So, every time aberrants are mentioned it seems to be assumed that every single one is going to be a threat to life, or even to humanity itself. Everyone seems to take for granted that every aberrant is going to be a threatening horror.
My question is, is there any reason that this must be true? Like, if aberrants were just people turned into engines that endlessly fuel a runaway spell effect, then you would expect there to be some aberrants that through pure happenstance had neutral or even beneficial effects from the perspectives of those around them.
But it doesn’t seem like people who have break events while casting divinations ever just turn into a window that looks upon a random landscape on the other side of the continent, or like there are any roving effects that transform one specific composition of mud into diamonds, or even any effects that are simply inconvenient, like not being able to close doors within a given vicinity.
It seems like every single one is actively harmful to people around it, and if they are just runaway magic with extra bits pulled in from the collective unconscious, then shouldn’t some of them be fine, just by pure chance?
What if there is something actively influencing them toward malevolence?..
Ought to be, right? Moonsable isn’t very dangerous on the surface of it; she just promulgates the effect of admiration of her. We have very few aberrants as examples so far, and most of them are the cautionary tales.
There are Aberrants that aren’t directly harmful, such as the one that gives out prophecies. It doesn’t seem to be harmful to people who leave it alone. There probably are other Aberrants which are similarly not dangerous if left alone.
However, consider that the cause of an Aberrant is 1) a thaumaterge having their Will break 2) while actively casting magic. Magic requires a strong Will, as you are effectively forcing a change that does not follow the laws of physics. So far, the Aberrants we know of all had their Wills break during intense traumatic events, or by casting magic through their flesh.
So that Divination Aberrant? The Red Guard set up an exclusion zone because it happily divines only negative futures for those who ask. I imagine a Healing Aberration would turn out like the lady who cast spells to remove her excess fat.
I think you might be misremembering what the Red Sage does. Its prophecies are sometimes positive for the people who go see it, if it likes them, that is why people continue to go see it.
They merely are always horrible for the world at large and everyone around that person.
In fact I view that description of the Red Sage as a Chekhov’s gun. I expect that some day we’ll learn that some prophecy was in some way involved in various of the things that happened to Siobhan.