THOTH & MORVEREN
Hypothesis: your father left because of his own failings, not yours.
Method: observational field study.
Results: placed into a table to show evidence to support and challenge the hypothesis.
Challenge
- Participant has experienced abandonment from multiple sources, not merely his father.
- Participant has experienced negative social stigma attached to his medical condition.
- Participant is the subject of bullying.
- Participant has had only two friends in his entire life.
- Participant’s father discriminated exclusively against his own son, and helped raise other children.
| Support
- Source of hypothesis deemed largely trustworthy. |
Conclusion: hypothesis is false. Fault lies with participant.
Of course, the validity of psychology and sociology studies is always a little dubious, because of the subjective nature of dealing with people. Any psychologist will hold their hands up and admit this – but they will also, correctly and fairly, point out that there is no alternative. These studies, questionable as they may be even when rigor is applied, are all the world has to go by.
The mind, even a scientific mind, is subjective and prone to error. Unfortunately, it was all Thoth had to rely on.
He stayed quiet, but his expression made it understood that he didn’t quite agree. It wasn’t argumentative – quite the opposite. It wasn’t the shouting which had worn him out – Arthur should know better than most that when Thoth built up a head of steam, he could go for hours – but the emotion had. He didn’t believe the king, but he didn’t have the strength of will to contradict him.
Arthur’s lengthy tribute to philosophy stirred Thoth out of his lethargic state, and brought a familiar frown to his face.
“Well obviously not,” he answered the rhetorical questions with the abruptness of one who had just missed the point. “Murderers are bad people.”
Good or bad. Black or white. There was nothing in the middle, and no way that a murderer could cross the line into ‘good’ territory. It was a surprisingly childish worldview for someone who surpassed most adults in other areas of thinking.
There was a little pause. Thoth pushed the corner of the desk to straighten it up and align it with the nearby wall, and was about to bend down to pick up more paperwork when Arthur spoke again. Thoth wasn’t adept at reading facial expressions or tone of voice enough to recognise the difference, but the words were too literal to mistake the meaning. He hadn’t heard Arthur talk about his life before. Or ever really thought much about it. The king’s mythical air had all but entirely dissolved on the first occasion when Thoth had met him, at no more than about four years old, when he’d screamed at him for taking too long in rescuing his mother. Since then, Arthur had just been an ordinary adult – and adults, of course, had always been the age they were now. Thinking about Arthur as a little fatherless boy as… weird.
The point resonated, though – visibly. It was probably the first time Thoth had ever looked thoughtful about anything that Arthur said. The king had said that Adonis was a man of nature – certainly he was a man of wolves, as Aura and every history book ever had said. Aura herself had been more of a general magician without any area of speciality, although she was usually credited with untold power over the cosmos. Thoth had a speciality which was neither wolves nor stars: it was water. He’d never heard tell of any other member of his family showing any kind of enthusiasm or talent for sails, sea, and surf. That wasn’t such a bad thing.
He bent down to pick up the loose papers, and placed them considerately onto the now-righted desk with a quiet, “thanks.”
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