week 2 - caren - saturday, post-trial

[completelycrazy]

[Newt has... maybe calmed down a little? by the time he runs into Caren. He's standing by the ruins of the toy store in a relative calm, having worked off some of his post-trial jitters. Still too wired to sleep, but he's not climbing the walls anymore, at least.

Caren is one of the few people that doesn't immediately get a snippy accusation when she approaches.]

Good for you sticking to your guns when Undine tried to call you out. That was impressive.

Comments

[sexorcism]

[Caren nods her head slightly in greeting, silent until he finishes his comments.

The toy store is a difficult place to be around right now: She feels both the relief that they caught Eleanor's murderer and the sad, sinking feeling that it doesn't mean anything at all.]

She was persistent...but I could tell that her words came from a place of true concern. I believe she wanted that mystery solved for the sake of her friend. So I cannot hold it against her...

But there are some situations

[completelycrazy]

[He lets out a little laugh.]

Yeah, I get that. Do you really think her thoughts on the Reapers make her suspicious? Or were you just spitballing?

[sexorcism]

Mm. [Caren turns a little bit, looking up at the scorched front of the store in contemplative thought.]

I suppose what I was thinking is as follows: A Reaper seems likely to think of themselves in one of two ways. Someone who is embodying evil by committing an evil act, or someone who isn't evil simply bound to perform.

If she was the second, then she could say not all Reapers are bad people because she, herself, is not one.

[People are goof at making excuses like that, ones that tiptoe around their own actions.]

[completelycrazy]

[He nods. He gets her point, and she's definitely not wrong. But...]

But she could be the former pretending to be the latter. Or she could be an innocent kid that just doesn't want to think the worst of people.

[sexorcism]

Yes, it's as I said: I didn't have enough information to actually accuse her, nor did I want to. She seems to have lived in a place with fewer darknesses, so she may be just as idealistic as you say.

[Then again...he'd said she might not want to think the worst of people, and yet Undine had been so quick to suggest she hadn't committed just one crime, but many. Caren meant it when she said she wouldn't hold it against her, but she won't forget the behavior so easily, either.]

What do you think, Doctor? About the innate good or evil of Reapers?

[completelycrazy]

Yeah... I don't know her that well, so I can't say for sure. Maybe. She, uh, does seem to have that idealism going for her.

[And idealism never gets anyone anywhere, so.]

Um. I don't know. I don't think we have enough information to make that call definitively. On one hand, people keep saying that Terra wasn't all that bad, and if Ranpo really was a Reaper, he didn't seem all that evil to me. A brat, maybe, but not evil. But on the other, the Composer wouldn't make someone a Reaper if they weren't suited for the position.

[sexorcism]

A Reaper's job in this game seems to be twofold: To deceive and to kill. No, it would be difficult to condemn them to performing their tasks alone. I equally cannot sympathize with them. Their work is not the only dirty kind. If anything, I would say this is quintessentially "no hard feelings," or rather, "no feelings" at all.

[Caren's expression doesn't change. If she's sad or angry about the existence of the Reapers, or if she pities them, it doesn't show at all.]

I have noticed that, if anything, a few of the Reapers we managed to caught were unable to establish strong bonds with many other players. Would you agree?