Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Overly Sarcastic Productions"
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@deathknight75 Not really.
Dante put Averroes and Saladin among the not-baptised virtuous. Averroes between the philosophers, with the likes of Aristotle and Plato. Saladin with the likes of Caesar. It had not been by chance. Saladin was the man that took Gerusalem away from Christianity, but he did it in an honorable manner, so he was not at fault more than Caear was at fault for being a pagan.
Mohammad was put among the schismatics because Dante believed to the tale, diffused in medieval Europe, that Mohammed was a Christian bishop who created a new religion "mixing that of Moses with that of Christ". He's among the bearers of discord because he brought discord into Christanity. The Muslim's Saladin job happened to be to fight Christians, so he was not at fault in doing that. While Mohammad's job was not to create a new religion "dividing the Christians", so he's among the schismatics.
Mind that Alì is there for the same reason. To have caused a schism, this time among the Muslims. for Dante it didn't count Christians or Muslims. counted if one brought discord or not.
Greek heroes are there only because, to make the comedy interesting, Dante needed popular figures, alternating between the well known contemporaries and the well known historical figures (IE, in Canto XXVI there is Odysseus, in canto XXVII Guido da Montefeltro). But well known historical figures in middle age Europe were saints and characters of greek mithology. He couldn't put saints in hell, so...
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@marvelfannumber1 Sorry, but numbers are relevant in history. And the temporal distance between the events is FUNDAMENTAL. It's not like history is independent from the time, and time is counted with numbers.
As already said, I don't need a "counter point". That the Ottoman Empire would not have existed without the fourth crusade is not an "argument", is an unsupported statement, and the "numbers" you dislike so much are there to say that the correlation is not so sure as you like to believe. I have not to prove that you are wrong. You made a statement ("the fourth crusade caused the rise of the Ottoman Empire") your is the burden of the proof.
You said "Venice really shot themselves in the foot with that whole 4th Crusade thing, a pretty shortsighted powergrab which both created and destroyed their naval empire."
Reality is that Venice was still holding part of the gains of the 4Th Crusade when the Republic was ended not by the Ottomans, but by Napoleon. The naval empire too was not destroyed by the Ottomans. Venetian naval strenght continued after the one of the Ottomans reached its peak and declined. Infact, while they needed allies to win at Lepanto, the Venetians single handedly won almost all the naval engagements in the subsequent Cretan War. What ended the Venetian naval empire had not been the confront with the Ottomans, but the shift of the balance of trade towards the Atlantic, and so the marginalization of the eastern mediterranean. Venice didn't got weaker compared to the Ottomans (to whom they could still seize the Peloponnese at the end of 17th century), but compared to the other European powers.
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@marvelfannumber1 Your statement: "Well using data would be relevant if we were either having a math-focused conversation, or if we were having an economic conversation, maybe even a political conversation. But in a historical conversation? Using numbers and dates as your primary argument is just not very valid of a counter point."
Sorry, but numbers are relevant in history. And the temporal distance between the events is FUNDAMENTAL. It's not like history is independent from the time, and time is counted with numbers. What I said to you FURTHER is that the Ottoman Empire would not have existed without the fourth crusade is not an "argument", is an unsupported statement, and the "numbers" you dislike so much are there to say that the correlation is not so sure as you like to believe. I have not to prove that you are wrong. You made a statement ("the fourth crusade caused the rise of the Ottoman Empire") your is the burden of the proof, so YOU can't ignore numbers.
That said, The Byzantine empire lost Anatolia, and big or small parts of it, several times before the 4th crusade. The Ottoman Empire raised because of the 4th Crusade, or because of the Empire being unable to ward it's borders? There wouldn't have been a series of wars with it's neighbours without the Crusade? The Empire would have had 100 Years to "repel the Turks" or to decay? Or to exhaust itself in border wars anyway? You took too many things for granted. You built an ucronia, and now like to believe it would have been real. But it doesn't work like that.
Then, after having talked of straw men, you built one. My statement: "Reality is that Venice was still holding part of the gains of the 4Th Crusade when the Republic was ended not by the Ottomans, but by Napoleon". Are you able to read? "PART". Was Venice still holding part of the gains of the 4th crusade when the Republic was ended by Napoleon? YES.
