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Thanks for the response! I appreciate it. That's a good quote. (It's a testament to Runey's crafting of the story that people can actually bring up Nietzsche when discussing it.)

When I first started playing the game, it was just a game. The characters were pixels and code. I wasn't invested emotionally. There's a reason people indulge in fantasy: no one is harmed. For all I knew, Lin wouldn't be written as a sentient being, but as a shallow archetype. There are plenty of adult stories in circulation where females are written to gleefully adore their circumstances. Those stories aren't my cup of tea, but to each their own.

All I was doing with my previous post was trying to give expression to the depth of emotion the story evoked in me at certain points, to congratulate Runey on a job well done.

As you said: "Seek to right wrongs and injustices, not create far more of them."

To that I would add: "Do not hesitate to intervene when a wrong is being committed before your eyes, simply for fear that in rescuing the innocent, you do harm to the guilty."

I realize that is a very, very slippery slope to stand on. I could see that being extended to a philosophy of: "bomb the guilty, even if some innocents get killed as collateral damage." Which I do not agree with.

The actions I spoke of ('counter-crusade the fuck out of humanity' for one) were written in a state of extreme emotion. I'm a very reflective person by nature. Killing is terrible. It is always terrible, even if there are times when it is justified. For example, if I had the chance to rescue those elven rebel leaders who were hanged, even if it meant killing their executioners, I'd have done it without hesitation.

During World War 2, there was a debate over bombing Auschwitz. Some advocated doing it, even if it meant that some of the prisoners would die, in an attempt to deter the Nazis in their mass-killing. A way of saying, "We know what you're doing." It's an incredibly difficult quandary. One of many things Runey has done well is portraying that there is no simple, easy solution to what's happened to the elves. Yet the actions of the revolutionaries remain understandable, because they could no longer stand by and do nothing while their people were being raped, enslaved, and murdered.

And for the record, heh, my very first reaction to Lin was wanting to give her a hug and reassure her that everything was okay, that I'd never hurt her or get rid of her. It wasn't to berate her bad cooking.