Subject: (urth) Heracles lesson

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 05:57:59 +0000

Latro has very selective amnesia - note that he is able to perform the 
wrestling moves with perfection once he is reminded of basic strategy.  He 
needs a reminder - he doesn't know the full extent of his capabilities. Your 
average soldier, no matter how he is coached, won't be able to beat a master 
from verbal advice.  Latro didn't need to learn the moves through repetition - 
they were already in his muscle memory.  This is one aspect of realism that I 
think we've ignored - no matter how much you tell the average man on the 
street how to punch, or what kind of advice you give him, he can't outbox Roy 
Jones or Lennox Lewis. Unless the advice reawakens old or natural abilities.  
Note that Latro defeats the trainer of the Spartans with ease.  He has 
problems with wrestling Pausanias because ... Hermes likes him?

So Latro remembers how to use a sword but not to wrestle ... why?  Perhaps 
because the knowledge of wrestling was from a different, more remote lifetime.
 Remember that he only loses because Heracles tells him to throw the fight.

Marc Aramini

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <katbarx at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 15:33:52 +0000

Marc writes:

>wrestling moves with perfection once he is reminded of basic strategy.

And almost immediately, in the same post, answers himself:

>Latro didn't need to learn the moves through repetition -
>they were already in his muscle memory.

Which is also quite sufficient answer to this question:

>So Latro remembers how to use a sword but not to wrestle ... why?

In short: The injury to Latro's head seems to have created an inability to
recall informaiton from long-term stores at some cognitive levels -- some
fairly abstract cognitive levels; this is clearly an injury in the "higher"
centers of the brain.

One thing that I find interesting is that it is quite possible that he's 
still
actually able to _form_ long-term abstract memories. He'd never know
(nor, presumably, would we), because until/unless he's cured, he still
can't recall them.

It's been a while since I've read the existing-so-far _Soldier_ books. Can
any of you tell me, offhand: Does Latro recount any dreams at all?

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