From: mittle@watson.ibm.com (Josh Mittleman)
Subject: Re: Fighting in crown: a thought
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 23:33:59 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Greetings from Arval!  Caitlin wrote:

> ...the simplest way to open up the possibility of becoming Sovereigns to
> non-fighting couples would be to allow entrants to crown lists to fight
> as the champion of such a couple. I.e. rather than being inspired by
> their consort, they are inspired by the nobility/wisdom whatever of this
> couple and wish to put them on the throne.

The idea of champions in Crown Tourney has been discussed several times on
the Rialto, and many times elsewhere.  Since no one addressed this part of
your posting, I thought I would summarize a few of the more important
points that I recall from earlier discussions:

The goal of this idea is to open a route to the throne for anyone, without
changing the spectacle of Crown Tourney itself.  If one believes that it
would benefit the Society to have such a route to the throne, then this is
certainly an attractive idea.  It is worth noting that the Kingdom of Acre
(the MSR) allows championing.  On the other hand, they are a much smaller
organization than any SCA kingdom or (I think) principality.

There are many possible drawbacks.  First, it is different from the way we
do things now.  That is not a trivial objection: Custom and tradition are
important, and should not be discarded lightly.  Many people believe that
the monarch by strength of his/her own hand is an important part of what
makes the SCA work.  A closely related point is that it is not clear that
championing will produce better royalty than our current system.  It may
not be any worse, but if there is no reason to believe that it will be
better, then tradition counts all the more strongly against change.

The most common practical objection to championing is that someone could
buy the crown.  A rich couple could hire themselves a ringer to come in,
win the tourney, and then go away.  A top-fighter could hire him/herself
out to royal-wannabees, either for money or for SCA advancement.  That is
possible to some extent today, but is more difficult since the victor has
to commit to serve as royalty.  A related point is that the large
commitment expected of royalty strongly discourages frivolous competition
for the crown.

We've gone 'round a couple times debating just what we do guarantee of our
royalty in the current system.  There is no clear agreement, but many
suggestions.  Since SCA fighting is a skill essentially unique to our
organization, choosing a ruler by combat will generally guarantee that the
victor has some amount of experience with the organization.  For many
people, a more fundamental point is that it guarantees that the monarch is
a doughty fighter.  Given the King Arthur/knight-in-shining-armor romance
that underlies so much of our culture, plus the historical accuracy of a
warrior nobility, many people would be loathe to sacrifice the symbolism of
a warrior king/queen simply to allow more people a shot at the glory. 

If some kingdom were strongly in favor of experimenting with championing, I
think the Board might be convinced to allow it with some restrictions.

> In other words, were I to enter, it would be as Padraigh fighting to put
> Caitlin and her consort on the throne.  So my questions to the folk here:
> do you think this would be permitted under current rules?  Do you think
> fighting as Padraigh for Caitlin and consort would be the thin end of the
> wedge for allowing other fighters to fight for another couple?

Sovereign and Consort are offices held by real people.  The corporation
deals with real people, not personae.  The monarch, like anyone else in the
SCA, is free to use one, two, or twenty names and personae.  If you wanted
to reign as a man one day and as a woman the next, nothing in Corpora would
prevent it.  Your consort would have to be biologically male, but your
personae are entirely your business.

In practice, you might find a lot of people resisting the idea of treating
you as two different people depending on what clothes you happen to be
wearing.  Frankly, I've never seen anyone pull off multiple personae
effectively, let alone two opposite-sex personae.  (Of course, that doesn't
mean there isn't someone out there who does a REALLY good job of it :)  It
is quite possible that the royalty at whose tournament you fought would ask
you to fight in the name under which you planned to reign, out of deference
to SCA tradition.

===========================================================================
Arval Benicoeur                                       mittle@watson.ibm.com