Lightice1
73p70 comments posted · 0 followers · following 1
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Snuff': Pa... · 0 replies · +13 points
The housemaid thing was practiced in real life in English manors, though for a slightly different reason, namely that existence of the maids created a contradiction in the gentleman's code of behaviour: a gentleman was supposed to help a woman if he saw her physically straining herself, but on the other hand, a gentleman could never lower himself to do a servant's work. So, to get around this hurdle, it was required for maids to drop their task and leave the room whenever the master of the house or any of his peers entered. Which did make some men complain that they felt like plague bearers when visiting houses where such rules were in place.
Unfortunately it probably did next to nothing to prevent sexual exploitation of the servant class, though.
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'I Shall We... · 1 reply · +5 points
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'I Shall We... · 1 reply · +4 points
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Unseen Aca... · 0 replies · +19 points
Still, Tolkien never could come up with a fully satisfying way to handle his Orcs after he decided that they couldn't just be creations or evil, but also gave them enough personality to dissuade any idea that they could be just mindless constructs, either. Pratchett, I think, does a pretty good job expanding on the concept.
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Unseen Aca... · 0 replies · +2 points
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Unseen Aca... · 3 replies · +4 points
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Unseen Aca... · 0 replies · +6 points
"There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs; and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal."
4 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 0 replies · +4 points
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Making Mon... · 2 replies · +10 points
4 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Making Mon... · 2 replies · +4 points