#im not sure how to place sol's relationship with the truth
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Thinking about the different relationships characters have with “Truth” in Axiom’s End and Truth of the Divine...
- For Nils, truth is a human right but some people are more human than others. Nils’s slogan is “truth is a human right.” But his actions in TODT paint him as either cognitive dissonance-ing himself away from his own lies, or as a blatant, corrupted manipulator. Truth is a human right, except when he secretly blackmails Kaveh, schemes to indoctrinate his children for gain, and requests political favors in exchange for information.
- For Kaveh, the means to truth do not justify the ends if the means cause more suffering than the ends prevent. Kaveh worked with Nils on at least one of the same projects, outing government atrocities that Sol was wrapped up in. But Kaveh believes this is a truth that needs to be outed to save lives and hold the government accountable, not to get his name in an article or book. When he has the truth of what Nils is willing to do his own integrity as a truth seeker and human being helps him make the easy decision to never want to work with Nils ever again.
- For Cora, lying is seen as a way to protect herself and protect others, but if she goes too far it does the opposite. Cora tells little white lies, usually in the pursuit of peace. “I believe you,” she says when she doesn’t believe somebody, but doesn’t want to fight. She manipulates and minces interpretations of Ampersand’s comments for the sake of keeping peace. Her omissions of truth rarely cause great harm but neither do they ever help anything. However, as her illness progresses, little white lies snowball until she’s lying about the state of her own mental health, until she breaks. She hurts herself and her loved ones by proximity.
- For Luciana, it feels like telling the truth has only caused harm in the long run. Luciana wants to believe in her own goodness, and therefore cannot conceive that she would ever do something like breaking a NDA or hurting her family. She’s so concerned with being correct that she hurts her family, anyway. And still, that truth hurts.
- For Ampersand, the truth will only make you suffer, so omission is an act of self-sacrifice; his instability for your stability. Ampersand always lies by omission, telling half truths or distracting from the real truth. He’s exactly like Cora but to the extreme, omitting truth because he believes the truth will hurt those around him. However, he’s gone so far down this hole of omission that his problems never get solved; he hurts himself, he hurts all his loved ones, and he knows he needs help but feels too broken to seek it.
- For Nikola, there is no reason why he needs to lie or omit; the end is near, anyway. Nikola only tells the truth, as he understands it. His truth is pessimistic but his actions optimistic, something Kaveh notes about their friendship. When he says he’s ready to die but takes care of his body and mind, he isn’t lying about wanting to die. He wants to have hope but he is compelled to let the humans understand the odds of their hopelessness, all the same.
- For the pequod superorganism, truth is a tangible thing they can hold in their hands, and they consume it like their sister-species “consumes” planets. The general pequod society, if Nikola is right, thinks that they can keeping going and going and going, that the universe is a black-and-white thing they can pull apart. But Nikola sees it as something bigger and incomprehensible than either pequod or human beings. There is a divinity- the unknown- which they can never touch. But the superorganism will keep trying to understand, anyways. They will destroy themselves and the miracle of other intelligent life in their endless pursuit of black-and-white.
- For the human superorganism- particularly the USA where the story is set- truth is only a tool. General Porter thinks he deserves the truth on the basis of his position of power and very likely his ethnicity and sex. He wants to use it to kill people. The general government agencies depicted, including ROSA, think they deserve to know everything they can squeeze out of Ampersand, even at the expense of their alien guest’s health. Political parties want the truth by any means to use it for their own political campaigns. Even those with less power- middle class to poor people- use truth and speculation of the truth for their own agendas, to discriminate against others, particularly Jewish and Muslim communities. The truth here does more harm than good, fought over like a commodity, manipulated and repurposed. You have the truth, now what? “He was a hero,” “he was a species traitor,” he’s great for views.
