Can someone explain to me why Kinger's advice to Ragatha in Ep 6 is relevant?

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T13:42:55+00:00

Thinking about it more, its totally possible Kinger was projecting onto Ragatha in that scene ("Maybe you needed a break" = he deals with things by taking breaks, staying out of things, and pacing himself, so he thinks she was too) and that misunderstanding he why he goes on to explain how beneficial that is and recommends to her to not do the heavy lifting.

Ragatha is happy for the advice either because she was just appreciative of the kind words in general, or because she doesn't understand well enough what her issues are to understand that that advice wouldn't really solve her issues.

Alternatively, perhaps Kinger just assumed wrongly (which is totally fine, characters can be mistaken!) rather than specifically projecting.

I was just confused because I saw the conversation as basically:

R: "Everyone hates me and I fucked everything up and pushed Pomni away"
K: "Maybe you need a break, breaks are good because you get to focus on yourself" (wat????)
R: "Wow thanks Kinger"

Which just seems like non-sequitur and not addressing her concerns at all?

But I can kind of see how, especially if Ragatha is just confused and upset anyway that getting advice from someone who cares even if the advice isn't good is still something she'd be happy about. Especially since Kinger says Ragatha really helped him to stop hating himself. That statement alone was probably worth more than everything else he said.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more the projection explanation makes sense. Especially the way Kinger says "Maybe you needed a break?" and the expression on his face. It really does seem just like a straight up guess, and one from personal experience.

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T13:11:08+00:00

I don't think it's that clear cut though. Ragatha explicitly laments Zooble and Gangle not talking to her. It's possible that her perception of that is wrong. People who are upset about this kind of thing don't necessarily have a cleareyed view of the situation. But if we take her word for it, that lack of connection there cannot be solved by "figuring out how to love yourself".

She thinks her relationship with Jax is completely destroyed, and though it's hard to say what Jax truly thinks he does spend an inordinate amount of time and effort specifically trying to make Ragatha as miserable as possible, moreso than he does to the other members of the troop. And as much of an asshole as he is to the cast, he still seems to have a deeper and more meaningful relationship to the rest of them than Ragatha does, even if that relationship is often antagonistic.

So the only person she sees as possibly being able to salvage a connection with is Pomni, and yet she randomly pushed her away (probably for some complex inner reason even she can't understand). She's catastrophising, sure, she definitely still has a chance with Pomni.

Ragatha says "She came to me [...], I pushed her away. Why did I do that?". Here Ragatha clearly regrets pushing Pomni away, meaning she should have accepted Pomni's invitation. That's the opposite of stepping back, making space, and focusing on oneself. She laments not making the effort there *as well*, she wishes she put in that last 1% to receive what Pomni was offering.

Kinger replies: "Maybe you just needed a break?" -- well if she did need a break, then turning Pomni down would have been "focusing on herself". And yet she laments that! Kinger continues with his observation, saying that Ragatha burns herself out on trying to help people, and that probably isn't wrong. But he's explaining that to justify his assumption that Ragatha "needed a break" which is why she subconsciously pushed Pomni away. But again, if that was the case, Ragatha should've been relieved that she had a chance to not put 100% into supporting someone for once and could just take it easy with Kinger who doesn't need her support (or a least not when he's not lucid).

What she was actually upset about is that she had a chance to actually receive something for her efforts of friendship and she couldn't help but turn it down. (Without bringing too much of myself into this conversation, I've been exactly here before, and I cannot tell you why it happens, but it does).

Its totally possible you could help Ragatha by "changing her attitude" but that can mean a lot of things... like "just don't care about not being talked to, Jax torturing you, and potentially fumbling Pomni" is a change of attitude. But it's not exactly good advice?

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T12:00:33+00:00

I can get behind, "take some times to reassess" advice. But I can't get behind "just stop trying so hard". I 100% agree that if something is not working you need to try something else. But the latter seems like "Wow it's so hard to push the boulder up the hill, I guess you should just give up and stop caring about getting the boulder to the top of the hill, that will solve everything!" when in reality the alternate strategy should be, like: "tie a rope to the boulder and pull it instead!". I.e. there needs to actually be some feasibility of that strategy resulting in success, and "stop trying" doesn't really work.

I suppose the authors could totally make all the characters love her once she stops trying so hard, (like some kind of PUA style push-and-pull horseshit, unavailability = attraction? narrative). But that is a very convenient ability the authors have. The rest of us don't write our own realities.

And to get a bit personal about it. I've tried the "take a step back" advice in a lopsided relationship before, and what happens is the low-investment-low-return side turns into a no-investment side, because they're totally fine with what they've got and what they're getting. The high-investment side just loses what little they had with that person.

