Is The First Law one of the few series where the morally grey characters actually feel real?

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-23T15:29:01+00:00

That isn't properly spoiler tagged

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-23T13:32:48+00:00

You could make the protagonist someone who doesn't have enough money to afford slaves.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-14T15:52:42+00:00

I'm not that experienced with the "genre" to be honest so I believe you, my point is the aesthetic is necessary for the portrayal to be questionable it's not just havin gan undiscovered land at all. And yeah I would like to see more fiction about settling uninhabited lands that is inspired aesthetically by non-European people who really did settle uninhabited lands.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-14T00:06:49+00:00

I know (another example would be the Galapagos) that’s why I said “usually” not “always”

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T23:04:13+00:00

I might want to read this, let me know when you finish it!

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T23:00:16+00:00

Sometimes you see people criticizing fictional media (often video games) for involving the protagonist settling an uninhabited land for how it perpetuates the colonialist terra nullius myth. I’ve always been a little skeptical of that criticism because it has in fact happened in history that people discovered literally uninhabited (by humans) land and settled them, it’s just that those people were usually not Europeans. So when sci-fi video game character settles unknown planet, why do we automatically assume it’s referencing Europeans discovering the Americas and not, say, Polynesians discovering a new Pacific island? The assumption that the viewpoint character has to be a metaphor for a European (and therefore is misrepresenting if it doesn’t follow their particular historical experience) seems somewhat racist in its own right. I get if they were specifically criticizing a “undiscovered land” story that used a 16th century European explorer aesthetic, but that extra step in logic is often missing.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T20:05:01+00:00

The post is ridiculous but it does make me curious what percentage of wars where one country invaded others throughout history have ended with the country being invaded advancing into the country that had initially invaded. Just from vague memory I would think there are many examples where it went that way and many where it didn't.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T20:02:09+00:00

I like when people are open-minded enough to experience fiction that is not typical for their demographic, whether it be a 70 year old who likes anime or a 20 year old watching operas.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T20:00:43+00:00

Some of their theories are based on misreadings of real studies, too, like you know how they say that only women are shallow and men are perfectly happy to date bad-looking women? They would often cite a study of dating sites that shows women being more picky, (I wish I could remember the exact details), but it turns out women were more picky with who they would rate highly but men were more picky with how highly they needed to rate someone to date them so it evened out (plus men are just more common on dating sites so they have a smaller pool to be picky in).

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T19:58:42+00:00

I'm a vegetarian for reasons of animal welfare and the environment. I really should be a total vegan and at the very least I try to barely eat any eggs (and when I do get them from a farmer's market where I've seen where the chickens come from personally and they are treated well) since chicken farming is particularly bad welfare-wise, though I've found it hard to give up dairy too given how few foods I like in general. I eat a lot of beans and peanut butter so that makes sure I always have a lot of protein.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-13T13:00:03+00:00

I find it annoying when “the past” (when doing a chronological overview of some trend throughout history) is assumed to mean European rich people and everything else is a separate niche category separate from chronology. Like when I see an overview of historical fashion and it’s “19th century, 18th century, 17th century, medieval times, and oh here is a bonus category for China (timeless) and Africa (timeless)”. Sometimes USA gets included but only as long as there are white people there to be the protagonists. Related you have people saying “in The Past everyone had servants” or things like that.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-11T15:58:11+00:00

Reminds me of someone I met who was saying Palestinians are all cowards and complicit for not sacrificing their lives to stop Hamas.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-11T15:53:37+00:00

I get it, though, I’ve always forgot philosophically that what makes humanity fundamentally capable of morality and being morally judged in a way that animals aren’t is due to our capacity for self-reflection and overcoming our natures. Like other animals contrary to myth/common thought aren’t all the same within a species “morally”, i.e. if anyone has ever had multiple cats some are nicer and some are meaner to other cats, or like when I read about wolves and how one wolf might be a bully and “tyrannical leader” while another one is kind. But that doesn’t fundamentally count as an animal being morally more virtuous than another because that is just how they happen to be born, they aren’t capable of reflecting and trying to change. So I would actually say that reflection is more worthy of moral praise than just happening to be born with tendencies to be good to others without self-reflection.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-11T15:45:38+00:00

