Rehabilitation 14.3: The Unearned Climax
It was an otherwise normal night, after a normal day filled with such normal tasks as: training the sitting army of Equestria about guerilla tactics; working towards a project of mass immortality; and calling forth a Time-Trapped image of his hated enemy so that an immortal sun god who hates him could help that enemy become more powerful.
But all of that progress was like ash in his mouth, tainted by the nagging sense that something about his own thinking is wrong. This has been going on for a week, ever since the conversation with Twilight about his own tendencies. It was getting worse over time, not better.
Four days ago, when he first noticed the pattern, he declared to himself that if the pattern continued for three more days, he would consult the obvious expert.
Three days have now passed since that declaration, it is now night, and he can no longer delay.
"Luna," he asked into an emotional lull he'd learned to recognize and wait for, a sense of completion and minor relief.
"Yes?" asked Luna, who had been dream-walking, and had just finished guarding one such dream.
"I suspect I am in need of a session." And there are none scheduled for tonight, an observation made three days ago, an observation that contributed to his decision of holding off until tonight. "Do you have an hour to spare?"
"Yes," she repeated, in almost the same tone and inflection as her first 'yes', except that it did not lilt up to form a question. "What about?" That did, though.
"It seems that, absent the careful combined influences of the Mirror, Mr. Silver, yourself, and possibly the Elements of Harmony, I have a tendency to be what Twilight Sparkle calls a full-blown tyrant, and what Celestia would call an extreme authoritarian. Of the generally right-leaning variety."
Preservation of the past and present, traditionalism, a focus on purity and the prevention of creeping corruption from foreign (muggle) and other outside sources… the Dark Lord Voldemort had been a right-leaning tyrant, and it is the least annoying role he ever played. Which means Tom Riddle, who had studied and idolized tyrants both left and right, probably leans 'right' as Equestria defines it, though of course the real him is more layered and nuanced than he'd pretended with Voldemort.
The 'president' version of himself, from what he saw in Twilight's mind during her Occlumency training, was what Equestria would call a left-leaning tyrant – a supposed champion of the people. Though that tyrant was just one iteration amidst a sea of right-leaning or just flat out politically neutral tyrannies. The neutral ones could be summarized as: 'I have killed and supplanted all your gods, I am nigh-omnipotent levels of powerful, you will serve me or die, deal with it'.
But ignoring the 'neutrals', there were still a good number of right-leaning tyrannies. Versions of himself that had risen to power under the guise of preventing the creeping corruption of Changelings, preventing the corruption of the Crystal Empire, preventing the corruption of chaos. Only one version of himself seemed to lean left.
So his sum-total average tendency is probably right-leaning.
Still…
"Though truthfully," he said after that brief pause for self-reflection – the thoughts had gone by in flashes, he'd already thought many of those thoughts before, and was now trying to organize them for the sake of conversation. "I've had left-leaning tyrannical tendencies as well. Or rather, I learned just as much from the tactics of left-leaning tyrants as the right-leaning-" Mao's little red book had been particularly insightful "-and I was not shy to implement whichever set of tactics I believed would work best for a given situation. I would like to know the various root causes of this mindset within myself. Not the what, but the why. More specifically, I would like to pierce through all the many excuses and justifications and rationalizations I am so fond of providing whenever indictments about my past political choices are raised. And of course I would prefer an utter lack of moralizing. And preferably not a lecture influenced by a stupidly biased political worldview either."
Luna took a deep, deep breath, and gave a deep, deep exhale. "That is a tall order. And I am not unbiased. And it is not the sort of thing that can be covered in one session, my cleverly wise fool."
"I'm fine with that."
"Or two sessions, or three, or ten, or even a hundred. It may be a years-long endeavor. Perhaps decades. I will do my best not to waste time, of course, but I can make no guarantees."
There was a longer pause.
A weary sigh. "However long it takes, I suppose."
"Then we may as well begin with the basics."
Her mood turned to reflection and openness for a while, the emotion of free, improvised thought. Then she spoke.
"My first claim is this: Anypony, at any time, might choose to attempt to violate the free will of another."
"What if they are in chains? Or otherwise indisposed?"
"That is why I said 'attempt'. It goes without saying that I am referring to ponies who have their faculties about them. My claim is that ponies can, at any time, choose that they want to do something that goes against the free will of another pony, either directly or indirectly. My claim is not that they will be able to succeed, only that they can adopt the ambition to exercise their free will in that way. Do you disagree with that? "
"No. It is a fact Dark Lords exploit by amassing enough power for their wills to triumph."
"Not just dark lords, but yes. Let's call this actionable free will. The fact that one pony or group of ponies might at any time choose to attempt to violate the free will of another. Now… is this fact not also used by anti-Dark Lords to overthrow their oppressors?"
He shrugged. "True enough. Stupid Dark Lords fail to foresee the powers by which they will be overthrown." But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not…
"Which brings me to my next claim," said Luna. "The outcome in a contest of wills is decided by the calculus of power. Do you disagree?"
"No."
"Do you disagree that the calculus of power gets ever more complicated the more powers you add to the equation?"
"Describe what you mean."
"The more countries. The more factions. The more weapons and dark horses. The more exceptional individuals. The more plots. The more powerful interests involved. The more free wills that must be accounted for. The more of those, the more complicated the calculus of power becomes. Do you disagree?"
"No." It is why complicated plots tend to fail. It's not that the plotters don't take complicated power calculations into play, it's that they simply can't. "Why are you stating these elementary points?" he asked.
"So that you might have a better reference frame for understanding me when I say that my sister and I have been amassing as much power as we can on the side of Harmony."
He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Do you consider the power you have amassed to be sufficient to stop Dark Lords?"
