quests u did not understand??

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knightmaredave
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quests u did not understand??

Post by knightmaredave »

Theres always been several quests on knightmare you didnt understand so who as the answers.

One of mine was that snobby team of girls in s4 team 5 i think they had to answer merlins questions but ina reverse way i never really got that??
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by HStorm »

Their mistake was in misunderstanding the concept of opposite extraction. They assumed that they would win the challenge by simply answering wrongly, when what they were supposed to do was give the correct answer to the question but with opposite parameters e.g. if Merlin asks for the name of the daughter of Uther Pendragon, they should give the name of his son, Arthur.
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by AriadnesLayer »

HStorm wrote: if Merlin asks for the name of the daughter of Uther Pendragon, they should give the name of his son, Arthur.
How would they know the opposite of daughter wasn't mother?

Basically, how would they know whether they were meant to give the right answer or the opposite answer? And whether they were meant to give it to the question asked, or the *opposite* of the question asked? And how would they know that when Merlin replied "falsehood" he didn't actually mean "truth" and vice versa.

Basically, the whole thing was a mess. It doesn't matter how simple or complicated a game is, players are always supposed to know the rules before playing!!

You have to admit it was an awful game - and we have to remember that it was CHILDREN who were playing it. No wonder this particular challenge was never used again.
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Gizensha »

Ariadne's Layer wrote:
HStorm wrote: if Merlin asks for the name of the daughter of Uther Pendragon, they should give the name of his son, Arthur.
How would they know the opposite of daughter wasn't mother?

Basically, how would they know whether they were meant to give the right answer or the opposite answer? And whether they were meant to give it to the question asked, or the *opposite* of the question asked? And how would they know that when Merlin replied "falsehood" he didn't actually mean "truth" and vice versa.

Basically, the whole thing was a mess. It doesn't matter how simple or complicated a game is, players are always supposed to know the rules before playing!!
You have obviously never played either Mao or Paranoia :p
You have to admit it was an awful game - and we have to remember that it was CHILDREN who were playing it. No wonder this particular challenge was never used again.
Why not treat the intelligence of children with the respect they deserve? Besides, all the other challenges in Knightmare would have been tricky for adults, why not this one?

More seriously, the problem lies with the concept of 'opposites,' not with the challenge, per-se. Adjectives (such as hot, cold, tall, small) have opposites, nouns (such as table, chair, sock, shoe, mother, daughter) very rarely have obvious opposites.

...Although I'd say that if you want to be pedantic and treat it as an adjective, the opposite of daughter is father.

The rules ("Someone asks a question in opposites, answer the questions") were, iirc, established beforehand. The fact that with some things opposites are... Peculiar conceptually... Isn't the same problem as the one you suggest it is.

(Basically, the problem with opposites when not applied to adjectives such as taller/shorter hottest/shortest', and large/small or concepts such as on/off and inside/outside is the same as the problem with odd one out - depending on how you look at things determines the opposite of something, just as depending on how you group things determins which is the odd one out)
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by HStorm »

Ariadne's Layer wrote:You have to admit it was an awful game
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I wasn't really commenting on its merits or lack thereof, I was just explaining where the team went wrong. Thinking about it, I'd say it was a concept that probably worked better in the instigator's head than it did on the screen. It would have been interesting to know what the late John Woodnutt thought of it, but we'll probably never know now.

For what it's worth, I also found the rules very difficult to interpret correctly at the time, but one thing that was clear to me was that a random, completely irrelevant answer was not the way to go about it.
Gizensha wrote:nouns (such as table, chair, sock, shoe, mother, daughter) very rarely have obvious opposites.
I would certainly agree that there's a really major problem of arbitrary viewpoints, which brings the puzzle down a long way. For instance, I don't happen to think that the opposite of, say, mother is daughter, or that the opposite of father is son. But many people do because they are at opposite ends of a relationship. The problem for me is that daughter and son can be exchanged in each case and the same opposite relationship remains, and neither version is more valid than the other.

