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Dark Prince of Camelot

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Camellia said:
This looks nice, if a little long, but I've got a few nitpicks.

This line sort of implies that Artura's claim has weight. I doubt Piper has the historical knowledge that lets her understand just how little weight Artura carried on her own.

It might be better to say that they considered Gwynn to be the true king who granted Artura the title of Queen by association.

I think the word here is after.

This feels backwards. Gwynn had to die, the way the truth came to light removed any possibility of covering it up and the crime had generations of precedent in how to perform the execution. Being Queen instead of her duty to be the Queen? Her duty sounds like she does not want to be queen.

I like it though. I like how it answers the question asked, of what price was to high to pay; being Queen.
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Righty-ho, time to take a shot at fixing those.

[x] What gives one the right to rule? Power? Yes, people respect and fear power, but it can't be just power. To be a ruler, you need to have followers. And you can't get people to follow you if they can't feel safe or else they'll rebel or flee until you have no one to rule over. People need to have some measure of consistency, some way of saying, 'if I follow or break the rules this, this, and this will happen.' Artura became Queen by marrying Gwynn. He was the one the nobility respected, who felt that he respected tradition and listened to their needs. He was the go between between the Court and Artura. And, most importantly, he was the one whose father was a living King, which gave him a lot more weight politically than Artura's dead one - which didn't give her claim to the throne any weight at all, if you were wondering. In many ways, Gwynn was the true ruler of Camelot, rather than Artura. In their eyes it was Artura who was granted the title of royalty by association, rather than the reverse. Killing Gwynn was bad enough by itself, but if she flouted centuries of tradition in doing so, what does that say to the nobility? What's stopping her from just killing them if they got in the way without Gwynn to smooth things over, the same way she killed Gwynn? Or sparing those who needed to die out of favouritism? Artura was no diplomat. She had no silver tongue to smooth things over with like her husband. She was a hero of the people and a peerless knight, yes, but she had made a lot of enemies in court, and a lot of them favoured Gwynn over her. Adhering to tradition was one of the last things she could use to maintain her grip on the throne. And losing the throne was something unacceptable to her. Artura was Queen first. Anything else she was, a hero, a woman, or even a mother? Being the Queen came before that. And so, Gwynn had to die. The way the truth came to light removed any possibility of covering it up, and the crime had generations of precedent in how to perform the execution. And that, Piper, was the cost she could not pay. In order to spare Gwynn, a man who had betrayed her trust in the worst of ways, she would have had to abandon one of the last things that gave her any support amongst the nobles, and in turn give up everything she had dedicated herself to.
 
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GilliamYaeger said:
Righty-ho, time to take a shot at fixing those.

[x] What gives one the right to rule? Power? Yes, people respect and fear power, but it can't be just power. To be a ruler, you need to have followers. And you can't get people to follow you if they can't feel safe or else they'll rebel or flee until you have no one to rule over. People need to have some measure of consistency, some way of saying, 'if I follow the rules this, this, and this will happen.' Artura became Queen by marrying Gwynn. He was the one the nobility respected, who felt that he respected tradition. He was the go between between the Court and Artura. And, most importantly, he was the one whose father was a living King, which gave him a lot more weight politically than Artura's dead one - which didn't give her claim to the throne any weight at all, if you were wondering. In many ways, Gwynn was the true ruler of Camelot, rather than Artura. Killing Gwynn was bad enough by itself, but if she flouted centuries of tradition in doing so, what does that say to the nobility? What's stopping her from just killing them if they got in the way without Gwynn to smooth things over, the same way she killed Gwynn? Or sparing those who needed to die out of favouritism? Artura was no diplomat. She had no silver tongue to smooth things over with like her husband. She was a hero of the people and a peerless knight, yes, but she had made a lot of enemies in court, and a lot of them favoured Gwynn over her. In many ways, tradition was one of the last things she could use to maintain her grip on the throne. And losing the throne was something unacceptable to her. Artura was Queen first. Anything else she was, a hero, a woman, or even a mother? Being the Queen came before that. And so, Gwynn had to die. The way the truth came to light removed any possibility of covering it up, and the crime had generations of precedent in how to perform the execution. And that, Piper, was the cost she could not pay. In order to spare Gwynn, a man who had betrayed her trust in the worst of ways, she would have had to abandon one of the last things that gave her any support amongst the nobles, and in turn give up everything she had dedicated herself to.
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[x] GilliamYaeger

Solid compilation, although I think the wall of text will scare many away from it.
 
Is there a way to say that in three sentences or less? Words do not get more compelling if there are more of them.

Honestly, the very first renditions that summed things up with a couple of lines weren't bad. Piper is smart enough to not need it chewed for her.
 
Nevill said:
Is there a way to say that in three sentences or less? Words do not get more compelling if there are more of them.

Honestly, the very first renditions that summed things up with a couple of lines weren't bad. Piper is smart enough to not need it chewed for her.
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Probably, but it's a bit difficult to get the nuance across in only a few lines.
 
[X] Legitimacy. Artura was never popular with the nobility, and if she'd spat on their traditions whilst killing the king they loved she'd have lost any legitimacy that she ever had.

There, condensed into a couple of lines
 
The question of what to say aside...

The Gaheria incident makes me wonder.
Her power/soul/heraldry went to Lorelei instead of Artura. We can assume this happened with all of the Knights that joined Lorelei.
So, what exactly IS Lorelei? Another candidate for whatever Artura was becoming? Did we fuck up big time letting Sa'Lanyah take Lucy?
 
Blonddude42 said:
Probably, but it's a bit difficult to get the nuance across in only a few lines.
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And? Gally doesn't take things word-for-word to begin with, and he does pay attention to how we discuss things.

