Page 3 of 167

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:42 am
by voralfred
Just guessing (I don't have my copy of _CC_ here)
Miles to Ekaterin in Civil Campaign (about asking René Vor(aka Ghem)bretten's help in her problem with her cousin-in-law).

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:57 am
by voralfred
voralfred wrote: Miles to Ekaterin in Civil Campaign (about asking René Vor(aka Ghem)bretten's help in her problem with her brother-in-law).
Rats! No, no, daetara! Don't come a-running! No real rats, here, it is just a phrase! Wrong guess. I found the place I thought it was, and it is not there. Keep trying, eveybody!

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:40 pm
by risi
Ok, a hint: it's an early book...

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:59 am
by voralfred
risi wrote:Ok, a hint: it's an early book...
You really got me, there! I was thinking that Miles would only start joking on nepotism very late (not till the very end of Memory, if ever)
After your hint I thought of Aral's nomination as regent, but I sifted through the 3 first chapters of "Barrayar" without finding it!!
Someplace later in the book?

Since you don't ask precisley where I'll try

Aral to Cordelia in "Barrayar"

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:24 am
by voralfred
I found it finally!

I did think of Ivan in WA, but I first tried the party given for Piotr funeral, then when he arrives on Tau Verde in Chapter 17, after Miles' surgery. Not in either places. I was almost sure it was not when they were back in Barrayar.
Finally I realised that the conversation in Chapter 17 was not the only one. Ivan reappears in the second half of chapter 18 and that is where it is!

So Ivan to Miles, WA chapter 18.

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:56 pm
by risi
voralfred wrote:I found it finally!

So Ivan to Miles, WA chapter 18.
Right!

Well, I wanted to give you a challenge, so I guess I succeeded. :wink:

Now, it's my turn to watch (or pm).

:D

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:01 pm
by risi
BTW, I have no idea how to do the Sherlock (or really even what it is), so you'll have to give me instructions.

Thanks!

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:23 pm
by voralfred
risi wrote:BTW, I have no idea how to do the Sherlock (or really even what it is), so you'll have to give me instructions.

Thanks!
There is a thread called "The Sherlock Thread"
You can go to the latest post is by clicking here
Copy the post, move my name from last line (1 point) to the line 2 points (in bold)
on the top line replace your name by mine (in bold)
(there happens to be a comment in dark red precisely on that post that has to be removed, of course)
and post that as a new post (never erase the preceding post, add a new one)
That's all!

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:20 am
by risi
Very cool! You have been awarded a Sherlock!

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:10 am
by voralfred
Thanks, risi. By the way, your quote really was a challenge!

New quote:
He seemed a man who could carry on stark naked, and only make those around him feel overdressed.
This is not uttered in a dialogue, it is a private thought.

Who thinks this of whom, in what book?


Bonus
Some digression is needed here. When you write such a momentus work as the Vorkosigan Saga, inconsistencies are bound to enter. In the Sherlock Holmes Canon, for instance, inconsistencies abound. I'm also on a Holmes fan forum, and the aficionados try to explain them away (why did Watson deliberately lie on the date of such and such event, how many times did Watson marry - there is even a theory that Watson killed his first wife, née Mary Morstan, so he could remarry). Now this is a lot of fun, but the truth of course is that Conan Doyle did not care so much about consistency.
Now obviously LMB cares a lot. There are extremely few inconsistencies (I got interested in them because of the french translations, in which inconsistencies abound, but are in 99.99% of the cases due to translation errors). But once in a while it happens, very rarely, but it does happen that the inconsistency comes from the english original. I vaguely remember finding 3 or 4 in the entire Saga (I could have missed a few, of course).
One of these inconsistencies is related to this quote. So the bonus question is:

Put your finger on the inconsistency related to the above quote. (OK, if you do it the way Holmes fans do it, it is just possible to explain the inconsistency away; but I am almost sure that this is a place where the author remembered her own writings incorrectly and just made an honest mistake - Dear Lois, if you want to comment on this, please wait for the game, incuding the bonus, to be answered first, unless you can somment without spoiling the fun, of course).

I decide if you 'pinpoint' it in a satisfactory enough way to give the 1/2 bonus point.
I'm not sure what the rules are, but the rule you are not allowed to answer the quote just after yours is to keep the game from becoming a two-persons one, and should not apply to the bonus. But answering the bonus would be a spoiler to the main game, so I'd say that if the winner of the Sherlock does not get the bonus simultaneously, risi will be allowed to go for the bonus, but only then. (If this is against the rules, would an Admin please correct me?)

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:36 pm
by risi
Question: I didn't see in the earlier posts (aka the rules) whether or not our answers have to be from memory (ours, not the book) or if we can research them. And what would count as acceptable "research" as opposed to just looking for the answer. So far I've been able to answer from memory, but I thought it'd be a good time to ask.

cheers

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:50 pm
by voralfred
risi wrote:Question: I didn't see in the earlier posts (aka the rules) whether or not our answers have to be from memory (ours, not the book) or if we can research them. And what would count as acceptable "research" as opposed to just looking for the answer. So far I've been able to answer from memory, but I thought it'd be a good time to ask.

cheers
Well, I started this game when I was still new, and I don't know the rules. What I do is, either just guess by memory and post like that, or guess what passage it should be and read the chapter (or half-chapter). If it is not there, I think of a different passage and go and read it. I would not read randomly till I find it (anyway, the Saga is so large that the probability to find by pure chance are infinitesimal). Maybe an admin should tell us. I remeber clong declining to post an answer he got in a way he would have called "cheating" but I am not sure exactly how he got it. Would you explain what happened on that occasion, clong?

