Maru (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yakalskovich) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ways_back_room2015-11-18 12:27 pm
yakalskovich) wrote in ways_back_room2015-11-18 12:27 pm
DE: The importance of work
People need to procure resources to live, and in most cases, they will do some kind of work to get them. Even organizing oppression so one can get resources off other people who do the actual work (AKA slavery, feudal systems, raiding, rampant capitalism etc.) takes some measure of work. Please elaborate a little about the subject of work in the worlds of your canons, and as it applies to your characters in particular, taking into account aspects such as:
Again, please disregard the numbers on those examples -- the templates for the bar and the backroom can only do ordered lists, not simple bullet points.
- How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon?
- What do your characters do for a living?
- Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots?
- Is there any systematic economic exploitation?
- What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them?
- How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)?
Again, please disregard the numbers on those examples -- the templates for the bar and the backroom can only do ordered lists, not simple bullet points.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Outside the Vault you find several different situations. There are several farming and scavenging communities, such as Megaton and Arefu, where money appears to be derived from raising cattle, hunting Wasteland wildlife, and ill-defined other endeavors. There's a few businesses, including a general store, a restaurant of sorts that mostly serves scavenged prewar foods, and a saloon (complete with prostitute, who is rather expensive). There's also a doctor and a sheriff, and a guy who runs the town water purifier. The primary indicator of economic difference between people in Megaton seems to be whether they have a house of their own or not, as housing is almost as limited as water. Megaton's less affluent live in a common housing area and sleep on mattresses or cardboard bundles on the floor, all in the same room. Everybody else has houses of similar size and construction, and there are few signs of luxury or poverty compared to anyone else. There are two buildings with indoor toilets; one gets the impression that everyone in Megaton either leaves their houses to go to the bathroom or has a bucket/chamber pot setup that isn't depicted in the game. I think there's less economic spread in Megaton than there was between the three major classes of ancient Greece. In places like Arefu there's even less spread, but Arefu's a tiny community anyway. Everybody in Arefu works the same jobs at one point or another, unless they're the woman who had an unspecified mental illness that left her convinced she was living in pre-War America.
In Rivet City people speak of having good, respectable, normal jobs. These include a persistent indoor market, a security force, a restaurant, a hotel, a maintenance department, a small museum (run by one guy- I've never seen anyone else working there), a church, and a science department. There's also a bar and a chems dealer, both of whom seem to be more pitched at people lower on the social and economic ladder. In Canterbury Commons there's a concerted effort to become a trade hub offering shelter and opportunity to traveling caravans; I'm not sure what else Canterbury deals in, other than maybe Brahmin. In the southern Wasteland there's Tenpenny Tower, which is a gated, barred community full of rich people and a retired adventurer or two. They have a few shops but I've honestly never seen what they do to feed themselves. I think they live off their savings and buy food from traders. They consider themselves economically and socially superior to everyone else, and the man who runs the place supposedly came to the Capital from overseas to make his fortune. (I have my doubts as to his truthfulness, but whatever.)
Raiders are common as dirt in the canon. Some of them are independent operators, some of them are just gangs of spike-wearing chem fiends, some of them have bases of operation that you have to clear out if civilization is to have a hope of regrowing, and some of them are deeply entrenched in places like Evergreen Mills. They tend to prefer taking what other people have produced and then entertaining themselves through drugs and violence. Your basic post-apocalyptic unproductive jerks, really.
There is also the matter of slavery. There are several random encounters with escaped slaves scattered around the Wastes, and at least one person in Rivet City is terrified of another resident because she's an escaped slave and he's a slaver. There's a settlement called Paradise Falls that's full of slavers and a number of people, including children, who've been captured for the slave trade. You never see anyone in the Capital actually using slaves, though; apparently the slaves are shipped out of town, primarily to the Pitt, on a regular basis. The ruler of the Pitt is trying to use slaves to keep the city's surviving steel mills going because the environment is unsustainable naturally due to environmental toxicity. This has been going on for about twenty years and is probably not very sustainable for much longer, but since that's the point at which the player character can intervene and either prop up the system or help lead a slave revolt, it doesn't matter much.
