Culture Bring Back Dueling

D

Deleted member 88

Guest
Any man with sufficient training can hit a man sized target with a flintlock at thirty paces.
Make it fifty paces then. Or Seventy.

Also untrained duelists would have more trouble, thus it being a game of nerve.
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
At seventy paces a thick coat would stop the bullet :p Assuming you hit anything smaller than a house :)

Use paintball guns, same test of skill, same win or lose but nobody dies. Unless the whole point of this is that you want to kill people who say bad things about you.
 

Strigan44

Well-known member
What you could do is use intentionally inaccurate pistols-like old flintlocks from say thirty paces. It becomes much a less a game of skill and more a game of nerve under such circumstances. You shoot-and miss. The other guy gets his shot as well, if he misses you each get one more bullet.

Until one person either backs down or someone is on the ground.
You do realize that IRL, combatants in duels were expected to deliberately miss their (single) shots, with the whole point being to demonstrate that you were willing to (in principle) put your money where your mouth was?
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
At seventy paces a thick coat would stop the bullet :p Assuming you hit anything smaller than a house :)

Use paintball guns, same test of skill, same win or lose but nobody dies. Unless the whole point of this is that you want to kill people who say bad things about you.
To attempt to make their own point for them, the point was to force people to back up their stated convictions with their life or else be drummed out of the metaphorical public square.
 
D

Deleted member 88

Guest
Indeed-if you are willing to back up your beliefs or words with your life, then your a man worth respecting. It doesn't mean people agree with your beliefs, it does mean however no one can call you insincere, grasping or cowardly.
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
So when does it become frivolous? One duel in history occurred between two women when one asked the other her real age. Another because two men's dogs got into a fight. Is that a contest of honour or one of pride?

Also consider Stephen Decatur. He was one of the founders of the USN and considered to be an exceptional Captain with a string of successes. Basically the father of the US Navy and one of its best officers, very important given how small the USN was.
He was part of a court martial who punished an officer entirely justly, the man was guilty of poor conduct but took offence and challenged a duel. This duel killed Decatur robbing the USN of an incredibly valuable asset.
Is the pride of one mediocre officer who was rightly guilty worth killing such an exceptional man over? Is that really a gain to be applauded? Is it honourable to leave your country less well prepared for a war?

Also worth noting Decatur may well have been set up to lose that duel by a jealous subordinate who prospered from his death.

Pride is often called honour and most duels were for pride over petty things. As I said before it doesn't decide who is right, only who is a better shot.
 
D

Deleted member 88

Guest
I suppose it depends. When is one’s pride worth dying over? When it is not? I don’t think I can answer that question. At least not if I’m being honest.
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
Less dying for and more killing for really. I mean if you are killing the best officer in the US Navy over wounded pride are you doing the right thing? Is it worth setting back your country's Navy by years or decades because it lost such an excellent leader? Is that harm to millions including possibly losing you a war worth one man's pride?

That's the big example, but Handel almost died in a duel, if he had the world would never have had some of the finest music ever written. France lost one of its best mathematicians, a man who as a teen solved a 350 year old puzzle but was dead at 20. Killed over a harlot.

Russia lost its best Poet to a duel, but then you also have Tolstoy. Not the writer Tolstoy but one of his relations, a man who cheated at cards, duelled those who caught him, killed them, and went right back to cheating.
He killed upwards of eleven men to the point where he didn't duel for honour but because he was bored. You can't refuse his challenge, but he's only giving it because he has a slow weekend. Is that worth dying for?
 

Porkchopper

Active member
Yes bring back dueling. Because as we all know excelling at physical violence is a sure fire way to determine rightfulness.

Certain people in this thread acting like they have that big dick Andrew Jackson energy.
 

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