What do you consider the quintessential knight in shinning armor?

SHARK · May 6, 2002

Greetings!

Good point, Max Kaladin!

I often wonder at why so many seem ready to embrace the idea that the Crusaders were these wicked, evil imperialists who came to rape and oppress the poor, innocent Muslims! That is just so much nonsense!

A careful reading of history--not merely a diet of all of the atrocities committed by the Crusaders, real or imagined,--but a deeper look at the history of Islam, and the cultural, political, and economic forces at work would enlighten the reader to the fact that the Muslim states were spreading the faith by bloody and savage conquest, from the shores of North Africa, to Spain, and throughout the Middle East. There were atrocities committed against Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, trade was restricted and pirated, and through many areas the armies of Islam stood poised for conquest.

It is from this background and awareness, that a growing conviction throughout Europe grew that the armies of Islam must be stopped, and the Holy Land liberated. Noone seems to remember at how savage and oppressive the Muslim armies were. The fact that the invading Crusader armies at various time committed atrocities does not change these salient facts. The Lords of Christendom agreed that the Muslim Conquest needed to be stopped.

With this in mind, the 200 or so years that the Crusaders spent fighting the forces of Islam in the Holy Land can be seen to have laid the groundwork for not only halting the Muslim conquests, but also preparing the way for the European acsendancy and dominion.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Tratyn Runewind · May 7, 2002

Hi again!

Posted by hong:
It's only a long-standing convention among many D&D players that paladins must be holy warriors. Even the 3E rules themselves don't require this; all that matters is that they be devoted to righteousness.

Paladins have divine spells and "holy" abilities. And while it's true in D&D that this doesn't necessarily mean formal association with an organized faith, the very definition of the "lawful" component of a paladin's alignment would tend mightily to encourage such association. Still, alternatives are certainly possible - say, the lone paladin maintaining the true faith in the midst of a corrupt or apathetic religious hierarchy. All you need is a reasonable explanation that will fly for your DM, or doesn't stretch your players' suspension of disbelief too far...

Posted by hong:
I don't think there's anything about what Ogier fundamentally represents, that revolves around religion as such.

Yes, and the same could be said for Roland. This is why I made the distinction between "the original paladins" and "the D&D paladin class". As with Arthur's knights, I doubt many of Charlemagne's paladins would be in the D&D Paladin class. I probably should have made the distinction a bit clearer. Among historical European knights, I'd probably reserve the Paladin class for especially devout members of orders like the Templars, the Hospitallers (and their Maltese descendants), the Knights of Christ, and the pilgrim-guarding church knights of places like Santiago de Compostella, as well as individual knights who took vows of service to particular church leaders. Some of the fighters attached to temples of the faiths of the Far East could also be considered Paladins; Li Mu Bai of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon could be reasonably well-represented in D&D as a monk/paladin (of respectably high level, too).

Posted by hong:
By the standards of the time, however, what Saladin did was praiseworthy, certainly to the Christians themselves.

I tend to agree with you about judging historical figures by modern standards. And I'm also fairly confident that Jerusalem's ransomed defenders and Latin Christians were happy not to be massacred. The First Crusade's conquest of Jerusalem was by no means a certain thing. The Crusaders suffered outside the walls for weeks, and took out their frustrations on the inhabitants when they breached the walls. Many of the atrocities were committed by the "Tafurs", a band of desperate street rabble that had attached itself to the Crusade, and which had supposedly sunk even to cannibalism outside the walls of Antioch. Saladin, on the other hand, gained Jerusalem through a negotiated surrender because his ability to take the city was obvious to everyone inside and out. The defenders offered Saladin ransoms for their escape, and threatened him with the killing of every Muslim in the city and the destruction of the Muslim holy places if he refused their offer. I still don't know that I'd call it praiseworthy, by their standards or ours, that he chose a big pile of money (plus his holy places and the lives of his fellow believers) over a big pile of dead, rotting Christian bodies to brag over. Even back then it would seem to have been the obvious choice.

Posted by hong:
From the Muslim point of view, the Crusaders were the muggers, and Saladin was liberating territory taken from them unjustly (anyone who believes the First Crusade was anything more than a political play and a land grab is naive). You've just applied the metaphor to the wrong side.

I believe the reasoning behind the First Crusade went something along these lines: "well, if these landless younger sons of knights and nobles are going to be raising Cain, trying to grab land and money for themselves and their families, better they should retake formerly-Christian lands from Muslims than fight over each others' land. And maybe this will get us a little respect and even gratitude from the haughty Byzantines, who have been absorbed in their own petty internal intrigues while most of their Eastern possessions were being relentlessly stripped away by advancing Muslim armies." It was certainly a land grab to the ambitious nobles who fought in it, but to the kings and bishops of Europe and Byzantium, it was simply an Eastern version of what would later be called the "reconquista", the expulsion of the Muslims from the French, Spanish, and Portuguese territories they had seized and occupied until they were stopped at Poitiers.

Posted by SHARK:
There were atrocities committed against Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, trade was restricted and pirated, and through many areas the armies of Islam stood poised for conquest.

While your analysis is largely accurate, SHARK, I will point out here that many of the crimes committed against pilgrims and travelers were the work of bandits and pirates, pure and simple, who were Muslim in name only. Many of them happily attacked their "fellow" Muslims, justifying their acts with denunciations of their victims as unbelievers, and pointing to some alleged irregularity in their practice of the faith. Similar sordid incidents happened among the Christians, with King Phillip IV's treatment of France's Jews and then the Templars standing out most egregiously. And the Christian rulers were not quite as united as your words might imply. Many who lived far from any Islamic threat resented the diversion of fighting men from their own local conflicts, which was actually one of the main reasons for the Crusade - the Popes wanted those conflicts stopped.