[X] Legitimacy. Artura was never popular with the nobility, and if she'd spat on their traditions whilst killing the king they loved she'd have lost any legitimacy that she ever had.
 
[x] No one knew her or understood her. What they did understand was that she had devastating power. But who would obey a power that isn't predictable, which might turn on them at any time? No one trusts what they don't understand. Better to kill it before it decides to kill you, just in case. Those were the stakes.
 
Zhead said:
The question of what to say aside...

The Gaheria incident makes me wonder.
Her power/soul/heraldry went to Lorelei instead of Artura. We can assume this happened with all of the Knights that joined Lorelei.
So, what exactly IS Lorelei? Another candidate for whatever Artura was becoming? Did we fuck up big time letting Sa'Lanyah take Lucy?
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Maybe it's just whoever they owe their loyalty to. Since they jumped ship from Artura to Lorelei, she got their stuff when they died.
 
[x] What gives one the right to rule? Power? Yes, people respect and fear power, but it can't be just power. To be a ruler, you need to have followers. And you can't get people to follow you if they can't feel safe or else they'll rebel or flee until you have no one to rule over. People need to have some measure of consistency, some way of saying, 'if I follow or break the rules this, this, and this will happen.' Artura became Queen by marrying Gwynn. He was the one the nobility respected, who felt that he respected tradition and listened to their needs. He was the go between between the Court and Artura. And, most importantly, he was the one whose father was a living King, which gave him a lot more weight politically than Artura's dead one - which didn't give her claim to the throne any weight at all, if you were wondering. In many ways, Gwynn was the true ruler of Camelot, rather than Artura. In their eyes it was Artura who was granted the title of royalty by association, rather than the reverse. Killing Gwynn was bad enough by itself, but if she flouted centuries of tradition in doing so, what does that say to the nobility? What's stopping her from just killing them if they got in the way without Gwynn to smooth things over, the same way she killed Gwynn? Or sparing those who needed to die out of favouritism? Artura was no diplomat. She had no silver tongue to smooth things over with like her husband. She was a hero of the people and a peerless knight, yes, but she had made a lot of enemies in court, and a lot of them favoured Gwynn over her. Adhering to tradition was one of the last things she could use to maintain her grip on the throne. And losing the throne was something unacceptable to her. Artura was Queen first. Anything else she was, a hero, a woman, or even a mother? Being the Queen came before that. And so, Gwynn had to die. The way the truth came to light removed any possibility of covering it up, and the crime had generations of precedent in how to perform the execution. And that, Piper, was the cost she could not pay. In order to spare Gwynn, a man who had betrayed her trust in the worst of ways, she would have had to abandon one of the last things that gave her any support amongst the nobles, and in turn give up everything she had dedicated herself to.
 
Scify said:
And? Gally doesn't take things word-for-word to begin with, and he does pay attention to how we discuss things.

[X] Legitimacy. Artura was never popular with the nobility, and if she'd spat on their traditions whilst killing the king they loved she'd have lost any legitimacy that she ever had.
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The difference here is that most votes we can get the general sentiment we want across in a couple lines. Here the general sentiment is "this a complicated as hell issue even without touching on our various issues that just make things worse". That's easy to get across, but she wants us to give an answer rather than just say it's complicated. Which leads to the Wall of Text in attempts to make a vote that does so.
 
Blonddude42 said:
The difference here is that most votes we can get the general sentiment we want across in a couple lines. Here the general sentiment is "this a complicated as hell issue even without touching on our various issues that just make things worse". That's easy to get across, but she wants us to give an answer rather than just say it's complicated. Which leads to the Wall of Text in attempts to make a vote that does so.
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Basically we're doing this:

 
Nevill said:
What would have happened if she didn't try to kill the king and pardoned him instead?
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That's an interesting question. The nobility would have bitched about it, but they bitched about the sentencing so it's a loss either way. At least the pardon would have left Gwynn alive to work his political magic.

Do you guys think Artura wanted Gwynn to die? This isn't me trying to influence your decisions - I really want to know your opinions. At some point Artura had to make a value judgment, and apparently she decided that enforcing Camelot's law as written was more important than Gwynn's life. Lorelei obviously came to the opposite conclusion - why do y'all think that is?
Zhead said:
Did we fuck up big time letting Sa'Lanyah take Lucy?
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Gally said:
why do y'all think that is
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Lorelei was sleeping with him and the mother of his bastard. She was a teensy bit bias. But charismatic, much like Gwynn was, which meant that the brutal, even by that era, punishment led to a lot of dissatisfaction that the two popular, powerful, charismatic people abused.
 
Gally said:
That's an interesting question. The nobility would have bitched about it, but they bitched about the sentencing so it's a loss either way. At least the pardon would have left Gwynn alive to work his political magic.

Do you guys think Artura wanted Gwynn to die? This isn't me trying to influence your decisions - I really want to know your opinions. At some point Artura had to make a value judgment, and apparently she decided that enforcing Camelot's law as written was more important than Gwynn's life. Lorelei obviously came to the opposite conclusion - why do y'all think that is?
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Based off what you've shown, Lorelei loved Gwynn. If this was an anime they'd probably use one of the very strong words the Japanese have for love to describe it. If it was an anime she also might have been a bit Yandere about it.

Artura has been shown to be Queen. That was the primary influence to her decisions which trumped all else. Unless there were major details we were not privy to, she choose to kill Gwynn instead of pardon him because she felt she needed to as Queen.

...
......
.........
............huh.

She might have sentenced Gwynn to that to force Lorelei to come back. She couldn't risk her being a hidden enemy and did this to force her out into the open. Sacrifice part to save the whole and all that jazz. What was the transition for them between the civil war and Mordred's attack? Did Lorelei and Gwynn get killed/executed or did something else happen to them in the end?
 
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