This being an open world RPG, the player character can decide how to make their money, assuming they choose to make money at all instead of scavenging to stay alive. Ellen focused on bounty hunting and selling the arms and armor of people who tried to kill her for a while (you can take up bounty hunting on either bad people or good ones depending on your own morality level when you reach level 14). These days she's joined the Brotherhood of Steel and gets quite a lot of equipment, medical care, etc. through her job.
no subject
*laughing*
no subject
no subject
Okay so uh. Here's my best try.
How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon? Lots. Hugo has his own class issues (oh does he) so there's a certain amount of "and then workers! Were... doing things! Anyway back to the super poor and the bourgeois folks, Feuilly doesn't need lines right" going on, but canon is ALL ABOUT economic and societal inequality.
What do your characters do for a living? Enjolras is a law student at the university, but Pilf wrote a great post recently about how that's a very different thing than modern university. Basically what he does for a living is make political connections on his parents' dime (or his father's dime, in my Milliways version, since all canon says about his family is that they're rich and he's an only child.)
Cosette is a young wife of a social class where she doesn't work outside the home. So she runs a small household -- except that so does Marius's aunt, and Hugo sort of tells us how that works out in theory but not how it does in practice -- which does not yet include any kids, but probably will in the next few years.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? Mmm. Well. Enjolras: haves -- yeah, it's definitely possible to overstate his amount of privilege (he's not a noble, etc), but he's definitely among the haves. Cosette: haves nowadays, although until her marriage it was much more precarious than she knows, and it still could be if Marius decided to be horrible. For the first eight years of her life, very much a have-not.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? ......Yes. Yes there is.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? Labor is cheap, goods are expensive.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? Define 'work'? If you mean the classes Enjolras is theoretically taking, not at all -- he's actually an unspecified "student," which almost certainly means the law school but Hugo did not in fact bother to specify. If you mean his seditious political activity, that is 100% of what we see him doing onscreen! And for Cosette, uh, again it depends on how you define it, but Hugo doesn't spend a great deal of time focusing on her day-to-day that isn't centered on romance.
...I'll address my other canons later. And much more briefly I'm sure.
no subject
Money and credit and work are big big topics in this bunch of plays. We're repeatedly told how Hal and his father the king are shrewd manipulators of credit, literal and figurative. Henry IV, Hal's dad, is a canny politician who won the Percys' support on vague promises that he seems to have forgotten. Hal is throwing money (and credit) around to cover his friends' drinking bills (...when they aren't just straight-up robbing people); while he's doing that, he's weighing the best time to "pay the debt he never promised" and take on royal responsibilities. We finally get to the Battle of Shrewsbury, and the promise/pay rhetoric heats up: before the battle, Hotspur complains that the king "knows at what time to promise, and when to pay"; and during the battle Hal shows up to rescue his father, threatening the attacking Douglas with the declaration that he is the Prince of Wales, "who never promiseth but he means to pay." (Finally we get to Henry V in France, who refuses to promise ransom to the French and tells them they can come kill him and take his bones for ransom instead.)
While Hal and his dad are using credit and payment as social currency and metaphor, we've got Hal's buddy Falstaff running up a very concrete tavern debt that gets listed down to the last halfpenny--not to mention his further debt of twenty-four pounds and the price of a dozen shirts, and then the thousand pounds he owes Master Shallow by the end of Part 2. He too lives on borrowed money, and whether or not he ever pays that back, he picks up extra by robbery and by taking bribes from people who want to get out of conscription. What a guy.
so uh as for the actual DE questions...
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? - Hal is a have. He is the have, he's the fucking heir to the crown. He's so much a have that he can treat money as purely social currency: after joining his friends in a robbery for the fun of it, he casually pays back the three hundred marks he stole, to get the sheriff off his (and Falstaff's) back. He may be rubbing shoulders with Falstaff and his half-penny-worth of bread--and Poins and his linen-bills--but Hal is thinking on a very different scale.
