Once again, who exactly, besides you, considers John Norman a master of anything?Therumancer said:As far as John Norman goes, your simply wrong, I'm not the best at defending him, but then again I'm not the one who put him in the "master" catagory. Even if a lot of those elements were around beforehand, he's the one who combined them, and popularized a lot of them. As I pointed out, the guy sold like 12 million books.
Don't get the wrong impression either, he's not one of my favorite authors, he's simply a good example for this. I'm also not defending his writing as the second coming, as I've said, I tried it, and gave up after like 8 books out of 20. All I can say is that if you read that much of what he's wrote you can understand why people call him a master, the potential to be something really great was there, but he DID get sidetracked by all the bondage philsophy stuff to the point where there was gradually little story left (that much is true), and when there was a story it eventually turned into a situation where not one major character was remotely sympathetic.
Huh, that explains why women's boxing and MMA don't exist. Oh wait, they do. Hang on, I'm gonna get the IOC on the phone and tell them they should cancel women's boxing for the 2012 games because someone on a video game site doesn't understand how tits work.Therumancer said:As far as the bit I quoted, which is the gist of the discussion, the big differance is that if a guy takes a shot to the chest he's liable to get a bruise, and especially in the heat of battle be able to keep fighting due to adrenaline and so on. A girl takes a hit hard enough to leave a bruise like that and she's going to feel it a LOT more and effectively be taken out of the fight. What might be a glacing blow is going to effectively take her out of the fight, at least long enough to be finished.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying breasts make women invalids, what I'm saying is that armor of the sort guys use just isn't functional in the same way.
Unless you count the various steppe cultures where both sexes fought for centuries, the various peasant and refugee armies throughout history composed of men and women, the several women who went into battle because of class duties, and so on. Don't get me wrong, most fighters throughout history were men, but like many things in history it's a trend, not an iron-hard rule. Incidentally, out of the various cases of women fighting and/or leading armies in Europe, the Mideast, the Eurasian steppe, and east Asia, I can't think of a single case where they didn't basically wear the same things that men wore (because, you know, dying of stab wounds and/or infection sucks.)Therumancer said:What's more, one has to remember that all of this female-warrior stuff is pure fantasy anyway.
The "Amazons underwent masectomy to shoot bows" thing is probably derived from a false cognate. The most likely origin of the word "Amazon" is from an Iranian root roughly meaning "warrior," not a Greek root. Compare Herodotus's giant ants and the kimono [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL9whwwTK6I] scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.Therumancer said:People can bring up exceptions where there were female warriors, but most of them didn't exactly follow the same order of battle as guys did, and in some cases like Amazons, actually mutilated themselves to be more effective fighters (ie removing a breast to more easily handle a bow in some cases, though that was apparently by no means universal even to the Amazons despite myths).
The historians who actually look at grave goods and archaeological sites disagree, along with the primary source depictions of actual women fighters by historical artists who actually lived in a time period where people were eminently familiar with what it was like to take arrow/sling fire and kill trained, armed, and armored opponents in closed combat.Therumancer said:and get to the point where simply wearing as little as possible is going to be the most effective route. Granted it's NOT as good as being able to wear and fully exploit armor would be, but it IS the best possible path.
The historians who actually look at grave goods and archaeological sites disagree, along with the primary source depictions of actual women fighters by historical artists who actually lived in a time period where people were eminently familiar with what it was like to take arrow/sling fire and kill trained, armed, and armored opponents in closed combat.Kahunaburger said:and get to the point where simply wearing as little as possible is going to be the most effective route. Granted it's NOT as good as being able to wear and fully exploit armor would be, but it IS the best possible path.
Therumancer said:The historians who actually look at grave goods and archaeological sites disagree, along with the primary source depictions of actual women fighters by historical artists who actually lived in a time period where people were eminently familiar with what it was like to take arrow/sling fire and kill trained, armed, and armored opponents in closed combat.Kahunaburger said:and get to the point where simply wearing as little as possible is going to be the most effective route. Granted it's NOT as good as being able to wear and fully exploit armor would be, but it IS the best possible path.
