[2E] Why negative Elpides?

[wyrdhamster]

From my reading of corebook, Elpides are to be postive aspects of life - forces that inspire Prometheans to achive New Dawn. So why concepts like Pain and Sarrow are those? Should not they work as Torment aspects as they even sound as them?

[Satchel]

Being able to understand and express suffering and sadness is one of the basic foundations of empathy. It also allows Prometheans to be weird in a way that limiting negative qualities to Torments doesn't.

A Promethean who hopes to truly learn what fear is looks to human demonstrations of that terror and maybe seeks to cause those behaviors. Their relation to fear is a connective one, rather than something that marks the ways they are driven away from humankind.

[Stupid Loserman]

Have you ever read one of those stories where the moral is that without the depths of sorrow, the heights of joy wouldn't grow as tall?

Prometheans have a unique perspective on a full human life, viewed from the outside. Your Elpis is whatever it is in the human experience that most moves you, personally, to find value in it. If your Elpis is Pain, then you might be moved by the way people respond to pain, how it stirs passionate change in some people and evokes extraordinary behavior in others. If your Elpis is Sorrow, you might be moved by how, in loss, people display the depths of how much they can care about the things they find precious, or how some people, even in being beaten down and left behind in life, are able to draw things of beauty out of it.

Prometheans find value in the human experience, warts and all. A successful Pilgrimage is hard to complete if you're still at the stage where you're being selective about it.

[wyrdhamster]

But not those are totally contrary to the corebook definition of Elpis? Like half page earlier we have this:

In this context, Elpis refers to the aspect of humanity that is the most appealing to the Promethean, the thing she most desperately wishes she could experience instead of just awkwardly mimicking. Seeing this in action or having a human express this towards you is one of the few unbridled joys in a Promethean’s life The moment when she can truly express her Elpis towards someone, rather than a crude pantomime of it…the feeling is overwhelmingly cathartic. Elpis is tied deeply to the visions it represents. They are what keeps a Promethean going, what makes her truly believe the Pilgrimage is absolutely worth it, and that it absolutely will happen—that it must happen.

Maybe I'm weird one, but Pain or Sorrow does not seemed as 'most appealing to the Promethean, the thing she most desperately wishes she could experience instead of just awkwardly mimicking'. There is also problem how Pain or Sorrow can grant Elpis Visions that will not seems as 'Torment Visions' instead.

[Magnum Opus]

Maybe I'm weird one, but Pain or Sorrow does not seemed as 'most appealing to the Promethean, the thing she most desperately wishes she could experience instead of just awkwardly mimicking'. There is also problem how Pain or Sorrow can grant Elpis Visions that will not seems as 'Torment Visions' instead.

Without saying I don't feel these emotions (pain and sorrow), our lives are so sterile sometimes that it's easy to feel distant. Prometheans are that distant stage all the time. Feeling pain is feeling alive. Sorrow proves that we care, that we have emotions. It's a moment in which you can strongly bond with others. It comes as no surprise to me that alienated creatures who can't experience pain as something else than information would want to feel what it is like.

Unpleasant emotions/experiences are still important.<sup>1

1</sup> Basically the lesson from "Inside Out"

[Satchel]

But not those are totally contrary to the corebook definition of Elpis? Like half page earlier we have this:



Maybe I'm weird one, but Pain or Sorrow does not seemed as 'most appealing to the Promethean, the thing she most desperately wishes she could experience instead of just awkwardly mimicking'. There is also problem how Pain or Sorrow can grant Elpis Visions that will not seems as 'Torment Visions' instead.

Not how emotional depth works.

Sorrow has no happy ending, or great meaning, or justification. It’s something going wrong, and accepting that it’s gone wrong. Reflecting on the thing that’s put one in such a sorry state, and using it to move forward.

Witness: Not just someone in despair, but someone reflecting on that turmoil and examining what went wrong and why. Since this is usually an internal process, speaking with someone to learn their story is usually a must.

Act: This most easily comes in the aftermath of Torment. For the Promethean, it’s about self-awareness, understanding, and moving on. She must know why she’s so upset and how to avoid it in the future.

