(no subject)

[forthegreatergood]

Dearest Narration,

"It's only hubris if I fail." A prideful statement to be certain, but none the less a true one, yes? To believe in one's self and triumph is a story everyone loves to tell, success against all odds, all it takes is a dream and a wish on the evening star. To fail is a cautionary tale about pride and folly, however. In the end the actual circumstances change not a bit, all that matters is the end result. Success is praised, failure is condemned, and in the end history is written by the winners in the blood of those they have defeated.

Courage and ambition are not as different as certain British schools would have our children believe. Perhaps not twins, but at the very least estranged brothers of one another, still related no matter how much both would wish otherwise. Ambition advances courage, courage advances ambition, and in the end it comes down to whether or not you stay the course even if the face of epic defeat, or decide that discretion is the better part of valor and to make your dreams a reality you must live to fight another day, as distasteful as a minor setback is. Lose the battle to win the war.

Too much faith is put in talking garments, and it seems a bit too much like a horcrux when you get right down to it. That begs the question if a single item can bear more than one soul - if that's the case than it has four halves within it - effectively two whole souls. Depending on the measure of man we go by, it would be more human than the rest of us. Disturbing as it doesn't even have a brain in the technical sense.

Enter now the self-defined heroes, full of self-righteousness and short-sighted courage, ready to tell off the cruel and ignoble villain, all of them ignorant on history itself and thus by Clio's own hand (attended she by Thalia and Melpomene) written to repeat it until they learn. They never do. How does your modern saying go, Narration? "This is why we can't have nice things.", I will always be besieged upon all sides by enemies of my ambitions aside from my Albus. This we know, you and I.

- G.G.

Comments

[wandofelder]

Precisely why I would never deign to call myself a hero. [Never mind that other people do. Let others have their titles, he isn't going to bother with them.] I've lived with far too many lions to believe blindly in courage with nothing to support it.

Now what is this about a horcrux? [Oh, the days when he wasn't so disgustingly familiar with the word.] I've come across the term before, but what does that have to do with the Hat?

[forthegreatergood]

Your school really does woefully under-prepare its students in the area of dark magic, doesn't it, Albus?

Horcruxes are a form of dark magic that involves splitting one's soul in half - theoretically so that one can have a back up in the even of your untimely death. It also has a habit of imbibing what you store your soul in with an image of yourself as well. Since the hat I've heard ever so much about seems to know the founders so well, it does beg the question of what enchantments exactly were used in its creation.

[wandofelder]

The school still seems to think it's all unimportant, and yet keeps a very contradictory library hidden away. Defense classes seem to work on an annoying double-standard, yes.

No one's death could be so untimely as to want to rip the soul in half; there has to be a way around that. That said, the founders' standards for magical use were far different a thousand years ago, so I suppose it wouldn't be unspeakable. There's no authority like your own.

[forthegreatergood]

Quite precisely. Like Greek heroes of old appearing as shockingly brutal to our modern ethos, moral structure was different then, and they were perfectly within the right within their own era. 'Good' and 'evil' are, in that sense, constructs of society.

But yes the magic is rather brutal, I can't imagine being so desperate as to attempt it myself.

[wandofelder]

Brutal in what sense? [Of course, the idea of ripping the soul in half is bad enough, and serious enough in any case for Albus not to throw a jibe in somehow about how it's surprising that Gellert's found something he won't attempt when that's usually the first thing he does. He has some sort of inkling as to what that entails, or at the very least, an assumption or two. But even in utilizing a hidden library on the grounds that he was a model student, and nothing could have possibly been awry with that, he'd never stuck with the dark magics long. Of course they were appealing, and he could have practiced much of what he'd read with ease, but the moral quandary that was growing up in British wizarding society always had gotten the better of him.

Probably for the better, considering how "difficult" it was to set him off (which was not really difficult at all--all of Albus' reactions were quick, emotional, sometimes downright visceral). He had seen what such reactions had done to his father, to his family, and as intriguing as some of the concepts had been, however he could have rationalized it away, it always comes back to this.]

I quite like your soul where it is, thank you.

[forthegreatergood]

I as well, thank you.

For one, you're left with half a soul - you don't have access to that in the strictest sense anymore, not unless you die and resurrect from like a phoenix from the ashes -- but even then, you're limiting yourself to half a soul for the rest of your days. And let us not forget you already died once.

Also, there's this complicated rule about extreme death spells - almost all require life to cast, in the most direct sense possible.