Like, I get that you really like looking at pictures of women in bikinis, but claiming that it would make sense to wear one to a battle IRL is pretty laughable. Fiction isn't always realistic, and cover art most certainly isn't realistic.
I'm talking about the primary sources. I.e., stuff along the lines of "this woman led this armed force at this battle. Here is a picture of her. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Hangaku_Gozen_by_Yoshitoshi.jpg/220px-Hangaku_Gozen_by_Yoshitoshi.jpg]" Or "this woman, dressed as a knight, killed a bunch of people in this battle. [http://www.alshindagah.com/mayjun2003/woman.html]" Seriously, man, reading some SF novels loosely based on IRL history does not mean you know things about history.Therumancer said:Cases of women fighting with or against men are more or less non-existant despite attempts to try and make it seem like they did otherwise. In most cases those pictures and sculptures of woman warriors represent very specific divinities, like Athena, Freya, Diana, and others who being gods/ideals were shown to be doing things that actual women did not do and were not permitted to do.
You seem to be straying from the issue here. The point is not that ancient wars were settled by one-on-one boxing matches. The point is that you don't seem to grasp how boobs work, and it's hilarious to me.Therumancer said:Now, as far as boxing and MMA goes, your dealing with absurdities, because you are dealing with seperate leagues where women fight other women, as a way of compensating for the lower physical abillities. Attempts to create fighting-game-like co-ed fighting tournaments and such have failed. Many years ago ESPN had this huge thing going with some feminist kung-fu champion (the name eludes me) who thought she should be able to fight men. She was promoted heavily as the ultimate warrior, and was given a chance. She was like the #2 ranked female fighter in the world, she was put up against a guy in the same weight class who was ranked in the 40s for the guys as a demonstration. The guy tore her apart, I mean not even close, he pretty much stood there and let her try and do whatever she wanted, and he pretty much laughed her off and then put her down like a little kid. The fight was all over the place for a long time.
I enjoy the fact that on one hand you are trying to convince me you know the first thing about military history and on the other hand you're making "no items, swords only, final destination" sort of argument that it was impossible for women (or, if we're following your logic, short men, young men, and men suffering from malnutrition) to fight. Ancient/medieval battles were not fought between pairs of equally trained, equally armed, equally armored, equally dismounted opponents at peak physical condition.Therumancer said:The bottom line is that taken to their peak, men will always be physically better than women. Given top end development, the same level of training, the guy will always win, and really it takes more for a woman to even have parity when they are still at the level where she can compete. It's a huge, huge issue that has gone from fighting into arenas like the phyical standards for certain military or police jobs.
It still cracks me up that you're approaching this from a speculative mindset. We don't have to ask ourselves "what would happen?" because we have historical evidence about what did happen. Unless you think dark age Muslims and feudal Japanese count as "politically correct liberal feminist revisionist historians."Therumancer said:Reality is that some girl of average size going into battle with men of average size, is going to get kicked around like a soccor ball. She's liable to be 4" shorter (like 5' 8" to 6' in many cases.. it varies with area and ethnicity) and there to be tens of pounds on her. If everyone is a professional fighter, and has worked out as far as they can specifically to kill... it's not going to go well, beyond the issues involved in armor.
Let N equal the number of shitty rape-themed SF novels crapped out by John Norman. I'm willing to believe that at least [12,000,000/N] people in the world have no taste in SF.Therumancer said:As far as who considers John Norman a master of fantasy, that's kind of a loaded question. I think it's better answered by pointing out that you, and pretty much everyone who follows fantasy has heard of him, he's sold 12 million books which makes him pretty bloody well sold and circulated for this paticular genere,
Robert E. Howard? Fritz Leiber? Clark Ashton Smith? Michael Moorcock?Therumancer said:and he did most of this before sword and sorcery was as popular as it is now.
Hey, I'm a connoisseur of tortured sentences and shitty SF. I definitely found a way to see past the "creepy rape porn for neckbeards" angle to the other reasons John Norman is a terrible writer.Therumancer said:You might not want to accept it, but he pretty much speaks for himself. I kind of realize he wasn't a good example, because on a site like this one people are unable to look beyond all the bondage philsophy stuff to the rest of what was in his writing.