In some very specific cases, pain is good. It’s necessary to sacrifice to achieve something, and sacrifice hurts. A lot of things hurt, but they’re for the best. Understanding and accepting that pain isn’t always a thing to be avoided is critical to these Prometheans.

Witness: Unfortunately, no small amount of humanity is willing to inflict pain on others, but this is about sacrifice — the party being hurt has to be willing to take that pain for some greater good.

Act: A Promethean must know true agony and know it furthers some cause that matters to her. Leaving a loved one to stave off Disquiet or withstanding torture to protect someone are both examples of fulfilling the Pain Elpis. Torment doesn’t count for the purposes of this Elpis, even if she intentionally induces it.

[Caitiff Primogen]

We take things like Sorrow and Pain for granted in our lives. We wish we could live without them only because we don't realize what life would really be like in their absence. Prometheans are learning an entire spectrum of human experiences and emotions. We can ask why on earth they would want them only because we've always had them.

[Satchel]

We take things like Sorrow and Pain for granted in our lives. We wish we could live without them only because we don't realize what life would really be like in their absence. Prometheans are learning an entire spectrum of human experiences and emotions. We can ask why on earth they would want them only because we've always had them.

Or, as one of the classics puts it…

"How about my heart?" asked the Tin Woodman.

"Why, as for that," answered Oz, "I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart."

"That must be a matter of opinion," said the Tin Woodman. "For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart."

[eberg]

My wife thinks I'm weird because when I revisit movies and shows that I like, I most often watch the sad parts. I love the heart-wrenching stuff that brings tears to my eyes. I enjoy the emotional catharsis. Pain and sadness make you feel truly alive. It may have to do with events in my life that have required me to bury my pain and sadness, at times. If you haven't seen Inside Out, last year's Pixar movie, it is a movie-length demonstration of the necessity of sadness.

Humanity isn't just the fun or nice parts.

[wyrdhamster]

As i understand, characters Elpis is granting visions. How Pain and Sorrow can be inspiring to say 'Yes, I want to strive for it'? They may be nessecery to human life, but they do not seems inspirational.

[Charlaquin]

They'd sure be inspirational to someone aspiring to be human.

[ArcaneArts]

They'd sure be inspirational to someone aspiring to be human.

They are among the more precious pieces of humanity-often instrumental in humanizing even those who are born to the condition. Pain and sorrow are sacred and dear.

[Errol216]

The condition of being good is that it should always be possible for you to be morally destroyed by something you couldn’t prevent. To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the human condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from its fragility.

Being a human means accepting promises from other people and trusting that other people will be good to you. When that is too much to bear, it is always possible to retreat into the thought, “I’ll live for my own comfort, for my own revenge, for my own anger, and I just won’t be a member of society anymore.” That really means, “I won’t be a human being anymore.”

From: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/0...orld-of-ideas/

[Geckopirateship]

I think it's also important to emphasize that the Elpis doesn't always have to be "good", in terms of what it is or what it drives the Promethean to do- another thread brought up the ways in which a Promethean working for a criminal family could easily be Aurum. The Elpis is the thing the Promethean most desires to have, and that can easily lead them down dark paths.

Take "belonging" as an example- it's a very human desire, and it's something that Prometheans don't have a lot of and often find themselves wishing for. Now think of all the horrible things humans have done in the name of "belonging" to a group. In fact, Pain and Sorrow aren't even particularly dangerous as Elps go. We all know what true love can do to a person, after all.

[LostLight]

You know, I remember that I've read one interpretation for the story of Pandora's Box that considering the fact that the box contained all the evil and terrors which plague humanity, and that Elpis was actually in the box, then hope is nothing more than another demon- and perhaps the worst of them, as it is the ones who force you to continue walking in the darkness for the slim chance you'll get a brighter future.

Hope could be a terrible, dreadful thing- sure, it shines like a star and give you a sense of direction in the darkest night, but in order to see it you must have the darkness first. You know never truly know hope without despair, and it would torment you, burn you and hurt you until the sun would shine and the star would be lost in the burning light of the dawn.