[ that’s a question he can’t answer right away, but he squeezes Koby’s hand while he thinks. It’s meant to be reassuring, he knows, but it’s just another minefield, a question from a philosophy class where Bob had been nervously biting his own lip across the room. Theseus' Paradox. How many pieces of a ship have to be replaced before it becomes another ship? How many parts of his soul have to be whittled and warped before it becomes a different one? ]
Hasn’t it? I’m not the same. I said I gave up Alia for the greater good, but when it’s time for me to really act I do it like a coward. I’ve been bartering with lives, lying to everyone because I’m afraid or Hawk tells me to – I lied about Embry, to you, to Alicent, to everyone. And I’ll keep doing it, just making compromises until there’s nothing whole still there.
[ Tim’s seen this before, from the next room over, watching the shadows through the bottom crack as they made their closed-door deals, organized their witch hunts with evidence that grew more and more absurd, promising to scratch each other’s backs as people died around them. Once, he believed that on the other side of that door, democracy was being saved. By the time he learned that it was nothing but rot, it was too late – for him, for Caroline, for Senator Smith, for everyone else who had their lives ruined or ended for the egos of a few powerful people.
It's disturbing enough to be on the inside of the room, driving these decisions. To be successful at it? That’s no victory. There's no pride in it. Whatever momentary satisfaction he got from putting Danny away has been ruined now. He'd just been setting him up to be killed. ]
I'm not a wolf, but my hands aren't clean. There are people dead, because of me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-10-24 03:56 pm (UTC)Hasn’t it? I’m not the same. I said I gave up Alia for the greater good, but when it’s time for me to really act I do it like a coward. I’ve been bartering with lives, lying to everyone because I’m afraid or Hawk tells me to – I lied about Embry, to you, to Alicent, to everyone. And I’ll keep doing it, just making compromises until there’s nothing whole still there.
[ Tim’s seen this before, from the next room over, watching the shadows through the bottom crack as they made their closed-door deals, organized their witch hunts with evidence that grew more and more absurd, promising to scratch each other’s backs as people died around them. Once, he believed that on the other side of that door, democracy was being saved. By the time he learned that it was nothing but rot, it was too late – for him, for Caroline, for Senator Smith, for everyone else who had their lives ruined or ended for the egos of a few powerful people.
It's disturbing enough to be on the inside of the room, driving these decisions. To be successful at it? That’s no victory. There's no pride in it. Whatever momentary satisfaction he got from putting Danny away has been ruined now. He'd just been setting him up to be killed. ]
I'm not a wolf, but my hands aren't clean. There are people dead, because of me.