IN> Re: the Heavenbound

[Bill Adlam]

Jonathan Lang wrote:

> I seem to recall a vignette somewhere where a teacher-type character
> made an off-hand comment to a student, and unknowingly smashed that
> student's hopes and dreams, thus fulfilling his fate.

Presumably in this case the teacher's fate was 'to discourage one of
the most promising minds of the next generation', or something like
that.  It would be a very strange person who was incapable of anything
worse than 'make a snide remark'.  The comment may have been the
turning point, but even so he would have had other opportunities,
before and after, to inspire or disenhearten the student.  Naturally a
servitor of Yves or Kronos, learning of this fate, would have no clue
which student it would be, so they would have to change the way he
taught everyone.

> By your
> reasoning, that teacher ought to be just as likely to do something
> equally off-hand in order to attain his destiny.

To be precise, I'm talking about fate and destiny being equally likely,
not equally easy.  It would take decades of intense work to invent a
new explosive, and only a few months or even days of routine activity
to give away the profits to a good cause.  For a suitably motivated
character they could be equally probable (though when I say 'probable',
I'm not literally reducing free will to randomness).

> if fates tend to be likely to be
> achieved while destinies really take work...
> ...That seesm rather dark to me.

If the possibilities are equally great most people achieve their fate
because they are naturally inclined to wickedness, then that would be a
conventional dark setting.  If fates are mainly petty wrongs, while
destinies are outstanding achievements, that means most people are
incapable (psychologically or practically) of doing anything very bad,
which makes for a very bright world - with a dark afterlife.

[example of mass murderer]
> ...which neatly sidesteps the whole issue, which was that the rules
> as
> written allow for someone to have a fate that's exceedingly evil and
> a
> destiny which is only nominally good, or vice versa.

I agree with that, and I would be content with your example if the man
killed the cop on a different occasion, under circumstances where it
was justified.  I don't agree with the idea that servitors of Destiny
should ever be required to encourage people in acts that harm others
and corrupt the Symphony (and similarly for Fate).

To make this consistent with my earlier thesis that destiny and fate
depend on consquences, not motivation, requires a certain amount of ad
hoc stage-management for the more enigmatic cases.  IMO Fate and
Destiny are meant to be mysterious and tricky sometimes.

Sagitta