(Continued from previous post.)

After saving Charlotte the group found Bryce, and… he turned out to be not exactly as good person as he appeared to be in Sierra’s story, nor as willing to leave the Merchants as Taylor thought he would. It took Lisa’s lie about his sister being in critical medical condition to make Bryce even consider leaving the Merchants, and when Skidmark offered everyone present a chance to get powers Bryce chose this chance over his sister, and joined the fight leaving Taylor’s group in a dangerous position at the edge of that fight. At that point Taylor had to have doubts if Bryce is worth saving, but decided to risk staying and ultimately in chapter 11.7, after arrival of Faultline’s Group, decided to save him. She rationalized all her doubts in his favor because she thought

I hated the idea of going back to Sierra and telling her I’d failed. Left unsaid was that Taylor hated admitting to herself that she failed to save someone she earlier decided to help, that she failed to achieve her all-important goal. And her rationalizations didn’t end at that. There are two entire paragraphs of weaker and weaker, more and more stretched rationalizations right bellow the sentence I quoted above. All of them in favor of saving the boy.

When a fight between the Merchant capes and the Faultline’s Crew begun, and the situation became even more dangerous than it was during the fight between unpowered Merchants a moment before, Taylor took Brooks – Tattletale’s mercenary medic, and charged into the crossfire between the fighting capes to give first aid, and pull out Bryce, who was wounded by freshly-triggered Scrub during the previous fight. Then she saw Thomas – a man about whom she didn’t know much except his name, the fact that he hurt Sierra’s friend in the church earlier, and that he was of some importance to the girl Bryce was with. Thomas was in much worse shape than Bryce – he was dying. And that “resonated” with Taylor again. Despite knowing that Thomas was just as bad, possibly worse than Bryce she considered saving him, because not doing so would mean leaving him to almost certain death. Then Taylor, just like with Bryce, started to doubt and rationalize again. She thought that maybe the Merchant’s had a medic, who could help Thomas after the fight, though she quickly admitted that it probably was not the case. She thought that trying to pull the second person out of the crossfire would dangerously slow her and Brooks down, which would expose her entire team to even more risk. She was perfectly aware that she was doing it. In her own words:

I shook my head a little, as if it could cast away the layers of little justifications and excuses I was putting together. I was searching for a rationale, a reason to leave him behind. Also, maybe, I suspected I was trying to give a reason to the fact that I had almost no sympathy for the man. If I was going to leave him there, I’d own up to what I was doing. Sierra had wanted Thomas and his followers to suffer, and I’d agreed to make it happen. I couldn’t do anything about Bryce’s girlfriend or her mom. They were dead, and it had probably been instantaneous and painless. Thomas, though? Apparently seeing Taylor’s hesitation at that point Brooks even told her that maybe he could try to do something to save Thomas, but despite both knowing she was rationalizing, and despite Brooks words Taylor decided to leave Thomas to his death. Left unsaid was the obvious, but very un-heroic rationalization that chances to save Thomas’ life at that point were probably small even if they managed to evacuate him from the mall, possibly too small to take the risk to Taylor’s team and the other two evacuees.

This moment, this decision was to leave Thomas was the “scene” I wanted to tell you about. It did two connected things for me: – like nothing else in Worm, established where the boundary between Taylor – the selfless hero, and Taylor – the villain with a healthy self preservation instinct was. - It also showed the relationship between Taylor’s goals, doubts, and rationalizations, and how those three determined the boundary I wrote about just above.

Why did Taylor choose not to save Thomas?

Based on previous Taylor’s behavior I think that none of her rationalizations alone were the decisive factor. It was simply combination of the fact that the situation was risky enough, and successful rescue unlikely enough to warrant having doubts, and to fact that Taylor at no point made saving Thomas her goal. All of those anonymous people in the mall didn’t get saved, because Taylor didn’t feel a sufficient emphatic connection to them. Taylor saved Charlotte because she felt an emphatic connection to her (thanks to a parallel between Charlotte’s situation in the mall, and Taylor’s previous situation at school), and because the risk was low, she didn’t have any doubts about making saving that girl even for a second. Bryce got saved because while Taylor didn’t feel much of an emphatic connection to him, she did make saving him her goal before, and she did feel a connection to Sierra, who convinced her to go after Bryce in the first place. Thanks to it, despite her doubts, all Taylor’s rationalizations pointed in favor of saving him. Taylor did feel an emotional connection to Thomas, but since his situation was just as bad, if not worse than Bryce’s, she did have doubts again, and because unlike with Bryce she did not previously made saving him her goal, she (unlike her heroic rescues of Charlotte and Bryce) ultimately decided to do the villainous thing and leave him to die.

And yes, I am aware just how ironic it sounds to call that Taylor’s decision villainous. Let’s face it. In her place most of us wouldn’t even enter that mall. Even if we did, we probably wouldn’t risk saving both Charlotte and Bryce. But in my opinion Taylor has always been more of a hero than a villain at heart, and more of a hero than most people are. It is just that she is also very much human, and there are limits to her heroism. One of those limits - the one we saw in that scene I was talking about here – is that her inner strength to be a hero came in large part from setting herself those few goals to help particular people, and then not allowing any doubts to stop her from achieving those goals. It is something that followed her all the way until Gold Morning, where her general goal to save humanity brought her to the point when she decided to sacrifice herself, and ask Amy to mess with her brain, but it wasn’t good enough to give her strength necessary to fight both Scion and her passenger which was destroying her mind at the same time. For that Taylor used a different set of goals – to save a few people who’s fates, together with memory of her mother, were most important to her. Those people became her “anchors” that she used to get through events of the last arc of her story.

I’m aware that this post has become way too long, and that it has moved away from the scene I was talking about to Gold Morning. I'm also aware that by this point my poor English, and my inadequate writing skills are probably driving most of you insane. Once again, sorry for that. At this point I’m done with the scene, but I feel I must mention the elephant in the room.

It is obviously regret. You’ve probably noticed that until this point I’ve never used this word in this post despite the fact that it is right after doubt in the discussion question. I did it intentionally, because while the scene I was talking about was undoubtedly a reason of one of Taylor’s many regrets, in my opinion it wasn’t one of her big, defining “regret moments”.

Two of such moments tied to two slightly different aspects of regret that come to my mind first, are the day when she surrendered to PRT, and her final talk with Contessa. There is also a question of that digression about Tattletale I made earlier. It ties into yet another aspect of regret – one that explains why in my opinion Lisa is slowly turning into a better person compared to that self-centered girl, who needed to be practically emotionally blackmailed by Taylor to help anyone but her closest friends if she felt that by doing so she had too little to gain to justify her personal risk and effort such help would require.

I already have some drafts about those regret-related topics, so tell me if you want me to finish and post those here or elsewhere on the subreddit, and if I see any interest I’ll try to finish and post those in a day or two.

Finally I would like to mention an excellent Taylor’s letter to Miss Militia we saw in chapter 28.6 of Worm. In this letter Taylor did such excellent job of explaining herself, and her motivations behind her life choices, largely in terms of both doubts and regrets that ever since I read the conversation between Victoria and Madison in Glow-worm I wanted Victoria to see that letter. Considering that lately Vista specifically proposed to invite Miss Militia to a meeting of Brockton Bay capes I hope we will see it happen in Ward at some point.