Haven't read replies above yet (treating it a bit like a poll) so forgive duplication.
1a. Probably two questions: i) Am I better person towards self and non-lover others when I am with this person? ii) I tell this person about my discovery of the spell/drug/landmine. How do they react? Do they promise to love me whether or not this is true? Deny that it could be true? Or aver that it is true and that this is better?
If the answer to i) is yes, I'm a better person to self/others, and the answer to ii) is that they tell me they'd love me whether or not this whammy happened, then I would have faith in the relationship continuing once the whammy was removed.
1b. Do I love the person both when I am with them and when I am not with them in equally intense but personally variant ways? This may be too me-specific, but I would assume: a) that a magical effect would vary depending on proximity to person (either stronger or weaker) but not vary in type, b) that a drug effect would not vary in type or intensity as I was with them/away from them (which would be suspicious to me) [I'm assuming that the drug there is being administered to me. If it's being administered through the other person, then of course it would act more like c)], c) that an instinctual response would be powerful when I was with them but very faint and somehow odd feeling when I wasn't with them.
2a. i) magical whammy - would want to know if it was on purpose or not. some people ooze attractiveness or hit your buttons for near psychic-magic levels of same and it's not necessarily their fault. Other people know better and could not do it if they wanted. If it's a third party magic, then obviously not the lovers fault. ii) misfired neurons. This would disturb me as a loss of personal internal control to something I would have an [unrealistic culturally based] expectation of self-control over. iii) survival instinct - no judgement from me. we're already wired with so many weird survival mechanism attraction things that it would seem just a high/low point on an existing scale.
2b. The drug would probably be most instinctively offensive to me on the assumption that it couldn't have happened by accident or confusion.
If that presumption was proven wrong by in story events, that could be a whole different argument.
2c. Accidental magic, because sometimes we just don't know yet, Then instinctive response stuff, again if other person just didn't know. If the lover knows ahead of time and doesn't warn the other person, all three become equally difficult to forgive for me.
3a. Yes. If someone did it on purpose that would be unforgivable. And possibly require some kind of revenge.
3b. To learn it was purposeful would be worse. To learn it was accidental but that the person had done it before and made no attempt to avoid a repeate accident would be worst.
Stupid carelessness is worse than deliberate evil because the person can't be reasoned with or accounted for.
4a. Not-knowing would be worse. Doubt would damage relationships.
4b. Probably if at all possible.
4c. Oddly, I don't notice till we hit 4c that that isn't the automatic assumption. I answered all the questions until 4 with the pretty steady assumption that the lover had done it.
Answering addendum - I can think of many situations where a third party has previously (and not with intent to make me fall in love) altered the person I fall in love with either chemically or magically so as to create a change in them that would force me to love them. This would make the person's action on me (since involuntary) forgivable.
no subject
Date: 29 Oct 2008 03:14 pm (UTC)1a.
Probably two questions:
i) Am I better person towards self and non-lover others when I am with this person?
ii) I tell this person about my discovery of the spell/drug/landmine. How do they react? Do they promise to love me whether or not this is true? Deny that it could be true? Or aver that it is true and that this is better?
If the answer to i) is yes, I'm a better person to self/others,
and the answer to ii) is that they tell me they'd love me whether or not this whammy happened, then I would have faith in the relationship continuing once the whammy was removed.
1b.
Do I love the person both when I am with them and when I am not with them in equally intense but personally variant ways? This may be too me-specific, but I would assume: a) that a magical effect would vary depending on proximity to person (either stronger or weaker) but not vary in type, b) that a drug effect would not vary in type or intensity as I was with them/away from them (which would be suspicious to me) [I'm assuming that the drug there is being administered to me. If it's being administered through the other person, then of course it would act more like c)], c) that an instinctual response would be powerful when I was with them but very faint and somehow odd feeling when I wasn't with them.
2a.
i) magical whammy - would want to know if it was on purpose or not. some people ooze attractiveness or hit your buttons for near psychic-magic levels of same and it's not necessarily their fault. Other people know better and could not do it if they wanted. If it's a third party magic, then obviously not the lovers fault. ii) misfired neurons. This would disturb me as a loss of personal internal control to something I would have an [unrealistic culturally based] expectation of self-control over. iii) survival instinct - no judgement from me. we're already wired with so many weird survival mechanism attraction things that it would seem just a high/low point on an existing scale.
2b.
The drug would probably be most instinctively offensive to me on the assumption that it couldn't have happened by accident or confusion.
If that presumption was proven wrong by in story events, that could be a whole different argument.
2c.
Accidental magic, because sometimes we just don't know yet, Then instinctive response stuff, again if other person just didn't know. If the lover knows ahead of time and doesn't warn the other person, all three become equally difficult to forgive for me.
3a.
Yes. If someone did it on purpose that would be unforgivable. And possibly require some kind of revenge.
3b.
To learn it was purposeful would be worse. To learn it was accidental but that the person had done it before and made no attempt to avoid a repeate accident would be worst.
Stupid carelessness is worse than deliberate evil because the person can't be reasoned with or accounted for.
4a.
Not-knowing would be worse. Doubt would damage relationships.
4b.
Probably if at all possible.
4c.
Oddly, I don't notice till we hit 4c that that isn't the automatic assumption. I answered all the questions until 4 with the pretty steady assumption that the lover had done it.
Answering addendum - I can think of many situations where a third party has previously (and not with intent to make me fall in love) altered the person I fall in love with either chemically or magically so as to create a change in them that would force me to love them. This would make the person's action on me (since involuntary) forgivable.