Luna's emotions became tinged with a bit of frustration, but not the kind that was aimed at him. "Just so you know, my sister has gone on and on about how demilitarization and cooperation with other countries led to dramatically less loss of innocent life. But as you are clearly thinking, and as you and recent events have long since proven, there are risks to doing that. Even if it achieved something commendable in the short term. In exchange for a mutual decrease in military actions worldwide, we have achieved a system of true peace and prosperity-"
"Until a dark lord comes around."
"You did not let me finish. We have achieved a system of true peace and prosperity if we can keep it. My sister might be powerful, I might be powerful, Twilight and the Elements might be powerful. Other exceptionals might be powerful. But of late, the average Equestrian has not had any practice at 'keeping' our peace in the face of competent and powerful enemies. Not even the average guard has had true practice. Which, as you point out, is a problem."
"I don't think 'problem' adequately describes the magnitude of the risk."
A defeated sigh. The emotion of acceptance. "Indeed. A better way of putting it might be that much of our hard outer shell of protection has softened and atrophied from disuse, even as our inner yolk gets richer. Equestria is a juicy target for envious tyrants. Tyrants like the two of us. Like Nightmare Moon and Voldemort. And of course all the others. Does that describe the risk adequately, in your view?"
"It names the risk more precisely, yes. Where are you going with all of this?"
"Patience, fool. I have been thinking about this for a while, so allow me to use an analogy. All tyrants have their rationalizations. I coveted the copious love of my subjects, the majority of which I felt was going to my sister. I was like the ambitious helmsmare of a ship, coveting the admiration that the competent captain was receiving. You coveted control of the ship so that its incompetent crew and captain did not sink it and kill everyone aboard. Correct?"
"That analogy works, yes."
"What I truly wanted was attention. What you truly wanted was to stop the apocalypse. Correct?"
"Correct."
"Would you say that, within your own mind, 'stopping the apocalypse' was the biggest 'rationalization' of your political career? The biggest excuse?"
"Yes."
She nodded. "So, to fully address your authoritarianism, we will eventually have to address all of your excuses. But the biggest one is probably where we should start."
"Sensible. And?"
"And I think a good way to start is to ask: Why not let the ship sink? You had your immortality. You would not have died. What did the apocalypse matter to you?"
He knew it was rhetorical, that the purpose of this question was to reveal his own thought processes, that Luna was merely playing devil's advocate for the sake of a point, so he did his best to avoid getting annoyed and answer with the first honest words that came to mind. "If that happened, I would have been bored for all eternity."
As he told Mr. Potter, in the room before the Mirror. But not Luna, until now. She had only ever received his convenient excuses.
After waiting to see if he would say anything else, Luna said, "Right. To be clear, in your own words, would you describe that as a fundamentally self-centered motivation? I get that there would be side benefits to the crew and the ship if you adopted the ambition of preventing them from crashing, but regarding you, was your primary concern your own potential boredom in an endless sea of nothingness?"
Interestingly enough, his mind felt like bringing a few other rationalizations, justifications, excuses to the fore, in defense of the obvious accusation. But… "Yes, that is correct." But she had sufficiently cut through them that they finally sounded like excuses to himself, which was the important part. Back when he had said them to Mr. Potter, he believed them. He believed he was doing the world a favor, for all that it was a selfish motive. Now…
"Right," said Luna. "In other words, after achieving immortality, your primary concern, your primary goal, was to ensure your own future non-boredom. Correct?"
"Yes."
"You got angry at any would-be threats to the world, at reckless powers, reckless muggles, at any whom you perceived to be getting in between you and your goal?"
"…Yes. Anger is defense of your own self-interests, as you once said. The immune system of the soul, as you called it."
"Well… yes. That is anger turned to virtue. Frustration simply arises when you perceive that an obstacle has gotten in between you and your goal. Anger is when you either suspect or you know another living being is responsible for that obstacle, and is perhaps deliberately hindering you. THAT is anger. But we are getting a bit off-topic. That is my fault, I was trying to skip ahead." She took a pause to think. "Now… the you of many years ago… he dreaded eternal boredom, correct?"
"Yes."
"So on the flip side, would it be accurate to say past-you craved excitement? Stimulation? Novelty? Intrigue?"
Crave is a strong word, but… "Of some varieties, yes." It fits. "Primarily the intellectual. Nothing carnal."
"Did your cravings often turn to the purely natural world? Or did you tend to crave stimulation from sources that only exist because other sapient beings left things in the wake of their existences?"
…
After a brief pause to comprehend the full implications of the question, he said, "Sometimes the first, primarily the second."
"Right. So… before I ask my next question, I'm going to state the obvious and say that there are ancient sites, artifacts, and puzzles that adventurers spend their whole lives exploring."
"I have done a fair bit of exploring myself."
"Yes, good. So for the sake of argument, suppose that, hypothetically, all sapient life but yours were to end on earth, leaving an empty world full of copious sites you could visit. Imagine… what Dumbledore claims to experience when he explores his side of the Mirror, his version of Equestria. A world devoid not of life, but of other living minds. Would that have been satisfactory to the old-you?"
…
"I don't know."
"You said nothing carnal, but active competition with sapient opponents was not something you craved? Or even just decently cooked food? Well-crafted conveniences? And sapient minds specialized to build and maintain those conveniences? Would a world empty of other beings also be empty of many things old-you valued?"
The truth is, his mind was reluctant to think along these lines, along the lines of the thought experiment, and so it helped when she laid out the implications explicitly.
"…Put that way, I think old-me would not have been satisfied with a lifeless world, even uncharred, in the long run. Perhaps even in the short run. He could have coped, but it was not his ideal future. He would have preferred specialists to provide quality goods, and for there to be many living, intelligent minds for him to plot against." Riddle does prefer chess to solitaire, as he once told Mr. Potter.