Please tell me I didn't just read that.Therumancer said:and get to the point where simply wearing as little as possible is going to be the most effective route. Granted it's NOT as good as being able to wear and fully exploit armor would be, but it IS the best possible path.
do you honestly think wearing "little as possible" is going to benefit a woman in a fight? and Im talking "literal bikini" hereTherumancer said:[snip.
GeneralTwinkle said:Please tell me I didn't just read that.Therumancer said:and get to the point where simply wearing as little as possible is going to be the most effective route. Granted it's NOT as good as being able to wear and fully exploit armor would be, but it IS the best possible path.
It's more effective for women to wear as little as possible?
Uh...
Same traffic as my last response, I've written several posts explaining it within this thread. Peanut gallery comments and out of context quoting is fairly trollish. Anything I could say to explain this has already been said. Such comments are just designed to provke a response. Go troll someone else by calling them a retard.Vault101 said:do you honestly think wearing "little as possible" is going to benefit a woman in a fight? and Im talking "literal bikini" hereTherumancer said:[snip.
it doesnt matter that men are physically stronger
it doesnt matter that historically women didnt do the fighting
woman have parts that need protecting too, you may think going the "agile" route makes more sense but that doesnt mean you have to hsow unessicary skin...thats just retarded
and alot pf those "hyper fantasy *armour*" contumes go bwyond simple fan-service..it goes into the realm of mind blowing retardedness
... and there goes any credibility or respect I had for you in this discussion. Once you start tossing out the insults, I'm done. Learn to surrender with grace, I will condede points when I'm wrong, although this is not one of those times. When people have to start getting personal I consider that pretty much a sign that they have gotten their arse whipped to the point where they have no other recourse, yet don't want to surrender, since they can't make the point.Kahunaburger said:[
Although I'm noticing a theme with you claiming knowledge in areas anyone with actual knowledge in these areas has no problem poking holes in.
.
Not an insult - it's an observation. You have a tendency to claim knowledge of things and subsequently demonstrate a lack of knowledge in these things. Then people who have actual knowledge of these things show up and point out your errors, which you try to bluster your way through. I've seen you do this several times on several topics, and while it is entertaining, it does very little to convince other people that your opinion is correct.Therumancer said:... and there goes any credibility or respect I had for you in this discussion. Once you start tossing out the insults, I'm done.
Show, don't tell. Saying "I think these things are true about history because of... um... because I'm very knowledgeable about history! According to me!" is much less persuasive than saying "I think these things are true about history because an archaeological find or primary source presents strong evidence for their truth."Therumancer said:To be blunt, the actual "problem" is that I have knowlege of a great number of topics, and the truth happens to come into conflict with what a lot of people want to believe.
And what subjects would those be?Therumancer said:In this case, your basically throwing a giant tantrum because you don't like John Norman, so your all upset that he happens to be a hugely influential writer, and someone to referance on certain subjects. Heck, as I've said I don't much care for him either, but I still give respect where it's do.
Laughing at neckbeards, my friend. Laughing at neckbeards. Terrible SF porn is mildly amusing. People who get offended when you laugh at their terrible SF porn are hilarious.Therumancer said:screaming about neckbeards
And it was false, doesn't make any sense. It's just dumb.Therumancer said:GeneralTwinkle said:Please tell me I didn't just read that.Therumancer said:and get to the point where simply wearing as little as possible is going to be the most effective route. Granted it's NOT as good as being able to wear and fully exploit armor would be, but it IS the best possible path.
It's more effective for women to wear as little as possible?
Uh...
Unless your trying to troll, read back a few messages and I explain it in detail. Quoting me out of context and making peanut gallery comments is kind of annoying.
Kahunaburger said:Not an insult - it's an observation. You have a tendency to claim knowledge of things and subsequently demonstrate a lack of knowledge in these things. Then people who have actual knowledge of these things show up and point out your errors, which you try to bluster your way through. I've seen you do this several times on several topics, and while it is entertaining, it does very little to convince other people that your opinion is correct.Therumancer said:... and there goes any credibility or respect I had for you in this discussion. Once you start tossing out the insults, I'm done.
