CLARIFICATION: Due to unfortunately worded statements that some people have interpreted in a manner in which my younger, somewhat less socially aware self never intended, this whole essay has been misconstrued as one that argues against Jade being neurodivergent. I would like to say now that no, this is not the case. This particular one is dedicated to arguing against sociopathy or psychopathy, and while I do touch on how there’s a lack of symptoms to make any conclusive diagnosis of any sort of mental ailment, my main point here is that he’s not a sociopath. The whole “is Jade neurotypical or neurodivergent” debate is a separate topic of discussion altogether, which I ended up covering in another essay.

Today, we will look into a certain person by the name of Jade Curtiss, who is unfortunately misconstrued as a mentally ill individual, the most common “diagnosis” being “antisocial personality disorder”, informally referred to as “sociopathy”, depending who you ask. I will proceed to explain why this is not the case at all—why it simply isn’t correct to say that he has some sort of mental illness, borderline or not.

I think that this misconception is born out of a lack of understanding of his character, which is why I will walk through aspects of his character and use them as a basis for explaining why the symptoms often associated with antisocial personality disorder cannot be used as a support for the conjectures “Jade is a borderline sociopath” and “Jade has antisocial personality disorder”.

In that regard, we will be covering the following in this lengthy discussion:

• The Necromancer’s Infamy: On Cruelty to Animals, Harvesting Corpses, and Mistaken Observations
• Jade and Dist: The Tale of a Hapless Child Who Walked the Lonely Road of Blind Idolization
• “Congratulations! Your Jade Balfour evolved into Jade Curtiss!” - The Subject of Change
• An Overview of INTJade
• On ASP Symptoms, and Why They Simply Don’t Work with Regard to Jade
• Who is Jade Curtiss?

While this doubles as a character analysis essay, my main goal is to disprove the notion that he is a mentally ill individual. In this regard, I will be using the following to support my claims:

• Game text
• Drama CDs
• Excerpts from Shiro no Ashita: Jade Balfour, a light novel that talks about his childhood
• Recollections of Jade, a spin-off manga centered on Jade

OK, without further ado, let us begin.

★ The Necromancer’s Infamy: On Cruelty to Animals, Harvesting Corpses, and Mistaken Observations

The first one I would like to address is the often cited “cruelty to animals” reasoning, which is used as a so-called strong support for him having some sort of mental illness. While I do not condone what he did as a child, I still would like to offer a different perspective with regard to this.

At face value, this characteristic by itself seems like a good sign that he is touched in the head, but when you take into account his reason for doing so, it becomes an unusable point against him. Yes, you heard that right. There is a reason why he does it.

Firstly, let’s look at the game script and pinpoint where we first learn about Jade’s habit of killing animals back when he was a kid.

Nephry: …I felt something abnormal in his way of thinking.
Luke: “Abnormal”… You don’t have to put it like that…
Nephry: …He acts nice now, but as a child, my brother was a terror. A devil. He could use fonic artes that even adults found difficult. He enjoyed killing even harmless monsters. My brother didn’t understand what it meant for living things to die.
Luke: He doesn’t seem that way to me…

As you can see, our knowledge about Jade liking to kill harmless monsters (which may be the rough equivalent of animals in Auldrant) comes from Nephry, who has witnessed him at his worst. However, when Jade confronts Luke about it later on, he neither refutes or confirms any of it. He only makes assumptions about what they have discussed—that it was about the Professor, and about him possibly harboring a desire to resurrect her.

In addition to that, it was brought up in the Dr. Mambo sidequest that Jade studied to be a coroner at some point in time. There was an elaboration on this in Shiro no Ashita, in a conversation he had with Nebilim. Here, have a preview of the translated text:

[After class hours. Jade and Nebilim sit down to have a chat over some snacks.]

“Thank you. I wonder what kind of adult you’ll grow up to be.”

“For now, I was thinking that it’d be great to be a medical examiner.”

“A medical examiner?”

As she chewed down on the steaming tofu, Nebilim asked.

“Yeah. Cause and effect… Studying the relation between the killing method and the damage that the corpse would sustain as a result. And what kind of fonic arte would result in what kind of dead body.”

