asgardeventide | first cantus ◆ text

My name is Saki Watanabe and it's been a while since I was last here. The feelings I have are still remarkably the same, but they're still a different teaching than some of the others here. The idea of war isn't something I know. Or, more so, it's thing that were I am from humans are incapable of. We have a strict Code of Ethics that we've been taught since we were born. The type of thing here in Asgard, then, isn't something I'm used to. Or maybe, to give a better idea, I should give an example.

In my town there are two stories we learn from a young age. The Story of the Fiend and the Story of the Karma Demon. Both are meant to teach us something different. The story of the fiend is longer, so I don't want to write that right now. That one is also more straight forward and tells us to listen to our elders and put the village above our own lives. The story I'm about to say is much different.

This story is from about eighty years ago. There lived a boy in the village. He was an incredibly bright child, but had one flaw. As he grew older, this flaw became more and more obvious.

He was extremely proud of his intelligence and looked at everything else with disdain.

He pretended to accept the teachings in school and from other adults, but the important lessons never really reached his heart.
He began to sneer at the foolishness of adults and laugh at the laws of the world.
Arrogance sows the seeds of karma.
The boy gradually drifted away from his circle of friends. Loneliness became isonly companion and confidant.
Loneliness is the seedbed of karma.
In his solitude, the boy spent a lot of time thinking. He thought about forbidden things and questioned things better left alone.
Unclean thoughts cause karma to grow unchecked.
The boy unknowingly built up more and more karma, and transformed into something inhuman — a karma demon.
Before anyone knew, the village was empty; everyone had fled in fear of the karma demon. It went to live in the forest, but all the animals there disappeared too.
As the karma demon walked, the plants around it twisted in all sorts of unimaginable positions and rotted.
All the food it touched instantly turned into lethal poison.
The karma demon wandered aimlessly through the dead, deformed forest.
Eventually, it came to realize that it shouldn't be living in this world.
The karma demon left the darkness of the forest. Before his eyes, he saw it, wreathed in a glittering radiance. He had arrived at a deep lake nestled in the mountains.
It walked into the lake, thinking that water as pure as this would surely cleanse him of his karma.
But the water surrounding it instantly became dark and murky, and started turning poisonous.
Karma demons should not exist in this world
It understood that, and quietly disappeared into the bottom of the lake.

What do you think the moral we were taught is? It's much more straight-forward. How would you answer it?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[Samantha listened to the whole story. She could tell, maybe, some of what it was meant to tell, but she couldn't be certain. There was too much context lost in the mix. The whole idea of a 'karma demon' wasn't clear to her, and what the teachings of the elders were that she was implying were equally unclear. However, it did produce a visceral sort of reaction.

She chose video. She had no idea if her appearance would evoke something or not, but she decided to be clear that she wasn't human when she spoke.]

Nothing. I wouldn't answer it, and I have no idea what it's supposed to teach. I can't find a thing useful in the story, personally, and I'm not sure I like its tone.

[She doesn't seem to react, at least. Humans don't look that way, but in her village most things have been mutated through some means. Humans don't look that so it certainly makes her feel something is wrong, but this isn't Kamisu.]

You're not supposed to like its tone. That's part of the point of it is to know something is wrong with it. The idea is supposed to be straightforward, but maybe it's different depending on the culture.

To me it reads as arrogance and selfishness isn't something allowed in this world.

That pride and self-service will lead to your downfall, and one should accept themselves as part of the village and keep from questioning the village's ways to keep from turning out like the boy did. Anyone who doesn't learn that lesson has no place in the village.

[He pauses. His village has very similar stories to that.]

I don't agree with the moral, though. Pride will often cause trouble, but sometimes, solitude is good and so is questioning what you grew up with.

Without the confidence to enforce your will, the things you try to do won't be accomplished. There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and a weak will does nothing. Selflessness is as dangerous as selfishness, and can be selfish in itself. If you think only of others, you sacrifice everything you are, and all that's left is a martyr's grave.

But I think it's something lost in translation. I doubt we were raised the same at all. Well, no. I'm certain of it. I didn't learn about karma until I left home.

The moral of the story is that you tell really boring stories.

[ At least he bothered to read all of it... ]

... I guess a possible moral is that you should not isolate yourself from those around them. No one is an island, and everyone and everything is connected in one way or another...

Don't know about karma, but I do know a thing or two about demons. And if that thing sank to the bottom of the lake it's time to start swimming.

[ Maglor frowns a little - it reeks of... well. He can't quite put his finger on it, but something about the story feels wrong ]

There are several there, it seems - one is, of course, that isolation is dangerous. Yet it seems to me that the main thing the story seeks to teach is "do not question". True though it be that to brood on one's thoughts without speaking them out is dangerous [ hello Maeglin ] - it is also true that to never question is equally so.

I have several ideas, but before I answer I have a question.

Do you have any idea what those forbidden thoughts involved?

What's so bad about thinking?

I get the rest of the story, arrogance and being a jerk is bad, but that part just seems weird. Why shouldn't you question stuff?

What's the whole point of intelligence if you don't bother to think for yourself?

Edited (I can't write, holy shit.) 2014-02-04 07:22 (UTC)

And what if solitude and questioning those rules is what can endanger everything?

It's not boring for my town.

That's are part of it, yes. Our town does things always as a group. Even when we become adults we're often in the same group as we were as children.

They're not going to in the story.

It's true that we should be able to think freely. There are some things I wouldn't want to not think about. But at the same time, for us, the things that could be questioned are too dangerous.

...Some of them.

There are ways our town worked that no one but certain people knows about. If we ask about it or do something outside of it then bad things happen. It's practiced into us at an early age.

There are some things they don't want us thinking about. The rules that are set in place to protect the village, for example.

No offense or anything, but rules on what you can think about sounds like some serious bullshit.

That's not what we're taught. A will is stronger as a group. We're taught always to work together to accomplish those things. We're taught to give everything to each other. The village works based on that idea.

The idea of karma is possibly different then what you know, too. But that's why I wanted to say it. Because it shows the differences in worlds.

What about if those rules are set in place so you don't endanger a lot of people?

What could I ever think about that could put a whole town in danger?

I mean, unless I could kill people with my brain, but I don't think that's on the table. Is it?

...Humans have a power called cantus, or telekinesis. We can do basic things like here but, for example, we're also able to hatch a chicken from an egg in under an hour. We're not allowed to use that power to close to someone else's because it can be dangerous.

[So yes. Even though they can't possibly under normal circumstances. Surely something like a karma demon would.]

I was taught very differently. Caring for others is one thing, but if your will is not strong on its own, you cannot do anything for them properly. My mother was never the most altruistic soul.

And it might. That I couldn't say.

... see, you've gotta be up front with that kind of crap.

Not everybody can do that.

It's not something I'm used to having to explain.

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first cantus ◆ text

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