Witch Hat Atelier - Vol. 1 Ch. 2
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History is never that simple. In the first place, for the "witches with good sense", who were supposedly opposed to the war, to have the power to achieve what they did, they had to be one of the most powerful factions in the war, and consequently ones with the most horrifying spells at their disposal (not that memory erasing wouldn't be plenty horrifying already, as it's basically erasing a person's whole personality and wiping their soul clean in the most extreme case. It's hilariously hypocritical to declare spells used directly on humans as forbidden, yet conveniently make an exception for a single one that serves their purposes perfectly). So, they were most certainly no saints, and it's laughable to think they were truly opposed to wars for any virtuous reasons. What they in fact achieved is a total victory in the war: They monopolised the most powerful power in the whole world, establishing an unquestionable dominance over all the other people, king and peasant alike. They are free to do whatever they want and funnily enough nobody will ever know what they did because they can simply erase memories.
Maybe the war torn world was a hellish place, but their current one is only barely better. While it was scumbaggish to sell a little kid an obviously dangerous book in exchange for candy money, I'd say my sympathy would still lie with anyone who tries to challenge the monopoly.
Maybe the war torn world was a hellish place, but their current one is only barely better. While it was scumbaggish to sell a little kid an obviously dangerous book in exchange for candy money, I'd say my sympathy would still lie with anyone who tries to challenge the monopoly.
@Kaarme
Or they just were powerful but not in the war? And after other factions wiped each other out they took the measures they did on the remaining populus. Not saying it necessarily went that way, but my point is there are other ways it could have gone down. You're assuming some stuff here.
This chapter establishes trained witches have the means, via the tower or other similar magics that may have once existed, to have pretty much any spell at their disposal. Doesn't mean they all necessarily use the worst ones. The whole basis of the past being described seems to be EVERYONE had access to knowledge/power.
Hell, it might have been that the only spell the group in question had that others didn't was the memory erasing one. If they came up with it first, they could essentially "disarm" any other remaining factions of their magical knowledge before they could learn about this new spell. If people aren't prepared for it I think that's a pretty game changing ability to have in a world dominated by magic. Both killing enemies and prolonging your own life is probably the first and primary means of magical power struggles, but I imagine that eventually reaches a sort constant and indefinitely escalating arms race. However they probably aren't looking into defenses against mental manipulation if they aren't aware it exists yet, and an effective way to nonviolently eliminate existing/remaining opposition is to make it so they don't know how to fight, the reason they were fighting, or that they were even fighting at all.
Okay, but to be fair, you're coming at this from an ethical perspective of someone not in a world where pretty much any one with a certain piece of knowledge could set off a nuke or make themselves immortal. The world that was being described sounded kinda... alien.
If anything I think what you're describing is too similar to how we envision power struggles in our world, which is dependent on possession and access to certain resources, organizations, and infrastructure. In a world where no such dependency exists outside of knowledge and ink, (and they seem to have been accessible to anyone) it could very well just be a sort of chaos where random, obscure groups could come in and out of prominence regardless of how power hungry or militaristic they were.
And then, how would a group that wants to maintain peace enforce it? In our world we can stop dangerous people from using weapons and WMDs by restricting the resources, equipment and infrastructure to acquire and/or make them. We can imprison criminals by denying them tools, means, and permission to freedom. If someone can kill people or manipulate physical reality with just ink and knowledge there's pretty much only 2 options for any sort of societal regulation. And given what was the norm at the time, those witches might have thought directly regulating knowledge was the obvious ethical solution.
If the world was flooded with tools that could do anything, and one of those tools essentially confiscated others' tools and the means/knowledge of how to acquire them, someone born into the norms of that world might come to the conclusion to ban every tool except that one, which serves as their means of enforcement. They might not yet be able to conceive of means to check, regulate, and eventually redistribute magical knowledge and power through a more nuanced nonmagical means.
And sure that solution might be hypocritical, but most means by which laws are enforced are hypocritical to some extent. Figures of authority and law enforcement often are allowed to suspend individual rights and use force on others (things society is generally predicated on NOT doing) so long as these exceptions are limited and clearly defined. Ideally society as a whole determines which exceptions are acceptable and which aren't while holding these bodies accountable, but the issue in the witches' case is that the means of enforcement is determined by a minority, while the very nature of the enforcement removes accountability, which is a pretty big issue.
You're right in saying that original group of witches probably weren't saints for doing what they did, at least by our standards. But again I also think the past circumstances described are pretty different from the ones we're familiar and the ones that modern societies are founded on; for all we know they may have been saints by the standards of their world at that time, or at least not actively nefarious.
