tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post3965302576741610472..comments2024-03-29T02:34:55.592-04:00Comments on The CRPG Addict: The Black Gate: Of Valor and VirginityCRPG Addicthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-6368750554572107522022-02-10T14:27:32.143-05:002022-02-10T14:27:32.143-05:00Worse, the mechanics of conception weren't und...Worse, the mechanics of conception weren't understood in detail until the 19th century; many cultures believed that once a woman had sex, ANY child she bore FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE might in fact have been fathered by any of her prior partners - that a "seed" once planted might lay dormant for years before "germinating".Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09703211229982182936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-48915733096916888292022-02-10T07:42:42.474-05:002022-02-10T07:42:42.474-05:00Like Mikko said, it has to do with inheritance law...Like Mikko said, it has to do with inheritance law. Property passes from father to son. But how do you prove fatherhood? Motherhood is easy: if there are witnesses at the delivery (which was common in the old times), it can be established beyond doubt. But fatherhood is a lot more difficult to prove without a DNA test. The only practical way is to marry a virgin woman (so she can't be pregnant of someone else the moment the wedding takes place) and make sure she doesn't have a chance to have an affair out of the house. A rumour can be enough to disposses your son, and the only defence is to be rigorous. Hence burqa's, women's quarters, eunuchs (they can be trusted around the wife), separated schools etc.<br /><br />Of course this is especially a thing in circles where inheritance really is a big deal, such as royalty and the aristocracy. But a herd of goats is also a valuable inheritance.Mazzyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11245948513812229763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-70052757337827490812020-07-08T04:56:03.248-04:002020-07-08T04:56:03.248-04:00At the risk of being a spoiler (as stat-wise he...At the risk of being a spoiler (as stat-wise he's one of the best companions iirc), in U7, there's also Tseramed.Pedro Q.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03572150497835442981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-86491541822262388542020-07-03T23:18:19.006-04:002020-07-03T23:18:19.006-04:00Virginity may function as an aspect of a personali...Virginity may function as an aspect of a personality - being de-virgined is like a "rite of passage" of sorts. <br /><br />Like a person who commits murder is changed by it forever, or one who betrays someone trusting is changed by it forever. This is a "bad" kind of passage.<br /><br />There can be a "good" kind of passage, also.<br /><br />Take Bartolome de los Casas: someone who had no personal strong opinion either for or against slavery learned first-hand what a horrible thing slavery really is and was changed by this knowledge forever.<br /><br />Virginity and its loss, then, could be a "neutral" kind of passage in respect to sex? One learns to know what this "sex" thing that people are talking about, actually is. And from now on all the conversations on the topic take a new meaning.<br /><br />"Virginity restoration", then, would be undoing the effects of such a transformation, maybe? <br />Not erasing the memories, but rolling back the changes of personality structure. Like, destroying the information of what "sex" actually personally means for the person, as if he or she never engaged in it? "Everything Avatar knows about sex: (blank page)".<br />But at the same time keeping the memory of the bare fact that "it happened".<br /><br />It must be one hell of a STRANGE memory, I guess!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17044384583192888822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-57439937124021287912020-07-03T05:43:15.962-04:002020-07-03T05:43:15.962-04:00"I may be a weirdo with strange thoughts too...."I may be a weirdo with strange thoughts too. :p"<br /><br />Who of us isn't? ;)Mikko Anoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-91993356882673608752020-07-02T14:46:52.693-04:002020-07-02T14:46:52.693-04:00Well, that still leaves as possibilities Mariah, J...Well, that still leaves as possibilities Mariah, Julia, Jaana, Katrina, Leodon, Leonna, Nellie and Chsheket :)Radianthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03866535042372152723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-89732232262606840712020-07-02T13:22:48.844-04:002020-07-02T13:22:48.844-04:00@Drawde Va Frecrag Vfyr lbh raq hc ehaavat vagb Fu...@Drawde Va Frecrag Vfyr lbh raq hc ehaavat vagb Funzvab'f penml rk-tveysevraq gung jnf vzcyvrq gb unir orra jvgu uvz qhevat gur riragf bs Hygvzn V, fb ur unf unq zber guna bar. Vg'f abg ernyyl n genvg gung'f nffbpvngrq jvgu uvz gubhtu.MisterKerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12525316028415093685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-90713776947838956302020-07-01T18:55:23.122-04:002020-07-01T18:55:23.122-04:00I may be a weirdo with strange thoughts too. :pI may be a weirdo with strange thoughts too. :pJarlFrankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08139422412722665286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-24013901482818901412020-07-01T15:44:30.671-04:002020-07-01T15:44:30.671-04:00This is where role-playing (perhaps surplaying) co...This is where role-playing (perhaps surplaying) comes in, I guess. MY Avatar is heterosexual, so absent anything in-game that says otherwise, I say that he hasn't had sex with any of his companions. Another player could specify otherwise, sure. <br /><br />Iolo is married and Shamino has a girlfriend. Dupre talks a big talk about wine, women, and song, but you never see him with one, so I supposed he could be closeted. Sentri is a blank slate. I think we can all agree to leave Spark out of it. CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-23410821622765348882020-07-01T08:58:12.697-04:002020-07-01T08:58:12.697-04:00The obsession about virginity/purity is mostly due...The obsession about virginity/purity is mostly due to inheritance. That's also why it's also more strictly enforced upon women, who have harder time to hide sexual activity (pregnancy), and for men the enforcement has often been on the level of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, and losing your virginity has been seen as an important step to manhood.