Ace Dumont
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Tulip King[C01:FFCC00]
Posts: 263
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Post by Ace Dumont on Dec 7, 2009 9:27:29 GMT -8
It's taken me a while to string my thoughts together on this issue, and I think I already made my stance on it a little bit obvious a few months ago when fighting. Personally, I don't find the person who wears pink any different than the person who claims "Non-combatant" or "Non-violent". If you want to call one a hypocrite, then you're almost forced to call the other the same. For instance... You say a non-violent abstains from violence. Yet they hitch themselves up to a KNOWN violent, warring clan. So despite voicing a dislike for violence and warring, they support it in a clan that does just that. As you already said; they support it through monetary means, or through teachings. How does that soothe their abstaining ways? It doesn't. I don't even understand how it could soothe a hippies conscience. (No offense to the City's favorite toker ) As for pinkies who may move around, give monetary aid, or anything else. I suppose you'd have to look deeper into their reasonings for any of that. Just how neutral can one be if one has family, clan, and friends? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone so neutral they'd leave those loved ones up shit creek without a paddle. To sit on a high-horse and demand a stoney disposition from those who Literally do no harm... seems a bit heavy handed.
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rel
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byrren jous ninta yibinss wun ninta xo'a ulu kl'ae vel'bol zhah udosst..er'griff l' seke ph' shebali
Posts: 1,013
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Post by rel on Dec 7, 2009 9:42:37 GMT -8
I've always considered neutral vampires to be like...okay go with me for a moment...priests. Now, I don't know a lot of priests, but from what I've heard they're pretty much helping everyone who asks with either guidance, food, a sweater...and they do so without judgment. SURE, they got opinions, but their claim is that their 'only side' is their G-d. Cool. For them. So no, vampires who are neutral aren't religious workers or anything, but if you apply the same principles to their decision to don neutrality powers, they too kinda don't take sides in warring action. They can pick up fallen vampires on both sides of a conflict and remain outside of it. But, that doesn't mean they don't have opinions.
Is that always the case? Of course not, but that's what I've always thought on those clans that are truly neutral.
Now, there was a time that most clans had neutral vampires. They were the guides, the mappers, healers, or whatever the 'said clan' created for that sect of their brethren to accomplish. They were hidden, mostly, and of course didn't fight. I equate them to medics (or padres) in war. You ain't really supposed to shoot them, even though a lot of them do get shot, since they're there to deal with wounded. Since I was never within a clan that had them at the time I was a part of it, I'll defer to those older than I am to explain it better...
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Post by Jean DeVenn on Dec 7, 2009 17:39:52 GMT -8
Interesting viewpoint, Relsav, and quite true. Back in the "Old Days" (I hesitate to call it a golden age, it was far from that), clans did tend to have a number of non-combatants. Thieves, mappers and of course, the trainees. To a great extent their status was repsected by all sides.
But that was only possible when clans were great edifices with dozens of vampires. Now, the average clan is... what, 10 or 20 strong in many cases, and only a few reach 50 or more. In these new, smaller clans every able-bodied vampire is needed for the fray. I guess I first saw the situation go downhill when clans started using younger and younger vampires in combat (the Capadocians were famed for a while for throwing their students away as cannon-fodder). Then mappers and thieves started wanting a slice of the action, and the lines became blurred. Now, all are fair game in war.
But I like Idony's description of the concept of detatched. I guess my stance is somewhere between that the position of black_dragonet. To a great extent I've outgrown warfare. As I have aged, the passion that leads to conflict over mere words has dried up. I have become dispassionate about city politics and the endless personal grudges; such things are a playground for the young who haven't seen it all a hundred times or more before. Starting a fight over mere words seems pointless to me.
But although it's been a year or more since I last fought, my powder is dry and my holy water wet in case there is ever a need to fight for a cause I believe in or a need to defend honour. I don't pretend to be neutral; I have opinions and beliefs, it is just that few of them are touched or called into play by the daily chaos and soap-opera of the city. So I have become detatched simply because I see so little in the city that I haven't seen before.
As for those so-called neutrals who wear pink cloaks as a matter of convenience; I abhor them. Actions and words should have consequences if they deserve them. There are those who wear pink for good reasons, such as to deliberately distance themselves or remove the temptation to use weapons. For such reasons I would consider wearing pink myself, but never just as a way to run away from consequences while still being able to intervene in other ways.
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