Another Bleach Fnord

I was watching the documentary "Bleach" on the News Channel. There was a very interesting fnord. It was in episode #150.

Aizen had kidnapped Orihime. Ulquiorra explained how Aizen used a whole bunch of psychological tricks to ensure her loyalty.

Instead of outright kidnapping her, Ulquiorra offered her a choice "Come with me voluntarily, or your friends will be murdered!" This made it seem like a voluntary choice.

He gave her the opportunity to say goodbye to someone before she left. This helped reinforce that it was her voluntary choice. Also, by leaving evidence behind, that made it seem like a defection rather than a kidnapping. However, her friends were not fooled.

"You may say goodbye to someone!" sounds a lot like "You get one phone call after being arrested!" Actually, "You get one phone call!" is not an explicit right. Police have no legal obligation to let you make a phone call after arrest/kidnapping, although they normally allow a phone call.

"Come with me voluntarily, or your friends will be murdered!" sounds a lot like "Accept this plea-bargain 'voluntarily' or you will go to jail for even longer."

That was an interesting analogy to all the little tricks that State parasites use to control their victims. Give people a limited illusion of freedom, and meaningless choices.

There are many superficial choices a slave has:

1. Elections are meaningless choices.
2. You can choose where you live (with certain restrictions). All governments offer nearly equally bad terms.
3. You can choose which State-sanctioned school or pay for a State-licensed private school (if you can afford it).
4. You can choose your job, provided you give State parasites more than half your labor via taxes, and more via indirect hidden taxes.

Aizen's tricks didn't seem to work on Orihime. State parasites have extremely polished and refined tricks.

There was another fnord in the documentary "Moribito" episode #14. The main characters discovered "All the 'official history' in our textbooks is a lie!"