‘On Will’ — Additional Notes
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The purpose of this post is basically to outline and explain some of the thought processes which went into the fic as well as the references & inspiration etc. I drew on while writing. Enjoy!
General:
Before I started writing the fic, I was considering writing it from both Anaxa and the reader’s POVs. In the end, though, I decided on just Anaxa’s POV to exacerbate the distance he feels from the reader: because we never get their perspective or their thoughts, it’s much more of a mystery to us what they actually think and feel—something Anaxa struggles to determine throughout—and as a result they feel less 'human', in a way, or at least more difficult to connect with, which again aims to reflect what Anaxa feels himself.
I also snuck in some irony/ foreshadowing where I could, e.g. the reader in part I pointing out that ‘there are many sides to people which we may never know’ when talking about Meletus, Anytus and Lycon (henceforth referred to as MAL).
The general idea I had in mind for their relationship was two people who are evidently very close in the way they interact, yet simultaneously very far apart in terms of actual intimacy, and treading that narrow line between companionship and romance in unspoken acknowledgement of the fact that there's definitely something going on here, but neither are willing to directly confront it...
I chose the reader to be a Socrates-esque figure for a few reasons: first of all, it's in keeping with the setting and inspirations of Amphoreus, but more importantly I wanted to provide Anaxa with a character who can be his intellectual equal and 'sparring partner', in a way. They're also united in being... social outcasts, kind of, or infamous weirdos for their beliefs, which is a nice little thing to bring them closer together. However, the reader is also very different to Anaxa as a person (I'll elaborate on this later) which created some nice tension between them, and a dynamic which was more complex than if they both had the exact same values and goals.
I owe @/yuechihua some inspiration for a couple of the scenes and certain aspects of their dynamic (namely Anaxa's intense craving for the reader's attention). If you haven't read her 'your love is the greatest sin' fic yet, I really recommend it.
Going into this I also knew that I wanted to dissect Anaxa's character and bring him, with all his pride, literally to his knees (as happens in part VI) and make an emotional mess of him. So that was fun.
Anyway, onto the more specific thought processes which went into writing.
References:
Because this fic draws heavy influences from Plato’s dialogues, I tried to mimic that style (more or less) throughout, in the formatting (the list of characters at the beginning, the different sections reminiscent of the Republic, the title itself), the title, as well as some of the narration.
There are also some quotes taken from various dialogues in the fic: for example, ‘[If you depart, you do so] in innocence; a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men’ is from Crito, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’ and ‘I know that I know nothing’ are from Apology, and what the reader says as philosophy being practice for death (‘in practicing philosophy, I have long been preparing myself for death’) is a reference to Socrates’ statement in Phaedo (‘those who practice philosophy…are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men’). The reader using the analogy of a ship to describe society and government in part IV is a reference to the ‘Ship of State’ analogy found in the Republic.
I also drew a lot of characters from various dialogues: Aristocles, the reader’s unofficial student, was Plato’s real name (Plato was just a nickname which means ‘broad’, referring to his physique), who was also a student of Socrates. The MAL trio were the main accusers of Socrates in his trial. Phaedrus is taken from Phaedrus, which is a dialogue about love and rhetoric (I also reference Phaedrus in part VIII, when Anaxa calls love a kind of madness). Euthyphro is canonically the current Venerationists Sage in Amphoreus, but he was taken from Euthyphro who was the main interlocutor of the dialogue of the same name, which is concerned with the meaning of piety (if you’ve ever heard of the Euthyphro dilemma, that’s where it comes from). The mentioned characters Alcibiades and Critias refer to two historical figures who were Socrates’ close friends/ students: Alcibiades was a military general who led a disastrous expedition and also defected to Sparta at some point, Athens’ arch-nemesis. Critias was a leader of the Thirty Tyrants, an oligarchic regime which was hugely harmful and unpopular among Athenians.
There are certain elements of Socrates’ life which I adapted to the fic as well, most notably his trial and death. The nicknames given to the reader in part II, ‘sophist’ and ‘gadfly’, were given to Socrates by the Athenians (well, ‘gadfly’ was more a self-proclaimed one, but anyway).
