No you see nothing as usual, but that is hardly surprising. There is one large overwhelming reason I keep saying there is no reason to discuss him owning slaves and such, and it's the one reason you seem to keep going out of your way to avoid addressing. That reason is that these things are left in the books by those of us in the real world because that is where they belong, in the books.
As to what Tarl learned, you're pulling the entirely different lesson than everyone else discussing the topic and seem to be refusing to even consider what we are saying. My comment on what Tarl learn, once again I will spell it out for you, is that he was human, that he wasn't perfect.
“'All men,' said Samos, 'and all women, have within themselves despicable elements, cruel things and cowardly things, things vicious, and greedy and selfish, things ugly that we hide from others, and most of all from ourselves.'
'The human being,' he said, 'is a chaos of cruelties and nobilites, of hatreds and of loves, of resentments and respects, of envies and admirations. He contains within himself, in his ferments, much that is base and much that is worthy. These are old truths, but few men truly understand them.'"
Raiders of Gor, page 309
That right there states what the lesson to learn is. That we all have human flaws and traits, that none of us is perfect and that all we can hope to do is our best and to be ourselves rather than what others want to force us to be. I can't make it any clearer for you than that. What you are claiming was learned, I still say is completely inapplicable since it is inregards to nonconsensual slavery and I've said numerous times now what we are using here in the real world is consensual slavery. They are two different things and you can't compare them in the way you are trying to do it.
As to Tarl's murders, I'd like to see that trial myself. I believe in all cases he would have been aquitted for self defense after all as I said all of his physical acts were in response or reaction to others. He often gave the other person a chance to back down and walk away even, and numberous times they did. He wasn't going about killing people just to kill them, he did it to protect or in self defense. As to what he did in regards to slavery, I hate to break it to you but he freed way more slaves in the books than he ever came close to owning, perhaps you ought to consider that. He freed all the slaves in the Tharna mines, he freed the slaves from the galleys captured in the marshs outside of Port Kar, he freed all the slaves in the salt mines of Klima, he freed a large number of slaves taken off of captured ships and often was known to randomly buy work slaves just to free them. So you might want to think a bit more on your arguement.
Re: Misconception
Ok then, I'll tell you what. Let's put you in the middle of the woods like Tarl was in Hunters. You have a bow, a number of arrows, and your sword. Also in the woods are 230 soldiers holding 85 prisoners, one of whom is a head of state. If you can realistically free all of the prisoners without harming one person, then I don't see how. And saying just negotiate it won't work because after Tarl whittled the enemy down to around 70 (and note that he DID take over a hundred prisoner so he captured more than he killed along the way). It's quite a simple problem, save the head of state and as many others as possible. I think Tarl took the best course he had available.
I've seen the same sort of trials your talking about in the court systems but there is a very large difference in being the aggressor ie the one starting the fight and in defending yourself. You can not tell me that in no way would you attempt to protect yourself if some attacks you. If they are deteremined to fight you, then you defend youself. Most of the fights he gets into would be the same as if an offduty soldier was walking at night and a street thug jumped him. The soldier is defending himself and does what it need to protect himself. It goes as far as it needs to go and that depends on the aggeressor not the person defending themself. Or are you saying you are in favor of opening your front door and helping a burglar to what ever he wants when he attempts to break in thru your window. Do you just stand there and let the mugger slash you with a knife?
What you are saying is fine if the world was the Garden of Eden or Heaven perhaps, but it isn't. You need to get out of your ivory tower and remove your rose colored glasses and see the real world. The real world is imperfect. The real world has real people doing the best they can to get by. That is the lesson we take from Tarl, that even though he has flaws he does the best he can to acccomplish what he needs to accomplish. Why is it that you keep going off on every tangent except the one I just mentioned. I've stated quite clearly a number of times now what the biggest lesson of Tarl is, that he was a human being with human weaknesses and flaws, and he was just doing the best he could. Why you can not address that and keep trying to turn the discussion into something else, I don't know.
the ADMINISTRATOR
Posts: 725
(7/18/01 22:59) Reply
Re: Misconception
First of all one man against 250 how realistic is that?
Second we are not talking about that we were talking about Tarl's assassination of a half dozen or more slavers then stealing their slaves.
Just this one example alone proves that Tarl has no respect for life.
He murdered men in cold blood, they had no defense, then stole, then kept the slaves.
There is absolutely no way that you can defend your position that he has a reverance for life and that this is what makes a gorean gorean.
Hardly a Garden of Eden Grn rper it is reality.
