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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,099
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
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Discussion starters for Ammonite now posted
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Slightly behind because of a family get-together but should be posted tomorrow
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Hi all, I know @kcaryths has finished - and of course it has been the holiday season - but how are folk getting on with Ammonite? I can post discussion starters this coming weekend or leave it a week?
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Hi all, looks like discussion about the Arthurian Romances is dying down, though there's still plenty of time to revitalise it! This is a quick reminder that December's read is Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, selected by me. Discussion to start early …
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(Quote) If you go back to the post-Roman pre Normal Conquest time frame then you have a similar sort of situation but not with words like "knight"... you had the king who may well only rule over a small area of land (maybe only the equival…
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(Quote) Yes, I read it while exploring new Kingdom Egyptian and archaic Hebrew poetry a few years ago. I don't think the key point is whether the singers were literate or not, but how they chose to narrate and pass on their traditions. Just like anc…
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(Quote) I wonder if de Troyes based his description of society on what was actually around him and his audience at the time, or on what people believed life had been like a while back? Again like Homer - it is widely believed that he (if you prefer,…
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I wonder whether this was intended purely as a written fiction, or whether there were sung/recited/declaimed variations at the same time. Can we imagine multiple slightly-divergent versions of the tales, with de Troyes selecting the material he part…
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(Quote) This is a common plot in older fiction (and probably based in fact to a degree at least) - the attendants, maids or whatever of elite women are typically wholly committed and faithful, leaving indiscretions and such like unreported to the ru…
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(Quote) Indeed this is a classic problem for a military ruler in peacetime - what to do with highly trained skilled and aggressive followers who have no "real" battles to fight. If you;re going to stop them just fighting each other or tryi…
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All: I have set up discussion areas for the next three months: December... me, Ammonite by Nicola Griffith January... @BarnerCobblewood, Antimimetics Division by various authors February... @clash_bowley, Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard
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(Quote) That puts it very well, I think. There were many perils in the ancient world, but by and large people reckoned they knew what the order of things ought to be, and how they fitted into it. But here, your place seems to depend totally on the w…
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I couldn't see an obvious place to comment on this, but it seemed to me that another narrative successor to this kind of tale would be the Western. Again you have clear demarcations between good guys and bad guys, and the imperative to keep persever…
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Not having played it, but I would expect that a player would be rewarded or penalised by the extent to which he or she fulfils things they have said (even casual things that were spoken in passing) and so would be constantly held accountable for the…
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I think it is a rational basis for morality... just a different one. It's not rule-based like a written constitution or the Ten Commandments or whatever, but rather an honour-based one resting heavily on loyalty to the king and adherence to one's ow…
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Yes, it gave the feel of a commentary on events as related by a sidekick close to the action
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I have been watching (for entirely random reasons) a few video reconstructions of ancient and medieval battles, and one thing that strikes you is how small armies that were well-led, well-equipped and well-motivated could defeat and usually slaughte…
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Yes, as I commented before, breaking a promise is, apparently, one of the most terrible things a knight can do, even if there are extenuating circumstances,
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Again the women who are most highly praised in the narrative are those who don't try to attain power or position but uphold their superiors. I did find it entertaining that every single woman who appears for more than a sentence is described as fabu…
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I think it would be considered important to the audience that Lancelot, Yvain etc were fighting for ideals and to fulfil vows rather than just to accumulate loot or usurp a throne. So their battles serve not only to add glory to themselves but also …
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One of the main drivers of goodness seems to be that you relentlessly fulfil whatever promise you have made, regardless of what others may think and whatever unexpected obstacles might appear along the way. There doesn't seem to be a get-out clause …
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I liked them, especially as they made no attempt to justify or explain the driving forces behind people's actions... things happened, and the main characters responded to them without agonising over them! Oddly (perhaps) the social drivers felt more…
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Ready
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(Quote) Following on from what @clash_bowley said let's adjust the schedule to November @NeilNjae two of the Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes December me with Ammonite January @BarnerCobblewood with the sections on the web site https://scp-…
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(Quote) I'm not keen on website reading but I'm even less keen on spending £9-10 on an ebook :)
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Right let's assume we're going for it, tackling the material @BarnerCobblewood outlined (Quote) So... when would you like to slot this in to the sequence? Let me know what month you'd like to pick and I'll set up the discussion area accordingly.
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(Quote) Nobody has responded to this yet so I'll leap in :) A quick glance suggests that it's a work in progress, and deliberately so in the hope that other contributions might arise. I don't think this of itself is a problem, and I guess if there's…
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(Quote) That sounds a really cool idea! What happens when the tower collapses? Or is that situation-dependent?
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(Quote) Are we in fact collectively too inured to horror these days for it to have much impact as a genre? In film / TV it seems to me that much of the emphasis is on making the menace / injury / whatever more and more explicit, whereas older forms …
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I've been rereading A Memory Called Empire - a cracking book which I enjoy more each time I revisit it - and came across this rather pertinent extract (Quote)