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“What they do not realize—and what you must realize—is that manipulating others is something that all people do. In fact, manipulation is at the core of our social interaction.” -Lord Breeze Ladrian. Ah, Breeze, you wonderful manipulator. Obviously the best in the Mistborn series. Except for, you know, Kelsier, who riled up the population of an entire city into rebellion. And, maybe the Lord Ruler who managed to beat the skaa down in the first place and control the world for a thousand years through the nobility. Also, the First Citizen, who controlled a city by being a dictator. Elend should probably be somewhere above you as well, you know, having created a stable political system (for an entire year!) that had classes formerly attempting to kill each other getting along. And, um, Allrianne Cett, for obvious reasons. (Maybe Straff? Nah, he's just a run-of-the-mill warlord.) You can probably see where I’m going with this. Breeze isn’t a good manipulator. He is, at best, a mediocre one who is bolstered to ‘passable’ by being an expert with playing with emotions. Which, by the way, is cheating and I say ‘passable’ comparing him to non-magical manipulators, like, say, politicians. Breeze’s claim to fame is being able to convince a dozen men of a hundred to rebel, and while that’s all and good (earning several thousand troops over the course of a year), he’s still pretty bad. I’ll explain why, but first, I’ll take out two counterpoints. Counterpoint 1: The Soothing Stations. Yes, there were Soothing stations. But, that didn’t stop Kelsier, and Breeze has emotional alomancy himself to level the playing field. Remember, even though Breeze can only Soothe, he himself claims that you can achieve the same effects by both Pushing and Pulling. Meaning, Breeze at that point is only on his own talents, and he’s mediocre at best. (And if he’s wrong about Soothing being able to work as well as Rioting, that’s a strike against him.) Counterpoint 2: Breeze doesn’t use dark manipulation. (Because there’s nothing morally wrong with adjusting emotions, whatsoever.) Yes, Breeze doesn’t use threat, for the most part, or anything more questionable, and he considers emotional alomancy no different from a set of powerful teeth (false!) or a charismatic personality (which he doesn’t have). Yes, I’ll give Breeze half a morality point for that. Half a morality point doesn’t make him a good manipulator, though. So, why do I say Breeze isn’t a good manipulator? Because Breeze uses the equivalent of whacking nails to get people to agree with him. He tells people to do things, and expects them to do it. Like with Spook, for example. Or, he’ll subtly nudge you to the point where you agree with him. Now, is this manipulation? Yes. It achieves it goals. But it’s not good manipulation. Because, it doesn’t last and isn’t flexible. Why do you think people like Bilg happened? Because of Breeze’s incompetence. So, what’s real manipulation? Real manipulation isn’t changing people’s emotions, or riling them up, or playing mental games until they give up and do what you want (cough Ham cough). Real manipulation is changing the way people think. This is achieved through behavior reinforcement, false information, propaganda. Someone’s who is a capable manipulator will change how you think and view things. This can be done by sparking emotions. This can be done through the spread of information. Or, through social interactions. Painting yourself in a different light. Breeze doesn’t do these things at all. Kelsier does a lot of them, but Breeze does nearly none, and he’s scared of his power, to an extent, which could be why he doesn’t do that. Why post this? Two reasons. One, because I don’t think Breeze is that good of a manipulator, and I want to hear opinions. Two, because I thought about this, realized it brought up points on manipulation that everyone should know, and decided that would kill two birds with one coin. So, read through this and tell me what you think. Please, disagree. And, secretly wonder if I'm attempting to manipulate you to do so. Or, actually I'm trying to get you to not argue. Heh.
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(Disclaimers: I know we have the "What are you playing right now" thread, and while that does get some discussions sometimes it is just for telling people what you have been playing lately. I did a search for a thread like this, found nothing, probably didnt look enough) Anyway, video games. This is a video game thread. It is a kind of out dated term, as it is not really video based anymore, if it has ever been... not that TV games is a better term... Tangents! So, topics, what are you playing? Favorite games? Games you look forward too? Things you are disappointing by? I myself was going to buy Pokemon Yellow on the 3DS, but the generation 1 games costs twice as much as gameboy games usually does. Hahaha. No, not paying that much, sorry nintendo. I should probably get myself Megaman Legacy Collection though. I like platformers.