Could Troy have convinced Covenant, if he wasn't so angry?

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Post by sgt.null »

vraith - I have read the books more than once. I stand by my list.

and I stand by the assertion that Troy had to fail to make it look like TC's actions were correct.
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Re: Could Troy have convinced Covenant, if he wasn't so angr

Post by SleeplessOne »

Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg wrote: Troy worked for the military, Covenant did not. Their lives are not really similar at all, other than being from the same Earth. Troy could have discussed things about the military structure/life/etc that Covenant wouldn't know. Now, that wouldn't prove anything at the time, as if Troy were fake he could just be making things up entirely and TC would never know. But when he gets back to Earth he could check things out and see if they turn out true.
.
not really the point of this thread I know, and a somewhat minor quibble, but Troy *does* discuss those things, and when TC next returns to the 'real' world, he *does* try to investigate the veracity of Troy's claims.

it's all pretty inconclusive.

the larger point about their respective philosophies and approaches to life in the Land has been discussed in depth in other awesome threads which are well worth searching for ..
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Re: Could Troy have convinced Covenant, if he wasn't so angr

Post by Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg »

SleeplessOne wrote:
Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg wrote: Troy worked for the military, Covenant did not. Their lives are not really similar at all, other than being from the same Earth. Troy could have discussed things about the military structure/life/etc that Covenant wouldn't know. Now, that wouldn't prove anything at the time, as if Troy were fake he could just be making things up entirely and TC would never know. But when he gets back to Earth he could check things out and see if they turn out true.
.
not really the point of this thread I know, and a somewhat minor quibble, but Troy *does* discuss those things, and when TC next returns to the 'real' world, he *does* try to investigate the veracity of Troy's claims.

it's all pretty inconclusive.

the larger point about their respective philosophies and approaches to life in the Land has been discussed in depth in other awesome threads which are well worth searching for ..
That actually is exactly the point of this thread ;_; I had almost forgotten what it was about!

I know TC makes a very half-assed attempt to find Troy in our earth, when he returns. Troy has tried convincing him, but unless he tries it again later...why am I posting instead of reading? He gave a pretty half-assed effort himself, then got mad and gave up.

He is too controlled by emotional appeals and emotions in general. He should just deluge TC in minute and essentially pointless facts that he couldn't possibly know. Like, the difference between ranks of the same name, in different military branches.

Which of the guards at the base is notorious for sleeping on the job...idk. I am having some trouble coming up with examples, but I am not in the military, so I think my point is pretty relevant by my inability to even imagine proper examples of military life!

Now Troy is in some kind of secret-ish section of the military is he not? So TC wouldn't be able to just call and expect them to give him info on Troy. But there have to be lots of other examples of things Troy could tell TC that he could verify.

Ok so I thought about it, and in summary, I stand by my guns, although I know realize my guns are aimed at my own feet. My argument is basically that if Troy was a different person he could have done things differently. What an exercise in futility, I think i'm gonna go work on my Mean Girls parody starring the Blood Guard.
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Post by peter »

Just can't agree with that either Sarge. I think you have to cut TC some slack here - against all odds he did come round in the end and his earlier behaviour (not including the rape which would be reprehensible even in a dream) is entierly due to his very natural - and totally understandable - disorientation arising from the impossibility of his situation. In his shoes I would have been a basket case confined to a sanatorium in Revelstone!
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Post by Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg »

I'd say both points are pretty true. I mean Covenant redeems in the end, because that is what the main character does. Troy 'fails' because he is NOT the main character.

This is the real question, if SRD wrote a saga with a cliche dime-a-dozen hero who...well is Troy, immediately grasps his power and attempts to save the world, knight in shining armor.

Would the series be as interesting? I mean fantasy genre is full of characters who are heroic, it would not be hard to find one as the main character who succeeds from the start in kicking ass, like TC does not.

TC's struggles are really what define the series. It is a hell of a lot more innovative and interesting to me, even if he frustrates the shit out of me when i'm reading it, and I want to choke him, which I think is a fairly common reaction?

