My theories on what happened/might happen to Natani

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avwolf
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Re: My theories on what happened/might happen to Natani

#16 Post by avwolf »

amenon wrote:Do you have something specific in mind that leads you to your more severe read?
Most of the time, Zen is very supportive of Natani; and the brotherly teasing between them is fantastic to read. But a lot of Natani's perceptions of what it means to be a man come from things Zen said. Natani grew up wishing to be "strong," like her brother Zen. Zen was Natani's hero then, and stayed that way. Zen took care of her growing up. Zen was all that she saw as strength, when all she could see of herself was weakness, and Zen's comments, out of his own place of fear and frustration, stuck deeply in his little sister. Natani didn't want to leave Zen, which led to her decision to pose as his brother and join the Brotherhood to be an assassin with him. Now, even though Zen loves Natani and is generally supportive of Natani's choices, Zen's prejudices and perceptions are constantly weighing on Natani. Natani's claimed that Zen is the more aggressive of the two, and that part of Zen's nature "leaks" through the link and makes Natani more aggressive. If we believe Natani there (admittedly, I am not confident that I do), then why would it only be aggression? Wouldn't Zen's prejudices also come through, reinforcing or belittling Natani's own beliefs?

Imagine you are at dinner with your family, and you hold a contrary point of view on some political or religious or cultural element than the rest of your family. It's pretty difficult to stand up for your point of view surrounded by those who you love and perhaps idolize, but who hold a different point of view. It's easier to be silent and let their perspective stand unopposed, save in your own mind. Now imagine that you do not even have your mind to yourself; that your family is constantly there too, constantly talking about this thing that you disagree with. Could your disagreement stand when you cannot hold it even in your own consciousness?

Natani has always looked up to Zen. Natani even accepted a part of Zen into herself to "fill in the blanks" after the incident with Issac. If Natani doesn't even have a full psyche, how can she be Zen's equal on the link? Her soul doesn't even retain her eye color; her eye is brown because Zen's is brown, not because her eyes were once brown. I'd even be willing to bet that Natani and Zen might be able to share mindspace in Zen (as happened when he poisoned Karen and Maren), but Natani doesn't ever "borrow" Zen the way he recently borrowed her body.
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Re: My theories on what happened/might happen to Natani

#17 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote: Most of the time, Zen is very supportive of Natani; and the brotherly teasing between them is fantastic to read. But a lot of Natani's perceptions of what it means to be a man come from things Zen said. Natani grew up wishing to be "strong," like her brother Zen. Zen was Natani's hero then, and stayed that way. Zen took care of her growing up. Zen was all that she saw as strength, when all she could see of herself was weakness, and Zen's comments, out of his own place of fear and frustration, stuck deeply in his little sister. Natani didn't want to leave Zen, which led to her decision to pose as his brother and join the Brotherhood to be an assassin with him. Now, even though Zen loves Natani and is generally supportive of Natani's choices, Zen's prejudices and perceptions are constantly weighing on Natani. Natani's claimed that Zen is the more aggressive of the two, and that part of Zen's nature "leaks" through the link and makes Natani more aggressive. If we believe Natani there (admittedly, I am not confident that I do), then why would it only be aggression? Wouldn't Zen's prejudices also come through, reinforcing or belittling Natani's own beliefs?
Would Zen actually hold those prejudices to this day? While that linked page is clearly at a moment of extreme distress and I wouldn't normally extrapolate any more from it than I'd extrapolate from Keith striking Trace (which is to say not a lot, not not at all), together with Natani's aggressiveness comment I do buy into it being indicative of Zen-as-then.

And what is Zen like now? I earlier proposed that the reason for that incongruity is that Zen mellowed out, after seeing himself reflected in Natani. It would then also hold, I think, that Zen, being protective, could not long sustain positions that he perceived as hurting his sibling.
avwolf wrote: Imagine you are at dinner with your family, and you hold a contrary point of view on some political or religious or cultural element than the rest of your family. It's pretty difficult to stand up for your point of view surrounded by those who you love and perhaps idolize, but who hold a different point of view. It's easier to be silent and let their perspective stand unopposed, save in your own mind. Now imagine that you do not even have your mind to yourself; that your family is constantly there too, constantly talking about this thing that you disagree with. Could your disagreement stand when you cannot hold it even in your own consciousness?
This is the crux of my disingenuous argument: Wouldn't that be a more powerful character moment? If the story were to follow this line, I think it might come to a head with Natani exploding at Zen about all of this stuff and Zen responding with a heartfelt 'good for you!'.
avwolf wrote: Natani has always looked up to Zen. Natani even accepted a part of Zen into herself to "fill in the blanks" after the incident with Issac. If Natani doesn't even have a full psyche, how can she be Zen's equal on the link? Her soul doesn't even retain her eye color; her eye is brown because Zen's is brown, not because her eyes were once brown. I'd even be willing to bet that Natani and Zen might be able to share mindspace in Zen (as happened when he poisoned Karen and Maren), but Natani doesn't ever "borrow" Zen the way he recently borrowed her body.
I think Natani does have a full psyche, and one brown eye; I think the other one being gray is surface detail at this point; and I think that Zen has three brown eyes right now.

Yes, I said that.

