Puck on... Plots

You know, you really must work on this. How long have we been talking and you’re still surprised at the simplest things. Or is it not surprised? Startled? Perturbed? Terrified?

Or all of the above? It’s quite all right, of course. I believe half the reason I can shock you is because you keep forgetting.

Forgetting what?

Who you are dealing with. What you are dealing with. I have been around the block so many times, before there was a block. What did you think? That you could understand me in the space of a conversation? Pay attention, boy. There is much more to learn.

You have plans.

Our ways are many and various. What? We’re not allowed to be creative?

To what end?

Oh, but don’t you already know the answer to that question?

I’m not sure that I do, no.

What do you think? What do they say?

I think you want to corrupt people.

But why? What purpose could it serve? Because I have gathered the full meaning of your question, haven’t I?

Yes.

You want to know the endgame, right?

Yes.

That I cannot tell you. Oh, come now, you didn’t expect it to be that easy? Besides that’s the end of the story, you’re in the middle. Let’s not ruin it. Ah, but as to the fate of individuals, well, that reaches conclusion much faster. 70, 80 years.

You want to corrupt a person. So that, what? They go to Hell?

Oh. My. Boy. How little you know. You think we are the reason for that? That we conquer people? That we somehow convert them to our side? You think that’s how the game is played?

Well, maybe it is time I let you in on the true nature of where I come from.

Puck on... Plans

You want to negate salvation.

Come now, you paint too great a picture of us. You’ll be steering too close to blasphemy, if you’re not careful. I mean can we really negate salvation?

No, I don’t guess so. But maybe you can do something else.

Like?

Like make it less effective.

Oh, now you’re on to something. But how?

Well, if we don’t know about it, can it really help us?

Good start. But that’s elementary. Keep the truth away and it can never help anyone. But the battle is rarely as easy as that. The truth is crafty; like water, it always finds the hole in the floor. Even we can’t stop them all up. The truth will find a way in. It’s insidious that way.

Then you make them believe it’s not truth.

Excellent, you’ve been listening. Yes, convince them it’s not truth and they won’t believe it. Ah, but then you have a problem. How to convince someone a lie is the truth? To convince anyone you have to have some truth, enough to prove your point. After all, lies are lies for a reason; if they weren’t then the truth would be meaningless.

So, you mix in a little truth.

Helps it go down easier. The inverse proportion is actually the more effective. The more truth you have, the harder to find the lie and the deeper it’s held, thus, the harder to remove. You’d be surprised how many little lies you have floating around inside you, unnoticed, unperturbed, unchecked.

But even then, you’re missing the simplest step. You needn’t fight the medicine if the patient doesn’t believe it needs it, not because it has embraced a poison instead, but because it does not believe it is sick.

If you can’t convince us there is no truth, convince us there is no disease.

You are learning. The best lies are the ones that hit at the start after all, before the truth can gain momentum.

So, that’s how you work? That’s the plan?

Oh, come now, boy. Did you think it was that simple? How long have we been talking and it still hasn’t occurred to you that an able tactician never plans for one eventuality but many?

You have other plans?

Oh, child, we have plans you know nothing about.