"Alright, good. Now, here is the important question. Would old-you have preferred for other minds to exist even if those other minds might grasp at powers that are dangerous and potentially world-ending?"
"Old-me would have preferred a world in which that was not possible. Present me prefers a world where that's not possible."
"True, but let's deal with a realistic hypothetical. Two choices. Choice one: hypothetical empty world, only historical sites and yourself. Choice two: real world of… well, reality. In hypothetical empty world, no risk of death, no other beings, no new stuff. In the real world, there is new stuff, there are others. But there is quite literally always the risk of world-ending disaster that ends in your actual death. Because sapient minds will always be trying to tip the calculus of power in their favor, especially when they are up against the worst Dark Lords in history. Furthermore, imagine that nothing you can ever personally do will mitigate the risk that the world ends, that you die. You can only ever worsen it. You are not this Merlin you've told me about. You are Lord Voldemort, and you are blind to how you are worsening the risks, to the world and to yourself. Which world does old-you prefer, hypothetical and safe, or real and risky?"
…
…
…
"Old-me would not have entertained a thought experiment containing that accusation. Current-me acknowledges your point about ambitious minds always grasping at power, especially when they are desperate."
"So you can't picture which way old-you would lean because he rejects the framing outright?"
"Not quite. I'm unsure what old-me would decide if he did entertain it. But if it's just a question of leaning, I believe old-me is leaning towards hypothetical."
"And what about current you?"
"Leaning towards reality."
Luna took a deep breath and exhaled. "Good. Good. That is good to hear, Tom." She has been calling him that more recently of late, and he has not objected of late. "May I ask why you are leaning towards reality now?"
And in that moment, the cheesiest line his own mind has ever independently generated – not from a pretentious perfect Occlumency barrier meant to gull a normal sentimental fool, but a thought from his own, true self beneath the barrier – came to his conscious awareness. It was a cliché so corny and gag-worthy that old-him is ridiculing current-him for even thinking it, let alone thinking to say it.
But his inner-phoenix was all for it. And it was, as far as he could tell, an honest response.
"Do not take this as flirting," he warned. "I do not mean it that way. But I am leaning towards reality because you and Mr. Silver are in it."
His Changeling sense informed him that Luna was experiencing a sudden spike of love. It was not romantic, lustful, or carnal. He has felt those 'flavors' of love often enough by this point, just walking around in Equestria with his Changeling sense active, that he could distinguish those kinds of love from the platonic, 'friendship' kinds of love.
And there was an impulse within himself to mirror the emotion. Along with the rusty, atrophied, yet finally working brain pathways to actually be capable of the mirroring the emotion, if only slightly.
Perhaps there was a magical mechanism going on as well, if Changelings can feed from such things? He might have to research – i.e. ask – if they can feed from magicless cows. He sent a query to Thorax… then realized this line of thought was a massive distraction, and that the love he'd felt coming from within himself had already vanished, and he'd probably lost his opportunity to use it for a Patronus.
"Damn," he said aloud.
"Beg pardon?" asked Luna, her love turning to afraid confusion.
"Ah- nothing you did. I had a moment of happiness for a second there. Perhaps enough for a Patronus. I lost it a second later."
…
Now Luna was feeling hesitant worry. "And this moment deserves profanity?"
"If I had been faster, I could have tried casting the Patronus."
Luna seemed at a loss for words. "My dear fool… I think you are in far too much of a hurry."
"I'd argue I was not in enough of a hurry. Had I been faster, I could have cast it."
"My fool, the moment you lost your happiness, the charm would have broken anyway, so what would have been the point?"
"To prove to myself that it was not a one-off the last time."
"My fool, listen to me." She looked him square in the eyes. "It. Was. Not. A. One-off. You have already proven you have the potential, which was always your biggest worry. Now is the task of growing into that potential."
"Which I can only do by actually casting the spell."
"My fool, you are focusing too much on the charm and not enough on the happiness!"
"I do not see why I cannot focus on both."
"Because multitasking is for experts, not apprentices!"
That gave him pause.
"Your charm will probably have to last for hours to satisfy Dumbledore," Luna continued. "Maybe days. And it shall have to stand up to his prodding of your mental state, no doubt about that – which can interfere with Patronuses, and probably will interfere with yours."
He'd never thought of that far ahead before.
"If you cannot maintain your happy thought in the face of adversity, whether or not that thought is fueling a Patronus, then you are in any case doomed. So focus on maintaining the thought instead of scrambling to cast a Patronus with it. Understood?"
His eyebrows rose. That is not unlike the early instruction for the Killing Curse, for students who have trouble learning it; stew in thoughts of those you hate, let your anger build. Make your angry thoughts grow, if they do not build on their own. Focus on those thoughts FIRST. Those thoughts are the key, and you must learn to call them forth at will.
Although there is no such thing as 'maintaining' a killing curse. It is a build-up, then one-and-done, accompanied by a feeling of catharsis, satisfaction, and relief. If it eliminates your target of ire.
So perhaps his reference frame is off.
"I think I understand the mistake I was making," he said. "I was thinking of the Patronus as largely the mirror inverse of the Killing Curse."
"Which it totally is," the Princess of Night declared.
"I agree. But I did not explicitly realize one of the realms of inverse until just now. True happiness is lasting and must be consciously maintained. True killing intent is… explosive. It builds, it concentrates, it spikes to a singular point and lashes out."
"That… sounds entirely accurate. Fascinating," she said a bit distantly. And she meant it, according to her emotions. "These spells are symbolic on such deep levels, aren't they? The delayed gratification of happiness, the short-term rush of joy and catharsis."
"That is a good way to put it."
"If you think so, then would it also be accurate to say that for all your pride at avoiding carnal pleasures, you fell prey to the worst one of all?"
