Baldanders, Acies Castle & the Citadel

Andrew Bollen · 29 Jul 2003, 04:55 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: "Andrew Bollen" <abollen at internode.on.net>
Subject: (urth) Baldanders, Acies Castle & the Citadel
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 14:55:19 +1000
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3798 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0307/3798.txt.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0304_01C355E1.6E068730"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0304_01C355E1.6E068730
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Very tangentially ... One of the things which makes me a gushing GW =
fan-boy is the realistic depth to his worlds, despite all the fantasy =
elements. A small example: I see a natural progression from Baldander's =
castle, to Acies Castle at Thrax, to the Citadel (or maybe all of =
Nessus).=20

In each case, these correspond in purpose to castles historically: not =
so much to guard against foreign enemies, as to keep a local population =
in subjugation. (See the afterword to Lictor, talking about Acies; and =
Jonas' half-finished story presumably about the wall of Nessus in =
Torturer).=20

And the Diturna-Thrax-Nessus progression also corresponds to the =
development of power and nobility common in history: a local brigand =
establishes his power over a district with a rough fortification; in =
time his rule becomes established over a wider area and rooted in some =
kind of noble tradition; once empires form, the most successful brigand =
gets to rule everything, including the now-provincial barons and =
magnates, who become his legates and satraps.

The Romans seemed to have a strong sense of this progression, an =
awareness perhaps that their rulers were really just successful brigands =
underneath all the trappings. When they were able, they would act =
mightily against any brigands who sought to establish themselves in a =
fixed position. Eg: Masada - an entire legion out of a total of only =
about 25 in the whole empire, plus thousands of auiliaries, against a =
small band of weak opponents, for many months.=20

I think this kind of progression was probably explicit in GW's thinking =
about Urth. Baldanders could have become the new Typhon, with better =
luck.=20

-- 
------=_NextPart_000_0304_01C355E1.6E068730
Content-Type: text/html;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
Very tangentially ... One of the things =
which makes=20
me a gushing GW fan-boy is the realistic depth to his worlds, despite =
all the=20
fantasy elements. A small example: I see a natural progression from =
Baldander's=20
castle, to Acies Castle at Thrax, to the Citadel (or maybe all of =
Nessus).=20

In each case, these correspond in =
purpose to=20
castles historically: not so much to guard against foreign enemies, as =
to keep a=20
local population in subjugation. (See the afterword to Lictor, talking =
about=20
Acies; and Jonas' half-finished story presumably about the wall of =
Nessus=20
in Torturer). 

And the Diturna-Thrax-Nessus=20
progression also corresponds to the development of power and=20
nobility common in history: a local brigand establishes his =
power over=20
a district with a rough fortification; in time his rule becomes =
established over=20
a wider area and rooted in some kind of noble tradition; once empires =
form, the=20
most successful brigand gets to rule everything, including the =
now-provincial=20
barons and magnates, who become his legates and satraps.

The Romans seemed to have a strong =
sense of this=20
progression, an awareness perhaps that their rulers were really just =
successful=20
brigands underneath all the trappings. When they were able, they would=20
act mightily against any brigands who sought to establish =
themselves in a=20
fixed position. Eg: Masada - an entire legion out of a total =
of only=20
about 25 in the whole empire, plus thousands of auiliaries, against =
a small=20
band of weak opponents, for many months. 

I think this kind of progression was =
probably=20
explicit in GW's thinking about Urth. Baldanders could have become the =
new=20
Typhon, with better luck. 
 </BODY></HTML>

------=_NextPart_000_0304_01C355E1.6E068730--

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net