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[walk0nwalls]

Almostfaceman wrote...

[snip]
So yeah, voice your opinion dude. Just don't expect everyone to agree with it or be in a receptive mood for it. 

I wrote it in anger, but simultaneously I won't be deleting it because I believe in accountability. That said, you don't think good COs would prefer to have soldiers who are actually at peace with themselves as opposed to just putting up the pretense of psychological readiness?

[Almostfaceman]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

As a former soldier, I can tell you that you are completely wrong.  You are so far from right on this it's almost scary.

I can remember one time specifically, after a weapons demonstration, we were told that the average foot-soldier in modern warfare has (according to Army studies) the average life span of four minutes.

We're taught to fight and win, but we're also taught it is a grave serious job we're about. Nobody is more aware of how many ways there are to die than a soldier.

But some are more aware than others and as many have correctly noted, that's not exactly something you're thinking about on the battlefield, now is it? I mean, there is a difference between heading out into an area with the knowledge that there is a probability of death and heading into an area being informed that death is an absolute certainty. Your perspective changes. The way you approach things change. And when death becomes a certainty you move further away from the artilleryman's often laconic detachment much closer to the corpse digger's immediacy where they have to look at it every day. 

You can consider and prepare for death all you want, but that's the realm of philosophy and religion, therapy and psychology. It's why it's completely bollocks that there isn't sufficient mental health treatment for soldiers once they come back from the war. 

Are we going to turn this thread into "Mental Health Care for Soldiers - Is it Adequate?"  I didn't think that was the topic.

I addressed your issue that soldiers are not trained to be aware of death in combat - that we're programmed to think we're just going to win.  You're wrong about that. We know we can die, we know how easy it is to kill us off. That's all I'm sayin'. I wasn't addressing your point about going into a suicide mission.

[Almostfaceman]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

[snip]
So yeah, voice your opinion dude. Just don't expect everyone to agree with it or be in a receptive mood for it. 

I wrote it in anger, but simultaneously I won't be deleting it because I believe in accountability. That said, you don't think good COs would prefer to have soldiers who are actually at peace with themselves as opposed to just putting up the pretense of psychological readiness?

Yeah, see now, that's the tricky part. There's no way for a CO to know that his soldiers are at peace with themselves. As of yet, we don't have the technology to crawl around in people's brains and tell exactly what their mental state is.

The military does what it can to prepare us for real combat. But there's just no subsitute for the real thing. Real friends getting blown away. Real gore. Real senseless death. 

A real soldier goes into the field knowing that there are terrifying impersonal weapons that can destroy him no matter how strong he is or how fast he is or how well equipped he is.

If you pay attention to interviews with soldiers, say like after WWII - most of them will tell you they're not heroes.  They'll tell you that they're just plain lucky to be alive.

[Skilled Seeker]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

[snip]
So yeah, voice your opinion dude. Just don't expect everyone to agree with it or be in a receptive mood for it. 

I wrote it in anger, but simultaneously I won't be deleting it because I believe in accountability. That said, you don't think good COs would prefer to have soldiers who are actually at peace with themselves as opposed to just putting up the pretense of psychological readiness?

lol so I did make you angry.

[walk0nwalls]

Almostfaceman wrote...

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

[snip]
So yeah, voice your opinion dude. Just don't expect everyone to agree with it or be in a receptive mood for it. 

I wrote it in anger, but simultaneously I won't be deleting it because I believe in accountability. That said, you don't think good COs would prefer to have soldiers who are actually at peace with themselves as opposed to just putting up the pretense of psychological readiness?

Yeah, see now, that's the tricky part. There's no way for a CO to know that his soldiers are at peace with themselves. As of yet, we don't have the technology to crawl around in people's brains and tell exactly what their mental state is.

The military does what it can to prepare us for real combat. But there's just no subsitute for the real thing. Real friends getting blown away. Real gore. Real senseless death. 

A real soldier goes into the field knowing that there are terrifying impersonal weapons that can destroy him no matter how strong he is or how fast he is or how well equipped he is.

If you pay attention to interviews with soldiers, say like after WWII - most of them will tell you they're not heroes.  They'll tell you that they're just plain lucky to be alive.