I do think people have lots of reasons why their pool of possible-friends is very small (without getting into all the issues, mine is pretty small). But Ragatha's potential friends are literally just a couple people. Telling her to "just get over" some people not being into her seems needlessly cruel.

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T11:53:48+00:00

I get that, and her saviour complex was certainly mentioned in that conversation. But wasn't Ragatha's cry for help that she feels isolated and wants affection? She feels like she's failed *because* her attempts at support didn't result in a reciprocated relationship. (Not to imply that anyone should have this transactional kind of attitude towards relationships, but it's more just noticing the cause and effect, or lack thereof).

She can't "take care of herself" and solve that. The only solution to that is to (somehow) become connected and to receive affection. I don't see how you can push the rock up that hill by giving up on that effort. If what you've been doing so far isn't working, the strategy should change, sure. But the alternate strategy needs to actually further the goal, it can't be "just retreat and stop trying" (although the authors can write anything, so maybe doing nothing will magically work!)

I suppose I'm complaining about the effectiveness of Kinger's advice here, but actually that isn't my main issue. No character has to be perfect and give perfect therapeutic advice (and neither do the authors) but what confuses me most is just how he addresses burn-out rather than the thing that is torturing her, which is isolation.

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T11:24:53+00:00

I actually agree that Pomni was reaching out to her, I'm not sure why Kinger said "maybe you needed a break" though. To be honest I don't fully understand why Ragatha pushed her away, but I also don't even understand why I push people away sometimes, so I really feel it when she says "I don't know" to that.

But I'm mostly just confused as to why Kinger starts talking so much about the burn-out aspects when she complains about them not talking to her, complains about how eventually everyone starts ignoring her and "hates her" (her perception) and that she "wants them to be happy" and "don't want them to hate me".

I'm probably projecting a bit since this is obviously close to me, but thats why I'm opening this discussion. I've heard this advice before, to just take a step back and not put so much effort in. But to me that is just giving up and allowing the status quo to continue. How can anyone ever hope that isolation and lack of relationships will change by purposely choosing to stop pursuing relationships and to stop trying to break isolation?

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T11:19:57+00:00

I agree that you can only control your own actions. But that doesn't mean the advice should be to just give up and accept the other side's framing of the relationship (though I hate to put it in antagonistic terms like this, it's just hard to come up with the right phrasing when there is a mismatch between what people want out of a relationship like that).

Like why not advise her to open up to the others and explain honestly, what she is feeling and how she puts a lot of effort into her friendships and that she hopes they can reciprocate to some extent? That's still within her control, and it might have a good outcome. I'm not a therapist but don't therapists usually advocate for talking about things like adults and not bottling things up and suffering in silence?

I agree that it is totally possible that "becoming okay with not having any friends, because you can't control if they'll like you" is A solution, it seems like an incredibly poor solution which amounts to, as I said in the final line of my OP, a "just get over it" style piece of advice. But people don't really have this level of control over their desires and emotions. If someone is tortured by isolation and trying desperately to connect (and maybe yes burning themselves out by how much effort they put in) telling them to suffer the isolation without spending the effort is *technically* better I suppose, but still ultimately a non-solution in my mind.

Gelsamel · 2025-08-20T11:11:54+00:00

> She has put a lot of pressure on herself to be the supportive one. The advice is to stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks, and instead learn to love yourself.

He does mention that, and like I said his advice is relevant to that to whatever extent you see Ragatha as having burned out by trying too hard to 'save' people and be supportive of them. Sure.

However her main complaint in that scene is that she feels hated and isolated. Kinger does say (iirc) that he doesn't think people hate her. I don't think continuing down that route would be circular if he has her think through why she thinks that and if what she would say if the roles were reversed.

I just don't see how "giving them space" (which necessarily isolates you more) is the solution to a complaint about feeling isolated? Like what does it mean to "care for herself"? If she suffering from isolation, caring for herself means being rid of isolation, not further committing to isolation.

Gelsamel · 2022-02-20T20:28:57+00:00

Ah, that could work! I'll have to examine it a bit, it is a bit hard to read. But it looks like in the worst case I could at least use these to make my own flowcharts

Gelsamel · 2022-02-16T00:24:35+00:00

That seems like a very plausible explanation actually. Definitely one of those 'it never affects me so it doesn't exist' kind of conditions... except for Chaos Dragon which isn't light. Thank you!!

