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Feb. 15th, 2023 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iniquiticitycaleb, imogen, and the ethics of gathering power and knowledge
read on the internet today that caleb and imogen are very similar and it all fucking clicked. becuase you know what? they fucking are! the middle of the person is the same. you know what the difference is? imogen knew 1) the assembly is bad news, 2) she got this information BEFORE she got mixed up with them, and 3) she did decided it wasn't worth the knowledge to get mixed up with them.
lots of expounding on this below, spoilers for all of c2 and up c3e48.
start here: if thull, especially, had a had appeared to imogen at her moment of crisis or before - either right after she had fled Gelvaan, or in those uncomfortable years when she had powers and the town shunned her - i think she would have been on that like white on rice. I think if thull showed up to imogen a decade earlier, confused and frustrated, and said 'I can help you with your powers. I'm like you. You are blessed and strong and a chosen few,' Imogen would have IMMEDIATELY been a part of that.
because caleb got what imogen wants - unfettered access to exploring their own power. everything he wanted and asked for, caleb got as a student. teachers that inspired him (abusively). endless opportunity for growth -- until he shattered. in comparison, imogen knows NOTHING about what she's got. she's had to go on enormous journeys - jrusar, yios, etc - and *even then* got boned out of that knowledge because she wouldn't ally with thull (and ludinus).
imogen is old enough and wise enough - and good-natured enough?- to say "my knowledge is not more important than being associated with these people." but twelve year old caleb was sufficiently brainwashed and too young to ever imagine the assembly, the academy, ludinus, trent, etc, could be capable of evil.
only after caleb killed his parents did he realize 1) the danger of his powers (killing his parents) 2) the evil of the assembly (through c2), 3) understanding the balance between his own hubris vs danger and power (when he destroys the t-dock). imogen has not HAD to have this severe moment of crisis. she was #blessed by essentially seeing the narrative of thull and ludinus and realized that getting involved in that would be bad new bears.
you know who MAYBE didn't realize what she was getting into? LILIANA. you know who decided, in ignorance or otherwise, that it was worth it to work with Ludinus/Otohan to find it more about her powers? Liliana. Liliana was at the seminary/grim verity, and they said "We are frightened by the advancements in this research," and Liliana said, "Me finding out more about this is more important than some moral guardrail." So she started working with Thull, and realized, too late, that Thull was bad news. She realized too late that the connection between "no guardrails on research" and "this person has no ethical obligations to anyone." You know who realized, too late, that these people were evil, and tried to keep the people they cared about away from them? Liliana!!!!!!! Doesn't this sound like a particular early-campaign wizard trying to avoid getting these people who hang out with him involved with the masters who destroyed him?
We don't know if Liliana has had some kind of shattering event. She doesn't sound as willful as Relvin describes her in her sends with Imogen. We know that, for some definition of working with (Rogue One comes to mind!), Liliana is still working with Otohan/Ludinus.
You know who else I think of in this metaphor? Astrid. I don't think canon makes clear whether Astrid is evil and/or approves of the Assembly's evildoings, and/or knows what Ludinus is up to. But we DO know Astrid accepts the position of archmage. Maybe both Astrid/Liliana believe they cannot escape this evil web they've ended up in even though they are aware of it's harms. Maybe actually they both continue to aspire to power - Liliana with Ruidius/Thull/Ludinus and Astrid in the Assembly - but the only thing they care about is the person they love (Caleb/Imogen) getting hurt, so they only want SPECIFICALLY that person to back off.
so like let's zoom out. i think there's a lot to be said here about "what is it worth it to you, to find out the answer to that question?"
obviously 12 year old caleb does not know or understand what it is worth to him. in fact he discovers it is not worth it and spends eleven years in an asylum. this is a fairly bad way to go about understanding the dynamics of this question.
astrid? we don't really know! as iniquiticity fans will know, exploring astrid's internal motivations is a favorite past-time of mine. in structural reinforcements, astrid is believes that she cannot escape this web that she is in. this doesn't free her from knowing things she has done are terrible, but it also doesn't stop her from doing future terrible things. and in the becoming, astrid only aspires to more power and/but she is blind to the fact that the number one thing that getting more power does is damage her.
liliana? liliana gets a lot of answers before she has to decide to discard the moral boundary. and i think that we do learn lilana was unsatisfied by the seminary/the grim verity putting that boundary in front of her. whether she KNOWS the terribleness of ludinus/otohan/the assembly/the ruby vanguard when she gets mixed up in them isn't clear, but i think otohan had this "morals? ethical guardrails? those get in the way of knowledge!" attitude, and liliana was into that.
(i want to be clear that i actually think ludinus only cares about the ruidius exaltants in as much as they are required for him to accomplish his ultimate aims, which is to kill gods. i think ludinus is probably using otohan, not that that excuses otohan's behavior. i would be interested to know more about that relationship.)
i don't think we know if astrid thinks she has made any mistakes. i think astrid has regrets about her kill count, but we don't really know how she feels about her power progression and ambition. does she know the answer to this "was it worth it?" question. and if she does, what did she decide?
now, imogen? imogen probably had the most information about all these factions before she decided who to align with and what the question of her knowledge was worth. as opposed to her mother, she decides it is NOT worth it to side with thull - not yet, at least. (i believe liam indicated in a Talks that if Trent had welcomed Caleb back into the fold much earlier in C2, Caleb would have accepted!)
i think ultimately imogen's fear of her powers, perhaps related to some intrinsic harm of doing evil, is something that liliana and little caleb did not start out with. caleb acquired it when he killed his parents. i wonder when liliana realized when she made this mistake? and has astrid at all?
read on the internet today that caleb and imogen are very similar and it all fucking clicked. becuase you know what? they fucking are! the middle of the person is the same. you know what the difference is? imogen knew 1) the assembly is bad news, 2) she got this information BEFORE she got mixed up with them, and 3) she did decided it wasn't worth the knowledge to get mixed up with them.
lots of expounding on this below, spoilers for all of c2 and up c3e48.
start here: if thull, especially, had a had appeared to imogen at her moment of crisis or before - either right after she had fled Gelvaan, or in those uncomfortable years when she had powers and the town shunned her - i think she would have been on that like white on rice. I think if thull showed up to imogen a decade earlier, confused and frustrated, and said 'I can help you with your powers. I'm like you. You are blessed and strong and a chosen few,' Imogen would have IMMEDIATELY been a part of that.
because caleb got what imogen wants - unfettered access to exploring their own power. everything he wanted and asked for, caleb got as a student. teachers that inspired him (abusively). endless opportunity for growth -- until he shattered. in comparison, imogen knows NOTHING about what she's got. she's had to go on enormous journeys - jrusar, yios, etc - and *even then* got boned out of that knowledge because she wouldn't ally with thull (and ludinus).
imogen is old enough and wise enough - and good-natured enough?- to say "my knowledge is not more important than being associated with these people." but twelve year old caleb was sufficiently brainwashed and too young to ever imagine the assembly, the academy, ludinus, trent, etc, could be capable of evil.
only after caleb killed his parents did he realize 1) the danger of his powers (killing his parents) 2) the evil of the assembly (through c2), 3) understanding the balance between his own hubris vs danger and power (when he destroys the t-dock). imogen has not HAD to have this severe moment of crisis. she was #blessed by essentially seeing the narrative of thull and ludinus and realized that getting involved in that would be bad new bears.
you know who MAYBE didn't realize what she was getting into? LILIANA. you know who decided, in ignorance or otherwise, that it was worth it to work with Ludinus/Otohan to find it more about her powers? Liliana. Liliana was at the seminary/grim verity, and they said "We are frightened by the advancements in this research," and Liliana said, "Me finding out more about this is more important than some moral guardrail." So she started working with Thull, and realized, too late, that Thull was bad news. She realized too late that the connection between "no guardrails on research" and "this person has no ethical obligations to anyone." You know who realized, too late, that these people were evil, and tried to keep the people they cared about away from them? Liliana!!!!!!! Doesn't this sound like a particular early-campaign wizard trying to avoid getting these people who hang out with him involved with the masters who destroyed him?
We don't know if Liliana has had some kind of shattering event. She doesn't sound as willful as Relvin describes her in her sends with Imogen. We know that, for some definition of working with (Rogue One comes to mind!), Liliana is still working with Otohan/Ludinus.
You know who else I think of in this metaphor? Astrid. I don't think canon makes clear whether Astrid is evil and/or approves of the Assembly's evildoings, and/or knows what Ludinus is up to. But we DO know Astrid accepts the position of archmage. Maybe both Astrid/Liliana believe they cannot escape this evil web they've ended up in even though they are aware of it's harms. Maybe actually they both continue to aspire to power - Liliana with Ruidius/Thull/Ludinus and Astrid in the Assembly - but the only thing they care about is the person they love (Caleb/Imogen) getting hurt, so they only want SPECIFICALLY that person to back off.
so like let's zoom out. i think there's a lot to be said here about "what is it worth it to you, to find out the answer to that question?"
obviously 12 year old caleb does not know or understand what it is worth to him. in fact he discovers it is not worth it and spends eleven years in an asylum. this is a fairly bad way to go about understanding the dynamics of this question.
astrid? we don't really know! as iniquiticity fans will know, exploring astrid's internal motivations is a favorite past-time of mine. in structural reinforcements, astrid is believes that she cannot escape this web that she is in. this doesn't free her from knowing things she has done are terrible, but it also doesn't stop her from doing future terrible things. and in the becoming, astrid only aspires to more power and/but she is blind to the fact that the number one thing that getting more power does is damage her.
liliana? liliana gets a lot of answers before she has to decide to discard the moral boundary. and i think that we do learn lilana was unsatisfied by the seminary/the grim verity putting that boundary in front of her. whether she KNOWS the terribleness of ludinus/otohan/the assembly/the ruby vanguard when she gets mixed up in them isn't clear, but i think otohan had this "morals? ethical guardrails? those get in the way of knowledge!" attitude, and liliana was into that.
(i want to be clear that i actually think ludinus only cares about the ruidius exaltants in as much as they are required for him to accomplish his ultimate aims, which is to kill gods. i think ludinus is probably using otohan, not that that excuses otohan's behavior. i would be interested to know more about that relationship.)
i don't think we know if astrid thinks she has made any mistakes. i think astrid has regrets about her kill count, but we don't really know how she feels about her power progression and ambition. does she know the answer to this "was it worth it?" question. and if she does, what did she decide?
now, imogen? imogen probably had the most information about all these factions before she decided who to align with and what the question of her knowledge was worth. as opposed to her mother, she decides it is NOT worth it to side with thull - not yet, at least. (i believe liam indicated in a Talks that if Trent had welcomed Caleb back into the fold much earlier in C2, Caleb would have accepted!)
i think ultimately imogen's fear of her powers, perhaps related to some intrinsic harm of doing evil, is something that liliana and little caleb did not start out with. caleb acquired it when he killed his parents. i wonder when liliana realized when she made this mistake? and has astrid at all?