The Free Company Tavern & "OOC" Thread for Book VII

[merrick]

Does anyone have any idea where Captain is planning to go from here?

IIRC the Free Company was originally en route to England to bring the late Captain's body home for burial. When they found St Malo in French hands they made a deal with the French lord of St Malo to clear out the local bandits in return for being allowed to pass through in peace.

Instead of fighting bandits, they've teamed up with the English against the French King's troops. So now what? Go back to St Malo with the Nevilles as "prisoners" and try and finish things up there before Chevrier and the Baron turn up calling for vengeance? Try and get in touch with Maria's ships and get away to England, thus skipping out on their contract with St Malo? Split up with the English and hope Chevrier goes after Neville?

From Neville's perspective, Captain's obvious way out is to toss him (Neville) to the French in return for clemency. I doubt the Lord of Warwick is the type to go quietly.

 

[The_Hawk]

I'll try and get something up soon... and undo the internal French writing Hawk tried to create

You probably should read your PMs, first.

Does anyone have any idea where Captain is planning to go from here?

Yes. The denouement is the easy part; getting out of an inescapable battle with cavalry on foot was the hard part.

 

[Valdemar]

I did

But as per the PMs we only AGREED to have the battle stop.. the pursuing on the other hand..... problem basically is, by using the trio of knights you interfere with another plot line

V

 

[merrick]

Yes. The denouement is the easy part; getting out of an inescapable battle with cavalry on foot was the hard part.

That's good - as long as someone knows where the plot is going I can stop worrying and get back to fighting off enraged French knights with a farming implement.

 

[comagoosie]

I did

But as per the PMs we only AGREED to have the battle stop.. the pursuing on the other hand..... problem basically is, by using the trio of knights you interfere with another plot line

V

Maybe we can have the charge stop or have the battle extremely short lived. Now that I think about it, it should be getting dark, shan't it? Knights should never fight in the dark

 

[von Streusser]

One horribly doomed charge should be enough to end it, to my mind.

 

[von Streusser]

I did

But as per the PMs we only AGREED to have the battle stop.. the pursuing on the other hand..... problem basically is, by using the trio of knights you interfere with another plot line

V

Thing is, at this point - all plotlines aside from ending the story are ancillary. They don't matter. This thing has (in my mind) suffered long enough, and we ought to just bring it in for a landing. Whatever French subplot you had worked up I'm sure was good, but I think we ought to focus on just bringing this thing home, honestly.

 

[Valdemar]

The internal poltics of the French haven't changed, and as such I have need for the trio of knights as well as Chevrier.. it is a standard thing of the FC, do not use other ppl's chars unless you stay true to their nature or have agreed in PMs... I don't recall any agreement about splitting up the trio..

I still have need for the trio, so no one, not even hawk, is going to doom them.. or for that matter sow internal conflict.. the conflict in the french group is btw Chevrier and the trio, chevrier and the Seneschal, possibly the King and btw the trio and the Seneschal..

V

 

[von Streusser]

The internal poltics of the French haven't changed, and as such I have need for the trio of knights as well as Chevrier.. it is a standard thing of the FC, do not use other ppl's chars unless you stay true to their nature or have agreed in PMs... I don't recall any agreement about splitting up the trio..

I do. I still have the PM. Would you like me to send you a copy?

The plan was for, after the French break off their big attack, for a smaller force to split off and pursue after a heated disagreement. That smaller force would get ripped to pieces by an ambush, and because of that furious ambush, the rest of the French force withdraws and gives the Free Company enough time to return to St. Malo. As I recall, your response to the whole shebang was "sounds like a plan".

The French politics and subplot, just like everyone else's subplots, have to yield to the greater story. No one's characters are more important than the story itself. And right now, the story's goal is getting out of this killing field. If we don't give the French a reason to break off their assault for a longer period of time, they'd logically have to keep coming at the Company. Chevrier won't be unconscious all the way to St. Malo.

I'm sorry, but I'm with The_Hawk on this one, and from what I saw in the PMs, it looked like you were too. This is what we all agreed on.