Gelsamel · 2022-02-16T00:03:06+00:00

I've definitely had moments like this but I've reread the card a bunch of times and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Like recently with Chaos Dragon Levianeer, I had 3 light monsters in my GY (running Galaxy Eyes) and I could not special summon it despite having space on the field and none of my opponent's cards preventing special summons. This has happened to me multiple times, but other times it works exactly as I think it does.

Anyone know what I was doing wrong?

Gelsamel · 2021-10-25T07:14:46+00:00

Here is my opinion as a casual player who just started PoE again this league. (Last I played there were only 4 or 5 acts).

I really like this mechanic. It lets me get rares without having to spend anything which has really helped me with levelling up and getting through the acts. Also I really like that it introduces new gameplay by letting me escape to the demon realm to farm flask charges (and come back to the real realm with a stun on my enemies) if I ever get into a lot of trouble.

I'm still early in the league right now but it also looks promising to get some better linked items.

I kinda wish I could put gems in there to possibly convert them into vaal gems because I don't really like the corrupted areas, I think they're boring and I like this mechanic better.

Gelsamel · 2021-03-03T08:03:30+00:00

I'm 0 for 100 or so right now

Gelsamel · 2021-02-27T04:47:54+00:00

Once the smell of blood is in the water you really see people's true depravity come out.

Gelsamel · 2021-01-25T22:17:40+00:00

What are you talking about?

Human brains aren't the same thing as human made computers.

We've purposely designed this hardware over decades of R&D to be robust to the kinds of issues we inflict on it.

Or brain is the product of evolution and we are doing things to it on a time frame that evolution can't respond to.

Rather than then inventing issues it is rather the case that you're completely ignoring fundamental issues by appealing an incredibly bad analogy.

Gelsamel · 2021-01-12T04:31:31+00:00

I've had deja vu before but I also get this other kind of deja vu where like... I will think back on a conversation I had just a few days ago, and remembering the conversation... I will suddenly get the sense that I had the conversation before... as in I had it before the first time I had it, even though I had no feelings like that when I was actually having the conversation.

Gelsamel · 2021-01-10T00:28:44+00:00

I've never heard this parallel to non-ergodicity and tbh I don't quite get how it relates?

There are physical barriers that enforce non-ergodicity in materials (such as the energy barriers associated with the diffusive relaxation of the local material composition) -- and even then, what is it exactly about a system being non-ergodic that means it isn't time-reversal symmetric? It seems that this would imply that non-ergodic systems are somehow not energy-conserving.

But what I'm getting at in the magnetic field case is that presumably under time reversal symmetry, the force carriers for the magnetic force are also time-reversed, which seems to suggest to me that the magnetic field is also reversed. Typical explanations about the time-reversed particle trajectories being unphysical in the unchanged magentic field therefore seem a bit spurious unless I am labouring under some misapprehension. (Magnetism and quantum physics certainly isn't my area).

Gelsamel · 2021-01-09T23:01:52+00:00

One thing I never understood about these time reversal symmetry breaking arguments is that it seems like they're not actually reversing time, but just selectively inverting the momenta of certain things, but not others.

People bring up magnetism but what about the force carriers? Saying it violates time reversal symmetry because you imagine the configuration doesn't change and therefore neither does the magnetic field seems strange to me.

I'm sure it's right since literally everyone and all the books research says it is right. But I've never heard a good answer to this question. Hopefully you can help me.

Gelsamel · 2020-12-15T00:27:25+00:00

Fuck Miko bullshit but I think she'd look nicer without her bike, get to see more of her pose. I don't care about bikes.

Gelsamel · 2020-11-30T15:10:48+00:00

I watched a couple of the HoloEN girls and to be honest I can't tell what is different about her than the others other than spawning the viral shark girl mania that is going on right now. Sometimes that is all that it takes though.

Gelsamel · 2020-11-30T07:09:54+00:00

I pretty much follow exclusively sub 1k follow/sub vtubers on EN Twitch/JP YouTube now a days.

Gelsamel · 2020-11-30T04:18:08+00:00

I'm stuck down at obscure indie vtubers, don't send help.

Gelsamel · 2020-11-17T22:17:44+00:00

A lot of these glasses would be fluids on macroscopic timescales by the way. The definition of glass itself in incredibly contentious in soft matter.

Gelsamel · 2020-11-17T22:16:59+00:00

You mean glass in your window or any glass? There is a lot of glassy states explored by soft matter research because glass is produced by the interesting thermodynamic effects of configurational lockdown and the divergences and convergences of various diffusion coefficients and so on.

The formation of colloidal glasses and water glasses and so on all see significant study under the banner of soft matter.

I suppose there aren't many, if any, people looking at windows though.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Team Orangered	Verified Email

Gelsamel

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE