The small sake cups are, Claudius suspects, more like Lan Wangji's tea cups than Crowley's shot glasses, meant for savoring in small sips. Nevertheless, he knocks back the full cup, because he knows he's about to talk for a while. As it turns out, he has so much more Luo Binghe meta. "Why should he? In the course of his own book, he was able to achieve his ends through conquest and seduction, and even arose from scarce means to the position of emperor. Men with power seldom question their right to have it, but men who achieve power never question the methods they use to gain it. The further they’ve had to crawl, the more they can justify it. I say this as an aspiring usurper -- if I had everything I wished to from poisoning my brother, I’d have no cause to change course or risk turning backward. And you think he’d be likewise humbled to have lost his throne, but he cannot conceive of himself as having lost it. The difficulty is that -- even if his empire is irrelevant here -- he still possesses power. If he were the subject of an epic poem or saga, I’d say the parasitic blood was a metaphor for corruption and the reach of empire. You know about the parasitic blood, I assume? A vital humor, essential to him, that gives him power to influence others? He can use his influence to others' benefit or detriment, but so long as the ability to use it for pain exists, the temptation exists, too. The anti-monarchist allegory writes itself."
Claudius hasn't drunk enough to admit he thinks the blood parasites are cool and he examined them under a microscope. Sighing, he says, "I apologize. I've read a lot of anti-monarchist literature recently. Nevertheless, I'd like to see him spend one day as an ordinary man and forced to resolve a conflict1. The only weaknesses he shows are emotional weaknesses, which are myriad, but prodding those only makes him more likely to lash out with power."
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Date: 2023-12-28 03:47 pm (UTC)Claudius hasn't drunk enough to admit he thinks the blood parasites are cool and he examined them under a microscope. Sighing, he says, "I apologize. I've read a lot of anti-monarchist literature recently. Nevertheless, I'd like to see him spend one day as an ordinary man and forced to resolve a conflict1. The only weaknesses he shows are emotional weaknesses, which are myriad, but prodding those only makes him more likely to lash out with power."
1 Foreshadowing?