the Feral Prodigy script: shaped or broken, opponents as mirrors
You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. [...] Nets and fences can be mirrors. And between the nets and fences, opponents are also mirrors. This is why the whole thing is scary.
Context
The Student-of-the-Game creed at its stark binary: "You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between." The regimen offers no middle outcome — the plateau either tempers the body or destroys it — and the court becomes a hall of mirrors where "nets and fences" and even "opponents are also mirrors." To play is to be forced to see yourself, which is why the whole enterprise is frightening: the game shapes or breaks you by making you confront, in every opponent, exactly what you are.