Castle, Forest, Island, Sea

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<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<set $nointent = $nointent + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-birds.png" alt="three small birds perched on some saucepans"></div></html>\nThe robin ruffles its feathers. "Oh," it says, and falls silent, then: "Never mind."\n\nThe blackbird jumps, surprised. "Oh!" it says as well, but in a very different tone. "Well! Well. I'm glad to hear it. It'll be much easier to <<if $motivation eq "escape">>find your way out of the castle<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>reclaim the castle<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">>find your friend<<endif>> if you stay this clear-headed. \n\n"Of course," the robin says. "I never denied it. In fact," and it turns to look at the blackbird, and there's something in its voice as it continues, "in fact, I might even be able to help."\n\n[[Well. That would be good.|Chapter 3]]\n

And you're back where you were, the book closed in front of you.\n\nThe air is even colder now, and the castle smells - you notice all of a sudden - of damp and dank and animals and rot. There's so little light, everywhere, even though it must be the middle of the day by now; there's just low ceilings and torches sputtering burn-marks up the walls. This is not a good place.\n\n[[But there's another door, and you walk through.|Chapter 5]]

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch3-doors.png" alt="three identical wooden doors"></div></html>\n<<if visited("three wooden doors") lt 2>>There's nothing much to distinguish them; no sounds when you lay your ear flat against the wood, no trembling doorhandles warning of danger within. There's just a [[door on the left]]; a [[door in the middle]]; and a [[door on the right]].<<else>>Three doors again, still nothing to distinguish one from another: just a [[door on the left]]; a [[door in the middle]]; and a [[door on the right]].<<endif>>

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\nAnd there, behind you: there <<if $friendmale>>he<<else>>she<<endif>> is. Looking just the same time as last time you saw <<if $friendmale>>him<<else>>her<<endif>>, but so happy, and two quick steps towards you and the biggest hug of your life.\n\n"I knew you'd find me," <<if $friendmale>>he<<else>>she<<endif>> says. "I knew it."\n\nYour feet are still bare but they aren't cold any more, for the first time in hours, you realise; the grass is perfect, the air is so clear, the sky is so far above you both.\n\n"Are you all right?" you say, but even as you ask you know the answer: <<if $friendmale>>he<<else>>she<<endif>> is, and everything is always going to be okay now.\n\nThe only sign of the room you were just in, the castle you just defeated, is the book, still sitting open on the table beside you.\n\n[[Leave it open|leaveit2]], or [[slam it shut]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-birds.png" alt="three small birds perched on some saucepans"></div></html>\nIt's the blackbird, of course, and the robin, and another robin. This is, you think, not what you need, but on the other hand they're still the only signs of life you've encountered.\n\n"You again," the blackbird says. "What are you even doing?"\n\n<<if $motivation eq "birthright">>That's easy: you're here to reclaim your island, your castle home. This is where you were born, where you lived your first distant years, and it was taken from you by your uncle (or was it a cousin?). It hurts to see how far the castle has fallen, presumably, to look at the tumbling walls and remember when they hung with rich tapestries. But at last you're going to right this old wrong.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>That's easy: you're trying to get out. You've been trapped on this island for so long, and you don't even know any more whether the time you've spent here is best measured in days or months or years. But you've had enough. It's time to leave.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">>That's easy: you're here to find your friend, and then escape with <<if $friendmale>>him<<else>>her<<endif>>, and burn the castle to the ground, and never come back. It's not that you expect anything from the rescue, any wide-eyed look of astonishment as you grab a hand and pull, no running as walls collapse behind you, no falling to the ground together and then- no, none of that. But you miss <<if $friendmale>>him<<else>>her<<endif>>, and you've come to the rescue.<<endif>> \n\n"And you decided," the blackbird says, "that the best way to do that was to <<if $method eq "dark">>go climbing down in the pitch black service corridors where the monsters live<<endif>><<if $method eq "roof">>go climbing up over rickety walls way way above the very hard ground<<endif>>".\n\nWell, you think. "Yes." \n\nThe blackbird looks at you. <<continue "Look back.">>Look back. It's hard to tell what it's thinking: it is, after all, a bird. "And do you still think," it says, "that that was a good idea?"\n\nThe blackbird is, you can't help thinking, pretty mean. "<<cyclinglink "Yes" "Not really">>," you say.\n\nThe robins haven't paid you much attention, but one of them turns its head. "Steady on," it says, to you or the blackbird. "<<if $method eq "dark">>We might know it's not safe down there, but it's not like there's a sign, or giant bloodstained footprints, or rolling heads.<<else>>We might know it's not safe on the rooftops, but it's not like there's giant bloodstains and huge scrawled messages saying DO NOT PASS.<<endif>>"\n\nThe blackbird flaps. "Yeah, yeah," it says. "Not knowing is no excuse. You can't do something that dumb and pretend you were acting rationally just because you lucked out, or you didn't know how dumb it was, you-"\n\n"-you can, of course you can," the robin is saying. "We do the best we can with what we know, and that's all anyone can expect."\n\n"But we can <html><i>hope</i></html>," the blackbird says, "that we do what's best, full stop." And it stares, at the robin, and the other robin, and then at you. [[Waiting|Expectant]].

The robin considers. "That's true," it says. "You did."\n\nThe blackbird isn't so keen - you can see it in its stance and its huffy little wings before it even speaks. "Do we really need to go into this again?" it says. "Trying isn't doing. If <<if $male>>he<<else>>she<<endif>> tried to climb to the moon, I suppose you think that would count as doing something."\n\n"It's not-" \n\n"Look," the blackbird says, to you, "what did you actually see?"\n\n"That's not the point-"\n\n"Of course it's the point-"\n\n"-the point is-"\n\n...and then it's just the sound of birds, whistles and squawks and the blackbird flies up into the air a little as if it's about to attack, and then lands again.\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch3-door3.png" alt="three identical wooden doors"></div></html>\nThis door leads to a corridor, past a picture on the wall and a strange low window and crossed axes that - when you pull on them - are bolted firm to the wall. You're not sure whether that's reassuring or not.\n\nTime to [[keep going|going forward]] or [[turn back|three wooden doors]].

It's going to be worth it in the end, anyway. It's important, your quest, you wouldn't be doing this otherwise.\n\nMaybe you want to [[escape]]. It's been a long time, plausibly: trapped in these strange walls, walking from room to room, scratchmarking the days in the corner where you sleep, going up stairs and through doors and glimpsing another world through so many windows.\n\nOr maybe this castle is your [[birthright]], taken from you as a child by a cruel and acquisitive uncle. That sounds like it might have happened some time, to someone, it might as well be you. The passages you walk through are distant but familiar, yours, and the time has come to take them back; to reclaim your home, and your destiny!\n\nOr maybe you look around at the stone towers, cold floors, distant light and know why you're here. Bare feet. Fading stars. You would only have come in order to [[rescue]] someone. Not anyone special, not rescue them //like that//, of course, just a friend. A friend who maybe stands a bit closer than you'd expect, every now and then, who pulled a leaf from your hair that one time, but a friend all the same.

you point out.\n\nThe blackbird huffs itself big, chest out, feathers fluffed. "That hardly counts," it says. "It's not like you have a choice."\n\nThe other bird, the robin, doesn't say anything

It's small, narrow, nothing much to see except a window to the left - and, inevitably, the birds, perched together once more.\n\n"You took your time," the blackbird says.\n\n"Be nice," the robin interrupts, "remember, <<if $male>>she<<else>>he<<endif>> can't fly."\n\n"It's <<if $male>>he<<else>>she<<endif>>," you say, and your voice is louder than you thought it would be in this little hallway. "And no, I can't fly, and you couldn't give me directions, and I didn't know what route to take, and I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner but I don't know what you were expecting under the circumstances." \n\n"Ooh," says the blackbird after a moment's silence. "Somebody's grumpy."\n\nYou are grumpy, actually. "<<cyclinglink "I am," "It's been a confusing day," "You can talk,">>" you say. "Look, is this the right room? The place where I can get what I want?"\n\nThe birds look at each other before they [[answer you]].\n\n

<<silently>>set $window = true<<endsilently>>The window is facing away from the sun, towards the tower you came from, and from here you can make out new details. Some of the branches you saw earlier are really roots: a huge tree crashed upside-down into the side of a wall. Every rooftop is a net of holes, every tree wrapped round with ivy and half-dead. But there are signs of life, hints that something different is going on: a few more lit windows, some bushes far below that seem to be moving, a flag raised and unragged on a distant flagpole.\n\nAs you look, there's a noise behind you: a flurry of air, and a whistling sigh.\n\n[[Turn around]].

"That's enough!" you say, and brandish your <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch<<endif>>. The birds fall instantly silent.\n\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>"Well," the blackbird says after a moment's silence. "That was a little uncalled for."\n\n"I would say it was downright rude," the robin says. And then: "I suppose it's the weak will of someone who's prone to anger."\n\n"That's not-"\n\n"I said, that's enough!" you repeat, before they can get started again. "Look. [[You're right|ch6robin]]," you might say to the robin. "The king is doing exactly what he wants. There isn't a problem with his willpower, there's a problem with him. And I'm going to solve it."\n\nOr maybe you'll nod to the blackbird: "[[The king is weak|ch6blackbird]], like you say. But I'm not."\n\nEither way, you've heard enough of their bickering.

The birds sit at the doorway, watching as you stand by the table, one hand still on the book.\n\n"How was it?" the robin asks.\n\nYou look at the birds, and the book, and the walls, and the book again.\n\n"The book gives you everything you want," the robin says after a moment. "The best possible world." \n\nYou look at it again, leaving it closed, and there are words that you can just make out on the cover: //Struggles and sunlight and friends and victory and happiness//.\n\n"...it changes the world?"\n\nThe robin sounds a little embarrassed. "Well. No. But it feels like it does! It works out everything that would make you happiest, just enough problems that you appreciate the victories. Technically you're still here, but the book keeps you safe, and it feels exactly the same as if everything was real."\n\n"Oh," you say.\n\n"It's a lot easier than the real thing. And you're stronger and happier and healthier and <<if $male>>far more handsome<<else>>so much prettier<<endif>> and so much more popular. It's better."\n\nIt waits, head cocked, for you to [[respond]].

You unroll the ACTION scroll a little. \n\n//What is an action?// the scroll reads. //Is an action defined by its outcome, the thing you achieve? Climbing a staircase, holding your breath? Or is it in the intent - the idea you have in your head of what you want to accomplish? \n\nPerhaps something is an action as long as an intention lies behind it: if you try to steady yourself, and you knock a brick off a wall, then your knocking the brick is an act, even if it's not the act you intended. Or maybe an action is an attempt, something that happens inside the mind; the outcome is just a consequence of the act.// <<if $ch1robin>>//You seem to think the act lies in the trying, the attempt: that's fair, but not everyone agrees.//<<else>>//You seem to think it's in the thing you make happen, regardless of your intentions; that's fair, but not everyone agrees.//<<endif>>\n\nOf course the scroll's talking about you. Why wouldn't it, in this place? You can [[take it with you|takeaction]] for later, or [[put it back|returnaction]].

Castle, Forest, Island, Sea

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\nAnd there, behind you, nothing but more space and more trees and more sky. \n\nYour feet are still bare but they aren't cold any more, for the first time in what feels like years. The grass is perfect, every blade crisp and yielding; the air is so clear, the sky is so far away.\n\nYou're out. You've done it. You're free.\n\nThe only sign of the room you were just in, the castle you just escaped, is the book, still sitting open on the table next to you.\n\n[[Leave it open|leaveit3]], or [[slam it shut]].

<<silently>><<set $ch4robin = true>><<endsilently>>And again the walls disappear, the ceiling rises and turns into sky, the stone under your feet gives way and becomes grass.\n\nWander off into the hills. Stay here for ever. You'll be happy.\n\nOf course, there are no more decisions to make - the perfect world makes them for you. But the things the book decides for you will feel like they're your own choices. So stay.\n\nThe only real choice is to [[leave|But it's not real]]. And you don't want to do that.\n\n<<continue "Stay.">>Stay.\n\nYou're happy. Everything is just right: the big things, sure, but also the perfect crisp skin on each roast potato, and the smooth clean fabric of your sheets at night, and the sunlight that falls through the window in the morning.\n\n<<continue "Stay.">>Stay.\n\nThe tulips flower for ever, or maybe your favourite season is autumn (and the leaves never stop tumbling orange-brown from the trees) or winter (snow melts for just long enough to provide a sense of contrast before it falls again).\n\nStay.

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch9-door.png" alt="an open door looking out onto a beach"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 9: A Decision</h2></div></html>\nIt opens: and she was right, it's not far. Sand and pebbles stretch in front of you, down towards a wide sea. A tree bends in a gentle, gentle breeze. A boat with a bright blue sail sits at the edge of the water.\n\nThere's your friend waiting for you, if that's what you wanted, or a loyal subject ready to lead you away from this distant place to the heart of your kingdom - presumably it extends beyond your childhood-home island. Or maybe there's just the world, waiting for you to return. You've got what you wanted, whatever it was; you're free at the edge of the castle. Doorways and stone and stairwells are piled high behind you, and in front there's the ragged beach and the still clear sea, the sun still a handspan from the horizon. The day's not quite over. Something's scrawled in the sand, hard to make out. //<<print $philosophy>>//\n\nYou could stay here. The island is yours, now: the corridors and deep cupboards and secret passageways, basketwork vines, monsters in innocent corners. The cold stone. The cosy rooms with fireplaces that spit embers and keep your hands warm. Maybe this is how it works: you're a tangle of desires and brambles and you don't know where they're from, you think one thing and do another, and you might as well make peace with the castle's falling towers and unexpected treasures, because it's home.\n\nOr maybe there's something better: maybe the empty sea will be still for ever, maybe you can navigate to anywhere you want if you just try hard enough. You can reason and act and set out across deep water. You can look up at the stars and use them to judge your direction. You can decide what you want and ration your water as you strike out for calm and a world of clear reason. You can lie on your back on a boat, shifting gently with the water and looking up at such a big sky.\n\n[[Stay]], then. Or [[go]].

Well. Not quite. As you clamber out of your hiding place, the final head's eyes flick open. It looks straight at you.\n\nYou can't run; you're still only halfway free from your hurried hiding place.\n\nOkay, then: only one thing for it. You whisper: "[[Hello|pssst!]]."

<<silently>>\n<<set $motivation = "rescue">>\n<<endsilently>>Yes, yours is a noble cause, and you will stop at nothing to achieve it! Rescuing a friend, with no ulterior motive, just your pure heart and strong will leading you on. Stone walls, high towers, vast glaring beasts of the night, confusion, exasperated blackbirds - you'll overcome them all. You'll find... [[him]], with his tousled hair and his cheerful grin? [[Her|her]], with her sudden laugh and her solemn eyes? It won't be long.

