Secrecy and its cost
Oct. 14th, 2008 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wintercreek posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
alt_fenOh, Arthur.
I was totally unprepared for the ways this game would break my heart. Between this and Minerva's having taken the Mark, I'm fairly shattered. We knew early on that it would be rough - early in the game, Minerva posted about "the frustration, the anger, that I am constantly crushing down" - but to know the true sentiment underneath and to see the exterior they must present is awful.
Sirius, of course, has been operating secretly and thumbing his nose at the idea of detection in typical fashion. This is more worrying than crushing, espeically as I suspect he has motivations not tied directly to his own safety - Sirius may be hoping that if he can project enough dash about his sometimes precarious concealment, he can bring some courage and heartening to others in more dangerous and thus more oppressively secret positions.
This raises some interesting questions, I think, about the long-term ramifications of the roles the Order members are having to play. How long can one mouth the positions required for one's cover before they begin to corrode one's soul? Not necessarily in a "You become what you pretend to be" kind of way (although that is a risk too! How long before one of Our Heroes is horrified by the automatic bigoted responses that spring to mind before anger at the injustices?) but more in the wearing, stifling kind of way. Sissela Bok, in her book Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation, writes "Scientists working under conditions of intense secrecy have testified to its stifling effect on their judgment and creativity. And those who have written about their undercover work as journalists, police agents, and spies, or about living incognito for political reasons, have described similar effects of prolonged concealment on their capacity to plan and to choose, at times on their sense of identity."
From a literary standpoint, I'm intrigued by the character arcs this is likely to construct. My emotional attachment to the characters, though, means I'm dreading the toll this will likely take on them.
I was totally unprepared for the ways this game would break my heart. Between this and Minerva's having taken the Mark, I'm fairly shattered. We knew early on that it would be rough - early in the game, Minerva posted about "the frustration, the anger, that I am constantly crushing down" - but to know the true sentiment underneath and to see the exterior they must present is awful.
Sirius, of course, has been operating secretly and thumbing his nose at the idea of detection in typical fashion. This is more worrying than crushing, espeically as I suspect he has motivations not tied directly to his own safety - Sirius may be hoping that if he can project enough dash about his sometimes precarious concealment, he can bring some courage and heartening to others in more dangerous and thus more oppressively secret positions.
This raises some interesting questions, I think, about the long-term ramifications of the roles the Order members are having to play. How long can one mouth the positions required for one's cover before they begin to corrode one's soul? Not necessarily in a "You become what you pretend to be" kind of way (although that is a risk too! How long before one of Our Heroes is horrified by the automatic bigoted responses that spring to mind before anger at the injustices?) but more in the wearing, stifling kind of way. Sissela Bok, in her book Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation, writes "Scientists working under conditions of intense secrecy have testified to its stifling effect on their judgment and creativity. And those who have written about their undercover work as journalists, police agents, and spies, or about living incognito for political reasons, have described similar effects of prolonged concealment on their capacity to plan and to choose, at times on their sense of identity."
From a literary standpoint, I'm intrigued by the character arcs this is likely to construct. My emotional attachment to the characters, though, means I'm dreading the toll this will likely take on them.