As said: The Ottomans started to be a issue for Venice 200 years after the sack of Constantinople (and initially they were a minor one, see the Battle of Gallipoli, that the Venetians won easily in 1416). Venice was still holding parts of the gains of the 4th Crusade still 500 years after the sack.
To have eliminated one of the intermediaries (so to have better prices and higher profits), annexed a good part of its wealth, and being still profiting of the operation after HALF A MILLENNIUM seems like AN HELL of a business. What financial plan predicts positive outcomings for five centuries?
That the Ottomans stripped Venice of much of the gains of the 4TH Crusade, STARTING ONLY 200 YEARS AFTER THE SACK and and had not stripped all of them STILL AFTER FURTHER THREE CENTURIES means that the investment had been INCREDIBLY PROFITABLE FOR AN INCREDIBLY LONG TIME. The Ottomans never "dominated" Venice, sorry. They very slowly eroded the gains of the 4th Crusade, but ANY YEAR ANY OF THOSE GAINS LASTED, IS A YEAR OF PROFIT. If the profits are diminishing, that doesn't mean that the ones already gained disappear. It's like saying that the entire Byzantine Empire had been worth nothing, because it ceased to exist.
BTW, from "having an influence" to be "part of the territory" there is a BIG difference.
I'm sorry for the "Ottoman historians". That Venice needed the help of the Holy League to win at Lepanto in 1571, but single handedly won almost all the naval engagement in the Cretan War (1645-1669), being able to several times blockade the Dardanelli for months is a fact. The naval strenght of the Ottomans declined first than the Venetian one. What ended the Venetian naval empire had not been the confront with the Ottomans, but the shift of the balance of trade towards the Atlantic, and so the marginalization of the eastern mediterranean. Venice didn't got weaker compared to the Ottomans (to whom they could still seize the Peloponnese at the end of 17th century), but compared to the other European powers.
Don't worry. your refusal to use "numbers" in your supposed "historical analysis" gave me the impression that your knowledge is at "romance" level.
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A Mary Sue is a central character that isn't challenged by the plot. It doesn't count how powerful he is, or if he is the centre of the universe. A charcter can legitimately be the centre of the universe (IE think of Harui Suzumiya) without being a Mary Sue.
That's why Goku (and I'm not really a Dragon Ball fan) isn't a Mary Sue (Dragon Ball's problem is, if anything, repetitiveness). In his case, the plot is specifically made to challenge him. It doesn't count how powerful he is. There are always characters that are as, or more, powerful. It doesn't count if he gets power-ups. Power ups are legit in his universe (that's specifically stated) and many characters get them. It doesnt' count if he generally wins. Not only that's true for many heroes (plot armour doesn't make Mary Sues), but, contrary to many of them, we know that he can loose (it happened several times) or even die (it happened several times).
And that's why Rey IS a Mary Sue. SHE'S NOT CHALLENGED BY THE PLOT. It doesn't count if she's a girl. She gets out of troubles simply by showing to possess abilities that she shouldn't logically have without any explanation (is like Goku suddenly becoming smarter than Bulma in building mechanisms). Or getting gratuitous
power-ups that simply decided to happen at the right time without the need for any training. She doesn't need to train, she doesnt need to do anything. The universe seems to conspire to make her look awesome without any real effort.
First than Rey, the most famous example of sueish canon character was Stat Trek TNG's Wesley Crusher (so much that, for a long time, to indicate a male Mary Sue the expression "the Wesley" had been favoured over "Gary Stu" ), so much for the sexism of the trope.
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What you described at first are not gender-related characters, but plot-related characters. More specifically they are characters for action/adventure fiction. More of those parts are traditionally played by males because males were the overwelming majority of the readers/viewers of such fictions and they relate to their gender. Males still are a vast majority of the readers/viewers but, since times changes, those roles are increasingly played by female characters. They are not exception and, apart for bad fiction (that happens whathever gender the characters belong to), they are not "taking a full developed male character and turning him into a girl". You are taking a girl for a given role. Those roles seems simplicistic for a girl? They are simplicistic for male characters too. Action/adventure fiction is not exactly renown for the realism and the complexity of the characters.