Even something like that is a unique perspective though. If everyone had expressed something like that, it would've been more than sufficient. I just don't think the reality and chaos of war was sufficiently communicated. And wouldn't it be nice to have that one random occassion when everyone can discuss their problems openly and honestly which is profoundly uncommon to regular life. 

[walk0nwalls]

Skilled Seeker wrote...

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

[snip]
So yeah, voice your opinion dude. Just don't expect everyone to agree with it or be in a receptive mood for it. 

I wrote it in anger, but simultaneously I won't be deleting it because I believe in accountability. That said, you don't think good COs would prefer to have soldiers who are actually at peace with themselves as opposed to just putting up the pretense of psychological readiness?

lol so I did make you angry.

If you were going for a power play, that's your right but words have meanings, meanings have contexts, and you just enabled a social construct that's lead to soldiers committing suicide in the droves. I hope it was worth it. 

[Labrev]

I think they all just about resign themselves to knowing that they won't come back alive, or that the odds of it are very, very low. I would also really hope that none of my teammates are afraid of death either and have the stones to lay down their life for the team. Otherwise you might get a Sidonis type issue. Shepard himself already died.

I think it worked out fine in the end. But they should definitely give ME3 that kind of feel. Everything is at stake, the enemy is all-powerful.

[Skilled Seeker]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Skilled Seeker wrote...

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

[snip]
So yeah, voice your opinion dude. Just don't expect everyone to agree with it or be in a receptive mood for it. 

I wrote it in anger, but simultaneously I won't be deleting it because I believe in accountability. That said, you don't think good COs would prefer to have soldiers who are actually at peace with themselves as opposed to just putting up the pretense of psychological readiness?

lol so I did make you angry.

If you were going for a power play, that's your right but words have meanings, meanings have contexts, and you just enabled a social construct that's lead to soldiers committing suicide in the droves. I hope it was worth it. 

Hyperbole much?

It was totally worth it

[walk0nwalls]

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

I think they all just about resign themselves to knowing that they won't come back alive, or that the odds of it are very, very low. I would also really hope that none of my teammates are afraid of death either and have the stones to lay down their life for the team. Otherwise you might get a Sidonis type issue. Shepard himself already died.

I think it worked out fine in the end. But they should definitely give ME3 that kind of feel. Everything is at stake, the enemy is all-powerful.

My favorite quote out of an apocalyptic scenario comes from Dragon Age 2. Neutral Hawke's rallying cry is "Drinks on me after this!" 

It's such an faux-optimistic and grounded rallying cry for a situation that has clearly lost all semblance of control. I love it because the values animating it are so relatable. 

[walk0nwalls]

Skilled Seeker wrote...

Hyperbole much?

It was totally worth it

No, not hyperbole. You wonder why soldiers so unwillingly head to mental health treatment, why they so frequently self-medicate with progressively harder drugs then fall into cycles of poverty and depression? That's one of the reasons. You support a model of masculinity that negates getting help, people won't get help, people won't ask others to listen, and they die having not said a word of their sorrows to anyone. 

Not hyperbole. 

We need better standards or no standards for what constitutes masculine behavior. It kills too many people and ruins the lives of far more. 

[Skilled Seeker]

I didn't say I support bottling up emotions. I admitted I was trolling remember, and I said I agree with you.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

walk0nwalls wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Damnit, Zaeed? Really? Can't we have one truly amoral sociopath consumed only by anger who doesn't have a deep hidden pain, waiting to be revealed? He is my Sociopath!Shepard's best friend. If he cracked she's be forced to kill him because he'd already be dead to her.

I may talk a bit more about the others later, but I'm going to try for sleep.

Ah, but alas. Sociopaths typically are not angry people. They're cold clinical people utterly devoid of empathy who get off sexually on power and are incapable of relating to others. Anger rarely has anything to do with it.
Sorry to burst yer bubble. 

I was a psych student, and I'm pretty sure "flying into rages" and "cycles of anger and abuse" are possible symptoms of sociopathy. This seems to be straight from the DSM-IV, as the fourth possible indicator: "irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults." And the PCL-R, a controversial measure deisgned to distinguish psychopaths from ASPD people also lists reactive anger as having a strong correlation with psychopathy. (Yes those links are Wikipedia pages, but I did check my old DSM-IV, just to be sure.)

