Re: Assassins

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.UMD.EDU>]

Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.UMD.EDU>



About assassins, Alfredo responded:
> And yet it happened.

and later,

> Do you mean, "Consider how history would have been different if there
> had been such a thing as assassination at the time of Julius Caesar,
> or Roger de la Flor, or Macbeth"?

This is confusing the issue.  Nobody is contesting that murder was used
as an instrument of diplomacy.  That really has nothing to do with what
we are talking about.  War was an instrument of diplomacy in period.
Shall we play modern wargames?  Trade was an instrument of diplomacy
in period.  Shall we play Monopoly at events?  Law was an important
instrument of diplomacy in period, shall we watch Judge Wapner?

The reason I found the post inappropriate is that the "Assassin Game" has
nothing to do with the middle ages, or the SCA.

If two households in the SCA decided that they were rivals, and spent
years acting that way, and (with prior arrangement, planning, props,
theatre, and common sense (i.e. checking with the autocrat)) one person
from household X made a dramatic assassination on one of their chief
enemies (with prior approval to make sure the principals were in on
the game), I would be vastly entertained.  I've always wanted to see
the murder of Lorenzo de Medici first-hand.  And I would be in the
forefront of demanding that the King see justice done, and the perpetrators
of this despicable deed hanged.  (Probably best done off-stage, as it
would be a little in bad taste otherwise).  The King might even decide
to outlaw further conflict between the two families (Romeo and Juliet,
anyone?).

However, nobody has suggested such a thing.  The discussion was about
whether or not the modern assassin game was appropriate at SCA events.
And it is not.

Dafydd ap Gwystl, Pedant.
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