u/Chlodio

So during the course of EFAP Supergirl, Fringy shits on Supergirl for being written by an amateur who uses screenwriting 101 tips. He even says each EFAP member would be able to write a good Spiderman film.

Doesn't anyone else think this bit arrogant? I'm sure the movie is shit, but saying you would be able to do a better job is pushing it. Mauler and Drinker have themselves written questionable short films; arguably, even RLM made a bad movie. It's almost like the ability to understand flaws of films doesn't give you the ability to make something better.

I feel Fringy should read a book called Fade In, which was written by the writer of Star Trek Insurrection. It's about a writer who wrote many great Star Trek episodes, but was cornered by the studio into writing a rather terrible movie. Point being is that even a competent writer can be forced to write something awful.

So, I'm not defending that awful movie, but I feel EFAP should stop pretending they could do better.

Many people think castles were "luxury homes", while castles were more conformable that modern ruins would suggest, they wouldn't really be considered luxury by their contemporary owners, because real luxury residences existed, those being palaces.

While both were types of royal residences, the castle prioritized security over comfort, contributing to the royalty's lack of interest in staying in them for extended periods of time. Instead, the royalty spent an extended amount of time in their palaces.

So, what were royal palaces? Many of them were originally just lavish hunting cabins inside royal forests. But over time, they got expanded into a bunch of luxury, for example, in the 12th century, the kings of England had lions and leopards in their Woodstock Palace. These palaces offer various leisure activities even beyond hunting, weddings, feasts, jousting tournaments, and kings took their mistresses into these palaces.

But urban palaces also existed, the primary residence of the English monarch was the Westminister palace built by Edward the Confessor.

And the palaces weren't just limited to royalty; many bishops and rich dukes built their own palaces. While poorer lords would build less impressive leisure mansions outside of their castles.

You'd think it would be a common occurrence, so it feels weird that there is no established stance for it, and it is odd to bring it up to the general, because it is so micro-level.

Seemingly, many authors (especially GURM) misunderstand the purpose of castles. They make their castles gigantic and believe that the bigger the castle is, the better.

When in reality, that is completely reductive to the objective. The purpose of castles was to allow the smallest number of defenders to hold out against the highest number of attackers for as long as possible.

• The bigger the castle is, the more defenders you need, because the more spread out they will be during an assault.

• The more defenders you have, the more food and water you need. Which itself decreases the time they can hold out E.g., a garrison of 20, might be able to hold out for an entire year, but a fantasy garrison (like a two-thousand) would be lucky not to starve in a month.

• There is also the economic factor. Even if you could make a castle with large enough storage and castle wells to suit the needs of a gigantic garrison, you would still run into economic reality, that you would bankrupt yourself trying to stockpile.

Very few castles had a garrison of a thousand; most had a garrison closer to just 20.

Obviously, the genre is fantasy, and the castle should probably be more fantastic than in reality, but I don't think just upscaling the size is necessary; it is just silly.

EDIT:

To clarify, not denying the existence of a large castle. Large castles like Malbork Castle with a garrison of 3,000 did exist, but those exception rather than the norm. The largest castles in England had garrisons of 500.

Maybe saying average garrison was 20 downplayed things, but that is true for most wooden castles, which were the majority of castles. Stones castles often had garrisons of a few hundred.

Many people also argue garrison of a castle with 20 men has no worth and would be completely ignored. In truth, ignoring even a small garrison would expose supply lines to raiding by the garrison. This often forced the attackers to leave a small detachment to box in the garrisons.

There are also misconceptions about castles being luxury homes. Castles might have been decorated more than in popular imagination would allow, but they weren't the most comfortable residences. Instead, luxury residences were hunting cabins like Woodstock Palace and Clarendon Palace.