Masters (The Tripods) - Psychology

Psychology

The Masters are also different from human beings psychologically. They are completely incapable of lying, finding it difficult to tell the difference between a novel and a biography. As such they are extremely gullible, taking everything told to them as indisputable truth.

Their reaction to despair, as well, shows a marked difference. The Masters are incredibly tolerant of hardship and difficulty, to the point of becoming ill if they do not work hard. However, if they find themselves in a situation to which there is absolutely no escape, they die. It is unknown whether this is natural or some form of suicide. When the Masters' xenoforming ship turned back after discovering the success of the human rebellion, the last Master on Earth, a prisoner of the Freemen, died. It is not explained how it knew that it had been abandoned.

Masters have very little in the way of a social life. They spend most of their time in their own home. It is unlikely that Masters form any kind of nuclear family; throughout the books there is no mention of there being any more than one Master to an apartment.

On the rare occasions that they do meet with others, very little conversation or activity between the two takes place. There are various events and functions around their city - communal baths, museums, and others that have no human equivalent - but each Master will attend and enjoy these events on their own. Even when in close proximity to other Masters doing the same thing, they are unlikely to engage in any kind of social intercourse, and if they do then it will be short-lived and limited.

Several forms of recreation existed. One, The Sphere Chase, involved Masters in smaller versions of their Tripod vehicles chasing a glowing sphere, with the evident goal of directing it through an opening in the side of the arena. Others involved listening to strange (by human standards) sounds or watching strange lights.

Masters seem to appreciate alien beauty. They accepted men and women into their cities, but only men served as slaves. They killed women and arranged them according to aesthetics of their own devising. In one exhibit, Will finds a woman he loved arranged with other red-haired women in the order of shades from darker red to lighter red.

But this, and their habit of taking slaves generally, suggests that they do not hold life other than their own in high regard. Although some provision was made for slaves exhausted by heavy gravity to recover, slaves who became convinced they would not recover were programmed via their Caps (see Technology) to go to The Place of Happy Release. There, some form of energy killed them, and a moving belt carried the body to a furnace for incineration. The most profound indicator was their long term plan for Earth: en route from their home at the time of "The City of Gold and Lead" were spaceships containing components they could not manufacture on Earth, parts of great machines that would accept Earth's atmosphere and turn out an atmosphere like that found on the Masters' home and in their cities. Such a transformation would be eventually fatal to all life on Earth.

At least some Masters enjoy an intoxicant they call (for the purposes of their slaves) a gas bubble. The master places the plastic bubble near his respiratory orifice and breaks it, then inhaling the vapor. The effect is evidently mild; it takes several such bubbles to create personality changes noticeable to humans. Use of gas bubbles brought out latent personality traits in at least one Master.

The Masters are not of uniform character. Will's Master (the one whose personality is most explored in the trilogy) is somewhat of an intellectual, constantly questioning and studying and learning. Fritz's Master, however, is a sadist, most interested in physical exertion as well as inflicting pain on whatever slave he happens to have at the moment. The captured prisoner, Ruki, the only Master to be named in the trilogy, is explored little. However, he is the only Master seen to display any understanding of humor and sarcasm.