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:18 pm
by clong
I remeber clong declining to post an answer he got in a way he would have called "cheating" but I am not sure exactly how he got it. Would you explain what happened on that occasion, clong?
I thought I knew what scene of what book a quote was from, so I went to look up the scene via the amazon "look in this book" function. After stumbling around not finding the passage I was looking for, I went ahead and used the amazon search engine to jump to the scene in question, but instead stumbled across the quote, which turned out not to be in the scene that I had been looking for afterall. Now if I had been looking in the physical book and stumbled across the quote at random, I wouldn't have been shy about claiming it. But not with the benefit of amazon.

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:50 am
by voralfred
So that means that it is perfectly OK to check within the scene you are thinking of even with the help of Amazon but not to find it with a search tool in a scene you were not thinking of.

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:39 am
by clong
Yes, that would be a reasonable interpretation of what I think. Not that I am the one who makes the rules.

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 4:33 am
by Blackwing
voralfred wrote: New quote:
He seemed a man who could carry on stark naked, and only make those around him feel overdressed.
This is not uttered in a dialogue, it is a private thought.

Who thinks this of whom, in what book?
It's Cordelia thinking about Aral in Shards of Honor. Awwww.
No idea about the bonus, though.

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 6:49 am
by voralfred
Blackwing wrote:It's Cordelia thinking about Aral in Shards of Honor. Awwww.
No idea about the bonus, though.
Correct.

So I gave you your Sherlock and the next question is yours!

Bonus still for grabs: risi, you can try now, too.

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:56 am
by risi
voralfred wrote:Bonus
One of these inconsistencies is related to this quote. So the bonus question is:

Put your finger on the inconsistency related to the above quote. (OK, if you do it the way Holmes fans do it, it is just possible to explain the inconsistency away; but I am almost sure that this is a place where the author remembered her own writings incorrectly and just made an honest mistake - Dear Lois, if you want to comment on this, please wait for the game, incuding the bonus, to be answered first, unless you can somment without spoiling the fun, of course).
Well, I thought I had it when Vorkolloner(sp?) is introduced as his second officer when we'd already met Gottyan as his second in command, but when I went back and checked, Gottyan was actually introduced as his first officer. So first officer(2nd in command) and second officer(3rd in command) actually seems consistent to me. I wound up re-reading SoH again entirely and so I also noticed that later, during the battle, Gottyan relays an order to Vorkolloner.

So, I have no idea what the inconsistency is. I hope you will post the answer eventually!

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:26 pm
by voralfred
Well, I think that the way you presented the "first officer=second i ncommand" "second officer= third in command" shows there are no problem there.
My contradiction is not within SoH. It is between my specific quote (in SoH) and something else somewhere in the Saga. Indeed, not in SoH so you cannot find it by re-reading SoH only.

OK, I'll give you a hint: the line that is inconsistent with my quote is in one of the "middle" books, neither early nor late. It is in one of the books in one of the Omnibus editions "Miles, Mystery and Mayhem" or "Miles Errant".

(I know where, of course; the "or" is just in order to not narrow it too much now. If nobody finds in a few days, I'll tell you which Omnibus it is).

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:50 pm
by Blackwing
Wait, is Aral naked in some book? Clearly, it's time for a reread! ;)

New quote:
"It's frustrating to watch. He's capable of so much more."
Who said it and about whom and in which book?

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:03 pm
by Reede Kullervo
Cordelia about Ivan
That i'm sure :).
Which book, Mirror Dance, a first conversation with Mark (Aral included)?

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:47 pm
by voralfred
Blackwing wrote:Wait, is Aral naked in some book? Clearly, it's time for a reread! ;)
Well, an inconsistency need not be a formal contradiction, like Aral being naked and someone next to him not feeling overdressed. As I said earlier, the inconsistency could be explained away, but it would be artificial, like a Sherlock Holmes aficionado saying "Watson deliberately lied about the date of such and such event". I'm jsut saying, it is a place where the author misquoted her own writings.

As for the new quote.. Ugh! Needs some thinking! (except that, when I think about it, I can relax this time and leave the rest of you working on it...)

Edit: Post crossed with the one by RK. She might well be right, now that I think of it...

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:58 am
by Blackwing
Reede Kullervo wrote:Cordelia about Ivan
It's about Ivan and in the Mirror Dance but the speaker is not Cordelia.

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:32 am
by voralfred
Blackwing wrote:
Reede Kullervo wrote:Cordelia about Ivan
It's about Ivan and in the Mirror Dance but the speaker is not Cordelia.
I did not guess the right chapter, but after RK posted I found it easily and read it carefully. Blackwing is right, the speaker is not Cordelia. However RK gave the right passage and the right participants. It is now so easy to find the place that anyone but her giving the right answer (I am not allowed to, anyway) would be cheating.

So I move that RK gets the Sherlock and the next question even though she gave the wrong speaker among the correct characters present. Won't you agree, Blackwing?

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:30 pm
by Reede Kullervo
voralfred wrote: I did not guess the right chapter, but after RK posted I found it easily and read it carefully. Blackwing is right, the speaker is not Cordelia. However RK gave the right passage and the right participants. It is now so easy to find the place that anyone but her giving the right answer (I am not allowed to, anyway) would be cheating.

So I move that RK gets the Sherlock and the next question even though she gave the wrong speaker among the correct characters present. Won't you agree, Blackwing?
Well, I didn't guees right passage, I took wrong place and conversation :). Don't spare me, I'll kill myself definitely :lol:.