Poe: Lord of the Dance

As noted in the comments to the last post, there has been a bit more chatter discovered at ASVS, of all places . . . a locale I've long thought dead as far as Vs. Debating went. I'll be making a general response to the various claims found there. None of it is any more impressive than the other online responses . . . more "intrude" nonsense, anti-contextual wordplay, claims of Lucas Licensing going rogue, and so on.

But what I've been highly amused by has been Poe. He's been one of the most vocal opponents of the Starlog quote, which granted isn't saying much this time out.

As noted in earlier posts, he originally claimed that the Galvaron rendition of the quote was production based, a claim that wasn't really supportable. And, now that the full Starlog quote has appeared, the claim makes no sense at all.

Which, I imagine, is why Poe has avoided the full quote like the plague.

His first post-Starlog response was to simply post a number of non-Lucas quotes . . . one was hearsay, another a previously-quoted Chee statement, a couple of attempts to support the Creator Involvement Thesis, and so on. In short, nothing substantial.

Then, he updated his website with a heavily-edited version of the ASVS thread from June 2002 . . . three and a half years ago . . . where I directly questioned the ASVS use of the EU for the first time.

Actually I have to thank Wayne . . . it's rather pleasant to see that I was on the right track back then, even though that was a month before the "parallel universe" quote and some time before I knew of the 2001 TV Guide quote. It's like looking at the first seeds of what was to become the new canon page.

In any case, Wayne claims that since he feels my position at the time was "ripped [...] to shreds", that my current argument is likewise dashed. Given the seed analogy, I suppose he would also feel that by beating up newborns, he can claim to have "kicked the butts of 20 year old men" a couple of decades later. (I'm also amused at how he edited the posts to make me appear to be the aggressor in regards to ASVS-standard personal attack tactics. So many dishonest people are willing to slack off and just do things halfway, but Poe gives dishonesty that extra personal touch that is the mark of quality.)

But I digress . . . Poe's exhaustive quotation and editing of a three and a half year old argument is amusing on many levels, but basically is bordering on a straw man. Indeed, by claiming that he and his won three years ago and hence my new canon page and the Starlog quote are defeated, that's pretty much exactly what it is.

And so, feeling that this was a successful maneuver, Poe repeated it. Poe's third post-Starlog response involves denying the "easy victory", quoting the incomplete Galvaron rendition of the Starlog quote to the SD.Net denizens, making his production claim again, and then quoting a post by "Lord Edam" at ASVS against "Mike4ty4", who had shared the Galvaron rendition with them. Poe, automatically declaring Edam's EU Completist position victorious in that thread, thus claims that my position about the quote is wrong.

Thus we end up with two straw men. First, Wayne is unable or unwilling to respond to the full Starlog quote. Second, he is unable or unwilling to respond to me. And thus, he takes the watered-down quote and (... if Mike4ty4 will forgive me ...) watered-down argument and declares victory with those, and thus victory against the full quote and a complete argument thereon.

It's people like Poe (and web boards like SD.Net) that make you really stop and question democracy. Deviousness and idiocy are far too commonplace for comfort.

Ah, well . . . it's the best we've got. But, at least reality is not subject to a popular vote . . . much to SD.Net's chagrin and dismay.