NP Wednesday December 11, 2019

[The Old Hack 2,448]

45 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It's not entirely not based on what happened. They at least got the number right. And the name of the king.

It is of course encouraging when your historical material at least get the names and the dates mostly right, but just a bit more precision and research than that is in my opinion to be encouraged.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

It is of course encouraging when your historical material at least get the names and the dates mostly right, but just a bit more precision and research than that is in my opinion to be encouraged.

I thought we talked about this "snark" thing already. Is this an instance of Poe's Law?

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I thought we talked about this "snark" thing already. Is this an instance of Poe's Law?

In my experience snark is nearly inexhaustible and merely discussing it is hardly enough to make it simply abandon the discourse in general.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

5 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

In my experience snark is nearly inexhaustible and merely discussing it is hardly enough to make it simply abandon the discourse in general.

The InterWebs! Powered by Snarks!

[ijuin 572]

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... that's good point. Superman without moral would be even worse to write for: he has some limitations, but turning his morality into limitation is quite effective way to make the story interesting. Now, if only more authors would be able to pull this off, SHOW how the morality is limiting him, instead of making it look like he's so overpowered he can be moral just to make the defeat feel worse for his opponents ...

I think that a good use of Superman's morals to tell a story would be by putting him in a dilemma where it appears that any move he can make would lead to a bad result (e.g. there seems to be no way to stop the villains without killing them), and he has to come up with something pretty clever in order to avert disaster. The best Superman stories are ones where he actually has to think and outwit his opponents instead of simply overpowering them--this is why Luthor and Brainiac (genius enemies) or General Zod and Jax-Ur (fellow Kryptonians who can match his powers) are among his best opponents.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah. And they fight in the exactly same style which in real history was used by german tribes and was reason Romans were usually winning against them.

(Ok, that might be exaggeration ... but really, I don't think they would hold the pass that long like this. It's historical fact they used phalanx formation, but that wouldn't show they abs so prominently.)

It was mainly the narrowness of the pass that made it possible--it was narrow enough that the Persians could not bring their entire force to bear upon them--only a few hundred of them at a time could get with spear's reach of the Spartan phalanx, so the Spartans only had to defend 2 to 1 or so at any given moment.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

52 minutes ago, ijuin said:

It was mainly the narrowness of the pass that made it possible--it was narrow enough that the Persians could not bring their entire force to bear upon them--only a few hundred of them at a time could get with spear's reach of the Spartan phalanx, so the Spartans only had to defend 2 to 1 or so at any given moment.

Holding choke points has been source of many a military or warrior legend. Horatio on the bridge springs to mind.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

22 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Your spin on Superman sounds accurate

But the Lynda Carter-Wonder Woman spin was more impressive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6VouxNKcpg

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

6 hours ago, ijuin said:

a good use of Superman's morals to tell a story would be by putting him in a dilemma where it appears that any move he can make would lead to a bad result

Superman vs the Runaway Trolly?

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

But the Lynda Carter-Wonder Woman spin was more impressive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6VouxNKcpg

Yes, the visual of the spin was itself impressive, and there were at least two other reasons.

"And some day, we'll be as developed as you are."

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Superman vs the Runaway Trolly?

Hilariously easy in exactly his case. Normally I despise the trolley problem because it is so contrived. But in exactly Superman's case, he could just step out and brake the trolley with his own body.

In this case, the challenge would be if Superman had lost his powers, as he so frequently does. If he had, the real Superman would step out and block the trolley anyway, damn the consequences. Much better way to show the price of his morals.

[hkmaly 490]

11 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

On 12/16/2019 at 4:15 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

Your spin on Superman sounds accurate

But the Lynda Carter-Wonder Woman spin was more impressive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6VouxNKcpg

... I suppose it was impressive in 1976 but now ...

8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

11 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Superman vs the Runaway Trolly?

Hilariously easy in exactly his case. Normally I despise the trolley problem because it is so contrived. But in exactly Superman's case, he could just step out and brake the trolley with his own body.

In this case, the challenge would be if Superman had lost his powers, as he so frequently does. If he had, the real Superman would step out and block the trolley anyway, damn the consequences. Much better way to show the price of his morals.

While you are right regarding original Trolly, note that there WAS very similar situation in one of first Superman movies. Lex Luthor fired two rockets, one to east and one to west. Even Superman was not fast enough to catch both (in this movie at least), so he was forced to choose.

... I mean, it was nice until the scenarist let him "fix" the situation by going several minutes back in time.

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

... I mean, it was nice until the scenarist let him "fix" the situation by going several minutes back in time.

Yeah. Letdown ending to an otherwise pretty darn cool movie. Eh well.

[hkmaly 490]

6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... I mean, it was nice until the scenarist let him "fix" the situation by going several minutes back in time.

Yeah. Letdown ending to an otherwise pretty darn cool movie. Eh well.

It wasn't surprising and they wouldn't be likely to get away with not solving it somehow, but it DID undermine the importance of his decision - and made him more overpowered than he was before.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

30 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

It wasn't surprising and they wouldn't be likely to get away with not solving it somehow, but it DID undermine the importance of his decision - and made him more overpowered than he was before.

Agreed. A better ending would have been if he had found her barely alive, managed to get her to a hospital and then fade to black. Cue her waking up in a hospital bed with a foolishly grinning Clark sitting next to her and a small mountain of flowers in vases on the bedside table. Still a happy ending and his decision would at least have had a cost -- and could so easily have cost him even more.

[hkmaly 490]

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It wasn't surprising and they wouldn't be likely to get away with not solving it somehow, but it DID undermine the importance of his decision - and made him more overpowered than he was before.

Agreed. A better ending would have been if he had found her barely alive, managed to get her to a hospital and then fade to black. Cue her waking up in a hospital bed with a foolishly grinning Clark sitting next to her and a small mountain of flowers in vases on the bedside table. Still a happy ending and his decision would at least have had a cost -- and could so easily have cost him even more.

Exactly.

My original idea was for him to lose someone less important than Lois, but this would be even better.