6.4 KiB
[RT][HF] The Good Student - Chapter Thirty Nine
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Author: u/Veedrac *
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URL: http://gravitytales.com/novel/the-good-student/tgs-chapter-39
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Score: 55
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Created: 2017-11-26T22:31:20
Post:
Comments:
u/sparkc [+15] (5 hours later)
The librarian was a great reveal. I thought the tone switch from rising tension in the last chapter to something more playful at this chapters beginning was unwelcome but the chapters last half did a great job of investing me back into the conflict.
u/Gigapode [+12] (5 hours later)
I think I should have seen that last part coming. It seems obvious in hindsight.
u/Noumero [+5] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (13 hours later)
I feel similarly. There were many hints regarding this: how she managed to evade the Secret Service agent in Chapter 25, her mysterious agelessness, the hidden room. The revelation that there were two demons in the world left us with only two reasonable guesses regarding who she is: a demon, or Winnum Roke, and the latter was jossed in Simole's second chapter.
But her act was pretty good. Almost HPMoR!Quirrel-level.
u/benczi [+4] (20 hours later)
I feel like it would have been better if Nic does't reveal his position as Dizzi already figured it out in the last chapter.
u/MultipartiteMind [+4] (16 hours later)
Dum dum DUM! *applause*
Edit: (Now second-guessing *everything*, including the book with different contents... argh, I still want to know Nic's true answer that the other demon couldn't guess.)
u/Noumero [+4] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (22 hours later)
Well, Nic was extremely confident that the demon would never guess it, and he researched demons' mental blindspots. In particular, Chapter 31 has the following passages:
Demons saw humans as fragile and unstable. They found it entertaining. It made them feel superior. <...> What Nic had started to see was not a better understanding of demons, but a realisation of how poorly demons understood humans. <...> Their view of what frailty meant was incorrect, in his opinion. They couldn’t grasp that even though a craftsman working with inferior materials might never produce anything of value, if he did, it would only be possible by developing skills far superior to those of someone gifted with the ideal training and tools.
Nic: Some problems require extreme solutions. Short term ones.
Mr. Delcroix: Nic, it never hurts to know more. Even if it doesn’t help you, it can help others. The great advantage of a cooperative society like ours is the ability to combine small advances into big ones.
Nic: The demons don’t think like that. They place no value in individual achievements. Everything is already as advanced as it can be, they just distribute it to the best available exponent.
I'm not quite sure how it could be applied to Nic's story, though. Perhaps you have any ideas?
u/MultipartiteMind [+5] (a day later)
Hm. If I assume that the demon couldn't guess because the demon in the story was doing something that a real demon would never do (but wouldn't that break the story? If it didn't, why wouldn't the demon be able to predict it?), then perhaps the demon was practicing causing 'ripples' (Darth Traya coming to mind), experimenting at getting big effects from the smallest possible changes, just to get better at it. Hm.
Edit: Further thoughts. Perhaps it's the distinction beteen what demons 'are now' and what demons 'could be'. Representative of a 'future path for demons' different from their past, in which case it could be explainable that the answer is narratively withheld now, to be revealed at a later time when Nic formally proposes it to others. The real demon things that [X] can't be the case, because there wouldn't be truth to the story in [X] being the case for a demon, and [X] cannot be the case for a demon. Nic understands and believes that [X] can be the case for a demon. Perhaps for the demon to be capable of conceiving that [X] could be the case for a demon, the demon would have to already understand and belive in that, and if that were already understood and believed the demon would inherently prefer that, and already be an ally and help Nic without any need for weakening... though if that were the case, then one could think Nic could show the demon its truth directly, so maybe it's just that Nic has seen a future path for demons that current demons can't conceive of, but perhaps a demon who hasn't already willingly stepped on that path (or been coerced into it?) might scorn. Reminded of a No Game No Life volume in which a suicidal godlike creature has most of her power stripped from her, and finds to her amazement that it's actually really fun working one's way up from the weakest position with everything being extraordinarily challenging (though not despair-inducingly so).
u/Noumero [+1] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (4 days later)
Hm. Other idea: perhaps the in-story demon isn't that different from real demons, but Nic has some perspective on its true motivations that neither demon has? That is, the actual demon (Irridinhart? we never did get a confirmation that it's its name) was clearly inclined to see the Green Demon's actions positively. Perhaps some of what actual!demon proposed is what story!demon thinks it is doing, but Nic has a truer answer: that it demonstrates^1 demons' biases/flaws/etc. It answers the question of why Nic can't just tell actual!demon what story!demon knows that it doesn't: actual!demon wouldn't be willing to accept this truth, would scorn, as you've said. I'm not sure what it demonstrates, though.
Relatedly: we can't be sure that Nic intended for the Green Demon to be in the right.
^(1. Heh, demonstrates. Get it, get it?) ^(gets sacrificed)^
u/tokol [+2] The Greater Good (21 hours later)
Typos:
They were heavy and awkward to move, but he was too eager to worry and let the slam onto the floor.
let the -> let them
Luckily, they managed not to stop on anything.
stop -> step
u/mooderino [+3] The Good Student (21 hours later)
Cheers, fixed.