Me:
> and it is interesting that virtually everyone - even you
> it seems? - prefers it to the "ultra-greggly bland succession
> of identical Moonsons" that you're nevertheless pushing.
Joerg:
>>If the "ultra-greggly bland succession of identical Moonsons" is the
>>result of "let's keep it simple, people, we want to draw in newcomers
>>rather than experts", I am mostly for not putting the complications
>>within complications in an introductory product.
Me neither. But we're being told that the ultra-greggly bland succession is the way it *really is*, not just way it is going to be presented in an introductory product so as not to unnecessarily confuse newcomers. If you go back to the beginning of this controversy, I said:
: But now I see (reading between the lines) what we're getting : is just the Official Lunar Empire Spin on how successive Emperors : are created etc., and there's an underlying Gloranthan reality : which is to be concealed in the initial HW releases, but that : we old-timers already know and love. Or at least, that's what : I'm going to believe, until explicitly shown otherwise.
Unfortunately, Martin explicitly claimed it was now otherwise.
Me:
>> Some observations. Unnecessary retconning - especially
>> unnecessary retconning on the run - *is* intensely
>> irritating.
Jeorg:
>True. However, in some cases I guess the GAG has never been
>fully presented to Greg.
Au contraire, Greg helped define it!
Me:
>> IMO, change for change's sake is just egregious
>> scent-marking of the worst kind,
Joerg:
>You're entitled to your opinion, but could we all please keep the
>stomach acid out of the digest?
Canine urine is actually the metaphor: see Nick's comment in V7 #629.
David Cake:
>Spurred in parts by seeing Gladiator, which despite having only the vaguest
>nods to real history (as far as I can see, it just used a few names and the
>fact that Commodus did fight in the arena (though he didn't die in it), and
>the rest was purest fiction)...
IIRC, the Emperor Commodus was actually strangled in his bath by Narcissus the wrester. I ain't seen the movie yet, but the real Commodus would definitely make it into the First XI of Looney Roman Emperors (IMO Caligula and Elagabalus would be opening bat, but Commodus - who thought he was Hercules reborn and liked to wander round in an old lion skin carrying a club - would have to come in somewhere in the top order).
Daniel Fahey:
>>Next you'll be telling us that Nick, and even MOB are human.
Mike Cule:
>Nick is. I've never been quite sure about MOB. There's something ogreish
>in his smile...
Hey, let's debate this "over dinner" at the next Convulsion Mike...
Me:
>Like David, I suspect that "constitutionally" it is the Senate, though I
>wonder what happens in practice*. Because circumstances were different
>each time, who actually held onto the reigns during the various
>interregnums might have been different too.
John:
>>Not high priestesses of the Goddess, who are in constant harmony with Her
>>Divine Will? A source of suitably delphic 'holding-pattern' proclamations
>>while the Searchers spread far and wide? A model of the Goddess as a
>>political Dowager Empress.
Like this a lot! No doubt the proclaimations are interpreted, post facto, to prove the legitimacy of a candidate's claims.
Apropos of nothing in particular, my Macmillan Dictionary of Biography (2nd ed.) notes that the Empress Dowager liked to be designated as "Mothery Auspicious Orthodox Heaven-Blest Prosperous All Nourishing Brightly-Manifest Calm Sedate Perfect Long-Lived Respectful Reverend Worshipful Illustrious Exalted Empress Dowager". (Behind her back, the eunuchs referred to her as "the Old Buddha".
Tony:
>Everyone loves a good metaphor, but that particular one
>has ugly and utterly unjustified undertones for this
>situation.
I agree, using this metaphor was pretty gratuituous and unnecessarily provocative. I apologise to anyone I may have offended.
Cheers,
MOB
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #637
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