Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Travel,Persona
From: jvincent@eagle.wesleyan.edu (The Ulair)
Date: 8 Apr 92 09:48:14 EST
Organization: Wesleyan University


> A proper lesson plan does not increase the number of minutes in an
> hour.

  Non sequiteur. Your facts are uncoordinated.

> The choice was between leaving some things out without comment,
> or leaving some things out and using the fact that she was doing it
> to increase the dramatic effectiveness of her class and make a point
> about how a culture looks from the inside.  She chose the latter--I
> think wisely.
> He goes on to argue that she could have found an in persona excuse
> for knowing the poetry that was not done in the presence of women. No
> doubt she could have. But doing it that way would have meant
> abandoning an opportunity to teach a useful lesson.


> Both this correspondent (who does not give his name, which is why I
> am referring to him by his EMail address) and Fra Tadhg seem to
> assume that the lady wanted to teach about that particular sort of
> poetry but felt she couldn't because it would be out of persona. That
> is not what was happening. She mentioned the existence of that sort
> of poetry precisely because it gave her an opportunity to make her
> point about Anglo-Saxon society, and strengthen the illusion that she
> was a lady from that society rather than a modern teacher or an SCA
> generic medieval person. I mentioned the incident as an example of
> the way in which giving a class in persona can make it more
> interesting and effective. To argue that she could have found an
> excuse for not doing what she wanted to do is to miss the whole point
> of the story.

      I remain unconvinced that anything of use was conveyed in this fashion. 
It seems clear that THIS lady of that society knew naught of that style, not
that A lady of it couldn't. It seems a half-measure to equivocate around saying
"I could have, but didn't."

> 
> What seems to be going on here, if I correctly interpret their
> criticism, is something that one sees much more often when the issue
> is authenticity rather than persona. People who are not interested in
> authenticity assume that the only reason to be authentic is that the
> rules make you (or that you are showing off), and therefor put the
> issue as "authenticity vs fun." That assumes away a large part of the
> argument, since those of us who are in favor of more authenticity
> believe that it makes the society more fun, not less.

     What is Authenticity? In any case, I read it more as "how far are you 
really willing to take persona?" Is it but a handy sketch, or is it a real 
person? What would such a person do in a situation/society such as the one
described. I think they want more authenticity (in personas), not less.

> Similarly, Fra Tadhg and hzhao@eagle.wesleyan.edu seem to be viewing
> "staying in persona" as the equivalent of fighting with one hand tied
> behind your back--an arbitrary restriction that makes it harder to do
> what you want to do. In fact, in many contexts, including the class I
> was describing, staying in persona is a device that makes it easier
> to do what you want to do--which is one reason to stay in persona.
> David is not a nearly as good a story teller as Cariadoc.
> 
> David (and Cariadoc)

         As above, I suppose it all depends on how you view the persona as a
human being, beyond being a temporal construct. Are they a personality, or 
simply "a 10th c Norman"?  This becomes a highly personal choice, and one which
cannot be simply waved away with the wand of More Authenticity/More Fun. 
      Think and do what you want with your persona. No one REALLY has any
guidelines on just how they should be or react. Just be sure you want to know
what you are doing and why. If you are a "stock" Celt, OK. If you are a more
assiduously researched persona from so-and-so, who believed X because grandma
told you stories about it and once sneaked a look at the priest's grove, fine
too.

        As Fred Friendly has said "the purpose of these discussions is not to
change your mind, but to make the agony of decision-making so intense that you
can escape it only by thinking."

                 -Eirik