Do something! Well, you can't: as soon as it's noticed you its tail is wrapped around your body, lifting you into the air. Your arms are free but waving them does nothing; you jam the <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch<<endif>> into its fur but it doesn't even seem to notice.\n\nYell something! <<cyclinglink "Aaargh," "Unhand me, dank creature!" "Hoi! These are my going-out clothes, don't wrinkle them!">> perhaps. That might help. You never know.\n\nThe heads keep talking to each other as if you hadn't said anything.\n\n"It all goes to the same stomach," the hat-head says. "So you might as well enjoy the taste."\n\n"I dunno," says the middle head. "All the more for us," and laughs, and looks at you a little closer.\n\n<<continue "Don't wriggle.">>Don't wriggle. Or do. It won't make any difference.\n\nYou probably should have at least found out what you were up against before you decided to stand in the middle of the courtyard and yell out challenges, though, huh?\n\n"Look," the rightmost head says, "we've got the same stomach and it's full. We couldn't eat another bite. Just put that thing down," and it jerks its chin at you, "and let's have a nice sit-down." \n\nAnd as it talks, the tail unfurls to deposit you on a high-up ledge, and withdraws, and the monster steps away and settles down to sit under the tree.\n\nRight. [[That didn't go well|a ledge]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\nYou slide it back in place and look around the room.\n\n<<display 'lots of scrolls'>>

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-torch.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\n<<silently>><<set $torch = true>><<endsilently>>You try to slide it out of its bracket as quietly as possible. It takes both hands to hold it steady; and of course, you realise belatedly, anyone who's paying attention will have noticed the moving light.\n\nClank.\n\nSilence.\n\nYou step towards the curtain.\n\n[[Another step. Watch out.|Chapter 6]]

<<silently>>\n<<set $action = "look">>\n<<endsilently>>It's getting lighter, and you can see further than you expected into this thin slice of the world. \n\nThe roof of another tower, not too far away. And another, much lower, further off, with a light shining through a window of its own. Beyond that, the wide flat sea.\n\nAs you listen, you hear the birds behind you, bickering, probably sheltering in the tower from the wind. In normal circumstances, it would be strange to see three different types of bird hanging out together, but these aren't normal circumstances.\n\nIt almost sounds like one of them just said [[your name|birds1]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-openbook.png" alt="An open book"></div></html>\nYou open it; the cover is warm to the touch, and heavy. The first page is blank.\n\nYou turn it over, rough paper on your nervous fingertips, and find two pages of close-packed calligraphic writing. \n\n//You touch the pages//, the first sentence reads.\n\nOkay. [[Read on]].

You could [[look out|towerlook]] of the arrowslit windows.\n\nYou could [[jump up|towerjump]] and try to see over the walls.\n\nYou could [[sing a song|towersing]]. Maybe it would summon mice from the walls and birds from the air, eager to help you on your quest. (You do have a quest, right?)

<<silently>><<set $friendmale = true>><<endsilently>>Are you quite sure you're going about it the right way, though? [[Long dark corridors]] versus a [[teetering rooftop shortcut]]? Once you start there'll be no turning back.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-kitchen.png" alt="a warm and cheerful kitchen"></div></html>\nIt's a kitchen.\n\nJust a normal kitchen. Well, normal for a castle.\n\nRough walls. A fireplace; that must have been the light you saw from the tower. A table with a big pot full of [[something brown]], steam rising up; [[eggs]] sat in a pile, smaller than hen eggs, speckled; a [[candle]]. You could pick something up. Or you could look out the [[window]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-birds.png" alt="birds sitting on a hat"></div></html>\nMaybe you agree with the robin: maybe it is unfair. The last head didn't seem to have anything against you, after all. But you sent it tumbling down through the stone courtyard, thrashing its tail with the other heads, all the same. "Yeah," you could say to the robin, "[[she can't really be blamed|ch7robin]] for any of it." \n\nOr you could acknowledge the blackbird instead. "[[I don't have a problem holding her responsible|ch7blackbird]]," you could say. She was part of the monster; she barely protested its actions at all; she benefitted from its predations; she has to be held responsible.

<<set $method = "dark">>No, probably best to keep away from the towers, stay with the corridors and the doorways and the intended routes. Now that it's getting brighter, you can see holes in rooftops, the slick of wet lichen on high walls; you can imagine, only too easily, a tumble through the trees and the ground far below.\n\nYou step <<continue "back into the doorway.">>back into the doorway.\n\nYour body blocks the light as you go down the steps, round corner after corner. It's colder than you remember, and colder still the further you go, but down is easier than up and it's not long before you reach the bottom of the stairs - as you discover when you put your foot out for another step and then stumble, hard, onto flat stones. You can't see anything. You [[listen]] instead; you reach your hands out and [[touch]].

It's about the book.\n\n//Would you//, it says, //choose to be happy, choose for everything to be perfect, with one tradeoff - that none of it is real? A contraption to deceive you, a magic book, an Experience Machine, anything: a perfect simulacrum of reality, but you know it's not real.\n\nSome philosophers talk about the Experience Machine as something obviously flawed - a choice that nobody would make. But if you ask people, some of them - not all of them, not even most of them, but a substantial minority - say yes.//\n\n<<if $ch4robin>>//It sounds like you might be one of them.//<<else>>//It sounds like you're not one of them.//<<endif>>\n\nYou can [[take the scroll with you|takeexperience]] for later, or [[put it back|returnexperience]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-birds.png" alt="three small birds perched on some saucepans"></div></html>\nWell.\n\nThe robin's turned to you as well, and it's waiting. "Yes," it says, "what do you think?" and it sounds curious, friendly.\n\nMaybe you think that you [[did the best you could]], given the information you had - that you made a sensible decision. (And what is the information you didn't have, for that matter? The birds still haven't said.)\n\nOr maybe you think that [[if you didn't pick right, then you didn't pick well]]. You made a decision, and it was objectively the wrong one, which means that your choice wasn't the rational one, even if you couldn't have known that at the time.\n

<<silently>><<set $ch2robin = true>><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>><<set $intent = $intent + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-birds.png" alt="three small birds perched on some saucepans"></div></html>\nThe robin nods agreement; the blackbird ruffles its feathers and subsides. "Typical," it says, and flies from the saucepan over to the table, its back to you.\n\n"Never mind," the robin says. "He gets like that sometimes. I think you made a perfectly sensible decision, and you survived, against all the odds, and there's no point in worrying about it now. I think you're in a fine position to <<if $motivation eq "escape">>find your way out of the castle<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>reclaim the castle<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">>find your friend<<endif>> and get everything you've ever dreamed of. I might even be able to help."\n\n[[Well. That would be good.|Chapter 3]]

"It doesn't matter anyway," the robin says. "We can't choose what to want. There aren't some things that it's rational to want and some things that it isn't. We just want what we want."\n\nThe blackbird, and you've come to expect this by now, disagrees. "What you want doesn't exist in a vacuum," it says. "People want dumb things. Even //birds// want dumb things, sometimes. We want things that are bad for us, or bad for everyone, we want things that won't make us happy, we want things that cause more trouble than they're worth, we want things that make no sense at all."\n\n"No," the robin says firmly. "You're wrong."\n\nYou want <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>your friend.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>to get out.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>your castle.<<endif>> It's hard to say why that's what you want; but it is.\n\nAnd that creature, the strange creature in the hallway: it wanted you to pull its house down. You don't know why, and you don't really want to know why, but that's what it wanted.\n\n"I think you're right," you could say to the [[robin]]. "Our desires aren't rational or irrational. They just are."\n\nOr you could turn to the [[blackbird]]. "Some desires just aren't rational," you could say. "You're right."\n

It can't be far now.\n\nYou round another corner and everything's all of a sudden blue instead of grey, and you walk up the last few steps and your toes, your cold cold toes, but it's okay, you're here - you've reached the top of the tower.\n\nIt's square, this towertop, and it's stone, and the shock is that it's open to the air. You can see the sky when you <<continue "look up.">>look up.\n\nIt's still dark blue. The walls are too high to see over but there's arrow-slit windows all around, this way and that and the other.\n\nLoud wind gusts outside.\n\nThere's no bed. There's no witch, hunched under a cape. There's no wolf, leaning jaunty against a fireplace and sipping cognac and licking his lips with his big tongue. Just stone.\n\nBut you're here.\n\n[[You should do something|toweract]].

<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<set $nointent = $nointent + 1>><<endsilently>>She nods. "Well," she says, and pushes herself up from the table, "maybe you're right."\n\n"Wait," you say. "What about <<cyclinglink "my way out of this wreck" "my friend? Wasn't there a friend" "my kingdom. This was my kingdom, wasn't it" "my... I don't know. Whatever it was. There must have been something, right? Some reason for all this">>?" you ask.\n\nShe jerks her chin up towards a door behind you - wide and wooden, not the one you came in through. "Through there," she says. "It's not too far."\n\nYou step backwards towards it, still looking at her; the door is wooden and cold to the touch. [[Open it.|doortobeach]]

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch3-door1.png" alt="a corridor with lit torches"></div></html>\nWhen you open the door on the left, a corridor curves away from the kitchen, then opens up: torches burning, windows onto dark rooms.\n\nIt could be the way. You can't tell.\n\nMake up your mind: [[walk on|going forward]], or [[turn back|three wooden doors]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-birds.png" alt="three birds perched on the wall"></div></html>\nI know how this sounds, but look, you're on a castle in a forest on an island in the sea, and: the birds are talking to you.\n\n"What's <<if $male>>he<<else>>she<<endif>> doing?" one of them asks. You think it might be a blackbird. The second bird is an owl, you're pretty sure about that.\n\nThe final bird is small and fat. (A robin? Probably a robin.) It cocks its head to one side. "Nothing, as far as I can see," it says.\n\nThat seems a little harsh. You've been breathing. You've been climbing stairs. <<if $sing>>You sang that song.<<else>>You tried to see what was going on outside the tower, it's not your fault that it was dark.<<endif>>\n\nThe birds are looking at you. \n\nThey're not impressed.\n\nYou breathed, <<replace "you could point out.">><<display 'breathed-response'>><<endreplace>>\n\nAnd you stopped breathing - <<replace "you could mention that.">><<display 'stopped-breathing-response'>><<endreplace>>\n\n<<if $sing>>You tried to sing, even if nobody could hear it over the wind.<<else>>And you tried to see everything around the tower, you tried to figure out where you were and what was going on. That feels like quite a big thing.<<endif>> <<replace "You could tell them about that too.">><<display 'looked-out-response'>><<endreplace>>\n\nYou should probably tell them about how you pulled that brick out of the wall. It was their fault, too. [[Tell them|You should tell them that]].

It did feel real. \n\n"I told you it was ridiculous," the blackbird says. "Nobody wants to-"\n\n"Of course they do, it's a perfect world," the robin says. "It's perfect by definition. That's what it's for."\n\n"-nobody wants to stand in a room for ever reading a book, just because it //feels// like you're having the time of your life."\n\n"Why not?" the robin asks. And it flies to you, perches next to the book. "How was it?" it asks.\n\n"<<cyclinglink "Perfect," "Pointless," "I don't know,">>" you start to say, but you're interrupted: the blackbird flies up as well, with a blustering flap of wings. "Ridiculous," it says again.\n\n"Why don't you let <<if $male>>him<<else>>her<<endif>> decide for <<if $male>>him<<else>>her<<endif>>self?" the robin says, still looking at you. The robin's been kind to you all along, or in any case it hasn't been actively hostile, and in this place you'll take what you can get.\n\n"[[It was good]]," you could say, or: "[[It wasn't real]]." They're both true.\n

Well, that explains it: someone's jammed branches up against the ceiling. They're held in place by the walls, back and forth, criss-crossing; mostly stripped of leaves but a few still hanging on.\n\n<<if $candle>>And in one corner - you can see as you raise the candle - there's a creature, a monster maybe but it doesn't have the sort of face you'd expect from a monster: snuffling nose, long grasping limbs, up against the ceiling, watching.<<else>>And in one corner - you can almost make out - there's something, a creature maybe, a dark slow-moving mass in a corner with two glimmering eyes.<<endif>> Right above the door at the end of the corridor.\n\nWell.\n\nIt makes a noise; just an intake of breath, perhaps, but it's loud.\n\n"<<cyclinglink "Hello?" "Who goes there?" "Make way! I have important business,">>" you say, trying to sound <<continue "confident and clear.">>confident and clear.\n\nIt flinches back. "Hello?" it says.\n\nThat's good: it can talk.\n\n"<<cyclinglink "Hello there," "Greetings, creature!" "Watch out, I'm definitely armed,">>" you say.\n\nIt moves; <<continue "opens its mouth.">>opens its mouth.\n\n"Are you here to pull my branches down?" it says.\n\nYou take a step back and try to look unthreatening. It's hard to tell how big the creature is, but probably as big as you, and it's much higher up, and its arms - snaked through branches protectively - are pretty long.\n\n"No," you say, "no, I'm just looking for a room."\n\n"Oh," it says.\n\n"[[Would you mind if I carry on?|replies]]", you could ask. Or: "[[I seek a fabled room containing all that I desire!|replies]]". Or: "[[But I'll do worse than that if you get in my way...|replies]]".\n\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-book.png" alt="an open book with mysterious writing"></div></html>\nThe trouble with imaginary books of wisdom is that you can never quite make the words out, or there's some vital phrase obscured by a drop of blood, or the pages move flicker-fast past your face. An open book with page after page scratched over, like sentences worn away, or the scratch of ink-treading birds, half-words that don't hang together. Even if you find a book, it probably won't help.\n\n[[Keep going|tower]]. Find out.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-monster.png" alt="an enormous three-headed monster"></div></html>\nYep, there you go. It's not, to be fair, as tall as the towers. When it whips a stone crenellation off the top of a wall with its tail - which it does almost immediately - it can only just reach.\n\nStand firm. Yell up at it: "<<cyclinglink "Monster! Why are you terrorising this castle?" "Step forward no more! Cower, for I have come to wreak vengeance for your wrongs!" "Hoi! You! Bigfoot!">>" That'll show it. Surely.\n\nIt's really, really large though. Really large. And it's grumbling.\n\nIt's grumbling from one of its //three heads//. \n\nIt's grumbling from all of its three heads, in fact, and it's so vast that it hasn't even noticed you.\n\n"Do we have to?" the head on the right asks.\n\n"Stop being so picky," says another, on the left, a head with a small red hat.\n\n"Yeah," the head in the middle agrees. "We voted."\n\n"Sure, we did," says the head on the right, amiably. "And I don't want to be awkward. But, you know."\n\n"No," says the head in the middle. "I don't know." And it whips its tail around again and this time, there's a guard wrapped up in it: a metal figure with flailing arms. The figure isn't moving. Unconscious, perhaps.\n\n<<continue "Watch.">>Watch.\n\nOr dead, you hope, as the centre head bites the guard in half, right through the torso, teeth cleaving straight through armour. It happens in a moment, so fast you don't have time to understand what's going on until the tail has thrown the other half-guard into the mouth of the leftmost head.\n\n"It's just unpleasant," the rightmost head says.\n\n"Mmmfh whmaat youm ssay because youm mnot tmastemed imt," says the middle head, speaking through a full mouth; then it spits something out. A helmet. It lands, clang on the ground, and rolls.\n\nYou have just enough time to notice that it's empty before you look up again and see that - at last - the monster's seen you. First one head, then another, and then finally the last, stops and stares. \n\n[[You're not entirely comfortable with this situation|Oh]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\n<<set $desirescroll = true>><<set $scrolls = $scrolls +1>>You tuck the scroll away.\n\n<<display 'lots of scrolls'>>