For the bodyjacking: With that set of identity issues, I would think Natani would be incredibly reluctant to do that, and I don't expect it to have happened, or more than once. But I don't think any inequality is implied.
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Re: My theories on what happened/might happen to Natani

#18 Post by avwolf »

amenon wrote:Would Zen actually hold those prejudices to this day? [...] And what is Zen like now? I earlier proposed that the reason for that incongruity is that Zen mellowed out, after seeing himself reflected in Natani. It would then also hold, I think, that Zen, being protective, could not long sustain positions that he perceived as hurting his sibling.
A fair point, but prejudices can be deeply embedded, and we tend to exempt people we know as "exceptions" rather than erasing our own prejudices. Zen may very well see Natani as a-strong-woman-if-he-wasn't-my-brother, but that really doesn't mean that his prejudices are gone. It's really hard to tell with Zen, because we've spent most of our time in comic with Natani, who most certainly has terribly unhealthy issues with masculinity and femininity. We know that Zen's aware enough of the irony to almost lose it when Natani blows off women as being overly emotional. But does Zen share Natani's belief there? We just don't have enough information to know.

I will agree that Zen does seem to be fairly mellow these days. Like I said, I'm not at all sure I believe Natani's claims that Zen is the more aggressive one, since he seems to be a fairly cheerful, roguish sort; who tried to spare Flora's life because of the strength of his convictions. Zen pretends that he dresses nicely (his projection into Natani's mind is of the best dressed Keidran in all of wolf lands). He's got a good sense of humor and clearly dotes on his younger sibling. Perhaps those were merely words said in a moment of fear and frustration, but Natani clearly took them to heart; and since they align with the cultural predisposition of the Wolves, I tend to believe that Zen also holds those prejudices.
amenon wrote:
avwolf wrote:Could your disagreement stand when you cannot hold it even in your own consciousness?
This is the crux of my disingenuous argument: Wouldn't that be a more powerful character moment? If the story were to follow this line, I think it might come to a head with Natani exploding at Zen about all of this stuff and Zen responding with a heartfelt 'good for you!'.
Oh, certainly, that's a very powerful character moment. But it's going to take a lot of work to get Natani there. And with the link, you're almost hauling Zen along. I've noted before that Natani is not, by nature, a particularly introspective character. I believe that severing the link between Natani and Zen is a great mechanism for forcing that introspection. She's started on the path, especially after her talks with King Adelaide and with Kat (looking forward to more "girlfriend" talks with Kat too), but Tom's gotta play that carefully or it comes off as too preachy. Anything that makes Natani's belief system more malleable will make Tom's job of evolving her belief structure and addressing her problems with machismo much easier.

All that said, I will not be surprised by, and in fact will very much welcome, a moment just like you describe. This may happen with or without the link, but I think Zen would be overjoyed at Natani coming into a strong opinion of her own and standing up to him on that matter. I think if anything was going to change Zen's mind about something, it'd be Natani taking a strong stance on it.
amenon wrote:I think Natani does have a full psyche, and one brown eye; I think the other one being gray is surface detail at this point; and I think that Zen has three brown eyes right now.
Right up until the shackle comic, I'd have agreed with Natani's eye being a surface detail. (Right up until the tower assault on the island, I'd have said she was blind in that eye -- Tom changed his mind on that detail at some point there or somewhat shortly before.) But when Natani lost contact with Zen, both eyes went gray. Natani's eyes are windows on her soul. So it's more than just a surface detail for her to lose the brown eye, though exactly what it signifies is open to debate.

That said, my point was that with the damage Natani suffered, there was more Zen than Natani when the link was established. Would Natani's perception of owing so much of who she is now to her brother have put her in the position of being the weaker side of the link? In the case of the mind, perception is as good as reality. When Zen talks to Natani, he's able to speak through the parts of his soul that copied into and blended with Natani's soul. As Zen is the donor soul, I tend to feel that he operates from a stronger position on the link. I mean, it might just be because Natani is more one of our protagonists and Zen has been sidelined, but we have, by far, seen Zen appear in Natani's perception more often than Natani come across into Zen's perception.
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Re: My theories on what happened/might happen to Natani

#19 Post by Chris »

avwolf wrote: Imagine you are at dinner with your family, and you hold a contrary point of view on some political or religious or cultural element than the rest of your family. It's pretty difficult to stand up for your point of view surrounded by those who you love and perhaps idolize, but who hold a different point of view. It's easier to be silent and let their perspective stand unopposed, save in your own mind. Now imagine that you do not even have your mind to yourself; that your family is constantly there too, constantly talking about this thing that you disagree with. Could your disagreement stand when you cannot hold it even in your own consciousness?
Though as we've seen, Natani is capable of standing up to and defying Zen to get his way. And as much as Zen's thoughts can weigh him, it works both ways.

I too would be curious what Zen's views are, and how they've both been influenced by the link, but Natani knows you don't need to be male to be strong. He knows it's society that prevents the wolves from seeing strength once they see a woman, unlike Basitin who only care about ability (note that he never questions King Adelaide's strength or ability, or is even taken back by it). Relatedly, even after the link was established, it took some time for Zen to not see Natani as a female (
Spoiler!
he was still tripping over his pronouns in TDM
). This at a time when they couldn't help but have their minds fully open to each other, so they'd both know what the other felt. Zen, for his part, seemed to fairly quickly accept Natani as a strong, willful individual, considering Natani always talks about him being supportive of his decisions. He didn't prevent Natani from joining the male-only Brotherhood despite the incredible danger it represented, instead of sticking to his guns and trying to get Natani into the militia instead, and he was accepting of Natani's male identity, instead of trying to "fix" it; that's not something I'd expect from someone who truly holds misogynist beliefs.
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Re: My theories on what happened/might happen to Natani

#20 Post by Warrl »

1071-CCN wrote:
avwolf wrote:we tend to exempt people we know as "exceptions" rather than erasing our own prejudices.
Sort of like how it's possible for someone to be racially prejudiced and yet still like Morgan Freeman, somehow thinking he "doesn't count."
And the people who think that blacks who do well in school, succeed in challenging careers, or are politically conservative are "acting white" or "not really black" are EXACTLY the same sort of racist. Surprisingly, it seems that most of them are black themselves.

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