ZOMBIE FORUMS

Did Ian and Sarine ever spend much time together? I thought that the only time they ever saw each other was when he was trying to fireball her.

Sarine also got to see Ian while he was busy blowing up Saus, though I don't think Ian noticed her in particular at the time.

One of the future challenges is going to be getting Ian to not immediately assume that Sarine is there to exterminate him.

That is, of course, assuming that she *actually isn't*.

For all we know, she may want to.. or as she see's it, she may *have* to.

When I was young and carried a mean sword, I'd occasionally beat my instructor. It's talent not knowledge that carries the day. The instructor has wisdom, but sometimes that's not enough. Never underestimate your pupils - they may have been peeking ahead, or gotten a better instructor. Or they maybe just plain better.

Before I forget again, I need to mention that I love the second panel on the April 23 update. Just Sarine-geeking, I guess. The art during the whole Sarine / Sara confrontation has been really well done.



Anyway, talent and knowledge both matter. To claim that either is superior in combat or any other competetive physical endeavor misses the point entirely.

Whether she does or not, the question is, will she be able to? And does she know it?

She's killed Errants before.

Errants have been shown to possess some pretty insane power levels.

It's possible that she personally has, or has spoken extensively with those who have, taken out Errants displaying massive amounts of destrustive power.

That can be expanded to any endeavor, such as art or anything creative. One must have the practiced skills as well as the talent in order to do well. The absence of either one results in nothing better than mediocrity. The ranks of musicians is filled with those that have the practiced skills and are good technicians but are deficient in talent, something an audience can immediately see on stage. In programming, it is less obvious but still a requirement.

However, of the two, absence of talent is the most severly felt. Without the talent, all the training in the world will not help improve things. With the talent and minimal training one can be a Picasso or a Dali. Whereas the wrong training will ruin a budding talent. I am sure that Poe can relate to that.

Yes, the latest artwork is awesome!

She's killed Errants before. Has she ever killed a god? Because that's the kind of power Ian is throwing around. He can temporarily suspend the existence of a physical object (or even just a part of one). He can rewrite people's life-patterns. He can create living flesh from dust. He can do pretty much anything he can think of for a few seconds, and after he's done it once, the next time he can do it for hours. And he knew how to fight-- well enough to outfight at least one Elvish soldier-- even before he got supercharged.

As I was saying.. even if she doesn't want to, she may have to.

Life's a bitch.

Knowledge matters 100% in spelling. But a physical sport? Umm, I knew the right end to carry a sword and all the basic moves. I practised sixte, carte, octave, septime, prime, seconde until I was blue in the face. But man, was I fast and that gave me an edge until I came against better practised and more talented opponents. Knowledge cannot arm you for that sneaky seemingly almost impossible move which the supremely talented can pull out their arse at will. Anyone who claims o'wise hasn't indulged in competitive sports.

personally living a thousand years or more makes me think that weather or not sarah is well trained, she obviously has little battle experience compared to sarine and far less time to train. time magic or not, sarine is more prepared. at least it will be a good fight.

Not a fireball. He pushed Jon out of the way with a telekinetic shove, then they hit the wall shielding Sarine with a full-strenght telekinetic blast. It took out the wall, door, and doorframe, caught Sarine squarely in the chest armor, and slammed her halfway through the wall on the other side of the hallway. I tend to think that much-maligned armor might have saved her life. If he'd struck her unarmored head he'd have smashed it like someone sledgehammering a hairy pumpkin.

And I forgot: luck. You gotta be lucky. If you ain't got luck, you might as well not step on the piste.

I'm hoping that Sarine will stumble and Sarah slip in quick ... could happen It'd be like a non-league side beating Liverpool in the quarter-finals. Maybe Poe tossed a dice for the outcome ...

You have very odd definitions of "talent" and "knowledge". You yourself admit that a better practiced opponent was able to overcome your speed. That is knowledge overcoming talent; training overcoming innate physical abilities.

Her armor is much-maligned?

More like mal-aligned, after that blast.

Seriously, even Sarine spoke ill of it when she decided to stop wearing it. For stealth, it misses the point and against gunslingers and Ensigerum, it might as well not be there. So, why carry around the weight? An armor accused of not being worth its weight is severely maligned indeed.

You have a strange way of reading my posts - although maybe that's deliberate. You elide the "and more talented". Practice makes the talented better, but, all things being equal, talent (and a slew of other things) will win out. You watch two evenly matched players, and the one who's got "it" on the day will win. It's not a rational thing. What happens out there can happen for no apparent reason. A combination of talent, luck and grit can win, particularly amongst players who are roughly equal. Even if they're not, all the knowledge in the world ain't going to beat someone who's two to three levels faster, fitter, more agile, who has "it".

I hope Sara thrashes Sarine's arse.

Forlorn hope, that is. Sarine is an Elf. Aside from being longer lived (we'll get back to that), Elves are stronger and faster than humans. They are not so by a minor increment, rather they are substantially stronger and faster. They can also channel orders of magnitude more magical energy than the best human mage.

In opposition, Sara is pure human. Yes, she had an edge in her use of time magic. However, that was mainly an edge of surprise which is now lost. I suspect that Sarine can probably do similar but it may have side-effects that disturb elves and that's why she doesn't use it. That does not mean that Elves haven't developed a counter to it, in the past three millenia, once they know to expect it. As an off-hand example, simply putting up well chosen tactical wards will even things up immensly.

However, where we can see your argument vis-a-vis talent, is with Jon, when he simultaneously saved Sarine's bacon and captured Sara. Sara has yet to show that level of talent. She's not up to her brother's talent, why she was captured by Jon. Compared to Sara, Jon's in a whole other league. Even without time magic, he kicks-ass. Yes, he has "it", whereas Sara does not, as much. Note that even Jon cannot get the drop on Sarine.

Note that Sarine has "it", she's an Elf, and she's had three thousand years to perfect her skill, as well as surviving the Errant War on the side of the half-elves. This means that she has survived against huge odds. Given no nasty surprises, like time magic, she's gonna pwn Sara.