Thursday DE, better late than never

[needsmoreresearch]

Whoops, sorry this is late.

So--how is your character about making apologies? What about accepting them?

Comments

[never_promised]

Harry Monmouth is utter crap at making apologies.

[harryhotspur]

WHAT NO

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka: At present, not as good as she likely should be. She really does not do well with any hint of failure. She is good at accepting them, especially if they ever come from a certain future master who tends to blow off her advice.

Sabine: Similar. I don't think she does apologize unless the situation is extreme and the other party is making an issue of it. I think sh'es okay with accepting apologies, but she might hold onto the grudge a little longer past the apology.

Izana: Is very good at it! They are sincere and offer one as soon as they are aware of a misstep. Accepts apologies and lets go of the bad feelings as well.

Rollo: Horrible at it. Like, even when he came to his brother to make up, he just says he wants to go raiding again and doesn't ask for forgiveness. I think he will use actions or gold in place of words. I honestly don't know how he'd take accepting an apology.

[just_cant_lose]

Gene - I don't know how he makes them. It doesn't happen.

Oh, wait! That's not true. In Ashes he calls in his desk sergeant, who he has wronged pretty badly, and who's black, gestures at his newspaper and says, 'uh...that Viv Richards. Hell of a batsman.' *pause* 'This is me apologising, by the way.'

Because Viv Richards is also black. So, yeah. He's bad at it. He's OK at accepting them, because if people admit when they were wrong (which is whenever he says they are), he tends to get over it fairly quickly. Unless it's something properly major.

Jim - also doesn't happen, ever. And no one apologises to him, because why would they?

Everyone else is OK at both. Valjean in particular is very good at the first bit. :\

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine, Combeferre, and Prouvaire are perfectly competent at both provided they either genuinely feel themselves to have been in the wrong or think the other person is apologizing sincerely.

Brienne requires some proof of good faith to accept an apology, and is so duty-bound that she rarely feels herself obliged to make one. If it's her duty she won't apologize for it.

[forceimbalance]

Ahahahahahahahaha

Uh

I actually can think an apology he makes in complete sincerity and not, say, just to appease someone so they'll get off his case or because he has to. It is right after he beats the utter crap out of Padme's ex-boyfriend and might have killed him if he hadn't snapped out of it. He's horrified with himself. Oh, and I think he apologizes to Ahsoka for letting her get captured once.

It says a lot, though, that I need to think hard about when he apologizes sincerely.

Accepting them... urgh. Depends on the reason and the person. But often quite poorly.

[yinyangwizard]

The answer is a little complex and may be TL;DR for some people.

Seimei believes that he can only offer a sincere apology if he knows exactly what he's apologizing for. If he doesn't then any apology he offers is false, even if it's not intentionally false. So he will apologize promptly and very profusely in situations where he's screwed up and understands where and how he went wrong. If it's a really serious breach he will often follow up the apology with a gift, accompanied by a note that makes it clear that the gift is meant to make amends.

The flip side of this is that if he knows he's offended someone but doesn't exactly know how or why, he may feel uncomfortable making an apology. If the offended person is someone he trusts he will ask them to tell him what he did wrong, and when they do he'll apologize and put things right. If he doesn't know the person that well he usually won't ask, because in his experience asking what he's done wrong - or apologizing while admitting that he doesn't know what he did wrong - rarely has the desired result (I.e., the other person believing his profession of ignorance and telling him what he did). Often they think he's being deliberately obtuse and will get even more upset.

As for accepting apologies, Seimei will happily accept a sincere apology (he can usually tell the difference) and will grant forgiveness. He actually has a lot of respect for people who own up to their mistakes.

[crabbycustomer]

Karkat doesn't apologize unless he's compelled by an outside force or really, enormously screwed up; his actual apologies are usually either theatrical and overexaggerated, as if to ridicule the need for any apology at all, or vague and sound as if he's annoyed it's necessary. He can actually apologize sincerely if someone presses him/really won't forgive him without a better attempt. There is usually some grovelling and self-flagellation in that case.

On the other hand, Karkat will forgive just about anything. He may never shut up about it again, and he makes a big show of holding grudges and being catastrophically angry about mistakes, but he also gets over almost anything he can survive, and is loathe to give up on a friendship. Also, his standards for intra-friendship hostility are pretty high, so he may not even recognize that there's a need for an apology, even if he was just screeching about what you did being a dick move.

Trolls are weird.