5 ms·

("to cape" - I'm not familiar with this usage, so I'll assume it's a typo for "to care") Yeah, see that's the thing. I said before that it's motte and bailey w

("to cape" - I'm not familiar with this usage, so I'll assume it's a typo for "to care") Yeah, see that's the thing. I said before that it's motte and bailey with this guy, and that's reflected in his defenders. Motte: is just historical accuracy how can you object to that? That's a good, positive thing Bailey: GRRM is causing harm with his lying, demeaning, historical inaccuracy Let's just have the historical accuracy alone, shall we? Or a demonstration that GRRM is causing harm. That would be fine, too, but I suspect that's much more difficult to establish, and it's not gonna happen by continuing to demonstrate that which surprises utterly no one, that the Dothraki are fictional As it stands, there is this back-and-forth when I ask people to demonstrate that this denigration of GRRM is justified and people start talking about buckskin and horse bridles

morelisp 6y ago
> denigration of GRRM This literally isn't happening.
- julianmarq 6y ago
  >> denigration of GRRM > This literally isn't happening. I disagree with rendall's general opinion regarding this series... But there's pretty much no other way to read the last few paragraphs in this particular essay. The author came within a hair's breadth of calling Martin an "ignorant racist", and he probably didn't say so deliberately. In general, this article is by far the preachiest in the series, and is thus the least enjoyable. "Barbarian couture" is great, though.
  - fladrif 6y ago
    I would say the author provided all the evidence for you to draw such a conclusion, but never insinuated as such. The most concrete thing he ever said was that GRRM lied when he said that the 'Dothraki were an amalgam of ...'. If you were led to such a conclusion without the author even making that argument, I wouldn't say it was preachy, but impactful.
    - julianmarq 6y ago
      > I would say the author provided all the evidence for you to draw such a conclusion, but never insinuated as such I respectfully and strongly disagree. The conclusions about Martin as a person I gather from the historical evidence in the article are "Martin clearly knows little about history and obviously wanted to engage a little bit in the 'Fremen mirage' [as the author, Devereaux, himself would put it], but he's also a blowhard overstating his own knowledge and authority." That Martin is "irresponsible", and his story "harmful", etcetera. That's all entirely what the author puts forward on the last few paragraphs... And something he didn't do in the first article in the series, and in the few other essays by him I've read. He keeps it fairly neutral, and focused on the history. You see, the charitable interpretation in this case would be "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence". In most of Devereaux's essays that have become popular here, he sticks to that one with reasonable consistency, but he clearly made an exception this time.
      - fladrif 6y ago
        Where did you get that quote from (2nd paragraph)? I can't find it in the three articles on horse nomads. WRT your last point, I didn't read the conclusion to say that GRRM maliciously cause harm, but through his incomplete knowledge of history and his assertion that the culture he portrayed was historically accurate was causing harm. He simply noted the deficiencies of GRRM, and the resulting consequences of such. And to the point that you've brought up about a difference between this article and the last 2, I would counter to say that all three have had the same conclusion, that GRRM has been inaccurate with the portrayal of horse-bourne nomads, only here he has laid out the consequences that it entails. If you're fine with the predicate but have issue with the conclusion, I would suggest you make a counter to his argument, otherwise it would appear to be in bad faith to lambast his conclusion yet agree with his predicate and have no word on his argument.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        julianmarq 6y ago
aidenn0 6y ago
The closest I could find to a statement that GRRM is causing harm is: > The honest mistake has become an irresponsible error, perhaps a moral one. Which was in the context of discussing that GRRM has explicitly said that the Dothraki were based off of real peoples. The author does not say "GRRM is causing harm..." he says that GRRM is acting irresponsible and possibly immoral. It seems likely that the author believes that GRRM is causing harm, but he does not advance his argument that far.

morelisp 6y ago

> denigration of GRRM This literally isn't happening.

julianmarq 6y ago
>> denigration of GRRM > This literally isn't happening. I disagree with rendall's general opinion regarding this series... But there's pretty much no other way to read the last few paragraphs in this particular essay. The author came within a hair's breadth of calling Martin an "ignorant racist", and he probably didn't say so deliberately. In general, this article is by far the preachiest in the series, and is thus the least enjoyable. "Barbarian couture" is great, though.
- fladrif 6y ago
  I would say the author provided all the evidence for you to draw such a conclusion, but never insinuated as such. The most concrete thing he ever said was that GRRM lied when he said that the 'Dothraki were an amalgam of ...'. If you were led to such a conclusion without the author even making that argument, I wouldn't say it was preachy, but impactful.
  - julianmarq 6y ago
    > I would say the author provided all the evidence for you to draw such a conclusion, but never insinuated as such I respectfully and strongly disagree. The conclusions about Martin as a person I gather from the historical evidence in the article are "Martin clearly knows little about history and obviously wanted to engage a little bit in the 'Fremen mirage' [as the author, Devereaux, himself would put it], but he's also a blowhard overstating his own knowledge and authority." That Martin is "irresponsible", and his story "harmful", etcetera. That's all entirely what the author puts forward on the last few paragraphs... And something he didn't do in the first article in the series, and in the few other essays by him I've read. He keeps it fairly neutral, and focused on the history. You see, the charitable interpretation in this case would be "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence". In most of Devereaux's essays that have become popular here, he sticks to that one with reasonable consistency, but he clearly made an exception this time.
    - fladrif 6y ago
      Where did you get that quote from (2nd paragraph)? I can't find it in the three articles on horse nomads. WRT your last point, I didn't read the conclusion to say that GRRM maliciously cause harm, but through his incomplete knowledge of history and his assertion that the culture he portrayed was historically accurate was causing harm. He simply noted the deficiencies of GRRM, and the resulting consequences of such. And to the point that you've brought up about a difference between this article and the last 2, I would counter to say that all three have had the same conclusion, that GRRM has been inaccurate with the portrayal of horse-bourne nomads, only here he has laid out the consequences that it entails. If you're fine with the predicate but have issue with the conclusion, I would suggest you make a counter to his argument, otherwise it would appear to be in bad faith to lambast his conclusion yet agree with his predicate and have no word on his argument.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - julianmarq 6y ago

aidenn0 6y ago

The closest I could find to a statement that GRRM is causing harm is: > The honest mistake has become an irresponsible error, perhaps a moral one. Which was in the context of discussing that GRRM has explicitly said that the Dothraki were based off of real peoples. The author does not say "GRRM is causing harm..." he says that GRRM is acting irresponsible and possibly immoral. It seems likely that the author believes that GRRM is causing harm, but he does not advance his argument that far.