It could, but you could also meet someone else with the Spirit's power who was an antagonist, or meet someone else with the Spirit's power at a time when both of you are between major storylines so you don't end up as significant figures in each other's stories, or do multiple of those things at different times.

Oh, I see.

None of that really sounds like a problem, per se. She's going to have antagonists no matter what she does, so they might as well be people with similar powers. Really, it sounds like a setup for her to run across her Dark Mirror, which is ...

... well, it's probably not a good thing. But it does sound like the kind of thing that she should deal with. Sparrowhawk tried to put it off, and see how well that went.

As long as I can be the protagonist sometimes, I think that one would be fine, then.

She makes a check next to it. 'Makes the Dream Work', on the other hand, sounds terrible. Emily wants to be able to actually do things and — potential friendship-related femininity powers aside — has never actually been good at making things happen in a team. She crosses it out emphatically.

(Yes, I think that one can be good for the people who like it but it changes a lot about what kinds of stories you can be in, and not everyone is suited to its lifestyle.)

See? The notebook gets it. She puts a heart by the comment, and then continues reading through the list. But not for very long, because the next entry is "Incomplete", which handily derails her train of thought.

There are mind-control powers? Why are there mind-control powers?

I thought these were all ...

She flips back to the top to check something, and then continues.

'Meta-narratively guaranteed'. Why would there be mind control if the Spirit can just set things up on a, uh, 'bigger' level?

Wait — are any of the things I picked so far mind control?

Even though the Spirit's power acts metanarratively, it can still affect how people think, in situations where arranging ahead of time for them to be the sort of person who'd have the right reactions wasn't an option or the person with the power didn't prefer it. I don't think any of the powers you've chosen so far have necessary mind-affecting elements, but if you want to be really sure you don't accidentally pick up anything like that, you can take Nullified.

Emily bites her lip.

There is an obvious right choice here. There's a really obvious right choice here. Mind control is not a heroic power, no matter which way you look at it.

But.

Is there actually a difference between arranging ahead of time for someone to have an opinion, versus changing their mind in the moment? If so, why? And if not, then ruling out mind control means ruling out ... a lot of what the Spirit is offering her, probably.

It's more

It's not

When the Spirit affects how someone is thinking, is that detectable within the story? Like, if they arrange ahead of time for someone to be predisposed to spiders, or something, that's presumably not the kind of thing that magesight could see, or that a diviner would pick up on, or whatever. But if the Spirit had to tweak someone to not be afraid of spiders in the middle of the story, for some reason, what would that ... be like?

That's not exactly what she wants to ask, but it seems like a good segue.

It also wouldn't be the kind of thing that magesight would see or that a diviner would pick up on. Powers can express themselves in many different possible ways; for someone who was hesitant about affecting people's minds directly, a power to make the bearer more interesting might use environmental lighting cues to draw people's attention to them, for example. If a power needed to change someone to not be afraid of spiders in the middle of a story, that might take the form of arranging for that person to have an experience that soothes their fear of spiders, or arranging for them to have their fear of spiders cured by local magic... but if the power really needed that person to stop being afraid of spiders and there weren't any reasonable causal avenues available, they could also just stop being afraid of spiders, without any explanation for how or why that happened.

Taking Nullified means that attention-drawing powers can only use things like lighting cues, and a power trying to cure someone's fear of spiders can only do things like arranging for them to naturally experience situations that lessen their fear of spiders, and if those tools aren't sufficient to get the power's job done then the power's job doesn't get done.

I have seen stage productions.

Uh.

Sorry. I meant — just lighting cues is still pretty powerful.

But I don't know that I like the idea of these powers not being absolute. It's ... good when things are what they say they are.

The drawbacks section says that It Gets Better wins over drawbacks, though. Does that mean that even if I did take this one, mind control might still happen if needed for It Gets Better?

She can't really come up with a situation where that might happen, off the top of her head, but it feels different to choose between "mind control" and "no mind control" versus choosing between "mind control" and "almost no mind control, except when it's really necessary".

It Gets Better is one of the powers that would try hardest not to mind-control anyone if you didn't want it to, if something like that came up... but when there's a choice between It Gets Better succeeding and failing, it succeeds. If you really, really didn't like mind control, though, it might do other weird things in order to succeed without mind-controlling anyone.

She doesn't really, really not like mind control, is the problem. It's the kind of thing that she's obviously supposed to dislike, but when it comes to it she's not really sure she can see the difference between predetermination and spontaneously, undetectably changing someone.

I feel like choosing not to mind control people is the obvious hero's choice. Do you know ...

Do the people who take Incomplete and Nullified ever regret it?

What do you mean when you say the obvious hero's choice?

I think any drawback can end up being regretted if someone takes it when it's not what they want.

I mean that mind control is not a very heroic thing! It's not the choice a hero would make.

So it's like there's an obvious right answer — I know what the right choice to make here is. But I don't—

Her handwriting has gotten rapid and therefore even less readable than normal.

She takes a deep breath.

I'm not doing this right. I'm fishing for a reason that it's okay not to take it, and you're telling me that it's 

And I

She draws a cloud of swirling, intersecting lines that somehow manages to express the feeling of wrestling with a contradictory chain of logical inference.

... I think I need to talk to my parent again.

Okay!

Emily lets out a sigh, and gently closes the notebook.

"Parent!"

"In the living room!"

"What do you think about mind control?" she shouts, running down the stairs in a thunder of feet and fetching up at the other end of the couch from her parent.

"I. Have. Not. Been. Mind. Controlled. Why? Do? You? Ask?" her parent responds in a robotic voice, jerkily moving to slip a bookmark into their book.

"Parent! I'm serious," Emily pouts. And then remembers that this is supposed to be serious and stops pouting to give her parent a look instead.

Reverend Adderson interlaces their fingers.

"I think that there is very little more beautiful than the choices that people will make for themselves, when they are free to do so," they reply. "I also think the term 'mind control' is ... exceptionally vague, because things in the real world are usually more complicated than the phrase makes it seem. What, specifically, has you worried?"

So she explains the drawbacks, trying to figure out how to verbalize her internal struggle.

"Ah."

"Well, I know what I would choose," they eventually conclude. "But I can't say whether it's the right thing for you to choose. Tell me — do you remember when you read about utilitarianism, and I read you The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas?"

Emily tucks her knees up against her chest and hugs them to her, nodding.

"The ones who walk away from Omelas aren't any happier. They don't get to dance in the parades and laugh with their friends. They can't even really escape the knowledge that the child is still there, in the basement, and suffering. But they do have something — they have the knowledge that they, at least, are not complicit in it."

"And it's not really the same choice you're facing here. You really have three options — accept the Spirit's powers as they are, take the drawbacks, or walk away and refuse the gift. But I think there are similarities. The question you need to ask yourself is not 'is mind control right or wrong', the question you need to ask yourself is 'will I be able to be happy, knowing that mind control is sometimes used in support of that happiness?' and 'will I later regret not being one of the ones who would walk away?'"

"Ah."