# 107 Sacrifice
Aug27
on August 27, 2016
at 12:01 AM
Hey gang, sooo, about that therapy……
I’m sure you’ll find it therapeutic to check out the Patreon Page, then cast a vote for the Melvin Chronicles!
Take care, MELVINAUTS!
BACH-MANN
I’m sure it isn’t as simple as that, Melvin. It might’ve costed Kazom plenty himself too. Like a lot of complex adult choices, they can be very heavy to bear.
True dat, Jenny.
“Like a lot of complex adult choices, they can be very heavy to bear.”
I disagree. The complexity of choices doesn’t increase as you age, it’s only your understanding of basic choices that do. A complex choice to a child seems simple to an adult, but a complex choice to an adult could seem simple to a greater being. Ergo, the choice is a simple one, and the burden to bear weighs the same regardless of age. Melvin surely knows this, yet he has every right to be angry. Even if it was a simple choice, it still has a cost.
I disagree. The complexity of choices darn well does increase as you age, because you become aware of a wider web of influences and consequences, as well as increasing the weight of your decisions. Few children find themselves in positions where they must choose between casting their lives away, and some greater good.
Mel has the right to be angry, but he’s choosing the wrong target–his Dad is the one who volunteered, not Kazom. And his Dad understood full well the consequences of his actions.
It’s not just the children of superheroes who mourn their self-sacrificing fathers. See Arlington.
My point isn’t that choices are easier, it’s that choices are hard regardless of age. The complexity doesn’t increase because the understanding of the choice doesn’t increase, which is to say that they both increase at the same rate. So when you’re older, a choice a child might find difficult will be very easy, compared to a choice you might face. If you’re going to be angry with someone, it should be someone who can reason with you, being angry at the dead is as dumb as being angry at a tree.
Look, kid, Kazom’s had to deal with the guilt of that ever since then. Don’t you think he knows it?
Mel’s eyes are getting that blue glow to them. Kazom’s “Careful, kid” is not casual.
Good eye, my friend.
Me thinks this conversation will forge a grudge if Kazom doesn’t choose his next words carefully. I wouldn’t have taken news like this well either. This just gives Melvin someone to blame for his father’s absence. Hopefully he doesn’t fall into that state of magic aggression like before, because Kazom might be shortening his years trying to calm him down again.
At this point, all Kazom can do, is to back off and let Melvin cool down and after Melvin has cooled down, express his regrets that his father had to make the supreme sacrifice for the good of the whole, including Melvin good too.
With Melvin being mad like this, there really nothing that he could say of do to settle Melvin. He should back off for right now and talk to him later if he has that option.
From the setup, it seems that SOMEBODY had to be chosen to die in order for the Tome to be sealed away. Also, letting the Dark Plan come to fruition by allowing the Tome to fall into the wrong hands would have been MUCH worse than one person being sacrificed–I’m thinking “total annihilation of anybody who opposed the masters of the Dark Plan, plus domination of all Witchkind, if not also Geniekind and Mugglekind as well”–typical supervillain goals, really.
Anyway, Melvin’s father was basically facing a dilemma (or rather, trilemma, since there were three options): Either let the bad guys win, sacrifice himself, or find somebody else to die in his place. A strongly Good-aligned person would not force another to die in his place unwillingly, so instead we get the Heroic Self-Sacrifice.
Anybody else think that this is why Kazom isn’t a genie lord any more?
We know from previous discussion with Melvin and when Jean or Jeanie was here, that it was about this time that Kazom also took a major hit too to stop this mess. It was about the same time that he got turned into a cat or cat looking Genie type. Because, Kazom was flying as Melvin dad wing man and he caught what was left over from what Malvin Dad sacrifice didn’t cover.
What we have here is one sacrifice and one greatly diminished Genie.