His eyebrows furrowed. "I don't think so. Which pleasure are you talking about in particular?"
"The carnal pleasure of schadenfreude."
"You are calling an emotion a carnal pleasure?"
"Of course. Sugar activates the dopamine receptors. So do drugs and sex. So do… well, all forms of hedonism. And so does schadenfreude. It activates the dopamine receptors. It is a carnal pleasure."
"I'm… not sure I agree. Besides, my pride is not that I avoided carnal pleasures, it's that I never became addicted to them."
"You think you are not addicted to schadenfreude? To the joy of you winning and others losing?"
"I… would need you to make the argument that it's an addiction. I would hesitate to say that I'm addicted to it."
"Very well. Carnal pleasures turned addictive are mood regulators. In particular, regulators of negative moods. Feel a bit of stress, take a swig of wine. Feel a bit of boredom, take a bite of chocolate. Feel a bit of annoyance, cast a killing curse."
His eyebrows furrowed further than before. "That sounds off. I did not kill everyone I was annoyed with. And there were plenty of times when I cast it without feeling annoyed in the slightest. I am almost certain I've cast it while laughing, though I can't remember any specific incident if that's true."
There was a long silence, as Luna seemed to consider what to say next.
"Yes, you cast the killing curse at times when you were not annoyed. But it was your fallback during times of great annoyance. It is a normal human's fallback during times of great hatred. It is something that quite literally everybody first learns how to use in order to regulate their mood of terrible hatred." He had not told her about how Silver's Killing Curse lessons had differed from the norm. "Ponies who really like sugar do not restrict their consumption to only when they are bored. Ponies that really like alcohol do not drink only when stressed. They do it… well, whenever they have reason to do it. But they reliably fall back on their addictions to deal with negative moods."
"Can it really be said I'm addicted when I haven't cast it 'evilly' in so long? Or hardly much at all in the past half-decade?"
"Yes. Because you are not addicted to the spell, you are addicted to the thought process that ends in the spell. Annoyance closes your mind to the possibility of an amicable settlement, you cheat, you win decisively. That is the standard thought process of the killing curse, boiled down to its bare essentials, and it is a standard thought process of yours, killing curse or not. Am I wrong?"
"…You are not wrong in your description of the standard thought process behind the killing curse." It is the ultimate 'cheat' spell in battle magic, after all, going straight through shields and walls and whatnot. "I think you are wrong to say I am addicted to it. Especially since I no longer engage in the standard killing curse. If I were addicted to the pattern of annoyed-cheat-win… then just the other day, I would have cheated in my self-imposed challenge to locate Ms. Sparkle. I used standard tools available to the lore-less wizard in my circumstance, namely Spike. I could have used a dark ritual. I deliberately chose no to."
"It does not surprise me in the slightest that you got bored of the standard addiction long ago. You are intelligent and nuanced enough to desire many other modes of thought, but the standard of 'Hate, cheat, win!' is still your habitual fallback. Or at least, it's your ultimate resort whenever you encounter enough manure. Call it an addiction or don't, hate-cheat-win is your final solution to any pony who annoys you severely enough, if you are allowed to do it. Correct?"
…
…
"Yes."
"Okay," said Luna. "Okay. So… imagine, for instance, there is an intelligent and diverse pony who loves sugary foods, their ultimate fallback pleasure, even if they are nuanced enough to have many outlets of joy. That doesn't change the fact that they are an addict. It just makes them a more complicated addict. Ponies who reach the second stage, the advanced stage of being bored with the basic pleasure, so they add and intersperse different and new layers to their carnal pleasures without realizing it… they have dug much deeper holes for themselves. Do you see?"
Again, the pain. Like a hot knife through his pride and ego. "Yes. Point?"
"The point is… you don't have just a single-habit issue like most modern Equestrian addicts tend to have. You do not have one sick tree that must be uprooted if the farm is to survive, but a plague upon the whole field, requiring a truly competent overhaul. That is why the Patronus charm is so difficult for you. Because you need a healthy farm, and most of yours is either dead or dying."
He was cynical enough about his own thought processes to know it was true as she said it. And faithful enough about Luna's good-faith to know she was not trying to use this argument as a means of advancing her own agenda at the expense of his. Luna was, quite literally, the only person in the world he fully trusted to do that. And not just because of the Vow she took, though that did help him get to this point. It was mostly her emotions of good-faith, at this point.
"Why are you focusing so much on this?" he finally asked, not un-wearily.
"Because those addicts who declare themselves 'not addicted' are helpless and hopeless until they acknowledge that they are addicted. Unless you are to tell me you've never seen that pattern before?"
"The pattern I've seen is that addicts are helpless, period. Unless a 'tyrant', as you would call it, forces change."
"Then it is time for you to learn a new pattern. Think of it logically. Addict number one believes the thing she's addicted to is healthy and good; she believes that even if it's bad in some ways, she believes she is not prone to the bad ways; and she believes that even if some people can get addicted, she herself is certainly not an addict. Being an addict is beneath her, it is low-status. Addict number two knows that his habit is bad for his long-term health; but he doesn't know how to quit because the short-term hits just feel so good; and he also can't see all the things he's addicted to. He does acknowledge that he has addictions, and he can see one or two of them clearly. If you had to bet money on one of these poor souls overcoming their addiction in the absence of outside force, which would you bet on?"
"Number two."
"Would you agree that number two's chances, while certainly bad, are not zero?"
"Yes."
"Would you agree that number one's chances are effectively zero?"
"Yes."
Luna nodded. "That is why we are focusing so much on this. To get your mind as far away from being number one as possible. Which means getting as close to number two as possible."
…
"Understood. What's the new pattern of overcoming addiction that you'd like me to learn?"