[wandofelder]

I've heard of their "sacrifices" for the school, but I'd never imagined it would go quite so far. Moreover, how would a single object hold more than one soul? Unless they managed somehow to quarter it, and even then, the math would have to hold that they'd tried once already, wouldn't it?

There had to be a better way.

[forthegreatergood]

I would personally love to hear such a way, it would be quite useful in the event one needs to leave behind instruction in their absence.

[wandofelder]

We will find one, so help me. [The answer is shorter than most, perhaps, the he finds the idea of someone being less than themselves one of the more distressing ways to find an end. Especially if the rumours were true, and that was how his father met his own.] Besides, the Hallows make it entirely unnecessary to stoop so low.

[forthegreatergood]

Indeed they do, my dear Albus, and they will be ours. [Glad you agree with him. Because he's so brilliant, you see?]

[wandofelder]

[Honestly, who in their right mind is going to deny themselves the benefits of darker, more illegal (or in any case, more questionable) magic if you're not specifically paying the price? It goes against every rule of physics and alchemy, of course, there has to be a price, but Albus is still convinced that they can delay what should be inevitable. What's to say they haven't already?] Then why don't we quit this talk of horcruxes, which hardly even suit you in the first place, for more pressing and admittedly more pleasant matters?

[forthegreatergood]

Nasty business they are. I love myself far too much to ever do such a thing, in any case. [Gellert smiles] I am ever at your disposal.

[wandofelder]

You're hardly the only one who would be remiss in such a case, I would like to remind you. [The most convoluted way to say "I love you, too," but there it is.] But yes, while I do have your attention, which self-proclaimed heroes are giving you trouble this time?

[forthegreatergood]

The usual sort, your fanclub, though they were a little later than normal this time. Still, not unexpected.

[wandofelder]

And yet they're hardly my fanclub at all when they realize I'm not the doting, old, nigh senile professor they've all come to "love," if we're defining love by abusing his bloody name at every possible opportunity.

I think I'm beginning to understand how Merlin feels. Or would feel, I suppose, since he is undoubtedly rolling in his grave to the point where he's likely dug himself down another six feet.

[serpentaria]

A horcrux. [Damn it, Gellert, no one is supposed to know about this work around but him. THIS IS HIS SHINING, SPECIAL THING, HOW DARE YOU. Not that he knows who you are just yet, or if you're even talking about them in any context other than simple passing, but...

Good God, it can't be.] There's been one in the castle the whole time?

[And to think he'd been running around in circles for bits and pieces of the founders when he could have HAD THE FOUNDERS all at once. He's not sure whether to be furious or ecstatic.]

[forthegreatergood]

[Yeah bitch your shit may be OH NO HUSH HUSH in England, but in the rest of the world (in 1899) we believe that knowledge is power and what could possibly go wrong?] I have no proof admittedly as I have never attended Hogwarts, but it certainly sounds that way to me. Unless you have other enchantments that you can break it down into.

[serpentaria]

[NO, SHUT IT, HE IS SPECIAL FOR KNOWING THIS! SPECIAL.] The founders were, unfortunately, not the most public of wizards, it seems.

[Which is good, because if Salazar had been, Tom would have been in for a world of disappointment. As it stands, he got the most secretive of the bunch, and it's worked out rather well in his favour thus far. But this idea...oh, this is so much better than small, meaningless trinkets that over time only gained value by mere association to their founder of origin. This is penultimate.]

[forthegreatergood]

[Sure you are, Tommy. Sure you are. Go back to copying Gellert's style why don't you?] Once upon a time that was the way of things. Standardized schools made everything a bit more public. Even if you wish for privacy, there's always school records containing your successes and failures over seven years.

[serpentaria]

Unless, of course, your records have little to do with your successes or failures at all. [That much could be said for the founder's methods; they'd lived their lives shrouded in secrecy, and their school made it fairly easy to do the same. What happened outside of a classroom, or outside the watchful eyes of the staff was almost like it hadn't happened at all.

And that's where he beats you, Gellert. He doesn't flaunt his attempts. Honestly, how gauche.]

[forthegreatergood]

[Let's not forget, Tom, that even with his flaunted attempts it still took years to fall, and then only at the hand of the greatest wizard in all of Europe - possibly even the world.

You got beat by a two year old.]

They are however still recorded, your existence is known. No living in secrecy until the moment of brilliance when you reveal your identity to the world.

[serpentaria]

[But only after accomplishing what no other wizard had done before!!! Mind, he's only a seventh of the way there, as of yet, but even being partially there puts him leagues above most. Even your precious Albus.]

