Atticus (Philosophy)

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Atticus lives by a life philosophy of his own creation that he has never disclosed to anyone. This is because he believes that the way he sees the world should be intuitive to everyone else, but it is very obviously not. He created a set of rules and is confused when no one else follows them, but no one else has been told the rules. 

At his core, Atticus is an objectivist.  Objectivism is a philosophy that believes that every person's life should be motivated by their own self interest. He believes that everything he gets should be something he has worked for, his own productivity being the drive of his life. Reason is the basis for all his decisions, and he approaches most situations in a very analytic way where some people may base their choices on emotions.

Atticus often speaks of an act he calls 'cheating' which refers to receiving something without earning it. Often this is used to describe magic, which he sees as a short cut, and anything he sees as cheating is also fair game to be called tainted and impure. Due to this, he doesn't really believe in helping others or receiving assistance and gets angered by acts being done for his sake without his consent (i.e. being healed by magic while he is unconscious). Being a non-human intelligent being is often a form of cheating to him as well and if it's ever implied that he is not human he tends to lash out. 

He is under the impression that he himself is a being worthy of praise, a "shining example of a human being" who has earned the right to find the secret to immortality. 

Despite not respecting the concept of help, Atticus is a very protective individual for those he considers worthy. This is because he sees most other persons as less free individuals and more of objects with value (a principal he also applies to his own self, believing he is the highest tier of value). For those he has claimed as his own 'possessions' he considers their well being his own personal responsibility. This can conflict with his other principal philosophies when his wish to protect his possessions ends up moving the goal of their happiness above his own, which is a direct contradiction to his main world view. Rare acts of actually caring about other people lead to a cognitive dissonance he does not know how to overcome.