Bah. This whole idea that someone, singular, is to blame for things, is bunk that sixth-graders should be getting past.

Obviously, if you want to get right down to it, Chuchip is to blame for speaking the prophecies. The Hallifax aeromancers are to blame for blowing the Taint into Gloriana. Rowena is to blame for failing to persuade Ladantine that this whole Cosmic Hope thing was a bad idea. Dynara is to blame for making the whole situation. Lolly Pringle is to blame for recording things so that we even still remembered there ever was a Gloriana. Hajamin is to blame for sheltering Viravain and helping Her find Her way back. I'm to blame because one time, I was there while an acre was being untainted and I thought about the clean forest. Serai, Seren Brave is to blame because she gave me things to think about at that time. Avechna is to blame, Estarra is to blame, Serenwilde is to blame, Magnagora is to blame, Celest is to blame. We can probably find a reason Ackleberry is too. After all, if any one of those things hadn't happened, neither would this catastrophe.

Any given effect has not one cause, but an infinite number of causes, spreading out backwards into time like a tree. For anything to happen, countless things that precede it have to happen to create the circumstances in which it will happen.

However, there is a concept usually called "proximate cause". Here, "proximate" is etymologically related more to "proximity" than "approximate". Even proximate cause is not sharply defined, but it is a good guiding factor.

The most proximate cause of the catastrophe is Viravain. She is the one actually doing this stuff.

The next proximate causes are Kethuru and Raezon, for the simple reason that their influences were the most directly connected to Her doing this stuff. The least indirect. To put it in a nutshell: it wasn't, wasn't, wasn't the cleansing that caused the problem: it was one thing and one thing only, the "doing what Raezon suggested" part. The problem comes from there. That's the proximate cause.

Everything before that, from the untainting, to the encouraging that led to it, to the prophecies that encouraged that encouragement, to the tainting of Gloriana, to Project Cosmic Hope, right back to Yudhe, are not proximate causes because their contribution to the problem is solely creating the environment in which it could happen. None of them directly caused it to happen. None of them were pointed at this happening. What happened wasn't even vaguely foreseeable from any of them.

Ignoring the concept of proximate cause may be good enough for a call-in radio show or a pundit on Fox, but you can't make any kind of real argument about 'cause' or 'blame' without it.

-cough- try not to bring that up... there is at least one of us that this particular event effected VERY heavily... sorry

RP Police, remember your Safety SAM's

Step Back.
Assess the Hazard.
Make Changes.

Like I've been saying, Daganev isn't roleplaying a pooh bear.

Someone can fall for the person who kidnapped and abused them. Society does not call imprisoning the kidnapper cruel and uncaring, they generally call it justice. Your character can of course see rejuvenating the Glomdoring as cruel and uncaring, but it's not insensible that many others will see it as justice.

Removing the Taint is not anti-nature. Those that see nature as being corrupted by the Taint, a force originally of a Soulless primordial destroyer, don't strike me as being wrong due to an accidental weakening of the nature seal, -because its power was drained.- The idea would be that there are better ways of trying to do what Viravain was nudged towards doing. While it's valid to make your own suggestion that Taint is the new nature of things, It's also realistic to suspect others to argue that "natural" may not include the mutation of all the things that could be touched by the Taint into something else. The Taint is also a force introduced by an entity not even of the original realm.

The idea that the Taint is going to be viewed as harmless in the face of this is silly to me. The ideas of the various forces of the basin still oppose each other, but we are not all so blind as to not rally for the existance of the whole realm, which is ALSO rallying for our own causes.

I still find it strange that many don't think "malevolent, snarling, poisoned, twisted, broken, nightmarish, ghastly, blighted," to name some oft Taint-related words, don't offer a certain credence to opposition of the Taint and its sympathizers in all the OOC discussion. Saying "I support Taint and you're all supporting Light or Nature for reasons that aren't good enough for me, so your support is illegitimate" is a bit silly from the OOC perspective. There are many reasons why the support is legitimate, which doesn't have to mean anyone must agree with it, but will evidence reasonably why many will.

Edit: clarified last paragraph.

Viravain is to blaim.

I can't believe this thread. It simply amazes me the lengths to which many of you will take your IC denial OOC.

Raezon is a component, as is Viravain, but the largest component is unquestionably Serenwilde/Viravain's supporters.

Why do I say this?

Because Viravain has said as much!

On more than a number of occasions, Viravain said she wouldn't have even considered or attempted to untaint the Glomdoring without the support she got. The support that was largely composed of Serenwilders. Serenwilde itself is not culpable, no, but any Serenwilder that contributed their enthusiasm/support for any part of the endeavour is.

