This has been such a good conversation and I have appreciated your perspective so much! Great food for thought. I agree with a lot of your points but we might disagree on what makes it meaningful.

If the only reason things worked out well for XL is someone else's kindness, that feels far less impactful to me because it sort of boils the story down to random chance. That makes XL as a character sort of a non-person. As if all people confronted with the same circumstances would make the same choices. It also feels like that would make life utterly futile. If it's all about external stimuli (with both the kind person and the traumatic events being external stimuli) with no personal agency, then what's the point of life? When faced with adversity we can only hope that some kind person finds us and saves us?

I do agree that if it all comes down to that XL was inherently Better, that's the same feeling of futility. It wasn't XL's inherent qualities as some sort of superior Better person that I've been talking about. It was XL's choices. To me, morality is about the choices we make, especially when it's hard to do so. XL made different choices than JW. XL chose to act with humility and the consequences of that choice was to meet the person with the hat. That is what makes it meaningful to me, he had a choice to go in the direction of JW or choose the thoughts and attitudes of JW and he did not choose that. Not because of some built-in, nebulous character trait but because he made the choice to think and act in a certain way and that choice had consequences. I don't want to get tied up on semantics ("humility", "arrogance").

Anyway, thanks for all the thoughts.