#axioms end#axiom's end#truth of the divine#TOTD#noumena#im not sure how to place sol's relationship with the truth#he doesnt seem to be a liar nor an omitter hes just along for the ride#however he DOES have an accurate lie-dar and i think he knows cora has been lying or omitting for most of the books#even if he doesnt always know the exact depth of her omission hes been trained on lying and probably assumes lying of most people
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❁ Character Facts ❁
Name ➔ Valeria Valerie Boston
► Are you single ➔ yes
► Are you happy ➔ If I were any better, I'd be illegal.
► Are you angry? ➔ my only state of mind
► Are your parents still married ➔ no, thank god
NINE FACTS
► Birth Place ➔ back of a taxi cab in selvadorada, a great start huh
► Hair Color ➔ Brown....i mean, green atm
► Eye Color ➔ Brown
► Birthday ➔ 18th of december, a true capricorn
► Mood ➔ Living a life of denial and suppressed rage.
► Gender ➔ Female
► Summer or winter ➔ uhh summer, i guess, thats the only season del sol seems to have
► Morning or afternoon ➔ Morings after staying up all night
EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE
► Are you in love ➔ no
► Do you believe in love at first sight ➔ not a chance, i dont belive in real love, period
► Who ended your last relationship ➔ who??? like as in another person?? lmfaoo
► Have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ I dont know?
► Are you afraid of commitments ➔ not really.. im everyones ride or die
► Have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ yeah, my cat bat...and sam, i think
► Have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ thousands, who wouldnt wanna get a pice of this?????
► Have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ yeah
SIX CHOICES
► Love or lust ➔ Lust
► Lemonade or iced tea ➔ Lemonadeeeeeee, bitter, just like me
► Cats or Dogs ➔ Cats...everyone gives them shit just bc they’re the superior pet an thats the truth yall just dont wanna see it
► A few best friends or many regular friends ➔ i mean...The guys from the band? sam, skylar and ray..... first one that i met was sky when i moved out here, she’s my neighbour and our moms bonded over their divorces or whatever the fuck, i met sam at school....at first i fucking hated her but she’s actualle pretty chill, and ray... when we decided to make the band, we needed a bassist, sam told us she knew the perfect guy and thats how i met him...i dont know much about the guy now that i think about it.
► Wild night out or romantic night in ➔ wild night out babey!!!
► Day or night ➔ night ofc, im a bat... i have one tatted on my chest, wanna see??
FOUR HAVE YOU EVERS
► Been caught sneaking out ➔ back when i slept in the house i would get caught all the time, but after i moved to the garage i just never got caught anymore, my mom wouldnt even notice that i was gone thankfully
► Fallen down/up the stairs ➔ *flips ice cream* did you know i skate? i never fall baby
► Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ when i was a kid i really wanted my parents to get a divorce... that shit ended up backfiring on me tho lmao
► Wanted to disappear ➔ always looking for a way out
FOUR PREFERENCES
► Smile or eyes ➔ ‘eyes are the windows to the soul’ that’s what people say, right?
► Shorter or Taller ➔ uhhh.... taller? idk...im pretty avarage height myself, but everyone around me seems to disGREE and its ANNOYING
► Intelligence or Attraction ➔ attraction??? i know that sounds bad but hear me out.... the smartest person that i know is my cat, and he’s not even a person
► Hook-up or Relationship ➔ Hook up, im not good at relationships surprise surprise
FAMILY
► Do you and your family get along ➔ ...Not at all, me and my mom.. used to get along, when i was little, and my dad, i never liked him...haven’t seen him since the divorce 6 years ago so does that answer your question?
► Would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ Everyones life is fucked up...just, depends on the degree
► Have you ever ran away from home ➔ no...but im sure i could figure myself out
► Have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ once my mom took my car keys, (which also had the garage key on them) because of something that went on at school, so i got locked out and spent the night at sky’s... she felt really bad abt it and apologized...so
FRIENDS
► Do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ nope
► Do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ yeah i would say so
► Who is your best friend ➔ BAT
► Who knows everything about you ➔ uh.. i dont know, i mean... there used to be a girl back when i was a kid... i pretty much told her everything... i dont even know why, but i guess her
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