“Corpses, you say…”

“Yes. Even in natural deaths, that causal aspect can follow countless paths. Organic matter in which all living activities had stopped are very eloquent—it’s impossible to grow bored of them.”

“…Quite so, aren’t they. By the way, Nephry said before that you’d catch small monsters and cut them up or kill them…”

“I can’t use humans, after all.”

Jade said the line with a very serious expression, but somewhere in his tone there was a very clear that he thought it was quite regrettable.

The core of this point is that Jade never said he liked cutting up animals. It was all in the name of science—practice for a field he wanted to take seriously when he was a grown-up. Think of it as something akin to dissecting something in a laboratory for coursework, except that Jade’s actions were not in a controlled environment or that his methodology was as refined as something you would see in a laboratory. The thing is, he did not cut up animals for the heck of it. He enjoyed doing it because he learned something new from the act, not because, in Eirlys’s words, he has a hate-boner for these little animals. If there’s one thing that would describe Jade as a kid, it would be curious, in addition to being precocious.

While my addition of the last line of the excerpt doesn’t seem like it would help my cause, as it shows Jade in a rather creepy light, I do not want to be accused of misappropriating the text for my own end once Eirlys and I get around to finishing the translation of the said story. The thing is, while he would have been interested in using humans as a test subject, he never does, doesn’t he? In a way, he still has a sense of what is right and what is wrong, even if the value of a life still eludes him.

But what about Nephry’s statement, you ask? I believe it’s a question of observation versus reality. Nephry tells us what she observed, which is her older brother enjoying killing monsters as a child. Jade, in reality, was after the knowledge he can gain thanks to the act of killing the said monsters. There was nothing said about him enjoying the act of killing them. Jade’s true reason behind why he killed animals can be used to debunk Nephry’s mistaken impression that what he enjoyed was killing them. The argument of observation vs reality is emphasized by Luke’s protests while Nephry was sharing her impressions of Jade to him, as both of them observed different things.

And while it doesn’t change the fact that Jade’s act could qualify as “cruelty to animals”, it now depends on how sanitized your definition of the act is. To a non-activist, it probably would not qualify as such, as there was a scientific reason attached to it, rather than just a simple act of sport.

If you want further elaboration on the matter of mistaken observations, you don’t have to look further than the circumstances surrounding his “Necromancer” title. Largo says it himself when the player first learns of it, “Rumors have spread far and wide—how you scavenge corpses after every battle.” There was an elaboration of it in the first part of the Contamination Sidequest, where Jade brushes off an attack by a man accusing him of taking his brother’s body for some undead experiments.

Guy: About those rumors that guy mentioned… 
Tear: Yes, it’s famous amongst the military. The story goes that he collects corpses on the battlefield in an effort to revive the dead. 
Anise: There’s even a rumor that says the Malkuth’s Forces’ Third Division is made up of living dead. When I actually met them, it turned out it wasn’t true, but. 
Guy: …Reviving the dead, huh…

As we go along, we find out that Jade was not actually harvesting dead bodies—just extracting replica data back in the day. In a way, Nephry’s observation of Jade’s habit of killing animals fall under a similar vein—that of a rumor whose truth has never been confirmed, and is probably not the case. Perhaps, this misconception may have been exacerbated by the way people phrased it in sites like TV Tropes, stating her statement as fact, rather than just an observation. In an effort to pigeonhole him into a trope, I suppose people chose to accept it as fact rather than backtrack to think about its validity. Considering how the game does a good job of building up a “creepy” reputation for Jade, verifying something that lends credence to that impression is not something that concerned people can be bothered with verifying.

★ Jade and Dist: The Tale of a Hapless Child Who Walked the Lonely Road of Blind Idolization

And now, we move on to another point of contention—Jade’s poor treatment of Dist. While I do not condone the way he treated the poor soul, I believe that this should not be used as a support for him having the mentioned disorder, considering Dist’s singularity. He is merely one individual, and the key behind antisocial personality disorder is the plurality associated with the instances and people victimized by the accused’s anti-society attacks. In addition to that, this is a rather personal issue between Jade and Dist rather than something akin to a general antisocial behavior. Also, while Jade treats him poorly in many occasions, there are some justifications for it in some instances, especially what he does to him during the course of the game. You will have to remember—Dist is an enemy in the game, and when you’re at war, niceties are often secondary when you are fighting for your life.

