Topic 31: Obituary
Sloane, Arvin, ID-Class 30408-00811, final assessment, written by Dr. J. Barnett, first draft, later discarded:
Today, Marcus Dixon informed me Arvin Sloane had perished in Mongolia and detailed the circumstances of his death. I have no idea whether this was meant as a loyalty test, a last punishment for my professional transgression two years ago, or a kind gesture. Knowing Dixon, I suspect it is meant as the later.
"You must be relieved," he said.
"I am," I replied. Which is true, though perhaps not for either of the reasons he thought I would be. Who was it that said our failures are what we allow to define ourselves? I have found it to be depressingly true, and I am tired of it.
Arvin Sloane was one of the most brilliant men I ever encountered, as well as a sociopath of the first order. Highly manipulative and utterly ruthless. It's easy to see why he was originally recruited by the CIA, why his career took off and why he was a prime target for recruitment by the Alliance later. Even why the CIA kept employing him later on. What's harder to see is why not even a year ago, some of the same people who must now be more than relieved, must rejoice at his death, tried their best to get him out of prison and vouched for him, despite knowing very well just what he had done in the past.
One of the side effects of an obsessive personality: the capacity for long-time attachment. To a very select few. After years of studying the man in theory and our very limited personal relationship, it is my belief that the only people who truly existed for him on a more than superficial level were his late wife Emily, Jack Bristow, Sydney Bristow, his daughter, Nadia Santos, and possibly Irina Derevko, though anything on that particular relationship must remain complete speculation, due to the utter lack of reliable sources. (This includes any statement given to me about it by Arvin Sloane.) He went to some considerable lengths to preserve, restore or establish relationships with the two Bristows, his wife and daughter, and repeatedly risked his life for them. He also caused them harm and, with the exception of Sydney Bristow, either directly or indirectly caused their deaths. I do not believe this to be a contradiction or, conversely, a coincidence, a series of misfortunes. A personality like Sloane's, formed under the constant pressure the life of an agent creates but without a moral standard of his own and without the belief in a reliable higher authority, would seek out constant correctives, balancing elements and/or punishment through his personal life. Consciously or subconsciously, he created a cycle with each of the people in question, who due to corresponding traits in their own personalities could not help but respond. Affection, betrayal, estrangement/punishment, the quest for forgiveness, affection restored, and a return to the start. The two things he could not handle were either complete forgiveness or a break of the cycle through death. Judging by the material given to me, the reaction to the death of his daughter Nadia mirrored and multiplied the response to the death of his wife Emily. In each case, there was a complete withdrawal from any contact followed by a renewed and exclusive fixation on the works of Milo Rambaldi. With all the precaution necessary for a long distance diagnosis, I'd go as far as call it a complete psychotic break. Sydney Bristow's report (see attachment C) is hard to interpret otherwise, given that Sloane clearly provoked her into killing him. His method - shooting her father, Jack Bristow - qualifies by itself as punishment and self destruction, given that Bristow was probably the first person with whom Sloane established the above mentioned psychological cycle.
As to the one impersonal obsession of Arvin Sloane's life, which dominated it for at least the last two, if not three decades: whatever he hoped to gain through Milo Rambaldi, I do not believe that immortality (see attachment C and Agent Bristow's speculation on the purpose of the "sphere of life") was the final goal. The very fact of Rambaldi as an object of fixation - an Italian scientist/mystic/artist who specialized in obscurity, someone safely out of each - indicates that what Sloane needed from him was the quest, the search, a transcendant purpose either his life as a CIA agent or his life as a crimelord was unable to provide. In the highly unlikely case that immortality was indeed possible, he would have regarded it as merely the first step to the next quest. He was utterly incapable of accepting the world as it is, or indeed to accept himself as he was. (See attachment B: OmniFam and the road to Svogoda.) Throughout his life, he kept trying to change both to suit whatever idea he had of either.
I should never have become involved with him. For a long time, I thought the reason for the anger which memories of that short liason is still able to trigger in me was that he had used me, and he had, though not in the manner I had at first assumed. He was my greatest failure, and therein lies the true source of my anger. When I went to visit him in Zurich at Jack Bristow's request, I did so to provide my professional assistance, and I let him change the nature of my visit within two meetings. It was more than a lack of professional decorum I am still unable to forgive myself for. Because if there ever was someone in the entire history of the CIA who needed psychiatric treatment, it was Arvin Sloane. Because I became involved with him, I was unable to provide said treatment, and I was the only therapist he ever talked to. Perhaps it would not have made a difference; I shall never know.
As I said, he was my greatest failure. But now, I will at least be able to stop hoping, in that self deluded way one does hope, that this could still change.
