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Post by tyrion on Sept 9, 2020 16:42:00 GMT
Standings so far: 16 - Sword of the samurai 15 - Island of the undead 14 - Night dragon 13 - Legend of the shadow warriors 12 - Beneath nightmare castle 11 - Night of the necromancer 10 - Vault of the vampire 9 - The seven serpents 8 - Deathtrap dungeon 7 - Creature of havoc 6 - Siege of sardath 5 - Khare cityport of traps
Only one vote each, with one elimination unless there is a tie. Again, I've also made the poll so you can't see the results until it's finished.
For tied places I've looked back at previous polls to see which had most votes.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 9, 2020 17:18:14 GMT
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Post by stevendoig on Sept 9, 2020 18:28:12 GMT
Sadly, Slaves is getting my vote this time. But hasn't it done well?
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 2:01:42 GMT
Absolutely.
You've had your fun, but it's time to let the poor dear die in peace...
(I can't help thinking that it should be delendi sunt rather than delenda, though).
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Post by a moderator on Sept 10, 2020 2:29:19 GMT
Wouldn't that depend on whether the object of the sentence was the book or the eponymous slaves?
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 5:15:51 GMT
Wouldn't that depend on whether the object of the sentence was the book or the eponymous slaves? I did wonder how Latin grammar would deal with a plural in the name of a singular book. If, for some reason (and I'm sceptical about this), you treated it as if it were the word for book, then it would be delendum est.As in liber meus delendum est.But the fault lies with the original comic writer, not kieran. Delenda Carthago* is a very long way from Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
*I'm guessing at this out of generosity, but I suspect that the original was 'Carthage', which is even worse.
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Post by The Count on Sept 10, 2020 6:54:06 GMT
Slaves is the best remaining book
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 10, 2020 6:54:10 GMT
I'm guessing at this out of generosity, but I suspect that the original was 'Carthage', which is even worse. No, it was "Carthago". But yes, I have no doubt rendered some already bad grammar into something even worse. But you get the idea.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 7:01:07 GMT
No, it was "Carthago". But yes, I have no doubt rendered some already bad grammar into something even worse. But you get the idea. I did, hence 'let the poor dear die in peace...'
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Post by schlendrian on Sept 10, 2020 8:15:23 GMT
"Delenda Carthago!", means: "Destroy Carthago!", so, it's an order, which means it needs the Imperatif - delenda if you give the order to a single person or delendate if to more people. The object doesn't play into this, so kieran is correct if he adresses the sentence to a single person and not all of us.
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Post by vastariner on Sept 10, 2020 8:29:38 GMT
It's actually a gerundive, which is more a passive infinitive - an imperative would be for someone to destroy Carthage, Cato just said that Carthage should be destroyed, he did not say by whom, although that was obvious. (The original was in a subordinate clause, "censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", "I judge that Carthage should be destroyed".)
Although liber is masculine so it should be "delendus est".
And I'm not for its delendus-ing anyway. This time I'm going for House of Hell, unfair ending, narrow path, and impossible (rather than unlikely) under min stats.
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Post by schlendrian on Sept 10, 2020 9:01:55 GMT
Absolutely, the original phrase by Cato is not an imperative - but the phrase as Goscinny put it is, if not the original one, grammatically correct, and so is "Delenda Slaves of the Abyss".
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 9:07:32 GMT
(To vastariner: sorry, my quote of your post inexplicably went missing)
You beat me to it in pointing out that it's a gerundive (which I grew up, thanks to Nigel Molesworth, believing to be a small furry creature with a long nose).
Furthermore you are absolutely correct about delendus. I put the gerund (somewhat larger, less furry creature, but with equally long nose) by mistake, having previously got the plural gerundive correct.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 9:15:17 GMT
Absolutely, the original phrase by Cato is not an imperative - but the phrase as Goscinny put it is, if not the original one, grammatically correct, and so is "Delenda Slaves of the Abyss". Can you parse it? Because it's still not looking very right to me. In what sense is Slaves of the Abyss feminine? My Latin dictionary inexplicably fails to have an entry for it.
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Post by schlendrian on Sept 10, 2020 9:25:33 GMT
Absolutely, the original phrase by Cato is not an imperative - but the phrase as Goscinny put it is, if not the original one, grammatically correct, and so is "Delenda Slaves of the Abyss". Can you parse it? Because it's still not looking very right to me. In what sense is Slaves of the Abyss feminine? My Latin dictionary inexplicably fails to have an entry for it. You have to look for the verb delendare, which goes: delendo I destroy
delendas You etc.