Apart for roles that it's difficult to cover with a given gender for biological reason (IE a male as "the mom" or a female as "the big friendly guy", but, obviously, there are exceptions) the only role that writers really avoid to give to female characters is that of the laughing-stock. it's full of male characters that are hapless-clumsy-selfish-cowards, but to give that role to a female seems to be disrespectful.
Rey is an OP Mary Sue because she's not challenged by the plot. Every time the plot slightly bothers her, she escapes thanks to a gratuitous power-up that has no sense in that universe. She does mind-control because she heard stories about the jedi? Really? At only 16 years from the fall of the republic Luke certanly heard much more stories, but it took him, a prodigy, trhee movies to do that. One has to wonder why the jedi in the Republic needed a school and years of training if hearing stories was enough. Wonderboy fighter-pilot Luke, at the end of the first movie, after having been trained by a master, only had a glimpse of vision of the force and, at the end of the second movie, after having been trained by another master, is throughly defeated by the villain. Rey beats the main villain in a lightsaber duel the first time she takes a sword in hand (or, better, that a lightsaber is attracted by her hand). The rage that welcomed Rey's performances is nothing compared to what would have happened had she been a male.
The "ludicrously competent girl training the completely inexperienced schlub" is "the ace". A role that has tons of male examples (is one of those traditionally male roles that had recently seen more females interpreting it). The ace almost always gives room to the schlub at the end, for a reason or another, so that the new hero can save the day and yeah, if you give to the schlub at least a bit of training, it feels natural. None complained that Nikita could kick asses, since she was trained to do that. It has nothing to do with "girls support dudes in our culture". One of the the best recent examples is probably Sinbad in "Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic", and he's not a girl, nor is Dante Vale in Huntik.
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Italian had been popularized in literature by BOCCACCIO, more than by anyone else (surely much more than by Machiavelli). His Decameron had been a massive success. Written two centuries before printing, it was copied not only by professionals, but by normal people that wanted to have their own copy, all over Italy (that Italy didn't have a meaningful use for a standard national language until the late 1800s is simply wrong. Anyone who traveled, IE merchants, needed, and used, a standard language. "literary" Italian, the language of Boccaccio, was not something only literates used in their writings).
It's commonly said Dante is the father of Italian language, but in reality is the grandfather. Boccaccio is the real father. Being, among the "tree crowns" (Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio) the one that wrote in prose, it had been Boccaccio that gave to the Italian vocabulary and grammatical rules, and the success of the Decameron cemented it so much that every modern Italian can still read and understand every sentence of it (not so much the Divina Commedia, that requires more than a bit of attention to be understood by a modern Italian).
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Lagoons are not stable environments, they tend to became or firmland, or open sea, in few centuries, or even decades.
The first occurrence was happening to the Venetian Lagoon in 15th century, since the Brenta river, that created the lagoon, was filling it with sediments, so the Venetians had to decide if they wanted a city like all the others, surrounded by cultivated fields, or work to mantain their devensive moat. The discussion lasted for 30 years, then it was decided to deviate first the Brenta river and then a branch of the Po river, to mantain the lagoon. As a result of those works, the lagoon was saved, and the delta of the Po begun protunding into the Adriatic sea, like it's still doing.
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That's only Aeschylus' version of the mith.
Aeschylus' goal was not to declare the inferiority of the mother over the father (mind that half of the jury did not agree, even with Apollo as the defense attorney), but to promote Athen's legal sistem where, as the Romans would have said "in dubio pro reo", when the votes of the judges are evenly divided, mercy must prevail. When the votes of the judges are equally divided, Athena ALWAYS votes for the defendant.
BTW According to Euripides' version, Orestes and Electra were condemned to death by a court in Mycenae and saved by the intervent of Menelaus, that persuaded (or forced at swordpoint) the Myceneans to give them a year of exile instead.
It was not game over however, since Orestes was still persecuted by the furies and ,in order to escape them, he was ordered by Apollo to go to Tauris, carry off the statue of Artemis which had fallen from heaven, and to bring it to Athens. In Tauris Orestes found his lost sister, Iphigenia, taken away from sacrifice by Artemis and rised as one of his priestess, was saved by her, and returned with her and the statue to Mycenae, so reuniting what was left of the family and finally being freed from the persecution.
There are other versions as well.
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