Bad, bad analogies (Cyteen)

[azurelunatic]

This is from a locked discussion of only tangentially related stuff that drifted, reposted here because I am disturbingly proud of my delightfully awful analogy.

As to why Ari I did what she did to Justin using Florian and Catlin, I thought it was spelled out pretty clearly in Cyteen, after Ari II and Justin saw the recordings. Ari II would need Justin. If she had lived to continue programming him, she would have delivered him gift-wrapped; if she had had more time (and had thought she had more time) she might have used more subtle methods that are also less rape. As it was he was sort of half-jammed into the box and arrived broken, but he arrived.

Comments

[snippy]

Definitely not new-in-box! But still a valuable part of the team.

[azurelunatic]

Very valuable.

I regret, for Justin's sake, that a lot of his wisdom was developed after, you know, assault and trauma and working in a hostile high-politics zone. But he knows a lot of things now!

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

That _is_ a delightfully awful analogy, thank you for sharing it.

I grasped quite clearly the first time I read Cyteen what Ari I had done to Justin, and why, and that sex was the lever and not the reason.

Ari II says it quite explicitly in her personal notes after she views The Tape, and the theme is revisited in a less squicky form in Regenesis. This is also the big theory fight between Ari and Jordan.

Most Supervisors of azi have to follow a cookbook, analyzing the sets and values and putting together a careful fix. Ari I and much later, Ari II are able to dash together a quick fix by sudden sharp manipulation of deep sets. Justin knows this is horribly dangerous, at a gut deep level, partly because it was done to him. Ironically, he is also good at "real time work" although he hates it.

Ari I broke Justin in exactly the way he had to be broken to survive the interregnum. She also quite clearly enjoyed it, even if it was a minor fringe benefit. Fortunately, Ari II learned from the warnings of her progenitor.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

As to why Ari I did what she did to Justin using Florian and Catlin, I thought it was spelled out pretty clearly in Cyteen, after Ari II and Justin saw the recordings. Ari II would need Justin.

Given. Now, it's an interesting and dark question to ponder, though, exactly what the intention was... specifically, what Ari I's notion(s) was(were) about what Ari II would need Justin for. Because it would affect whether she really meant to leave him less broken, or not.

I think in some ways, Ari II needs Justin as a conscience, and her seeing what he went through is part of why he's valuable to her that way.

So that makes me wonder about the question of intentionality vs. results, and how much what Ari I thought she was making Justin into corresponded to what Justin actually became.

[azurelunatic]

I think, from that which was in the text, that Ari I meant to leave Justin fixed on Ari (I, II, however many) and on his own work (two points, stability in relation) to counter the influence on her work that her uncles would have. That he also is conscience I do not think was necessarily intended. If Ari II were as ruthless as her predecessor, she would have entirely consumed a broken Justin and spat out the pieces. I think her design for him was to leave him jaded and cynical and with a wing of his own, working on his own design work, in a position of power able and willing to hold his own in the face of the Nyes.

I think she wanted a pet-tempermented version of Jordan, only on her side and under her control.