So yeah, you can have someone who appears outwardly angry and is still a sociopath (ok, I'll admit that there's some debate as to whether sociopathy is just a less extreme version of psychopathy, but for now they're largely considered synonyms. I'm simplifying for the sake of debate, now). They're mainly classified by not showing any compassion or remorse. I wouldn't have put Zaeed in that category necessarily, until he was willing to kill all those innocent factory workers to get his revenge. At that point I was like "ok, yeah, probably a sociopath." (Technically I should call it ASPD, but nobody would know what the hell I'm talking about.) If he's not a sociopath, he's close enough to being a completely amoral badass. And that's what my Renegade shepard is... someone entirely without morals or compassion.

Now, onto your monologue: 

"I do not think about Death. When I die Death will find me with my finger around the trigger but I will not have devoted a moment of my life to having thought of Death. Death is my friend, my ally, I am the servant of death and when I die Death will kill me with the absolute certainty that I will have never believed that it could've betrayed me and I will be at Death's side, a figment of the shade again. 

I am devoid of dreams or fear or desire Shepherd. You paid a pittance of a price to have the servant of Death at your side. Our enemies will not know fear, for Death is not fear. They will hear quiet. They will hear the sounds of our guns then the ever-glistening quiet moving through the dark: the space from whence the came and to whence they've gone. I will not die. The lot of you may yet disappear into the murk of the stars but I will not die. What you need to worry about is keeping yourselves alive but I will not die yet. Not here, not now, and not with you. Have I made myself perfectly clear?

Now, if you're quite done, I've got guns to clean."

Zaeed isn't a monologuer. He is a man of action.

That monologue makes me facepalm so hard I almost crack my skull. I'd accept something like

"Have you even been listening to me? I'm starting to think you come down here to stare at my pretty face without hearing a god damned word I say. Half the missions I go on are suicide missions, the only difference is, this is the big time; big money, big consequences. You don't go into being a Mercenary for th' health benefits."

Romantic ideas about death are for people like Thane. Zaeed is a man who does a job, aware of both the risks and rewards of that job.To have him metaphysics up feels like an utter betrayal of everything he has stood for so far.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 avril 2011 - 04:31 .

[walk0nwalls]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I was a psych student, and I'm pretty sure "flying into rages" and "cycles of anger and abuse" are possible symptoms of sociopathy. This seems to be straight from the DSM-IV, as the fourth possible indicator: "irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults." And the PCL-R, a controversial measure deisgned to distinguish psychopaths from ASPD people also lists reactive anger as having a strong correlation with psychopathy. (Yes those links are Wikipedia pages, but I did check my old DSM-IV, just to be sure.)

So yeah, you can have someone who appears outwardly angry and is still a sociopath (ok, I'll admit that there's some debate as to whether sociopathy is just a less extreme version of psychopathy, but for now they're largely considered synonyms. I'm simplifying for the sake of debate, now). They're mainly classified by not showing any compassion or remorse. I wouldn't have put Zaeed in that category necessarily, until he was willing to kill all those innocent factory workers to get his revenge. At that point I was like "ok, yeah, probably a sociopath." (Technically I should call it ASPD, but nobody would know what the hell I'm talking about.) If he's not a sociopath, he's close enough to being a completely amoral badass. And that's what my Renegade shepard is... someone entirely without morals or compassion.

Now, onto your monologue: 

"I do not think about Death. When I die Death will find me with my finger around the trigger but I will not have devoted a moment of my life to having thought of Death. Death is my friend, my ally, I am the servant of death and when I die Death will kill me with the absolute certainty that I will have never believed that it could've betrayed me and I will be at Death's side, a figment of the shade again. 

I am devoid of dreams or fear or desire Shepherd. You paid a pittance of a price to have the servant of Death at your side. Our enemies will not know fear, for Death is not fear. They will hear quiet. They will hear the sounds of our guns then the ever-glistening quiet moving through the dark: the space from whence the came and to whence they've gone. I will not die. The lot of you may yet disappear into the murk of the stars but I will not die. What you need to worry about is keeping yourselves alive but I will not die yet. Not here, not now, and not with you. Have I made myself perfectly clear?

Now, if you're quite done, I've got guns to clean."

Zaeed isn't a monologuer. He is a man of action.