Show, don't tell. Saying "I think these things are true about history because of... um... because I'm very knowledgeable about history! According to me!" is much less persuasive than saying "I think these things are true about history because an archaeological find or primary source presents strong evidence for their truth."Therumancer said:To be blunt, the actual "problem" is that I have knowlege of a great number of topics, and the truth happens to come into conflict with what a lot of people want to believe.
And what subjects would those be?Therumancer said:In this case, your basically throwing a giant tantrum because you don't like John Norman, so your all upset that he happens to be a hugely influential writer, and someone to referance on certain subjects. Heck, as I've said I don't much care for him either, but I still give respect where it's do.
Laughing at neckbeards, my friend. Laughing at neckbeards. Terrible SF porn is mildly amusing. People who get offended when you laugh at their terrible SF porn are hilarious.Therumancer said:screaming about neckbeards
1 - This reminds me of Yahtzee's review of Fable 2. When you're a kid your sister is murdered, you're shot and then thrown from a window dozens of stories above ground-level. Yet when you reach voting age you can't spread some flint-lock love to the annoying youths of Albion?! Bullshit! Imagine how easy it would have been to join the Shadow-Humpers if you could burn down an orphanage! The big issue I have here though is when a triple A sequel (like Dragon Age 2 or, Mass Effect 2) suddenly introduces the words 'fuck' and 'shit' into the in-game vocabulary. It just seems like such a cop-out in the writing department, especially in Mass Effect 2's case. How do you top talking Saren into shooting himself in the face? Have people say Shit and Fuck!Emiscary said:1. Censorship in Mature Games
2. "Character Customization!"
3. "We're watching you punk."
4. DLC
5. "X #Y: The Z'ning."
6. Collector's Editions
7. Stripper Knights
8. Non Endings.
9. Games "Revolutionizing" Their Genre.
I wasn't calling [i/]you[/i] a retardTherumancer said:Same traffic as my last response, I've written several posts explaining it within this thread. Peanut gallery comments and out of context quoting is fairly trollish. Anything I could say to explain this has already been said. Such comments are just designed to provke a response. Go troll someone else by calling them a retard.
I'm tired of bothering to debate with people and then having to deal with this garbage every single time. Sorry if you don't like what I have to say, but don't call me a retard and expect attention. Especially when all your answers are in the same thread.
The thing is that the people you get into arguments with clearly have done the research. You clearly haven't. Then you realize you've painted yourself into a corner, and have too much pride to do anything other than try and bluster your way out. I've been an outside observer in quite a few of these, and by now can recognize this pattern in your posts when I see it. It would be a wise decision on your part to learn from this experience, but I think it's sadly more likely that you will keep doing the same thing over and over.Therumancer said:No, what you typically see is me tell people the way things are, and then people get butthurt, respond with some misinformation and not like it when I don't care for it. In many cases I simply tell them to do the research on their own if they don't like what I'm saying because I find it inherantly ridiculous.
You went to a museum once. Good on you! Doesn't make you the arbiter of all things historical.Therumancer said:In this case I have given a few referances, including the Higgins Armory Museum. In my case I can claim a bit of first hand knowlege and having actually seen this stuff, and had it explained first hand.
I actually linked you to some examples a while back, but apparently you didn't click on them.Therumancer said:What's more since we're dealing with historical fact here, and that there ISN'T any armor left behind by armies of female warriors (because there weren't any), you'll notice nobody is pulling out anything reliable either, nor has anyone been able to talk about this kind of thing with fisst hand experience.
Women buried with weapons in Scythian territory are better-known than many texts might suggest. Melyukova (1995 : 43, 46) said:
Ordinary graves occupied by a female yielded various spindlewhorls and small decorations. Individual female graves also contained some pieces of armament. According to E. P. Bunyatyan's calculations (1981, p. 16), about 27% to 29% of graves containing women found dating from the 4th through 3rd centuries B.C. contained armement... In the graves of noble Scythian women armament pieces are much rarer than in those of ordinary women. There was a sword that was found in a rich woman's grave in the northern part of kurgan 22 at Volnaya Ukraina village.