History.prototype.stretchText=function(E,C,A){var B=C;while(B&&(B.className.indexOf("passage")==-1)){if(B.parentNode.id!='passages'){B=B.parentNode}else{B=null;break}}if(el=$("passage"+E)){scrollWindowTo(el);return}var D=tale.get(E);this.history.unshift({passage:D,variables:clone(this.history[0].variables)});var F=D.render();if(A!="offscreen"){if(B){$("passages").insertBefore(F,B.nextSibling)}else{$("passages").appendChild(F)}if(A!="quietly"){scrollWindowTo(F);fade(F,{fade:"in"})}}if((A=="quietly")||(A=="offscreen")){F.style.visibility="visible"}return F};\n\nHistory.prototype.oneByOne = function (title, link, render)\n{\n if ((render != 'quietly') && (render != 'offscreen'))\n removeChildren($('passages'));\n \n this.stretchText.apply(this, arguments);\n};\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $clothes = 0>>\n<<set $action = 0>>\n<<set $motivation = 0>>\n<<set $player = 0>>\n<<set $male = 0>>\n<<set $actionscroll = 0>>\n<<silently>><<set $reasonscroll = 0>>\n<<set $desirescroll = 0>>\n<<set $scrolls = 0>>\n<<set $experiencescroll = 0>>\n<<set $friendmale = 0>>\n<<set $analysis>>\n<<set $intent>>\n<<set $nointent>>\n<<set $sing = 0>>\n<<set $epicurean = 0>>\n<<set $ch1robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch2robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch3robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch4robin = 0>>\n<<set $completion = 0>>\n<<set $ch5robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch6robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch7robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch8robin = 0>>\n<<set $ch9robin = 0>>\n<<set $robinno = 0>>\n<<set $blackbirdno = 0>>\n<<set $motivation = "escape">>\n<<set $opinionreaction = 0>>\n<<endsilently>>\n<html><div align="center"><img src="castle-forest-island-sea-opening.png" alt="a castle in a forest on an island in the sea"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 1: Action</h2></div></html>\nRight. It's a long way up, but you're going to be okay.\n\nStand still for a moment. Feel the stone under your feet.\n\n[[Breathe|step 1]].

The corridor at the bottom of the stairs leads is wide, with stones that are smooth under your toes when you take a few tentative steps. It's maybe damp? Or maybe just cold, like everywhere in this wreck of a one-time home.\n\n<<continue "Take a step.">>Take a step.\n\nIt is really really dark. Really. Dark.\n\nThere could be anything ahead.\n\nThere could be <<cyclinglink "a wall." "a monster, there are monsters in castles right?" "a pit, anything, you're just stepping forward and stepping forward but who even knows-" "massive spiderwebs for sure, any moment now." "a maze, maybe you've turned corners without realising and you'll never find your way back." "a light? Is that light? No, it's not light." "there could be, there could be, and the thoughts keep circling around.">> You should stop worrying and keep walking but it's hard to stop running through the possibilities in your head when it's so dark.\n\nAnother step.\n\n[[And another|newstep2]].

"Thank you," she says. "I don't have much to say, really. But can I ask a question?" She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. "Do you think it's possible to be //too// rational? I can't help wondering. I tried very hard, you know. Sometimes I wondered whether I should have defended us more fiercely against the monster, but I did try. Good sense said to stay where I was. Good sense said everyone I sent against the giant perished. And now you've behaved absurdly, irrationally in the extreme if you ask me, risked life and limb, chased your absurd motivation, and it's turned out - well, it's turned out for the best, I suppose, hasn't it?"\n\nShe closes her book.\n\n"It's not," she goes on, "that I blame you. I'm just wondering. Did I do the wrong thing? I didn't mean to be a bad ruler. I don't know if I went about the whole thing the wrong way from the very beginning."\n\nWell. She's been no friend to you, but you as far as you know, she meant you ill. She's staring, at you then at the table and then at the torch on the wall, blinking, and then back at you.\n\nMaybe you can comfort her. "I don't think," you could say, "that striving for rationality can ever be wrong. If you were a bad princess, it wasn't because your aims were the wrong aims." [[You could say that|You could say that.]]. It wouldn't mean you were forgiving anyone.\n\nOr maybe you can't. "Yeah," you could say. "Sorry. I think you did the wrong thing. I think you can be too rational." Maybe you think rationality can be a trap as well as a tool, and the princess fell into it. [[Maybe you think that|Maybe you think that.]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-bird.png" alt="a castle in a forest on an island in the sea"></div></html>\n"Look," the robin says, "it doesn't make sense for anyone to do something if it's not the thing they want to do, the thing that's best-"\n\n"I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm saying it happens anyway, like me even bothering with this interminable conversation. If you believe you shouldn't eat bread, and you eat bread, it's a failure of will. If you believe you should be polite and charming and then you get in a fight with someone who refuses to listen, then that's a failure of will too, it's just caused by frustration and anger instead of gluttony."\n\nThey're not going to stop unless you make them. Interrupt: tell them to [[shush|shut up]], ask them [[what to do]], just [[leave]].\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch9-boat.png" alt="a boat bobbing on the sea, with the island in the background"></div></html>\n\nYou walk through the water to where the boat bobs, and unhook it from the rope that keeps it on the shore. Water laps up over your bare feet and around your calves and higher, waist-deep, and then you clamber in.\n\nIt's well-stocked, of course, with everything you could want on a boat.\n\nYou stand up, and it takes an unsteady moment to get your bearings. Water pools around your feet, dripping out of the tattered brocade you've been tearing on walls and thorns all day. \n\nAnd the boat starts moving.\n\nThe beach retreats: castle so peculiar and twisted, a ridiculous trap; forest around it; the two merging into the indistinct shape of an island, and then giving way to the sea. \n\nDon't worry. Wherever you're going, you'll make it in [[the end]].\n\n<html><div align="center"><img src="birdbook.png" alt="An open book with two birds in it"></div></html>

<<silently>>\n<<set $motivation = "escape">>\n<<endsilently>>Yes, yours is a noble cause, and you will stop at nothing to achieve it! Fighting your way out of this empty wreck, finding your way home again. Stone walls, high towers, vast glaring beasts of the night, confusion, exasperated blackbirds - you'll overcome them all.\n\nAre you quite sure you're going about it the right way, though? [[Long dark corridors]] versus a [[teetering rooftop shortcut]]? Once you start there'll be no turning back.

<<silently>>set $candle = true<<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-candle.png" alt="a lit candle"></div></html>\nThe smoke it gives off is oily, and the candle itself is slick when you touch it, but it's bright. You blow it out, and slide it into your belt.\n\nAs you do, there's a noise behind you: a flurry of air, and a whistling sigh.\n\n[[Turn around]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\nYou don't need this. You put it back where you found it and then take a look at the room again.\n\n<<display 'lots of scrolls'>>

<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<endsilently>>For a moment they open their beaks as if they're going to keep on arguing - but they don't.\n\n"Well," the blackbird says. "You're sturdier than I thought. It sounds like you've got a [[giant to slay|Chapter 7]]."\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch8-tankard.png" alt="a tankard and an open book"></div></html>\n\n"No," she agrees, and takes her crown off and drops it on the table. "I suppose you want this. And these," and she takes another ring of keys off her belt, and slides it towards you, jingle-jangle. "Much joy may they bring you." \n\nYou reach forward and pick them up; <<cyclinglink "weigh the crown in your hand," "put the crown on your head," "drop the crown back on the table,">> maybe. It's lighter than you'd expected. <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>"Where's my friend?" you ask. <<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>"How do I get out of here?" you ask.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>This is it: at last, after all these years outcast.<<endif>>\n\n"Tell me," she says. "Tell me something." She's barely looking at you - staring at the ceiling, and curtains, tapping her hand on the table. "I've tried to do my best, under the circumstances. I've tried to moderate the king's influence, his stranger ideas. I've tried to keep people safe. I'm not claiming to be a hero, but I've measured probabilities. I've taken advice from monsters and humans and birds. I decided it was best to keep everyone in the castle, where the monster couldn't get them. I decided it was best to keep the island under my brother's rule, as moderated by me, rather than throwing it over to anyone whose attitude towards rational behaviour seems more... erratic." And she looks straight at you for the first time, and raises her eyebrows.\n\n"[[Go on]]," you could say. Or: "[[I'm not interested in excuses]]."\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-foot.png" alt="the foot of an enormous monster"></div></html>\nIt's a lot taller than you, and thicker, and it's - it's not a giant; it's a foot.\n\nYou've looked up, but not far enough. <<continue "Further up.">>Further up.\n\nAnd again. [[Keep looking up|look2hiding]]. You'll get there.

<<silently>>\n<<set $clothes = "dress">>\n<<display stretchText>>\n<<endsilently>>Still, you made your choice. Pull the skirts in, gather them up closer. Feel the weight of petticoats in your hands. \n\nThe stairs turn another corner, and so do you. It's okay, it's getting even lighter: there's one of those weird <<continue "narrow windows.">>narrow windows.\n\nOutside, there's a dark blue sky - pre-dawn, post-dusk - and the barely-distinct silhouettes of towers and trees. You're really high up. \n\nIt's going to be fine.\n\nKeep going. [[Slowly, if you like, careful on the craggy steps|slowlyon]], or [[faster; it'll probably be fine. Everything will probably be fine|probfine]].

You don't have time to get back to the tunnel, but there's the [[enormous tree]] to run behind, or [[a crack in the ground]] that you could lower yourself into.

You couldn't stop breathing, of course, even if you wanted to; not for long.\n\nGo on, give it a try.\n\n<<continue "Stop breathing.">>Stop breathing.\n\nJust for a little while, <<continue "don't breathe.">>don't breathe.\n\nKeep it up. Just <<continue "a little longer.">>a little longer.\n\nAnd then [[breathe|startbreathing]] again.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\nYou put it back and look around again.\n\n<<display 'lots of scrolls'>>

As soon as it spits out the helmet the monster seems to get tired; the heads stop talking, and it sinks back against the wall, legs triangled in front of its torso, tail wrapped around like a blanket. \n\nYou can see its immense chest move, in and out. One long neck lowers its head onto a branch of the tree. \n\nAnother, the one with the hat, leans back; the head rests against a wall, covering a whole window.\n\nAnd the final head, the one that didn't eat the guard - it snuffles. Its eyes fall closed. And you wait, and watch the chest move: in, out, in, out.\n\nIt must be safe to [[move]].

The head blinks slowly. "Hello," it says.\n\nYou don't want to wake the other heads up: this one might be a huge strange-eyed fur-covered reptilian creature with a flickering tongue and a hissing demeanour, but at least you didn't just see it devour half a human in a single gulp. "Repent, monster, lest ye perish," you could try.\n\n"Sorry," it says, "but I don't think I'm supposed to talk to you." And it closes its eyes again.\n\n"<<cyclinglink "You're also not supposed to keep killing people like this," "I'm... I'm here to help you," "Quake before my vengeful gaze,">>" you add. \n\nThe monster moves its head a little closer. "Don't be silly," it says, and its eyes fall shut again. It barely even registered your existence. Right.\n\nDon't despair. <<continue "Think.">>Think. You're a hero on a quest; there's bound to be something you can do.\n\nWell, you've got a <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch<<endif>>: and there's a thick network of vines. If you could <<if $sword>>cut them loose<<else>>burn them loose<<endif>> they might [[trap]] the monster.\n\nOr there's the ground, pitted with holes punched by the monster's own feet, with planks and trees and loosely-packed stone barely holding together. If you <<if $sword>>threw the sword just right<<else>>threw the torch just right<<endif>> you might bring it all down and [[kill]] the creature, once and for all.\n

You've stopped walking, you know, standing at the corner between one dark-dark-dark-grey wall and the next dark-dark-grey wall beside it.\n\nStart again. Nearly there.\n\nYour clothes are catching on both walls as the stairs get ever more narrow. You probably should have worn something practical, instead of [[massive pantaloons]] or a [[great big ballgown]].

A lot of discussion about reason and action assumes, at some level, that reason is a good and desirable thing. But is it possible to be //too// rational? Can reason become a bad thing, if there's just too much of it about? Does a focus on reason mean that we fail to take account of our particular passions and tastes, or ignore the role of imagination and spontaneity in making good decisions? \n\nMax Weber (1864-1920) argued that the drive towards rationality and rigour in modern, bureaucratic societies threatens to become 'an iron cage' that restricts people rather than freeing them to pursue their own ends. By emphasising formal rules and efficiency, political and social institutions risk losing sight of the values they were originally supposed to guard. Institutions set up to protect individual liberty end up imposing restrictions on civil liberties and treating individuals as cogs in a machine. Weber is thinking of social institutions, rather than individual people. But it might be suggested that a similar worry might be raised about individual rationality too. Is rationally pursuing one's own happiness - carefully calculating the best action to take in every situation - really the best way to become happy? \n\nWeber, though, is not really attacking rationality, but rather a particular way of understanding it. We needn't think of rational decision-making as a matter of following formal rules or principles or rigidly calculating the pros and cons of every option. Nor do we need to assume that rational decision-making can't be imaginative and creative too. Reason might not be the //only// mark of good decision-making, but it might be worth having, all the same.\n\n\nRead more about [[Action]], [[Reason]], [[Desire]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Will]] and [[Collective Responsibility]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-monster.png" alt="a three-headed monster"></div></html>\nIt's really, really large though. Really large. And it's grumbling.\n\nIt's grumbling from one of its //three heads//. \n\nIt's grumbling from all of its three heads, in fact, and it's so vast that it hasn't even noticed you.\n\n<<continue "Listen.">>Listen.\n\n"Do we have to?" the head on the right asks.\n\n"Stop being so picky," says another, on the left, a head with a small red hat.\n\n"Yeah," the head in the middle agrees. "We voted."\n\n"Sure, we did," says the head on the right, amiably. "And I don't want to be awkward. But, you know."\n\n"No," says the head in the middle. "I don't know." And the creature whips its tail around again and this time, there's a guard wrapped up in it: a metal figure with flailing arms. \n\n<<continue "Watch.">>Watch.\n\nThe figure isn't moving. Unconscious, perhaps.\n\nOr dead, you hope, as the centre head bites the guard in half, right across the torso, teeth cleaving straight through armour. It happens in a moment, so fast you don't have time to understand what's going on until the tail has thrown the other half-guard into the mouth of the leftmost head.\n\n"It's just unpleasant," the rightmost head says.\n\n"Mmmfh whmaat youm ssay because youm mnot tmastemed imt," says the middle head, speaking through a full mouth; then it spits something out. A helmet. It lands, clang on the ground, and rolls.\n\nWell. It's lucky you're hiding, you suppose. You try to be [[very very quiet]].

