thoughtformed | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

"So please do your best to acclimate yourself to this reality as quickly as possible." Okay, look. This is all well and good for…whatever it is they're trying to do, but I really, really don't have time for this. [It's okay, Harry, we know you're inwardly freaking out about waking up suddenly absolutely not dead. There is a reason that he's keeping the video off for now.] I suppose they don't care about that, do they? Right. Anyway, here's my question. Is there anyone who actually thought they were fictional before arriving here, or are we just believing what we've been told since there's nothing else to go off of? Because no offense, but the last seventeen years of my life have been a bit too chaotic to be anything but real. I can't imagine why anyone would want to fictionalize my life in the first place. Also, fictional or not, can anyone tell me what happens to our lives back where we came from? Do they just stop existing? It's really important that I get an answer. ...er. I think that's all for now. Thanks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[welcome to kh philosophy, harry. aren't you glad you made this post.]

So if people don't remember you, if there's no body left behind, no written records... you were never real. That's what you think?

[goddamnit.]

Yes. Er. No. Well...how could you cease to exist without at least one of those? [He can understand not existing without a body because lol Voldemort. He can understand existing without written records of proof. But there at least has to be one of those factors.]

Memories can be tricky things. But that's not the point. Let's say someone has all of that happen somehow; does that make the things they felt and experienced not true just because there's no proof it ever happened?

It still doesn't answer the question of how someone can exist and have memories and experiences without some sort of attachment to their existence.

That one can be kind of complicated, I'll give you that. Let's go simpler, for now. If everyone who ever knew you is dead, your body was completely destroyed, there's no marker to your grave, and any info that could've been written about you has also been destroyed-- did you ever exist at all? Can you erase someone's entire existence?

When you put it that way, it sounds very possible to do just that. But most people have records at least, even if it's just a name. Don't they?

Not always. And like I said earlier, memories aren't always reliable. That brings me to this question: who chooses whether someone is real or not?

I would like to say it's ourselves but that's a bit too optimistic. So...probably anyone who can remember the details of a person living or not.

Why is that? Are you often in the habit of letting other people dictate what you are?

Do you really want an honest answer for that?

Sure, unless you're not up to it. The answer's kind of irrelevant to my point.

If it's irrelevant, then why ask?

It's irrelevant to my point. It's relevant to you, isn't it? As a person. Might change how I handle the conclusion, who knows.

It doesn't matter what I think I am or what I'd like to be. I have a title that I have to see through.

Is that right? But we're not talking about destiny, here, are we?

You can't exactly separate destiny from existence.

Oh? Why's that?

If someone has a destiny, they have to exist.

What, you've never read a story with a destined hero in it?

But stories have to have some basis of truth, don't they? [Sometimes he listens when Hermione's rambling about stuff. It helps him come to these kinds of conclusions.]

That's right. But if you think that, what makes you think anyone can be not real in the first place?

You're the one who brought it up!

[he's laughing irl because he is a dick]

Sorry, sorry. I think this went too far down the philosophical road. Okay. What I think is that the only person who should get to decide whether someone is real or not is that person themselves. You said it yourself, didn't you? In a roundabout way. The things you experienced were real to you. Isn't that what matters?

[a second text comes a few minutes later, as if he feels bad for the whole philosophical talk bullshit (and he does, but only a little, it's more a placating gesture, to be honest)]

To answer your earlier question, it turned out I was a real boy all along and the people who'd told me otherwise were, well, let's go with grade-A jerks. It made a whole chunk of my life kind of a waste of time in retrospect.

[...okay, see, now that makes a little more sense. He was kind of busy cursing at Lea on the other end of the line but once he comes back everything's fine.]

That's all that should matter, yeah. It just makes you wonder where they get off trying to convince us otherwise. ...how long is a whole chunk?

Well, either these guys are seriously unaware of other worlds even though they manage to both pull people from them and keep them in oooor, more likely, this is some kind of trap. No idea who would do it or why yet, though. Let's just go with "embarrassingly long".