⚔ 016; [video]

[croibhristeoir]

I-if anyone has a moment, I'm having a small problem. [This was the understatement of the millennium.]

I'd like to ask how...h-how...er...forgive me, I am having some trouble articulating things today. [Diarmuid adjusted the glasses he wore, seeming hesitant to look directly at the camera at first.]

Imagine one that...has gone through life without anger or hatred. This individual had never felt spite, resentment, or even a shred of those kind of things. He did all he could to put others and their happiness before himself and his own, finding contentment and joy in doing so. But after a certain point, that person...he found someone that did something so deplorable that it left that person filled with rage and spite.

He found someone that he hated. And no matter how he tried, that person could not simply forgive what was done to earn that hatred.

I beg of you, Prospero. Someone please tell me how that person can go back to the way he was. Before he could feel anger and spite, back when he could still grant forgiveness.

[Diarmuid looked away for a moment; he was unsure, even worried.]

Fionn, Grainne-- [Gods, what would they think of him when they knew?] ...there is something I have not yet told you. Forgive me for not doing so until now.

Arturia... [Another pause. She had been there when he had died, she knew the horrible rage he had unleashed that day. Cursing her, Kayneth, Kiritsugu, even the Grail itself. Again he worried that she must secretly detest such a hateful spirit.] When you have the time...I would like to speak with you. Please.

Comments

[myblimpisbigger]

[Oh, hello, story of his life. How are you today.]

There is no way to undo such a hatred, unfortunately. Once one understands that the world can contain something worth hating, that knowledge cannot be erased. My advice would be, instead of attempting to hide from that knowledge, attempting to make the world a better place despite it.

[croibhristeoir]

...nothing at all? [He'd assumed as much, really. But he had hoped he was wrong.]

Hiding from it was what created those Shadows not so long ago. Doing so now would be foolish.

[myblimpisbigger]

Then why ask how to forget? Forgetting is merely another form of hiding. We are what our experiences makes us, after all. I took my rage and hate and rebuilt a country; even the most negative emotions can be used for good.

[croibhristeoir]

I just...don't want to hate anyone. I don't want to continue being so terribly angry. I wish to discard it and move on somehow...and yet I'm sure that's not possible.

I am no one so great that I can accomplish such things. And I can't understand how such a sentiment can be used so productively.

[myblimpisbigger]

It may have helped that all the bad I have thus-far undone was caused by the object of my hate, and so motivation was easy to come by.

There is no way to discard hate. You can certainly move on, occupy yourself with other matters, but that hurt will always be there. Think of it as a wound: no matter how deep, it will eventually heal over and leave a scar. I'm afraid all you can do is learn to live with it.

[croibhristeoir]

...I suppose that makes logical sense. But then tell me this; how does one cope with such a thing? It's like...there's this terrible flame in the back of my mind, and I feel as if it will intensify until it burns all that I am and all that I have.

[myblimpisbigger]

Find an outlet. This place is full of enemies at night: pour your hatred into fighting them. The only thing that kept me from going insane was immediately finding something with which to occupy myself: a way to burn off the energy, to use your flame metaphor.

[And with 'only thing that kept him from going insane', he's being quite literal. A Spark in a rage is all Id and no Superego. They'll destroy everything in their path until something forcibly stops them, and then it's a battle of 'unstoppable force meets an immovable object'.]

[croibhristeoir]

Again, that makes sense. But even with an outlet...every time I see him I will just remember what he did and that hatred will return just as strong as it has ever been.

[myblimpisbigger]

I doubt that. Eventually you will habituate to it. If you felt overwhelming joy every moment of every day, eventually you would no longer notice or care; this, I feel, is similar.

Though of course, I do not know what it is he did to earn this hate. Lucrezia razed my home, murdered my friends and my family, and went on to conduct a genocide on the people of my country. She destroyed an already fragile nation politically, socially and economically to the point where even twenty years later it is still a shadow of what it once was.

But there may be worse crimes. I would not be surprised.

[croibhristeoir]

. . .

[w h a t]

[okay, that actually caught him completely off guard]

He, er...he basically just killed me. There was a bit more to it, but...I certainly can't say it's close to that.

[myblimpisbigger]

[Yeah, and that's not even going into the whole sexual side of it. Even Klaus probably couldn't explain that clusterfuck of heel-face-turns and emotional douchebaggery.]

... You hate him because he killed you and 'a bit more'.

Let me tell you something.

The first time I died, I was fifteen years old and had to wake up to find I no longer had brothers. That is something that merits the sort of rage you describe, even if there is no one to blame.