How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon? What do your characters do for a living? How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? - Hal is (going to be) the king of England. The Henry plays are all about being the king, and frankly, I'd say that Shakespeare makes the king business look dubious as fuck. (which okay is something people argue about a ton, and like i'm not pretending to be any kind of scholar on the subject, ymmv) Henry IV moans to himself about how stressful it is to be a king, no one understands how hard it is...while actively consolidating his power through crushing rebellions (and the murder of the deposed former king, Richard II). Henry V finds dubious pretenses for claiming the French throne as well as the English, and then only half-answers his soldiers' question of whether the king is to blame for their deaths in his war.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? - oh boy is there. Does Hal ever deal with it? Not really, though he comes face to face with it on more than one occasion. I'm particularly interested in the scene where Falstaff is muttering to himself about the three hundred pounds he's taken in bribes from people avoiding conscription: what's left to go to battle are people with no professions and too broke to bribe him. Coming up on the crew, Hal says "I never did see such pitiful rascals;" Falstaff answers that they're "food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better: mortal men."
no subject
no subject
Henry IV, pt 2: Including And Especially Kid Brother John
Henry V: Yes, Okay, Heroic, But ALSO Terrible
no subject
What do your characters do for a living? I mean, technically, all of the English nobility are landlords, and make their money off of their tenants. But when they're strapped for cash, the Percy family relies on their position as defenders of the Scottish borders. Stir up a fight, take some Scottish noble prisoners, ransom them back to Scotland-- free money! Unless the king intervenes. And as a son who has not yet inherited, this is technically Hotspur's only form of income that isn't directly dependent on his father.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? That's a big old have.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? lol yeah, not that Hotspur notices or cares, beyond refusing the idea that the king has the right to take whatever he wants from whoever he wants whenever he wants.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? Broadly, the normal things, but in Hotspur's personal sphere the main currency is words and people. They're continually exchanging pledges, hostages, promises, and using these things as bargaining chips and more indirect leverage to both gain allies and weaken their enemies.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? Is 'rebelling' a job?
no subject
How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon? Quite a lot, but because it's a pastiche of an early 19th century novel, much of it is done indirectly, especially as relates to these two. (Other characters pay a bit more attention.)
What do your characters do for a living? Arabella married into wealth, though she was born into a position where she would almost certainly never have taken work outside the home.
Mr. Segundus is in the socially precarious position of an impoverished gentlemen. His class and education have not actually prepared him for any kind of real work-- in his ideal world, he'd just get to be a magical scholar a la Mr Norrell-- but his economic state demands it. He works briefly as a tutor of magic, and where I've taken him from in canon, is about to enter an entirely new career path.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? Arabella is definitely a have, though they're not nobility or anything. But her husband is very famous, so that might amount to almost the same thing. Segundus has a great deal of social capital, so though he's rather economically vulnerable, he has a certain safety net, though it's conceivable that this could eventually give out.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? Uh. Yeah. But don't bother asking either of these two about it.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? If we're counting being a wife as work, then Arabella's totally does! And Segundus's certainly does-- it's his recurring point of entrance into the story.
no subject
How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon? For Earth? Not zero, but it's not a huge focus; whether it's any kind of focus at all depends on which movie we're talking about. For Asgard? NONE WHATSOEVER. GOD ONLY KNOWS HOW THEIR ECONOMY FUNCTIONS. All we ever see is the palace, and some scenic vista shots. Any mention of whether they use money, how it works, how big Asgard is outside the palace, where its food comes from, what the standard of living is like, how much variation there is in that, to what extent that shiny golden palace is conspicuous consumption versus "well there's lots of gold around but we had it made into a really pretty sculpture" -- any of that is 100% pure Millicanon.
