him.
"Anyway, that's obviously not the Doctor's type of evil. Or is it?"
"Even if the Doctor was evil, there's no way in a million years. He finds the idea of filling out basic paperwork too much. When he gets too near anything like bureaucracy, stuff is probably going to end up on fire. Mainly because we only go near them when they're evil, but my point stands."
"He sounds like a little kid," Kirei says. "Isn't he supposed to be maintaining the timeline? There are people like that in my world, but they're just slaves with no free will. It's a horrible fate with no way out—not even death since they're already spirits."
"He can be." It's one of the (many) things Fitz loves about him. He has all the good qualities people apply to kids, that, in his experience, most kids don't actually have, and none of the annoying ones. Alright, also some of the annoying ones. "A lot of it's personality, though I do think some is a bit purposeful, his planet was very into bureaucracy and doing nothing interesting, and, apparently, the Doctor before him was all into planning stuff. Anyway, maintaining the timeline isn't his job. It's something he does to help people."
"I meant it as more of an intellectual state. An intuition that something is 'not right' or 'out of order,' if that makes any sense. Not an emotional affect."
It's important to be clear about these matters before old, boring patterns start to repeat.
"I wouldn't feel anything if you disappeared tonight, nor do I personally care if you want to kill yourself being the Doctor's friend." He probably shouldn't have said that, so he hastily explains: "I think it would be a shame, but I can't actually argue against it if he's all you have to make your life worth living. Or rather I could, and I feel like I'm supposed to as a warden, but as a friend I could still ask 'is that really necessary, or are you just thinking emotionally?'" Purely hypothetical, of course, but the point is: "I don't have to feel sad about your choices to question them."
Is that still too much room for misunderstanding? He'll be even clearer.
"And even if I want bad things to happen to you, that doesn't mean I have to just let them happen."
That makes Fitz smile, shaking his head in slight amusement.
“You know, you can be a good friend, Kirei.” He raises a hand. “Don’t worry, I mean by my standards of what makes a good friend and a good person, which are mostly about choice and action. Not about particular emotion or thinking you get a good feeling out of living a moral life or whatever your definition is.” He wants to make it clear he doesn’t like Kirei because he thinks he’s someone else.
“The thing is, it is just a matter of emotions. But that’s the only way I can think. Figuratively.” He’s perfectly capable of thinking on more ‘logical’ ways. “When I can say, this is the life that makes me happy, I don’t see a reason to chose differently. Because, to me, there’s not a more important way to judge.”
He shrugs. “The Doctor’s a good person, because he does good stuff and cares about that. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to hang around him if he was evil,” as they’ve long established, that would be embarrassing, “But he could chose not to risk his life and spirit to save people and universes, and it wouldn’t change that I care about the part where he’s my friend.”
'A good friend.' At first he thinks Fitz is being sarcastic, but as he goes on, he actually finds himself agreeing. Just because he was born a defective monster doesn't mean he has to act like it.
Not yet, anyway. He's obviously still a time bomb. But as long as he's on this ship, all he can do is delay the inevitable disaster. Not out of hope of salvation or fear of annihilation, but simply because he's morbidly curious to see if he can endure long enough to graduate an inmate and get a deal.
Tik-Tok would call him a miserable slave, but Tik-Tok is just another Gilgamesh trying to manipulate him. He won't fall for it.
"That's why I said I couldn't argue against it if it's all that makes you happy. It's actually logical to me. It'd only be emotional if you were being overly hasty." He honestly can't tell with Fitz.
He still doesn't believe the Doctor is good or that Fitz wouldn't hang around him if he were evil, but he keeps quiet about that for now.
"I do get it. I know it might not seem like it, but I've traveled with him for five years." Or an entire lifetime, these things can be complicated. "I didn't actually walk into the ship and then decided then and there that I wanted to spend the rest of my life like that. Honestly, it took me a pretty long time to warmup to him." His brief smile is nostalgic, with a twist of irony because it's not exactly pleasant irony.
"Which wasn't particularly his fault. I know it's hard to imagine, but I wasn't actually very good at making friends, back then." A little sarcastic, but also completely honest. "I was also way more of a dick. The two were related, yes, but the not having friends bit was more the reason than the consequence. Hell, meeting who you did on that other ship, you probably got a bit of a look at what I was like." The full on evil and cult stuff is new and different in the worst of ways, but the disdainful misanthropy and treating every conversation as a battle to be won...