It flies to the table, drops its carrot near the eggs. Pecks. Swallows. Pecks again.\n\nYou wait.\n\n"I don't know how you'd get there," it says at last. "I mean, without flying. But it's not far. It's out the window and left, then over the top of the building and in through the big blue window at the other side."\n\nThat's not going to work for you. "I can't fly," you say.\n\nThe blackbird interrupts; tilts its head to one side. "And we can't open doors. But it can't be that far, if it's what you really want. It must be that way."\n\nThe blackbird nods at the wall opposite the window: [[three wooden doors]].

The birds open their beaks, then shut them, then open them again.\n\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>"Well," the blackbird says. "That depends." \n\nThe robin joins in. "How do you feel about the king?"\n\n"[[You're right about him|ch6robin]]," you might say to the robin. "He's doing exactly what he wants. There isn't a problem with his willpower; there's a problem with him. And I need to solve it."\n\nOr maybe you'll nod to the blackbird: "[[He's weak|ch6blackbird]], like you say. But I'm not."

As you lower yourself into a crack in the ground, you feel the ground shake around you. Something's coming closer.\n\n<<timedcontinue 5s>>And closer.\n\n<<timedcontinue 2s>>And closer.\n \n<<timedcontinue 2s>>[[Look up|look1hiding]].

What do people really want, deep down? Epicurus (341-270BCE) had a simple answer to this. What people want, he said, is pleasure, and in particular, a life free from anxiety and stress. And because this is what people really want, it's also what it's rational for us to pursue.\n\nIn the 1970s Robert Nozick (1938-2002) developed a thought experiment - known as “the Experience Machine” - designed to refute this kind of view. The Experience Machine, in Nozick's story, is designed to produce a lifetime of pleasant experiences. It gives us the perfectly calculated amount of failure to ensure that our successes feel triumphant. It ensures that we always (seem to) make the best decision. It lets us feel risk but never truly experience it. It provides us (or rather, seems to provide us) with friends and family, health and fortune but never requires us to fill in tax returns or get up early. But none of this is //real//: all that's real is the pleasure.\n\nIf Epicurus was right, Nozick argued, people should want to plug themselves into the Experience Machine. But (Nozick though) it's clear that, given the choice, most people wouldn't make this choice. People prefer real life, even when it's less pleasant. So there must be something else that people want - something other than pleasure. \n\nExperimental philosophers have tested Nozick's thought experiment, and the results are - well - complicated. There's a substantial minority of people who say they would plug themselves into the Experience Machine; more who would plug themselves in if they had the option of reversing the decision, or who wouldn't plug themselves in but don't think that they'd //un//plug either. Perhaps Epicurus' mistake was in assuming that everyone wants the //same// thing. Or perhaps the Experience Machine thought experiment provides a good way to raise the question, but not such a good way to settle it.\n\n\nRead more about [[Action]], [[Reason]], [[Desire]], [[Will]], [[Collective Responsibility]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

At first you think it didn't work: there's a rumble, but this is a strange dark castle and there are always rumbles. But then it grows, and grows, and the walls shake, and the honeycomb of holes beneath the monster begins to grow, each gap falling in on itself, growing wider and wider and darker and crumbling until suddenly - all at once - there's just a hole, and the monster tumbling into it, heads blinking open their eyes for a moment as they start to fall.\n\nClouds of dirt fly up; stones tumble; the necks thrash, each with its own shouting head. The tiny red hat flies from one of the heads, tumbling through the air, over and over, and lands on the ground by your feet.\n\nThrough the network of branches and fallen walls, down in the ground deep below, you can just make out the monster, staring up at you; its heads, its thrashing tail. And then a roar, so loud: three notes at once as the heads yell in furious concert.\n\nIt's going to be pretty difficult to feed, now that you've trapped it, you realise as you watch it try to clamber up, and fail.\n\nWhen you turn away from the sight, [[the birds|the birds turn up]] have joined you.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\nYou take the scroll to read later. <<set $actionscroll = true>><<set $scrolls = $scrolls +1>><<display 'lots of scrolls'>>

you mention that.\n\n"Which is a bit more like it," the blackbird acknowledges. "At least you had to try."

<<set $ch4robin = true>><<set $epicurean = $epicurean + 1>><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>>The robin exudes kindness: "It was good," it says. "And that's what matters."\n\nThe blackbird is still looking at you, steady, unmoving. "It's not real," it says. "If you stay in the book you'll never really <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>see your friend again<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>get off the island<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>reclaim your castle<<endif>>."\n\n"It'll feel like you did," the robin says. "Only better."\n\nYou could [[open the book again|Open the book again]]. Maybe this time you'd stay. It's a good place; that's more important than the fact that it's imaginary, right? That's what you just said.\n\nOr change your mind and [[leave right now|But it's not real]]: that's okay too. The door's right there.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch8-princess.png" alt="a woman in a bedchamber, sitting at a desk"></div></html>\n\nA woman in a red dress and a crown looks up. She's sat by an open book and a tankard of something warm, steam rising in the still-cold air of the afternoon. The princess, then; the king's sister. Her eyes drop to the key in your hand. "You survived," she says. "That's unexpected."\n\n"<<cyclinglink "I did," "Verily, right is on my side and adorns me as my armour," "Well spotted, there,">>" you reply.\n\n"I'm not saying it's unwelcome //per se//," she continues. "Just unexpected." And she closes the book.\n\n<<if $motivation eq "birthright">>"I've come to take the castle back,"<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">>"I've come to collect my friend,"<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>"I've had enough of this place,"<<endif>> you say.\n\n"Of //course// you have," she replies. "Things must have been so difficult for you. And haven't you proven that you deserve your heart's desire? Haven't you proven your worth? With your... <<if $clothes eq "pants">>billowing pants<<else>>jewel-encrusted gown<<endif>>, and your terribly lucky scamper <<if $method eq "roof">>across the rooftops<<else>>through collapsing tunnels<<endif>>, <<if $egg>>and an egg tucked in your pocket like a talisman, <<endif>><<if $candle>>and a candle tucked in your belt like it might help you, <<endif>>and scrolls and sidekick birds and the most unlikely giant-slaying I've ever heard of. Haven't you shown yourself a hero?"\n\nThe words are kind, but the tone is more ambiguous: tired? Angry? Or just tired?\n\nYou respond: "[[Quake before me, for I have triumphed at last|Quake before me, monster]]," perhaps, or "[[I don't see why this should be difficult. My grudge is not with you|Let's not make this harder than it needs to be]]."

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-staircase.png" alt="a staircase leading upwards"></div></html>\nWide stairs crane upwards. The stone under your toes is gritty and cold and - sometimes, every now and then - damp.\n\n[[Keep breathing|step 3]]. Take another step.

The first paragraph opens with a question:\n\n//Are you rational? Do you even know what it is to be rational?//\n\nWell. That's a bit confrontational.\n\n//Of course you don't: nobody does, not for sure. Some people think that if you can justify your act in terms of your own goals and beliefs and desires, then it's rational, and that's all there is to say. //<<if $ch2robin>>//It sounds like you agree: you made your decisions based on what you knew, and you'll stand by them, even if it turns out they were unwise.//<<else>>//It sounds like you don't agree. It sounds like you think it should be possible to be objectively rational.//<<endif>> //It sounds like you don't agree. It sounds like you think that the rational decision is the one that's correct from an objective point of view.//\n\nYou can [[take the scroll with you|takereason]] for later, if you want to read more, or [[put it back down|returnreason]].

Keep breathing, and keep walking up. This is fine: you're clever, you're level-headed, you know what you're doing. You're a [[brave young woman|female]] or a [[bright young man|male]], maybe, or a [[man who is no stranger|male]] to stairways and stone and darkness, or a [[woman with a high degree of expertise|female]] in emerging unscathed from dangerous situations. Any of those things could easily be true.

<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<endsilently>>There's a door at the end of the corridor, not quite closed.\n\n[[Time to push it open.|Chapter 4]]\n\n

You jump up and down, but can't reach. It's not until the creature hands you a single branch that you get anywhere, raising it above your head and prying the others loose. They're jammed in hard, and when they fall down they do it suddenly. One branch almost falls on your head; another brings a loose brick down with it. <<if $candle>>You eventually blow the candle out and put it back in a pocket, to give yourself two hands to work with.<<endif>>\n\nThe creature stands next to you, its long nose twitching. Half of the branches have come down; then three quarters; then all except one, high up in a corner, that you flail at, jumping with the branch in your hand.\n\n<<continue "Jump.">>Jump.\n\n"THAT ONE TOO," the creature yells, twitching. "That one!" and you jump again, over and over before you finally knock the last branch loose.\n\n"And that one, that one," the creature says, staring at you - no, at the branch in your hand.\n\nYou let it <<continue "drop to the floor.">>drop to the floor. <<timedcontinue 1s>>Thump. \n\nThe creature bends its tiny legs, drapes its long arms over the branches and the dust and the broken bricks. "Thank you," it says, and nestles its face into them, leaving the door to you. "Thank you." \n\nWell, at least it's happy. Really confusing, but happy.\n\nThe door's not even properly shut; you push and it swings open, and you can see [[the room]] beyond.

<<set $sing = true>>The wind pulls the sound away. But never mind.\n\nI mean, maybe you don't need to do anything. You made it to the tower, right? You're here. That's the important thing.\n\nYou <<continue "turn around.">>turn around and the birds are there again; sheltering in the relative calm of the tower, probably? In normal circumstances, it would be strange to see three different types of bird hanging out together, but these aren't normal circumstances.\n\nFor one thing, the birds are [[talking|birds1]].\n

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"It's just through this door," the robin says.\n\n"But you need to think about what you actually want," the blackbird says. "And whether this is a good idea."\n\n<<if $motivation eq "rescue">>"I just want my friend back," you say. "And I want us both to be safe and I want to get out of here."<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>"I want to leave," you say. "I want to go somewhere else that isn't a castle or a forest or an island or a sea. Somewhere different. Somewhere not here."<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>"I want everything that's mine," you say. "I want my castle back, and my crown, and my kingdom and my people and my power."<<endif>>\n\n"And why do you want that? Do you really think it's sensible?" It's the blackbird again, and your little tantrum seems to have had an impact: it's calmer than before, talking slowly.\n\n"<<cyclinglink "Of course," "I don't know," "Compared to what? A monster that wants its house torn down?">>" you say.\n\nThe robin [[flutters]].\n\n

When one country declares war on another, should individual citizens ever be held responsible - even if they weren't directly involved in the decision? Should an employee be held responsible for what their company does? Is it rational for someone to feel guilty about their ancestors' behaviour? \n\nIn one view, the answer to all these questions is 'no'. Only individuals can make decisions and perform actions. And so only individuals can be held responsible for what they, as individuals, do. When we talk about countries or companies as if they were agents, we're just using a kind of shorthand: when we say that one country declared war on another, we just mean that particular individuals in the government declared war. It's those individuals who should be held responsible for what they - as individuals - have done. The political philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) argued that holding individuals responsible for things they haven't done themselves is unfair, and undermines individual freedom.\n\nOther philosophers argue that groups can sometimes be seen as agents, and that individuals can sometimes be held morally responsible for what a group has done. Philosophers disagree about the circumstances under which this can happen: perhaps what matters is that there's a sense of solidarity between members of the group; or that everyone has profited from what has happened; or that individual members have not actively dissented from the group's decisions. There's room for disagreement, too, about what collective responsibility might imply: does collective responsibility ever legitimise collective //punishment//? \n\n\nRead more about [[Action]], [[Reason]], [[Desire]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Will]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch3-door2.png" alt="a corridor leading towards a dark archway"></div></html>\nThere's an archway ahead of you, and another door to the right, and a passage to the right as well. You don't know which one is right. You don't even know if the door was the right door in the first place.\n\nBut you can't waste time for ever. [[Head onwards|going forward]] or [[go back|three wooden doors]].\n\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-bird.png" alt="birds perching"></div></html>\nYou yell after him, perhaps, or batter on the door. Maybe you throw a goblet across the room? That might help.\n\n(It doesn't help.)\n\n"There's no call for violence," the blackbird says. The robin pecks at a slice of roast pumpkin, pulling threads and seeds away from the flesh. \n\n"<<cyclinglink "What sort of a king hides himself away and feasts while his citizens are under threat?" "Are you sure? I kind-of think there is," "Let me have a bit of the roast duck, then,">>" you say.\n\nThe blackbird [[shrugs]].

created by <html><a href="http://hideandseek.net">Hide&Seek</a></html> for <html><a href=" http://www.open.edu/openlearn/">The Open University</html>

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch8-crumblingwall.png" alt="a crumbling wall"></div></html>\nYou walk past lichen-covered walls, crumbling, dark but gradually growing lighter. \n\nAnd then a gap, leading out. Not out of the castle; tall stone towers are still around you. Some of them are whole. Some are half-torn-down, their stone cast off into slow piles. \n\nOut into a courtyard, though. You look at the <<replace "walls">>dark walls and their ragged tops<<endreplace>> and the <<replace "holes in the ground">>gaps in the ground which - you realise - look an awful lot like footprints plunged through stone<<endreplace>>. You look at the trees, which are big and twisted and matted with dirt. You look at the sky, which is a long way away.\n\nYou almost don't notice the thump, thump, thump in the distance, not until it's very close indeed.\n\nOh.\n\nTime to [[ready yourself]], then. Or maybe time to [[hide]].

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<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<endsilently>>\nThe blackbird exudes smugness: "It isn't real," it says. "And it's not good enough."\n\nThe robin is still looking at you, steady, unmoving. "It's the easiest way," it says, "and it would make you happier than anything else. If you don't use the book, you might never <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>see your friend again<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>get off the island<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>reclaim your castle<<endif>>."\n\nYou could [[leave right now|But it's not real]]: there's a door to one side. Or you could [[open the book again|Open the book again]].

You can tell straight away when it does get lighter, somewhere in the distance. You didn't realise how slowly you were walking until suddenly it feels safe to speed up.\n\nIt's a warm light, not the blue-grey of daylight, and when you round a corner it takes you a moment to adjust; you see a staircase leading up, nineteen steps that you count out loud as you walk them, then a thick wooden door, yellow-orange spilling underneath it onto stone that's a lot dirtier than you'd realised.\n\nYou don't know if this is the room you were looking for, but it's something, right?\n\nYou might as well [[push the door open]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="robin2.png" alt="a smug robin"></div></html>\n<<silently>><<set $ch1robin = true>><<set $nointent = $nointent + 1>><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>><<endsilently>>The robin resettles its wings in acknowledgement, and chirps. The blackbird hops.\n\n<<timedcontinue 1s>>Hops again. Flutters.\n\n<<timedcontinue 2s>>The blackbird throws its head back. Looks forward again.\n\n<<timedcontinue 2s>>"Well," it says. "I don't know what I was expecting."\n\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>Jumps and swoops down and its wings thrum, and it rises and dives over the edge of the tower, down to all the distant island that it's just too dark to make out.\n\nThe robin turns its head, calls out after, then falls silent.\n\n<<timedcontinue 4s>>Sits.\n\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>"Sorry about that," it says finally, and then launches after the blackbird, out into the sky. The owl shifts slowly, and lets its eyes close.\n\n<<timedcontinue 4s>>Well. [[Just you, then|Chapter 2]].\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-opentrap.png" alt="an open trapdoor"></div></html>\nSo far, so good.\n\n<<continue "And again.">>And again.\n\nAnd again, and again; six, seven, twelve, fourteen, twenty-three and you're really getting into the swing of it now. Step, adjust, move hand, step, adjust, move hand. You're good at this! You could keep doing this for ever and that would be //fine//, because it's quite easy really and it doesn't involve a three-headed giant.\n\nBut the thirty-seventh step hits ground. Oh. \n\nLook up. <<replace "A square of light in the not-too-distant distance.">>It doesn't matter what's up there; you're down here now.<<endreplace>>\n\nLook around instead.\n\nA tunnel, and a circle at the end - daylight, pale blue instead of warm orange torchlight. All right. You're outdoors.\n\nThere's only one way to go: [[head towards the light]].

