TM #143: Revenge
Sep. 11th, 2006 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iolaus_dwWhen you're a warrior, revenge is more than a creed; it's your duty to your brothers in arms. Let no wrong or foul deed go unpunished and, most important of all, never let murder go unavenged.
The thing about revenge, though, is that it can eat you alive. It's a burning hatred that never dies. The embers may cool but they never go out, waiting for the perfect opportunity to fan them into flame. Like any fire that burns to long, the heat of revenge warps and twists everything around it. Turning a valiant warrior into a murderer himself. Or turning an innocent child wronged by fate into a woman bent on making everyone and everything in her path pay for what was done to her. Revenge often doesn't stop with punishment of the guilty. It goes on to consume everything in its path, like the raging fire of hatred that spawned it. Just look at Callisto. She's the perfect example of the horrors that can be done to innocents in the name of revenge. Living for revenge is what twisted her into becoming exactly the sort of warlord she'd grown up hating. It made her worse.
Don't get me wrong; I'm just as human as the next guy. And yeah, there are times when I let my emotions get the better of me and I long for revenge. But I don't hang onto it. I won't let it turn me into a murderer or a criminal. Believe it or not, that's the one valuable thing I learned from Callisto. Revenge warps you. It isn't justice, it doesn't make you feel better, and it never, ever brings back the dead.
The thing about revenge, though, is that it can eat you alive. It's a burning hatred that never dies. The embers may cool but they never go out, waiting for the perfect opportunity to fan them into flame. Like any fire that burns to long, the heat of revenge warps and twists everything around it. Turning a valiant warrior into a murderer himself. Or turning an innocent child wronged by fate into a woman bent on making everyone and everything in her path pay for what was done to her. Revenge often doesn't stop with punishment of the guilty. It goes on to consume everything in its path, like the raging fire of hatred that spawned it. Just look at Callisto. She's the perfect example of the horrors that can be done to innocents in the name of revenge. Living for revenge is what twisted her into becoming exactly the sort of warlord she'd grown up hating. It made her worse.
Don't get me wrong; I'm just as human as the next guy. And yeah, there are times when I let my emotions get the better of me and I long for revenge. But I don't hang onto it. I won't let it turn me into a murderer or a criminal. Believe it or not, that's the one valuable thing I learned from Callisto. Revenge warps you. It isn't justice, it doesn't make you feel better, and it never, ever brings back the dead.