<br /><br />Also it sounds to me that JarlFrank you seem to think that young people didn't "fool around" in the past. That is also one of the reasons for those earlier marriages. And even then, children born out of wedlock very a relatively common phenomenon.<br /><br />And what does being married and masturbating have to do with each other?<br /><br />It also seems to me, that you deposit that moral values are something that just get more lax with time. The rality is that moral values fluctuate. Sometimes some of them are stricter, and some of them laxer. (Also what we even consider stricter is dependant on the time we live in.) For example during roman times virginity was quite important, but mainly only for girls (because of the reasons I stated in the beginning), while not so for boys, not to even mention what was thought the proper age of consent. Also back then marriage wasn't about love or sex (for example Pompey was made fun of loving (although the romans didn't even have the concept that we think of as romantic love) his wife).<br /><br />What are usually considered the good old and eternal proper moral values are quite often the ones from the victorian era, which was a reactionary time when moral values got stricter.<br /><br />Plus you can't deny that Kant was a weirdo (like most philosophers), with some strange thoughts. Yes, he also had good ideas, but you shouldn't accept everything he said at face value.Mikko Anoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-46789305495416269772020-07-01T07:46:24.208-04:002020-07-01T07:46:24.208-04:00If I had played as a blank slate without this blog...If I had played as a blank slate without this blog hyping up the Ultima franchise as a whole, I'm not sure I would have finished it. Despite its strengths in writing and world-building, I found it very annoying the second I had to interact with any of the actual RPG mechanics. I begrudgingly did the dungeons and fought the combats, waiting for the point when I could meet somebody new or find a new location.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14025511634630902101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-20108561526709513012020-07-01T06:58:03.632-04:002020-07-01T06:58:03.632-04:00I came to the same general conclusion. The entries...I came to the same general conclusion. The entries are very interesting, but I don't feel what I can enjoy this game much if I decide to play it myself. A lot of the elements of the gameplay seem to be unwieldy and tiresome for me. And the game's world somehow strains my Willing Suspension of Disbelief thing, despite many small elements of realism and interactivity.VladimIr V Yhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04673420469663885531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-63248100087052882020-07-01T05:58:12.675-04:002020-07-01T05:58:12.675-04:00JF, that's a simple case of Russell's Teap...JF, that's a simple case of Russell's Teapot. You make an extraordinary claim (i.e. that people in the past masturbated much less than today) so the burden is on you to provide extraordinary evidence for that. A flat refusal to believe otherwise is not evidence.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-84270874767735030672020-07-01T05:04:10.953-04:002020-07-01T05:04:10.953-04:00I'm aware of ancient depictions of the act, bu...I'm aware of ancient depictions of the act, but I refuse to believe that it was as common as it is today. In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it sometimes had sacred contexts within fertility rituals (such as the Pharaoh spilling his seed into the Nile, or the rivers Euphrat and Tigris being considered the spilled seed of freshwater god Enki), which makes it more than just a mundane act of self-indulgence.<br /><br />As Immanuel Kant says, masturbation is a misuse of one's sexual attributes and therefore a violation of one's duty towards one's self, and he puts it on the same level as suicide. It's just impossible to believe that people did it as frequently in the past as they do it today, especially considering the early age of marriage, the availability of prostitution, and the stricter morals.<br /><br />And yes Alex, prostitution was totally legal pretty much everywhere. It being banned is the exception, not the rule. Yet society as a whole never had a more casual attitude towards sexuality than it does now. JarlFrankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08139422412722665286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-24740489324295103412020-07-01T03:58:16.445-04:002020-07-01T03:58:16.445-04:00"If every cigarette you smoke takes seven min..."If every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off of your life, every game of Dungeons & Dragons you play delays the loss of your virginity by seven hours."<br /><br />-- Marilyn Manson: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, 1998<br />Harlandnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-55000835931053297992020-07-01T00:10:50.251-04:002020-07-01T00:10:50.251-04:00I could very easily see Dupre having a crack at be...I could very easily see Dupre having a crack at being mayor, and just as quickly tossing the whole job to go back to bar-hopping and adventuring.Nathan P. Mahneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01184246437497081701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-89953390909515336492020-07-01T00:09:11.745-04:002020-07-01T00:09:11.745-04:00Clerics would have been the perfect D&D class ...Clerics would have been the perfect D&D class to fit into the Spirituality slot, but it seems like Garriot wanted to avoid overt religion of any sort in U4.