<html><div align="center"><h2>About This Story</h2></div></html>\n"Castle, Forest, Island, Sea" is a choose-your-own-adventure story that explores key questions in philosophy. If you are interested in this subject, you may wish to have a look at the <html><b><a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/find/philosophy">courses we have on offer</a></b></html>.\n\nThe game takes around 30 minutes, and there are nine chapters exploring different key areas. As you navigate through the story, the game will build up an idea of how you feel about these key questions, and at the end of the game you'll receive an analysis of your choices and a map of how your opinions compare to different philosophers through the ages.\n\nYou can read about [[how to play|How to Play]], look at the [[table of contents|Table of Contents]], or just...\n\n...just [[open your eyes]].

For a moment they open their beaks as if they're going to keep on arguing - but they don't.\n\n<<silently>><<set $ch6robin = true>><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>><<endsilently>>"Well," the robin says. "It sounds like you've got a [[giant to slay|Chapter 7]]."\n\n

<<set $female = true>>All you need to do now is keep it together, stay calm, stay in control, and<<continue " WATCH OUT">> WATCH OUT... a bird flies past, air in your face as you bend to one side, and then another flies after it and you're off-balance and you're not quite sure whether you're about to fall a very long way down.\n\nYou grab at a brick in the wall as you lean back, but it's loose; it comes away and quick, move your foot, don't lose your balance as THUD it hits the step below and then the next and then the next, all the long way down.\n\nIt's okay. You're breathing too fast. <<continue "Slower.">>Slower.\n\nKeep walking up, and be careful because the steps are wonky, and maybe keep one hand on the wall (even if you can't quite trust it), and [[keep breathing|keepbreathingagain]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-birds.png" alt="birds sitting on a hat"></div></html>\nThey fly down to land on the hat.\n\n"Well," the blackbird says. "That went a lot better than I expected."\n\n"<<cyclinglink "When right is on your side, failure is impossible," "You should not doubt me so, little bird," "You're a bit of a pessimist though, let's face it,">>" you reply.\n\n"I suppose it went well," the robin says. "It's a bit sad for poor Rowley, though."\n\n"You're always making excuses for poor Rowley-" \n\n"-it's not her fault her other heads were so unfriendly-"\n\n...right. Another fight, then.\n\n"Look, what's the problem this time?" [[you demand]].

<<set $method = "roof">>No, probably best to stick to the towertops, see where you're going, keep your goal in sight. As the sun comes up, that one bright window is going to be harder to pick out. You don't want to lose it altogether.\n\nIt's not easy to climb onto the tower walls, but you jam your foot into one of the narrow windows, and clamber, and teeter just a little bit and then you're there, ready to <<continue "get on with it.">>get on with it.\n\nYou've got an eight-foot drop to the wall below, which looks sturdy but slick with lichen. They build castles to last, though, so it's at least a foot wide. It's <<cyclinglink "fine" "definitely fine" "not really fine, but look, just pretend it is and get on with it">>.\n\nOf course, now that you're up here you can see just how far down the ground is. All those steps you walked up, one at a time - each of those steps is a space beneath you, an extra six inches to tumble if your footing goes wrong.\n\nIt won't, of course. You'll be fine. If you [[keep your balance]], it's this wall, then a rooftop, then it looks like another wall leading right to the window.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\nThe pennants are <<cyclinglink "red" "gold" "black" "green" "purple" "silver" "all the colours of the rainbow">>. Each castle window welcomes you with <<cyclinglink "open shutters" "warm lights shining in the dark" "the distant sound of laughter and cheers">>.\n\nAnd right in front of the drawbridge: <<cyclinglink "your subjects, shouting, waving, calling your name" "your treacherous uncle's head on a spike, blood pooled on the ground below" "your loyal dog, running towards you full pelt - your probably had a loyal dog, right?">>. \n\nEverything's just as it should be.\n\nThe breeze rises for a moment, and flutters the pages of the book. When you glance down, you see more words, and an illustration: two birds. They look familiar.\n\n[[Leave the book open|In the book]] or [[slam it shut]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-throneroom.png" alt="a king sits sleepily on a throne by a richly-laid table"></div></html>\nHe shrugs. And in a way, he's right not to care: here you are, desperately brandishing <<if $sword>>an inexpert sword<<else>>a sputtering torch<<endif>>, dressed in <<if $clothes eq "pants">>ragged gold pantaloons<<else>>a ragged gold ballgown<<endif>>, confronted by armoured guards twice your size, so angry, so filled with the desire to right all wrongs, but what can you do?\n\n"<<cyclinglink "I've come to fix everything," "Cower! For you have wronged me, and you have wronged this land," "You could at least stop eating fruit,">>" you say.\n\nThe king takes another bite of his peach, and looks at you. He's a very tidy eater; no juice running down his beard, no stains on his robes. (They're probably ermine.)\n\n[["Why did you do it?"|kingresponse]] you could ask. Find out what makes him tick. Or state your position clearly: [["I'm here to make things right."|kingresponse]]

You stop feeling your way; you take the steps two at a time, thump thump thump, arms pushed out to brace against the walls if you slip, breathing faster and harder until you can't hear the wind outside. The light is dark grey, then mid-grey, then light grey, and then one more corner and [[a rush of air]].

Are you quite sure you're going about it the right way, though? [[Long dark corridors]] versus a [[teetering rooftop shortcut]]? Once you start there'll be no turning back.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-opentrap.png" alt="an open trapdoor"></div></html>\nYou have to put your <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch<<endif>> down again to pull the trapdoor open; there's a thick skreeek as you do, rust flaking and metal grating against metal.\n\nThe ladder below descends into darkness. Right.\n\n<<if $clothes eq "pants">>More shreds of your golden pantaloons catch on the edge of the trapdoor as you<<else>>Your billowing gold ballgown catches on the edge of the trapdoor, and you have to pull it loose in order to<<endif>> lower yourself down. Don't forget the <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch<<endif>>: it's going to be an awkward one-handed descent, but stick with it, don't despair. Besides, if you occupy yourself with a difficult climb, you won't have time to think too much about the giant at the bottom.\n\n[[Climb down a rung|Climb down a step]].

You'll just get lost if you go downstairs, after all. Better to stay up here, where you can see where you're going. Pick your way over the walls, through the trees, across rooftops.\n\nOver really, really high walls. Through thorny trees. Across derelict rooftops.\n\nIt'll be fine. It'll definitely be [[fine]].

[[How to Play]]\n[[Table of Contents]]

Reason is the ability of a human to engage in rational, conscious processes in order to make sense of the world and interact with it. But what exactly are rational, conscious processes? What makes something rational, or irrational, or somewhere in between?\n\nPhilosophers sometimes distinguish between "subjective rationality" and "objective rationality". A decision is said to be subjectively rational if it makes sense in the light of your beliefs and goals, whatever they happen to be. A decision is said to be objectively rational if it's the right decision, judged by some external standard - for example, if it's the decision that it was really in your interests to make. If you spend all your savings on a fashionable ball gown or splendid pantaloons, your decision might be subjectively rational. But if the end result is bankruptcy, perhaps your decision wasn't rational in the objective sense.\n\nIt's not obvious, though, that objective rationality is really a kind of rationality. If you make a poor decision just because you had the wrong information, you haven't made a mistake in your //reasoning//. Perhaps you were just unlucky. Or to put it the other way round: suppose that you make a really good decision just by guesswork, or by tossing a coin, it might seem a bit odd to say that your decision was a //rational// one - even if your decision was the correct one, from an objective point of view. \n\nSo some philosophers think that the only kind of rationality is //subjective// rationality. But others think that this goes a bit too far. They agree, perhaps, that someone can't be called irrational just because they're unlucky enough to have the wrong //information//; but they can be called irrational if they're chasing the wrong //goals//. That takes us to another question - a question about desire…\n\n\nRead more about [[Desire]], [[Action]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Will]], [[Collective Responsibility]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

<<silently>><<set $ch9robin = true>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch9-castle.png" alt="a castle in a forest on an island in the sea"></div></html>\n\nThere's no point in pretending that you can leave. It's a strange, confusing place, this castle, but it's home.\n\nYou'll learn the shortcuts, and the corners to avoid, and maybe you'll rebuild some of the walls and sort out the rubble and everything will make just a little more sense. But if not, that's okay too. \n\nYou're in a castle in a forest on an island in the sea, and the sun is moving lower and lower, sending late-afternoon golden sunlight diagonally through the trees. It might not quite make sense, but it's not such a bad place. You'll get used to it in [[the end]].\n\n<html><div align="center"><img src="birdbook.png" alt="An open book with two birds in it"></div></html>

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-bookroom.png" alt="A closed book"></div></html>\nThe cover is still heavy, still warm. The pages move slowly against each other; it's harder to shut than it should be. And the moment it closes, you're back in the room you left - a low ceiling, a rickety table, a threadbare rug like the memory of grass.\n\nOh.\n\nRight.\n\n[[Open the book again|In the book]], or [[turn around]].

So here you are, trapped on a ledge with nothing except your <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch - miraculously still alight<<endif>> and something that, on closer examination, turns out to be the feather from the helmet of a guard that you just saw eaten before your eyes. \n\nWell.\n\nNot much to do about that, then.\n\nThe monster is curled up on itself and breathing regularly; you can see its immense chest move, in and out. One long neck lowers its head onto a branch of the tree. \n\nAnother, the one with the hat, leans back; the head rests against a wall, covering a whole window.\n\nAnd the final head, the one that didn't eat the guard - it snuffles. Its eyes fall closed, but it's restless, you think, or hope.\n\nYou whisper: "[[Pssst|pssst!]]!"

You can hear something along the corridor, you think - heavy and quick, like a distant piece of machinery, or a not-so-distant king at rest (fat and robed with a crown tilted down over his eyes, snoring heftily, in-out, in-out).\n\n<<continue "Take a step.">>Take a step.\n\nIt is really really dark. Really. Dark.\n\nThere could be anything ahead.\n\nThere could be <<cyclinglink "a wall." "a monster, there are monsters in castles right?" "a pit, anything, you're just stepping forward and stepping forward but who even knows-" "massive spiderwebs for sure, any moment now." "a maze, maybe you've turned corners without realising and you'll never find your way back." "a light? Is that light? No, it's not light." "there could be, there could be, and the thoughts keep circling around.">> You should stop worrying and keep walking but it's hard to stop running through the possibilities in your head when it's so dark.\n\nAnother step.\n\n[[And another|newstep2]].

Thank you for playing //Castle, Forest, Island, Sea//, a game exploring key questions in philosophy. If you are interested in this subject, you may wish to have a look at the <html><b><a href="http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/qualification/arts-and-humanities/philosophy/index.htm">courses we have on offer</a></b></html>.\n\nIf you'd like to read any more about the topics explored in the game, then have a look at these quick introductions to [[Reason]], [[Action]], [[Desire]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Will]], [[Collective Responsibility]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history (and some bickering birds).

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-trapdoor.png" alt="a trapdoor in a corner"></div></html>\n<html><div align "center"><h2>Chapter 7: Responsibility</h2></div></html>\nYou look at the doors around the room.\n\n"Over there," the blackbird says. Back in the treasury? "No. There."\n\nOh. Right. An alcove in the corner, and - of course - a trapdoor.\n\nWell.\n\n[[This is going to be okay.]]

"It's just," it says, "it's a long time since someone pulled my home down." And it lowers itself to the ground, hanging from one long arm and then dropping the rest of the way. Yeah, it's at least as big as you.\n\n"I'm glad to hear it," you try, <<continue "edging backwards.">>edging backwards.\n\n"Such a long time," it adds, stepping toward you. "If you wanted to, I mean I wouldn't like to be any trouble but if you wanted to pull the branches down that would be all right."\n\n<<continue "They're a long way up.">>They're a long way up: you definitely couldn't reach. Not even to pull something down and use it to protect yourself, and you're beginning to wish you could: this is a really odd creature. \n\n"Do... do you want me to pull them down?" you say.\n\nIt nods, so eager, and the words come tumbling out of its mouth so fast you can barely distinguish them. "Would you? //Would you// wouldyou wouldyou?"\n\n"//Why?//" you ask, reasonably enough you think, but it blinks its eyes at you in confusion. \n\n"...it would be nice," it says eventually, tentatively, a little bit abashed. But then it grows bolder: "It would be //so// nice."\n\nYou could [[give it a try]], you suppose. Or you could just [[run past]] - there's a clear path to the door now.

<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<set $intent = $intent + 1>><<endsilently>>\n<html><div align="center"><img src="blackbird2.png" alt="a smug blackbird"></div></html>\nThe blackbird chirps smugly back at you. "Quite right," it says, and hops.\n\n<<timedcontinue 1s>>Hops again. Flutters.\n\n<<timedcontinue 2s>>The robin sighs, tilts its head. "Really?" it says. You didn't expect the reaction to be this strong.\n\n<<timedcontinue 2s>>"Well," it says, "never mind. It was nice meeting you."\n\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>Then it jumps and swoops down and its wings thrum, and it rises and dives over the edge of the tower, down to all the distant island that it's just too dark to make out.\n\nThe blackbird turns its head, calls out, then falls silent.\n\n<<timedcontinue 4s>>Sits.\n\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>"You're quite right," it says finally, and then launches after the robin, out into the sky. The owl shifts slowly, and lets its eyes close.\n\n<<timedcontinue 4s>>Well. [[Just you, then|Chapter 2]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-sword.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\n<<silently>><<set $sword = true>><<endsilently>>It takes two hands; you hold it up as best you can, point it out in front of you. Tip high, you think you read somewhere, or maybe tip low? Tip definitely away from you, in any case.\n\nYou step towards the curtain.\n\nSilence.\n\n[[Forward|Chapter 6]].

<<silently>><<set $blackbirdno = $blackbirdno + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="robin1.png" alt="a disappointed robin"></div></html>\nThe robin's head drops. "You're not very forgiving, are you?" it says, then flies up from the hat to a branch above, and then a branch above that.\n\nThe blackbird doesn't follow. "Your moral fortitude surprises me," it says; then it hops off the hat, pecks at the brim, and pulls out a key. "I think you might be able to use [[this|Chapter 8]]."