That monologue makes me facepalm so hard I almost crack my skull. I'd accept something like

"Have you even been listening to me? I'm starting to think you come down here to stare at my pretty face without hearing a god damned word I say. Half the missions I go on are suicide missions, the only difference is, this is the big time; big money, big consequences. You don't go into being a Mercenary for th' health benefits."

Romantic ideas about death are for people like Thane. Zaeed is a man who does a job, aware of both the risks and rewards of that job.To have him metaphysics up feels like an utter betrayal of everything he has stood for so far.

Aw well, you can't please everybody /takesbackmonologue. In all seriousness though I've met far too many people like Zaeed to like him. People who do their job and only their job and only exist through and as their job. I don't understand it. I've a need to explain things and understand why it is that I do things I do and it puts me in direct conflict with individuals such as Zaeed. 

It is arguable that Zaeed is the perfect representation of the mechanical creature of capitalism, but honestly those are so commonplace and so, disappointing somehow. Like the abrogation of personality is something to be desired. 

Ah well, I suppose if you want something done right, do it yourself. /continueswritingpersonalfiction. 

Edit:

Modifié par walk0nwalls, 30 avril 2011 - 04:44 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

I'm not trying to make too much fun. That monologue would be fine coming from a charcter who Zaeed isn't, just not from Zaeed. I used to work as a writer doing jobs for carefully controlled IPs... if you get a voice wrong, you get a page back covered in red pen (or usually, in MS word edits), and you get told to do it again. Soon you learn to hear the voices. Man... this makes me sound crazy, doens't it? 

I'm not an amoral sociopath. My Main!Shep isn't one either... in fact her problem is that she's too trusting, too caring, and too willing to depend on her friends. When she loses people, she feels pain. Having died, she's unsteady on her feet. She probably does think about death, but in a world-weary, resigned sort of way. That's why the talk with romanced Garrus is so important - before the mission, he's sure we're going to lose people, because that's what always happens to him. He always loses people, friends, allies, companions. He comes up to your cabin and he says he wants something to go right, just once. He's talking about the romance, but you can easily divine further meaning from that. He expects the SM to go poorly, like everything else in his life. But if this night goes well, that will be a victory. The fact that he doesn't say it out loud, but that Jane understands him perfectly, that's what makes it so sweet. They both expect to lose people tomorrow, because they've lost people before. It doesn't even need to be spoken between them. It's understood.

The other side of the puzzle is what Crow is for. Crow acts entirely in self-interest. Priority one: personal benefit. Priority two: amusement. Priority 3: maintaing the facade that she's a functional human being with normal emotions, and priority three became a distant third after she got Spectre status. Before that, it was somewhere up near number one or number two. If anyone on her squad dies, she'd be annoyed at losing an asset that might benefit her in the future, nothing more, and she'd throw her entire team to a Thresher Maw if it meant ensuring her own safety. If it were possible to save them she would, sure, they're valuable and entertaining. But she comes first, she's the most important person in the universe. She's a perfect diamond god who already came back from the dead once, why should she fear death? But saying all this stuff out loud would bring her no benefit, and blow her cover. It's more amusing to fool everyone.

Two characters. Two very different approaches to death. Both valid. Both pretty well realized in game.

Now, I'd definitely like to hear Garrus talk more about how  he got to Omega, what he really wants to do with his life, and what his mad gambits seek to accomplish. I'd also like to be able to get the full range of his emotion without romancing him. But the fact is, if I'm depressed, I'm not going to just randomly tell my boss about it, even if she asks me how I'm doing. Even for one of my favorite bosses, it would take me being upset to the point that it was interfering with my work before I'd talk to them about something like that. A boy I was seeing... well that's different. So the whole "only open up during romance" thing is pretty true to life, though I think that, to characters like Garrus and Tali, Shepard should be more like a friend than a boss at this point. Still, I've had days when I'm sad and I don't tell my friends. I get it out by writing something, or painting something, or doing some calibrations.

But Garrus DOES tell Shepard he thinks we're going to lose people, and that he's keeping an optimistic front for the sake of morale. He doesn't go into it, but it's there. And that's enough.I would like to see Shepard reach out for an arm touch or a brohug and say "Thanks for being there, Garrus," but I don't think more than that is necessary. Sometimes I'm sad, and I tell someone, and they just say "I'm sorry" and give me a hug, and we don't have to have a monologue. And sometimes I'm pacing and ranting. Time and a place.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 avril 2011 - 05:17 .

