I have been thinking a bit about the genius of the “lock a label” advancement.

I have been thinking a bit about the genius of the “lock a label” advancement. On the surface it is a mechanical advantage, generally ensuring that either your highest or lowest stat is placed in a fixed state. But this is really a representation of your character maturing, of them deciding who they are and being committed to that idea regardless of what the world around them may say. This is one of the things that is empowering about growing up in real life, but the flip side is that in deciding who you really are you sacrifice the flexibility to be someone else. If you go all the way down to five year olds, they are almost literally different people every day. They are trying on new roles and ideas, imitating the world around them, and playing with their own identities as much as they are with their environment. By the time a person is a teenager their patterns have become much more firm, and a big part of that time is the acceptance or repudiation of values and ideas that contribute to a person’s construction of themselves. Earlier this construction was heavily influenced by adults and peers, and they still hold considerable sway, but the individual person is now assuming control. But their is something sad about that lost plasticity, the ability to be remolded or to remold oneself easily, even when it is replaced by a thing we crave. It is gone, and will not come back.