Debate Tournament - Round 6: Guild of the Periaur vs. Guild of Scholar's Hall

[Chymaera]

Okay here is the judging thread.

All judges please post when you are ready:)

The Judges:
Eriol for Tolkienology
YayGollum for the Outcasts
Talierin as the Neuteral
Chymaera for Ost-in-Edhil
The_Swordmaster for the Elves and Dwarves

I hope everyone had fun with this one;)

[YayGollum]

I did. Argh! Now this would have been a fun one for me to be in! All kinds of opportunities to rant about the stupidity mind-boggling popularity of heroic types. oh well. I'd have to go for whichever side was arguing that the Mandos thing ended up being a little more true. Or however you want to put it. These people's posts were a lot more fun to read. sorry about that. I think they started out stronger than the other people. Those guys were winning me over towards the end, but the last few posts for the side I said won were especially helpful. Ack! It's too bad. I thought up all kinds of things to toss in there for both sides. *pouts*

[Celebthôl]

Originally posted by YayGollum
I did. Argh! Now this would have been a fun one for me to be in! All kinds of opportunities to rant about the stupidity mind-boggling popularity of heroic types. oh well. I'd have to go for whichever side was arguing that the Mandos thing ended up being a little more true. Or however you want to put it. These people's posts were a lot more fun to read. sorry about that. I think they started out stronger than the other people. Those guys were winning me over towards the end, but the last few posts for the side I said won were especially helpful. Ack! It's too bad. I thought up all kinds of things to toss in there for both sides. *pouts*

Can you clarify, just for future discussions, what quotes failed it for us, where did we really need to pick up on?

[YayGollum]

That would require all kinds of energy and time. Maybe later? Anyways, I wouldn't say that quotes were especially what made your side lose. I would think that the words that go along with them helped out a little more. Unless you meant for me to grab quotes of whatever really great things the other side said. oh well. Ick. I've never been very good at doing the quote thing. oh well. Shall try to bring in some points. just because you said it would help you out.

What I might suggest for you to pick up on, since you asked, would be things that might not be appreciated. Style notes. Maybe I'm the only one who gets turned off by being evil and sarcastic and bandying words that have nothing to do with the debate. Little kidding around type things that I would be frustrated by if they were directed at me. Be more passionate about the topic. That wins me over!

[Talierin]

It was a really close, and good debate, but I felt that the Periaur had the slight edge in this one. They countered all of the Scholars' arguments very well, and they convince me of their side, so my vote goes to the Periaur :)

[Eriol]

It's just my luck that my first judgment ever turns out to be one of the closest debates I've seen. Lots of work!

The topic was very good :).

This was more of a "defensive" debate, in which no team pursued a clearcut line of reasoning, and both spent most of the time countering the opponents' arguments. And this is to be expected, given the open-ended nature of the debate; so that the Periaur spent most of the time finding holes in the Doom of Mandos, and developing the arguments to prove that their observations were in fact holes in the Doom, and vice versa for the Scholars.

I think it is clear that neither the Doom of Mandos nor the Curse of Morgoth were completely fulfilled. The Doom of Mandos was found to have many passages with ambiguous wordings, allowing a negative interpretation, but none of them shattering the "core" of the Doom; while the Curse of Morgoth was much more focused, "tight" and pervasive, but still it had one major hole, very aptly explored by the Scholars -- Morwen.

The matter of the "purpose" behind the Doom of Mandos (and behind the Curse of Morgoth) was briefly alluded towards the end of the debate; I'd like to see it better explored, but there was no time. As it was, there was a slight moment of confusion between the Doom of Mandos and the warning of Manwë's messenger, and Maedhros dealt with that.

While the Periaur found a lot of possible mismatchs between forecast and reality in the Doom of Mandos -- "possible" because they were heavily dependent on interpretation -- the Scholars found a very big hole in Morgoth's Curse. If we consider the "purpose" behind the curser, and the sharper focus of that Curse, it is an even bigger hole. Morwen was personally untouched by the curse as it foretold despair, and the efforts of the Periaur to counter that argument fell short of the mark.

Hard to judge such a wonderful debate on a single point; but it seems decisive for me. Morwen was the undoing of the Periaur.

My vote goes to the Guild of Scholars.

[Celebthôl]

Slow as you can judges. . . ;)

[The_Swordmaster]

Wow. First I must congratulate both The Guild of Scholar's Hall and The Guild of the Periaur on a wonderful debate. My vote for this debate was a draw. I felt that both guilds performed equally well. I couldn't see a clear winner against such a close debate. So that left me no choice but to call it a draw. Good job.

[Celebthôl]

Blast!

It all comes down to Chymaera now. . .

[Celebthôl]

Where is he!?

Can a member from OiE please vote here please in his place?

[Ancalagon]

And when Ancalagon wakes up, all the little mice wake up..Yawn!

Ok, I will fill in for my good friend Chymaera who has been unable to fulfil his duty due to some unforeseen circumstances. Now, if you please, allow me time to read the debate and post my judgement in the immediate future.

[Ancalagon]

Okidoki,

Well, what an immensely interesting debate, once again fueled by huge tracts of TOlkiens work, rather than any substantial contemplation on behalf of the participants. However, in the spirit of judgement I must (as much as it pains me to say it:)) give my vote to Scholars. The difficulty in such a question is that in truth no side should actually win, because neither side have tangible enough evidence to support their case. However, the course of a debate means the more convincing arguement has to be declared winner. In this case, Scholars had a more solid foundation for their arguement, not that Periaur did not provide excellent reasoning, just that it simply wasn't as convincing, and in the end, that's all that matters.

Well done to both teams, well done Scholars.