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Subject: 
Re: Factions
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.castle
Date: 
Sat, 21 Jul 2001 07:55:55 GMT
Viewed: 
1745 times
  
In lugnet.castle, Arthur Jackson Aringdale writes:
In lugnet.castle, Johannes Koehler writes:

I wonder WHO the Black Monarch is? He has a castle, and he has (or is?)
a ghost, right? I'm not so familiar with the American names of the
sets...

I think the black monarch is just the warrior king of the BK. He has a pet
ghost, or at least mine does.

Somebody help me out with this one. The BK are almost unanimously classified
as evil. Why? They have always seemed so chivalrous and good to me. I think
Anthony Sava might agree. Peace

the chinchilla

Here is my view on the whole thing.

Lego has been so anti-violent that I don't think Lego has intended anyone to be
the 'bad guy' in castle.  Take this set I recieve for my birthday last week.
6094 The Guarded Treasurey.  I put it together and I've been playing with it,
and there is a piece inside the booby trap of two halberds and the falling
stone.  The small 1 x 2 plate prevents the trap from actually letting the
halberds fall farther than horizontal, at least on my model.  The piece isn't
decorative, you can barely see it when looking at the model.  The only possible
reason for lego to put that piece there, in my opinion, is to stop the trap
from 'hurting' any minifigs.

The same thing goes with all the lego castle sets that i've ever seen.  There
are no torture chambers, no cauldrons of boiling oil to throw down on hapless
invaders, no working or semi working siege engines aside from catapults.

Speaking of catapults, notice all the catapults that Lego has sold.  ALL of the
ones that I've examined and played with were one of two types.  First type is
the autonomous catapult, the type that you pull the pin and the catapult does
the rest.   These catapults don't throw anything far enough to do any damage to
anything.  The second type is the manual catapults, forcing the child (or grown
up who thinks he is a child) to hit the weight baring arm causing the
projectile to be fired.  This removes Lego from all 'violent causing' problems
since the child is the one controlling how fast/far the projectile goes.

The Lego castles themselves are rather worthless as defensive structures,
moreso for the recent sets over the early ones.  But even there, the old sets
opened up, turning them into just a wall.  The King's mountain fortress always
boggled my mind, its defensive walls were only one brick high, even with the
mountain baseplate I thought that was a bit careless for the king to have built
and then put his name on it.

My point is, is that Lego doesn't seem to be trying to make 'violent' toys.
The new cannons fire HUGE rubber tipped projectiles, the most violent i've ever
seen lego get, and even at that it is included in King Leo's Castle solely for
the purpose of slinging a treasure chest off the wall of the castle.

The whole idea of good and bad factions, I think, is a bit flawed.  All of the
lego men that I've seen are just neutral, trying to live out their lives.  I
mean, half of the older sets showed the black falcons attacking or defending
from the lions, and yet other sets they were together drinking (Guarded Inn) or
playing games (Knight's challenge).  Yes, there were several sets where
prisoners were included in the sets, but never were the prisoners shown to be
mistreated, and in many sets (outside of castle) there was always some way to
escape for the poor lego person.

Historically the dragon is a symbol of knowledge, strength, virility, honor,
longevity, take your pick.  The fact that the Black Monarch uses a dragon for
his crest means only to me that he was trying to portray these qualities to
himself and his clan, regardless of his actions on the battlefield.

So to me, it all comes down to one simple thing.  The factions are who they are
to you.  If you think the black monarch's troops are evil, then thats what they
are.  If you think they are good, or chivalrous, again, thats what they are.
All I know for sure is that the Black Monarch was a guy with good taste when it
came to his crest and architecture.  I mean, after all, the black monarch's
castle is still my favorite.

And that's my final answer
--Anthony





"No, I'm sorry, the answer was B, strained peaches, but you walk away with $100
Anthony, congratulations"



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Factions (and violence)
 
(...) im sorry, but a few people have said this before and ive gotta ask: how is lego is anyway nonviolent? every castle set includes weaponry of some sort. it is a given conclusion that each faction is at least sometime in combat with eachother? (...) (23 years ago, 22-Jul-01, to lugnet.castle)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Factions
 
(...) I think the black monarch is just the warrior king of the BK. He has a pet ghost, or at least mine does. Somebody help me out with this one. The BK are almost unanimously classified as evil. Why? They have always seemed so chivalrous and good (...) (23 years ago, 13-Jul-01, to lugnet.castle)

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