Comments on: 449: Muted Calls http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449 High Fantasy - Higher Education Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:12:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Kelsi http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1704 Kelsi Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:20:11 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1704 On the contrary. I thought it read as "Before I let you do this, you should know that it will benefit me a lot, so I don't want to counsel you that it's the best option without explaining to you that I have some bias." I think we've seen Lee show nothing but honesty, and while he guides Mack in her legal struggles, he always consults her about her options and explains the full potential consequences attached to each option.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1704">2</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> On the contrary. I thought it read as “Before I let you do this, you should know that it will benefit me a lot, so I don’t want to counsel you that it’s the best option without explaining to you that I have some bias.” I think we’ve seen Lee show nothing but honesty, and while he guides Mack in her legal struggles, he always consults her about her options and explains the full potential consequences attached to each option.

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]]> By: Eric M. http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1679 Eric M. Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:09:51 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1679 Yeah, that makes sense.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1679">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> Yeah, that makes sense.

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]]> By: Morten http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1646 Morten Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:58:21 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1646 Sorry ~6.4mio dollars. Damn. I want that plat. How much was Mercy willing to pay for a baby half-demon girl from Mack? 600 plat?<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1646">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> Sorry ~6.4mio dollars.
Damn. I want that plat. How much was Mercy willing to pay for a baby half-demon girl from Mack? 600 plat?

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]]> By: Kevin http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1641 Kevin Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:16:59 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1641 I just had a memory of the Evil Cow Level of the Diablo games<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1641">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> I just had a memory of the Evil Cow Level of the Diablo games

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]]> By: drudge http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1640 drudge Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:22:28 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1640 Of course there's of course the problem with that being her favorite food. She's physically unable to have another favorite. Half Demon remember? She doesn't seem to enjoy eating people, and doesn't really do out of her way to do any eating beyond the bare minimum she physically *needs* to have.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1640">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> Of course there’s of course the problem with that being her favorite food. She’s physically unable to have another favorite. Half Demon remember? She doesn’t seem to enjoy eating people, and doesn’t really do out of her way to do any eating beyond the bare minimum she physically *needs* to have.

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]]> By: erianaiel http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1634 erianaiel Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:38:37 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1634 I did not miss that difference. And make no mistake that Mackenzie loves to eat people too. She named them as her favourite food to the scarecrow. She lost all self control when confronted with bloody meat twice, and only once did she have the excuse of being starving. Mackenzie has been forced to grow up as a human and to see her demonic side as an abomination. Feejee grew up where eating humans (and other sentient creatures I might add) was normal and never learned that it was frowned upon. Near as I can tell Feejee is a kind of sentient tiger. Or rather, she is closer to being a demon than Mackenzie is. The tragic part is that she does not seem to be able to grasp how humans respond to big predators. She intellectually understands that it would be a bad thing to reveal it, but emotionally it does not make a connection with her. It is the same inability to understand the difference between Mackenzie's desire for 'play' eating and her own desire to kill and eat Mackenzie. What makes her a tragic character is not because she is a 'poor little misunderstood monster' but that she is on a collision course with humanity and seems unable to understand why that is happening. Mind, that does not make her any less dangerous to be around. It just makes her a character in a tragedy.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1634">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> I did not miss that difference. And make no mistake that Mackenzie loves to eat people too. She named them as her favourite food to the scarecrow. She lost all self control when confronted with bloody meat twice, and only once did she have the excuse of being starving. Mackenzie has been forced to grow up as a human and to see her demonic side as an abomination. Feejee grew up where eating humans (and other sentient creatures I might add) was normal and never learned that it was frowned upon.

Near as I can tell Feejee is a kind of sentient tiger. Or rather, she is closer to being a demon than Mackenzie is. The tragic part is that she does not seem to be able to grasp how humans respond to big predators. She intellectually understands that it would be a bad thing to reveal it, but emotionally it does not make a connection with her. It is the same inability to understand the difference between Mackenzie’s desire for ‘play’ eating and her own desire to kill and eat Mackenzie.
What makes her a tragic character is not because she is a ‘poor little misunderstood monster’ but that she is on a collision course with humanity and seems unable to understand why that is happening.

Mind, that does not make her any less dangerous to be around. It just makes her a character in a tragedy.

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]]> By: The Other Leighton http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1630 The Other Leighton Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:09:20 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1630 Who's willing to put up money that whatever race Gladys turns out to be she was somehow able to hear Mack through the silence spell? Implausible, yes, but would be great to feed to Trina. Would be interesting to see how fast people would be willing to turn on Feejee for 1k plat or if people would remain "honorable." Probably better than a silence spell would have been a garbling spell kind of like what the Doctor used in the recent Lodger episode. Cross-geekination FTW.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1630">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> Who’s willing to put up money that whatever race Gladys turns out to be she was somehow able to hear Mack through the silence spell? Implausible, yes, but would be great to feed to Trina. Would be interesting to see how fast people would be willing to turn on Feejee for 1k plat or if people would remain “honorable.”