Anti-heroes took a huge popular upswing in the recent years, but they are on a whole not nearly as interesting as Covenant. He isn't an anti-hero because he is an apathetic badass who only likes himself, he has no choice, at least in his mind.

Also the fact that this series was written in the time where Dinosaurs walked the earth, makes it even more impressive and innovative =p
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Re: Could Troy have convinced Covenant, if he wasn't so angr

Post by SleeplessOne »

Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg wrote:
That actually is exactly the point of this thread ;_; I had almost forgotten what it was about!

I know TC makes a very half-assed attempt to find Troy in our earth, when he returns. Troy has tried convincing him, but unless he tries it again later...why am I posting instead of reading? He gave a pretty half-assed effort himself, then got mad and gave up.

He is too controlled by emotional appeals and emotions in general. He should just deluge TC in minute and essentially pointless facts that he couldn't possibly know. Like, the difference between ranks of the same name, in different military branches.

Which of the guards at the base is notorious for sleeping on the job...idk. I am having some trouble coming up with examples, but I am not in the military, so I think my point is pretty relevant by my inability to even imagine proper examples of military life!

Now Troy is in some kind of secret-ish section of the military is he not? So TC wouldn't be able to just call and expect them to give him info on Troy. But there have to be lots of other examples of things Troy could tell TC that he could verify.

Ok so I thought about it, and in summary, I stand by my guns, although I know realize my guns are aimed at my own feet. My argument is basically that if Troy was a different person he could have done things differently. What an exercise in futility, I think i'm gonna go work on my Mean Girls parody starring the Blood Guard.
Hey MFB -

I dunno, I think the information Troy gives TC was pretty specific; specific enough to plausibly throw some doubt on Covenant's preconceptions - but not specific enough that it actually proves anything - the thing is, SRD wants to create ongoing doubt in the reader's mind as to whether the Land is real or not, so of course he's not going to give us 'enough' proof one way or another.

apart from that (which is pretty much a core element of the books), I think TC himself realizes the futility of trying to disprove Troy's story, he knows he's not going to find easy answers that way - I'm not sure how far into the TIW you are (pretty sure I read elsewhere that you'd read the books before though), but Covenant makes a decision later in the book that underlines this attitude.

I do understand what you mean, if Troy hadn't focused on Covenant's intransigence and had instead focused on throwing obscure-but-verifiable data at Covenant he may have been able to 'prove' the Land's reality to TC.

Perhaps Troy intuitively understands Covenants ability to rationalize the fantastic elements of his situation so instead (after a half-assed attempt to take your suggested route) opts to zero in on provoking Covenant's conscience (which was probably the better approach the more that I think about it) - I can think of a couple of ways in which TC could have rationalized such real-world information away.

Honestly that whole scene is without a doubt one of my favourite in the entire chronicles - despite my crappy memory I can actually quote parts of that scene and remember it pretty damn well - I wouldn't change one word of it, and I think SRD establishes both characters genuine perplexity at the others attitude well enough that your OP is not something that I've ever dwelt upon - regardless, thanks for a chance to re-live that awesome scene once again !
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Post by peter »

Isn't it a tautology though. If Troy is Covenants mental invention then he has to know anything that Covenant knows - ergo nothing he can say can ever 'prove' he is real if it apeals to facts that TC knows already and if it doesn't then it proves nothing. There is no way out of the impasse because the same applys if Troy (and the Land by extension) are real as if they are not.
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Could Troy have convinced Covenant, if he wasn't so angry?

