Amelia Ocean should be a comfort to us all (Pirene spoilers) · 2:57am May 20th, 2017
You heard me right.
Yep, I'm saying this right in the middle of reading through chapter 19, when she performs her arguably most horrific acts.
I think the biggest mistake we make as a society is invalidating the suffering and needs of those who commit grievous crimes, who abuse their loved ones, and do harm in other deplorable ways. The majority of such people are not psychopaths - that is, though it be buried deep under numerous layers of cruelty, rage, and damaging beliefs and psychological constructs, they have empathy and conscience. Sometimes, these things, considered staples of social functioning, grow twisted beyond recognition. Empathy can be a weapon - understand someone well enough and you will know how to manipulate them effectively. Conscience can fuel cruelty indirectly, by fueling self-hatred - as we see when Amelia ultimately makes the decision to bridle Celestia.
In chapter 19, she has become a monster, to be sure. It's hard to empathize with her choices at this stage if you have never been down a similar road before, or if you have been hurt by someone like her. She's hurting deeply, a whirling ball of guilt, shame, self-hatred, anger, and fear. The novel emphasizes this throughout, but makes it explicitly clear in Daphne's first meeting with Pirene, who says it outright. In earlier and later instances we catch strong indications in her narrative that this is the true motivator for her evil, and that the glee she experiences in the throes of Celestia's struggle is not a genuine, deeply felt emotion - rather, it is the expression of the combined insecurities and guilt she has developed over the course of the narrative, and probably throughout her life.
The other characters find it difficult to imagine that, out of the depth of suffering Amelia experiences, she could be capable of real, lasting harm, echoing the disbelief that most of us would experience had we learned that such evil were possible in one of our own loved ones. Human psychology favours fairly black and white group distinctions - we can only truly characterize someone as a hated monster if they exist outside our social and moral framework, or if they betray that framework personally. It is especially difficult to recognize evil in ourselves in most cases, because we rationalize and justify out of existence the parts that make it evil, rather than, for instance, well-deserved justice for perceived victimization (as Amelia first told herself). After that, if we recognize what we have done and are unable to reconcile with ourselves, we may punish ourselves in various ways in the belief that there is no other way forward - because how do you come back, having stepped over the threshold of darkness? We are told by those around us, by the stories we read, that you simply don't. Instead, the only path ahead is further into the shadows. (Ironically, this very narrative discourages redemption-seekers from trying.) Once the guilt gets to Amelia, it quickly putrefies into self-hatred, manifesting ultimately as the belief that she does not deserve love or forgiveness - and through these feelings, she does exactly that. Celestia's relentless love for this creature she has never met before, and her reaction to it, demonstrates this. Love forces Amelia to confront the possibility of redemption - which she has already wilfully thrown away, and cannot bear to consider recovering. Love burns her, as a tortured soul in hell.
That moment of hesitation, before the ultimate sin, highlights the choice she has - and brings me back to the choices she had every step of the way. Reading her descent into darkness comes as a comfort to me, and indeed should come as a comfort to us all, precisely because of the choices she makes. She is always presented opportunities to turn back, until the end, when her final option is, fittingly, only to make amends and learn to forgive herself. She chooses to be the monster, out of loneliness and pain and rage and hatred - and so, very easily, could we. All it takes is the right mixture of experiences, perceptions, and beliefs - and the actions borne forth from those things - to make a villain of any of us.
The beauty of it all? There is always a way back. The monster is there, lurking deep within, but we do not have to give it power.
Well said
It's an apt point. We do as people tend to vilify those folks whom have crossed our own morally perceived horizons of evil. No two by that perception tend to agree on what makes one evil. Society shockingly provides some of that framework intrinsically, albeit in the skewed nature of how an individual is. Amelia here, I don't view as directly evil, or good. She did cruel acts, yes, but children are cruel, and more so when placed into a realm where morality is grey or cast aside.
She did what she had to survive in such a place. And what twistings a semblance and figure of an adult in the morgwyn provided in its own twisting hate.
4539530 Definitely concur with those points! Children harm and deceive one another quite readily, especially in social contexts that encourage exclusivity or create perceived existential threats. At this point, however, she is effectively not a child, having lost her trust in the only thing that seemed reliable and recognized it for a flawed being with selfish goals for her rather than any altruistic sense of protection.
I would argue that this is one of a few situations in which Amelia is able to accurately assess the full scope of a situation before making her choice, thus making it less "I did what I had to do" than in previous instances, consequently increasing the horror of the act. Her abandonment of the CMC and Wire is probably the most emotionally difficult choice she makes, because of the persistence of hope in an impossible situation - not unlike the culling of Stratholme in Warcraft III. Before that, she doesn't have as much information available to her and bases her choices on a combination of what she knows, how she learned it, and the emotionally charged assumptions she makes to fill in the gaps. So in that sense she did what many of us would do - the best she can with the tools available.
4539977 With your example? Honestly, what could she have done? I think thats really where the words of the morg so cruelly twist. Because in that moment, they ring true, all its lessons, its warnings. It rings true, that nothing matters but she herself.
Her goblin companion decides then to lash into her, cementing its words. There is nothing she can do to aid them, her words have failed. She can't force them, so when she has no choice but to leave them, and gets an earful from the only other to really believe, is it any wonder why she uses the hate of the world around her to shield and insulate?
Anger is a stupidly addictive drug, it runs fast, it always answers, always gives, and it loves to fade all too quickly. I know its call better than most. And why amelia is so tragic. She has no guidance, her mentors have taught her to be cruel, to use, and twist as the goblins do. But where the goblins have a moment they wont cross. Humanity is a far greater and grander blank slate. The best of saints, the worst of sinners. We have it all. And few things can be colder than a child abandoned and hurt.
4540088 Anger is indeed seductive, and tragic. Yet if it doesn't fade, it turns into resentment and hatred, and down those paths lies deeper tragedy, if you tread too far.
However, that's the trick: she still has responsibility for her actions, though the motivations driving her choices were shaped by forces with a mind to mould her experiences into forms desirable to them...