"It is one that Equestria has learned and practiced for over a thousand years. The pattern of freedom. Freedom from the root cause of the addiction, without force. And that pattern, my fool, relies on the free will of the addict. That's the only way forward for you. Your Patronus will come from your own free will, once it can overcome enough of the negative habits of thought you're addicted to."
"Acknowledged, but where does this pattern start? How do I begin to exercise my free will in that way?"
"You start with acknowledgement that you are addicted. Well, actually it starts with understanding addiction – not in others, in yourself. But anyway, once you do that, step two is to actively label your own impulses as 'addictive impulse' or 'not addictive impulse'. And then… we'll go from there."
"Consider my state of addiction to be acknowledged. What specific impulses should I look out for?"
"Ah… you are jumping ahead. We'll get back to this later, but I suppose for future reference, the primary impulses I can see are your impulse to cheat, your impulse to conceal the truth, and your impulse to annoyance. You are addicted to things being unfair in your favor, you are addicted to introversion and secrets, and you are addicted to the emotions that lead to the killing curse. In a word, you are addicted to power. When you get further along, I will tell you to beware all of these, as an obese pony should beware all impulses to eat. For now, just be cognizant of them."
There was a pause as Riddle almost unwittingly allowed the warning of the powerful wizard to be absorbed without question.
"An interesting word you chose," he remarked. "I almost accepted it without question. Then I almost objected that living beings must eat, and that living beings must be powerful if they wish to do anything at all. But the word 'beware' is not 'avoid'. Unless you did mean to say I should avoid them?"
"All necessities in moderation," Luna answered. "Ponies must eat to survive, and ponies must be powerful to survive. Again, you are not at this stage yet, but your eventual warning about your addictions must come with the nuanced understanding that it is not as simple as 'don't seek power', just as a warning to an obese pony is not as simple as 'don't eat', just as a warning to a porn addict is not as simple as 'never ejaculate again'. It would be so much easier if you were addicted to a narcotic that did not exist in the ancestral environment, instead of things that are, at their core, necessary to the sapient condition."
…
"I see why you are so fond of the obesity analogy now."
She gave a light smile. "Yes, it is my favorite analogy for a reason. Would you like to know how I saw your recent declaration of 'damn' in my mind's eye, just earlier?"
"I hesitate to say yes. I fear it will be unpleasant if I see the analogy more clearly than I used to."
"Should I stay silent then?"
"No. I prefer clarity to blindness, no matter how unpleasant. What mental image did you get from my 'damn'?"
"Bear with me for a bit. But you reminded me of an obese pony who had lost fifteen pounds in her first week of a new diet. She experienced a rush of joy at such great progress. She expected to lose fifteen more pounds each consecutive week. And then said 'damn' when she weighed herself the next week, when she saw she had gained a pound. After the first week, she felt she could 'cheat' a little when her progress was fifteen pounds a week. When in fact she had not lost fifteen pounds of fat, but rather water, for various reasons related to extreme changes in diet. She was- she was grasping at instantaneous progress, and frustrated when it slipped through her grasp, and – speaking as your wise wizard here – that frustration often leads the obese ponies to relapse. They put back on all the weight they just lost and declare the task impossible. Their expectations are unrealistic, they are too attached to the number on the scale from day to day instead of month to month, they cannot delay gratification."
"And… could you more narrowly lay out how this is precisely related to my own 'damn'?"
"Your 'damn' just now showed me you are attached to the idea of casting the Patronus now." She took on a voice. "What's the problem? Why didn't I lose weight? This scale must be wrong, I've done the work! I've done everything right!" She turned back to a normal voice. "The scale doesn't lie. She was not nearly as far along as she thought she was. In fact, she learned absolutely nothing of substance from her stupid fad diet that didn't teach her a thing about nutrition, the pony body, or her own bad habits of addiction. She doesn't even realize she is addicted to food. And she believes she should already be getting significantly healthier. Her believing she did everything right to achieve her goal is exactly the problem. She was being stupidly arrogant, an addict in denial. Like your mind might have been doing about your goal of casting the Patronus, and you doing 'everything right' to reach it."
He sighed. "And there's the clarity," he said with a bit of self-centered sourness. Not that he'd been nearly as bad as the pony in the analogy, but in order to see a problem, it often helps to look at the extreme cases of stupidity and ask what stupidities of theirs you have imitated to a lesser degree.
"Would you like a bit more clarity?"
"No."
Luna shrugged. "Would you like to call it for the day?"
"Yes. So please continue."
There was a pause. Luna was giving him a look.
"You asked if I would like more clarity. I would not. But I do want and need it. You asked if I would like to call it for the day. I would. But I want and need to stay. I need to see this as clearly as possible, as soon as possible. So hit me with it now, while my mind is still raw and open to change."
"I… shall try to be gentle." She paused for a while, then spoke. "Sugar, drugs, porn, cheating, stealing, raping, and yes, the Killing Curse, all have a certain thing in common. Can you guess what that is?"
"They are addictive," he said, trying to predict and pattern-match, though even as he said it he knew it probably wasn't the correct answer to the quiz.
"And?"
…
"Nothing else comes to mind, other than perhaps the fact that they are considered 'sins' or 'vices'. Well, all but the sugar."
"Yes, they are all missing the mark of virtue. But most relevantly to our discussion, what they have in common is this:
"The build up of tension, followed by the unearned climax, followed by a lingering feeling of relief and satisfaction, followed by a long-term feeling of hollowness and boredom. That is the pattern of addiction. And defending that pattern so that it may continue is also a pattern of addiction."
Damn.
Well, he did ask for it, and it is what he wanted. Something to cut through the excuses and rationalizations and justifications. And what better way to cut through them than to point out that excuses are the common symptom of helpless addicts.