I'm not saying they came up with the right answer, but that sort of widespread accessibility to absurd power on an individual basis actually poses interesting ethical and societal hypotheticals (which is also why I think it's an interesting implication of magic to explore). And disregarding that, I think even in our world you can't definitively say those who take control after a conflict were necessarily major players in the conflict itself (though it is rare for that happen). Overall I don't think it's as clear cut "they must have have done this and for this reason" as you're describing.
Now this by itself I think is valid skepticism. Even if I could argue that the extreme measures taken in the past may have been a result of the world of extremes witches had lived in up until then, I think over time if that sort of power disparity is maintained with no checks, it's pretty much inevitable that corruption and desire to control will grow, if it wasn't there already.
I just think that the degree to which you're willing to assume they've always been about being in power through insidious means might be a bit preemptive. Also I think that's kind of less interesting? Maybe some of those witches were like that, maybe some weren't, maybe it's changed over time, there's lots of possibilities. Don't jump the gun.
Again, we can only speculate based on this chapter, but I don't think there's enough concrete information to say something like that definitively. And I think it would be a moot point anyway: even if things were way worse in the past that wouldn't necessarily justify continiuing the current unbalanced distribution of power. You can advocate against a monopoly without lumping it in with the kind of large scale Sodom and Gamora shit we saw in chapter 1. Regardless of degree they're both bad, and better solutions than either of them most likely exist.
Or they just were powerful but not in the war? And after other factions wiped each other out they took the measures they did on the remaining populus. Not saying it necessarily went that way, but my point is there are other ways it could have gone down. You're assuming some stuff here.
This chapter establishes trained witches have the means, via the tower or other similar magics that may have once existed, to have pretty much any spell at their disposal. Doesn't mean they all necessarily use the worst ones. The whole basis of the past being described seems to be EVERYONE had access to knowledge/power.
Hell, it might have been that the only spell the group in question had that others didn't was the memory erasing one. If they came up with it first, they could essentially "disarm" any other remaining factions of their magical knowledge before they could learn about this new spell. If people aren't prepared for it I think that's a pretty game changing ability to have in a world dominated by magic. Both killing enemies and prolonging your own life is probably the first and primary means of magical power struggles, but I imagine that eventually reaches a sort constant and indefinitely escalating arms race. However they probably aren't looking into defenses against mental manipulation if they aren't aware it exists yet, and an effective way to nonviolently eliminate existing/remaining opposition is to make it so they don't know how to fight, the reason they were fighting, or that they were even fighting at all.
Okay, but to be fair, you're coming at this from an ethical perspective of someone not in a world where pretty much any one with a certain piece of knowledge could set off a nuke or make themselves immortal. The world that was being described sounded kinda... alien.
If anything I think what you're describing is too similar to how we envision power struggles in our world, which is dependent on possession and access to certain resources, organizations, and infrastructure. In a world where no such dependency exists outside of knowledge and ink, (and they seem to have been accessible to anyone) it could very well just be a sort of chaos where random, obscure groups could come in and out of prominence regardless of how power hungry or militaristic they were.
And then, how would a group that wants to maintain peace enforce it? In our world we can stop dangerous people from using weapons and WMDs by restricting the resources, equipment and infrastructure to acquire and/or make them. We can imprison criminals by denying them tools, means, and permission to freedom. If someone can kill people or manipulate physical reality with just ink and knowledge there's pretty much only 2 options for any sort of societal regulation. And given what was the norm at the time, those witches might have thought directly regulating knowledge was the obvious ethical solution.
If the world was flooded with tools that could do anything, and one of those tools essentially confiscated others' tools and the means/knowledge of how to acquire them, someone born into the norms of that world might come to the conclusion to ban every tool except that one, which serves as their means of enforcement. They might not yet be able to conceive of means to check, regulate, and eventually redistribute magical knowledge and power through a more nuanced nonmagical means.
And sure that solution might be hypocritical, but most means by which laws are enforced are hypocritical to some extent. Figures of authority and law enforcement often are allowed to suspend individual rights and use force on others (things society is generally predicated on NOT doing) so long as these exceptions are limited and clearly defined. Ideally society as a whole determines which exceptions are acceptable and which aren't while holding these bodies accountable, but the issue in the witches' case is that the means of enforcement is determined by a minority, while the very nature of the enforcement removes accountability, which is a pretty big issue.
You're right in saying that original group of witches probably weren't saints for doing what they did, at least by our standards. But again I also think the past circumstances described are pretty different from the ones we're familiar and the ones that modern societies are founded on; for all we know they may have been saints by the standards of their world at that time, or at least not actively nefarious.
I'm not saying they came up with the right answer, but that sort of widespread accessibility to absurd power on an individual basis actually poses interesting ethical and societal hypotheticals (which is also why I think it's an interesting implication of magic to explore). And disregarding that, I think even in our world you can't definitively say those who take control after a conflict were necessarily major players in the conflict itself (though it is rare for that happen). Overall I don't think it's as clear cut "they must have have done this and for this reason" as you're describing.
