Jordi Dissonance question

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Omegonthesane

There isn't actually a way in nature to kill with literally no pain, so I'd have thought the only reasonable solution was that you had to kill as quickly and cleanly as possible rather than drawing it out.

*nod*

The interesting thing is that, in nature, plenty of animals are pretty iffy on the whole "make a clean kill" thing. One of my housecats regards invading mice as squeaktoys, and he will -- absent my rescuing them -- play with them till they break. Then he sometimes eats half of them.

This is not what I'd call a "clean kill." (Well, they do bleed surprisingly little; the carpet is more-often stained by the cat discovering that mouse-feet don't agree with him, than by mouse-blood.)

This implies, to me, that the function of that part of the dissonance condition is actually a weird twist... It could be an issue of Free Will/Sapiency: angels know what they're doing, so any tormenting they do is knowingly tormenting, so it's forbidden. Or -- and possibly more in line with Jordi's word -- it is the nature of cats to play with mice till they break, whether the cat is hungry or not. It is NOT the nature of angels to do the same, and so they must remain true to their natures, even as animals are true to themselves.

Or something else someone else thinks of. (I think I like the idea that angelic nature is not to torment -- though of course you get the blackwings looking all sulky and pointing at the demons with "but-but-but" noises.)