 

[Valdemar]

vS... any French knight could do. Nothing in the PMs said anything about sowing discord btw the establish characters.. PMs or not, it has to gel with previous posts... having them fight between them doesn't.

V

 

[The_Hawk]

vS... any French knight could do. Nothing in the PMs said anything about sowing discord btw the establish characters.. PMs or not, it has to gel with previous posts... having them fight between them doesn't.

I don't know how you can plausibly suggest that "Nothing in the PMs said anything about sowing discord btw the establish characters..", given that the PM in question specifically mentioned that the plan includes such elements as "de Boeuf's earlier caution resurfaces as he moves to rescue Chev and retreat", "de Bracy and the other guy take some losses before retreating back to wherever de Boeuf has reformed", "the more brash knights (i.e. de Bracy and "the other guy", du Bois Guilbert) berate de Boeuf for being a wimp", "One of the brash knights decides to take his forces and pursue", and "perhaps de Bracy or whomever else led the pursuit is killed". You're telling me you read all that and didn't get that there was going to be a confrontation between de Boeuf and de Bracy?

Furthermore, I see no inconsistency in characterization. Chevrier himself questioned de Boeuf's boldness and de Boeuf considered himself apart from the "hot headed knights" surrounding Chevrier. He's always been the most considered and cautious of the three. It is not hard to believe that he might retreat and try to rouse Chevrier, and from there it is not a hard jump to the other two disagreeing with him and trying to finish off the Company, particularly given how close to success they were. Even the best of friends can butt heads when, to quote a Sicilian, death is on the line. And, more to the point, if you wanted to raise any of these things as potential issues, I sent the PM quoted above to you and you could have easily done so then. Instead, you consented to the plan as laid out.

As I said via PMs and I'll say again here, you disappoint me greatly by deciding to make this a public issue rather than discussing it via PMs. I would not follow you down that path but that you seem to have ignored my PMs on the subject and elected to air your grievance here instead. Like it or not, I intend to drive this ship to shore in LD's absence. This is in keeping with my responsibilities in assisting him with this story (and having developed the basis for the plot in the first place.) This story is no different from any other FC work, in that a subplot will not be allowed to rule the main plot, nor stall the greater story.

That said, what do you expect anyone to do? I am not going to walk back these developments, edit my posts, or ask anyone else to edit their posts. So far as I am concerned this is all character-appropriate behavior which, more to the point, you consented ahead of time. I have already told you that de Bracy and du Bois Guilbert can escape the trap if you need them to for the purposes of whatever subplot is going about which you still haven't told me. So let's get on with it.

 

[Valdemar]

I replied to your PMs.. Twice.

V

 

[Valdemar]

I'm REALLY sorry if I disappoint you....

If you wish to take it here.. you argue like the devil... if A is followed by B and B is followed by C then A = C ..... rubbish....

Don't go all high horse and "I'll save the story..." on me ... if any credit on that part should be awarded it is to vS and Merrick, not you.

I might have missed that your suggestion was a detailed plot including named chars that would break the stalwarthy trio.... I read it as a suggestion to break the attack by downing Chevrier, and that is what Merrick, vS and I wrote. That you feel a need to take the rest of the suggestion upon yourself and create a very different personality of those three is fine, but when I kindly request IN PM that you allow them NOT to go that way you chose to defend your use of my chars instead of allowing it to be any other french knight. .. real collegial there hawk...

Whether your post is based on my misunderstanding or not is not the issue, the issue is I asked for it NOT to break the trio....in essence the young Seneschal loyal knight of Stoey's might even have been a better choice, one out to make his own name

What YOU read into those posts are that they oppose each other.. that is not what it says. It says they are not necesarily loyal to Chevrier.

As said in the above post. I replied in PM. Twice, that you decide NOT to respond after a few days should hardly prevent me from replying to vS.

So please, you of all should know better than NOT to respect it if a writer feels his chars are being misrepresented, whether the reason is my misunderstanding of your PM or you being overly creative. It is hardly the first time and it will not be the last (well actually it might ). It happens all the time, and you certainly have had your fair share of twisting other's personalities or reading their motives differently.