Now this by itself I think is valid skepticism. Even if I could argue that the extreme measures taken in the past may have been a result of the world of extremes witches had lived in up until then, I think over time if that sort of power disparity is maintained with no checks, it's pretty much inevitable that corruption and desire to control will grow, if it wasn't there already.
I just think that the degree to which you're willing to assume they've always been about being in power through insidious means might be a bit preemptive. Also I think that's kind of less interesting? Maybe some of those witches were like that, maybe some weren't, maybe it's changed over time, there's lots of possibilities. Don't jump the gun.
Again, we can only speculate based on this chapter, but I don't think there's enough concrete information to say something like that definitively. And I think it would be a moot point anyway: even if things were way worse in the past that wouldn't necessarily justify continiuing the current unbalanced distribution of power. You can advocate against a monopoly without lumping it in with the kind of large scale Sodom and Gamora shit we saw in chapter 1. Regardless of degree they're both bad, and better solutions than either of them most likely exist.
@Kaarme
TLDR
I think distrust of the witches' monopoly is a good catch, and hopefully it's something that will be elaborated on in the future. But claiming they must have been a power hungry or violent faction from the beginning or that their actions didn't acheive any significant benefit just seems like unnecessary rhetoric. And even from a perspective of human history I think that interpretation could be naively cynical.
Well intending otherwise nonviolent people can come into power in the wake of unjust power struggles; power hungry individuals and groups can arise in the wake of flawed systems put in place by well intending people; well intending people might continue to defend flawed systems in fear of worse alternatives seen in the past, while other well intending individuals might fight for better future alternatives, and conflict over this might involve questionable methods on either side. Meanwhile all of this is further complicated by the inevitable involvement of ill intending people, on all sides, at every step along the way. That sort of moral complexity makes history (and drama) interesting, and acknowledging it doesn't come at the expense of skepticism.
Honestly, a majority of real life cases of consolidation of power are probably more like what you're describing, but this is fiction. A group being shitty in only certain respects, having subfactions of varying degrees of shittiness, and/or becoming shitty over time, can often be more interesting, and thus more likely to be represented in writing than they are in reality. So not immediately writing off those sorts of nuances is almost part of suspension of disbelief. Same way how in a well written story I don't want to just assume the source of every conflict is "well that guys just an asshole" or "sometimes shitty stuff just happens".
Not to say that "the witches were also bad all along" wouldn't be a more interesting development than simply never questioning them. But I think there's even more potential there than that if the story wants to explore it.
TLDR
I think distrust of the witches' monopoly is a good catch, and hopefully it's something that will be elaborated on in the future. But claiming they must have been a power hungry or violent faction from the beginning or that their actions didn't acheive any significant benefit just seems like unnecessary rhetoric. And even from a perspective of human history I think that interpretation could be naively cynical.
Well intending otherwise nonviolent people can come into power in the wake of unjust power struggles; power hungry individuals and groups can arise in the wake of flawed systems put in place by well intending people; well intending people might continue to defend flawed systems in fear of worse alternatives seen in the past, while other well intending individuals might fight for better future alternatives, and conflict over this might involve questionable methods on either side. Meanwhile all of this is further complicated by the inevitable involvement of ill intending people, on all sides, at every step along the way. That sort of moral complexity makes history (and drama) interesting, and acknowledging it doesn't come at the expense of skepticism.
Honestly, a majority of real life cases of consolidation of power are probably more like what you're describing, but this is fiction. A group being shitty in only certain respects, having subfactions of varying degrees of shittiness, and/or becoming shitty over time, can often be more interesting, and thus more likely to be represented in writing than they are in reality. So not immediately writing off those sorts of nuances is almost part of suspension of disbelief. Same way how in a well written story I don't want to just assume the source of every conflict is "well that guys just an asshole" or "sometimes shitty stuff just happens".
Not to say that "the witches were also bad all along" wouldn't be a more interesting development than simply never questioning them. But I think there's even more potential there than that if the story wants to explore it.
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@IHavoc Yeah, no offense, but I gave up reading your previous post as too long. Thanks for the shorter one.
I did write my comment from the worst case scenario point of view, and it was mostly based on the hypocrisy of categorically forbidding one type of magic, yet leaving a truly horrible exception. Of course this isn't any different from much of our world where national governments have reserved the right to kill humans to themselves. Also, it's clear that the current laws/rules among the witches in the series are better for the vast majority of them (which would be the average and weak ones). Whoever were the individuals leading the faction that won the war, they are a different thing from those that followed them. The followers were most likely much better people who only wanted to live in safety, minding their own business. For the time being I think the leaders were no less dangerous than those they were fighting. Their only difference was that they wanted absolute control, not absolute freedom (which can also be called anarchy). That is, if we judge things based on scattered bits of info.