Post by SleeplessOne »

peter wrote:Isn't it a tautology though. If Troy is Covenants mental invention then he has to know anything that Covenant knows - ergo nothing he can say can ever 'prove' he is real if it apeals to facts that TC knows already and if it doesn't then it proves nothing. There is no way out of the impasse because the same applys if Troy (and the Land by extension) are real as if they are not.
yes and no, I think Peter - MFB is sort of onto something, because if Troy is able to provide real-world facts of which Covenant is unaware but can later verify, perhaps something could be proved - of course TC could rationalize this by saying that it may have been information that he already had laying dormant, or information that he had picked up subliminally without realizing it.

the information that Troy *does* provide is pretty obscure stuff, working out hypothetical war strategies through his talent with envisaging spatial relations isn't your everyday job - we have no way of knowing whether TC knew this stuff or not, it's not commented upon.
of course he *could* know about it, but it is predictably left up in the air when Covenant tries to make enquiries back in the 'real' world.

as I said, TC intuitively recognizes that he will never get to the bottom of any 'discrepancies', which is part of the reason he (spoilers for MFB's benefit)
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Post by peter »

Gosh MFB - are you on your first reading of the Chrons; I hope I haven't been spoiling the read by dropping clangers of plot revelations at every turn. I assumed you were doing a re-read!

re the paradox - Troys limited sucess as a strategist could indeed be because he is TC's creation and while he believes himself to be an expert in logistics and warcraft in fact he is limited by how good TC - a rank amatuer - would be himself. (I read a sci-fi short story once about how Beethoven's mind was recreated and put into some other guys body and set to composing. The stuff he turned out was no better than the man would have been able to do himself - his talent level remained his talent level no matter whose brain was doing the controlling. Maybe it's sort of like this with Troy)
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Post by sgt.null »

nothing Troy could have said would have convinced TC. TC didn't want to believe, ergo he wouldn't believe.

fine, then TC should give his ring to someone who wants to act. selfish bastard.

has anyone counted the number of people who died because TC refused to act?

if you woke up in the Land tomorrow, and discovered you had the ultimate weapon, would you refuse to use it?
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Post by Zarathustra »

I think HT could have easily proved it to TC. He could have given information that would be impossible for TC to know, and then had TC check it once he got back to the real world. Seems pretty straightforward.

So a better question would be: why didn't he? It seemed important to him to make TC believe--or at least make him care, and belief would be one way to stir that emotion. Maybe he thought the decisive battle (which he would command) was about to happen, and he had no idea that Covenant would need to come back to the Land several more times. In that case, his need to make TC believe was confined to the evidence at hand, which didn't include "real world" details that TC could check later ... that wouldn't help Troy or the Land in its current predicament.

However, all this assumes that the Land is in fact real, doesn't it? Maybe the real reason Troy didn't prove the Land's existence to Covenant was that the Land isn't real and Troy was part of TC's subconsciousness. In that case, this question is pointless.
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Post by peter »

Was the problem not that he needed TC to believe *now* - not at some arbitrary time back in the 'real world'. This was always goint to be impossible for him. Back in the 'real world' none of it really mattered.

The point about the asumption of the lands 'realness' is however of major significance here.
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Post by starkllr »

However, all this assumes that the Land is in fact real, doesn't it? Maybe the real reason Troy didn't prove the Land's existence to Covenant was that the Land isn't real and Troy was part of TC's subconsciousness. In that case, this question is pointless.
And if this is true, then everything about Troy's fate makes perfect sense. The nasty surprises (Foul's army is many times larger than he imagined; it's going to arrive several days sooner than he believed, etc) and the unravelling of his plans as the battle goes on are all Covenant's subconscious trying to show him the pointlessness of hope.

If Lord Foul = leprosy, then Troy shows that you can't ever defeat it. The best you can hope for is a temporary victory purchased at ruinous cost. It took the lives of a couple of Lords, 2/3 of the Warward, and the selling of Troy's soul to defeat just one of Lord Foul's armies.