[Skilled Seeker]

Funny, Zaeed is my favourite ME2 character as you can tell. Guess that explains the conflicting views we hold.

I ignored your monologue because I thought you were joking. Do you seriously think Zaeed, or anyone for that matter, would say such a thing?

LOL

[walk0nwalls]

Skilled Seeker wrote...

Funny, Zaeed is my favourite ME2 character as you can tell. Guess that explains the conflicting views we hold.

I ignored your monologue because I thought you were joking. Do you seriously think Zaeed, or anyone for that matter, would say such a thing?

LOL

I would. No joke. 

Well, capitalist cog, I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

[Almostfaceman]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Skilled Seeker wrote...

Funny, Zaeed is my favourite ME2 character as you can tell. Guess that explains the conflicting views we hold.

I ignored your monologue because I thought you were joking. Do you seriously think Zaeed, or anyone for that matter, would say such a thing?

LOL

I would. No joke. 

Well, capitalist cog, I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

Hmm, capitalist cog.

Stereotype - a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly.

[Skilled Seeker]

Like I said I agree with you to an extent. But you lost me with the melodramatic monolgue.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

The thing is, Thane would totally monologue. Miranda might monologue, she seems to love it. Jack might let forth a profanity-filled, deeply emotional rant (if a romanced Jack dies during the SM, she actually says "I knew it. I was too happy... too happy with you.")

Just, know your soliliquizers.

[walk0nwalls]

Almostfaceman wrote...

Hmm, capitalist cog.

Stereotype - a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly.

Zaeed thinks only of the moment, only of his actions, thinks of himself nothing more than a tool to be used. Am I incorrect? If a person expresses no introspection regarding their actions, is not the designation appropriate? 

Or have I mischaracterized the individual?

[Almostfaceman]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

Hmm, capitalist cog.

Stereotype - a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly.

Zaeed thinks only of the moment, only of his actions, thinks of himself nothing more than a tool to be used. Am I incorrect? If a person expresses no introspection regarding their actions, is not the designation appropriate? 

Or have I mischaracterized the individual?

You plainly called Skilled Seeker a capitalist cog.

[walk0nwalls]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

The thing is, Thane would totally monologue. Miranda might monologue, she seems to love it. Jack might let forth a profanity-filled, deeply emotional rant (if a romanced Jack dies during the SM, she actually says "I knew it. I was too happy... too happy with you.")

Just, know your soliliquizers.

I like Miranda. I always imagine her having the sort of businesswoman's rant though. I like her when she's being kind of cold and professional. Reminds me of a lot of people I know, in a good way. 

[walk0nwalls]

Almostfaceman wrote...

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

Hmm, capitalist cog.

Stereotype - a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly.

Zaeed thinks only of the moment, only of his actions, thinks of himself nothing more than a tool to be used. Am I incorrect? If a person expresses no introspection regarding their actions, is not the designation appropriate? 

Or have I mischaracterized the individual?

You plainly called Skilled Seeker a capitalist cog.

I forgot his name. And given that I don't personally know Seeker titles applied to his character I'll be deferring to him. More than that, you've failed to establish where the designation is unfair. 

[Almostfaceman]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

walk0nwalls wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

Hmm, capitalist cog.

Stereotype - a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly.

Zaeed thinks only of the moment, only of his actions, thinks of himself nothing more than a tool to be used. Am I incorrect? If a person expresses no introspection regarding their actions, is not the designation appropriate? 

Or have I mischaracterized the individual?

You plainly called Skilled Seeker a capitalist cog.

I forgot his name. And given that I don't personally know Seeker titles applied to his character I'll be deferring to him. More than that, you've failed to establish where the designation is unfair. 

I don't have to, you don't know him/her, thus stereotyping is lazy name-calling. Guess it's time to pm a moderator.

[walk0nwalls]

Almostfaceman wrote...

I don't have to, you don't know him/her, thus stereotyping is lazy name-calling. Guess it's time to pm a moderator.

Your perogative. Something of an unhappy end to what otherwise has been a nice conversation though.