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"You’ve heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There’s an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."

- Dune, the gom jabbar's test for humanity

Deep Space Nine:

Julian Bashir: "It's not your fault things are the way they are."

Lee: "Everybody tells themselves that. And nothing ever changes."

I mean, DS9 was literally a TV serial, of course nothing ever changes.

Bashir's statement is a true one, made out of compassion. Lee's statement is almost comically/logically/obviously false in a real Universe, unless you're in a fictional TV series designed to not ever change. Except of course for the plot arc, which again, true to Bashir's statement is not anyone's fault.

In this particular case, do you advocate the individual fight it to the bitter end? Or should they just walk away?

false dichotomy