As a kid, though, it becomes trickier to justify why Jade treated Dist rather poorly, though their circumstances might be able to help shed some justification on the matter. See here, Dist—or Saphir as he was once known—was a person who clung to Jade for some reason Jade could not fathom. Even if Jade gave off the vibe that he did not want him around, Saphir still hung around anyway. In that regard, I guess one could say that Saphir had it coming. Normally, you’d back off after someone expresses that they’re not interested in having you around, but still, Saphir persisted in doing so. Eventually, Saphir grew on him, I suppose, and I guess it helped that Saphir had something in the way of talent to “offer” to Jade later on along the road—his prowess with fon machinery. Jade is not the type to do something without a purpose, after all. Or hang around with someone he deems “useless”.

And now, for a theory with regard to why Jade doesn’t give Saphir the time of the day. On the subject of Jade’s childhood, Jade, from the get-go, was one of those people you could say was in a league of his own. Even Nebilim says as much in Shiro no Ashita,while she was thinking about her pupils:

The two of them were the academy’s brightest pupils. In particular, Jade’s excellence was astonishing.

While Monde and the others were learning the basics of reading and writing, Jade was reading a book on fonons on his own.

In that regard, we have to remember that Jade grew up in an environment where he was the best at everything, and to top that off, had an insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge—anything that doesn’t challenge him is “unworthy” of a second look.

Such was his life, until Gelda Nebilim entered the picture. Nebilim, as one of the rare people who can use the Seventh Fonon, was right up the list of “cool” people in Jade’s book, as she can do something he cannot. Jade says it himself—he enrolled in Nebilim’s school precisely because she can use the Seventh Fonon.

Nebilim: I was wondering why you enrolled here. I suppose you already know, but in this class, there’s not much that’s being taught aside from reading and writing. For someone of your level, there’s nothing you can gain from—

Jade: It’s because you’re a Seventh Fonist, Professor.

This strengthens the argument that Jade is quite utilitarian in his approach towards people. When we take into account the way he views Professor Gelda Nebilim, it would appear that his treatment of the people around him centers around the concept of how “interesting” they are—in whether or not they have something to “offer” him, usually something in the line of satiating his curiosity. In that regard, he makes his initial judgements of which people to approach based on how useful they are to him, which in turn, decides how much resources—time and effort—he would dedicate to them.

In Shiro no Ashita, it states that Jade finds Saphir to be good in fonic studies class. However, that is not anything new to Jade, considering that he’s a fonic prodigy—as such, he doesn’t see much value in “investing” time on Saphir. He can’t learn anything new from Saphir, and there’s not much that he could do that Jade himself can’t. Consider how he approached Nebilim because she can control the seventh fonon, and how he went to check out Peony because he just wanted to know what this rumored Emperor’s son is like.

[Jade and Dist sneak around Peony’s mansion, looking for a way in.]

To be honest, when he heard about the tragic tale of the Emperor’s son, Peony Upala Malkuth, in the classroom, Jade didn’t feel any interest in it. He just wanted to see how things were going.

However, once he saw the heavy security they’ve kept up around the place, his natural sense of curiosity began to rear its head up.

(What kind of person is he, I wonder…)

“Jade, let’s go back.”

Saphir was incessantly tugging at his sleeve. Jade brushed him off.

“If you kill any of them, we’ll really get in trouble, so…”

“Yeah, I know.”

Saphir, realizing what Jade was thinking through in his mind, paled visibly.

“Let’s go home, Jade. I’m not interested in meeting the Emperor’s son anyway…”

“I want to try meet him, no matter what!”

And now, for an explanation of this section’s title. Consider this section of the text from Shiro no Ashita, when Jade stopped to help Nephry with her heavy bag as he was on his way to Nebilim’s place:

He didn’t have any intention of thinking about it, but nevertheless, he wondered.

(Why is this fellow always clinging to me, anyway?)

As Jade helped Nephry with the bag, he thought.

Since their parents were acquaintances, there were times in the past when they’d play together. But Saphir’s only started to tail him around this intensely since the previous year, when they’d started going to classes at Nebilim’s place.

While Saphir’s obsession with Jade was never directly explained in the text, one could argue that Saphir, and in effect, Dist, in fact, did not merely cling to Jade, but rather his idea of Jade.

