"I assume it varies a lot? People do that - vary a lot - and so do the use cases, right, and I can't exactly ask them, at least from here."

- nod. "I think if I were a mundie I would - mind if it meant I had to wonder later if I could trust myself to act in the expected way - like, not giving all my money to random beggars - and not mind, like, being made to not notice something is weird - better not to notice something is weird, right -"

"It's in fact safer not to know that something's weird, but that's - not always what people are focused on, right, and also that just adds another layer of things you're hiding from them to make things go how you want. I never had to use it but I had a little - speech, prepared, for if anybody at school saw something that made it look like more than me being a wildlife magnet was going on. Referenced a movie and everything. To let them pick, since some people are mundies and do know, like my dad."

" - so wait, what does the spell do?"

"Makes the target suggestible and forgetful so you can say 'this is a valid license' or 'that was a dog that got off leash but its owner took it away' or 'we've just been sitting here in silence the whole time'."

"And that's... bad?"

"Most things the spell could be used for are bad and I think the rest are arguable."

"Huh. Seems like it depends on what you're using it for."

Julian looks up from his math homework. "I thought people mostly use it for normal stuff? Like getting a job or if you need mundie prescription drugs, things like that." 

"I mean, yes, that's typical. It's also, uh, stealing. And/or fraud."

Annisa's pretty sure you can only have norms against stealing within societies, not between them, but she isn't sure saying that would contribute to the conversation.

"Well, yeah, but it seems weird to object to mind control because it enables theft. I mean, if you're going to take issue with anything in this scenario." 

"Yeah, I acknowledge I would not have the same problem with someone who stole from mundies by telekinetically picking their pockets. I think that mind control is extremely invasive and to the extent it is ever defensible it is because it takes the interests and preferences of the target into account, and 'stealing' is a pretty straightforward case of not doing that."

Annisa contemplates whether there is any way to say 'this sounds like ethics?' that doesn't come across badly. She can't think of one.

"Does that also apply to violence? Or is mind control consistently less defensible than violence?"

"I mean, both of them come in degrees, is there a particular case you have in mind -" Bella checks her watch; she can give this conversation a few more minutes.

"No, but I figure I would obviously defend myself from a mugger, and I would do it with a fireball if I had one of those and for some reason didn't have anything else, but I would do it with mind control first if I had that and thought it would work? Just doesn't seem like a different kind of thing, really. It's a way of resolving conflicts your way without resorting to violence; whether it's justified or not seems like it mostly depends on the kind of conflict."

"It mostly seems different to me in less directly hostile contexts. You aren't going to fireball an airport guy for wanting to look at your ID even if that's all you have, right? It'd be too escalatory, but wizards pretty casually use mind control for stuff like that."

They did mind control airport security when they flew to and from Paris, scanning the wide open room and eying the hundreds of luggage containers for mals that might be waiting to pounce through her mother's mobile wards, her mother gripping her hand tight as if that on its own could keep her from being snatched away, no matter how casual she'd meant to be about losing her.

"Well, how badly do I have to get on the plane, in this scenario, and is there a way to fireball him that doesn't also make getting on the plane impossible."

"...Uh, okay, maybe you would murder a gate agent to get on a plane? Learn something new every day, I guess."

"Well, it depends on the plane."

"I have not met any planes I would commit murder to board but I'm sure I could dream one up if it were an assignment. I should probably go back to my own reading room and do," econ, but if she says econ she might have to continue interacting with Naima, who apparently would murder dudes to board planes?? she needs to process that before resuming studying econ with her?? "Old French."

"All right! Good luck with it," she says, and returns to her flash cards.

Caio, who has spent this entire conversation making increasingly concerned and bewildered faces, trots after Bella.