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-birds.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\nThe rest of the room is half-treasury, half-junkshop, with the birds perched among it, flapping from a pile of green-glowing jewels to a cracked teapot and back. A <<replace "globe">>globe with a map of the world that shows only three continents, and one of those upside-down, you realise as you examine it more closely<<endreplace>>. A <<replace "mirror">>mirror with a long crack down the middle, and a thick gold frame<<endreplace>>. A <<replace "crown">>crown-shaped piece of tin, with paint flaking off<<endreplace>>.\n\nA <<replace "sword.">>real proper sword, heavy in your hands, sharp along the edges. Put it down carefully.<<endreplace>>\n\nA <<replace "torch.">>torch that's set loosely in the wall; you tug it and it comes out, and you direct its arc of light into the corners before you put it back. Insects scuttle away, fast.<<endreplace>>\n\nAnd there's another scroll. This one's labelled: [[YOU|YOU.]].

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 5: A Treasury of Sorts</h2></div></html>\nYou've found another grim dark room: what a surprise. It's cramped and musty but perhaps it would have seemed an astonishment of riches, a superfluity of delights, back before you opened the book. Velvet curtains, barely moth-eaten at all, cover dark wooden drawers; tables overflow with gold and silver (only a little tarnished). Weapons. A strange jug inlaid with jewels, for mead perhaps? Mead sounds like the sort of thing people drink, right? \n\nAnd scrolls: [[lots of scrolls|interim]].\n\nThe birds fly through after you, and descend on a chest in the corner to bicker among themselves. The owl's back. You're past caring, really.

What counts as an action? Is an action defined by its outcome, the thing you achieve - climbing a staircase, pulling out a brick? Is it a physical movement - the movement of your legs as you climb the stairs, your hand reaching out as you try to steady yourself? Or is it something that happens inside your head - your mentally trying to do something? \n\nThere's another question waiting in the wings. Suppose that we decide that an action is a physical movement: even so, you might not want to say that //all// your physical movements are actions of yours. Sneezing or falling over are physical movements all right; but on the face of it, they're not things that you //do//, but things that just happen to you. So what's the difference?\n\nOne simple theory of action, as set out by Donald Davidson (1917-2003), is that an action is a physical movement that you intend to produce. According to Davidson, then, climbing the stairs is an action because you meant to do it. But sneezing, he thinks, isn't an action: you don't intend to sneeze. But what about knocking the brick? You didn't mean to do that. So is that an action or not? Davidson would say that it's an action because an intention //lies behind it//: you meant to steady yourself - even if you didn't mean to knock the brick.\n\nIt's not clear that this account fits all cases, though. How about biting your fingernails distractedly while you think about something else? You're not biting your fingernails because you intend to: even so, biting your fingernails doesn't seem to be something that just happens to you. Take it a step further: suppose you instinctively reach out to catching a knife by its blade as it falls. Certainly, you didn't mean to do it. But is that an action, all the same? Perhaps what matters is that you could have stopped yourself if you tried. But then is breathing an action? After all, you can stop breathing if you try. \n\nThe complicated relationship between consequence, intention and action means that there's an equally complicated relationship between action and responsibility. Certainly it doesn't look as if people can be held responsible for //everything// they do; and it doesn't look as if people can be held responsible //only// for their actions, either. \n\n\nRead more about [[Reason]], [[Desire]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Will]], [[Collective Responsibility]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-bird.png" alt="a castle in a forest on an island in the sea"></div></html>\n"Humans aren't cut out for this sort of thing," the blackbird says. "You lot can barely rule your own passions; why would anyone expect you to rule each other? You're too weak-willed." The tone isn't hostile: it's more an observation than a criticism.\n\nYou've grown used to the robin hopping to your defence, and it does, but it's not quite as... wholehearted as it could be. "There's no such thing as weak will," it says. "What would that even mean?"\n\n"I'm not having this argument again," the blackbird responds. The robin, of course, isn't listening.\n\n<<continue "But you are.">>But you are.\n\nThe robin pecks a piece of bread, then swallows. "Bread isn't good for me," it says. "I'm supposed to have seeds and peanuts and cheese. But I'm having bread anyway. That doesn't mean I'm //weak-willed//, it just means I've made my own decision about what I want. What I really want now is bread, not some speculative increase in feather lustre."\n\n"It means," the blackbird says, "that you have almost as little control over yourself as <<if $male>>him<<else>>her<<endif>>, or the king in there," and it jerks its head towards the door just closed. "It means you're barely one step away from letting a giant dismantle your walls while you sit and wait for someone to roast you a new hog. It means you can know what's best, and fail to carry through on it. If that's not weak will, then what is it?"\n\n"I thought," the robin says sharply, "you weren't having this argument again."\n\n"Well," the blackbird responds, "apparently I'm too weak-willed for my own good as well."\n\nYou could yell at them to [[shut up]], if you liked. Or you could keep on [[listening|listenbicker]].\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-birds.png" alt="birds sitting on a hat"></div></html>\n"Nothing," the robin said. "It just seems a bit hard on Rowley. She gave me a really good suggestion for where to nest, once. She never smashed a tower down. She never killed anyone."\n\nThe blackbird scoffs. "She digested plenty of people, though. She let Grubb and Nallen eat whoever they wanted."\n\n"You can't blame her just for being nearby when the other heads were hungry." The robin is very, very forgiving. Possibly a little too forgiving. You remember the guard bitten in half, the spat-out helmet, the monster's casual digestive nap.\n\n"But she wasn't just nearby. She was part of them. She had just as much control of the body as the other two and-"\n\n"She couldn't have //stopped// them-"\n\n"-she could have made it a lot more difficult to keep the whole castle living in terror."\n\nThe birds look at you expectantly. They've had these arguments over and over, you think, and it's clear that they're never going to convince each other, so all they can do is [[convince you]].\n

Just take one step at a time.\n\n<<continue "Left.">>Left.\n\n<<continue "Right.">>Right.\n\n<<continue "Left again.">>Left again.\n\n<<continue "Right again.">>Right again.\n\nSee? You're getting the hang of it. Nothing to worry about.\n\nJust keep looking ahead, and before you know it you'll be at - yes, there it is, the window, and you're going a bit faster than you should be but you lean in and it's yellow-orange inside and your weight suddenly shifts from your feet to your head and you fall in, whoomph, onto the floor and it's okay, it's okay, [[you made it|push the door open]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-throneroom.png" alt="a king sits sleepily on a throne by a richly-laid table"></div></html>\n"Oh," he says. "Have you never had to deal with a three-headed monster who eats your subjects, keeps the key to the castle tucked in his hat, and generally gets in the way? All while you live on a poorly equipped island that can barely support its residents, helped only by your sister and an ever-decreasing number of living guards?"\n\n"I've dealt with a monster who <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>kidnapped my friend<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>kept me imprisoned for no reason<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>stole my birthright<<endif>>," you say, and <<continue "glare.">>glare.\n\n"Yes, yes," he says. "Very clever, I see your point. <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>I don't know whether you can really call it //kidnapping// as such when nobody can leave the castle at all, myself included. But consider me duly reprimanded.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>I don't know if I can really be considered to have kept anyone //imprisoned// as such, when it's been so very long since I left these rooms myself, but consider me duly reprimanded.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>I don't know whether you can quite blame me, when the giant's been in control of the castle for years, but consider me duly reprimanded.<<endif>>" He leans forward, and takes a glass of wine from the table, and stands. "Now, run along." When he leaves the room, his cape swirls after him, all evil-king despite his protestations to the contrary; his guards follow. The door slams shut as he leaves.\n\nAh.\n\n[[The birds]] fly in, landing with a whoomp on the table, and begin pecking at the leftover feast.

Head forward; the door shuts as you let go. Don't worry that there's no handle on this side. <<if $candle>>You light the kitchen candle on one of the torches, and tilt it so the wax doesn't run down onto your hand; careful, careful.<<else>>You try to pull one of the torches loose, but they're bolted firm to the wall.<<endif>>.\n\nAnother door, and another torchlit corridor. A dark window that seems to give onto empty space, and perhaps some sound deep below but there's no light or stir of air.\n\nSomething on the ground crunches under your foot - just a leaf, but it's strange to see it here, on the cleanest floors you've encountered in the castle. And there's another, a little further on. \n\nYou [[look up]].

You walk away, leaving the birds behind you as they fight. They fall silent almost immediately: it's possible that they care about your opinion a little more than they're letting on.\n\n<<timedcontinue 4s>>"Wait a minute," the blackbird says. "We haven't finished." It flies ahead of you, perching in the doorway you're headed towards (you don't know where you're going: just somewhere else).\n\nThe robin joins in. "I'm on your side!"\n\nYou don't, you feel, need to listen to them arguing for another half-hour. "[[You're right|ch6robin]]," you might say to the robin. "The king is doing exactly what he wants. There isn't a problem with his willpower, there's a problem with him. And I'm going to solve it."\n\nOr maybe you'll nod to the blackbird: "[[The king is weak|ch6blackbird]], like you say. But I'm not."

You hold your <<if $sword>>sword<<else>>torch<<endif>> out in front of you, and take a firm stance towards the gap in the wall: whatever's coming, you're ready for it.\n\nThump. Thump.\n\nThump.\n\nA shape comes around the wall: strange and sinuous and dark.\n\n[[Look up]].

<<silently>><<set $intent = $intent + 1>><<set $ch8robin = "true">><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>><<endsilently>>She nods. "Thank you," she says, and pushes herself up from the table.\n\n"Wait," you say. "What about <<cyclinglink "my way out of this wreck" "my friend? Wasn't there a friend" "my kingdom. This was my kingdom, wasn't it" "my... I don't know. Whatever it was. There must have been something, right? Some reason for all this">>?" you ask.\n\nShe jerks her chin up towards a door behind you - wide and wooden, not the one you came in. "Through there," she says. "It's not too far."\n\nYou step backwards towards it, still looking at her; the door is wooden and cold to the touch. [[Open it.|doortobeach]]

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-brambles.png" alt="a tangle of brambles"></div></html>\nYou're really a long way up by now, and there's been plenty of grime but no dirt, and you're not sure where brambles would take hold so high. But on the other hand, you're in a castle; perhaps the normal rules of botany don't apply.\n\n[[Keep going|tower]]. Find out.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\nThe page drops into place. For a moment it looks like it's glowing, which is strange, but when you look again it's just a shaft of moonlight falling onto the page.\n\nOf course, that's strange as well, since the sun just rose and in any case you're in a room with no windows. But you're not, now, the table is sitting uneven on thick grass and ahead of you there are hills and toadstools and ferns, trees that are bright against a clear dark sky, the smell of violets nearby.\n\n<<if $motivation eq "escape">>[[Turn around|turnescape]].<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">>[[Turn around|turnrescue]].<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>[[Turn around|turnbirthright]].<<endif>>

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\nAnd there, behind you: it's the castle, its towers gleaming and whole, its rooftops new-tiled, the mass of twisted tree-branches gone and replaced with these wide fields. When you put your hands to your head, it's topped with a crown.\n\nThe huge wooden drawbridge is down, welcoming you home. A pennant flies from every turret.\n\nThe only sign of the room you were just in is the book, still sitting open on the table next to you.\n\n[[Leave it open]], or [[slam it shut]].\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-throneroom.png" alt="a king sits sleepily on a throne by a richly-laid table"></div></html>\nHe blinks at you as if he doesn't understand why you're even speaking to him. "You know, it's very easy," he says, and he takes yet another bite, "to speak loftily of rights and wrongs when you don't have any power to affect them. It's very easy to stand there and wave your... implement... and complain."\n\nIt doesn't feel very easy. You're breathing hard, you don't know what to do, you don't know <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>where your friend is<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>whether there's even a way off this ridiculous island<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>how to dethrone this monster<<endif>> or what you should do next.\n\n<<continue "Pull yourself together.">>Pull yourself together.\n\nCome on. Deep breaths. You remember those. The castle is a wreck, falling to pieces, collapsing at the seams everywhere except this decadent throneroom. What kind of king can this man be?\n\n<<continue "Demand answers!">>You demand answers!\n\nHe seems unconcerned. "Oh, yes, I'm a bad king, I suppose," he says. "My sister keeps telling me so as well. But it's hard to be a good king in a place like this. When you're safe in your chambers, and it's warm, and you've got a pantry that's always full, and you can't go outside without risking death. Once you've sent a few expeditions out to kill the giant and retrieve the key, and heard them screaming through the windows."\n\nHe pauses, thoughtful, and tips his head. "It's the wrong thing to do, I suppose," he continues. "Staying here and making the most of it. No doubt it'll come back to bite me in the end. But it's much easier this way." And he smiles, and flicks the peach stone up above your head; it bounces off stone, ping, and then bonggg by your feet into a <<replace "copper cauldron.">>copper cauldron. There are at least a hundred peach stones there already, you see when you lean over to look.<<endreplace>>\n\nWait a moment. The giant? "<<cyclinglink "Kill the giant? What giant?" "A king who lets a monster prey upon his people is no king at all!" "Everyone's got an excuse,">>" you [[say|raises his eyebrows]].\n\nThe king raises his eyebrows.

<<set $male = true>>All you need to do now is keep it together, stay calm, stay in control, and<<continue " WATCH OUT">> WATCH OUT... a bird flies past, air in your face as you bend to one side, and then another flies after it and you're off-balance and you're not quite sure whether you're about to fall a very long way down.\n\nYou grab at a brick in the wall as you lean back, but it's loose; it comes away and quick, move your foot, don't lose your balance as THUD it hits the step below and then the next and then the next, all the long way down.\n\nIt's okay. You're breathing too fast. <<continue "Slower.">>Slower.\n\nKeep walking up, and be careful because the steps are wonky, and maybe keep one hand on the wall (even if you can't quite trust it), and [[keep breathing|keepbreathingagain]].

<<silently>><<set $ch3robin = true>><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>><<set $epicurean = $epicurean + 1>><<endsilently>>\nThere's a door at the end of the corridor, not quite closed.\n\n[[Time to push it open.|Chapter 4]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $motivation = "birthright">>\n<<endsilently>>Yes, yours is a noble cause, and you will stop at nothing to achieve it! This place should be yours, and soon, it will be once more. Stone walls, high towers, vast glaring beasts of the night, confusion, exasperated blackbirds - you'll overcome them all.\n\nAre you quite sure you're going about it the right way, though? [[Long dark corridors]] versus a [[teetering rooftop shortcut]]? Once you start there'll be no turning back.

<<if $actionscroll>>A gap where the ACTION scroll used to sit.<<else>>[[ACTION]], one scroll reads on the outside, a matter-of-fact script nothing like the thick-thin calligraphic strokes of the book.<<endif>> <<if $reasonscroll>>A gap where the REASON scroll was, before you tucked it into your belt.<<else>>[[REASON]], says a scroll with a red seal, broken wide open.<<endif>> <<if $desirescroll>> The Desire scroll is rolled up tight now, and carried close to you.<<else>>[[DESIRE]] is a ittle out-of-place, spilling off the table onto the floor.<<endif>> <<if $experiencescroll>>The EXPERIENCE scroll that you've added to your stash is surprisingly heavy.<<else>>And a scroll marked [[EXPERIENCE]] sits at the far end of the table.<<endif>>\n\nBeyond the scrolls, the [[rest of the room|treasury]] awaits.