The "a" at the end comes from it's conjugation, not from it being feminine. The imperativ for verbs of the a-conjugation is -a for singular and -ate for plural. The number and gender of Slaves really doesn't play into this at all, just the subject you adress.
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Post by schlendrian on Sept 10, 2020 9:28:23 GMT
Sorry, I just looked it up myself - the verb is delendere, so the imperativ would be delende, so it is incorrect after all
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Post by Wilf on Sept 10, 2020 9:38:07 GMT
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 9:55:03 GMT
Can you parse it? Because it's still not looking very right to me. In what sense is Slaves of the Abyss feminine? My Latin dictionary inexplicably fails to have an entry for it. You have to look for the verb delendare, which goes: delendo I destroy
delendas You etc.
The "a" at the end comes from it's conjugation, not from it being feminine. The imperativ for verbs of the a-conjugation is -a for singular and -ate for plural. The number and gender of Slaves really doesn't play into this at all, just the subject you adress.
That seems to make sense. Except I can find no trace of delendare in my dictionary or on the web. How does it differ from the verb delere, that Cato was using? And why doesn't Cathago take the accusative case in a sentence in which it is clearly the object (Carthaginem)? I would have thought that delete servos (or delete Slaves if we're allowing Latin to borrow foreign nouns, without them declining, in a way that it never actually did) would make more sense, not only because 'delete' is readily understandable even to those blessed with not having had a Latin education, but also because the command is clearly addressed to a plurality rather than a single person. But then, the original point was not to just write something in Latin, but to reference Cato's famous saying, in which he is clearly using the gerundive form of delere. Still, maybe we should all agree that Slaves has to go this time, if only to avoid an eternity of abstruse Latin argument...
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Post by vastariner on Sept 10, 2020 10:17:57 GMT
The verb is indeed deleo/delere. The gerundive has to match the number and case of the noun which is subject to the gerundive. So Slaves Of The Abyss - which would be servi abyssi - would be a masculine plural, so the masculine plural gerundive would be delendi in the nominative.
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Post by vastariner on Sept 10, 2020 10:20:06 GMT
Still, maybe we should all agree that Slaves has to go this time, if only to avoid an eternity of abstruse Latin argument... You say that as if it is a bad thing.
(Might get Robin Waterfield on the forum as well, I have his Xenophon translation somewhere.)
(And I know that's Greek, but surely he knows Latin as well. Given the name he gave to the fertile planet in FF18 - Radix.)
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 10, 2020 10:52:15 GMT
Still, maybe we should all agree that Slaves has to go this time, if only to avoid an eternity of abstruse Latin argument... You say that as if it is a bad thing.
(Might get Robin Waterfield on the forum as well, I have his Xenophon translation somewhere.)
(And I know that's Greek, but surely he knows Latin as well. Given the name he gave to the fertile planet in FF18 - Radix.)
Ah, but maybe I was subtly trying to keep Slaves in the running? Still, it has been nice to be reminded of some of that Latin I did all those years ago. For many years, my attitude to Latin was flocci non facio, with the exception of the Lucretius quote tantum religio potuit suadere malorem, which I used ad nauseam, as it were. Has Robin ever been spotted in an active fan context (I don't mean being interviewed -- I mean contributing off his own bat)?
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Post by tyrion on Sept 10, 2020 19:15:40 GMT
I'm afraid my Latin only extends so far as binomial nomenclature and the names of chemical elements. Which is sometimes mildly useful in quizzes.
Didn't vote for slaves this time, sorry!