What do your characters do for a living? Uh. He's a prince! On Earth he's a superhero and the diplomatic envoy of another world that we probably don't want to offend! Not to say this isn't work, but economic insecurity is not really a thing Thor's ever experienced firsthand. Seen, yes, but not experienced personally.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? Have. So much have. Regardless of what the have-nots on Asgard are like and how rosily utopian a view one wants to take of the whole thing, Thor is a have.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? See above: I have no idea. I've aimed for nothing really horrible, because I don't want to have Thor continue totally oblivious to something like that and I don't want to do the worldbuilding work of an extracanonical arc of Fixing Asgardian Society. But to what extent there's some... I haven't really specified, mentally or in threads. (On Earth: it's early 21st century Earth, even if there are some superheroes added in. Yes. Yes there darn well is.)
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? As I said above: work? WHO KNOWS. There are definitely some very rare and powerful magical artifacts that aren't a dime a dozen, anyway, and there's mention of magical power being limited -- that sending Thor to Earth without using the Bifrost uses magical power that Asgard can't easily spare, one way or another.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? Hmm, well. Somewhat? Thor's story definitely focuses on questions of rank and on his role as a diplomatic warrior envoy to Earth. But it doesn't focus much at all on court politics, and not at all on the day-to-day ruling of Asgard from even the rulers' perspective, let alone anyone else's.
no subject
How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon? Next to none! We see some people who make a living selling things, e.g. a farmer who grows enchanted wheat of various sorts (spins up into gold, etc) for selling to the Fairy Godmother market, but that's about it. There are about a billion tiny fairy-tale kingdoms, all of whose economy and governance is unclear.
What do your characters do for a living? UNCLEAR. Sure, she's king, but that means different economic things in different systems. As far as I can tell what Kazul does for a living is "be a dragon, live in an economy of low-stakes barter and favors, what is scarcity? We're not the kind of fairy tale that has poor people, oppressed or otherwise."
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? Haves? Insofar as there even are have-nots, which is unclear? But scarcity isn't a thing for Kazul, anyway.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? UNCLEAR
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? UNCLEAR no, okay, magic is a thing I guess. Dragons are born with it, witches and magicians use it, occasional farmers etc take advantage of it, wizards steal it.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? Nope.
no subject
What do your characters do for a living? Tess is the CEO/President of Luthorcorp, the Managing Director of the Daily Planet, the Owner/CEO of Mercer Media Group and moonlights as Watchtower, if that counts.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? So much a have, but no stranger to being a have-not.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? It's not shown to be systemic, but the Luthors use their power and wealth to get what they want quite a bit. It's also implied that others do the same, but it's certainly not something that is to be viewed as normal or commonplace.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? This is hard to say. While Tess and the Luthors are shown at work often, we don't always know exactly what it is they're specifically doing and what Luthorcorp does is extremely random and changes dramatically throughout the show. And don't ask me what Mercer Media Group does, because we're never told. I would say, however, that into the latter seasons the advancement of technology is somewhat important.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work? Not a whole lot. Again, Tess is shown to be at work quite often, but usually what motivates the actual story is something outside the job. Luthorcorp projects were more a part of the story before Tess came along.
no subject
What does your character do for a living? Reporter. But you all knew that.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? Eeeh. Have by many standards, but she's solidly middle class.
Is there any systemic economic exploitation? Well, yes. It is the real world with superpowers in. The Luthors are particularly bad, but presumably they're only worse than real megacorps because they also happen to have unrealistic technology and sometimes a little more Kick The Dog tendency than most real people have.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? Technology--developed and stolen-from-aliens--superpowered beings (no, really, the people themselves, considering the cloning), Kryptonite, money to throw at problems.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? Both a lot and not at all. The rest of Smallville has foci and general lunacy having nothing to do with Lois' job, and in season 10 she gets mired in a fair amount of that when she's finally allowed in the clubhouse. But let's face it: unlike the many of the characters, she is involved in various plotlines because of her paying job, all the time. A fair number of things start because "somewhere someone did something dumb, Lois goes to write a story, Shenanigans."
no subject
Eriond: Competently? Not as much as Eddings thinks.
Henry: None that makes much sense, it's fairy tales combined with what.
Evelyn: Actually a fair amount! It plays into politics, and DA loves its politics.
Anakin+R2: Hypothetically lots. But, you know, I am too lazy to look a lot of it up. But there's a ton of this built into the worldbuilding.
