The brainwashed Principle

training. It's about the same level of training that society does when they call you to the principal's office when you put gum in a girl's hair. And they don't really give kids a choice whether or not they want to be trained not to misbehave. that's kind of the point.

Macronomicon

Hasn't Garth always been about the brainwashing? How else would you describe Operant Conditioning?

Big I

The morality of the world has definitely changed, but so far it doesn’t seem like Garth’s morality has changed. In many ways we’re viewing this new society through his eyes. The only difference is he’s being a lot more callous than he has been in the past. He brainwashed the principal Nd the entire staff, not because he ‘needed’ to but because he thought it would be cool Nd it was actually the easiest method for him. It would be interesting to explore for him to actually be presented with situations where he’a Not so okay with doing the bad thing but he does it anyway because so far it almost feels like he’s working on autopilot and not really considering the consequences of anything he’s doing. He doesn’t even particularly care is he’s found; he just thinks it would be an inconvenience. But that’s fair since he’a Actively trying not to think about all that he has lost. He shown very few moments of real emotion since he’s been back but it’ll probably all come flooding back eventually.

tehlu

Revise. He would go back and change the chapter to make what actually happened more morally acceptable

Ford-Thomas Frank Loveland

Despite Garth always having a happy go lucky type of attitude and personality the fact of the matter is it’s pretty much him versus everyone else right now he needs to do whatever it takes to survive if that means brainwashing people then oh well he got to do what he’s got to do 🤷🏻‍♂️

Tommy Littlefield

I see no problem with the brainwashing...there are no rights in the sphere only power which is why the clans can screw over everyone. To win Garth has to be gray at the minimum...but that doesn’t mean he can’t be nice

Kemizle

What is retcon?

Thundermike00

I like what he said that it was a sliding scale. The worse things the brainwashee has done and the older they are the less bad he feels about it.

Hornblower

Definitely only Pavlovian responses. Think what you could do if you had the Orgazmerator

Macronomicon

I think B might be a good option, but maybe not in a malicious way, maybe make it so that the prinicipals time is largely spent on satisfying Edward, which negatively impact her work and her usefulness to Edward. Likewise I don't necessarily see the operant conditioning as a bad ability since it's mostly just him giving pavlovian responses to people (except to people he sees as a potential threat), which can be achieved even now, it's just that magic makes it easier, Also, is the brainwash trigger for pleasure in the principal triggered when she thinks Edward is pleased or does he actually have to verify that he is pleased? Because I think you can have some fun if the trigger is sufficiently vague, stuff like the principal doing things just because she thinks Edward will be pleased, but it massively backfiring on him. Just be careful in the usage of the brainwashing, i think it might limit the story.

Lentitudo

Something ‘bad happens’ in context was more like ‘she has a mental breakdown because she was mind-raped into a form incompatible with her personality’

PJ LeBlanc

Does it matter? He’s going to have to shatter their whole society and wage multiversal war in the end so what is one mildly brainwashed person? I think magically enforced paths might work better in some situations but it doesn’t make to much of a difference.

I can see how people may think that its a "evil" thing to do, and if i remember right Garth himself had misgivings about it early on. Yet we as readers need to keep 2 things in mind. 1. He's done it successfully before on a wide scale. When he made "The Law" it worked well even after people were aware of it. He didn't go overboard and kept it within moral grey area. Speaking of morals.... 2. The setting went from "Post Apocalyptic" with survivors that share some of our moral values to "Medieval Low Fantasy" where the value system is VERY different. The fact that succession is based on killing your own family shows that. Garth has to survive in this kind of environment, so using his old-world morals would be asking for death. He still tries to be a good guy, which sooths things over, but in order to work in this new setting he has to be a little more dark and ruthless. As for something bad happening to the Headmaster/Headmistress, it's not a terrible idea but could maybe help Garth realize my 2 earlier points. Maybe one of the Noble familes who lost a child during the Field Trip blames her and takes it out on her? Just some thoughts, keep up the amazing work!

Blaine

It’s more that brainwashing as a plot device just makes any problem on New Earth incredibly easy to solve Which is not a great idea

PJ LeBlanc

Yeah seems in character for him to do it really as of now. A change of heart after some introspection could be good but really this doesn’t seem out of line

Jamie Trevino

Seems fine to me, he is going to be darker with everything that's happened to him.

Nyye

I feel that if you were trying to show how garths power is slowly corrupting him then leaving it is perfect but if you're trying to keep him away from turning into a villian then you could retcon it or have him realize that he is abusing his power and try to rectify it

Sylvan900

This feels like a trap so that you can get out of brainwashing the redhead inventor

Gardor