As you crouch behind the tree, surrounded by dirt mounds and stone, feeling the ground shake with every thump, you realise that the dirt-matted branches you were looking at earlier are actually roots. Something's pulled the tree from the ground entire, and jammed it back into place upside down.\n\nAnd whatever it is is coming closer.\n\n<<timedcontinue 5s>>And closer.\n\n<<timedcontinue 2s>>And closer.\n \n<<timedcontinue 2s>>[[Look up|look1hiding]].

<<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap9.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap9.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>><<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap2.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap2.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>><<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap3.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap3.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>>\n<<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap8.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap8.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>><<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap1.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap1.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>><<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap4.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap4.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>>\n<<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap7.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap7.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>><<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap6.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap6.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>><<if $ch1robin>><html><img src="robinmap5.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<else>><html><img src="blackbirdmap5.jpg" alt="A square of a map showing the route travelled"></html><<endif>>\n\nYou've explored the castle. You've made your choices. And here's what we know about you:\n\n<<if $robinno gt $blackbirdno>>You're fairly forgiving, at heart; you agreed with the robin more than the blackbird, and you don't like blaming people for their decisions.<<endif>><<if $blackbirdno gt $robinno>>You're a pretty harsh judge; you agreed with the blackbird more often than the robin, and you're quite willing to declare someone irrational or say that they made the wrong decision.<<endif>><<if $blackbirdno gt $robinno>>Sometimes you judge people harshly, sometimes you're forgiving; sometimes you're happy to declare someone irrational, and at other times you're willing to make allowances for them. You agreed with the robin and the blackbird about the same amount.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $epicurean eq 2>>You value pleasure unusually highly: for you, enjoyment is very important.<<endif>><<if $epicurean eq 1>>You value pleasure, but not at the cost of everything else - there are clear limits to how far you'll take the pursuit of enjoyment.<<endif>><<if $epicurean eq 0>>You don't seem to value pleasure very highly: you don't object to it, but it isn't your primary motivator.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $intent gt $nointent>>You think what you //intend// to do is important - perhaps even more important than what you //actually// do.<<endif>><<if $nointent gt $intent>>You think that what you //actually// do is more important than what you //intend// to do.<<endif>><<if $intent eq $nointent>>You think that what you do and what you //intend// to do are of roughly equal importance.<<endif>>\n\nIf you're looking to investigate some philosophers you agree with, there are a few places you can look. <<if visited ("robin")>>You could try David Hume, who agrees with you on the nature of desire.<<endif>> <<if visited ("blackbird")>>You could try Aristotle and Epicurus, who agree with you on the nature of desire.<<endif>> <<if visited ("ch6robin")>> You and Aristotle feel the same way about weak will.<<endif>> <<if visited ("ch6blackbird")>> You, Socrates and Thomas Hobbes all feel similarly about weak will.<<endif>> <<if visited ("ch7robin")>>You're on the same page as John Rawls about collective responsibility.<<endif>> <<if visited ("You could say that.")>>And Max Weber feels similarly to you with regard to whether it's possible to be too rational.<<endif>>\n\nAnd if you want to challenge your opinions and seek out people you instinctively disagree with, there are plenty of them as well. <<if visited ("blackbird")>>You think very differently to David Hume about whether desires can be rational.<<endif>> <<if visited ("robin")>>You think very differently to Aristotle and Epicurus about whether desires can be rational.<<endif>> <<if visited ("ch6blackbird")>>You disagree with Aristotle about weak will.<<endif>> <<if visited ("ch6robin")>>You disagree with Socrates and Thomas Hobbes about weak will.<<endif>> <<if visited ("ch7blackbird")>>You disagree with John Rawls about collective responsibility.<<endif>> <<if visited ("Maybe you think that.")>>And you and Max Weber are opposed on whether it's possible to be too rational.<<endif>>\n\nIf you're interested in investigating these subjects more deeply, you can read our [[essays|Essays]] about the themes explored by individual chapters. You may also want to have a look at the <html><b><a href="http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/qualification/arts-and-humanities/philosophy/index.htm">courses we have on offer</a></b></html>. And if you want to share your route with friends, just send them to this page - they'll be able to see your route through the island, then have a turn themselves.

You can read more here about [[Action]], [[Reason]], [[Desire]], [[Will]], [[Collective Responsibility]], [[The Experience Machine]] and [[The Iron Cage]]. \n\nOr if you've played through most of the game, you can have a look at our [[analysis]] of your decisions.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch5-treasury.png" alt="a room filled with strange junk"></div></html>\n<<set $experiencescroll = true>><<set $scrolls = $scrolls +1>>You grab the scroll and look around the room again.\n\n<<display 'lots of scrolls'>>

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-openbook.png" alt="An open book"></div></html>\n//Read the words. Run your finger over smooth ink.//\n\nYou're doing what it tells you, almost without noticing.\n\n//Keep reading//, it says. //Never stop reading. Everything you want is here.//\n\nThis is a demanding book. It's big, you think, there are a lot of words, but you're pretty sure it wouldn't take you the rest of your life to get to the end.\n\n//All you have to do is read//, the book continues.\n\n[[Read]].

<<if $motivation eq "escape">><html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-escape.png" alt="A barred window"></div></html>\n//It's been so long//, the book reads, and there's an illustration that you don't remember being there before, //so long to be trapped in the neverending corridors of this strange castle, and it's hard to believe that escape is as simple as turning a page. But it is.//\n<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">><html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-rescue.png" alt="A figure through a window"></div></html>\n//It's been so long//, the book reads, and there's an illustration that you don't remember being there before, //and you'd almost given up hope of ever seeing your friend again, almost left the island and headed home alone. It's hard to believe that all you have to do now is turn a page. But it's true.//<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">><html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-birthright.png" alt="A barred window"></div></html>\n//It's been so long//, the book reads, and there's an illustration that you don't remember being there before, //so long since you stood in this castle and ruled it as your own. It's hard to believe that all you have to do to regain your crown is to turn the page.//<<endif>>\n\n[[Turn the page]].

Back in the castle, and all the doors give way to you now. Thick carpets, a little mothworn but soft under your feet; red curtains, gold wall-hangings, and you no longer feel frightened as you walk through winding corridors. \n\nThe monster's predations have left parts of the building unreliable: holes in the floors look down to corridors below, staircases lead nowhere, windows look onto rubble and dust. But the shape of the castle has survived, and you make your way slowly, confidently through its inner chambers.\n\nSometimes you hear scuttling noises; sometimes, the sound of the birds flying after you, rerouting through windows when doors get in their way.\n\nAnd then, finally: [[someone else|the king]].

Do people always do what they think is best? On the face of it, the answer should be 'yes'. After all, why should you ever (deliberately) take what seems to be the worse of two options. In real life, though, people often seem to do just this. They eat cake, when they're trying to diet; they put off urgent pieces of work; they have another glass of wine knowing that they will regret it in the morning. And they do this (it seems) despite the fact that they think that it would be best to lose weight; to get the work done; to avoid the hangover. \n\nAccording to Plato, Socrates (470-399BCE) held that weakness of will was impossible - that no-one would follow a course of action if they knew that a better course existed. What looks like weakness of will is really just ignorance of what's best: when I eat the cake it's because I mistakenly believe that it's the best option (whatever I might say). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) also questioned the existence of weakness of will - but for the opposite reason. According to Hobbes, our actions are not controlled by reason, but by passion: we simply act on whatever passion is strongest at the time. If I eat the cake, it's because, at the time, my desire for cake was stronger than my desire to diet (whatever I might say). \n\nIn contrast, Aristotle (384-322 BCE) tried to make space for weakness of will. He distinguished between the weak (who make a rational choice but then break with it) and the impetuous (who do not go through a rational thought process at all). The weak might decide not to drink alcohol on a particular night, because they have to get up early in the morning, but then decide to have a glass of wine after all; whereas the impetuous would never consider the next morning in the first place. Aristotle's account of what happens in these cases is hard to interpret, but he seems to think that weakness of will involves a moment of befuddlement: at the moment of action, passion interferes with reason, causing us to make the wrong choice.\n\nIs weakness of will really possible, then? A lot of philosophers still argue that it isn't - that when we fail to take the best option, it's because we don't consider it best at all. Perhaps we're just deceiving ourselves about what really matters to us. Others see weakness of will as a failure of rationality: a moment when we simply do not do what reason suggests we should.\n\n\nRead more about [[Action]], [[Reason]], [[Desire]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Collective Responsibility]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

Everything is perfect.\n\nThe trees are hard to climb, knotted bark under your hands, but each new branch is always just within your reach, unless of course you don't like climbing trees in which case the chaise longue laid out beneath them is luxurious and welcoming. On the horizon, a meteor shower lights up the sky just before dawn. You're very happy. Your crown or your friend or your pet dog or your parading subjects or whatever it is you want. It'll be there.\n\nYou'll always be very happy, if you stay. If you [[close the book|turn around]] - who knows?\n\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-birds.png" alt="three birds perched on the wall"></div></html>\nThe robin blinks. "Oh," it says. "I'm so sorry."\n\nYou shrug. "<<cyclinglink "No harm done." "Kept me on my toes." "You should watch where you're going.">>"\n\n"But..." and the robin hops closer, apologetic you think, though it's hard to read expression in those tiny bird eyes. "But it's not like you meant to pull it out. You were just trying to hold on. You didn't know it was loose. I don't know whether that quite counts."\n\nThe blackbird makes a noise, pffhfaaark. "Accident, schmaccident," it says. "It's a real thing that happened."\n\n"But <<if $male>>he<<else>>she<<endif>> didn't mean it to."\n\n"I don't know what you think that's got to-"\n\n"It's got everything to do with it, that's what 'doing something' means, I don't-"\n\nAnd then it's just bird noises, tweets and squabbles and another aaaaark, and then the robin hops from one part of the wall to another, further away, and flicks its tail in the air. \n\nWhen it lands it looks at the blackbird, and then they both look at you, expectant. Perhaps you should offer an opinion - a [[smile at the robin]], or a [[nod to the blackbird]].

To desire something - as philosophers use the word - is to want it. Desires can be thoughtful and considered; but desires include whims and urges too.\n\nCan desires be rational or irrational? Certainly, a desire can be rational in the light of other desires that you have: if you want to escape from a castle, and you know that you'll need a ladder to do it, then it's rational to want to find a ladder. But what about our most basic desires? Can those be judged as rational or irrational too? Suppose, for example, that someone wants to eat a copy of Plato's //Republic//; or that a strange monster wants you to destroy its home. They don't think that this will make them healthier or happier or that they have a duty to do it. They just want to. Is their desire //irrational//?\n\nMany ancient philosophers, certainly, thought that there are some things it is rational to want. For example, Aristotle (384-322BCE) and Epicurus (341-270 BCE) agreed that there was something that counts as a good human life, and that it's rational to want the things that we need to secure it. They didn't agree, though, what a good human life actually is. (They both agreed that it involved plenty of philosophy.) For Epicurus, the best life is a life of a pleasure - not the riotous kind, though: Epicurus preferred a bit of peace and quiet. Aristotle thought that a rational person will aim for virtue and reason. \n\nOther philosophers have taken a different view. David Hume (1711-1776) argued that it doesn't make sense to think that some desires are more rational than others. If someone wants to eat of copy of Plato's //Republic//, or to see their home being destroyed, or to watch other people suffering, their desire might be odd or unwise or downright nasty, but it's not irrational. If they have a desire like those, it's not their //reasoning// that's at fault. \n\nThe question is complicated by the fact that we're not always aware of the factors that influence our desires. Psychologists have argued that people's desires can be affected by subtle differences in the way that options are presented to them - even whether something (a door perhaps?) is on the left or the right. Political theorists worry that people //adapt// their desires to fit the (perhaps very poor) options available to them, rather than wanting what they cannot easily get. This poses a question for policy makers, among others: should policy makers simply respect the desires people have, or should they try to change them?\n\n\nRead more about [[Action]], [[Reason]], [[The Experience Machine]], [[Will]], [[Collective Responsibility]] and [[The Iron Cage]].\n\nOr have a look at our [[analysis]] of how you played, tracing out the path you made and comparing it to philosophers through history.

You read the first paragraph. \n\n//You may have//, it reads, //irrational desires. Then again, you may not. Philosophers are divided.//\n\nGood to know.\n\n//Some might hold that your desire to// <<if $motivation eq "escape">>//leave the castle - a whole castle, almost to yourself! Turrets, dungeons, forests, beaches, rooftops! - some would hold that that's a little foolish.//<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "rescue">>//retrieve your friend, at such a risk to yourself, with so little chance of success - some would hold that that's not a rational desire.//<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>//reclaim this castle as your own - this sprawling, derelict, collapsing wreck of a castle, on an island in the middle of nowhere - is an absurd desire, irrational in the extreme.//<<endif>>\n\n//But then - others would say that there's no such thing as an irrational desire. They would say that our desires are what they are, neither rational nor irrational - they cannot be questioned, only fulfilled or disregarded. //<<if $ch3robin>>//It sounds like you agree.//<<else>>// It sounds, though, as if you don't agree. As if you think perhaps your desires are irrational after all.//<<endif>>\n\nYou can [[take the scroll with you|takedesire]] for later, or [[put it back|returndesire]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-apple.png" alt="an apple with a bite taken out"></div></html>\nCold and a little too smooth, but so round and with such a perfect shape to hold cupped in your hands as you take another bite. Surprisingly sour, for a fairytale apple. Almost reassuring: why would anyone bother to poison a sour apple? It must be safe.\n\n[[Keep going|tower]]. Find out.

<<silently>>set $egg = true<<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-eggs.png" alt="a small pile of eggs"></div></html>\nThe eggs are light, warm to the touch but then they're quite near the fire. You lift one up, and it fits inside your hand. You slide it into a pocket - nobody's going to notice.\n\nAs you do, there's a noise behind you: a flurry of air, and a whistling sigh.\n\n[[Turn around]].

<<silently>><<set $ch7robin = true>><<set $robinno = $robinno + 1>><<set $weber = $weber + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="blackbird1.png" alt="a disappointed blackbird"></div></html>\n"You're just as irresponsible as you look," the blackbird says, and jumps off the hat; flies away. \n\nThe robin, left alone, hops off the hat-brim as well and pecks. It pulls out a key in its beak, then lets it drop to the ground. "[[You might need this|Chapter 8]]," it says. "You might do the right sort of thing with it, I think. Don't mind the complaints," and it glances after the blackbird, and then flies away.\n\n\n\n

Take the steps one by one, testing them out each time before you rest your weight. Sometimes they rock a little as you step, but you're careful, and you get by. Breathe. Step. Breathe.\n\n<<continue "Keep going.">>Keep going.\n\nThere's going to be a room at the top of the tower, right? It's going to be stone and square and there's going to be a woman with a spindle or a four-poster bed or, like, a library of red-bound books and one of them open on a table and you turn the page and it'll give you [[words of wisdom]] that come in handy later on. A [[bright red apple]], and a prince holding it out for one perfect bite. A princess with golden hair wrapped around her throat. [[Brambles]].\n\nA [[beast]], blinking with wide human eyes.\n\nA looking glass.\n\nAn iron-barred window.