It's been said enough times by this point. Twilight Sparkle in particular. He's said it to himself, or thought it himself, when considering the stupid mistakes of other people, when considering the mistakes of himself in those ten years of star-gazing. He knows that excuses defend stupidity. But back then it was more… shallow. Surface level. Bad habits of thought that did not cut this deep. They did not cut to his core.
He still couldn't clearly see how he is addicted, what all he is addicted to, but he can at least finally see that he is addicted, on an incredibly deep level.
"Your mind is picturing the climax of finally casting the Patronus," Luna explained without so much as touching his Occlumency barrier. "You are desiring the relief of passing the test and the satisfaction of escaping the trap."
"I am," he said honestly, seeing it the moment she said it.
"Would you like to know the ugly truth?"
"No. I need to know it."
"The ugly truth is that there is no climax of casting the Patronus. There is no relief of passing the test. There is no satisfaction of escaping the trap. After you pass Dumbledore's test and he unfreezes your world, the real test will begin immediately. After you escape the trap, you will not be satisfied. Because you will be back in an evil, stupid world, containing all the people you once hurt, and you will be armed with a Patronus that will shatter in your hands if you meet your victims face to face and they ask you why. THAT is the bitter pill of your future prospects."
"…I have told you what I plan to immediately do upon my escape, yes? The plot I intend to run? Even were I fully redeemed, I cannot see a way of accomplishing anything 'Harmony'-worthy in those early critical moments if I reveal myself as Voldemort."
She shrugged. "Perhaps you can delay the scary prospect of honesty with a clever lie, and perhaps it is in the best interest of future life on Earth if you perform that delay. But the delay will not last forever. Not to an immortal. And when the lie unfolds, when that day of reckoning comes, you will be left with nothing but the truth. No lie lasts forever, in the face of those who can cast the true Patronus. That is what you should expect."
And since she had Vowed to keep his secrets, it was clear she was not saying she would be responsible for the reveal, just that it was inevitable on this current course of action.
"Well. Conditional on that hypothetical model of the future being true, I am feeling a great urge to abandon this ambition altogether and go do something more pleasant."
"Yes, defeatism and escapism are common reactions. What most addicts are actually addicted to is not their specific addiction. Most addicts are addicted to avoiding. Avoiding their problems, avoiding feeling bad. Avoiding reality. Often for entirely understandable reasons, if the reality of their life is endless agony, or numbness. And they are also often addicted because they didn't know any better at the beginning, and they don't know how to get better once they realize they're deep down manure creek."
"Even if I knew how, I'm not sure my free will is in it anymore. Not with that-" all masks torn away "-to look forward to."
"Well, there is a major benefit for you, personally, if you do not give into the temptation to quit and instead follow through on the ambition you set for yourself. Three benefits, actually. That you haven't seen yet."
Finally. "List them."
"I shall. First, if you never give up on the Patronus, I'll never give up on you. I'll always be here, even if the rest of the world refuses you."
He felt a small surge of true happiness from within himself. He did not try to seize the emotion this time. He tried to just… observe from a distance, and let it be.
"Second, if your endeavors with Twilight Sparkle succeed, you will always have us to return to. Equestria. Equus. Even if Earth refuses you."
The surge strengthened, morphed, found purchase on something solid. An ambition.
"Third, and most importantly. If you go on this journey of recovery, you will never, ever be bored again. Would you like to know why?"
"I am skeptical of the claim I'll never be bored again, but why?"
A glow of orange crested the center of Luna's neck, though she didn't seem to notice it. "Because you will not have time for boredom. Going out into the world and always telling the honest truth in a way that still promotes Harmony will be the greatest, most unpredictable, most difficult, most stimulating, and most rewarding adventure of your life."
His inner-phoenix gave the most inner-ear-shattering CAW! of approval it has ever given.
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Best explanation of addiction I've seen. Food for thought for this partially-recovered polydrug addict. Thank you.
I never expected to empathise so hard with a fic's Riddle character
Weird, given that definition, Im almost addicted to being helpful.
I have no idea how you manage to have a story that contains opinions I so vehemently disagree with at one moment while helping me understand concepts that I've been struggling with for years with professional help the next.
...addicts are addict to "avoidance"
...that actually hits me surprisingly deep. Same for the "cheap climax" followed by boredom.
And I find myself instinctively coming up with excuses, or even just a "and why should I care?"
... I'll have to think about this some more
11756011
This is indeed a thing.
The activist/therapist/priest/leader who attaches to abstract causes, to the idea or even to the practice of helping other people, because they’re avoiding concrete reality and pain in their own lives.
I’d bet my entire net worth that many world famous, fabulously wealthy and high-status CEO’s are addicted to work because they’re avoiding stuff in their personal lives, past or present. The old joke that the boss works so many long hours because his wife’s a banshee. These might be addictions turned to positive outlets, but they still serve the same purpose of avoidance, and they’re still addictions.
11756096
That’s because I have my own addictions, and one of those addictions is preaching, which is just so easy to mentally rationalize as teaching. There are now two word docs saved in a separate file folder on my flash drive, containing long-ass cut sections from this very chapter. Things that weren’t quite plot relevant, but my brain was trying to rationalize them into the story.
As I write this story, I do try to take my own advice.
Oh, oooh...
I know! 
They're socially disapproved?
Hmm, he should be old enough and familiar with muggle culture
Also you'll grow hair on your palms. And Jesus shall send you to Hell after you die.
She's already got herself killed once.
11756647
Yes, you've internalized the mindset of the defensive addict perfectly, well enough to give that mindset's output at will. And in particular, the arrogant atheist libertarian addict, which is not too far from Riddle's mindset, or my own. Thank you for demonstrating.