...
mid-nineteenth-century excavations on the Terek river in the Caucasus uncovered and recognized the skeleton of a woman with armour, arrowheads, a discus of slate, and an iron knife, and a series of graves near Aul Stepan Zminda appear to have been of mounted female warriors (although later than the Scythian period in date). More recently, Renate Rolle's excavations around the Scythian 'royal' kurgan of Chertomlyk (1981-6) have identified four from among fifty warrior graves as skeletally female: one was buried with an arrowhead in her back, another had a massive iron shield, and a third was buried with a young child. About forty such burials are now known
in the Scythian region, west of the Don; east of the Don, in Herodotus' Sauromatia, a full twenty percent of investigated fifth- and fourth-century BC buried warriors turn out to have been women.
...
As long ago as the original German language edition of 1980, Rolle, apropos of kurgan 16, offers the cautionary note (1989 : 88):
This grave reinforced for archaeologists the vital importance of detailed anthropological classification. In the past, graves containing weapons, and especially heavy armour, had with few exceptions been assumed to be those of men.
One might perhaps at first presume that these weapons were placed in women's graves - for some ritual reason unknown to us - without having been used by these women for hunting or in battle. But clear evidence of wounds - severe head injuries from blows and stabs, and a bent bronze arrowhead still embedded in the knee [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVVXNDv8rY0] - contradicts this idea.
...
http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/archaeology/department/publications/PDF%20Theses/Mike%20Adamson.pdf
See, I tend to regard paying attention to primary sources and archaeological findings as "common sense." On the other hand, it appears that you have defined "common sense" as "preconceived notions."Therumancer said:What's more a lot of this falls under common sense, and really I refuse to argue topics that are common sense with people.
And yet the IOC insists on having a women's boxing event in the London Games. Don't they know that some man who reads John Norman novels posting on a video game website thinks that a hit to the chest completely incapacitates women?Therumancer said:In this case if you say decide to go to a MWS meet, or even attend a demonstration at a museum, try getting together with your girlfriend and both putting on breastplates. Then take turns hauling off and slamming a sword or other weapon directly accross the chest as hard as you can. The impact won't penetrate, and will probably knock you on your arse. The differance is your liable to get up fairly quickly, she won't, especially if she has... large tracts of land.
... and yes, there are places where they do demonstrations like this (put on the jacket, now the breastplate. WHAM!). They have policies about the ladies for a reason and you'll notice very few are exactly eager to want to try it. Granted the stuff being used for this is reproductions, but it makes the point.
This sort of argument represents an interestingly outmoded mindset, because it implies a belief that:Therumancer said:The entire arguement being made here is pretty much comes down a a simple chain of underlying logic. People think girls don't like fantasy because of all of the skimpily dressed women used in the artwork (which is false, female artists and authors tend to create things that are far worse in these directions). Nerds think that girls will become more interested in their interests and thus perhaps in them if they can somehow limit this. Hence impassioned arguements about "sensible armor" for female fighters, when in reality there is no such thing. With rare exceptions (as mentioned) women did not fight for a reason, and were generally not armored up when they did because a lot of this armor wouldn't have worked.
I was wondering when this was going to come up. This:Therumancer said:The arguement about any kind of protection being better than none, doesn't apply when you consider that if you get hit your going down and staying down (as the guy your fighting is going to finish you) if you get nailed, whether your wearing armor or not. As a result a girl hypothetically going into combat is going to try and rely on not getting hit in the first place.
No, what proves you wrong is the archaeological findings and primary sources cited in this posts and other posts. Sorry, you're not going to convince me that corroborated medieval eyewitness accounts and histories, backed by overwhelming evidence from steppe grave sites (once again corroborated by contemporaneous accounts) is less valid than the preconceptions of Some Guy On The Interwebs Who Like Totally Went To A Museum Once.Therumancer said:At any rate, the bottom line is that you might not LIKE the points I'm making, but you not wanting to accept something doesn't mean I'm wrong. Likewise there are limits to what I'm going to put into an internet discussion, on something that more or less falls under common sense.
