Tree of Life - Book 0 pg. 65.
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Every page will be published on my Patreon first, and only after 1 month will they be public.
If you want to chat with us on our Discord server, help us to make more original contents, like comics and pictures, or if you are interested in exclusive sketches, progressions, WIPs, PSD files, Q&As or monthly votes, Patreon exclusive streams and progress videos, and having access to all of our artworks 1 month before they get published, support us on Patreon! :)
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4 years ago
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To fix this she needs to do something she'll never do. what needs to be done to those who are trying to ruin things with emotional thinking.
Yeah, she is speaking rationally, and yes, Nigel is all emotion. He's focused on the wrong person, if only because his parents already pretty much abandoned him.
Never taught him to put a lid on their emotions, to channel them and not let them control his thinking. No they only fed an illusion and treated him like a recruit.
Right now he's standing there, all his life he was groomed for this. His ego fed that he, like the rest of his family, will be a great guardian. Reality says otherwise, but his ego is getting in the way. It needs to be dealt with and talking to him will not help, it will either keep things as they are or make them worse.
It's a 50/50 chance but it's the best shot they have to fix this mess. She or one of her guardians, but not his 'family', show him how wrong he is. Pit him against one of the guardians and let them in a training match sense, beat his ego down. Otherwise this ego of his will get him killed.
-You're assuming his parents are bad parents - when in fact they just saw their son get rejected by a literal higher power, and probably thought that this indicated he must be a bad person or had something wrong with him. Don't forget, they were guardians themselves once, and she found them worthy;
-You're assuming that his actions stem from pure ego and arrogance, and that there is no possibility that he might in fact be right. What if he actually is? Then he would be arguing from the position of being the victim of a deliberately unjust decision, which sounds a lot like standing up for his rights, and for equal treatment with everyone else;
-You're assuming that he would lose in a fight against one of the guardians. His entire bloodline were all guardians and she even stated that the only reason for not accepting him was that he wasn't choosing it entirely of his own free will. Maybe if given the chance, he'd be one hundred percent focused and do really well, or at least as well as anyone else might.
It's a common refrain for one entrusted to a position to become resentful of said position when it turns out they didn't actually want said position but took it because they "were supposed to." Someone who is essentially pigeonholed into a role doesn't actually choose the role, they simply don't realize that there are other choices...which is exactly the position that Nigel is in.
In almost every case, when someone realizes that they had other options available to them that they didn't know about, they become angry and resentful. As a goddess, this is something she would know quite well, and these are traits which are very very poorly suited to a guardian as they are ripe for engendering betrayal. Quite simply, it's a practical matter to ensure that those who are your guardians are, in fact, doing so of their own free will and motivation, and not through hollow motivations such as tradition or compensation. These are motivations that can be overcome or corrupted.
To answer your question more directly: by showing that you have forsaken other choices in favor of the choice you have made. Mindful choices are always personal choices; even if the choices seem stacked in favor of one option, to choose it mindfully means intentionally NOT choosing the other options. This is the essence of free will. For a more specific, concrete answer, he should probably spend time as a gardener or maybe a fisherman. Perhaps a potter, or maybe even a healer. The point is, he needs to actively engage with other paths of life to ensure to himself he is in fact on the right one.
He might well have turned out to be a perfectly good guardian, but she never even gave him a fair chance. And if it hadn't worked out, he could always have left, and gone and done something else later. She's assuming she knows better; he's assuming the possibility that she might not, which sounds like a far more reasonable consideration in a world containing the awkwardness that is free will.
You seem to be treating this as though somehow he's entitled to the position, that the onus is on /her/ to make him a good guardian. She gave him the advice he needs. It's up to him to take it. That's the essence of free will. As a goddess, she doesn't have the luxury of "well maybe he'll turn out okay." If he turn-coats on her, and does something drastic, that is a HUGE problem both for her and everyone she cares about. That is not something that someone in a position of responsibility does. Quite simply, it's on him to meet her criteria, and so far he hasn't. That's all there is too it, and the rest is just hand-wringing.
Personally? His actions thus far, while certainly understandable, also seem to prove her initial concerns right. She didn't take anything away from him. She is not responsible for the actions of his parents. He's lashing out at her over a perceived slight. I would be very wary of allowing him into a position of trust at her side after this display.
Having free choice does not necessarily imply making the right decision. For all we know, any one of the students she allowed in might betray her later - of their own free will. There's no reason she couldn't have allowed him in too, then had a quiet word with him about whether he was certain that this was what he wanted to do - rather than just arbitrarily deciding for him.
Further, at no point did I say or imply that "having free choice implies making the right decision." My point was that he failed her initial criteria, which are entirely up to her and her alone. This isn't a job at Starbucks, it's choosing who is entrusted with the safety of arguably the most important person in their society. Your bar of "fair standards" appears to be WAY too low considering the nature of the position.
I've worked in positions of trust. If there is a doubt, you don't "pull them aside and ask," you deny them the role, full stop.
...but hey, you've already made up your mind, right? So it doesn't matter what I say. I'll stop here.
You should have quit three posts ago.
How did scum like that ever become guardian material?
Also why the Luna hate?
She gave him solid advice, he took it graciously and promised to improve.
The fault lies solely with his parents.
I understand why Nigel is hostile sure, but not the readers towards her.
For an enraged young boy with unawakened powers to become a terrifying and enraged adult male with awakened powers...