<<silently>>\n<<set $action = "jump">>\n<<endsilently>>You jump up. You fall back. <<if $clothes == "dress">>Feel the heft of petticoats landing a moment after your feet; they hang in the air for a moment then swoosh, heavy around your ankles, moving long after you're still, slowing and slowing and stopping.<<else>>Your pantaloons - your ridiculous pantaloons, torn on the narrow walls, threads hanging - balloon up and then settle as you land.<<endif>> Your feet are really really cold now.\n\nYou jump again, craning to see over the walls.\n\nYou see a blur of dark shapes this time, spindly, tangled, far below. It's only a moment's glimpse, but maybe that was a light, just too dim or too low to make out properly? \n\nYou give it one more go, and then stop. It was barely worth the effort.\n\nMaybe that's fine. maybe you don't need to do anything. You made it to the tower, right? You're here. That's the important thing.\n\nYou <<continue "turn around.">>turn around and the birds are there again; sheltering in the relative calm of the tower, probably? In normal circumstances, it would be strange to see three different types of bird hanging out together, but these aren't normal circumstances.\n\nFor one thing, the birds are [[talking|birds1]].\n

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch1-beast.png" alt="a strange large monster, looming at you"></div></html>\nVast and glossy-furred, you imagine; crouched on two legs, enormous arms hanging low, head moving to follow you as you walk from side to side. Maybe vicious. Maybe curious. It's hard to tell, with beasts. \n\n[[Keep going|tower]]. Find out.

It's square, this towertop, and it's stone, and the shock is that it's open to the air. You can see the sky when you <<continue "look up.">>look up.\n\nIt's still dark blue. The walls are too high to see over but there are arrow-slit windows all around, this way and that and the other.\n\nLoud wind gusts outside.\n\nThere's no bed. There's no witch, hunched under a cape. There's no wolf, leaning jaunty against a fireplace and sipping cognac and licking his lips with his big tongue. Just stone.\n\nBut you're here.\n\n[[You should do something|toweract]].

<<silently>>set $stew = true<<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-cauldron.png" alt="a cauldron filled with something strange"></div></html>\nIt smells meaty and thick, and it's warm, and there's a ladle that you swirl around to see lumps bob to the surface and then vanish again (carrots? Turnips dyed bright by the stew?). You try a mouthful, slurping straight from the ladle; it almost burns your tongue.\n\nAs you swallow, there's a noise behind you: a flurry of air, and a whistling sigh.\n\n[[Turn around]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch8-tankard.png" alt="a tankard and an open book"></div></html>\n\n"But I suppose you want this," she says, and takes off her crown and drops it on the table. "And these," and she takes another ring of keys off her belt, and slides it towards you, jingle-jangle. "Much joy may they bring you." \n\nYou reach forward and pick them up. You <<cyclinglink "weigh the crown in your hand," "put the crown on your head," "drop the crown back on the table,">> maybe. It's lighter than you'd expected. <<if $motivation eq "rescue">>"Where's my friend?" you ask. <<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>"How do I get out of here?" you ask.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>This is it: at last, after all these years outcast.<<endif>>\n\n"Tell me," she says. "Tell me something." She's barely looking at you - staring at the ceiling, and curtains, tapping her hand on the table. "I've tried to do my best, under the circumstances. Ruling as best I can around the king's feasts and strange decisions. I'm not claiming to be a hero, but I've measured probabilities. I've taken advice from monsters and humans and birds. I decided it was best to keep people safe in the castle, where the monster couldn't get them. I decided it was best to keep the castle under my rule, rather than leaving it to my brother or throwing it over to anyone whose attitude towards rational behaviour seems more... erratic." And she looks straight at you for the first time, and raises her eyebrows.\n\n"[[Go on]]," you could say. Or: "[[I'm not interested in excuses]]."

It's best to stay safe, stick to the stairs and passages. The cold, crumbling passages. The //dark//, cold, crumbling passages. It's probably going to be fine, right?\n\nYeah, it'll be [[fine]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-foot.png" alt="a large furry foot"></div></html>\nIt's a lot taller than you, and thicker, and it's - it's not a giant; it's a foot.\n\n<<continue "Further up.">>Further up.\n\nAnd further.\n\n[[Keep looking up]]. You'll get there.

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch6-throneroom.png" alt="a king sits sleepily on a throne by a richly-laid table"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 6: Will</h2></div></html>\nYou whip the curtain aside, poised and ready and filled with the urgency of fight and fret - and on the other side there's two clanking guards, armoured and vast, and you might as well have jumped out brandishing an orange; you're hopelessly outmatched. They draw their swords as they turn to look at you but it's a gesture, really: they've got nothing to fear from you.\n\nAnd no wonder they're here: everything's here. There's a table, filled with food and drink. The carpet's thick and red; the torches lighting the room don't stink of burning fat, and as you push past the curtain you're hit by the warmth of a fire, the first really comfortable room you've found in the castle. \n\nAnd there's a throne. Or at least, you assume it's a throne: there's a man sitting on it, a fairytale king with robes and a crown and pale pale white skin and a thick dark beard. He looks bored.\n\n"Oh, it's you," he says, and <<continue "leans forward.">>leans forward.\n\n<<if $motivation eq "rescue">>Here he is, then: the man who's kept your friend prisoner all this time.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "birthright">>Here he is, then: your long-lost uncle or cousin, maybe. Brother? He doesn't look much like you. Vizier? The thief of your birthright, anyway. The usurper of your home. The enemy.<<endif>><<if $motivation eq "escape">>Here he is, then: the man who's kept you trapped in this intolerable haphazard castle for all this time.<<endif>>\n\n"<<cyclinglink "Hello," "Verily is it I! I have come, and I am hungry for vengeance," "It's been far too long, you should have kept in touch,">>" you say.\n\nHe barely seems to listen; leans forward and takes a peach, then leans back. "I suppose you're angry," he says.\n\n[[You are|You are.]].

It unscrolls when you nudge it, and there's a pen tucked inside, ink spatters and words and scritched handwriting all mixed together.\n\n//It's for the things science isn't good at//, someone's written.\n\n//Dealing with the world//, someone else wrote further down.\n\n//It's just a game to play with your brain. It's fun, but it's not for anything.// Yet another person's handwriting. And more: //I like reading the really angry philosophers, they always cheer me up// and //It gives me a way to think about how my own brain works and how other people work// and //it's just nice to know that clever people have thought about it all so much//.\n\nAs you finish unscrolling, you see the question at the top: a bold, carefully-written //WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY FOR?//\n\nTake the pen. Add something, perhaps: <<textinput $philosophy>>\n\nAnd [[roll it back up]].\n

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>>\n<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-bookroom.png" alt="A corner of a room, showing a book on a table"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h1>Chapter 4: The Experience Machine</h1></div></html>\nIt's another small room, and murky. <<replace "Boarded-up windows.">>Boards nailed to the wall, but when you pry them up there's no windows behind.<<endreplace>> <<replace "A rug on the floor.">>A rug on the floor, with a dark green pattern like grass.<<endreplace>> A low ceiling. A <<continue "table.">>table - wooden, and a bit wonky, with a leather-bound [[book|The book]] sitting closed on top.

<<silently>>\n<<set $clothes = "pants">>\n<<endsilently>>Still, you made your choice. You can pull them up around your calves, at least, and then you might not trip over quite so often?\n\nThe stairs turn another corner, and so do you. It's okay, it's getting even lighter: there's one of those weird <<continue "narrow windows.">>narrow windows.\n\nOutside, there's a dark blue sky - pre-dawn, post-dusk - and the barely-distinct silhouettes of towers and trees. You're really high up. \n\nIt's going to be fine.\n\nKeep going. [[Slowly, if you like, careful on the craggy steps|slowlyon]], or [[faster; it'll probably be fine. Everything will probably be fine|probfine]].

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>>\n<html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-view.png" alt="a castle in a forest on an island in the sea"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 2: Reason</h2></div></html>\nSo, here you are: alone except for an owl, on a tower in the middle of an island, sky dark above but bright along its eastern rim. You need to peer through narrow windows to see anything more. When you do, watch for the light: the slow dawn reflecting off the sea, and the flickering window that's not so far away, really.\n\nWhen you turn back, the owl has moved to the crook of a narrow window. Its eyes flutter closed, and it shuffles a little, and then relaxes: asleep, you think.\n\nOther than the sleeping owl and the robin and the blackbird, the bright window is the only sign of life.\n\nYou could probably get there, if you tried. You could [[climb over the rooftops]], or [[go back down the stairs]] to find your way at ground level.

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>>\n<html><div align="center"><img src="ch2-birds.png" alt="three small birds perched on some saucepans"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 3: Desire</h2></div></html>\n"What sort of help?" you ask, as if you were in a position to be fussy. (You're not in a position to be fussy.)\n\nThe robin moves to perch on the edge of the big bubbling pot, and pecks tentatively at the stew. "There's a room," it says, "which has everything you want in it. It's not very far from here."\n\nThat sounds good, right? "<<cyclinglink "That sounds good," "What's the catch?" "I know this is a castle, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any rooms here that would fit everything I want in them,">>" you say, and wait for the robin - beak filled temporarily with a chunk of carrot almost as big as its head - to [[reply]].\n\n\n\n

<<silently>><<set $completion = $completion + 1>><<endsilently>><html><div align="center"><img src="ch7-key.png" alt="a small key"></div></html>\n<html><div align="center"><h2>Chapter 8: The Iron Cage</h2></div></html>\nThe key is small and jagged in your hand: the castle, all its doors and treasures are open to you. Nothing remains in your way except the king, somewhere, and the sister he mentioned, and just a little more [[work|the king himself]].

From here you can visit any of the story's nine chapters. Bear in mind, though, that if you skip straight to a later chapter, decisions in earlier chapters will be made for you.\n\n[[Chapter 1|open your eyes]]: Action\n[[Chapter 2]]: Reason\n[[Chapter 3]]: Desire\n[[Chapter 4]]: Experience\n[[Chapter 5]]: A Treasury of Sorts\n[[Chapter 6]]: Will\n[[Chapter 7]]: Collective Responsibility\n[[Chapter 8]]: The Iron Cage\n[[Chapter 9|doortobeach]]: A Decision\n[[Analysis|Essays]]: How you played, and background information

"No," she says, "that's very much fair enough. I shan't make any. But can I ask a question? I'm going to anyway, you know." She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. "Do you think it's possible to be //too// rational? I can't help wondering. I tried very hard, you know. Sometimes I wondered whether I should have done better at defending us against the monster, but I did try. Good sense said to stay where I was. Good sense said everyone I sent against the giant perished. And now you've behaved absurdly, irrationally in the extreme if you ask me, risked life and limb, chased your absurd motivation, and it's turned out - well, it's turned out for the best, I suppose, hasn't it?"\n\nShe closes her book.\n\n"It's not," she goes on, "that I blame you. I'm just wondering. Did I do the wrong thing? I didn't mean to be a bad ruler. I don't know if I went about the whole thing the wrong way from the very beginning."\n\nWell. She's been no friend to you, but she hasn't meant you ill, either. She's staring, at you then at the table and then at the torch on the wall, blinking, and then back at you.\n\nMaybe you can comfort her. "I don't think," you could say, "that striving for rationality can never be wrong. If you were a bad princess, it wasn't because your aims were the wrong aims." [[You could say that|You could say that.]]. It wouldn't mean you were forgiving anyone.\n\nOr maybe you can't. "Yeah," you could say. "Sorry. I think you did the wrong thing. I think you can be too rational." Maybe you think rationality can be a trap as well as a tool, and the princess fell into it. [[Maybe you think that|Maybe you think that.]].

"Oh," you say, "I think-" and then you bolt, straight past the creature, grabbing at the door handle and twisting and pushing and rolling through and SLAM it shut behind you, and sit back leaning against it in case the creature tries to follow, but-\n\nNo. Nothing.\n\nYou made it. <<if $candle>>The candle's gone out, blown by the rush of air from your sudden run, but you're safe.<<endif>>\n\nAs your breath grows calmer, you look up at [[the room]] in front of you.

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\n<<if $friendgend="he">>He<<else>>she<<endif>> looks tired but so happy, so glad to be free and so glad to see you. \n\n"<<cyclinglink "It seems life as an adventuring knight suits you," "I knew you'd come," "You took your time,"<<if $friendgend="he">>he<<else>>she<<endif>> says, and smiles. \n\nYou laugh, and hug again, and then stand at arm's length and look at each other and you've done it. You've really done it.\n\nYou'd forgotten <<cyclinglink "those dimples" "those ridiculous eyelashes, just ridiculous" "how comfortable it feels to be together. But it does, even after all this time">>. \n\nEverything's just as it should be.\n\nYou're still holding hands, you realise. <<cyclinglink "You let go: there's no need to cling on now." "And that's just as it should be too.">>\n\nThe breeze rises for a moment, and flutters the pages of the book. When you glance down, you see more words, and an illustration: two birds. They look familiar.\n\n[[Leave the book open|In the book]] or [[slam it shut]].

<html><div align="center"><img src="ch4-imagine.png" alt="A beautiful field, full of trees and moonlight"></div></html>\nIn the crook of the hills you can make out twinkling lights: <<cyclinglink "a distant village, strange, welcoming" "your childhood home, and you know your parents will be waiting by the fire with sausages and roast potatoes and thick gravy" "torches by a wide bridge: a call towards a new adventure">>.\n\nYou can hear <<cyclinglink "the gentle hoot of owls" "crickets burring into silence" "the distant clip-clop of horses on a nearby road">>.\n\nEverything's just as it should be.\n\nThe breeze rises for a moment, and flutters the pages of the book. When you glance down, you see more words, and an illustration: two birds. They look familiar.\n\n[[Leave the book open|In the book]] or [[slam it shut]].

This game is made up of nine different chapters. Each chapter explores a different question in philosophy. As you play, the game builds up an idea of how you feel about that question.\n\nYou play by selecting different links from within the text. There are three main types of link. \n\nLinks that display in orange are your chance to control different elements of the world. Each time you select the link, it changes, and you can continue changing it until you're happy with your decision. For example, maybe you've just met someone, and you want to <<cyclinglink "say hello" "ask who they are" "run away">>. Just choose the option you're happiest with before continuing.\n\nLinks that display in green show that you can find out more about something in the world. For example, you might see a <<replace "window">>window looking out onto a distant island<<endreplace>>, or a <<replace "teapot">>teapot - just an ordinary teapot, with blue and white stripes<<endreplace>>. If you select the link, then you'll look get more detail about the object or action it describes.\n\nLinks that display in blue lead you forward in the game. Sometimes you'll only have one blue link - one way forward. Sometimes you'll have several to choose from. For example, now you can choose to go to either the [[Table of Contents]] or the [[start of the game|open your eyes]].

As you do, there's a noise: on the far side of the velvet curtain, someone moving around. A clank. Another move.\n\nClank.\n\nSilence.\n\nClank. The birds stop chattering, and look up.\n\nYou should grab something - [[the sword]]? [[the torch]]?