By Choice or Circumstance

[Harald 2536]

By Choice or Circumstance

“Per Electionem vel Circumstantiam”

13th of Owyn’s Flame 1914. IST

13th of Jula and Piov, 467. ES

 

“A knight by the crossroads of his actions”

 

By the very nature of our existence, a question tends to return in almost all we do, in sight of our actions and the results of them: do we truly have a free choice? Did we make the choices we did, fought the people we did and see the destruction of people’s homes due to our own free will and choice or was it from pure circumstance and the structure of the society around us?

 

Look back to the Brothers’ War that saw the end of the Holy Orenian Empire. While it was not the first time the Empire fell (neither do I believe it to be the last), it is clear from the history and the books later written that what led to the destruction of this Empire differs from the Empires of the past. We saw the longest-lasting Empire in human memory destroy itself, rather than being destroyed by outside forces. Brothers against brothers, friends against friends, families with ties of yore stood on different sides of the battlefield. But did we do this by choice, or due to a sense of structure and what was expected of us? 

 

The same can be seen in the Petran Civil War: did the people who lost their lives during the war do so only from their own heroic choice and their free will? Or did they fight for what they were told to believe in? Did they fight for what they have been bred and raised to do? We like to believe that we have free will, yet looking back to history it's quite clear that anyone breaking loose from the structure of our society often ends up finding themselves cast out or meeting an early grave.

 

We follow crowns, currencies, generals, armies, leaders of our houses and Gods. Most doing the biddings of these different figures of our society. Yet what led people like Philip I to destroy his own capital with the use of a thanhium bomb? What led the younger brother of Peter IV to raise banners against him, seeking to take the Imperial Throne and further destroy it, to recreate a lesser Kingdom? Or what led Renata I to dissolve the Principality of Savoy, leaving her people with no place to call their home? 

This raises many questions regarding the concept of our own free will. In some cases we can see a clear-cut case of what people would call free will. Whether for better or for worse, we can see it in every chapter of history. Even as of now, writing this I can say I have witnessed both parties of debate in the last year.

 

We have royals, while yet young, break the structure of how they are supposed to act, or at least what history paints them as. Often we get a sense of feeling that Royals due to their blood or name see themselves as higher beings. Yet these newer generations of nobles show a clear rift from the past. Quite often it can be taken note that these new royals often don’t use their titles to put others down, they don’t simply hide away in their palaces but adventure out in the world at an early age, making connections and friends. We can notice how this has been going on over a few generations.

 

This breaks the former structure of royals, Yet there are still parts of the system where we see their duties, names, and titles keep them from having a complete free will.

 

God, as mentioned before, is also something or someone we are taught has made all, the Creator. He who knows all and who shall judge us or forgive us once we leave this terra. Yet would the existence of said God be once more a factor against our capacity for free will? 

 

I shall be honest when I say that this topic has perplexed me quite a bit, having been told my entire life that I will choose what I become, that I can choose who I wish to be, or what I wish to be. Yet, all these structures in the world seem to limit that ability. But would these structures not also be what keeps the world in check? 

 

It would in truth be impossible to declare if we are free-willed or not. There is no simple response looking into all the different factors that must be taken into account. Yes, we do have a sense of free will in the sense that we can make our own choices, but at the same time free will can not exist in such a structured world as the one we find ourselves within. 

Written by,

Olivier P. A. de Savoie

[satinkira 6041]

"How can God forgive you? Help you? You are God. His thought made flesh. As for free will.. well, if one knows the variables required for a situation, one can accurately predict the outcome - and thus we are comprised of what came before. So we have no free will, yet we simultaneously possess the ability to determine our own future - a paradox within a contradiction." The Ash-Knight drifted fingers over the text, the armoured elf exhaling softly. 

". . .I like this writer. I may send him a letter."