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Originally Posted by
Mjollnir
In the second one, I italicised the patronising and condescending bit for you.
There's nothing patronizing or condescending in that. The fact that Hollywood gave a vision of Rome (and not only Rome) that has absolutely nothing to do with historical reality is indeed a fact.
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You began to talk about something else entirely.
Absolutely not. I simply explained why Rome has nothing to do in any realistic shape or form, with a tyranny.
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The OP's perspective, one that I should think everyone understood, was that the nation of Rome was tyrannical in its attitude to the parts of the world that were not part of it (because we are talking from a perspective of Eorzea vs Garlemald), not that it was a Tyranny. Luckily, I don't need wiki refresher because I studied Latin for five years, then spent my higher education studying Ancient History, Classical Civilisation and Philosophy. Also, living in one of the countries that was part of the Roman Empire and still having its physical legacy visible on a daily basis, along with historical sites where those that resisted the advance of the Roman Empire fought what I'm confident they perceived as a tyrannical attitude (oppressive and controlling), gives me enough of a basis to form a reasonable judgment. The Iceni would have perceived themselves as resisting the tyranny of Rome, as they would have been oppressed against their will, for instance.
I should have imagined that you were British. British pride brought to an extreme romanticization of the "struggle" of the Iceni and the whole story of Boudica, ignoring facts that staged that uprising. British tradition very conveniently ignores the fact that the Iceni *voluntarily* allied themselves with Rome, and the relationship escalated when their king tried to circumvent Roman succession law (to which he initially agreed).
It's the same British pride that brought The Creative Assembly to the frankly ridiculous idea of including the Iceni as a playable faction in Total War: Rome 2, despite their almost complete historical irrelevance compared to the whole european/middle eastern/north african theater.
Of course It's very possible that you'll take this as a personal jab to your nationality, but it isn't. Every nation tends to put its own roots on a pedestal.
Besides, even if you were to (wrongly) put the entire responsibility of the uprising on Rome, the actions of a single Procurartor during a single situation aren't enough to paint an entire civilization.
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Ok, call me out if you were making a genuine suggestion and not being derogatory in that closing comment. If that's the case I've totally misread the situation.
It was simply stating a fact, and that's that hollywood painted Rome as a tyrannical nation, while history denies that vision.
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Can't think of a time when I've agreed with you previously. I tend to just hit a 'Like' on a post from someone who has already written what I would say though. That's cool; we come to the forms for discussion. I just perceived a lot more hostility than I've seen for a while (good ole ClausL notwithstanding!), specifically from you. Perhaps it's just that time of the month.
Or maybe it's simply that we're talking about topics close to my heart, like the state of the game industry, and the musconceptions on it, which are an endless source of frustration for me. That aside, my arguments are always aimed to the opposing argument, not to the person (ClausL notwithstanding, but he was simply a troll)-
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Fair enough. I'm not in your industry, I have no idea how many people read your editorials and I don't know if you focus entirely on FFXIV or if this is just one of many games for you (I can't answer that for myself because your site is down).
Yeah, our VPS decided to completely change infrastructure without advance notice and they're still working on it. I'd very much like to strangle someone at the moment, but that's entirely unrelated to this discussion.
My site is an entirely generalist one, and frankly, while I definitely enjoy discussion on this forum, it's on a personal level. Even if I were to gain a few more hits they'd be a minimal fraction of our traffic. It's no IGN, bit it's not THAT small :D
Besides, if I really came here for publicity, don't you think I'd go out of my way to be nice and popular?
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Bold bit: someone has a different opinion and you want to share yours to see if they agree with that instead. If they do, nice. If they don't, they're not wrong. Here, I'm trying to help you see my perspective on all this. You're free to agree or disagree. Ultimately, rhe difference between you're wrong and I disagree.
Opinion goes a long way but it doesn't cover every possible situation. When an opinion is based on a factually wrong foundation, it becomes wrong itself.
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I disagree that in these forums most would throw personal jabs and leave, or that a lot of posts are not productive. I just don't see it.
I didn't describe a general situation, as much as how many behave when there's conflict.
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Now I already apologised for trying to guess your reasons for your posting style and explained why I did that. That's the second time you've accused me of personal attacks that I've never made and now you're saying I'm not being respectful toward you? If it's truly the case that I've hurt your feelings, I'm sorry (as that is not my intention), but from what you've said about yourself, you'd led me to believe you had a thicker skin than that.
Don't worry. My feelings aren't hurt. I just let you know that if you want to uphold the banner of "civil discussion" you may want to direct your retorts at my arguments and not at me, because that's the basics of civil discussion.
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Regarding the thread's actual subject matter, which I'm glad we can return to at the end of our posts, I'm going to have to disagree with you here and leave it at that. To me, this sentence makes zero sense whatsoever, so trying to continue a discussion is going to send us round in circles, as we'd essentially be trying to talk about two different things.
I'm not sure what doesn't make sense to you. Historical reality is a lot more complex than Fantasy reality.
The Garlean Empire is described as wholly evil (to the point of systematical genocide), with a few honorable but still dark exceptions (like Van Baelsar). That's something that works well in fantasy, but through the history of humanity nations that could be described as "evil" even just by limiting it to the government are very, very rare.