Hi Mhilgtx,
Thank you, but you need to apologise for such an unfounded claim, which is insulting if not ignorant by its very baseless charge.
No I'm not in love with Sharleyan, but I do respect her, she's a great character, and besides, she's Cayleb's.
Although OWL seems to like her a bit too much.
You have yet to provide any evidence that's she's in any way a dim bulb, even with technology she never had a clue existed less than 4 years ago.
Given your far better education and familiarity with high tech, how well do you do with tech stuff less than 4 years old?
Show me where she's ever acted like a dim ignorant "cheer leader".
You can't, because she hasn't.
Given the far greater difficulty of success in politics, especially over the long term, her brilliant performance in every scene from OAR onward ought to have settled any of your concerns about her intelligence, if you had fully comprehended how much she's accomplished in less than 20 years.
Calling her 'politically savvy' is another insult.
Besides Gray Harbor wondering if she isn't smarter than Cayleb already cited, show me one person who's met her who doesn't recognise her intelligence and wisdom.
So called "people skills' may be downplayed by the ignorant or jealous, but the truly successful leaders are brilliant if not geniuses at getting other people to do what they want, and that includes using every tool possible including all available tech.
Indeed, managing high tech is child's play by comparison.
Furthermore, given her limited time to peruse OWL's data banks, show me where and how she's somehow a dim bulb when most people today have trouble explaining the details of how a smart phone works in a rational logical manner, or anything else 'high tech' for that matter.
The fact that she not Merlin, who naturally understands all that federation high tech stuff, recognised that the com had to be replaced with the far better hidden voice activated coms etc, ASAP, indicated she had a much better understanding of the inner circle's security requirements than Merlin, whose gift of a pager to King Haarahld VII left a little something to be desired, especially for someone so tech wise.
If you're going to complain about someone making gratuitous mistakes with federation tech, Merlin's a far better candidate than Sharleyan; with far less to excuse.
But then if Merlin were perfect, never made any mistakes, ie was superhuman in every respect, would you bother reading the series or listening to it around ten times?
Perhaps its the female voice you're listening to that irritates you to make this assault on Sharleyan, but there's certainly no actual textev.
The major reason Spider-man became such a huge success so quickly in the early '60's was because he wasn't perfect like so many super heroes then, and far more readers identified with him than the then near perfect rest of the comic-book super heroes.
Perhaps if you really tried to put yourself in her shoes, then ask yourself would you do as well given where she started, ie not knowing a thing about electricity to start with etc, you might begin to realise why the rest of us know she's brilliant.
She's not perfect, but she a very well crafted character by a master storyteller.
You don't have to like her and you don't have to read or listen to the books, but claiming she's something she's not is rather silly when there's no textev to support your apparent irritation, whatever the cause.
Regarding Cayleb's sense of guilt for not leading his men in battle, he's only 23-24 in T-years, and while very well taught by his father, he still doesn't have the decades of emotional armor experience of dealing with losing friends and strangers fighting and dying for him.
Would you rather he was immune to such feelings?
So far, your complaints seem less mature than future posts I look forward to when you have something more appropriate to propose.
But you'll need to cite textev first.
L
Mhilgtx wrote:I apologize if I have personally insulted you in any way.
I don't quiet get the point of your post other than to blast me.
In Sharlleyayn s case my point is that we are often told she is brilliant yet I fail to see any evidence of that. Only in seamounts office I think in Herrisies Distressed do we see an example of her understanding the new tech. She may be very intelligent I just don't think it shows through as well as many of RFC's other characters. The examples you quote are not only explained by use of tech but elsewhere in the series discounted as a sign of intellect.
Where Hharold and Cayled and Nahrmon just to point out a few jump of the page as being insightful i don't get the feeling she does. In fact I get the feeling that she is more of a person that is politically savvy hence the cheerleader comparison vs policy savy like Caleb.
But then again every time I have to grind through a couple of pages of Caleb acting like a brat about going leading trroops is like nails on a chalk board due to its absolute stupidity.
As far as surviving on the throne, like I said she is politically savy.
She might be brilliant but I need something more concrete than reading off a TelePrompTer and calling Caleb her water. Bottle.
lyonheart wrote:Hi Mhilgtx,
How did she survive for ~15 years after becoming an 11 year old qyueen, if she was a dim bulb?
Support your ignorant claim with textev before citing your opinion as proof, sir.
You have no evidence, because there is none.
I generally welcome newcomers, encouraging them to enjoy a simulated drink on the simulated forum, echoing the salute at Baen's Bar, but I can't help wondering if you've read all the books or are trying some kind of trolling, because of all the evidence against your claim.
Earl Gray Harbor, to cite just one example is a master of politics I hope you will admit, wonders if Sharleyan isn't smarter than Cayleb during the first cabinet meeting in BHD, while Merlin told Cayleb before he even sees Sharleyan that she's very smart besides being beautiful [which he should have already known from her probable portrait at the Chisholmian Embassy] and he should make her a pardner in BSRA, and if you didn't realise from her conversation about dynastic marriages and what they needed in Corisande after they conquered it, you were not paying attention then or in the rest of the books.
Dredging up all the examples isn't worth it until you back up your preposterous allegation.
Either go back and read them, or cite some proof before continuing this trolling.
L
*quote="Mhilgtx"**quote="Kytheros"**quote="Expert snuggler"*From his point of view they're not mistakes.
Sharleyan's skills showed up, for example, at the trials in Corisande. Working without notes, she recited the extenuating circumstances for those she pardoned, in detail.
Her statesperson-like comment immediately after the assassination attempt required remarkable self-discipline and skill.*quote*
*quote="Loren Pechtel"*
Didn't she have some tech at that point? Was she working from memory or a teleprompter?*quote*
*quote="SWM"*She did have the earbug connecting her to OWL. But she did all of that from memory, without external prompts.*quote*
She also had the contacts at that point as well, so she didn't need to rely on Owl talking in her ear, she could have Owl set up a display of the relevant details overlaying her view of the room.
Either way, it would look (to everyone else in the room) like she was operating off of memory.
However, that's making good use of the tools available to let her do her job better.*quote*
Yes I took it as she used the available tech. Although a good memory doesn't equal superior intellect just reflect on the comments about the Grand Vicars only skill is being able to give speeches,. I just don't see her shinning out and pulling disparate facts together to make large leaps.
*quote**quote*