Probably better than a silence spell would have been a garbling spell kind of like what the Doctor used in the recent Lodger episode. Cross-geekination FTW.

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]]> By: Atalanta http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1615 Atalanta Tue, 06 Jul 2010 01:50:19 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1615 yeah - this way, it is absolutely truthful. the only thing they are not giving up is the fact that mackenzie also knows this, and in a way, she is just triggering embries to come forward about it.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1615">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> yeah – this way, it is absolutely truthful. the only thing they are not giving up is the fact that mackenzie also knows this, and in a way, she is just triggering embries to come forward about it.

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]]> By: bramble http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1614 bramble Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:50:13 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1614 I think that part of what makes Feejee both dangerous and tragic is that she doesn't understand the dynamic she's inserted herself into by going among humans. She still sees them as lower on the food chain than she is, and hasn't really encountered anyone that she can recognize as being higher on the food chain. She's used to hunting isolated humans - maybe as many as a shipload at a time, but still outnumbered and literally out of their element. People have told her that humans en mass could be dangerous if they recognize her as a predator, but she doesn't really understand that. It makes about as much sense to her as it would if you told, say, Ian that cows were going to rise up against him. Iona, on the other hand, I think understands only too well. Remember, she's a coastal mermaid while Feejee grew up "in the depths," so she probably had more contact with humans before she came to MU. She seems to have a better understanding of how large groups of humans work, but I'm not sure that'll translate into respect for their culture and mores. I'm actually a little afraid that it'll turn out that Iona is the killer, and she's planning on pinning it on Feejee.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1614">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> I think that part of what makes Feejee both dangerous and tragic is that she doesn’t understand the dynamic she’s inserted herself into by going among humans. She still sees them as lower on the food chain than she is, and hasn’t really encountered anyone that she can recognize as being higher on the food chain. She’s used to hunting isolated humans – maybe as many as a shipload at a time, but still outnumbered and literally out of their element. People have told her that humans en mass could be dangerous if they recognize her as a predator, but she doesn’t really understand that. It makes about as much sense to her as it would if you told, say, Ian that cows were going to rise up against him.

Iona, on the other hand, I think understands only too well. Remember, she’s a coastal mermaid while Feejee grew up “in the depths,” so she probably had more contact with humans before she came to MU. She seems to have a better understanding of how large groups of humans work, but I’m not sure that’ll translate into respect for their culture and mores. I’m actually a little afraid that it’ll turn out that Iona is the killer, and she’s planning on pinning it on Feejee.

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]]> By: XIII http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/449#comment-1613 XIII Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:01:53 +0000 http://www.talesofmu.com/story/?p=4164#comment-1613 Well by that logic, every human who has ever partaken of Bush-meat, or eaten of Cetacean or at all had anything to do with the slaugher of either group should be taken outback and Shot. One thing you should remember, especially after the last Other Tales put it in perspective, Mermaids and their 'community' of Intelligent life under the sea operate such that being Sentient does not discount you from being possible food. Sure you and another sentient can converse, but when they are being the food they are being the food, end full stop. And considering just how much is sentient under there, that's actually an understandable kind of reasoning. It hasn't actually been mentioned, and i would like to get word on it, but I suspect that the mermaids have plenty of their own conditions where they expect to act the part of the Hunted instead of the Hunter by things that they might elsewise converse with at a different time. I may be mistaken, but there seems to be a high sense of 'Fairness' to their society... just not the same fairness the Humans of the empire (And some/many of us, the audience) share.<p class="top-comments">Current score: <span class="top-comments-karma" id="karma-1613">0</span> <small>(to vote for this comment, please visit the site)</small></p> Well by that logic, every human who has ever partaken of Bush-meat, or eaten of Cetacean or at all had anything to do with the slaugher of either group should be taken outback and Shot.

One thing you should remember, especially after the last Other Tales put it in perspective, Mermaids and their ‘community’ of Intelligent life under the sea operate such that being Sentient does not discount you from being possible food. Sure you and another sentient can converse, but when they are being the food they are being the food, end full stop. And considering just how much is sentient under there, that’s actually an understandable kind of reasoning.

It hasn’t actually been mentioned, and i would like to get word on it, but I suspect that the mermaids have plenty of their own conditions where they expect to act the part of the Hunted instead of the Hunter by things that they might elsewise converse with at a different time. I may be mistaken, but there seems to be a high sense of ‘Fairness’ to their society… just not the same fairness the Humans of the empire (And some/many of us, the audience) share.

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