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[ Sasuke thought about asking this through text. He likely should have, because his emotions have been strong lately, a lot stronger than he wants them to be, and his anger has been nearly as quick and hot as it was when he was on his path of revenge. But it feels cheap somehow to ask such an important question via text. He can't do video due to his eyes, so he tries to keep his voice even to conceal just how much this question means to him.

The feed is silent for a little longer than is probably natural, but he's still figuring out how to us his omni, so. Y'know. Be gentle here.

Finally, it picks up a sigh that almost sounds annoyed. ]

How did the world treat orphans where you're from? Was there an age where someone was considered a child versus an adult? Were there children who were considered unworthy of help or were the rules in place blanketed towards all children?

[ There's a pause where he realizes he should make it seem like this is less about, y'know, him, and more about curiosity on how to help kids here maybe. Uhhhh... ]

... Would there be things from your world that you would want to see offered to the children in this one?

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I don't think there's anywhere in the wide expanse of the multiverse that treats orphaned or troubled children with anything resembling kindness.

In the town I grew up in, the answer is badly. There was a cult that was rather rigorous in inflicting it's teachings on young people and whenever they strayed they were punished. Sometimes the ones that believed the most were punished as well, to ensure that nobody ever felt safe enough to stop striving for perfection.

In the underground civilization I fell into as a child, their own children were treated well, and so was I, but then a tragedy occured and from then on every human child who fell just like I did was hunted down and murdered to keep morale in the kingdom up.

From everything I've been told by others in this place, you are incorrect. It is arrogant and idiotic to assume that because your own world was cruel that every reality in the multiverse is the same. Things are too varied for any broad assumptions like that to be made.

That being said, the way your world responds is more familiar to me than the ones which do the opposite, so it's at least safe to say that cruelty is a constant in many worlds.

Really? Did society as a whole make things easier for them or were the kids themselves the ones to take care of their own?

There's always individual exceptions, but rarely institutional ones. In that underground kingdom I mentioned, the Queen would take care of the children who fell and provide protection and shelter. But they'd get restless and want to go back to their families, and that's when the King's soldiers would hunt them down and kill them. See? Individual vs Institutional.

The King was a kind man who was fond of children, he didn't want to hurt any of them, he would have very much liked to have provided a loving home to anyone who came to him. He still killed them all.

Edited 2022-02-19 04:24 (UTC)

It's been a mix, but this city itself has the society take care of their orphans. The orphanage takes in and cares for any child who needs someone. It automatically contradicts your initial assumption.

The King sounds like he was either too weak to be worthy of the title or like a liar who didn't care about children at all no matter what persona he displayed. You can't be truly fond of children and want to protect them and also be willing to kill them anyway just because of institutions.

Yes, and I'm sure this world is so kind to children with the rampant blood curses and corruption and all the powerful individuals with authority over this place that have already fed on and tortured a dying little girl they claimed to love to further their own interests. But yes, I'll admit that there's certainly people here who do their best.

The King was my adoptive father. I know the kind of man he was. Weak, yes, but not dishonest. You would be surprised at the horrible things good people can find ways to justify under the right circumstances.

I don't claim to know anything of the circumstances around the girl or the history of this place before what it is now, but the world that has grown out of it does seem to try to help others. Being rampant with corruption does not reflect on the way they run their city overall, anymore than a peaceful city in a war torn country is responsible for the violence that happens around them. If anything, the darkness of this world almost seems to be the trade off for a city that tries to take care of its people. If people are doing their best, and, following your own word choices, there are institutions set up to help them do their best, then it shows it is not simply individuals.

I wouldn't be surprised by anything. I've seen it first hand. And I've also seen the way family can hide their true selves, or how people can believe so deeply that they are good or that they care while their actions show anything but. Killing children is the opposite of wanting to protect them, no matter what a person says or believes about themselves.

I guess. I haven't visited the orphanage, but I don't trust them on principle. I might look into it. This world is a strange mix of abhorrent and inspiring.

I wouldn't have predicted he'd be capable of it either. The Queen, yes, but she's smarter than him and would have only done what she had to, rather than wobble over it and stew in self hatred and self pity for decades. But admittedly his reasons are a bit more complicated than that.

What if the only way to protect the children who relied on you was to kill children who were afraid of you? What if the only way to give an entire civilisation the hope that they have a future was to do something as truly awful as murdering children?

Would you say that every ruler in history has held active malice for all the millions of people that get trampled in their wars or under their orders?

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying he's a good person after what he did, but I do believe he genuinely loved me and my brother, and I do believe he wanted to be kind.

His last words before I killed him were to offer me a "nice cup of tea."

[Lot of daddy issues with this one.]

