Lake Doric: Second Run

[Hypnowulf.7403]

I know that my first go around with this ended in calamity. I enjoy psychoanalysing Jormag because there are many things I agree with them on. I think a part of the problem is that with the way I'd chosen to present myself, my intent would be easy to call into question. I feel a deeper dive is necessary, and I need to get personal in order to convey why it is I relate to Jormag and why I find myself agreeing with them and their methods.

I had my skull split open twice in my youth, resulting in long stays in hospital, both times were because I failed to understand how neurotypicals functioned as a highly-sensitive autistic child. The first of which was in the midst of a human stampede—in my folly I'd accepted that everyone would make their way to an exist in an orderly fashion. It's logical. This would ensure that everyone could reach safety in the most expedient manner. That didn't happen. Later, I found out that humans will stampede over the littlest of things—even Black Friday deals. I discovered that, for the most part, impulse control isn't actually a very common trait.

As a child, my favourite inner-fiction was one involving a being who referred to himself as a Weaver—often referred to as an enthraller as a derogatory slur. This personality eventually became a long-time resident in my head as a headmate of a traumagenic plural system. I lavished praise upon him as I could see the value of his choices. It was within his power to instill impulse control, to force all of those under his care to question before acting. He had the capacity to have them halt, consider, and choose wisely.

Some would see this loss of agency as an egregious crime. I wouldn't. It's a small sacrifice to make if it ensures that the health, sanity, and life of all is preserved. I mean, why wouldn't you value that? It's such a small sacrifice to make for the greater good, it's kind and it's decent. I think all too often people think of impediments to free will as vile without even realising how little free will they tend to truly exercise. I mean, why is politics a popularity contest? Charisma is readily obeyed without thought, analysis, consideration, or care. How many actually care about the policies? It's—It isn't many, is it?

It's startling how few people realise when they have, for instance, been groomed. It's easy to spot whenever someone is pressuring you to accept something and avoiding investigation into why they believe what they do—but in my own research I've found that most are happy to accept peer pressure when it's accompanied by charisma. Charismatic people are socially powerful—you agree with them, you fit in, you keep your social standing. You don't exactly see very many people calling Bill Gates out regarding his climate change hypocrisy—yes, there are a few but it really isn't very many.

Since so much free will is left by the wayside I really don't think that an impediment imposed against impulsivity is a negative consideration. I really don't. If it was necessary for every person to pause, just to consider everything? How different of a world would we be living in right now? Think of all of the places in our world where evil happens because no one bothers to ask the questions that need to be asked. A relevant one here is—why stampede?

I value this impediment against impulsivity, to ensure that everyone has impulse control. I think that we'd be living in a better world if no one acted impulsively. I see Jormag as a less effective version of my own realisation, they seem to have many of the same goals but they don't quite have the power to see them through. Consider Bangar. How would you stop a war? A war is about momentum, it's obeying, acting without thinking and relying on the impulsivity of raw emotion. If you kill Bangar, you've fashioned a martyr whose ideologies will be more deeply embraced.

What do you do? Do you imprison this genocidal madman? That would make any place housing him a target for his loyalists, so anyone else imprisoned there would be at risk—you'd need a prison just for him. How long would it hold him? The war wouldn't stop, the goal would shift to freeing their glorious leader. The momentum would continue. What if, however, you were to humiliate him, depower him, take his charisma away? This would sow doubt amongst the ranks and slow the momentum. Now instead of relying on propagandised emotion there would be thought, questions.

I cheered for Jormag when they collared Bangar as I understood exactly what they were doing. It was an act of compassion—you end a war this way. Lives are saved. They couldn't have done it before waking up but they ensured that the very moment they were able to was the moment it happened without even a second wasted. It was brilliant.

In my prior thread I'd posited what would happen if Primordus had taken Lake Doric? How many lives could Dragon's Watch have realistically saved? The problem is is that due to the inherent selfishness of an irrational human, just as many lives would've been lost to a stampede as would've been to the attack of Primordus himself. You'd see people being pushed into lava, trampled underfoot, and worse. Those who died wouldn't have deserved that.

I ask you then: What's the better sacrifice to make? To be yeeted an assumed hundred years into the future where everyone lives, or to allow the attack to happen and for so many to die? This is what it's about—sacrifices. There's an inherent selfishness in valuing the agency to stampede over the lives that could be saved. If it were my choice, I'd accept being Frozen because that's the option where the most lives are saved. Jormag is faced with this same horror—they have to let Primordus take life not only through his actions but also through the reliably selfish and foolish actions of stampeding humans, or they take matters into their own hands and force a very chilly sense of impulse control on those who would certainly stampede, given the chance.

It's a matter of trying to empathise with an Elder Dragon. If you were trying to save these lives, how would you go about it? Would you safely herd people and have them take foty winks in an ice cube if it meant that the greatest number of lives were saved? That's what Jormag did. I agree with that choice. I see someone who's very tired of the death and destruction their abuser causes. They're ultimately doing the best they can with the power they have. The sacrifice of taking a nap in an ice cube is a valid one if indeed it saves lives. That is the kind and decent thing to do.

It's for this reason I posit with certainty that Jormag is not a villain. How I see it is that if they truly didn't care, they would've done as Primordus does and consumed life force from slaughter. I don't know how many have considered this because I think it's easier to propagandise oneself to hate than it is to consider. I... dislike that. It's that very trait that allows dark triad monsters to have so much power, but I digress.

Sometimes being a hero means understanding the right sacrifices to make.

[ugrakarma.9416]

lolz, im asperger but i believe this have nothing to do with autism, just age, im near 39yo. I just think things are simple, if Jormag is messing up things, it must not be "understood", it must be destroyed, we should shot first, ask questions later. Elder Dragons are just like a rorschach test, u can see " deeper things" behind them, or just see as they are: nature forces(like a blak ink randomly painted on white paper) that are dangerous.

But its clear writers throwed this dillema on purpose, to add some extra flavor to the plot, the real Jormag enigma is, "we are being naive and overthinking his motivations?", or "we are being just raw brutes ignoring it and just pointing a gun to him?"

Im favor of a plot where commander become a tyrant, because being a hero at some point start becoming boring.

[Fueki.4753]

Jormag does evil things.Jormag freezes people to gain power and be equal to Primordus again.These people might be conscious inside that ice, you know. They'd be deprived from all senses except for feeling the cold of the ice.Jormag is an apathetic life form that only cares for its own ideas and ideologies while ignoring the individuality of others.Jormag shows nothing but the utmost disrespect for life (just like non-Aurene Elder Dragons do).If Jormag truly wanted to protect these people, it would jsut have brought an army of icebrood to oppose Primordus' forces.Not doing this shows that the safety of these people has been of less value to it than just covering everything with ice, making the land uninhabitable.

There literally is nothing Arenanet can do to make Jormag not be evil without turning the story into a giant dumpster fire.

Jormag has done too many irredeemable things and does not deserves empathy.All Jormag deserves is Braham and the commander jumping into its mouth and shooting its heart with arrows that are imbued with fire magic.

[Tsakhi.8124]

I personally feel that every living thing deserves empathy, but not sympathy. Empathy teaches understanding, sympathy teaches acceptance and not everything deserves acceptance. I think that Hypnowulf deserves a fair shake, personally. I feel empathy for Jormag, but I feel no actual sympathy; having sympathy means that I have to accept everything about them and I can't because I don't full understand their design. I can sympathize with their struggle but not with their actions if that makes sense.

Also, I might be remembering wrong, but in Crack in the Ice, Rox mentioned to you that she thought she was on a beach whilst encased in ice and was not cognitive of the fact that she was ensnared in a huge ice block. Maybe the encased people are the same? Jormag is the dragon of persuasion after all.