Yes, wait. (Off-Topic)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, April 21, 2019, 09:33 (2041 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I was tempted to just move on, but I have to come Cruel’s defense here.

All Cruel did was share his views on the scene. He said absolutely nothing out of place until you straight up told him you didn’t know why he was here if he didn’t see your point of view and told him the conversation was over unless he did so.

You’re so eager to jump on everyone for any perceived slight, but you refuse to ever acknowledge that the way you write is often very accusatory and certainly abrasive. Then you get all huffy when people respond in kind. It’s honestly pretty tiresome.

FWIW, I know that I am guilty of the same thing. My language is often harsher than I intend. I used to give you the benefit of the doubt, until I pointed this out to you at some point last year and you told me that you came off exactly how you intended to. So I don’t know if you really are that hypocritical and abrasive and get some sort of kick out of it, or if you really just don’t understand that you get defensive and offended for people responding to a shift in tone that you start.

Ok. Let's look at it from my point of view. My first entry into this part of the conversation was here. I see that as a good first post. Yeah, I disagree, but I laid out my point of view about the fight in a friendly manner and went on to talk about other story points further on down. What did I get back? Well, from you, I got "+1 Good post." I didn't jump on him out of the blue with harshness or abrasiveness. I was there to have a conversation. But from CruelLEGACEY I got back the following:

I think, in this case, you might be reading what you want to see into the scene. I see literally nothing in that scene to suggest that Luke is the one in control.

It's an absolute assertion combined with a delightfully dismissive opening statement. Yes, I felt slighted. It's always great fun when you are told that you are absolutely wrong and that you are absolutely wrong because you are letting some other opinion (in this case, presumably a disagreement on Rey's poor/overly-perfect character arc) cloud your interpretation of a scene.

My next post was here. I went back and recorded the fight in case CruelLEGACEY was right. I hadn't watched it in a while. I believe strongly in doing the research to make sure I wasn't misremembering. I detailed what I saw. And remember, I am now squaring off against "literally nothing in that scene to suggest that Luke is the one in control". That's a very high bar to overcome, so I took extra time to try and demonstrate my point. I wasn't trying to be mean or abrasive with the movement by movement breakdown. I was responding to an absolute with an abundance of data.

Next, in that same post, I got on to talk about Rey winning the fight and why she did both physically and plot wise. I was afraid CruelLEGACEY and I were going to get bogged down in him talking about the conclusion of the fight (which I totally agree with him about, Rey won.) and me talking about the events before the conclusion of the fight. I didn't want that to happen because I am well aware that me and him (and you) have a tendency to get miffed at each other around here.

Now, my closing statement, let's look at it again:

Yes, Rey won the battle. But, also yes, when she and Luke were armed with relatively equal weapons, Luke didn't just defend himself. He twice embarrassed her in ways that would have ended the fight if he had intended to harm her. If you can't admit that, then... I just don't know what you are here for. I've enjoyed this entire thread... but this will be the end if you can't give me something here.

First sentence, I am trying to be diplomatic and again am trying to make sure that CruelLEGACEY and myself are focusing on the same issue. Not the conclusion of the fight, but the "literally nothing in that scene to suggest Luke is the one in control" parts that came earlier. Was that unreasonable?

After that, yes, I express some exasperation. I'm up against absolute. I've been told I'm reading something into the scene. But I wasn't looking to be mean. I was looking for ANYTHING more diplomatic from CruelLEGACEY. A response. An acknowledgement. And I said if I didn't get something I would end the conversation.

Up to this point, I don't see that I did anything wrong. Saying that I'm going to end the conversation is not "nice", but it's not nice in the same way that "agreeing to disagree" is also not nice. Sometimes a consensus cannot be reached. The proper thing to do is to leave it at that. Unfortunately... I didn't do that after saying I would.

But why is that? Because CruelLEGACEY went from talking about Star Wars to talking about me:

I'll start by saying that theres no need for the self-righteous indignation. We're talking interpretations of a movie scene here, sharing our respective points of view. Believe it or not, I noticed all the same things you've pointed out in my previous viewings of the movie, considered them, and come to a different conclusion. So don't throw a hissy fit every time someone disagrees with you. That tune is a bit played out at this point :)

Hissy fit? Self-righteous? A reference to some unnamed past interaction between me and... who? Him? You? Cody Miller? What happened to the Star Wars conversation?! So, yeah, I replied where I should have just given my customary "Good day, Sir!" But let's look at that reply.

I start by basically making the same point here that I just made above. That bringing up someone's past in a vague way in the middle of a completely different topic of conversation was, in itself, something... A hissy fit? A long held grudge? Something like that. While you're jumping in to defend people, maybe note that I didn't take it personal first. I didn't refer to CruelLEGACEY's past out of the blue when talking about a disagreement about Star Wars. So yeah, I replied in kind. The key word being replied, because I didn't start it.

The rest of my post? I tried to explain my use of the word victor and noted that maybe a better word choices would have helped. I reiterated my point of view that Luke got shots in. Because, again, remember, I'm up against "literally nothing in that scene to suggest". And then, yes I talk about facts and opinions and how one can be wrong with their opinion. But I did so because I had taken the time go back and research the scene. I think my two bolded points are pretty good cases when faced with the "literally nothing" assertion, so I said so. As diplomatically as possible? No. But I had yet to see an ounce of diplomacy from CruelLEGACEY.

And finally, I tried to end on a more friendly note. I didn't want this to descend into all this crap. I was enjoying the conversations about the legacy and viability of Halo and about what made The Last Jedi interesting to all of us who seem to agree that it has a lot of good stuff tucked away.

The way I see it, your intervention here is based on some past grudge. You have decided to continue said grudge by ignoring what CruelLEGACEY said to me and by massively inflating the abrasiveness of my replies. I am not perfect, but I do not believe I'm anywhere near as awful as you make me out to be. You say that I am tiresome, but I get this crap from both of ya'll most times we interact. I feel like I have to be double extra careful to not have ya'll spiral into insults and weird, vague accusations about some past posts I made. You talk about me not accepting other's points of view, but at the same time mine are given literally zero consideration.

It's dragging the forum down guys. I'd love to find some better way to work past this with the both of you. What can I do to help with that? And, will I ever see some concession from either of you for your parts in all this?

Or should we just never ever reply to each other ever again?