I witnesseed it firsthand.
I have a friend whom is a first class Constable, I personally witnessed a single man, out of uniform, with no weapon control a group of men.
I have another close friend whom grew up being a bouncer at the worlds largest mall.
Very rarely did he have to resort to violence to protect himself.
Would I protect myself that depends, if my new Porsche was carjacked I'd simply say here you go.
If i was robbed they could have my wallet.
I have taught Tae Kwon Do, have been on my countires national team.
When teaching self defence the best thing we teach is to simply run away.
Never to fight back, until you are certain your very life is in threat.
You are more likely going to get slashed by the mugger or worse if you fight back.
I'll simply give them my wallet.
I thought that Tarl was not a warrior as he refuted the codes.
If this is so then he was a bully, thug, and mercenary.
The bully let the other take the "first swing" as you put it.
The hockey player did the same.
Protecting oneself does not in any way shape or form justify murder.
Tarl's life was not threatened when he challenged, say Bosk.
In fact he very rarely was fighting for his life until after he provoked an action against him.
Indeed Tarl provokes many of his assailants.
Most, a lot of the fights Tarl gets into are after heavy drinking.
And they are over the most trivial of matters.
He was doing the best he could?
I see, so murder and sexism and rape and slavery are now justified because it was the best he could do?
Do better.
Our prisons are full of people like Tarl/Bosk.
They are there for a good reason.
They do not have any respect for life other than their own.
I wonder at a world where violence is so prevalent.
I wonder at those whom would use it so freely.
I wonder at those whom condone it's use.
I wonder at those that claim it as a natural "instinct".
Re: Misconception
Read the books, Dean, and find out how incredibly foolish you look saying the silly things you say.
More often than not the character of Tarl (especially in the early books) displays quite a bit of empathy and compassion for his fellow men AND women.
In book two, for example, he had the chance to do some very nasty things to Lara, and yet he returned her to the Pillars on her word that she would allow a bargaining to occur there, without harm to him. He refused to have her branded as a slave, even after he found out who she was (having revealed herself as the former Tatrix).
It wasn't until Tarl had spent a great deal of time on the planet that he started to become more Gorean, meaning, he started to understand why the society he lived in required him to be hard and sometimes unforgiving.
Some of these principles of living would do us all well on this planet.
Despite what Dean says.
But he'll actually have to read more than just the cliff notes in order to understand why.
Scratch that - he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't, and doesn't want to.
-Shawn
"She had told me that I had become harder, more Gorean. I wondered if it were true or not."
the ADMINISTRATOR
Posts: 728
(7/19/01 15:45) Reply
Rhetoric
"In book two, for example, he had the chance to do some very nasty things to Lara, and yet he returned her to the Pillars on her word that she would allow a bargaining to occur there, without harm to him. He refused to have her branded as a slave, even after he found out who she was (having revealed herself as the former Tatrix").
All you do is point out how inconsistent he was.
He sat around in a drunken stupor and watched Bosk's men rape women.
He started a fight with Bosk and killed a drunk man in cold blood.
Throughout the books Tarl is only "human" when it fits him, when he has something to gain, otherwise he is a barbarian out for himself and only himself.
In fact his "good deeds" also are representative of this fact.
he only does "good" when he has something to gain.
As Wren would put it, all the good deeds in the world can not make up for such actions, thus your argument is null and void. The man's action are very, extremely hypocritical, in fact the character shows abborent behaviour bordering on disociative personality disorder.
And more rhetoric.
It wasn't until Tarl had spent a great deal of time on the planet that he started to become more Gorean, meaning, he started to understand why the society he lived in required him to be hard and sometimes unforgiving.
Some of these principles of living would do us all well on this planet.
Just what prae tell would these principles be?
These for example?
We anticipated, said Samos, that your humanity would assert itself...... you would grovel and whine for your life.
"I dishonoured my sword" says Tarl
"I betrayed my codes".
Samos replies, "You found your humanity"
Tarl: "I betrayed my codes" {again}
Samos on what Tarl learned:
the cruelties, the miseries, and degradations of the most abject of slaveries.
{FYI: Abject; miserable, degraded, despicable}
It is then that Tarl proclaims he will never again serve the Priest Kings and follow his warrior codes.
So he cannot be a warrior or of the redacaste now can he.
So all of his murders that Grn' rper explains away as soldieristic are nothing more than a bully out for himself killing anything that gets in his way.
At best he was a mercenary.
Realistically he was an outlaw and a criminal.
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