Whataboutism Wanda

Wanda's deflection grew from a squirmy dislike: she hated being told what to do, hated the feeling of blame landing on her. And she'd learned young that if she just pointed somewhere else fast enough — "but Jimmy left his boots out!" — everyone's eyes would swing away from her, at least for a moment, and the squirmy feeling would ease.

It worked, in the smallest, shortest way. The eyes swung away — and then swung right back, because her own mess was still sitting there. Jimmy's boots never once tidied Wanda's socks. Her deflection didn't erase a single thing she'd done; it just bought her three seconds and left the actual problem to fester. She used the trick for years before she admitted it never fixed anything — it only moved the spotlight. That was the trick she decided to teach.

Wanda slipped into LogicQuest, nose twitching, and darted her quick eyes up at Inspector Logos.

"What is whataboutism?"

"It's dodging a criticism about me by pointing at some other person's wrongdoing," Wanda said. "Somebody says 'your room's a mess,' and I say 'well what about their room?' — so we stop talking about mine." Her tail flicked. "I do it when I don't want to face what I did. It gives a quick puff of relief. The skill is spotting the deflection and going back to the first problem — the one that's actually mine to fix."

Inspector Logos nodded. "Someone else's mess, somewhere else, never cleans up yours. Catching the deflection is the job." She smiled. "Hired. Try to sit still."

Wanda's lesson landed one sunny afternoon when her friend Pip stood in her doorway, holding her nose. "Wanda, your room is a disaster!" A pile of socks sat beside a half-eaten sandwich; a forgotten science project glittered under a bedsheet.

Wanda's nose twitched, and — there it was — the move fired. "Oh, my room? What about your room, Pip? I saw a whole tower of books in your corner yesterday!"

"My books are neat! And they're not moldy sandwiches!"

And Wanda caught it — the flick, the point, the swing of the spotlight — and made herself set the comic down, because this was the lesson. "Okay. Freeze. Watch what I just did. Pip pointed at my mess, and I pointed at Pip's books — a totally different room — so nobody'd look at my sandwich." She sat up. "Here's how you catch a deflection every time. First: did they actually talk about the first problem, or just push it away toward someone else? Second: is it even true that the other person did it? Sometimes it isn't. Third: even if it is true — does that make your problem okay? Almost always, no. And to get back on track, you just say: 'Okay — but we were talking about this. What about this?'" She glanced, a little sheepish, at her sandwich. "Pip's books don't make my socks tidy. Only tidying my socks does that."