Judgment - Round 1: Scholars vs. Periaur

[Nóm]

The debate is here. (http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=11789)

Important:
In the past I have never voted in a poll for a debate that I have taken part in, but I have learned that some others do. I've talked to a couple people and we agree that this should not be allowed... so I ask all 8 people who are listed on the two teams to select the option "I was on a team, and am not voting". If for some reason a team member is not able to log in and vote during the next week, please PM me about it.


Official Judges:

Beleg_strongbow (GoD/E)
Beorn (Neutral)
FoolOfATook (GoT)
Nóm (GoO - Host Guild)
Turgon (OiE)

The poll will be open for 7 days and the winner of it will count as a vote equal to that of the official judges.

New edit in October: Because of a decision to change one of the rules after the first round, this thing has to have a fifth judge instead of a poll. Beorn will be doing that soon.

All members are welcomed to post judgement and comments in this thread.

[Legolam]

Just wanted to say a big well done to everyone who took part, in particular Snaga and Maedhros who were amazing! Hopefully our debate has made some of you question your own thoughts on the topic :D

[Nóm]

Periaur showed that the White council should have aided Gondor. The fact that they did not help Gondor in the way suggested by Tweens, might have been shown straightaway by GoS, to have no bearing on the decision to attack Dol Guldur. They may not have pulled it off, but that they didn't try is something I saw as a miss.

But the GoS did seek to hinder that by arguing that Sauron could have ambushed a march to the South, or taken out Rivendell and Lothlorien, while aid was sent to the South.

However: Tweens convinced me that Sauron could not have done this at that time, but furthmore they convinved me that the White Council would should have known this. If the White Council acted out of failure to take this into consideration, they were making a foolish decision.

Now, that does not have to render the decision wrong, when we are asking if it was bad considering all that happend after.

What can I say? I'm left believing the Periaur, that Saruman's reasonable motive, while it made sense to him, was not a good thing considering that he acted on a threat that wasn't there. The rest of the council went along, doing something that couldn't accomplish much because they were doing it too late. I'm reminded of one of many ignorant saying - better late than never. Not always the case.

But aside from Tweens being more convincing for me, the Scholars saw a lot more damage to their arguements, and did more shifting.

Tweens did much smash the GoS arguement that Gandalf was right in his assumption that Sauron's plan was to attack Lothlorien and Rivendell, and that the wise could reasonably think Sauron was a real threat to those places at the time.

Tweens even convinced me that an attack on Mordor would have had as much chance of holding Sauron's attention away from the quest of Thorin. If Sauron was watching his own back up North, if anything this would make him more suspicious of anyone passing through Mirkwood, I think, but this opinion was not used by Tweens. But more importantly, they convinced me that discovery of the quest of Thorin by Sauron would not have ment that Smaug would live, Bilbo wouldn't keep the Ring, or that the Battle of Five Armies would have left the North in ruin.

But if they were confident of assailing Dol Guldur, they couldnt have believe it to be capable of imminent attack.

Both teams impressed me, but my vote goes to the one that convinced - Periaur.

[Snaga]

I hope the other judges give their verdicts soon. The suspense is killing me!:)

BTW Well done to everyone who took part. It was a really enjoyable debate..:)

[Beleg]

I hope the other judges give their verdicts soon. The suspense is killing me!

Hehe! Blame that on yourself and Meadhros for producing such fine and long arguements. :)

[FoolOfATook]

Sorry for the delay, folks. I'm glad to see that my first attempt at suggesting a topic managed to create such a magnificent debate, although I suppose most of the credit for the quality must go to the debators, particularily to Snaga and Maedhros, who were both sensational.

I have neither the time nor any particular inclination to attempt to recap each party's side, especially since any attempt on my part to abridge their arguments would represent, to my way of thinking, a disservice to them.

Simply put, this was a debate about a topic that had been floating around in my head for some time, and about which I had never been able to produce a satisfactory answer, although I suppose that the very fact that I was turning this question over in my mind at all suggests that I was already a bit skeptical about the attack on Dol Guldur.

Ultimately, as impressive as Maedhros and the Scholars were, I have to vote for the group that won me over to their side, and that would be Snaga and the Periaur.

(You'll have to forgive the brevity of this reply, I'm extraordinarily busy right now at the forum, and on top of that I'm still developing my style when it comes to writing up debate judgments.)

[Beleg]

First of all Congragulations to both the teams, you both did great work.

Now towards the judgement,
The topic was interesting, to say the least.
It was Scholars' option to choose the side and they IMO choose the easier side to defend upon.

Scholars started well, the first post clarifying clearly what point of view the Scholars intended to take. This first post was countered by an excellent response from the Periaur's. For me the first and third posts made by Snaga were the best Periaur posts and It was Elfmari's second post that tipped the odds slightly in favor of Scholar's. However, we were still in the middle and the result wasn't clear yet. I have to say that some of the points in the middle of the debate were based on nit-picking but mostly Periaur countered Scholar's arguements well, although not as well as they could have.
Counter arguements to arguements were presented, which still were countered...and this went on until the last two posts.
Main point for Scholars was that Sauron from Dor Guldur could have attacked Rivendell and Lorien, while Periaur countered it by saying that Sauron was strategically too weak in Dol-Guldur to issue such an attack.

