"Is their being dead too metaphorical to keep them down?"

"They're consistently dead, at least. But that's the kind of thing that could potentially change."

"You said one of them fell in love. Does that mean they're conscious beings who make decisions and understand things?"

"Very much so. Some would say excessively."

"Oh. The Dread Powers don't do that. Are any of them benevolent? Like, on net?"

"It depends very much on who you ask."

"Well, at the moment, I'm asking you."

"They do important work. Sometimes they do terrible things. They are... selfish, sometimes cruel. So are we. I do not think any are committed to the ideals of good, but they bless those who they like best, and in so doing they sometimes make the world better."

“Yeah, that’s more or less not true of the Fears. You can do more good than harm with their empowerments, but it’s hard and most people don’t bother, they either go all-in on being evil or they run the hell away. …You called the focus on fear monomaniacal, and I don’t think that’s true; it would be like saying that trees are monomaniacal about cellulose.”