What do your characters do for a living?
Eriond: Doesn't. He's a God.
Henry: Still a kid, doesn't.
Evelyn: Mage. Eventually, 'idiots stop making me fix all your damned mistakes and breaking the world aaaargh.'
Anakin: Jedi.
R2: Does not get paid for cleaning up everyone's mess.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots?
Eriond: Technically he doesn't own much. But he's a God.
Henry: Have.
Evelyn: Hmm. Interesting. Noble family, but she's a mage, but that means somewhat provided for because not one of the Worst circles, but no autonomy... probably a have, but it's murky.
Anakin: Might not own much, but Jedi. So a have, frankly.
R2: droids don't get anything.
Is there any systemic economic exploitation?
Eriond: Yes.
Henry: Yes.
Evelyn: Oh god yes.
Anakin+R2: ahahahahaha yes.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them?
Eriond: Resources? What resources? Well, honestly, Nyissa has drugs and slaves, Riva has goats and wool so probably also sheep, Drasnia has... er, spies, Tolnedra has... money... look Eddings is bad at this.
Henry: Probably magic.
Evelyn: Oh dear. Um. Slaves, magic, magical artifacts, manpower, political capital, sheer cash, lyrium, enchanted items, mining because everyone needs weapons all the time... god I feel like there could be volumes written on this, other DA players better help me out.
Anakin+R2: ...I am going to cop out of trying to figure out Star Wars resources. Sorry. I'm tired.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)?
Eriond: Inasmuch as adventuring is his job, basically completely.
Henry: Eh, he's a kid. Not so much.
Evelyn: Arguably, all of it.
Anakin+R2: There is no life that is not job.
no subject
Er. Not too tired for this, apparently.
How much mention is made of work and the economy in your canon? Of work? Constantly. Most people are on the job. Economy, more than it initially looks like but not nearly as much as I would prefer, if only from a worldbuilding sense for RP (or fanfic-writing) purposes. We know a little more about some areas than others--like which places have wide, fertile plains and thus were major agricultural centers, which were centers of slave trade--but the way the overall economy hangs together is never entirely explored. Luckily for me, the apocalypse sort of happened and it has to be rebuilt from the ground up, so I get to play.
What does your character do for a living? In the past, he was a shepherd, and then a student while being a spy trainee, then a spy and a soldier with low-rank commission, then functionally more or less a general (and still a spy, technically). Now that he successfully averted apocalypse, he runs an empire, tries to fix the broken bits, beats reform into everyone, and generally tries to keep everyone from starving or killing each other.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? Frankly Tavi was never one of the have-nots, even when he was a shepherd; Bernard was too strong a furycrafter not to get bonuses and thus the biggest steadholt in the Valley. They could afford books and Tavi managed to teach himself enough to go straight into advanced classes at the Academy. That is pretty firmly 'having.' But these days he is literally the have, in every possible way.
Is there any systemic economic exploitation? Oi vey. So much. Tavi wants to fix that.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? Slaves. It's awful, but it's true. And, in fact, a large amount of plot centres around it in that there is a political fight raging to end it: Septimus was murdered for personal reasons, he also was openly and fervently anti-slavery, and most of those who wanted him dead were heavily involved in the slave trade. Kalare and Rhodes are the major slavers, although it sounds in general like the south is into that.
Furycrafting is a resource in and of itself; besides being Generally Very Useful, what you can do with furycrafting often determines to some degree what you do with life. Very powerful watercrafters tend to go into healing, because they can do it and other people can't. Engineers are usually earthcrafters, etc. Also, furycrafting can determine rank, or what one can do in the Legions, so it severely affects social and legal standing. Given that it runs in families, breeding for it is definitely something that happens--plus there is always hiring furycrafters to do things. So the power itself is a form of social, political, and economic currency.
