Uncertain mortality is a beast of a problem, thank you very much. Being not human, not quite, on an unprecedented level, is actually alienating and burdensome, much more so than being a sulky only child with an inheritance. Jude doesn't think these things consciously, but he feels a natural, childish opposition to unspoken scorn. "Good," Jude says waspishly. "I'm glad we can agree to that much." Good to know that his mortality won't be put to the test before he's stuffed into a wizard robe.
Imagine you can have anything you want.
Jude looks suddenly taken aback, as if Near has proposed something unspeakably vulgar. He has lived his whole life near-sighted, with blinders on, and the concepts of 'distance' and 'peripheral vision' bring on a wave of agoraphobic doom. Imagine you can have anything you want. That would involve wanting things clearly, beyond short-term impulses and idle musings. Jude does a lot of musing, not so much wanting.
"That's a lot of questions." He backs the conversation up into safer territory: first principles arguments and hair-splitting. Jude was born to end the world, and now, he doesn't want to end it. That is the entirety of his self-concept, and no one, even in the year he's been out, has really pushed back on it. Doesn't it just figure that Near, consummately annoying man, would be the first?
Imagine you can have anything you want.
Jude looks suddenly taken aback, as if Near has proposed something unspeakably vulgar. He has lived his whole life near-sighted, with blinders on, and the concepts of 'distance' and 'peripheral vision' bring on a wave of agoraphobic doom. Imagine you can have anything you want. That would involve wanting things clearly, beyond short-term impulses and idle musings. Jude does a lot of musing, not so much wanting.
"That's a lot of questions." He backs the conversation up into safer territory: first principles arguments and hair-splitting. Jude was born to end the world, and now, he doesn't want to end it. That is the entirety of his self-concept, and no one, even in the year he's been out, has really pushed back on it. Doesn't it just figure that Near, consummately annoying man, would be the first?