Video, UN: Puppetking

[throneaway]

[ The video cuts in to a very plain assigned apartment room, and a tall, reedy-looking individual who smiles to see something light up or turn on on the device. Success!

Maxwell doesn't look too worried about all this 'saving the world' jazz.

Neither does the little floating eyeball that nuzzles up to his shoulder. He pets it absently. ]

Say, pal. How many of you 'randomly chosen' otherworldly visitors were already heroes in your own worlds? How many of you were ... Less heroic?

I don't mean to be suspicious, you understand: I'm sure they actually do need help here.

But I have some prior experience with kidna--err--this kind of selection process.

Comments

[boombam]

Guess I can't argue with that.

[Katsuki knows all too well about learning empathy through suffering.]

I haven't been here that long. About a couple weeks. Hopefully not much longer.

[throneaway]

You do have a point, though. If there are monsters to be destroyed, relics to be researched, ruins to be explored, or whatever else this place has in common with my homeworld, then the broad strokes don't change, regardless of who's in charge and why.

Sometimes a direct approach like yours is truly best. Are your abilities in line with that directness, I wonder?

I hate to say it, but I was in the last place more than a decade and a half before I came here, and there's plenty of leitmotifs to match there to here.

[boombam]

You could say my abilities are in line with directness, yeah. Explosions are as direct as anything can be.

Also don't you dare even mention the idea of me being stuck here for more than a decade. If that happens I don't even know what I'll do. But I know a lot of people will be having a very bad time if I have to deal with this place for longer than a couple of months.

[throneaway]

What good news, I love explosions. As long as I'm out of the blast radius, I think we'll get along fine.

That's definitely worst case, mind you, pal. And I'm less bothered because I had mixed feelings about where I was before. If you have things you relish getting back to, no wonder you seem impatient.

[boombam]

I'm an expert at keeping civilians safe from my explosions, don't worry. As long as you don't do anything stupid you'll be fine.

I just helped end a war. I'm pretty impatient to get back to it and make sure it's all over for good.

[throneaway]

Torn between indignation at being treated as a civilian, and gratitude for same, I'll need a minute to decide.

Ending a war is pretty benevolent as it is. If they need more handholding, maybe they don't deserve peace?

[boombam]

Everyone is a civilian to me if they're not a Hero or a Villain. Don't feel too bad about it.

You're talking about my home? I'm not gonna let you shit on the people I saved. They deserve nothing BUT peace, after what fucked up bullshit everyone had to go through for the last year.

So many good people have died, or are mangled after battle. I just want to check on everyone. Make sure the remaining Villains all run and hide into their little ratholes.

[throneaway]

Hmm.

[ He takes a minute to read through all of that, finding the last line especially compelling to push him into adding an ill advised, undiplomatic: ]

Feel free to bump me into the 'Villain' category, if those are the only three available.

[boombam]

Why? You think innocent people deserved to die for no reason?

[throneaway]

No. People often don't get what they deserve.

But I don't believe a person can redeem others, without the rescued persons putting in some work themselves. Managing reconstruction, and so on.

[boombam]

Oh.

I don't think that makes you a Villain, that's pretty normal to think. If the people I save don't do anything to help rebuild and shit, then it'd be pretty annoying to help them out sometimes.

[throneaway]

If people think badly of me, it's either well deserved or it will be.

Do they compensate you for it?

[boombam]

They do, yeah. It's actually a government job, to be a Hero. You get a salary and all that insurance junk that comes with it.

[throneaway]

At least there's that.

What do the Villains get?

[boombam]

Jail time?

Do you think they deserve some kind of reward for causing trouble?

[throneaway]

Not necessarily.

Just curious about how it all works. And why it all works. If you can step back and see the gears, sometimes it helps. Even if your goal is just to destroy the machine, you've got to know where to hit it, right?

Say, for example, if anybody had the bright idea to put your Villains on their payroll. As a distractionary tactic, or to squeeze out the taxpayer, or to test them as living weaponry. Any number of things.

Say I've got a suspicious mind, if you like.

[boombam]

I'm feeling generous, so I'll give you a rundown.

It's not perfect, but our society TRIES to be pretty straightforward. Nearly everyone is born with some kind of super power, we call them Quirks, and naturally there's going to be people who use those powers for the wrong reasons. We label them as "Villains", and pay people to use their powers for good. To fight them and throw them in jail or even kill them if absolutely necessary. Those are "Heroes". And there's plenty of us who do it just to help keep the place safe. And plenty who do it only for the money. It doesn't really matter the motive, I guess, as long as there's enough to keep Villains from harming innocent people.