We don't know quite as much about other resources, but what we do: Rhodes also has a lot of forestation, so I'm sure lumber is a thing there. Calderon has sheep, so I figure that textiles and in general keeping animals is a Rivan thing; Riva also puts heavy emphasis on architecture, and I would not be surprised if there was functionally an architecture school there and then people move to other cities. There's also a major economy of weapons and arms, because the Legions always need it, and some regions--the north especially--are All About War. The western and central areas are pretty heavily agricultural due to fertile soil. The southern coastal cities seem to be the more naval-oriented ones, but frankly we never hear much about Forcia and Parcia.
How much does your character's story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? There is literally almost no moment of the books that isn't about the jobs, because those moments are all in the interim periods between books, and the books focus on when everything falls to pieces. Isana is the only Point of View character or even major character whose story isn't so much about her job as her internal angst over her dead husband, her son, and her new love interest and all the convoluted politics around her situation. And kind of Invidia, by the time she gets chapters of her own, but it's complicated. Most other characters at all and certainly the other Point of View characters, it is all about their job. (One small Kitai section excepted.)
I'd say 'for x person in particular' but it really is all of them, especially the point of view characters. The three spies--Fidelias, Ehren, and Amara--might have varying levels and causes of internal conflict, but all of them (even Amara, who has childbearing angst) are in some way job-related. The other small point of views we sometimes get are--that Kitai section I mentioned aside--usually as someone is doing their job.
As for Tavi's line, the whole series is literally about his career path from apprentice shepherd to emperor. So yeah.
no subject
What do your characters do for a living? -- Emcee is exactly that, the master of ceremonies in the Kit Kat Klub. An entertainer in a seedy nightclub wouldn't earn much of a living wage, especially when said entertainer has vices to support. So he often turns to prostitution, and never passes up free meals or drinks or even cigarettes.
Are your characters among the haves or the have-nots? -- Definitely a have-not, always has been a have-not. Born into poverty, raised on the fringes of society, existing in a cultural and social underworld that is being oppressed.
Is there any systematic economic exploitation? -- Germany's poor and working-class during this time must have felt pretty darn exploited. At this point they were looking for a scapegoat for the country's economic problems, and Hitler came up with one.
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so work will centre around them? -- Just good old-fashioned employment, which there is little of among the Have-nots, who must make money any way they can to survive. In the context of the Kit Kat Klub, Emcee and his boys and girls depend on the Haves to fill the tables, buy drinks, give tips, and seek out after-hours entertainment.
How much does your characters' story focus on their work (e.g. police procedurals are all about the job)? -- The musical/movie starts out with Emcee welcoming you into a nightclub, where you meet all the dancers and musicians. Emcee pretty much only exists within the walls of the Klub, where he works and lives (my headcanon says he lives in an apartment above it). Every time you see him, he's working: performing a song, introducing an act, engaging with the audience, hanging out in the wings watching everyone. He is a part of it as much as it is a part of him.
no subject
What resources are important to the economy in your canon so that work will centre around them?
In the magical economy of Seimei's world, the most valuable resources - by a long shot - are favors and allegiances. Because of this, reputation is important as well. Favors, allegiances, and reputation are particularly important to a spirit mage like Seimei, because so much of spirit magic is about "who you know."
Some mages and magical creatures in Seimei's world take a very transactional, quid-pro-quo approach to trading favors and allegiances. Seimei, as a general rule, does not. He is very generous with people who he judges to have sufficient merit - the sort of people who are likely to remember his help and repay him in kind at some future date, because they feel it is the right thing to do. Seimei's approach to doing favors and forming allegiances is also informed by his professional ethics: as a "good" mage and a Shinto patron deity of the magical arts, he considers it his duty to use magic in a benevolent way and support other mages who do so.
There is an element of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy in his approach as well. Behaving altruistically earns him good karma (in the classical Buddhist sense, not the squishy New Age sense). This enables him to do certain kinds of Buddhist magic that depend heavily on the character of the caster. In the long term, he believes, it will attract good fortune. In the very long term, after he has been completely forgotten - and subsequently dies in the only way that a god can really die - he will be reborn into a better life, and perhaps even into Amida Buddha's paradise (although he admits that the latter is a bit of a stretch).