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Favorite Turtledove Villain
Topic Started: Sep 20 2008, 09:32 PM (1,296 Views)
Custer
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MapleLeafs4Ever
Sep 23 2008, 10:47 PM
Custer
Sep 23 2008, 02:23 PM
I seem to recall our spoiler policy being "spoil away in clearly marked spoiler threads." Didn't ML4E, TR and I have this argument like a while back?

All I recall along these lines was a request for TR to post spoilers from MWIH in a seperate, clearly marked thread. Seems like a good policy to me. Anyone who wants to avoid them just doesn't read the thread.

No I was referring to the time when you said that an entire forum devoted to spoilers would be useful, like the one on CB1.0, and I said that would be a waste of space, that clearly-marked threads were better. It was over OA not MWIH.

Maybe "argument" isn't the right word. It seemed more like "suggestion and counter-suggestion."
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MapleLeafs4Ever
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Now that you mention it, I do recall the discussion about creating a sub-forum for spoilers. I don't think I made the initial suggestion but I do recall arguing in favour. As it is, threads labelled as spoilers do seem to do the trick.
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SladeJack
The Grand SladeJack
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"Well, Jake and Clarence Potter were pulling together by the end."

Yes, but Potter was never terribly heroic. Insofar as he was, it was as an anti-Freedomite to the end. But it wasn't to the end--It was "Shit, you're offering me a job? All right, pal, I'm your man! For the rest of the series, I'll make occasional asides about how I'm not crazy about you but don't worry, I'll back you to the hilt." So that was a very unheroic "hero" compromising all the way into the territory of villain himself.

Actually I was very disappointed by that. Potter had the potential to become a great character, a resister of the wicked regime from within, even after joining the inner circle. Instead he became a toady of the Snake who spent his idle moments patting himself on the back for not quite turning all the way into a Freedom-screaming airhead.

As for spoilers, I miss the color-coding scheme we had on the Norton Board.
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Custer
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And which I had finally figured out how to use on Custer Board 1.0 two or three days after announcing the move to here.
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SladeJack
The Grand SladeJack
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Well timed.
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Makkabee
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I thought Turtledove really missed a trick by not having a white resistance PoV in the series. At the very least play up the crisis of conscience of a loyal confederate who knows that victory means tyranny and defeat means the agonies of the previous 20 yeas magnified. Potter barely thought about that after he got his government job, and it should have been a huge issue.

I'm okay with the tragedy of him selling his soul a little bit at a time, not even really noticing that he did it, but only if you present some sort of contrasting character. Instead we saw the same pattern to varying degrees with every white Confederate PoV once Reggie Bartlett died.
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SladeJack
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Yeah, it's a shame he killed off Bartlett. And to replace him with that useless Rodriguez--at least he finally felt conflicted at the end, but even then he did nothing to advance the story. If you'd suddenly had a Good German in Camp Determination, that would have been a good read.
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LoneHawkBoy
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SladeJack
Sep 24 2008, 11:59 AM
Yeah, it's a shame he killed off Bartlett. And to replace him with that useless Rodriguez--at least he finally felt conflicted at the end, but even then he did nothing to advance the story. If you'd suddenly had a Good German in Camp Determination, that would have been a good read.

I was actually hoping we would have picked up Jerry Dover somehow playing Oscar Schindler or something similar until he got dropped in Kentucky, that landed on that possibility with both feet.
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Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;

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MapleLeafs4Ever
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SladeJack
Sep 24 2008, 12:39 AM
"Well, Jake and Clarence Potter were pulling together by the end."

Yes, but Potter was never terribly heroic. Insofar as he was, it was as an anti-Freedomite to the end. But it wasn't to the end--It was "Shit, you're offering me a job? All right, pal, I'm your man! For the rest of the series, I'll make occasional asides about how I'm not crazy about you but don't worry, I'll back you to the hilt." So that was a very unheroic "hero" compromising all the way into the territory of villain himself.

I agree with your analysis. My comment was intended ironically.
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SladeJack
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Yes, the smiley made me think so. I just like to shit on Potter, and on HT for taking everything he'd written about Potter's character and tossing it out when he decided he didn't want to make the story interesting.
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LoneHawkBoy
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SladeJack
Sep 24 2008, 07:22 PM
Yes, the smiley made me think so. I just like to shit on Potter, and on HT for taking everything he'd written about Potter's character and tossing it out when he decided he didn't want to make the story interesting.

Gotta love when the author demonstrates such an egregious display of the plot hammer, you would THINK considering he tried to shoot Jake he would have tried to do something from the inside.
Axe-time, sword-time shields are sundered,
Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;

Volupso, Lines 43-44
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TR1
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I voted for Jake.

My close second would actually be Swemmel, who wasn't quite the villain of the Darkness series, but he was a bad, bad guy.
"Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman
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Custer
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Hmm. "Let's kill the blondes of Forthweg to further our war effort," as opposed to "Let's kill our own people to further our own war effort" and "We wish everyone in this kingdom shared a single neck, so that we could cut it off in one stroke and kill Mezentio with a massive ring of sorcerous fire." If Swemmel wasn't the most horrible person in Derlavai, it wasn't from lack of effort.
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SladeJack
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I agree, I found him even worse than Mezentio. But the way the analogs lined up, we have to consider Mezentio the villain because he's analogous to our enemy while Swemmel was analogous to our ally.

I'm surprised so many people like Jake Featherston. He's just a mean-spirited little blowhard whose native abilities don't come anywhere close to approaching the station in life he held. (And the character in TL-191 isn't any better! :P)
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Trebuchet
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I'm surprised so many people like Jake Featherston. He's just a mean-spirited little blowhard whose native abilities don't come anywhere close to approaching the station in life he held. (And the character in TL-191 isn't any better! tongue.gif)


This gives me an idea for a thread, where we briefly sketch the alt-history timeline where the poster above is actually a dictator.

But in which section would such a thread belong?
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