Yes, there's plenty of intrigue, conflict, and adventure just waiting to be mined from the history of the Crusading period and adapted into gaming campaigns. Just talking about it is making me pine for a 3e rebirth of the Birthright setting

...

hong · May 7, 2002

Tratyn Runewind said:
Paladins have divine spells and "holy" abilities. And while it's true in D&D that this doesn't necessarily mean formal association with an organized faith, the very definition of the "lawful" component of a paladin's alignment would tend mightily to encourage such association.

All that means is that the paladin class, as written up in 3E, has a spiritual side to it. It doesn't have to mean organised religion, any more than druids, rangers and shamans (from OA) have to be members of an organised religion.

Still, alternatives are certainly possible - say, the lone paladin maintaining the true faith in the midst of a corrupt or apathetic religious hierarchy. All you need is a reasonable explanation that will fly for your DM, or doesn't stretch your players' suspension of disbelief too far...

Yep.

Among historical European knights, I'd probably reserve the Paladin class for especially devout members of orders like the Templars, the Hospitallers (and their Maltese descendants), the Knights of Christ, and the pilgrim-guarding church knights of places like Santiago de Compostella, as well as individual knights who took vows of service to particular church leaders.

Ah, you have a problem here. As mentioned in the cleric skill points thread and elsewhere, being a crusader is basically the cleric's schtick. You can use it to portray a generic priest (because of lack of any suitable alternative, perhaps), but the class features are really those of a character who spends time in the field, not a cloister. This is another reason why I think the paladin needs a dimension beyond merely being a holy warrior or crusader -- it's not a good thing to have classes stealing each other's schticks.

Some of the fighters attached to temples of the faiths of the Far East could also be considered Paladins; Li Mu Bai of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon could be reasonably well-represented in D&D as a monk/paladin (of respectably high level, too).

Interestingly, I thought Yu from the same movie (Michelle Yeoh's character) was a better fit to the paladin role than Li Mu Bai. Li is basically fighting for honour: to avenge his dead master, and to find someone to teach the secrets of Wudan. He's a great and famous _fighter_, perhaps, but that's not quite the same as being a paladin.

I still don't know that I'd call it praiseworthy, by their standards or ours, that he chose a big pile of money (plus his holy places and the lives of his fellow believers) over a big pile of dead, rotting Christian bodies to brag over. Even back then it would seem to have been the obvious choice.

Well, perhaps it seems obvious with hindsight

but Saladin had the means to massacre everyone in the city. It would also have been easy to discount the threats to kill all the Muslims, and if that indeed happened, simply blame their deaths on the Christians. This sort of reasoning goes on all the time, even today.

The fact remains that he wasn't quite as bloodthirsty as other conquering armies in the area had been. Given the standards of the time, if "praiseworthy" isn't exactly the right word, it still would have been a welcome change.

Snoweel · May 7, 2002

Tratyn Runewind said:
knecht or cniht

Ni!

kenjib · May 8, 2002

Irda Ranger said:
I have to disagree with the Don Quixote votes. The man of la Mancha never really was aware of his world (IMO). He was perpetually delusional (whether by insanity or choice could be debated I suppose) and refused to admit that the world could be imperfect.

A true Knight chooses good and virtue with full knowledge of evil and vice. They make hard choices, choosing right over worng. Otherwise there would be no real choice made, which proves nothing. And no, I don't think they really need shining armor. So, with that in mind ...

From a post-modern viewpoint, anyone who believes in good and evil is perpetually delusional. That's why I love Don Quixote and still stick by my choice. To me, he's the knight for my generation. That's why I called him a "pure distillation." In some sense he's a meta-knight - a commentary on the very nature of knightly ideals. In that way, he's more exemplary of knighthood for me than any other.

SHARK · May 8, 2002

Greetings!

Hey Kenjib! Don't lose hope, friend.

I have been discussing the whole "Post-Modernism" trend of the last 10-15 years or so with several professors who are friends of mine, and they have concluded that there is a resurgence of traditionalism in History, of Good and Evil, and of a definitive and distinct narrative that can be learned, known, and expressed about History. That History is composed of truth and facts, and is not merely what someone arbitrarilly chooses to "think" it is. So, it seems that Post-Modernism is gradually be pushed back to being nothing more than a perspective--nothing more, and nothing less. It has over time, as scholars have had more time to chew on it and debate it, the whole approach of "Post-Modernism", while initially appearing to be fresh and new, and even revolutionary, has, at the end of the day many flaws and failures. So, I hope you are encouraged by this!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

kenjib · May 8, 2002

Of course, Shark - the whole notion of existencialism is in itself a paradox, no? That's why I was very careful to qualify all of my statements in the last post.

I myself still believe that truth and fact are relative to the subject, but for the sake of practicality we must find ways to work around this - clearly admiting one's biases ala Howard Zinn is one way. That allows the reader to find his own connection to and perspective on the material at hand. I believe that traditionalist history, in denying these biases, is as a result more subversive. However, I fully understand that you have a far greater understanding and breadth of knowledge on these matters than I so I don't think I am in much of a position to debate.

In any case, this is probably off topic. Even without my postmodern rhetoric, one could simply state that Don Quixote is as much a commentary on knighthood as he is a knight himself. In that manner he illustrates the knightly ideals in an evocative way. There -- no postmodernism required.