"Traveling with the Doctor - it saved my life, and it gave me a life worth living."
He shakes his head, coming back to the present. "But, believe me, it took time."
"But you've had a difficult life." It's what the other Fitz explained. "You weren't given many opportunities, so if traveling with the Doctor is the only thing that's made you happy so far, it doesn't mean it's the only way you can ever be happy."
Maybe with hard work, Fitz could change his negative state of mind, develop healthier habits, and become content with life without the Doctor. But maybe not. There do exist some truly hopeless cases: himself, for instance. And he's not convinced Fitz isn't another one.
"Yeah, a lot of it was awful." And difficult, and he has no more interest in putting in the hard work of trying to change his state of mind now than he had interest in putting in hard work and trying to get something different back then.
"But, while basically better in every respect, there's one way that traveling with the Doctor is like being on the Barge, it allows you to experience whole new worlds. Except for real, not made up or the weird society of this ship. You get people here who clearly have never conceived of anything other than how they lived, and so this is all a big revelation. I wasn't that stunted, but a comparison can be made."
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 07:58 pm (UTC)Fitz isn't particularly in the habit of trusting people, himself. The Doctor is an exception, that only a few people have come close to.
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Date: 2022-09-07 08:35 pm (UTC)"That's just outward behavior. If he's your best friend and you trust him with your life, shouldn't there be more to it than that?"
He frowns, slightly frustrated with his own ignorance. He knows nothing of this topic and can never hope to understand it.
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Date: 2022-09-07 08:46 pm (UTC)"If you don't base trust off consistent outward behavior, then what could you use?"
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Date: 2022-09-07 09:54 pm (UTC)Kirei smiles.
"That's why you shouldn't make friends with evil people."
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Date: 2022-09-07 10:07 pm (UTC)"I hope you tried out for your school drama club, Kirei. It'd be a shame if they missed out on a star. Evil isn't any sort of 'mysterious', if it was, it might be less embarrassing. Cruelty, greed, lack of care for others - there's a long list of 'evil' and it tends to be a lot less complicated than 'good'. And, going to be honest, if the Doctor was evil, he wouldn't manage to carry off some sort of long game like that. He can't exactly be called master of delayed gratification. Forget the numerous times he's been tortured, if someone really wanted him to suffer they'd make him wait five minutes before opening a gift."
He loves the Doctor, with all his heart and through times of joy and times of trouble. He'd also say that being locked in a cell with him for more than ten minutes is complete justification for murder.
"And, personally, if I'm saved a thousand times in a row, I'd count that as a pretty good streak."
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Date: 2022-09-08 12:44 am (UTC)Kirei hasn't even noticed he's spontaneously sharing real, mostly unfiltered thoughts. A rare phenomena.
"Are you sure the Doctor isn't evil in a different way? There are different types. It doesn't always have to come armed with strategies and long term plans."
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Date: 2022-09-08 01:05 am (UTC)He waves his hand.
"That's changing the terms. We were talking about trust, not about evil."
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Date: 2022-09-12 05:44 pm (UTC)"We're talking about evil because I said you shouldn't trust it," Kirei says and tilts his head. "Well, I suppose there are a couple things about it you can trust. One is that it'll leave a trail of destruction in its wake, which must be fine for you, at least in the moment, if you're riding ahead of it with him."
He'd initially raised the possibility of the Doctor being evil only to be incendiary, but it's apparently even worse than he thought. Fitz is probably doomed. The current state of affairs can't last. Since the nature of evil is to consume everything around it as fuel, that will likely be Fitz's fate as well, unless the Doctor becomes self-aware enough to stop it.
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Date: 2022-09-12 05:58 pm (UTC)"I don't know if I should say that's such a one size fits idea of evil or such a individual based view of evil, because I think either works, and both are questionable arguments."
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Date: 2022-09-14 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-14 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-21 05:21 am (UTC)He won't let Fitz distract him.
"Anyway, that's obviously not the Doctor's type of evil. Or is it?"
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Date: 2022-09-21 05:25 am (UTC)He has to laugh at that.
"Even if the Doctor was evil, there's no way in a million years. He finds the idea of filling out basic paperwork too much. When he gets too near anything like bureaucracy, stuff is probably going to end up on fire. Mainly because we only go near them when they're evil, but my point stands."