This is the "Idiot Christians believe in stupid reasons for not doing this 'bad' thing, and I'm not an idiot!" flavor of defensiveness. My own response is: "...Yes they have stupid reasons for not doing these things - drugs, porn, etc. - and I agree that they should not be illegal, but it's still not wise to just go ahead and do them whenever you feel like, here's the exact, non-idiot reasons why that's the case." It's the same problem MoR Harry had when trying to argue against PQ by saying 'the nasty Italian fascists believed unity is strength, therefore dictatorship bad'. Dictatorship was not the ideal form of government long before the Italian Fascists were even a thing. Addictive behaviors and substances were not ideal or optimal for human mental health long before Christianity was a thing. And they'll continue being relatively unhealthy long after.
That's why arguments within this chapter are strictly secular, with care taken to avoid appeals to authority (religious or otherwise) and appeals to bandwagon (social approval or disapproval). I tried to argue entirely from analyzing cause and effect, from connecting short-term choices of an individual to long-term consequences to that same individual while they are still alive. The rational atheist will accept no less. The arrogant atheist addict... is probably hopeless no matter what argument you use.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to write this chapter without the ad hominem of calling addicts... well, addicts.
11756864
Not exactly, just added a few examples of functionally analogous statements coming from different cultural backgrounds. For diversity!
Why religion? Partly because they're notorious for fucking with people like that, partly probably because collection of despicable human beings called Orthodox Church for some unfortunate reason royally pissed me off recently (hair thing wasn't from religious context, although it may be different in other places, I guess?).
Although, I'm curious: why libertarian?
Because Truth is Eternal? Now that you mention that, Plato's Republic looks suspiciously like...
11758121
Why libertarian? Well, because it's basically a meme about libertarians that they're the 'smoke weed everyday' crowd among the standard four political categories that America tends to recognize these days - progressive, liberal, conservative, libertarian. Sure the liberals might want legalization of weed, but they rarely claim to want legalization of drugs across the board. Conservatives... lol yeah, no. Progressives might want legalization of drugs, but again, accross the board? And even if they do, it's not something they harp on about nearly as much as libertarians. The libertarian crowd is the biggest "My body, my money, my property, my choice! No 'reasonable restrictions', no exceptions!" crowd in politics when it comes to non-abortion issues. It's baked into their core values in a way that it isn't for liberals and conservatives. And of course the same principle applies to porn. With the exception of child porn, and/or other pornography made/distributed without the consent of the individuals involved, because that's a violation of their right to privacy. Or worse, depending on the porn.
As for the social approval or disapproval... note that, when I replied to your comment, I was specifically considering the bandwagon fallacy - 'do it because everyone else is doing it' and/or 'don't do it because everyone else will disapprove if you do'. THAT is what I strictly avoided.
If you were referring to Luna personally having strong tones of disapproval... well, that's the entire point. A better therapist might come off as even less judgemental and 'moralizing' about bad habits than Luna - I honestly thought I did pretty well on that front, at least in this chapter - but for someone who's looking to overhaul their life and make major positive changes like Riddle, at some point the therapist has to go 'These habits of yours are bad for your long-term mental health, person who is seeking my advice. They are the reason you are finding it difficult to make positive change. Here's precisely why.'
Wow. This chapter hit deep. The thing about double-facet addictions hit DEEP. Real deep. I realize now that I'm not primarily a computer addict, but an avoidance addict. It fits perfectly. Congratulations on such a powerful revelation. It certainly proves you're intelligent and wise enough to write the characters of Tom Riddle and Therapy Luna to their intended levels of cunning.
However... I kinda wish the politics were more... obfuscated. Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting angery when i see RIGHT LEANING LEFT LEANING, but it takes me out of the story a bit, hm? Seeing Tom Riddle the Voldemort Pony and Princess Luna the Princess Pony talk about Real Politics with Real Words in an Equestrian Castle just feels.. wrong. There's other ways to word those things, right? I can't think of any to be fair, but I'm not a writer.
Also whowee you bring up Rape a lot. I'm no prude, but I do get the feeling that it would be wise to only bring that up when one is 100% certain it would improve that part of the story for most audiences. It's a touchy subject, for good and bad reasons, and it would be nice if the part of the audience thats hypersensitive to the word (again, for good or bad reasons) to be able to enjoy those parts of the story as well. After all, Rape is only the worst facet of sexual harassment (cat calling, butt slapping, groping), and the umbrella term is less shocking, while being usually sufficient for your usage.
I know you bring up all those things for good reasons and they're all building towards the story you're trying to bring to the world. I don't mean to impose my sensibilities on your work so it appeals to me specifically , but rather to sand down some of the less necessary edges so as many people can enjoy it as possible.
11758710
Meh, maybe I’d do more sanding down of difficult topics in a different story. But I figured since HPMoR just kinda hits you with it seemingly out of the blue, it’s not out of place in a story like this. Especially when covering other dark topics. Especially especially when covering other dark topics and trying to assign an underlying pattern of thought and/or behavior to all of them. Want to understand the serial rapist? Understand the addict. Understand the concept of the unearned climax. Understand the strong compulsions of bad habits. Understand the difference between the self-aware addict, the hazy understanding addict, and the fully blind addict. Understand that all addicts have various means of rationalization, most common among the sexual addictions involving others who do not consent: they’ll thank me later and/or they secretly want it. And so on and so forth.
Besides, believe it or not, I did a bit of sanding on the rape topic specifically even before publishing this chapter. I don’t think so much as mentioning it is something I’m going to avoid.
As for politics, there’s a specific scene I’m building towards, though I might change my mind later. I’ve already laid the groundwork, nothing more to do on that front except mention it now and again to show he’s thinking about it.
