Tragedia Senza Fine

A Hrothgar with beautiful flower tattoos using the Fireglass set is sitting and reading a book.

...It's hard to keep your optimism, when you've walked through the ages and have seen the cycles repeat themselves over and over and over again.

Civilizations rise and fall, their atrocities forgotten or papered over. People die and sacrifice themselves, on false pretenses and falser claims. The good work lasting a generation, the tragedies repeating across millennia.

When you finally had enough, you pick up a weapon, find who is responsible, and take off their head. You think you've finally made change, you think things will finally be better now, some even praise you as a hero for it.

And then you look behind you, to see the trails of blood you've left in your wake. "It's fine." you delude yourself, "They were all complicit."

In a week, a mob has risen in your name, a riot that leaves hundreds dead and thousands injured. A revolution starts, as people realize that the hierarchy will never give away their power without force.

But even if you wanted this, you can't help but look at the countless corpses from both sides that start piling up. You hear children that go abandoned, you hear the stories of those horrified by the fighting, you hear the promises of revenge from those whose families have been destroyed. "It's worth it." you continue to lie to yourself. It's worth it.

You help the revolution win. You use all that you know to cleave the head from those responsible of the other side. Their forces lie scattered and weak. You help them set up a new government, every decision, every law, every individual comma in every written document carefully considered and reconsidered -- all done with the best of intentions and with the utmost information you have available to you.

You tell yourself that it was worth it. That this time, this time, things will be alright.

And within a century, the new government has completely changed -- laws either rewritten or ignored. The revolution turned entirely into a rhetorical device to reinforce the existing power structures. Conditions are the same, if not worse, than all of your work prior.

Because that is the truth of it all. Laws and history and records -- those are just words on a page, with no power to compel people. They are up to interpretation, and often, to the interpretation of the powerful.

Powerful people like you.

A wolf sits in front of the Hrothgar, looking at him. The Hrothgar has lowered his book and is looking back at the wolf.

And yet that's exactly why we have to fight, is it not? The century may have come and the government may have become corrupted, but for that century the situation will have changed. Things did not stay better, but they did become better. Don't you think stealing just one happy moment from the misery of the universe is worth it?

A tiny dragonet has appeared, clinging on the Hrothgar's shoulder. The Hrothgar turns his head to look at him.

And besides! None of that is guaranteed! We have seen things become better on a permanent basis, and there are always people out there fighting the same fights we do! The Warrior of Light is a perfect example of that! But not just them -- there are many people, big and small, that fight against these very things.