greatestgood: (judge)
Gellert Grindelwald ([personal profile] greatestgood) wrote in [community profile] genessia2018-09-03 09:54 pm

[V i d e o]

[A potion is brewing in a large cauldron, filling the room with questionable scents. Gellert has opened a window to help matters, but this is a price all potion brewers must pay. Sometimes you are forced to work with unpleasant ingredients.]

I've shared one fairy-tale from my world with some of you, so I thought why not share another?

[And thus Gellert recites, from memory, The Wizard and The Hopping Pot.]

"There was once a kindly old wizard who used his magic generously and wisely for the benefit of his neighbors. Rather than reveal the true source of his power, he pretended that his potions, charms and antidotes sprang ready-made from the little cauldron he called his lucky cooking pot. From miles around people came to him with their troubles, and the wizard was pleased to give his pot a stir and put things right.

This well-beloved wizard lived to a goodly age, then died, leaving all his chatells to his only son. This son was of a very different disposition to his gentle father. Those who could not work magic were, to the son’s mind, worthless, and he had often quarreled with his father’s habit of dispensing magical aid to their neighbours.

Upon the father’s death, the son found hidden inside the old cooking pot a small package bearing his name. He opened it, hoping for gold, but found instead a soft, thick slipper, much to small to wear, and with no pair. A fragment of parchment within the slipper bore the words “In the fond hope, my son, that you will never need it.”

The son cursed his father’s age-softened mind, then threw the slipper back into the cauldron resolving to use it henceforth as a rubbish pail. That very night a peasant woman knocked on the front door.

“My granddaughter is afflicted by a crop of warts, sir,” she told him. “Your father used to mix a special poultice in that old cooking pot -”

“Begone!” cried the son. “What care I for you brat’s warts?”

And he slammed the door in the old woman’s face.
At once there came a loud clanging and banging from his kitchen. The wizard lit his wand and opened the door, and there, to his amazement, he saw his father’s old cooking pot: it had sprouted a single foot of brass, and was hopping on the spot, in the middle of the floor, making a fearful noise upon the flagstones. The wizard approached it in wonder, but fell back hurriedly when he saw that the whole of the pot’s surface was covered in warts.

“Disgusting object!” he cried, and he tried firstly to Vanish the pot, then to clean it by magic, and finally to force it out of the house. None of his spells worked, however, and he was unable to prevent the pot hopping after him out of the kitchen, and then following him up to bed, clanging and banging loudly on every wooden stair.
The wizard could not sleep all night for the banging of the warty old pot by his bedside, and next morning the pot insisted upon hopping after him to the breakfast table. Clang, clang, clang, went the brass-footed pot, and the wizard had not even started his porridge when there came another knock on the door. An old man stood on the doorstep.

” ‘Tis my old donkey, sir,” he explained. “Lost she is, or stolen and without her I cannot take my wares to market, and my family will go hungry tonight.”

“And I am hungry now!” roared the wizard, and slammed the door upon the old man.

Clang, clang, clang, went the cooking pot’s single brass foot upon the floor, but now its clamour was mixed with the brays of a donkey and human groans of hunger, echoing from the depths of the pot.

“Be still. Be silent!” shrieked the wizard, but not all his magical powers could quieten the warty pot, which hopped at his heels all day, braying and groaning and clanging, no matter where he went or what he did.

That evening there came a third knock upon the door, and there on the threshold sood a young woman sobbing as though her heart would break.

“My baby is grievously ill,” she said. “Won’t you help us? Your father bade me come if troubled-”

But the wizard slammed the door on her. And now the tormenting pot filled to the brim with salt water, and slopped tears all over the floor as it hopped, and brayed, and groaned, and sprouted more warts. Though no more villagers came to seek help at the wizard’s cottage for the rest of the week, the pot kept him informed of their many ills. Within a few days, it was not only braying and groaning and slopping and hopping and sprouting warts, it was also choking and retching, crying like a baby, whining like a dog, and spewing out bad cheese and sour milk and a plague of hungry slugs.

The wizard could not sleep or eat with the pot beside him, but the pot refused to leave and he could not silence it or force it to be still.

At last the wizard could bear it no more. “Bring me all your problems, all your troubles and your woes!” he screamed, fleeing into the night, with the pot hopping behind him along the road into the village. “Come! Let me cure you, mend you and comfort you! I have my father’s cooking pot, and I shall make you well!”
And with the foul pot still bounding along behind him, he ran up the street, casting spells in every direction.

Inside one house the little girl’s warts vanished as she slept; the lost donkey was Summoned from a distant briar patch and set down softly in its stable; the sick baby was doused in dittany and woke, well and rosy. At every house of sickness and sorrow, the wizard did his best, and gradually the cooking pot beside him stopped groaning and retching, and became quiet, shiny and clean.

“Well, Pot?” asked the trembling wizard, as the sun began to rise.
The pot burped out the single slipper he had thrown to it, and permitted him to fit it on to the brass foot. Together, they set off back to the wizard’s house, the pot’s footstep muffled at last. But from that day forward, the wizard helped the villagers like his father before him, lest the pot cast off its slipper, and begin to hop once more."