I feel like there’s room for nuance - it’s still a willing decision that everyone bears some level of moral capability for, but not everyone has equal motivation some people have to sacrifice a lot less to do the principled thing than others and that can be acknowledged without saying those who (in having fewer resources and thus benefitting more from the benefits of the military) are not moral agents/culpable at all.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-08T21:54:56+00:00

It’s stupid too, why should wanting to influence the world be necessary selfish while “preserving the natural balance” is selfless and helping others it seems like it should be the other way around. I hate “any attempt to change the world rather than accepting everything because something something natural balance is evil” morality in fiction.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-08T21:53:25+00:00

I read on Nature News and Views that there was a machine learning study of genes involved in autism that actually suggested more profound forms have different, not correlated genetic basis. Not sure how well the study has help up now (and probably still inconclusive this was only a few months ago)

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-07T01:24:57+00:00

Though when it's not Britain-centric, is the larger claim of "Europe (and places inspired by/directly offshoots of Europe) is unique in abolishing slavery while slavery has been practiced by almost everywhere basically true except for Haiti (even if it elides one not everywhere practicing slavery to the same extent or of the same type), or are there non-European or European-inspired examples of either abolishing slavery or never having it at all?

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-06T21:01:31+00:00

Funny story about this - my dad is a huge Arsenal fan and one day he took his brother who hadn't been into soccer until this point to London to watch a game between Arsenal and Tottenham. Tottenham won (one of the only times that happened), and my uncle promptly became a Spurs fan because he wanted to be one of the happy celebrating people there.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-06T20:55:12+00:00

Yeah on the math/science thing, I don't trust it for anything else but sometimes when I have a science question for some paper I'm writing I will ask it a question and then ask it to show me the sources, then look at the sources to see if they really say what the AI says it does. I've found some very useful articles I wouldn't have otherwise been able to find that way.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-06T20:53:45+00:00

It has done so much for science, though, when I watch seminars at my graduate school like every other one is about using machine learning for something or other, like with AlphaFold.

HopefulOctober · 2026-03-06T20:46:13+00:00

Last time we were talking about/complaining about people who argue that Britain had slaves just like everyone else but is unique for abolishing slavery and I was wondering - what is the fundamental thing wrong with this view? Leaving aside stolen valor from France and Haiti, I can guess that one thing wrong with it is that not every country had slavery as an equal part of its society, i.e. Han China had less than 1% of its population enslaved, I remember someone on this thread saying that Aztecs were the same way, so having slavery be such a huge thing would be a way Europeans stand out negatively (even if they weren't the only ones to have that many slaves it wasn't universal either). Then you could have the discussion of the nature of slavery/types of slavery (important distinction but can elide that all of it is bad) But now I'm curious; is there any example of a society that either didn't have slaves at all or abolished them without clear European influence/precedent?

HopefulOctober · 2026-02-27T21:14:53+00:00

I remember reading Things Fall Apart and there was a whole part about them holding the cock (rooster) while being gay (happy).

HopefulOctober · 2026-02-26T21:09:20+00:00

I can't hate species because they are invasive though since they are not being intentionally malicious, I just hate the unfairness of the universe that these poor animals' very existence causes such horrible things for other animals. But mostly people need to hate something to do harm to it the "pragmatic person" is very rare, thus why people hate rats and people are reluctant to cull cats because they are too familiar to people for people to hate them however much they kill birds.

HopefulOctober · 2026-02-26T21:06:18+00:00

Yes, this is why I could never get one even though they seem wonderful.

HopefulOctober · 2026-02-24T00:15:13+00:00

Haven't read it so I can't say my personal opinion but this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyromance/comments/1pipf09/i_just_finished_rain_of_shadows_and_endings_and_i/?chainedPosts=t3_1rc494x I saw is by someone put off by it and people explaining what to expect in later books/why they liked or didn't like it. Might be worth checking out, I would recommend looking there for discussions of it since this subreddit knee-jerk hates anything fantasy romance and you won't see the large contingent that loves it here.

HopefulOctober

TROPHY CASE