[thoughts]

[hok_ton]

One of my childsoldiers died yesterday. He was an old man, with a loving family and adopted children. I hadn't seen him in over thirty years, yet he still wanted me there. Strange

Comments

[raises_shotas]

Are you so certain children cannot understand the consequences of their choices?

I think loyalty freely given is far more valuable.

[hok_ton]

Yes. A childsoldier who understands the full effect of their actions would no longer be a child. You would not expect a blind man giving up any chance of sight to understand what he is loosing, correct? Giving a child such a choice is little different.

One would think. Yet there is danger in losing that loyalty, should the child grow and come to understand what they have lost. I have seen children self destruct from the knowledge that they chose a fate they hated.

[raises_shotas]

A child is a child, yet children understand more about death and destruction than most adults would like to believe. I have met several children who were not so innocent, yet they were still children.

Even if a blind man cannot fully comprehend what sight would be like, he can comprehend well enough to make a choice. Humans, for all their faults, at least have a vivid imagination. Does it require full and complete understanding through experience for a choice to have value?

So it is worse to lose loyalty then to never have it in the first place? Forcing someone into a choice they loathe can similarly lead to self-destruction.

[long response is loooooooong]

[hok_ton]

While it is certainly true that children are more aware of somethings than adults would like to believe. But there is a point at which a child is no longer a child, but simply a young adult. I reached that point at the age of eight, I know others who reached it even earlier. Age has little to do with whether one is a child or not; it is experience that counts.

I would argue that some understanding is required. What use is imagination if ones world is too constrained to use it? The most this child can imagine is a world without hunger; how could she understand the pain of losing ones world?

Without a choice, there is no guilt. The reason the Inquest chose children as soldiers is because their loyalty is so easy to gain, and their innocence easy to protect once they are under our control. Being given a choice weakens both loyalty (through having given them other options) and innocence (through the knowledge that the other option might have been preferable).

[Video]

[material_guy]

It's always better to pick. If you're not living free, you're not really living.

Re: [Video]

[hok_ton]

Perhaps. But is it fair to give someone a choice when they cannot understand the options?

[Video]

[material_guy]

You learn what you don't know by making mistakes, right?

Re: [Video]

[hok_ton]

True. But this mistake has rather high stakes.

[sandinmyboots]

They're both equally evil.

[There's no judgement; he says it like it's a fact. Since it is. Evil is evil is evil and it's always fun.]

[hok_ton]

Hmm. I was thinking of it as a choice between two evils. So neither is more evil?

[Karakael would argue that wrecking a child's innocence is only fun for the disturbed. Though he once took pleasure in such things.]

[sandinmyboots]

Right. In one, you knowingly neglect a child who has an unpleasant future ahead of them. In the other, you give them a choice they cannot understand that may end up killing them.

However, if we argue intent, we could say that the latter is less evil, since you intend to make them happier and healthier before they die horribly in battle. Is this correct?

[The Empire does it all the time. It's how it rolls. Kefka's a little too used to it, by now.]

[hok_ton]

Basically. Also, should they not die, they are assured a future and a high position in society after their soldiering is done.

[How nice to run into someone who understands the situation.]

[mordredeschain]

A choice is summat I never had, and would have been glad of. But mayhaps that's just me.

[hok_ton]

Perhaps. But you speak from experience, which is worthy.

Tell me, are you some kind of childsoldier as well?

[mordredeschain]

I am a wanderer in the wastes, and have been my whole life. My kin care not for me, the wasteland is so harsh and o! Discordia.

[hok_ton]

So you have been abandoned by your kind and left to fend for your own? Tch. Parents are the same in all universes, it seems.