Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Heraldic questions...
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 18:04:03

    Tibor wrote:

 Tibor> So, on the one hand, you seem to maintain that modelling of period
 Tibor> behavior takes precedence over SCA style when creating names, but
 Tibor> the inverse when creating armory?

 Tadhg> Yup, because the rules are quite different for the two.

 Tibor> Which misses the point of my question.  The rules are an artifact
 Tibor> which has been created, and been changed, and will be again.  The
 Tibor> rules do not justify themselves.

    Which misses the point of my answer. I bitch about period style in
    armory because the rules require period style for armory. I also bitch
    about some of the names we get, but less loudly, because the rules
    don't require "period style" for names. Since there's more chance of
    people listening to me when I bitch about something that's against the
    rules than when I bitch about something that isn't, I tend to give the
    former priority over the latter. If you'd like, I'll be happy to bitch
    about both (but then Arval would bitch about me bitching so much, so
    there you are...).

 Tibor> Why, Tadhg, have two different standards for names and armory?
 Tibor> Please don't answer "because we do".

    Okay, I won't. I know of no legitimate reason for having two different
    standards for names and armory. The reason I don't agitate for a
    reduction of that difference is that experience suggests to me that the
    reduction would take the form of loosening the armory rules rather than
    tightening the name rules; I may be crazy but I'm not stupid, so I keep
    (relatively) quiet.

    However, that anomaly is very far down on my list of "common SCA stuff
    that there is no legitimate reason for", so it doesn't occupy much of
    my attention. Feel free to have different priorities.

 Tadhg> Another difference is that "SCA armorial style" quite comfortably
 Tadhg> tries to err on the side of authenticity, while "SCA naming style"
 Tadhg> makes a valiant effort to turn us into a mutant descendant of the
 Tadhg> Tolkien Society by way of Darkover and the Dragonriders of Pern....

 Tibor> Nice prose.  But the first clause is provably incorrect. SCA
 Tibor> Armorial Style does not accurately model even the unambitious
 Tibor> portions of the period you would have us cover, let alone the scope
 Tibor> of the SCA as it is authorized and practiced.

    I said "tries", not "does". I am well aware of the shortcomings of the
    SCA in this area.

 Tibor> (We don't have rules making purpure as rare as it was in period
 Tibor> armory. Our whole conflict structure forces us to swing wide of
 Tibor> existing examples of heraldry, instead of forcing us to emulate it
 Tibor> more closely).

    I'd prefer to see purpure banned entirely; the few period examples I
    know of its use for charges (I know of *no* examples of its use as a
    field) are, I am thoroughly convinced, cases where it was functionally
    a variant of gules. Feel free to advocate limiting the use of purpure,
    if you wish; don't be astonished if somebody says "Shut up, Tadhg",
    because I'm the only one in the history of the CoA (so far as I know)
    who's ever mentioned it.

    So long as we do conflict checking, we are going to be encouraging
    practices that were eccentric (at best) in period, because that's how
    people get difference; and most submitters are too lazy to make the
    attempt to dig out a common-in-period practice that avoids the conflict
    when the eccentric-in-period-but-SCA-permitted practice is laying ready
    to hand. Most people put less effort into making their armory authentic
    than they do in making their garb authentic, for similar reasons; they
    don't really care, they just want something that will get by.

 Tibor> [Haggling over exactly what level of disapproval Tadhg has
 Tibor>  demonstrated over naming in the past, deleted.  Lovely
 Tibor>  smokescreen, however.]

    Deft use of innuendo.

        Tadhg, Obelisk


 * Origin: Herald's Point * Steppes/Ansteorra * 214-699-0057 (1:124/4229)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca