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Cultural training and wishful thinking lead us to believe that our own good character would have stood firm to the point of death, rather than submit to this final degradation [of being coerced into committing violent or coercive actions of one’s own]. Or we imagine that our intelligence would have seen a way out that the victim did not. These beliefs lead inevitably to the feeling that the person who was broken by coercion has been defective from the start and deserves neither compassion nor treatment.
– Achilles in Vietnam, Jonathan Shay
This is actually one of the primary reasons I wanted to write my book the way that I did. The book repeatedly explains why Replayers act the way they do because I am trying to foster empathy for people in long-term trauma.
I mean, it’s a roleplaying game first and trauma-informed second – there have to be simplifications and omissions, because I’m not writing a research paper – but these motives influence my book too.
Discussion ¬