Till that point I wasn't sure and would have voted for the draw, but the last two posts cleared it all up for me.

Periaur did a great job, but I was more convinced by Scholar's point of view.
My vote goes to the Scholars by the narrowest of margins.

[Turgon]

Once again congratulations to both team for an interesting and entertaining debate. This was quite a tough one to judge, the arguements on both sides being top-notch. Here are just a few points I want to bring up to show some of the reasoning behind my judgement.

Snaga's first post did a lot of damage to the Scholars cause by pointing out that Sauron in fact would be hard pressed to assault either Lórien or Rivendell, unless as Elfarmari pointed out - Sauron had come to Lorien himself. But was Sauron at that time ready to strike at Lothlórien? This is something that the Scholars failed to convince me of. Snaga won me over with his 'Smaug would have been long dead by the time Sauron could do anything about it' idea, and the Periaur convinced me that Dol Guldur posed no real threat. I think Maedhros was right to bring up the importance of the Ring with regard the motives for an attack, yet I found the arguments on both sides to be pretty much inconclusive. Nobody here managed to convince me of anything.

As for Snaga's plan of the White Council aiding Gondor - I couldn't really buy into that - considering the White Council's reluctance to meddle so openly in the affairs of men (the Istari contingent especially) and elven reluctance to leave their own borders - I doubt this was even an option. The Istari had been in Middle-earth for nigh on 2000 years and this was a road they seldom went down. Only at times of dire need did the Council interfere - as with the Witch-king in the North - and Gondor was not yet in such a sorry state. Consequently I see most of the debate regarding the pros and cons of White Council intervention in Gondor as irrelevant. However - what I think about Snaga's plan is also irrelevant and this is something the Scholars failed to argue.

So what we have is a debate that swung back and forth, a lot good points on both sides but also a lot of speculation. I can't quite share Snaga's enthusiam about an attack on Minas Morgûl, it seems wholly unlikely that the Council would have chosen this course, and I have completely disregarded this from my judgement. But then the Periaur made a lot of good points regardless of this, the Scholars did well to counter most of these arguments as is to be expected of such a team of worthies, yet it seemed to me that the Periaur always maintained the upper hand and so I have given my vote to them.

[Maedhros]

I applaud the Periaur for their victory which was deserved I tip my hat to them, to the judges for their votes and to the host of the debate. Thanks for a great experience.

[legoman]

PER-IA-UR

*waves his scarf*

Yeah, we rock.

[Aulë]

Ah good,
Nice to see you appearing in the Tournament threads, legoman.
You'd better get used to it, cause Legolam and I have decided that you shall be debating in the 3rd Round. :)

[legoman]

sorry what?

why?

surely that is a very silly idea. no really. really, really bad idea.
do we not want to carry on this winning streak. I don't know how to debate, I can't even argue. Just ask tookish, I'm rubbish.
Unless its on guitars or music, or perhaps maths.

...oh dear...

[Aulë]

Don't worry- Tookish will be debating too :D
It's only against the Elves/Dwarves so we've decided to blood some new debaters :D
And Legolam and Niniel will still be debating, so you wont entirely disgrace yourself :p

[Nóm]

Originally posted by Aulë
Don't worry- Tookish will be debating too :D
It's only against the Elves/Dwarves so we've decided to blood some new debaters :D
And Legolam and Niniel will still be debating, so you wont entirely disgrace yourself :p

Why don't you go against GoD/E, Aule?
I'd love to see them whoop you after what you just said. ;)

[Aulë]

Well, I shall be in the middle of exams then,
And then I'll be going away for a little while.

So I shaln't be debating for another 3 or 4 Rounds...

Anyway Nóm, I'll hoping that you'll 'soften' them up for us beforehand ;)

[legoman]

Originally posted by Aulë
Don't worry- Tookish will be debating too :D
It's only against the Elves/Dwarves so we've decided to blood some new debaters :D
And Legolam and Niniel will still be debating, so you wont entirely disgrace yourself :p

Is that supposed to give me confidence?

...it failed.


argh!:(

[Maedhros]

I will apreciate if you will take this discussion to your guild.

[Nóm]

After Round 1 it was decided that a fifth judge should be used instead of polls. It was decide by the people on top that Round 1 debates would have to go back and replace the poll with a judge, so one will be replacing this poll soon.

[Beorn]

*sigh* I'm here. I keep forgetting/neglecting/ignoring the fact that I said I'd be the last judge for this debate. The previous judgements have sang one word: Periaur.

Overall, this was a different topic to debate. Not the hardest, but it was peculiar: it involved opinions, and stating the best one, not a reasonable doubt case.

The Periuar, mostly snaga1's opposition and defense of his position, were the victors for a number of reasons. The members of the Periaur presented a much more convincing argument. Both teams went beyond the 'coulda, shoulda, woulda' that may have been presented in this argument, but the Periuar's contest of the 'wisest' was meritous in the facts that they supported clearly the preposed course of events, as well as they provided a likely course of events, not an off chance.

Sorry for my delay. All in all, the Periaur win vs. the Scholars.