"I mean, I think effective sales in this situation probably looks like lying about the accommodations, what I'm trying to get at is do you think it's in the soul's best interest by its own lights to keep existing even in Hell and the ones who choose Option Mustard are just confused somehow?"

"Yes? I don't think it could possibly be in anyone's interests to stop having any interests at all."

"Huh! I have resurrection insurance and rich friends and stuff but if I actually thought I'd have to stay there and get tortured a lot and turn into a devil I personally would get a jar of real fancy mustard. Let's find out who's wrong."

" - I am not sure how we'd settle who is wrong but - why would you want that?"

"No things about me that I care about would survive turning into a devil. I mean, also it sounds really unpleasant but I would tolerate a lot of unpleasant to come out intact on the other end. 'As a devil' isn't 'intact'."

"Huh. I think almost everything I care about would survive turning into a devil and I think - probably you care about your, uh, interests, and your style of thinking, and about learning magic, and - you're ambitious, you want to be a god - you'd still be those things -"

"I want to be a god because I want to promote the flourishing of all sapient beings - I mean, insofar as that's internally consistent anyway - not for kicks. ...okay, not just for kicks. And my style of thinking is very hardcore anti-mind-alteration. And if the devil resulting from all the unpleasantness likes magic and wants to subjugate the population of someplace from an unholy throne and also enjoys pears and classic literature, uh, so what? I'm sure if you look around enough you could find someone who likes pears and classic literature and magic and unholy thrones already out there somewhere and that is not me."

"Huh. I guess if you are drawing the boundaries of who you are pretty narrowly and most mind alteration is outside of it then it makes sense to think of Hell more like Feeblemind than like boot camp."

"Cool, I have successfully accomplished at least some transfer of intuition here. Is it still tragic if I cease to exist? Given that there are lots of things I'd prefer to that, just not going to Hell forever."

"I think - yes."

"I think the obvious implication from that is that -

- anything somebody'd rather stop existing than tolerate is also tragic."

"This is why free will was a mistake, right, making people in the first place for whom - the process of getting something tolerable out of them is unbearable."

"Interestingly enough, I'm not sure 'free will was a mistake' is a particularly Evil belief. It's here now, what do you wanna do about it?"

"I...don't think there is any meaningful sense in which I get to decide what to do about it. If I were making my own people I'd try to make people who don't find Hell unbearable over people who do."

"Yeah. Currently, however, you would be best served by cultivating an interest in lessening the incidence of fates worse than annihilation. That's a very specific sort of Good but it's Good and some people get there off soup kitchens."

"I still don't think a fate can be meaningfully worse than annihilation, even if it makes a person who isn't you that's not worse than you just getting eaten. And we don't actually know if we are right about approximately what it's like to become a devil, maybe no mind control or other transformations that make you think you're not you are involved. Also I don't think you can change how many people go to a nice afterlife, in the long run, because Asmodeus is just going to conquer the nice afterlives."

"If I'm going to cease to exist one way or another I'd rather it be clean, do you have the concept of a mercy kill?"

"I guess but if mercy killing someone didn't just get their soul to its next destination faster but made them not exist faster in exchange for another person not getting to exist at all that doesn't seem like a very good deal and - there's always the chance that you're wrong that the devil isn't you, there's no way you're wrong about Abaddon eating you -"

"Well, I'm planning to ask my dad what turning into a demon's like when I get him back. He's already got little horns. But I suppose devils could be inherently different for some reason. You've met some devils, right, what are they like?"

"They are like mortals except - closer to the way things were before free will, I think? They don't tend to be fundamentally dissatisfied with life, they have goals and are pursuing them and enjoy successes and regret setbacks and don't - wander off....they seem very sure of themselves..." Shrug. "I don't have a hard time imagining a devil who is me. I - before I fucked everything up I wanted to have a very impressive career enchanting magic items and then make arrangements to do the same thing in Dis. This wouldn't not involve being tortured but just to make me less - wiggly at the core, you know, not in a way that would change who I was or what I wanted..."

"Is that supposed to only work in Hell for some reason or is somebody doing sinister experiments trying to replicate it? Figure out how long somebody has to spend chilling with a Symbol of Pain before they're a model citizen?"

"I think that while formation in Hell involves pain it is not actually just inflicting pain until whatever the problem is self-corrects and is way more elaborate than that. I think it also tends to involve both kinds and degrees of harm that mortal human bodies don't withstand well so if you tried you'd just kill someone instead of improving them."

"Mm-hm."

"That said Chelish people seem more okay with hurting living people than the paladins and I think it's not unrelated? If you think that sometimes hurting people is good for them and in the average case it's entirely fine for them then you're not going to tie yourself into knots as much about avoiding it."

"Seem plausible to me."