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Date: 2022-09-21 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-21 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-21 06:06 pm (UTC)He's mostly joking.
"But what do you mean by 'the Doctor before him?' Does he have different incarnations?"
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Date: 2022-09-21 06:08 pm (UTC)He nods.
"Quite a few, I think. Seven, maybe?"
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Date: 2022-09-22 03:59 pm (UTC)"I'm still not convinced he isn't evil. Surely you can understand my concern? Between the ledger, Anji, the other Fitz—"
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Date: 2022-09-22 05:29 pm (UTC)"I don't believe you're actually concerned, which plays some part in questioning your argument."
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Date: 2022-09-22 07:47 pm (UTC)It's important to be clear about these matters before old, boring patterns start to repeat.
"I wouldn't feel anything if you disappeared tonight, nor do I personally care if you want to kill yourself being the Doctor's friend." He probably shouldn't have said that, so he hastily explains: "I think it would be a shame, but I can't actually argue against it if he's all you have to make your life worth living. Or rather I could, and I feel like I'm supposed to as a warden, but as a friend I could still ask 'is that really necessary, or are you just thinking emotionally?'" Purely hypothetical, of course, but the point is: "I don't have to feel sad about your choices to question them."
Is that still too much room for misunderstanding? He'll be even clearer.
"And even if I want bad things to happen to you, that doesn't mean I have to just let them happen."
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Date: 2022-09-22 08:45 pm (UTC)“You know, you can be a good friend, Kirei.” He raises a hand. “Don’t worry, I mean by my standards of what makes a good friend and a good person, which are mostly about choice and action. Not about particular emotion or thinking you get a good feeling out of living a moral life or whatever your definition is.” He wants to make it clear he doesn’t like Kirei because he thinks he’s someone else.
“The thing is, it is just a matter of emotions. But that’s the only way I can think. Figuratively.” He’s perfectly capable of thinking on more ‘logical’ ways. “When I can say, this is the life that makes me happy, I don’t see a reason to chose differently. Because, to me, there’s not a more important way to judge.”
He shrugs. “The Doctor’s a good person, because he does good stuff and cares about that. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to hang around him if he was evil,” as they’ve long established, that would be embarrassing, “But he could chose not to risk his life and spirit to save people and universes, and it wouldn’t change that I care about the part where he’s my friend.”
no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 06:19 am (UTC)Not yet, anyway. He's obviously still a time bomb. But as long as he's on this ship, all he can do is delay the inevitable disaster. Not out of hope of salvation or fear of annihilation, but simply because he's morbidly curious to see if he can endure long enough to graduate an inmate and get a deal.
Tik-Tok would call him a miserable slave, but Tik-Tok is just another Gilgamesh trying to manipulate him. He won't fall for it.
"That's why I said I couldn't argue against it if it's all that makes you happy. It's actually logical to me. It'd only be emotional if you were being overly hasty." He honestly can't tell with Fitz.
He still doesn't believe the Doctor is good or that Fitz wouldn't hang around him if he were evil, but he keeps quiet about that for now.
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Date: 2022-09-23 06:39 am (UTC)"Which wasn't particularly his fault. I know it's hard to imagine, but I wasn't actually very good at making friends, back then." A little sarcastic, but also completely honest. "I was also way more of a dick. The two were related, yes, but the not having friends bit was more the reason than the consequence. Hell, meeting who you did on that other ship, you probably got a bit of a look at what I was like." The full on evil and cult stuff is new and different in the worst of ways, but the disdainful misanthropy and treating every conversation as a battle to be won...
"Traveling with the Doctor - it saved my life, and it gave me a life worth living."
He shakes his head, coming back to the present. "But, believe me, it took time."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-24 12:19 am (UTC)Maybe with hard work, Fitz could change his negative state of mind, develop healthier habits, and become content with life without the Doctor. But maybe not. There do exist some truly hopeless cases: himself, for instance. And he's not convinced Fitz isn't another one.
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Date: 2022-09-24 12:27 am (UTC)"But, while basically better in every respect, there's one way that traveling with the Doctor is like being on the Barge, it allows you to experience whole new worlds. Except for real, not made up or the weird society of this ship. You get people here who clearly have never conceived of anything other than how they lived, and so this is all a big revelation. I wasn't that stunted, but a comparison can be made."
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