If it were really to come down to this overdone heroes and villains tripe, I think I would much rather have the element of notoriety over surprise. But who says you can't have both?

[Because changing your name when a second generation hasn't ever heard your first? Not altogether unlike coming out of left-field.]

[forthegreatergood]

[Bitch no one with here because no one wanted to. It isn't first place if no one else has ever tried to compete because they didn't want that prize.]

It depends on the effect you're going for, I suppose.

[serpentaria]

This is all theoretical, of course, but if you have a better suggestion, don't keep us all in the dark.

[savingpplthing]

It's less to do with your ambitions and everything to do with your methods of trying to achieve them, I'd think.

[forthegreatergood]

There are certain moral event horizons - "Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein." as said by Nietzsche, and while I cannot agree entirely with his philosophy it is not without merit, though personally I find what rings true the most is "Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer Jenseits von Gut und Böse."

What, in the end, matters the most? The ambition, the methods, or the reason? The weapon, the victim, or the purpose for the crime itself? To do the right things for the wrong reasons or the wrong things for the right reasons?

I should think it a terrible and cruel world where we were all judged equally and fairly.

[savingpplthing]

And you really think that killing hundreds of muggles and wizards all in a bid to rule over them didn't cross it?

[forthegreatergood]

That won't be necessary.

[savingpplthing]

I know History of Magic wasn't my best subject, but I'm fairly sure I remember that being exactly what happened.

[forthegreatergood]

Tell me boy, you lived through the twenties and fourties and saw this for yourself? In any case, that won't happen this time. I will rewrite, and your future will be a threat not a promise. Assuming it was real in the first place.

[savingpplthing]

I think you're severely overestimating your chances of succeeding at all. I know England has a bad habit of just falling in line with whoever's in charge at the moment, but did you have a plan for what would happen when the Americans get involved? Because they really don't like being told what to do.

[forthegreatergood]

England was hardly ever the problem according to those who say my reign went sour. Only Albus Dumbledore. If I never give him reason to leave my side, what worry do I have of wizards who cannot make a move in their society without being tied up in ropes and ropes of bureaucracy?

As for the Americans, that's hilarious. They didn't even enter their muggle war until near the end of it, doubtful they'll do anything except sit on their own continent content in their own power until I have all of Europe, Africa and Asia on my side.

[savingpplthing]

Oh, I wasn't talking about wizards that time. I was talking about muggles. There are reasons for the International Statue of Secrecy, and it's not because we'd be able to win a war against them if it came to that.

[forthegreatergood]

Oh no, the muggles. You're adorable.

Every time I meet another of you I find it harder and harder to believe you're genuinely Albus' student.

[savingpplthing]

I'm not the one discounting roughly 7 billion people just because they don't use magic.

[bibliophile_annex]

Do you believe that no one can be courageous without having an ambition in mind?

[forthegreatergood]

Courage without ambition is hardly more than blind folly and bullying. A wild animal let loose into a crowded street.

[bibliophile_annex]

So, in your perspective, selflessness doesn't exist? And, if it does, it's a trait that belongs to animals?

[She shifts uncomfortably.]

[forthegreatergood]

So, in your perspective, ambition is always selfish? [He raises an eyebrow. That British school, what is it teaching its children?]

[aphoenixsong]

Your thoughts on the Sorting Hat do have merit, though one must keep in mind that it was crafted by a Wizard whose talents far exceeded our own. [Or so history says.] I've often wondered if there is a definable difference between the soul and the mind. If such a differentiation exists then the Sorting Hat isn't a Horcrux; it is something else entirely.

[forthegreatergood]

[History is stupid and can go suck it.] If only we could take it apart and see how it works. Where does the personality come from, and what is it exactly that defines a soul anyway? These are all questions that need answering, Albus. In due time, however, once our new world is stable.

welp this is happening too

[bequeathedbard]

I fear I would have to disagree with you, Herr Grindelwald. It's not that our sorting is about a single, exclusive set of traits at all; we would all be awfully boring, wouldn't we? It's what we tend to make the most of. Courage just for the sake of it doesn't make much sense, really.

[But she is going to ignore sorting for the moment, because those discussions are a dime a dozen, really. She's had to defend her sorting too many times for comfort, and would be more thankful for the reprieve if what Gellert is suggesting wasn't so ludicrous.]

You can't be serious! If the Sorting Hat really were a--someone would have to know. Somewhere. Even if it's hidden in the annuls of history somewhere, it's been a thousand years, this can't be the first time someone's thought of it. Can it?