And that defeat doesn't even really slow down Lord Foul's plans (the spread of the disease); he just raises up an even bigger and nastier army and sends it right back out again...
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Post by sgt.null »

so TC may fouled >Troy's plans? :)
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Post by DrPaul »

Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg wrote:Didn't some famous general or leader say something like 'the most brilliant battle plan is only effective until the first blood is spilled'? (or shot is fired, or something).
Yes, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder said "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy".
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Post by Holsety »

peter wrote:No - Troy's only miscalculation was the sheer size of Fouls army. Beyond that his plan was sound. Clearly his intel in this respect was was either faulty or indeed non-existant, in which case his best estimate was obviousely in line with the thinking of Quan (his 2nd in command IIRC). When the mis-calculation became known he panicked - and then got it together, pulled the fat from the fire and achieved the near impossible. Not a fail in my book.
I just want to note that he also apparently didn't understand:
-The effectiveness of Ramen scouts (understandable - he was centered in Revelstone).
-How quickly his army would come to exhaustion on the march to the battlesite (Doom's Retreat?).
coward = failing to use the power he had.

fraud = he let everybody he ever knew. he wasn't a man at all.

liar = lied to everyone claiming he had no power.
No one knew a great deal about the white gold - you might as well say that Mhoram and Atiaran are cowards. Covenant fought to protect Andelian, if badly, didn't he? He may have even been hesitant to abandon the unfettered who came to its defense.

Fraud doesn't really make much sense. His heroic destiny was saddled on him by the people of Stonedown forward, but the learned people in each community generally seem to recognize that he could be a terrible threat. Neither Covenant nor the loremasters could identify him as something that would easily save the land.

Liar is perhaps fair though, insofar as everyone has some form of power I'd imagine. However, being power isn't the same thing as harnessing it, is it?

But I agree that the author may be "biased" towards failing Troy in some sense order to pass Covenant in another. I don't think we have real instances where a whole country is saved by a persistent leper with a nice ring.
if you woke up in the Land tomorrow, and discovered you had the ultimate weapon, would you refuse to use it?
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Post by Kaos Arcanna »

Covenant would have known at the end of the first book that The Land (at least) had a separate physical reality which made all attempts to prove its reality or unreality impossible. (While he was "in" The Land he was transported to a hospital.) Whether he was dreaming or not, his Land body was clearly not the same as his "Real" body.

That being said... I have to admit I think it's hard for Troy to be portrayed as a convincing military strategist because SRD is not one. (As I think about it, I'd say that Troy is a much better tactician than strategist. His overall plan to deal with Foul's army was too focused on all his dominoes falling in just the right way, but his plan for dealing with an army he couldn't defeat was a pretty clever tactic.)

I've often thought I'd love to see how someone trained in real world battlefield strategy would have dealt with Troy's situation.
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Post by PannionDude »

Bit of an old thread, still on the front page though so I guess there's no harm in responding.

It strikes me that Sgt. Null isn't feeling what SRD is peddling in terms of the paper on the fundamentals of ethics that we see in chapter one. TC is the guy who refuses to fight based on it not being real. HT does so.

My understanding of the conclusion of the First Chronicles is that in SRD's world neither answer is sufficient to defeat LF.

If you don't believe in the Land you won't resist when LF destroys it, because exerting yourself on behalf of imaginary things against imaginary things is the definition of futility.

If you believe in the world and accept its reality then you believe that you are in a war with the devil and the best you can do is put up a good fight.

Sgt Null seems to strongly prefer the second option, but according to SRD it is equally betrayal. A good fight ending in defeat is insufficient.

Two supporting details:

Its important to remember that when HT sees the size of LF's army he tries to commit suicide by throwing himself off Kevin's Watch. TC is not the only flawed protagonist running around in the Illearth War.

Second, in the final (ha!) struggle with LF it is because TC knows that LF can be defeated, because he does not believe in the Land but preserves the paradox of unbelief, that TC is able to overcome him. I haven't read LFB in a while, but I seem to recall there's a line to that effect.

Even if a White Gold wielding HT (and remember that TC DOES give HT the ring at the end of TIW) was able to overcome LF he wouldn't have been able to restrain from trying to destroy him with force. I just can't credit HT understanding that the answer to despair is joy. HT is a man of action. His answer to despair is (as we've seen with the Forestal and on Kevins watch) suicide. If he could have beaten LF his inability to destroy him would have driven him to expend his life force trying, rather like LF at the end of the second chronicles.
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