Throughout the fic there are also numerous references to Plato’s Forms, most overtly in Anaxa’s dream in part VII (the title of this being a reference to the Analogy of the Cave).
Outside of Plato, there’s also a Hume quote I snuck in there (when Anaxa calls reason ‘the slave of the passions’), and this also highlights the distinction between the reader and Anaxa’s views on reason and passion, with the reader (Plato) believing that truth is found through reason, while Anaxa (Hume) believes that reason isn’t this infallible thing because it ultimately bends to whatever we want to use it for.
Symbolism:
I was initially debating a few different titles for the fic, including ‘On Passion’ and… something else which I’ve now forgotten, but I settled on ‘On Will’ because of the double meaning of ‘will’: i.e. as the motivating force behind human behaviour, but also as in the will one writes for their death. As mentioned, the ‘On X’ title format is also inspired by Plato’s dialogues (i.e. On Justice, On Virtue).
The olive branch which the reader wears in their hair is a reference to Athena, the goddess of wisdom (as well as war, but we can ignore that part).
I also associated the reader with crows and birds quite a lot. This is less directly associated with mythology and more draws on the general associations between crows and intelligence, as well as death.
Regarding the reader’s dream in part I, it’s essentially foreshadowing for the end of the fic: screech owls are symbolic of Hades, the god of death, and the ‘white crow’ refers to the story of Coronis, where Apollo burned a crow who delivered news to him of Coronis’ infidelity and it was turned black. This symbolises death and also the betrayal and treatment of the reader later on by the Council, who come from Okhema & all the solar associations of that.
There’re also a lot of mentions of eyes and sight throughout the fic; this just symbolises the general search for truth beyond mere appearances.
The title of part IV, ‘Governance and Desire’, has a bit more double-meaning wordplay going on — ‘governance’ as in the government of a state, but also how one governs oneself and one’s own actions, emotions, etc., which Anaxa Struggles With™ in this section.
I also tried to include a kind of motif of interrupted conversations between Anaxa and the reader, which is meant to represent how philosophy is a never-ending discussion and there’s always more to be said than there is time for.
Now, my favourite part… the ‘cold green flame’ motif for Anaxa, mainly acting as a symbol for his desire. If you read it with the Platonic undertones, the motif can be interpreted as his desire being the 'firelight' in the Analogy of the Cave; i.e. a pale, false imitation of the truth (the Form of the Good, which is likewise represented by the Sun, an image Anaxa uses to describe the reader in part IV) casting the shadows which lead him astray into ignorance/ corruption/ whatever.
In the same way, though, I tried not to spare the reader's contrasting approach to knowledge-seeking from criticism, either; the description of them as a 'statue' in part VII is meant to demonstrate that, for better or for worse, they have never truly 'lived' because they’ve forsaken the experiences of human life—in particular desire and emotional attachment—which one could argue are necessary for understanding the truth of life as they aim to do. Anaxa calling them the ‘Sun’ is a reference to the Form of the Good like I mentioned before, but also meant to highlight the distance between the reader and the truths they aim to understand.
Essentially, if you tie the images together, you get the result that both Anaxa and the reader miss the truth by a just little bit through their different methods, and neither method is objectively ‘better’ than the other. Anaxa’s passion allows him to understand the human condition but also stops him thinking rationally; the reader’s prioritisation of hard principles and reason allows them to see things as they are, but prevents them from truly understanding or connecting to other people — and this is what made them fall for the deceit of the MAL trio. You need both sides of the coin to get a full picture.
(I also had fun with the character parallels in this way: Anaxa SEEMS like he’s the cold one at heart, and the reader SEEMS like they’re the caring and friendly one, but in reality it’s the opposite: Anaxa cares more than he reasons, and the reader reasons more than they care.)
This difference in priorities—Anaxa putting people first, the reader putting their principles first—is also the main reason I didn’t feel like I could give them a happy ending which was narratively satisfying. They’re doomed to love each other but always be walking on paths which are slightly too different to ever truly converge.
But hey, what can I say? Maybe they’ll figure it out after 33 million cycles or something.
(They won’t. Sorry not sorry.)
