: To date, I have not heard ONE ARGUMENT - not ONE - that
: can reconcile the two claims that Alric was king
: before the war and that he was not king before the
: war. Give it your best shot instead of making personal
: attacks.
: Except there is no valid interpretation that can resolve
: the inconsistency. Dan makes use of incorrect
: definitions of the word Reclaim and tries to say that
: they talk about two different points in time (not only
: are we talking about spans, not points, but the time
: spans overlap a great deal). Neither of these
: arguments makes sense or is in any way, shape, or form
: correct.
: WTF??? YOU are the one going against all logic and
: commmon sense! Credit Bungie with a modicum of
: humanity, please. In the hundreds of pages of text
: written for the game in journal entries, flavor texts,
: in-game dialogue and the like, all rushed to
: production, written by several different people, do
: you not think is is POSSIBLE that MAYBE they made one
: trivial little error?
Oh, it's beyond question that the texts contain errors. Nonetheless, it's still very unlikely that *any particular statement* in the texts is erroneous, right? I mean, it's almost certainly the case that some of the black and white, horse-shaped animals in the world are simply painted horses; nonetheless, when considering any single such animal, the odds are very good that it's an actual zebra. I think. Not having actually researched the frequency of painted horses and all.
This is all I meant to say--that if there are two equally probable (as far as probabilities can be estimated) interpretations of a pair of statements and you choose the one that implies an error, you aren't just implying that Myth's writers made an erroneous statement, you're implying that the writers tend to make more erroneous statements than accurate ones. I know now, though, that you didn't think the non-contradictory interpretation was at all probable or even possible. My apologies for implying that you were some sort of traitor to Bungie's world domination movement.
: The question remains... How can you reclaim what you
: never have? Perhaps its just a matter of using
: "his" instead of "the" or
: "reclaim" instead of "claim" but
: the way the sentances are worded now, technically,
: they are contradictory. I thought you were pretty good
: at English, Sili (English is MY best subject, I don't
: mean to brag when I say I got a 36 ACT and a 760 SAT
: in English, I just mean that you can't tell me that I
: don't know what I'm talking about).
: Can you tell me that if YOU were an editor for Bungie and
: YOU saw these two statements, you wouldnt have changed
: the wording of one of them? You wouldn't have at least
: changed "reclaimed his throne" to
: "claimed his throne," or "reclaimed the
: throne", BOTH of which can be reconciled?
: Look, I am aware of how trivial and insignificant this
: argument is, but I refuse to back down unless you
: start making some reasonable arguments or concede that
: the statements are contradictory, due to a
: technicality.
: Funny. Shut up.
: Uhm, they really don't. Plus even if they did, why would
: he want to be a crown prince again? Wouldn't he want
: to "claim" his father's throne, the kings,
: instead of "reclaiming" his lowly prince's
: throne?
I guess I didn't express myself properly. The throne I referred to *was* the throne of the whole Province, which became the possession of the crown prince on his father's (assuming Caliban was Alric's father) death. With the king dead, the throne did *not* (in a sense, I should say) belong to the regent--else he would have been not a regent, but a king. It belonged to Alric, who was legally the King, even if Mauriac was doing the actual ruling in his name. What I probably should have said was that, once Caliban was dead, Alric was the King, no longer the crown prince, no matter how old he was. Sorry if I was unclear.
And I got a 1600, so my meaningless societally-dictated credentials beat your meaningless societally-dictated credentials. :-P Yeah, yeah, I know you probably did better on the AP tests and whatnot than me, but let's not go there. 'Cuz I'll lose.
: Try to think a little bit instead of using words like
: "jeez" to convey the message that you are so
: high above everyone else that it would be folly to
: argue any other way.
I'm sorry, but I feel that arguing against the possibility of other interpretations *is* folly. Though I probably sounded just as dogmatic--againt, my apologies. Let me try to explain my position one last time:
After Caliban died, the throne passed to Alric. Alric was now King, but was too young to govern and so Mauriac governed in his stead. Nonetheless, Alric retained possession of his throne, just as a minor is legally in possession of the contents of a trust fund even if it's maintained by an adult guardian until he comes of age.
At some point, Alric lost his throne. I can think of two possible ways in which he could be said to have done this. One, by sharing power with the rest of the Nine and by amalgamating the Province with the other Light-ruled lands of the West. The Province was no longer a sovereign state, nor was Alric either defacto or dejure the sole ruler.
Two, when Balor's forces completely overran the West at the end of TFL, Alric no longer had *any* political control over his former people, and was not acting as a King to the slightest degree--instead, he was in a distant land working with a few soldiers (none of whom were former citizens of the Province, were they? Dwarves, berserks, fir'Bolg, Journeymen...) to destroy Balor himself. I *think* this is the sense that Dan was supporting, though I can't speak for him.
Once TFL was over, the Province was again a sovereign state, ruled by Alric and Alric alone, untroubled by the dominion of any Dark Lords. So Alric reclaimed his throne.
And that's my interpretation.
Looking down the thread, I see you're pretty sick of this discussion. Hope this helps you and everyone else understand where I've been coming from. What shall we war about next? :-)
--SiliconDream
