The Draconic Wizard Workshop

The Art of Regret, and Why I Can't Do It

By Goratrix bani Tremere

Originally posted here on November 19, 2021.

This is an essay followed by a prompt for discussion. I have little to say to open this up; the title and opening paragraph should explain what this is about well enough. I will simply say: for those of you with "problematic," "evil," or "villainous" fictomeres, this is predominantly for you, and you will most likely have something interesting to say in response. I hope that you do.

A brief content warning for casual discussion of murder, manipulation, and references to actions that could constitute as abuse.

The word regret carries many connotations in addition to its definition. If you regret something, you wish you hadn’t done it; you would like to take it back, do something in its place or abstain from action altogether, or perhaps act when you did not before. However, I have found that this word, regret, often carries a moral or ethical connotation to it when used in relation to actions taken against other people. While “I regret not taking that course in college” or “I regret taking that trip” carry no moral connotation or obligation, “I regret saying that to her” or “I regret pushing him over” do. If you regret what you did to someone, it implies that you feel bad about it, not just that you’d rather that you hadn’t done it.

This is why I cannot regret what I have done.

Back in my “source,” I did bad things, and I do not hide this, but nor do I apologize. I did what I felt was right in the moment; I did what seemed justified. Some of those actions, in hindsight, were foolhardy, absurd, unnecessary, inefficient, or just wasteful. As a result, I wish I had not done them—to do so had negative consequences I did not foresee or desire. However, I cannot say that I regret them, because to do so would imply that I feel bad about what I did.

I do not feel bad about trying to get Myca Vykos killed. (As stated in a previous writing of mine, Sascha does not care if people refer to their “past self” Myca with his name and pronouns, for clarity.) I do not have a moral issue with the actions I took, nor do I consider it deeply out of line or something that I have to, God forbid, atone for. That is not who I am, and that is not my lot in life. Instead, I wish I had never done that to him because, in hindsight, it was stupid. It accomplished nothing, wasted a perfectly good student, and ultimately caused more suffering than I had intended. Had I known that the Tzimisce would Embrace the poor boy, not kill him, I would have pitched him off the tower myself. I certainly never intended for him to go through the torture and horrors that would characterize the next several centuries of his life.

Do I “regret” trying to get him killed? By definition, I suppose, yes, but ultimately I have to say no. I do not feel bad about it. I feel stupid over it, certainly, but not like I did anything wrong, despite knowing that the action was wrong. Doing “bad” things like that rarely bothered me, especially that long after the consecration of Ceoris and, therefore, the loss of most of my few remaining morals. (The rest went after my Embrace and subsequent centuries as a vampire.)

Do I “regret” treating Tremere like I did, towards the end? Perhaps, but again, I feel like I was justified. When the man you love abandons you over a botched ritual, an accidentally killed friend, and a shouting match with your rival, sides against you, and then treats you icily for decades or centuries… What else was I supposed to do? Part of me wishes I had not treated him that way, but the rest of me reminds, he deserved it. He treated me poorly first, he abandoned me first, and he said hurtful things to me first. I will not lie down and take such treatment, and he got what he gave, even as it tore me up inside to not simply accept it, just to try to win him back and let him love me again.

(I tried a few times. It didn’t work either.)

But despite me wishing that I hadn’t had to treat him that way, again, I felt as if I had to, and I still feel justified in that feeling and decision. I have always done what I felt was right: right for myself, for Tremere, for my friends, and for House Tremere as a whole. I did what I could for Clan Tremere until they turned their backs on me, and then I fled.

The closest thing I have to an action that I regret is the slaying of Calderon. After I fled the Clan, Tremere sent him after me. Calderon, the closest thing I had to a brother at that time... He ordered me to return with him to Tremere for punishment, or he would kill me. I would die if I went with him; I told him as much. He attacked me. I had two choices: kill or be killed. For me, there was no moment of hesitation, no decision to be made. As much as I cared for Calderon, I would not die by his hand, for I had not come this far just to get this far. I wish it had not come to that. I miss him many nights, and his death plays over and over in my mind when I think of him. It was a terrible waste, and just another ultimately unnecessary murder on my hands that I was forced into committing.

How can I feel bad about something I had to do? I had no reasonable other choice in most of these situations, and even when I did, at the time, I felt fully justified. I have reached no atonement, no redemption: I am not the tragic hero hiding in the mantle of a villain. I am not recovered nor good; I have not been absolved of my sins and I do not seek such. To say that I am sorry would be a lie, and while I am typically not above such things, I will not lie to you. I am, for all intents and purposes, a bad man, Lawful Evil as D&D would have it, an advocate and disciple of the Path of Power in my own world, having shed Humanity and its virtue of Conscience centuries ago.

Such an idea is anathema to most. Should I not, then, be punished for my transgressions? But I am a fictive; all of my crimes are in my source. I have wronged no one you would consider real. Am I deserving of scorn, of punishment, of harassment and cruelty? Or am I someone to be spoken to in the hopes of helping me find redemption, turning me into someone that I am not? Entire communities could fight, viciously, for years over this binary that does not have to be. Here, it seems, we are a little more open-minded, which is why I would like to open this topic of discussion.

I have seen most “villainous” fictionkin regret the things that they did in their source. That is largely to be expected; in most cases, fictionkin are their own people first, their kintype second. There is a degree of separation in this identity, as far as I can tell. (See my headmate, Research’s, essay “Fiction in the System and Being the ‘Odd One Out.’”) I also see this, frequently, in fictives, but not as often. Many fictives “grow” and change to become something beyond their source; they began as a specific character, but grew to find a degree of separation between themselves and that identity, and therefore grow to regret much of what they did. Others simply grow and change as people, and as people do, may come to regret previous actions taken in haste, anger, or other unpleasant circumstances.

What, then, to do when I don’t want that? I don’t want to become one of those people. I’m perfectly happy being who I am. I have been Goratrix for over one thousand years, and while I have, of course, changed over that time—no one is static—old vampires are rarely as dynamic in personality as younger vampires and mortals. If you leave a mortal human alone for five years and return, they will be quite different; if you leave an elder vampire alone for even thrice that and return, they will be much the same. As a result, the idea of rapid change in order to be respected is as anathema to me as the idea of not changing is to the “purity culture” present in most online spaces. I refuse to change myself for others, and I refuse to force myself to be respectable. I am DONE making myself palatable to other people: I did so for decades, nay, centuries amongst House Tremere, forcing myself into molds that I do not fit, re-shaping myself to take on the traits of those around me that made them likable. I will do it no longer, and I will not bend that rule of mine for something as petty as regretting my crimes with the correct moral connotation.

That does not, however, mean that I intend to keep doing harm. I do not see it necessary to do so. I am extracted from the environment of political manipulation and murder, where a single mistake can cost you hundreds of years of work and your unlife. Instead of contemplating killing and manipulating my enemies, now, I mostly play video games and listen to music. Am I changed, reformed? No. I am the same man I have always been, with no environmental factors forcing me to do what must be done. I am only a threat to those that prompt me to be one; in a space such as this, I am, in essence, harmless.

We come, at last, to my questions. Those who made mistakes or did “bad” things in your sources: do you regret it? Why? Talk to me, and do not hold back; you are safe from scorn. I am curious to see if I am the only one who feels this way, and how others approach this topic regarding their own sources. I wonder if the pattern I have noticed in fictionkin vs fictives will continue, or if it has, so far, been coincidence.

Say whatever you’d like. Answer my questions, or don’t. Ask something, if you have something to ask. I am trying to make sense of this, and wonder if anyone else is, too.

Thank you for your time.