Song Of The Day 4/9/2013: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Two Gunslingers"

A scene from my house last Sunday afternoon. Lucie (8) and Hank (5) are playing Star Wars with plastic light sabers in hand. I'm at my Mac looking up random statistics about arbitrary subjects. A moderately heated debate begins between the two of them. We beckon Lucie to come in and explain what the issue is. The basic complaint is "Hank isn't letting me kill more bad guys than he is and he always wants to wind up the bigger hero."

For the moment I leave off my standard response that I'm uncomfortable with games that involve the concept of people getting "killed," and try a different approach. "Lucie, you realize that you two are arguing over a completely made-up situation?"

"Yeah, but Hank's not letting me do what I want."

"Lucie, these are non-existent beings you're dealing with. Hank can't control how many people you take out if they don't exist. Why don't you go rogue?"

"I... I don't have an answer to that."

"You guys really shouldn't be fighting about who's going to wind up with the larger imaginary body count. It's the height of pointlessness. Why are you guys fighting about this?"

She protests. "But Hank won't..."

"Forget Hank! Go off on your own! Don't let yourself get bullied by the misogynist patriarchy of the imaginary science-fiction military-industrial complex! Go mercenary! Be an independent contractor! Don't you remember Kathleen Turner's character from Prizzi's Honor? She didn't take anyone's jive! She was a lethal hitm... hitperson in her own right! Rack up your own fake body count!"

At least that's how I remember the conversation going. As I recall it did not solve anything.