It is, as I told Dixon, a relief.
Today, Marcus Dixon informed me Arvin Sloane had perished in Mongolia and detailed the circumstances of his death. I have no idea whether this was meant as a loyalty test, a last punishment for my professional transgression two years ago, or a kind gesture. Knowing Dixon, I suspect it is meant as the later.
"You must be relieved," he said.
"I am," I replied. Which is true, though perhaps not for either of the reasons he thought I would be. Who was it that said our failures are what we allow to define ourselves? I have found it to be depressingly true, and I am tired of it.
Arvin Sloane was one of the most brilliant men I ever encountered, as well as a sociopath of the first order. Highly manipulative and utterly ruthless. It's easy to see why he was originally recruited by the CIA, why his career took off and why he was a prime target for recruitment by the Alliance later. Even why the CIA kept employing him later on. What's harder to see is why not even a year ago, some of the same people who must now be more than relieved, must rejoice at his death, tried their best to get him out of prison and vouched for him, despite knowing very well just what he had done in the past.
One of the side effects of an obsessive personality: the capacity for long-time attachment. To a very select few. After years of studying the man in theory and our very limited personal relationship, it is my belief that the only people who truly existed for him on a more than superficial level were his late wife Emily, Jack Bristow, Sydney Bristow, his daughter, Nadia Santos, and possibly Irina Derevko, though anything on that particular relationship must remain complete speculation, due to the utter lack of reliable sources. (This includes any statement given to me about it by Arvin Sloane.) He went to some considerable lengths to preserve, restore or establish relationships with the two Bristows, his wife and daughter, and repeatedly risked his life for them. He also caused them harm and, with the exception of Sydney Bristow, either directly or indirectly caused their deaths. I do not believe this to be a contradiction or, conversely, a coincidence, a series of misfortunes. A personality like Sloane's, formed under the constant pressure the life of an agent creates but without a moral standard of his own and without the belief in a reliable higher authority, would seek out constant correctives, balancing elements and/or punishment through his personal life. Consciously or subconsciously, he created a cycle with each of the people in question, who due to corresponding traits in their own personalities could not help but respond. Affection, betrayal, estrangement/punishment, the quest for forgiveness, affection restored, and a return to the start. The two things he could not handle were either complete forgiveness or a break of the cycle through death. Judging by the material given to me, the reaction to the death of his daughter Nadia mirrored and multiplied the response to the death of his wife Emily. In each case, there was a complete withdrawal from any contact followed by a renewed and exclusive fixation on the works of Milo Rambaldi. With all the precaution necessary for a long distance diagnosis, I'd go as far as call it a complete psychotic break. Sydney Bristow's report (see attachment C) is hard to interpret otherwise, given that Sloane clearly provoked her into killing him. His method - shooting her father, Jack Bristow - qualifies by itself as punishment and self destruction, given that Bristow was probably the first person with whom Sloane established the above mentioned psychological cycle.
As to the one impersonal obsession of Arvin Sloane's life, which dominated it for at least the last two, if not three decades: whatever he hoped to gain through Milo Rambaldi, I do not believe that immortality (see attachment C and Agent Bristow's speculation on the purpose of the "sphere of life") was the final goal. The very fact of Rambaldi as an object of fixation - an Italian scientist/mystic/artist who specialized in obscurity, someone safely out of each - indicates that what Sloane needed from him was the quest, the search, a transcendant purpose either his life as a CIA agent or his life as a crimelord was unable to provide. In the highly unlikely case that immortality was indeed possible, he would have regarded it as merely the first step to the next quest. He was utterly incapable of accepting the world as it is, or indeed to accept himself as he was. (See attachment B: OmniFam and the road to Svogoda.) Throughout his life, he kept trying to change both to suit whatever idea he had of either.
I should never have become involved with him. For a long time, I thought the reason for the anger which memories of that short liason is still able to trigger in me was that he had used me, and he had, though not in the manner I had at first assumed. He was my greatest failure, and therein lies the true source of my anger. When I went to visit him in Zurich at Jack Bristow's request, I did so to provide my professional assistance, and I let him change the nature of my visit within two meetings. It was more than a lack of professional decorum I am still unable to forgive myself for. Because if there ever was someone in the entire history of the CIA who needed psychiatric treatment, it was Arvin Sloane. Because I became involved with him, I was unable to provide said treatment, and I was the only therapist he ever talked to. Perhaps it would not have made a difference; I shall never know.
As I said, he was my greatest failure. But now, I will at least be able to stop hoping, in that self deluded way one does hope, that this could still change.
It is, as I told Dixon, a relief.