BUT Hawk, there is a difference reading other's by third person view allowing your own chars to add their take on a chars actions, and actually taking other chars and making your view of them being carried out by them.

I had aplenty of possible ways to write, credibly, a way out. De Bouef had plenty of ways to reason be Bracy.. but really, i hardly see a need to be bothered if you want your version to carry the story you so gallantly saved....


Granted de Bracy de Bois and de Bouef are not main characters, but they have a purpose as a group that LD Joe and I plotted and even you almighty Hawk aren't privy to all plots


V

 

[Valdemar]

I do. I still have the PM. Would you like me to send you a copy?

The plan was for, after the French break off their big attack, for a smaller force to split off and pursue after a heated disagreement. That smaller force would get ripped to pieces by an ambush, and because of that furious ambush, the rest of the French force withdraws and gives the Free Company enough time to return to St. Malo. As I recall, your response to the whole shebang was "sounds like a plan".

Yes, that I can read, that it had to be deBracy and that it entailed breaking the trio I did not see in that suggestion.

I read de Bracy as a suggestion, as in "Any french knight took a group" de Bracy merely being instrumental, and I did not ANY where read he should go in opposition to both King, Chevrier AND de Bouef at the same time....

Either way I didn't ecxactly expect hawk to write what he wrote, and when he did I asked for a chance to set things back on track for them... whether you find such subplots good or bad and whether it survives to the end is not clear, but it certainly had the potential, even then.

V

 

[von Streusser]

All this being as it may, I'd rather the wheels didn't come off the whole thing now, so close to the end.

So, if we leave everything that has happened thus far in place - what can we do NOW that will please (or at least placate) everyone?

How about this - de Bracy, through some stroke of good fortune, escapes the trap after it becomes clear that he's in a bad position. Many French knights are lost, but de Bracy and some of his retainers survive and get away. Returning back to Chevrier, they discover he's coming around, but he's still pretty out of it and should really take a little while to recover.

The decision is made (by whomever) to wait for the rest of the King's army to show up, and this gives the Free Company enough time to escape into St. Malo.

Does that work for everyone? If it doesn't, please offer an alternative, I'm open to suggestions. But lets not let everything degrade into an argument over what should have been, lets just focus on taking it home.

 

[Valdemar]

The post I HAD started somewhere and would have posted had hawk no decided to discuss who misunderstood what instead of letting me write it was simple..

De Bouef would have seen them argue, and would know what they intended.. A simple word telling them that they would face the King having broken his orders not to engage twice, first with Chevrier now on their own AS WELL as facing Chevriers wrath if they stole his victory over his father's killers would have been sufficient to keep those 3 out of the charge if not stopping the charge.

I still see NO reason why the charge had to be carried out by any of those 3.

I wont get a post up either way this weekend nor monday due to RL so *shrug*... I'm not exactly feeling motivated to write anyhow...

V

 

[Valdemar]

There, make of it what you will vS, I dunno if Joe needs that knight or not, he was a spur of the moment, a foil of the main chars, the trio and the Seneschal.

V

 

[Storey]

There, make of it what you will vS, I dunno if Joe needs that knight or not, he was a spur of the moment, a foil of the main chars, the trio and the Seneschal.

V

A belated post as with you RL has been pressing me in on all sides. Stephane is expendable so do with him as you will.

Edit. Merrick can you delete your last post and repost is after mine? It might make more sense that way. Sorry for the tardy post on my part.



Joe

 

[merrick]

Edit. Merrick can you delete your last post and repost is after mine? It might make more sense that way. Sorry for the tardy post on my part.

'Tis done.

And without taking sides in the previous (it's all-too-easy for one person to read in an email what another person never intended to write in it), expecting other posters not to write across private plots that they don't know are there is a recipe for frustration and short tempers. With this few writers, and pretty much every post focussed on the main storyline, you can't expect everyone else to mark time while you develop your idea. So if there's somewhere you want the story to go, please let the other posters know.

Now let's get back to the fighting.