Edited 2022-02-19 05:41 (UTC)

You should. The one orphanage we had back where I'm from was used by men in the village to perform experiments, so I had thought it wouldn't be much different. I volunteered originally to try and find where the dark secrets were hidden, but I have yet to be able to find any. Not that I still couldn't, but they're hiding it well if there is something to distrust.

Malice isn't necessary for a lack of care or a lack of desire to protect. Rulers who declare war don't care or want to protect the people of the countries they attack. I'm not saying that he didn't genuinely care for you or your brother. Individual children can be cared for while still not truly wanting to protect children on a whole. If you honestly care for children, truly want them protected, then no. It wouldn't matter the reason, those who truly believe children are worthy of being cared for on a whole don't kill them. Even in war, most rules will say that you can't kill the children of another country, or will even limit the deaths to only soldiers, because those rules care about protecting the innocent.

[ ... Of course, he hasn't been able to analyze his own family with such an objective lens, but Sasuke is, if nothing else, a fucking hypocrite. ]

We'll see. I'm certainly not volunteering at an orphanage, but if there's a deeper mystery there it's worth exploring.

That's what the Queen would argue, yes. They all have their different ways to cope with grief, for her she looked to care for children to replace her own, for him, he looked to bury children alongside his own.

He's pathetic. The fact that he cared about people as a whole, including people not of his kingdom, that doesn't make him better, it makes him worse. That's my opinion anyway.

I would also disagree with the idea that those rules in place to protect children are ever anything more than a way to assuage one's conscience. They're never followed, and when they're broken, the rulers will rarely punish their own soldiers and risk rebellion.

You throw around words like "never" and "always" too easily. In the same way that there are too many variants in worlds to say that none of them are kind to unwanted children, you also can't say that there has never been armies that follow the rules set in place to protect those uninvolved in war. You are limited only to the knowledge of the worlds you have seen. You should consider asking more questions and seeing how worlds that aren't your own function before forming such broad opinions.

Is there an example in your world of a war with no collateral damage?

Maybe there is one out there, but I think you'll struggle to find it.

"Collateral damage" is a subjective term and also not what you originally stated. You said that rules are "never followed." Both lands involved in the war would have to have the same rules applied to them, which isn't always the case, and thus "collateral damage" would occur regardless of if the rules were followed because of one land not being as strict about not involving civilians as the other.

However, where I'm from, you follow the orders given to you by your Kage. If you fail to, you are either banished as a criminal or killed, so punishment for going against your rulers was hardly rare. What those orders are varies from land to land, but they were, more often than not, strictly adhered to.

Struggling to find a world where things are different doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all. Only idiots believe in absolutes.

"Only idiots believe in absolutes" sounds pretty absolutist in and of itself. Only idiots? There's probably a genius out there who swears by the word of Kant like it's gospel, and you just denied his existence.

But yes, don't get me wrong, most crimes against humanity are ordered by rulers or higher ranking generals. Following orders is everyone's favourite excuse for any number of attrocities. I think the misunderstanding came from my assumption that you were speaking of a more international set of rules, which exists in my world, and is rarely followed by anyone powerful enough to get away with it. Clearly such a thing hasn't been invented in yours.

And if you'll recall the message I literally just sent, I simply said that you'll struggle to find a war with no collateral, not that none of them exist at all. Collateral in this case being defined for the purpose of this conversation as civilians not directly involved in the conflict.

If they swore that any word was gospel, I don't care how much of a genius he may be labeled, they're still an idiot. And I'm aware that believing in that itself means I look to myself as one as well, but I don't deny my own stupidity.

I'm willing to admit people thinking they're above the rules is one constant I'm sure does exist nearly everywhere. The man who wiped out my clan thought he was above the rules because of his station in the government. He was still punished in the end. I like to believe most are eventually, one way or another, but I'm sure plenty of them get away with it in other worlds.

I did recall, I was referencing it and applying it to your earlier statements. My communication isn't always very clear. I'm still getting used to speaking to others again.

Fair enough. I wouldn't say I'm an idiot now but I certainly was in the past. I don't actually believe in absolutes either, more a matter of almost absolutes.

Sometimes they are. I think whether or not someone is punished for thinking themselves above the rules largely relies on whoever wins. The victor is never punished, that's one of the prizes for victory.

I have also not interacted with anyone other than my partner for a long time before arriving here, and even then they didn't respond to me. Communication is a tiring mess of subtexts that most will assume you already know.

I get that sense from you or I likely wouldn't have said anything to begin with. People who truly believe in complete absolutes aren't usually so open to debate.

Or how good they are at talking their way out of a sticky situation. A lot of people who end up believing themselves in such a position have been good at manipulating in situations where they do lose.

It is. It's a headache, particularly when people act as though it's a skill everyone is simply born with.

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