This isn't an OOC attempt to spin IC events (since I have no OOC qualms with Raezon or Viravain or any of the Serenwilde people who were involved). This is simple fact.

One sidenote, Raez didn't "convince" Vira to use the seal. He just mentioned the inherent powers as to its being a seal of "nature." I do favor knowledge after all, she wanted a faster way, I mentioned something that'd make it faster.

Exactly. Speaking of knowledge, anyone else try and study the slime at Este?

I don't roleplay on the forums, I metaworld.

Meaning, on the forums and as a person I enjoy the big picture of the game, I like to look at all the pieces and how the story fits together.

did my odd allusion to country bumkins and decadent city people get lost in its wierdness?

Cities and laws in gernal look at the proximate cause. It allows a more 'fair' system of justice.

Country bumpkins look at the world in a less proximate cause view. i.e. If I plow the field now, in 5 months I'll have bread.

Just as the serenwilde leaders blamed Celest for the releaseing of the taint, and its 'city ways', this modern event was caused by the influence of celest and its ideals in the serenwilde. Imagine what the situation would be like if serenwilde held Auskelis's views as dominant, and downplayed the similarities between Lasaera and Celest.

Let nature take care of itself except when in direct harm.

As expected, my comment went right over your head.

Again, you miss the point. We supported her UNTAINTING THE GLOMDORING, but said UNTAINTING THE GLOMDORING was not what CAUSED THE PROBLEM, and was indeed working just fine. What indeed CAUSED THE PROBLEM was USING THE SEAL. Which Viravain has not said we encouraged her to do, because WE DIDN'T.
It's not a fact. It's you drawing an entirely different conclusion to what the reasoning actually leads up to because you're confusing two entirely different issues.

Butbut...we wanna blame Serenwilde!

To Singolo: Then you don't know much about pooh bear. Pooh Bear is charachterized by this uncanny ability to know exactly what the heart of the issue is and to word it in a stupid manner, so unless your agreeing with me...

To Shiri: No issues are being confused. You plow the field, then you plant the seed, then you water, then you harvest, then you pound the harvest into bits, then mush up the fine flour and make it solid like, then you burn the dough, then you eat the bread.

If you don't plow, you don't eat

In this case, if you would have accepted or even just tolerated the glomdoring as a new part of nature, kethuru would be behind the seals.

And if whoever it was hadn't lit the Eternal Beacon, Viravain would never have gone back, and - no wait, Gwylifar explained all this already, and called it something fancy like *checks* proximate cause.

You know, before today I thought that was taken as a given.

But apparently it ain't.

Sigh. I can only conclude that it's on purpose because you want to blame Serenwilde no matter what and are going to fly in the face of logic to do it if you have to.

Logic isn't allways appropriate.

Logic tells you that you should not plow fields, or that saving a life is bad for society.

Halifax can depend on logic, Serenwilde should depend on learning from nature.

Halifax can learn to not trust the words of gods as being 100% correct.(proximate cause)
Magnagora can learn that Kethuru is really bad for them, and that power has its limits (Kethuru's post)
Celest can laugh at everyone (the whole sitaution)

Serenwilde can learn that Glomdoring and residue taint is part of Nature. (The outcome of the event)

This is just like how Serenwilde blamed Celest for the Taint before, and City mentality in general. Serenwilde, atleast according to historical documents, looks at the larger picture and root causes.

At any point between Viravain finding the fulcrux and Kethuru, Viravain could be expected to not destroy glomdoring. Once getting rid of glomdoring as a whole became the main goal, the seal was the only method of reaching that goal, because the Ravenwood tree would always need more power.

In the begining the detainting of one room of Glomdoring was for a 'memorial' to Glorana... sounds innocent enough...but soon a large section of serenwild'es population was urging this memorial into a full scale destruction of the glomdoring forest.

And now, from the Soulless Alliance thread...

Pointless accusations!

Worthless recriminations!

And utterly useless arguement!

I'm going to just assume the entire second section of that is irrelevant, owing to the fact that the first one is.

Serenwilde doesn't have to believe that "well, Raezon and Viravain messed it up so it's gotta be our fault" just because you want them to, flying in the face of logic though it does. We're as capable of not-being-stupid as anyone else, and taking that view IC would be stupid.

And quite apart from that, here you are, OOCly laying the blame on Serenwilde, when it actually isn't. I'm not a Serenwilder OOC, so I'm arguing from logic here. Trying to avoid it by saying I'm a Seren and thus should just believe whatever you tell me to whether it actually corresponds with reality in any meaningful way at all is just foolishness.

Right on the nose. Anything to direct the attention away from Raezon because they don't want a repeat of the Fae-Tainting incident.

In that case why blame Raezon? Its Kethuru's fault, Kethuru is a sentient being you know.