Where Is The Amorality of the Well Taking Us?

On the one hand, I usually try to apply "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" to the overarching story in City of Heroes. By that I mean that when something in the backstory or mechanics seems weird, impossible or just plain dumb, then

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax."

I must say, though, I am having trouble doing that with "The Well of the Furies." It is being presented as a sentient, semi-to-mostly-all powerful (so far--who knows?) being that acts like a 9th grader who has read a lot of Nietzsche. It is beyond Good and Evil and seeks the Ubermench (can't say Superman, DC might sue! ) who likewise is beyond good and evil and just seeks power for the sake of power.

The way this is going is that the Well is source of Eternality, and picks persons to share power and eternal life with, but now the Well REALLY, REALLY loves this Tyrant fellow, because HE has the Will to Power... there is no right or wrong to the Well, it is beyond Good and Evil, there is only POWER, and since Tyrant wants it more than anyone else, he is the Fair-Haired Child of the Well, the Well loves him best and the Well is in charge of things. There is no moral compass, just the Will to Power.

Back in the Day, Marvel sort of set Odin up as the Head Guy, period, until he wasn't, exactly... Zeus and others showed up and it got pretty confusing. But we never had the source of super power and eternal life be as AMORAL as the Well acts.

I do not care for the official position appearing to be that the Eternal Well has no Right or Wrong, only the Will to Power, and the Well is in charge of matters eternal regarding humans. I am trying to remember "It's just a show" but this really gets into my craw, and I am not relaxed.

Is this a "City of Heroes" or a "City of No Wrong or Right, But Who Wants Power The Most"?

This is a City of Heroes and Villains.

All this changes is that there are now heroes using a potentially amoral power for a righteous purpose. Villains will do what they will with power, as they always have.

An amoral, infinite source of power means less than nothing. Ultimately, wanting power means nothing in a purely moral sense. The pure will want power to uphold good. The wicked will want power for more personal freedom. Whether the good will be corrupted by this power is up to the individual, rather than to the popular "absolute power" idiom.

Statesman has not been corrupted. (Arguably.) That he is using a power source that is amoral means nothing - He had no prior knowledge of said amorality, and he has no way to escape its grasp. So he is doing the best he can with it - and in the end, even with an incompassionate and amoral god, good can still exist in a City of Heroes and Villains.

That is all.

lets not get head of ourselves story wise, you are reading some things into the well story that seem to be attributing a bit too much. the well is a source of power that seems to have some self direction, and it seems to favor cole, thats what we know, i wouldnt make it an ultimate source of power just yet, its just a really strong power. I wouldn't be surprised if the coming storm is a force of equal or greater power.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

The I20 overview says that the Well has gone mad - so it can't always have been like this - so perhaps it's been corrupted in some way, and maybe we need to restore it to its proper state at some point in the future?

Okay, you come up with a good reason for the Well to share power with Hero and Villain PCs equally without making it amoral.

Maybe this whole reaction of empowering Cole with huge amounts of power in order to destroy the new Incarnates can be likened to an immune system producing antibodies to destroy an infection that's parasitizing it. The entity that 'is' or 'controls' the well may not even be aware of the new Incarnates beyond feeling a bit drained or.....un-Well

The Well is not amoral, it is flat-out evil.

If I were to take a "flight-of-fancy" look at it, it seems the Well doesn't care who gets it's power, as long as someone has the will to make it to the bottom of the rabbit hole. At the moment, the front-runner is Cole, but I think the the reward for winning the race isn't what Cole thinks it is. If I had to guess, I would say the Well wants a "walkin' around" body that can contain it's entire being. Now why the well would want this now is a mystery, but seeing as how we have had some "issues" with Rularuu lately, I would imagine the Well may sense a threat that Rularuu may reconstitute it's fragmented psyche and start consuming all of reality again.

Why does my browser keep giving me "Server not found" errors until I force it to try again?

Anyway, I feel the key mistake here was in trying to make the well sentient, which I really don't think was necessary. I DO know why it was done, however: the same reason all of Going Rogue's missions were written as they are - to be intentionally morally ambiguous. We spent years asking for choice, which the developers appear to have interpreted as asking for a morally ambiguous environment, which I'm not sure is the correct reading of that request.

Either way, my interpretation of the Well is that it responds to power and will alone is because it has neither of its own, or rather has no ability to exhibit either without physical agents. I interpret the Well as the power socket on your wall - yes, it holds great power, but it can't actually DO anything until you plug something in. The Well, if left alone, would be completely harmless and completely impotent. It can only act through other people, it can only exert power through other people, it can only speak through other people.

I'm not even sure how much sentience the thing has. It doesn't appear to have a very complex, nuanced character shaped by experience, belief and emotion, so much as it appears to be a broken record going on about power and will and power and will and power. I see the Well less like a character and more like a mcguffin, just one capable of vocalising its actions. It can't actually control you or hurt you unless you let it, and the only way you can let it is if you're irresponsible, or otherwise desperate. But it's no more "dangerous" to a person than your standard issue space ship power core. Sure, it powers your ship, but if you overload it, it blows up, kills you and your entire crew and probably mutates the dwellers of a nearby planet.

The Well's "morality" or lack thereof only matters to the extent that we allow ourselves to be under its influence. Because if the Well can't influence us, then who cares what it thinks or how it feels?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

i understand the concerns about the Well being a basically amoral source of power. i mean, look at the sun and other stars! And they aren't even (quasi) sentient!

Although, to be fair, if the 9th grader actually read Nietzsche's books and not simply selected quotations he might even realize Nietzsche's morality was not about the will to power being all, but i suppose that's neither here nor there.

(not very) Seriously though, standards of good and evil are pretty variable among humans and even with a given group change quite a bit over time. Not to mention that pragmatism and/or survival even among humans tends to change what is considered evil.

Although Lord Acton's maxim does generally apply to morality, there is no guarantee it's relevant to something that's allegedly not human at all.

I imagine that this "Well gone mad" scenario will continue to play out through all of the incarnate storyline - eventually leading up to the point where it takes on some sort of physical form of its own. Then only the heroes and villains who have the power of the well will be able to defeat it once and for all, be it for good or evil reasons. In doing so, they would gain the full potential power of the well, thus giving the incarnate story closure.

And I don't think the idea of seeking power is inherently evil, though of course It does have a bad connotation. And although it is in fact a terrible example to illustrate my point, look at politics (lol)... but seriously, if the will to be powerful automatically classified anybody as amoral, then everyone who has ever ran for office would be a villain. It is not the will to be powerful that makes someone evil; it is what they do with the power once they have it.