What do you think of it? Should Magic be available for all who could benefit from it? Or should the one so gifted be the one to choose who they aid and who goes wanting? Obviously one Witch or Wizard cannot save the world, so that leaves the question: should they still try?
li_amaranth: (Apprehension)

[Video]

[personal profile] li_amaranth 2018-09-04 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Where she was curious about the potion brewing in the background, Li found herself distracted by the story, listening to it as she leaned against the entrance of a cave somewhere in the forests of Fayren where she'd been living.]

...Well, humans take advantage of beings with gifts. So, wouldn't it be better if the wizard chose who to help? I mean, yeah, cure the people that need it and whatever. But, what about those that'd abuse the help?

[She shrugs a bit.]

Whether a wizard tries to save the world or not is their problem.
enchantinglily: (unicorn)

[Video]

[personal profile] enchantinglily 2018-09-04 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
A single person whether they witch, wizard or something else may not be able to save the world, but trying never hurts if that's what you want to do, but it wouldn't be the same if someone tried because they had to as opposed to trying because they want to. Even to save the world, I don't think anyone should be forced into that choice.
Edited 2018-09-04 03:22 (UTC)
chambermusicandtenpins: (i'm just a normal teacher really)

[video]

[personal profile] chambermusicandtenpins 2018-09-04 03:41 am (UTC)(link)
Enjoying the Tales of the Beadle the Bard lately, I see.

I'd answer your questions, but I imagine you already know my answers.
li_amaranth: (Apprehension)

Re: [Video]

[personal profile] li_amaranth 2018-09-04 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
[She idly picks up a rock and tosses towards the back of her cave.]

It's different if people are asking you for the help though, obviously.

[Like she begrudgingly is.]

Otherwise, you'll try to 'help' and possibly make things worse without realize just what the hell you're really helping with. Always get the details first. They're important.
fashionably_strong: (Default)

[Video]

[personal profile] fashionably_strong 2018-09-04 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
This is why it's good to have jobs like emergency services and the Guardians. Technically, they don't really choose who they help and who they don't if they're doing their jobs properly, but they're being fairly paid for their time and effort, and they can still manage to have some personal time to themselves.

[It's an interesting talking point. Life is more complicated than that story and the lesson it attempts to impart.]
enchantinglily: (unicorn)

Re: [Video]

[personal profile] enchantinglily 2018-09-04 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
[This unicorn does, yes.]

Yes, it is. I don't think anyone should be forced into something they don't want to do even if it were better for others.

[She'd been forced into this whole unicorn ordeal after all, so she couldn't imagine someone else forced into something as well.]

But there are times where there are no choices, however when there are then whoever must make the choice should be free to make whatever choice suits them.]
chambermusicandtenpins: (Default)

[video]

[personal profile] chambermusicandtenpins 2018-09-04 03:50 am (UTC)(link)
We have, but you seem to be quite focused on them as of late, though I suppose that should not surprise me.

[He smiles a little at Gellert's answer.] Something like that, yes.
li_amaranth: (Apprehension)

Re: [Video]

[personal profile] li_amaranth 2018-09-04 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah they are.

[She pauses for a moment then nods slightly.]

Yeah, I am. I'd rather be here than in some human settlement.

[Li's different from a lot of things.]

Heroes are over rated anyway and usually brutally dull. I think I'd rather the people like you. At least you make sense to me.

chambermusicandtenpins: (oh well now hi there)

[video]

[personal profile] chambermusicandtenpins 2018-09-04 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
I know. Though of course there is the question of what, exactly, truly happened if they were, and how they were changed when written.

Mm, is it a waste to help others? You yourself wish to aid the wizarding world in your own quests, even if not with the same methods as myself.
enchantinglily: (unicorn)

Re: [Video]

[personal profile] enchantinglily 2018-09-04 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
I'm well aware of that.

[She looks sad at that last statement. She'd had people try to take her horn already as soon as she'd first transformed after all, and taking her horn would also take her magic, so he was right, it would take her only defense. She still remembered the greed in the humans eyes when they'd come after her.]

Which is why it is okay for people to make choices as to whether to help or not. Besides, solving your own problems at times makes you stronger rather then weaker, does it not?
li_amaranth: (Apprehension)

Re: [Video]

[personal profile] li_amaranth 2018-09-04 04:00 am (UTC)(link)
[Was she comfortable? Hardly. But, Li could hardly complain about that so she was.. reluctant to admit it.]

...Could be a little warmer.

[She nods slightly. At least they understand each other as well as can be.]

Well, good.

[And considering how rare someone liking a kelpie for what they are is, she's... not opposed to liking him either.]
fashionably_strong: (chillin)

[Video]

[personal profile] fashionably_strong 2018-09-04 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know about solve the need entirely, but having trained professionals who made the conscious choice to go into their professions and who have set hours helps to achieve some balance between what's right for society and what's right for the individual.

[It's the balance that's important, in her opinion.]

Whether wizards and witches would be harassed or not really depends on what's available to everyone else in the area, doesn't it? If medicine is advanced enough to achieve similar results through technology, then people will be more likely to leave wizards and witches to their own business.
li_amaranth: (Apprehension)

Re: [Video]

[personal profile] li_amaranth 2018-09-04 04:20 am (UTC)(link)
[Considering she's in no rush, Li doesn't see a problem with it.]

That's fine. I'm not exactly going anywhere, now am I.

[Though once he mentioned her name, Li tensed and glanced at him sharply. If she had been herself, her ears would have been forward and trained on him.]

...What about it.

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