It’s not a far shot to say that Saphir, during his classes with Jade, must have seen how smart he was—scoring the highest in class and what not—and as such, came to idolize him. It’s already quite obvious that Saphir admires Jade, and that admiration, feeding off Jade’s constant successes in an endless loop that further solidifies Jade’s image as a flawless prodigy, may have given birth to the thoughts that framed Jade as a perfect being—someone who never screwed up, someone who was always perfect, someone who was always right.

After a while, people usually wake up from this idolatry spell, but the thing is, Saphir did not. Heck, he didn’t even seem to realize that Jade did not want anything to do with fomicry even after he put a ban on it, and that’s about as straightforward a ‘no’ as you can get. Cockroach-like tenacity aside, once you take into account that a reason for him continuing fomicry research to revive Professor Nebilim was that he wanted to Jade to return to the way he was, it becomes quite evident that he was in love with the idea of those days when Nebilim was still alive, as well as the ‘old Jade’ of that time.

But Jade, unfortunately for Saphir, has changed and has no intentions to returning to the way he was, which brings us to the next topic…

★ “Congratulations! Your Jade Balfour evolved into Jade Curtiss!” - The Subject of Change

If you have looked through my ramblings about Jade’s side in Shiro no Ashita, you would often see that I have referred to him as an asshat. While part of it is me getting carried away with the text, part of it is reality at its finest. To summarize his character as a child, he is a blunt asshat. Blunt—as in has no trouble saying what is on his mind, asshat—because he does this regardless of what the person on the other end might feel (Saphir being on the receiving end of this more often than not). In addition to that, he was the type of person who did whatever he wanted to do, notwithstanding people’s protests to it, from Saphir telling him that it’s too risky to sneak into Peony’s mansion to his mom telling him not to kill animals.

However, this all changed after Professor Nebilim passed away—when he was adopted by the Curtiss family. Of interesting note was Eirlys’s observation in the text after that event, where the writer, Yajima Sara, made it a point to highlight a change in his speaking style. Consider the following excerpt from Shiro no Ashita:

[Peony meets Jade a few years after Nebilim’s death. They have a conversation.]

「……あんなに平和だったのになぁ」
Peony: …Even though it’s that peaceful, huh.

☆「ええ。でもそれは僕――私たちが子供だったからそう思っていただけで、実際のところ大人はずっと以前から大変だったんでしょう」
Jade: Strange, isn’t it. But while we’ve always thought of it that way as children, the truth is, it’s always been that difficult for the adults.

「相変わらずものわかりのいいことばっか言いやがって」
Peony: As usual, you seem to always say only wise-sounding stuff.

ペオニーはムッとする。
Peony huffed.

「それなら何故、”死霊使い”なんて二つ名で呼ばれるようになったんだかな。俺に会いに来ることはできなくても、骸狩りをする暇はあるらしい」
Peony: But even then, you still managed to earn the nickname the “Necromancer”. You say you’re too busy to come and meet me, but it looks like you still have time to spare if it’s about hunting for corpses.

☆「サフィールみたいな駄々をこねるなよ」
Jade: Don’t whine at me like Saphir does.

ジェイドは思わず昔の口調で言い、今まで戦場から持ち帰った兵士の死体で作った複製たちを、つぶさに思い出した。
Jade reflexively spoke with his old tone, remembering clearly the replicas of the dead soldiers’ corpses that he’d brought home from the battlefields until now.

Though it may be difficult to universally explain without a full translation of the entire novel and a study of the original text, Jade’s past speech style and his current one differ by a large margin. Readers with a grasp of conversational styles in Japanese may have realized the significance of the lines labeled with a star (☆) in the above excerpt—Jade at first slips up with referring to themselves with 僕, correcting himself by exchanging it into 私. For context, 僕 was the general pronoun he once used to refer to himself, which is a generic boyish way of talking. 私, on the other hand, belongs to the 丁寧語 (‘teineigo’, “polite language”) group of pronouns, which is how our usual Colonel Jade Curtiss talks. In Star #2, we see Jade getting carried away enough to momentarily relapse back into Jade Balfour’s speech style, which is rougher. These differences are most visible in the bolded parts.

