# An ethical concordance for The Good Book

The approved ethical centre is agency, consent, harm, responsibility, and repair. The seven categories below are working editorial names for recurring wrongs in the fiction. They are not a claim that historical religions use one common moral system. Their number is an organising choice, not a law of the Omnoid.

Desire, anger, grief, dependence, pleasure, and uncertainty are not wrong merely because somebody powerful finds them inconvenient. A judgment needs an action, its circumstances, the choices actually available, the people affected, and what happens when the actor learns more. An accident and a deliberate cruelty can cause similar injuries while creating different questions of responsibility.

| Working wrong | What it does | A practice that can resist it | Evidence of change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domination | Turns another person's life, dependence, or origin into an entitlement to command them. | Recognition: take another's perspective and refusal seriously. | A person gains a usable choice, including the ability to leave or disagree. |
| Extraction | Transfers costs to people who cannot meaningfully refuse while reserving the benefits for the powerful. | Fair dealing and restraint. | Changed terms, material restitution, and an end to the continuing burden. |
| Deception | Manipulates the information someone needs to choose; includes deliberately misleading arrangements of true fragments. | Truthfulness with attention to context. | Corrected records reach the people misled, with the actor's interest made visible. |
| Erasure | Makes a person, people, loss, or witness disappear from the account so an institution or protagonist can remain spotless. | Remembrance and attentive testimony. | Names, competing accounts, and consequences remain accessible without claiming to possess the whole story. |
| Cruelty | Uses suffering as an end, a spectacle, or a casually accepted instrument when the actor has meaningful alternatives. | Care, courage, and proportionate restraint. | The inflicted suffering stops; those harmed receive protection and help. |
| Neglect | Abandons a responsibility the actor can reasonably meet, particularly after creating another's dependence. | Presence and responsible delegation. | Someone actually receives sustained care; an appointment of a substitute is not itself delivery. |
| Refusal of repair | Denies, disguises, or perpetuates a known wrong; demands innocence or forgiveness in place of changed conduct. | Accountability and repair. | Restitution, altered conditions, and continued answerability even when trust does not return. |

## Questions a scene can put under pressure

Who wants what, and what could they reasonably know? Who has the resources to act? What does refusal cost? Who carries the consequences? What changes when the actor discovers an injury? What would a witness with less power say happened?

These questions should sharpen a conflict rather than replace it with a verdict. A ruler can believe an atrocity necessary. A frightened companion can make a damaging bargain. A rescuer can remove one danger and create another. The plot must show enough of the circumstances for the disagreement to be intelligible.

Consent is specific to an act and a situation. Agreement to travel does not imply agreement to a ritual at the destination. Remembering a previous life does not entitle someone to a former partner's present affection. Neither silence nor dependence provides an automatic answer. A person can choose among terrible options without making the threats that constrained the choice acceptable.

Likewise, the presence of a refusal does not resolve every conflict between people. Refusal to relinquish stolen food, refusal to stop an assault, and refusal of unwanted intimacy are not interchangeable acts. The story needs to identify the rights, needs, and actions involved. “Consent” must not become a spell that exempts anyone from the effects of their conduct.

## The opening chapter as a worked case

The Mother approaches to help. The First Flame experiences pressure and resists. Her first mistake is not evidence that all closeness is domination. Her response to the refusal matters: she stops pressing. His fear remains, and the narration permits it to remain without requiring gratitude.

The failed shelter is another problem. Her attempt to become perceptible creates apparent company; his excited flare destroys the shelter. Their different intentions do not eliminate their shared involvement. The resulting fragment also exposes the limits of moral shorthand. It is not sentient, and preserving it cannot be justified as honouring its wishes. The Mother keeps a trace of what happened. That choice can be evaluated on its actual reasons.

The Flame finally learns to give warmth without breaking the recipient. This is a small change in conduct. It does not absolve future injuries in advance or establish that he has become a wise parent. Compassion can begin before competence is complete, and competence needs continued practice.

## What repair cannot promise

An apology does not rebuild a home. Resurrection does not give mourners back the time spent grieving. A corrected name does not erase what was done under the wrong one. A reformed institution does not acquire the right to be trusted by announcing its reform.

Repair can still matter. A home can be rebuilt somewhere habitable. A survivor can receive resources without surrendering their testimony. A changed community can create conditions under which the next person is less likely to suffer the same wrong. The good of that work does not depend on declaring the original injury necessary.

Forgiveness belongs to the injured person. Reconciliation requires continuing participation from those involved. Either can remain absent while accountability and restitution proceed.

## Using this concordance in the two editions

The novels put these tensions into actions, relationships, and consequences. The Codex can preserve competing judgments, including flawed judgments by its speakers. Authorial commentary identifies an interpretation as an interpretation. It must not silently promote a character's claim of divine permission into a settled ethical law.

Humour belongs in this record as well. For each joke, identify its speaker, immediate target, and effect on the scene. The expense report that omits a ruined village can be funny in its grotesque self-importance; the missing villagers still need names, lives, and consequences elsewhere in the account.