And as for the rest, thank you. Though the credit goes to my influences perhaps more than it goes to me. I was lucky enough to find a princess-Luna equivalent in my late teens. Not irl, online, not interactive, just a podcast, but good all the same.
11758371
I guess I don't knot much about US libertarians.
I'm not sure that fallacy is a thing at all since:
That (applying most generic low-key social disapproval) wasn't what was said, though. And it doesn't help addicts. In part because we use word "addicts" for people who are past low-key social disapproval.
I didn't expect *that* answer for that framing of the question. I could see Riddle answering "Yes" if it was phrased "might effectively be zero" or similar, or answering "Effectively, yes" to this question.
Riddle does keep a certain precision in his speech that answering "P(x)=0 is possible" is counter to.
11760380
Yeah, that's a good change. "Effectively". Mind if I use that word?
My mindset was that HJPE-V would certainly object to it being literally zero, but Tom Riddle is cynical enough to go along with it. Having, you know, read people's minds a bunch, and believing that the only solution to brains engaging in stupidity is Avada Kedavra.
11760090
Most people don't know much about libertarians. Especially people who aren't all that politically informed and/or lean generally left to the point that they don't explore or even realize there are complicated, intricate nuances to positions on the right side of the aisle, just as there are complicated, intricate nuances to positions on the left.
Regarding bandwagon, you're using words like 'acceptable' and 'frowned upon'. I'm using the word 'logical fallacy'. When McDonald's ad campaigns run on slogans like 'everybody else is doing it' to convince normal people to addict themselves to McDonald's addictive junk food that was designed to be addictive by flavor scientists, when cigarrette companies in the early 1920's use 'it's cool and popular and high-status' ads to advertise cigarrettes, eventually the skeptics and cynics of the world wanted a simple, easy term to describe what was going on. The term they used: Bandwagon. "Get on the bandwagon, everybody! Do the thing! Everybody is doing the thing! Don't you want to be everybody? Come on board, it won't kill ya!"
Well, what you said wasn't specific enough; you aren't quoting any individual scenes from the chapter and breaking them down to describe exactly what you mean by 'social disapproval' so I have to shoot in the dark here.
11760413
I don't mind, feel free to use it
11760417
That is fair enough, but where's logical fallacy here?
Stuff around pieces I quoted in the comment that thread started from
11760738
The fallacy is this:
"Everybody's doing it" or "Everybody approves of it" or "Others will disapprove of you if you do it" or "Nobody's doing it" - none of these touch upon whether or not "it" is healthy or unhealthy for your body. But the human brain goes "It must be good for me, just look at all the people doing it!"
Actually, strictly speaking, the fallacy is the problem of consensus in false beliefs. Like the conformity experiment mentioned in HPMoR. Just because everybody ELSE believes something, that doesn't make the thing true, but the human brain will convince itself of that something being true, even if it isn't, because it's easier to go along to get along. "Come on, idiot! You don't believe the earth revolves around the sun, do you? Every smart person knows the Earth is the center of the universe! It's common sense! Now get on the bandwagon of geocentrism or we're going to run you out of town and label you an insane person."
So the logical fallacy is you'll conform to what others believe simply because others believe it, not because it's true.
Regarding the social disapproval... that's the thing. The parts you quoted and pointed to didn't feel especially disapproving to me. The 'what do they have in common?' and the 'unearned climax' sequence was an analysis of a pattern of behavior. The only part that was disapproving was the 'unearned' part. I could've had Riddle push back on that part specifically. Maybe I should have. Even still, I don't think it needs too much explaining, it really does speak for itself. Here's the six sentence version:
"How to earn a climax: consentual sex with a partner whose future children you intend to raise alongside that partner. How to get an unearned climax: just about anything else, but especially pornography. How to earn the climax of dopamine: good, loving, positive, human relationships where you create things in order to improve the lives of yourself, your family, your community, the wider world. (In other words, cast a Patronus.) How to get unearned dopamine: escapism, drugs, video games, fantasy, fiction, crime, addiction. How to earn the climax of dopamine from food: healthy foods you bought and/or cooked yourself. How to get unearned climax of dopamine from food: McDonald's. Soda. Junk food. Processed foods."
...
Hmm ...
"I am in this post, and I did not consent" :-)
11758834
Ok, what was the podcast? I might need it myself
11770371
I would say "Hey, I didn't consent either!" but since I wrote it, instead I'll say "I'm in the same boat." It's my belief that literally every human on the planet suffers from this problem to some degree in many areas of their life.
The goal is to be less wrong. And in order to reach that goal, it helps to have a clear, self-aware picture of some of the biggest problems leading to / upholding / defending / maintaining current wrong-ness. For all that HPMoR was good on the scientific front, and even good at showing good morality, it never QUITE explains how you can get YOURSELF there, at least when your starting point is being as bad as Mundungus Fletcher or the Parkinson family. The rational approach isn't for most people. It's necessary but not sufficient.
As a completely ass-pull heuristic, I consider the following question to be a good measure for how much a person suffered from addiction / overcame addiction throughout their life: "How long did you live, and how many of those hours-lived were hours in which you were Patronus-happy?" Addictions kill you early and they get in the way of Patronus happiness. So a decent measure to see how addicted you were, at the end of your life, is to look back and ask how long you lived, and how Patronus-happy you during your living years. Not that happiness is the end-all-be-all, but it's still EXTREMELY important. And addictions have problems other than getting in the way of happiness, they often get in the way of your life goals as well. On the flip side, addictions also always SEEM like they're CONTRIBUTING to your goals and happiness in the short term, which is the hard part to spot and mentally disentangle.
My time as "Patronus happy" has been a lot less, sadly, but non zero; and yea, it's never when I'm operating out of either addiction or avoidance.
This chapter was not nice to read, even if it seem very educational