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3a) What is the best part of being a Knight?

Hmm, I don't think I'm going to be able to answer this one. At least not like you may have thought. Sure you are granted a certain amount of instead respect when dealing with new people (local or other Kingdoms)that you might not otherwise get and sometimes people "defer" to you in various situations but that isn't even close to being the best part. To me, the best part is having reached a goal those around me had been helping me obtain.

Let me be specific. Sir Corby was my knight. Through the support and understanding of my friends and family, I was able to reach a goal that I set for myself so many years ago. I now have the opportunity to take on the role of friend and mentor in the hopes that one day I will be able to look back on a body of work that helped someone else through a journey that culminates in their own epic story.

It's contributing to the "circle of life." :-)

3b) What did you find hardest about adjusting to being a Knight?

I think I kind of said it before but it really was "believing" I am a Peer. Silly enough, the calculation as I see it kind of looks like, "you're recognized as a Peer when your peers say you're a peer but you're really a Peer once you start acting like a Peer." Chew on that one. The rest is of the difficulty is in attempting to always behave as a Peer should. People's eyebrows raise a lot faster if you are having a publicly bad day. They then take your isolated incident and paint your entire Order with the same broad brush. In the past, if I screwed up, it only looked bad on Corby. Now, I'm adding to a "stereotype."

I only hope I'm adding more good things than bad.

3c) What do you find most disappointing?

I'm going to be "BdeBesque" blunt here but I don't think this is limited to the Chiv. There seems to be a whole lot of apathy amongst the people that have been doing it for years while at the same time, the younger players don't seem to feel like they have the ability to step up and replot us a new course. (Edit: I think that statement is too broad but I can't narrow it yet.) Right now, it feels like we are sitting on the cusp of a leadership change but no one is willing to either turn the page or blow the dust off the elder statesmen. As "legends" become less active/prominent and others just plain retire, everyone is looking for the next set of heroes. People need heroes to emulate and Cuan just can't do it alone. ;-)

I'm not saying I'm one of the next great heroes but young fighters need to see competition at the highest levels, to see the different personalities and styles (archetypes if you will) available to emulate. There is so little competition at the highest level that you generally only have to look at the Crown List to pick the winner. (Edit: I shouldn't limit this to Crown either, this is a more pervasive problem than that.) And while I'm for a form of "term limits" for Dukes in Crown - one year off per crown you've won - I believe that limiting those who can compete is NOT the way to improve competition ("Sorry Tiger Woods, no more tournaments for you this year"). The next echelon of fighters needs to step it up and take the victory for themselves and give the populace someone new to watch. The NFL has a "competition committee" that strives to ensure the same teams aren't always winning the Super Bowl (on any given Sunday, any team could win). It keeps interest up in the sport. (Oh look, the Red Wings won the Stanley cup AGAIN. Oh look, the Yankees won the World Series AGAIN).

Our Crown Tourneys can be horribly boring when the end is never in doubt. A possible derivative of this is that our lists are pathetically small. Is there a "why both" attitude or is it "I'm not ready to win"? Yeah, probably to former far more often than the latter. Now, that being said, I'm looking forward to see what Rangar and Kyneburh do with their second reign. I'm also looking forward to seeing Cuan try to make Padraigin a Duchess (it's such a cool ending to that "sub-story" and they really are good at the Royalty thing anyway) but he's going to have to beat me and others who are giving it our best for the honor.

We need fresh blood on the throne, at the Great Officer's positions, and at the Baronial levels. Not the same people doing different jobs. New people bring new ideas or (horror of horrors) rolling back "progress" some 20 years back to the good old days. Sometimes the old ways were actually better you know? Not change for change sake, but a principled revaluation that looks at trends in the Society that are not conducive to the growth of the organization and its participants.

You know, kind of like how the last two sets of Royals attacked the "cover your plastic" problem.

But wait, they've been winning crowns for years. Ah hell, I have holes in my logic. Now what do I do? :-(

(Since this is a diary and I want to keep all these thoughts, I'm not going to delete it for fear that I might seem inconsistent. I like to review my thoughts from time to time to figure out what it is I truly believe. Thanks again Nikulai for making me think though I'm sure I went WAY off onto a tangent.)

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