Complicated language talk aside, though, suffice it to say that Jade used to talk a lot more like Luke than the smooth bastard he is in-game. He also spoke less straightforwardly, seemingly having grown his unreadable side at this point. Considering how he evidently has to put conscious effort into maintaining his speech style, it’s likely that this deliberate change in expression choices is used to signify a change within Jade’s personality itself.

This is the change Saphir talked about in Recollections of Jade. The change where Jade begins to repress his emotions under an unreadable, polite mask. I agree with Eirlys’s assessment regarding this matter—this change being a conscious effort to make sure that his previous childish attitude towards things doesn’t kill people, the way it did Nebilim. In a way, he became more calculating with his actions, and in effect, more careful with his words.

Later on, this polite mask settled down to the sarcastic old man we all came to know in the story of Tales of the Abyss.

★ An Overview of INTJade

And lest I forget, I would like to highlight an aspect of Jade’s personality which I find more or less everyone agreeing on—the fact that he is an excellent example of an INTJ in fiction. This is very important, as this personality type can more or less account for a lot of the things that he does, as with his mindset when doing things.

In a nutshell, an INTJ is one of sixteen personality types in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Standing for Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging, this type is known for being highly confident and capable perfectionists, who place a lot of premium on efficiency. They are also natural strategists and are inventive individuals. Insightful as they might be, they do have trouble understanding emotions, as with people who refuse to make any sense. There is more information on them in the websites TypeLogic and 16personalities, just to name a few possible sources.

★ On ASP symptoms, and why they simply don’t work with regard to Jade

Now, let’s move on to the symptoms as detailed in Mayo Clinic and see how they apply with the topics listed above. For consistency, I will be judging him as an adult.

• Disregard for right and wrong. And we have something booted off the list right away! Jade has a sense of what is right and wrong—otherwise, he won’t be a colonel in the Malkuth military.
• Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others. I cannot think of an instance as to why he lied in order to exploit another. His outrageous lies in the name of sarcasm do not count towards this.
• Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or for sheer personal pleasure. While Jade is indeed a manipulative bastard, I cannot recall a time he actually used “charm” in order get something he wanted. I believe Peony would testify that he’s as prickly as a cactus in that regard. Also, see the section on Saphir for more details.
• Intense egocentrism, sense of superiority and exhibitionism. When you look at it, none of these characteristics apply to Jade as an adult. The first two were present in him as a child, but as a result of the change mentioned in an earlier section, this was more or less muted out in favor of an unreadable mask.
• Recurring difficulties with the law. Well, being in the military, Jade IS the law. Kidding aside, I don’t think he has such difficulties, considering he is a law-abiding citizen by nature and in fact, even enforces it. The sidequest for which he acquires his “Lawman” title is a good example of this.
• Repeatedly violating the rights of others by the use of intimidation, dishonesty and misrepresentation. See the section on Saphir for more details.
• Child abuse or neglect. Not applicable, unless you’re going to takes his father of fomicry title literally and count all those replicas as his children and manage to somehow blame him for the abuse that uninformed citizens heap upon the said entities.
• Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, impulsiveness, aggression or violence. I cannot think of any more words that describe Jade the least. While he does threaten violence once in a while when something ticks him off (i.e. threatening to roast Peony’s rappigs), he never actually pushes through with them and these instances are mostly played for laughs rather than as a matter to be taken seriously. If you must, see Saphir’s section for more details if you plan on raising him as an example.
• Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others. Ah, now this isn’t something I would deny, however, these on its own is not telling, as you need several symptoms to effectively diagnose something. A lack of empathy or grasp of emotions does not automatically mean that someone’s a sociopath—see the INTJade section for more details.
• Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behaviors. Jade is a very calculating person, and as such, does not favor the mentioned matters. The closest thing to the latter would be his soft spot for alcohol, but even then, it’s not immediately telling as a sign of mental disorder, especially when it’s not raised as an issue for him.
• Poor or abusive relationships. See the section on Saphir.
• Irresponsible work behaviour. How can this be, when he leads a fairly successful military career? In fact, he could’ve been easily promoted to Lieutenant General as said by Field Marshal McGovern in the game, if not for him favoring fieldwork over desk jockeying, as explained in the second track of the TOA TV animation drama titled Episode Zero.
• Failure to learn from the negative consequences of behaviour. Considering that his current character and motivations are a product of learning from the negative consequences of his previous behaviour, this point does not apply to him. See the section on change for more details.