See, this is what is so entertaining about poorly written stuff. It's funny when you read it because of how bad it is, and it's funnier when you mock it and the sort of person who likes that sort of thing rushes to defend it.Therumancer said:Sort of like how I feel little need to "prove" that whether I like him or not, that John Norman is a master of fantasy and hugely influential. The guy wrote 20 books in Gor alone, according to wikipedia he sold 12 million copies. That goes beyond "neckbeard fringe". That doesn't even need justification. Not many authors can claim to have sold that many books, or to have kept a single series going on that long. The problem in these discussions is that your trying to claim ridiculous things, rather than saying "well I don't like John Norman, so thus anything anyone says about him that isn't negative has to be untrue". What's more you fail to grasp that especially early on it wasn't porn.... and even later on it's borderline, more along the lines of "erotica". Nothing John Norman did as far as I read even came close to needing an X rating. Your comments like that make it seem like your argueing the point simply to oppose me, rather than having any idea of what your talking about. I very much doubt you have actually ever read a Gor novel from your descriptions of the content. If you talk about rape, or porno, or whatever else, your kind of not getting it.
Ever read Terry Goodkind's "Sword Of Truth"? (yes I know, by definition you probably think he sucks too simply because I'm referancing him). Remember that whole bit where he's a prisoner of the Mord'sith who is doing the whole pain/bondage/domination thing to keep our hero under control? That's pretty much Gor. Not much in the way of sex (and when it's there it isn't very descriptive) or even as much in the way of pain (though it is involved), it's mostly all about domination and submission. If anything it has more of a bondage fixation as John Norman likes to go on for pages about the devices to secure slaves, how to tie certain knots, and similar things, which actually tends to ruin the entire flow at times if your into that kind of thing. Indeed one of his big problems as an author is that he suffers from "too much information" sort of like some of my posts. Your expecting a sex/bondage scene and he spends 13 pages explaining what a hurl chain is, and who this guy hurl who invented it was. There is about to be this epic naval battle, and everything pauses while he goes on to explain for 30 pages what Gorean ships are like, how they are constructed, the engagement doctrine, and tons of irrelevent details on how many loogies the navigator of each of the 10,000 ships in the friendly fleet spit over the side, and how there is a midget that runs around keeping a running tally. If in the future you want to act like you know Gor, that's how you criticize it. To be honest I'm a bit of a perv as I've explained in the past, and part of the problem with Gor is not just that I was reading it for fantasy content, but that it actually fails at being porn of erotica.. okay... understand that. These books are not
the literary equivilent of a porn movie, they spend more time discussing sexual/gender philsophy and describing bondage devices and techniques than they do with anything hot happening... and really, nobody even really gets raped. All of the girls are generally "liberated into slavery" and pretty much want to be there. Not realistic, but that's pretty much Gor. If your going to knock it... do it right. Consider this for a later discussion when your actually argueing with someone who doesn't know what they are talking about (ie someone besides me).
Therumancer said:If your going to knock it... do it right. Consider this for a later discussion when your actually argueing with someone who doesn't know what they are talking about (ie someone besides me).
Therumancer said:your argueing
Not quite. The point was more that at that tech level there is no practical armor that would actually be effective for women.Vault101 said:I wasn't calling [i/]you[/i] a retardTherumancer said:Same traffic as my last response, I've written several posts explaining it within this thread. Peanut gallery comments and out of context quoting is fairly trollish. Anything I could say to explain this has already been said. Such comments are just designed to provke a response. Go troll someone else by calling them a retard.
I'm tired of bothering to debate with people and then having to deal with this garbage every single time. Sorry if you don't like what I have to say, but don't call me a retard and expect attention. Especially when all your answers are in the same thread.
I was calling the "sexy armour" itself retarded, it almost hurts to look at its so offensive in many ways
I read your post, and all I was getting was "women have never been wariors, or had to wear armour, they arnt built for it...so its ok!"
You could just surrender you know? Instead of resulting to trolling, flames, etc... It does you no credit.Kahunaburger said:
if you honestly think its more "realistic" (which I still dont buy, theres no reason in combat a ladys mid-riff, you know with all the vital organs needs to be exposed)Therumancer said:[snip.