Letting Slip

"Passion is boon and bane to every game," chuckled the Geet, ever darkly.

"That is an old expression. Don't ask me where I heard it, for I cannot remember." He chuckled again, but with less villainy. "It is of course our passion that shreds our objectivity, but such is a matter only of timing. For it is paradoxical that our passion, in any game, firstly lends us the strength of purpose and the drive of heart that fuels our efforts - then secondly is contradicted by that objectivity, the dispassion that machine-like plays by ruthless logic and without the bias of the screaming animal soul. But when to invoke either ghost in the ripe moment? It is the ancient question, mine kit."

As usual, the Old Geet had lost me. Truthfully, I had no particular feeling on the matter. Reading my incomprehension and apathy, he further uttered,

"Take the role-games that you treasure so much. They are a poor example, for as I have told you before, they are not true games, having no competitive base as a game needs - silly, wasteful things - but they will suffice for my argument at this time. These games are always based upon a certain objectivity, a distance from which a player must god over the character that is to be his mask. He or she is lord or lady of the character, which is to the player as the peasant is to the lofty vavasoir. The master of the character has no personal stake in the mask when the game begins, for he or she still lives in the objective, higher world. Their mind, in distance, is glacial. The character is a mass of facts, of abstract notes, and nothing more - for the time being. And yet I little need to describe to you how reversed this state becomes as play progresses! We have both witnessed the faces become alternately incarnadine or lily with emotion, the teeth bare past curled lips, the fists clench and unclench like furious lashings of a feline's tail. So tell me, my comrade, where occurs the transition? How is let slip the higher faculty, in favour of the bestial?

I answered not at all, and then the Geet related to me a story.

"There was once a young, respectable soldier. Married, he discovered one day that his wife had been seeing another man in his absence. The soldier was hurt and embarrassed, but he repressed such feelings in favour of higher concerns. The scandalous event, he knew, would spell disaster for his family's honour. He resolved to prevent such damage to his family's station by removing the threat at the source, and so felt it necessary to challenge his wife's adulterer to a duel.

"They met in a graveyard, at the stroke of midnight, and mists swirled themselves 'round as though to maintain the privacy of the affair. They met honourably, and as the duel progressed, both fought with extraordinary skill. Finally, however, the power of verity tipped the scales in the husband's favour, and the adulter lay upon his back, prone and disarmed, awaiting the inevitable deathstroke.

"Yet the husband strangely and silently paused. There was a moment of preternatural quiet, before he broke and ran, leaving the adulterer very much alive and confused for it all.

"The adulterer spent the next few days wondering what had happened, why he had been left alive. After a fortnight, with no explanation yet having presented itself, he decided to risk seeking the husband out. After some effort, he finally arranged to meet with the husband, asking him why he had not delivered the much deserved deathblow. The husband merely smiled and responded, 'I had sought to kill you to preserve my family's honour, my career, and my future. This I would have done. However, at the end of our duel, when you lay before me and ready to die, I suddenly realized that I had become angry, that the blow I was about to deliver was not in utility, but in passion. And know this: I am still angry, yet when it passes as must every storm before the sun, I will call upon you again.'

"So you see, my kit, that the passion-dispassion transition is a tricky one, and there is something about the nature of competition - of the game - that plays puppeteer with such a balance. But it is the wise player that understands this dichotomy, and understanding it, may control it."

The Old Geet said many other things besides, the shadows growing longer as he did so, but I was beyond hearing. I departed in a foul temper, for I do not like to be teased.

Corvine
RPG Columnist