Annotated 49-19
FB: Your “best self” is sort of a Platonic ideal, after all, and Platonism is what started this whole mess in the first place.
I agitated for adding this page, and Flo agreed, which was the opposite of our usual dynamic at this point. Carol still needs more pushing to crowbar her away from her faith. Xan is too caught up in the fascinating things happening to HR to even recognize that what they face here is a human problem.
So Shanna weaponizes her own history and employs the advanced tactic of using Carol’s feelings for HR against HR. She’s not always the best with people, but when she’s not tripping over her own denial, she understands their cores. And she knows Carol’s more likely to dig in if Shanna doesn’t acknowledge that the choice to help is Carol’s—they can’t order her around if they don’t understand what needs to be done. Will all this be enough to sway Carol? We’ll see.
I really liked the writing on this page. It was right about here where I finally started liking Shanna.
There’s a question as to how good HR’s “best self” is, though.
Probably not very.
But HR doesn’t need to be good. Shanna just needs Carol’s perception of him to be good to inspire Carol to do the right thing.
Ironically, it’s HR’s manipulation of Carol over the years that Shanna is now using to stop him.
HR’s best self doesn’t have to be good in order to be measured, rational and methodical, things he might not have been recently. Rational selfishness is preferable to insane ambition when the latter is backed with power.