There's also been organizations that pay out of pocket for people to do crimes. I don't think it's possible to escape that from happening in ANY society.
For example: mafias haven't really needed to exist since humans evolved to have Quirks, yet they still operate and still pay like crazy to keep crime going and have special weapons made to stop Heroes.

[throneaway]

Tale as old as time. And look, I appreciate it. I won't act like you're the one who set any of this up, even if I don't agree with it.

This might be a stupid question, but if nearly everyone is born with powers, who are the "innocent" people who can't defend themselves?

It's concentrations of wealth that make that sort of thing happen, in my experience, the only way to get around that is to dismantle civilization entirely. Most people don't want to go that far, so you have different problems along with 'modern conveniences'.

It sounds like a very compelling society, though.

[boombam]

I didn't say everyone was born with a good Quirk. My mom's is probably the most useless one I've ever seen. She sweats glycerin and it keeps her skin moisturized. That's literally all it does. How the hell is she supposed to fight someone that can turn their hands into knives? Blind them with her nice skin?

Yeah, usually the ones trying to dismantle everything are the Villains who are tired of getting in trouble for doing bad shit. Everyone else is pretty satisfied with how everything runs, so why would they try to change it?

At least everything makes sense. I'm lucky that by the time I was born they figured all the rules out. I imagine when Quirks first developed it was so shocking that no one knew what to do and everyone ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.

[throneaway]

Makes sense. I guess my calling them 'powers' is an oversell, then.

[ Short pause in texting. He's more than a little biased, and he knows it. ]

No way for a Villain to become a Hero?

I can tell you want to do the right thing by other people, pal. It's admirable.

[boombam]

Villains can become Heroes, I didn't say they couldn't. But it's rare for that to happen. And it's hard for Heroes to trust Villains long enough to want to fight side by side. I can't imagine myself readily letting a Villain that I've fought in the past be my new teammate.

Thanks. Though it's not wanting to do right by others. I don't really care about treating other people kindly or fairly.

I just want to be a Hero.

[throneaway]

I figured it might be. Takes a lot of courage to forgive someone who's hurt you. I've been lucky in that way, myself.

...So what does a Hero mean to you exactly, if not fairness...?

I'm genuinely curious, don't think I'm criticizing you. You're defining terms here.

[boombam]

The world isn't fair, and it never will be. That's just something everyone has to learn to accept. It's up to every person to decide what they want to do about it, and being a Hero doesn't mean that you have to be the nicest, most fair person on the planet.

For me, being a Hero means using your abilities to save the lives of others. Or doing the things that no one else has the courage to do. Speaking up for those who can't do it for themselves. It has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with realizing when you're in a better position than someone else and figuring out how you can do something to help.

[throneaway]

I don't personally see niceness as a prerequisite for fairness.

But then, keeping in mind I'm not from a world where it's a job description, I also don't think a person with power is required to protect anyone. It's a privilege when someone with power uses it to help another. For me, personally, what defines heroism is not a compulsion to act, but assent when asked to act, when the answer could just as easily be 'no'.

[boombam]

Well to be fair, even though the more I use the word "fair" the less it looks like a word, the people who aren't fair to others tend to be assholes. I feel like it kind of makes you a nice person if you treat others fairly.

You're right that no one is required to. A lot of people don't. A lot of people will just stand by and watch someone be attacked by a Villain because it's entertainment to them. Or they wait around for a Hero to show up and save the day. Even if someone in the crowd might have a Quirk that could help.

[He's not going to mention it, but this is from his own experience. Once, he was overtaken by a villain and was surrounded by spectators and Heroes who couldn't-- and wouldn't-- get close enough to help. All while Katsuki couldn't fight the Villain off, and was being suffocated. It's terrifying to be in that position, so he understands what Maxwell says entirely when he talks about heroism being about making the actual decision to help.

It's easy to say you would in that situation, but to actually do it is something else entirely.]

But someone else in that crowd might have no Quirk at all, and decide to try to do something. That person might rush head first, and use his bare hands to try and fight the much more powerful Villain off. All by himself.

That makes him a Hero. Compared to all the other cowards who stood back and waited for someone stronger to come along.