<br /><br />Thieves and Assassins are the other D&D classes that didn't make the virtue cut, for pretty obvious reasons.Nathan P. Mahneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01184246437497081701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-68465232425045056532020-06-30T21:33:19.326-04:002020-06-30T21:33:19.326-04:00JarlFrank - "Masturbation as a very modern ph...JarlFrank - "Masturbation as a very modern phenomenon"?<br /><br />The Hagar Qim on Malta has a statue dating to the 4th millennium BC depicting a woman masturbating. Ancient Mesopotamian literature details in great depth the alleged benefits of masturbation for men and women, alone or in company. Greek art circa 550 BC contains many depictions of male masturbation, in humans or creatures such as satyrs. The Kama Sutra has much to say on the topic of masturbation (recommending it for women but not men).<br /><br />It's counter to common sense to suggest that in thousands of years of human history, people only discovered the idea of self-stimulation recently, and it's well-contradicted by evidence that you can walk into museums and see with your own eyes. GregThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01532920274312703426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-76843824572223444982020-06-30T20:56:23.625-04:002020-06-30T20:56:23.625-04:00I am enjoying the Ultima VII posts. I have to say,...I am enjoying the Ultima VII posts. I have to say, though, that sometimes you finished a game I couldn't stick with and I find I regret it. With Ultima VII, I quit very early and never went back . . . and though I enjoy the entries, they make it clear that I made a good decision. This isn't the game for me.Peter Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246000382321978462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-82333576688912801292020-06-30T19:56:29.646-04:002020-06-30T19:56:29.646-04:00The idea that sexual experience somehow ruins a pe...The idea that sexual experience somehow ruins a person by making them "impure" is just dumb, and I don't have a problem saying that without any citation. It's along the lines of a doctor telling their patient to avoid miasma and drain their bad humours once a week; i.e. a misconception based mostly on guesswork or personal feelings that did more harm than good to individuals.<br /><br />It's funny that you bring up ancient Rome though, since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_ancient_Rome" rel="nofollow">prostitution was totally legal there.</a> That's not even true in most places in America, even after the sexual revolution.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14025511634630902101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-6104232003201928412020-06-30T18:58:55.743-04:002020-06-30T18:58:55.743-04:00Well, the Fremen Crysknife is pretty much a straig...Well, the Fremen Crysknife is pretty much a straight-up copy of the mythical sword Tyrfing :pJarlFrankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08139422412722665286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-42500428029160547192020-06-30T18:58:00.007-04:002020-06-30T18:58:00.007-04:00The experience of sexuality does change a human so...The experience of sexuality does change a human somewhat. Considering that in the past, people married pretty young on average, it could be seen as a passage from youth to adulthood. It's an experience of union between man and woman and should be considered more than just a mere pastime. I'm very critical of the sexual liberation and how it has turned sexuality into a casual act. It should be more than that, and the concept of virginity also carries the implication of a higher meaning in the sexual act. Many religions, not just the Christian one, considered virgins to be pure. The Roman priestesses of Vesta had to be virgins, for example, and there was a class of priestesses in ancient Babylonia that were allowed to marry but not to have sex. The sexual act is an embracement of the physical. Not that it's a bad thing - it is necessary for procreation after all, and it can be a spiritual experience too if you do it with the right person.<br /><br />And I think that masturbation already removes your sexual innocense and makes you a not-virgin as far as the concept of purity is concerned. It's also a very modern phenomenon and likely wasn't as widespread in the past as it is today. JarlFrankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08139422412722665286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-37021476812614982772020-06-30T18:34:58.178-04:002020-06-30T18:34:58.178-04:00JarlFrank - are you not a virgin if you masturbate...JarlFrank - are you not a virgin if you masturbate? What about if you masturbate in company? What about if you kiss? No? But it matters where you kiss? Where's the line on where you kiss? Neck? Cleavage? Lower? <br /><br />The stupidity in the idea of virginity is in thinking that the natural state of an adult human is in some way non-sexual and that that changes at some point because of some particular interaction with another human.GregThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01532920274312703426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-51710487997481854182020-06-30T18:32:35.553-04:002020-06-30T18:32:35.553-04:00I can assure you that if you're playing D&...I can assure you that if you're playing D&D and you're not picking up, then it's not because of D&D. :-)GregThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01532920274312703426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-49402075685175604432020-06-30T17:20:37.684-04:002020-06-30T17:20:37.684-04:00I think maybe the Avatar metaphysically inhabits a...I think maybe the Avatar metaphysically inhabits a brand new body every time they're incarnated into Britannia. It would explain the limited portrait selection, and why you lose all of your accumulated skills every time. So since your body hasn't existed more than a few hours or days, you've technically, physically never done the nasty in the pasty and thus never picked up whatever spiritual funk the unicorn can smell from you. It's all very unscientific.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com