Paladin Taijham (pronounced TIE-halm) is a story told by Felix, so it is safe to assume that they are not a real person. That being said, there is a great deal of truth to it, and several lessons to be learned. It is a thought experiment that demonstrates how our faults alone are not who we are, regardless of how awful and detestable they may be. Instead, they are a natural thing, and they are often a critical point in our life. It is how we respond to these faults that determines who and what we are. And the correct response is not to lie down and succumb to shame and dishonor. It's to pick your head up, commit yourself to be better than you were, and then put in the effort to turn that ideation of a better self from a distant dream into a reality.
Young Taijham
Young Taijham was a soldier in an undisclosed army fighting an undisclosed war. He fought for his lord, his country, or whoever would pay him. In truth, there is little point to characterizing who and what he fought for, only that he did, and that he was good at it. War is a cruel business that spares none involved.
One dark and fateful night, when on a campaign into enemy territory, the army that Taijham was a part of was in desperate need of supplies, notably food. An army marches on its stomach, as the saying goes. And so, they navigated towards a nearby farming village to raid. Taijham, being one of the more decorated soldiers, was placed in charge of a small unit, and told to take whatever he could in whatever manner he saw fit. And everything was going well. Meat, grain, and wool were all gathered fairly quickly.
That is, until one fateful house.
This household did not wish to give up their grain, but they had not the time to hide it. Winter was just around the corner, and giving up so many supplies to a foreign army would spell calamity for the village. Taijham did not care. It was his comrades, or them. He insisted on having the grain. The man reluctantly agreed, and went to grab the grain. But instead of the grain, he had grabbed his dull, rusty pitchfork, and charged Taijham with it. But Taijham was prepared for this. The man had made good contact, and Taijham had stumbled back a bit. But the dull and rusty pitchfork is no mighty weapon, not by any stretch of the imagination. He hadn’t even the force to dent Taijham’s armor. After regaining his footing, Taijham knocked the farmer out with one swift punch.
Indeed, such an act of defiance does not come without its retaliation, but in this retaliation, Taijham had acted most disgracefully. He had the grain retrieved and the home thoroughly searched for any other supplies, to which none were found. After extracting the grain, he ordered his men to barricade the home with the family inside of it. After he saw to it that his comrades had done so sufficiently, he lobbed his torch onto the thatch roof of the house.
The screams of agony had left their mark on Taijham. His friends noted that he was affected by it severely. He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t sleep. Hell, he would hardly even talk. He was unsure if he could go on, as he noted himself during the remainder of the campaign. The rest of the campaign was a mess that he couldn’t bear the burden of. And so, at the end of the campaign, he deserted.
Thus, the true cost of war. It is not one's body. It is not one's soul. It is one's mind. It takes and it takes and it never gives back. Even those spared of the full weight of its burden are often not left unscathed. It is a cruel business, through and through.
Paladin Taijham
But there is still adequate reason to call Paladin Taijham one of the wisest one could ever meet. He hath used this heinous act, this crisis of his, not as a reason to lie down in defeat, but as a reason to make a change for the better.
He fled to his local monastery for protection, and began asking the gods for forgiveness. Of them, he found one to be particularly welcoming of his repentance. I forget precisely which one it was, but it was likely a god of justice. And so, he had sworn an oath of redemption. He had promised himself many things. He promised to right his wrongs. He had promised to do the right thing, no matter what it was. He has promised to absolve himself of sin through his good deeds. And he had promised to be better than he was yesterday.
It was too much to do all at once. Indeed, such a commitment could never be made so easily, and from an external perspective, progress was difficult to track. To those around him, it had seemed as though he were making none at all. He had failed when he took up arms again, after being unable to find work elsewhere. He had failed when he had beaten a kid who had insulted his honor. And he had failed when he had stolen in a moment of desperation. Such are not good indications of someone trying to make a change, and his friends were slow to trust the commitment that he was making.
Internally, it often felt no different, as he later remarked. And indeed, progress was slow. But he was wise to this beforehand. He knew that this would happen. He made a commitment to learn as he did that one fateful night.
And he did. He became a better and better person as time went on. Soon, people would come to see him not for the person that he was, but for the person that he wanted to be, and what he was doing to get there. He spent his time organizing charity events, protecting those in need, and fighting for the ideal that everyone deserves the opportunity to make a change for the better.
Quotes
“Yes, I was a wicked man. Yes, I still am for now. Yes, they are right to see me as such. But I know my faults, and I put in the effort to change. This alone shall be enough.”
“Along my path, I shall falter. It is only natural. But to falter is not to fail. It is only a temporary setback so long as I have the persistence to try again. To fail is to not try at all.”
Later: “Along my path, I shall falter. It is only natural. But to falter is not to be set back. It is to be offered an opportunity to learn. I only need to have the wisdom to see it, and the courage to try again.”
“Should they condemn me for aspiring to be better, then I shall only use it as further justification to make the change that they so freely say is impossible.”
“I accept my faults, but I shall never accept that they define me.”
“I accept my fears, but I shall never accept that they cannot be overcome.”
“I accept all that I am, but I shall never accept that it is all that I shall ever be.”
On his oath:
“Every day, I am grateful for it. I can say with confidence that I am not the person that I was, and that is a point of immeasurable pride.”
“No matter how lost, corrupt, or far gone you are, it is never too late to change. It will be the most difficult thing you will ever do in your life. You will doubt your path at every turn because of how wrong you were. Your past will haunt you and remind you of the monster you were at every opportunity you give it. But it is not the past that matters. What matters is the future you could still build for yourself and for others in spite of these hardships. Though it may not be probable, it will always be possible. Any effort to change for the better, no matter how futile, pitiful, or disingenuous, is not a wasted effort.”
