Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Edith and Ben Metapost - Edith's Mind reading

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Jumping off a discussion of Edward's mind reading power.]

I think that for Edith she can't turn it off, but a lot of the time it all runs together into an incomprehensible background noise she's familiar with. It's like people are speaking their thoughts out loud (or holographically projecting them as the case may be.) She's become good at filtering so that certain things will stand out even if she's not paying attention because she doesn't want someone to be hurt just because she wasn't listening. It's sort of like that thing that they tell you about confidentiality not applying in the case of immediate harm to others or yourself. But most of the time, the murmur of too many speakers all running together.
As a result, most of what she actually hears are thoughts that raise to the level of shouting. Like you weren't trying to eavesdrop in the cafeteria, but the person was speaking so loudly you couldn't help it.
And possibly there's occasional diagnosis going on which violates all kinds of consent, but she justifies it to herself on the basis that if the person being diagnosed could hear other people's thoughts they'd know to go to the nurse and from the nurse to psychiatric help. Yes, she'll try to cheer up depressed kid, but a lot of the time her ultimate goal in that it to steer a person toward the medical attention they need so that their mental wellbeing does not hinge on a psychic vampire knowing they need help right now.
Edith tries to go on a basis of minimum intrusion while still keeping her hands clean of, "You could have stopped [horrible thing]."
And, as mentioned previously [note that previous mention was dealing with the topic of rape] most of her dealing with horrible things is in tandem with Jasmine the the traditional operation going:
separate the parties
hit the offending party with enough guilt that they'll realize what they almost did was very wrong.
Or, in the case of self harm:
hit the person with relief that they didn't go through with it.
In either case monitor all parties closely afterward. It's not enough to just be present at the crisis, follow up visits are necessary to make sure things actually were fixed.
There is recognition that this is probably not morally ideal, but it's what works for Edith (and Jasmine.)
Oh, and Edith would never reveal someone's thoughts to someone else outside of immanent danger of harm.
Ben: "What's he thinking?"
Edith: "Why don't you ask him?"


1 comment:

  1. This would be a much, much better book.

    The adventures of Edith and Janice would be worth reading on their own. :)