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Sept 10, 2020 19:49:16 GMT
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 11, 2020 16:39:21 GMT
I saw this in my local cinema when it came out (the accompanying shorts were brilliant). And I remember that this particular scene divided the audience between those of us who laughed uproariously, and those who merely smiled indulgently. I do love the ambiguity of tyrion's comment: does 'didn't vote for Slaves' mean you actually tried to vote some other book out? I will be personally offended if Slaves doesn't get at least a dozen outvotes on this occasion! Number four is great, but top 3: no chance! That would be taking the piss. Though it occurs to me that the problem with this whole mechanic (and even my wife, when having the voting systems explained to her, agreed that vagsancho's idea of just getting people to state their single favourite FF book is better) is that after your favourite book has been voted out (and let's just hypothetically imagine that your favourite book is Crypt of the Sorcerer) you have little incentive to vote sensibly, and every reason to just stick a spanner in the works for the 'popular' books. It is to this characteristic of the voting system that I attribute the otherwise inexplicable staying power of Slaves. It has its aficionados, I know (and am pathetically grateful for), but the only explanation for its survival is that those who had lost their first preference deliberately avoided voting for Slaves because they knew that if Slaves kicked other books out it would annoy those whose preferred books are more likely to win, everything else being equal. So with such cunningly argued sophistry I manage to preserve the reputation of Slaves as a hugely divisive and Marmitey FF book... But I'm serious about wanting Slaves out. My favourite FF is Magehunter, after all...
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Post by a moderator on Sept 11, 2020 17:43:33 GMT
I will be personally offended if Slaves doesn't get at least a dozen outvotes on this occasion! These polls have only ever attracted 18-20 voters. With four titles still in the running, I think it unlikely that one of them will get at least 60%.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 11, 2020 18:04:34 GMT
My favourite FF is Magehunter, after all... I think Magehunter is a much better book than Slaves to be honest. There's so many interesting pathways to explore in the former - just a pity more of them aren't viable.
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Post by tyrion on Sept 11, 2020 18:13:07 GMT
I'm not going to quote the whole of sleepyscholar's post but I'll address a few points:
I can't claim credit for the idea of voting for the least favourite, I nicked the idea from a Bruce Springsteen forum (voting by album rather than a batch of books) and thought it would be fun to apply it to ff books.
Additionally, we have already had a 'favourite' list, and there are many of these types of things on the internet.
I probably should have made the polls hidden earlier on to avoid tactical voting.
I think slaves of the abyss is probably the least marmitey of Paul Mason's books. Despite the intriguing plot, it is still beat the bad guy and so familiar ff territory. BVP has been called pretentious by one active reviewer, and I only recently came to appreciate it (and now ranks as one of my favourites). Crimson tide is misunderstood by many, especially as paragraph 400 isn't the win ending. Also, mudworm (not the author's fault, I know). Magehunter is so rare I'm not sure how many people have read it, especially with the very marmitey cover!
However, despite my inability to produce a viable poll I think this has been a worthwhile exercise in terms of the amount of discussion that has been generated. I'm certainly going to go back and have another crack at siege of sardath with fresh eyes, for example, despite hating it for years.
I'm not saying whether I voted slaves in or out! Nice catch.
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Post by vastariner on Sept 11, 2020 19:52:15 GMT
My one criticism of Magehunter is that it is the wrong way around. In that if you're an FF reader you come into the book with a set of assumptions from past works. Including that magic is no bad thing.
Had it been the other way around - a hero from Kallamehr going to another world - there would have been lots of surprises to the reader. E.g. using a spell might get them arrested, or seeing a flash of light, hearing a bang, and seeing someone drop down dead, wow, what was THAT?
As it is, the progress through is suitably illusory enough to be almost ethereal, but there was a touch of mystery gone when I cottoned on that I was in Kallamehr once more. Rather than total alien world.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 11, 2020 20:03:49 GMT
My one criticism of Magehunter is that it is the wrong way around. In that if you're an FF reader you come into the book with a set of assumptions from past works. Including that magic is no bad thing. Had it been the other way around - a hero from Kallamehr going to another world - there would have been lots of surprises to the reader. E.g. using a spell might get them arrested, or seeing a flash of light, hearing a bang, and seeing someone drop down dead, wow, what was THAT? As it is, the progress through is suitably illusory enough to be almost ethereal, but there was a touch of mystery gone when I cottoned on that I was in Kallamehr once more. Rather than total alien world. Yeah, the fish-out-of-water aspect doesn't quite work. Still, trying to work out how best to apply the treatise of magehunting (which was developed in a world where wizards are rare, elusive and uniformly evil) in a world where wizards are plentiful, upfront and of mixed alignment was a great gameplay concept.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 12, 2020 1:30:47 GMT
Tyrion, I was perhaps a little harsh in my apparent criticism of the voting method. One thing it definitely had going for it is drama, and that's diminished when you hide the poll.
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