When it all comes down to it, the “symptoms” that are left are his lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others. Which, as explained earlier, do not mean anything on their own. Both can be associated with his “INTJness”, as well as being attitudes that are a product of his pragmatism. Notably, the latter is something we see in him when he deals with enemies—which isn’t unreasonable, considering that they are at war. As for the former, he gets better about it—why else would he decide to take up fomicry research after the events at Eldrant?

To be honest, I think this discussion would have been unnecessary if we have read the definition for “antisocial personality disorder”. The most encapsulating definition I’ve found for this disorder was “a recurrent and serial pattern of misbehavior that involves all significant facets of life and is marked by violation of social norms and regulations that occur over time, ranging from repeated lies and petty theft to violence – and even murder, in the most serious cases” (an excerpt from Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy), Revised and Updated, sourced from PsychCentral). In that respect, I simply do not see how this applies to Jade Curtiss, considering how his current actions as an adult simply do not apply to the said definition at all.

If you’ll raise his stint with fomicry as this “serial pattern of misbehavior”, then you have another thing coming. Remember—unethical as it seemed to the casual viewer, it was deemed legal by society back when he researched it. And eventually, he did realize the ethical issues behind it, and even took measures to ban the science. If you’re going to raise his treatment of Saphir as such as well, you need to reread the section I dedicated to his relationship with Saphir.

★ Who is Jade Curtiss?

Now that we have established that Jade does not have a mental illness, I’d like to take the time to describe him in light of what I just shared.

Colonel Jade Curtiss of the Third Division of the Malkuth Imperial Forces is a prodigious wielder of fonic artes, feared by his enemies and well-respected by many.

A man of many faces he is not, for he favors only a single face—that of a cool and collected soldier with what’s supposed to be a reassuring smile (or smirk, for the subject of his amusement) ready on hand. He is but human, though, and occasionally slips up with his practiced mask, but those moments are generally far in between.

This indifferent front, however, is a decades-old coping mechanism that he developed in order to hide his emotions. Perceptive as he is when it comes to other people’s, his is a whole different story, as it is a topic he has great trouble understanding and making sense of. His amazing poker face does give him an advantage with dealing with people as those who don’t know him well are unable to tell what he’s really thinking, but in reality, it is a facade he uses to distance people away from him.

Jade is generally straightforward in his dealings as a soldier, though exercises more tact as compared to the times he deals with people he considers his friends. He would happily keep information or theories to himself if he sees that it lends no significance to a conversation, and would tell a white lie if he deems it as a better alternative to what may happen if the truth comes out.

In contrast to his dealings with most people, he does “relax” a bit when in the company of friends—or enemies for that matter. By “relax”, the enigmatic, pleasant soldier most people are acquainted with turns into a sarcastic douche, ready with a snide or caustic remark for any situation or line that may be thrown at him. Hurting other people is never his intention, as his barbs are more or less for his amusement more than anything else.

In addition to being proficient in casting fonic artes, he is also learned in other disciplines such as Physics, though would often deny it and would defer to the so-called experts on the matter. He is capable of coming up with theories—or intelligent guesses as he’d rather call them—that would make an expert bash their heads in shame for not having thought of it themselves. Still, while his theories hit the nail right on the head for the most part, he would rather seek the opinion of an expert first before revealing what card he has up his sleeve.

Overall, Jade’s actions are driven by what he sees as “productive”. He does not have the patience for dealing with matters that have no rhyme or reason to them. While he initially comes off as very utilitarian in his dealings with people and even friends, he does get better, and with time and companionship, people do find a way to worm themselves into his heart, small opening as it is.

★ Special Thanks and Sources

• EirlysTylluan, for taking the time to review this essay and even add input of her own, as with her invaluable help in translating Shiro no Ashita.
• HiddenCurrents.Org, for their plot script and sidequest script.
• Taleslations, specifically Yume, for translating the relevant drama CD track that was used as a reference in this essay.

★ EDIT: Replies to reblogs [link]

★ EDIT [27/10/2014] An extension to this post (clarifying some of my points, among other things):  [link]