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[impure_tale]

Although I know the answer, it serves a person well to consider what it is that drives a crowd of people -- even those who profess themselves relatively good, or even religious -- to relish the notion of hanging, shooting, or beheading a person in full public view.

[Private to Stildyne]

Dearheart, if you are not otherwise indisposed I would relish some proper company.

Comments

[surrenders]

[ A soft sound like a "no". ] One person or a thousand watching, it's the same. You see someone who's... he's everything you're afraid of, like you're a regular guy and he killed ten people for no reason, or he's a cop who brought up ten people you know for no reason. [ The last is said a little too easily. ] And he can't ever do that again.

You don't like watching people get killed, but it makes you feel like you're safe.

[impure_tale]

People were so very willing to let those two hang, if no one had bought them. The most Prefect had done was talk. Not a soul on that island believed their keeper a trustworthy man.

[surrenders]

Crowd was all pirates, right? Most of you guys. Navy sinks their ships, hangs them if they don't drown first. Get your hands on a few of the king's men, doesn't matter who, and do what you want - kill them or sell them off - and it feels like you're getting yours back.

Could have been the same if they'd been back in England, hung a couple pirates.

[impure_tale]

Like I said. It's easier when you're in a group. A group isn't a person and it doesn't have to think.

[surrenders]

But it doesn't have to be a group to get like that. [ Like she said, but she's too polite to point it out. ]

[impure_tale]

But we're talking about mobs.

[surrenders]

Don't think you can just think about people in a group like that. Even if you've got one guy running a mob, you've still got a hundred reasons for a hundred guys to be there.

[impure_tale]

In the end it matters not.

I lived through the Terror, cheri. I know a thing or two about unruly mobs milling around a hangman's noose -- or a guillotine, as is the case for me. There's anonymity in the swarm. There's mindlessness.

[surrenders]

[ She still doesn't see it - just because a lot of people all want the same thing doesn't mean they don't want it for themselves - but it's really not worth arguing about and she isn't smart enough. ]

So you know, then.

[impure_tale]

Know what, my dear?

[surrenders]

What makes people start to think like that. [ Back it up for her a bit, she's kind of dumb, her tone says. ]

[impure_tale]

Would you rather be in the crowd or on the pulpit?

[surrenders]

[ She knows the right answer, but sometimes people need to be up there, so silence as she tries to decide what to say. ]

But what gets them up there?

[impure_tale]

It was a very long time that I believed everyone winds up there eventually, for one reason or another.

Sometimes I still do.

[surrenders]

Like you never know who's going to be next.

[impure_tale]

It doesn't matter. When they're not one of the group the group cannot be harmed.

[surrenders]

...we might be talking around the same thing. Sorry.

[impure_tale]

I'm feeling a mite philosophical. There's no real matter of who is 'right' or 'wrong' so much as an intermingling of ideas.