Draconian rules will always create rebels, though, especially when they create situations where people just have to silently watch their loved ones die, despite theoretically being able to help if not for the rules. If a mindwipe is the standard way to deal with them, even the current leadership is extremely ruthless.
I did write my comment from the worst case scenario point of view, and it was mostly based on the hypocrisy of categorically forbidding one type of magic, yet leaving a truly horrible exception. Of course this isn't any different from much of our world where national governments have reserved the right to kill humans to themselves. Also, it's clear that the current laws/rules among the witches in the series are better for the vast majority of them (which would be the average and weak ones). Whoever were the individuals leading the faction that won the war, they are a different thing from those that followed them. The followers were most likely much better people who only wanted to live in safety, minding their own business. For the time being I think the leaders were no less dangerous than those they were fighting. Their only difference was that they wanted absolute control, not absolute freedom (which can also be called anarchy). That is, if we judge things based on scattered bits of info.
Draconian rules will always create rebels, though, especially when they create situations where people just have to silently watch their loved ones die, despite theoretically being able to help if not for the rules. If a mindwipe is the standard way to deal with them, even the current leadership is extremely ruthless.
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Qifrey gives meed a very creepy and evil vibe for some reason
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Yeah, this situation smells. If they had erased all magic - and then their own - I'd have said they are selfless, if somewhat short-sighted saviors. But monopolizing it like this is icky.
I suspect the manga will portray it as the "right" position though.
I suspect the manga will portray it as the "right" position though.
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Of course the room mate is a bitch
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Duh she just killed her mother accidently and already smiling away like....didnt they left her mother outside
@Kaarme
Sorry for late reply, but yeah I definitely agree with your assessment here. They are definitely ruthless, I just considered it to be a different type/context of ruthlessness than how I interpreted your original comment.
Only thing I might still kinda disagree on is that the choice of mindwiping as an exception in and of itself is necessarily damning to their stance. Depending on what the material requirements for extremely dangerous spells are, that might be the only effective means to preventing certain catastrophic scenarios. Like if the primary requirement for making a WMD was just knowledge of how to do so, people would probably make a case for mindwiping. So I think you can make a case for that rule in theory.
What I DO think is damning though is how liberally they seem to apply what should supposedly be an exception born of absolute necessity (as you point out, it seems to be the standard). In actual practice its usage seems to show there's no intention of eventually reintroducing knowledge of magic into society at large in a safe and regulated way, or provide transparency so they can even be held accountable by the public. Let alone acknowledge that any of this stuff actually exists. So it mainly serves to maintain a status quo, where those witches currently in power have all the control.
Whether that's explicitly their intention or something they themselves would never consciously acknowledge would remain to be seen. But it's a classic dichotomy ("You can't handle the truth!") so again, I totally knew what you meant when you picked up on it.
Sorry for late reply, but yeah I definitely agree with your assessment here. They are definitely ruthless, I just considered it to be a different type/context of ruthlessness than how I interpreted your original comment.
Only thing I might still kinda disagree on is that the choice of mindwiping as an exception in and of itself is necessarily damning to their stance. Depending on what the material requirements for extremely dangerous spells are, that might be the only effective means to preventing certain catastrophic scenarios. Like if the primary requirement for making a WMD was just knowledge of how to do so, people would probably make a case for mindwiping. So I think you can make a case for that rule in theory.
What I DO think is damning though is how liberally they seem to apply what should supposedly be an exception born of absolute necessity (as you point out, it seems to be the standard). In actual practice its usage seems to show there's no intention of eventually reintroducing knowledge of magic into society at large in a safe and regulated way, or provide transparency so they can even be held accountable by the public. Let alone acknowledge that any of this stuff actually exists. So it mainly serves to maintain a status quo, where those witches currently in power have all the control.
Whether that's explicitly their intention or something they themselves would never consciously acknowledge would remain to be seen. But it's a classic dichotomy ("You can't handle the truth!") so again, I totally knew what you meant when you picked up on it.
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@IHavoc I seem to have written absolute control up there, but that's obviously not true. Just very strict control. Despite everything, though, it's quite easy to see this side as the better one for the average witches and the common people. It's short-sighted to not allow obvious things like healing, however, which you seemed to agree on. All the witches know such things would be possible, yet they are arbitrarily forbidden even if they were forced to watch a loved one die in front of their eyes. That's an exceptionally dangerous situation. To allow healing for those who wanted to get officially approved, schooled, and monitored would be a hundred times better. A detail like this suggests the leaders in fact want some witches to make a mistake, just to capture and harshly punish them to serve as examples.
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absolutely stunning
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I'm rereading right now. Good god Qifrey is a 10/10 hottie, holy shit.