The problem doesn't really occur here though, because I know of no version of the Arthurian legend where Uther Pendragon had a daughter. (Definitely not Morgana le Fay; she was only Arthur's half-sister, as she was the daughter of Duke Galois, not of Uther.)

In the case of what happens on the screen, the opposite of son is seen as daughter. Again, that's not how I'd look at it, but I can see why some people would. However, a measure of common sense can be applied to it. Uther Pendragon's father was supposedly King Constantine II, but would anyone who hasn't even finished their GCSEs/Standard Grades know that? Not likely, so the riddle likely doesn't apply to him.

Even so, it's still too arbitrary, therefore too ambiguous.

Here's an interesting exercise actually. I'll give a list of nouns. Think about what their opposites would be, and see how many you can come up with for each one. I'll wait for a few answers, and then I'll post the ones I've thought of. (Remember, these are all nouns.)

Man
Fire
Light
Trousers
DVD
Child
Anger
Rule
Last edited by HStorm on 22 Jun 2008, 08:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Eyeshield »

This might be interesting...

Man - Woman/God
Fire - Water
Light - Dark
Trousers - Skirt
DVD - Video
Child - Adult
Anger - Calm/Benevolence/Satisfaction
Rule - Democracy/Anarchy
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by HStorm »

Some interesting ones in there. Not too sure about Democracy being an opposite of Rule. It literally translates as "People rule".
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Gizensha »

HStorm wrote:Uther Pendragon's father was supposedly King Constantine II, but would anyone who hasn't even finished their GCSEs/Standard Grades know that? Not likely, so the riddle likely doesn't apply to him.
...I didn't do Arthurian legend for GCSE English Lit. If you ask me to compare Examination Day to A Modest Proposal I might stand a chance, however. (We only spotted the 'killing kids' pattern when she decided to make Lord of the Flies the exam book we did. At which point we started to get slightly nervous.)

Anyway - On with the exercise.

Man - Woman/God/Beast/Mineral/Vegetable
Fire - Earth/Water/Ice/Vacuum/De-oxidisation
Light - Dark/Night/Cold [...The last one would be the Christian upbringing, probably]
Trousers - Skirt/Shorts/Kilt/Naked
DVD - Video/Live Production/Movie Screening
Child - Adult
Anger - *shudders in memory of his dissertation*... Err... Anyway Calm/Gentle/Love/Pleasant/Fun
Rule - Anarchy/Chaos/Cheat/Tape Measure [...As in meter rule]/Arbitrary/Subject
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by HStorm »

These are the ones I thought of...

Man   -   Animal, Beast, Boy, Demon, Girl, God, Woman
Fire   -   Ice, Water
Light   -   Darkness, Shade
Trousers   -   Dress, Hat, Kilt, Shirt, Shorts, Skirt
DVD   -   Cassette, CD, VHS, Videotape
Child   -   Adult, Pensioner
Anger   -   Bliss, Calm, Pleasure
Rule   -   Anarchy, Capitulation, Obedience, Subjection, Submission

Doubtless there are plenty of other possible answers too, and despite the, at times enormous, variation in meanings, none of the answers should be seen as definitely right or wrong. Which is kind of the point really.
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Helvellyn »

Man - Woman (the only alternative that stands up to any scrutiny IMO)
Fire - Douse (admittedly this is stretching it, treating fire as a verb)
Light - Heavy
Trousers - Hat (rather feeble there)
DVD - Live performance (VHS etc. are alternatives, not opposites)
Child - Adult
Anger - Calm
Rule - Disorder

I agree with the opinion that it's a flawed concept, because few things have real opposites.
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by sozboz »

Fire - Ice
Light - Heavy or Darkness
Trousers - skirt/kilt/toga! toga! toga!
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by HStorm »

Helvellyn wrote: Man - Woman (the only alternative that stands up to any scrutiny IMO)
Only if you assume that it is referring to a representative of the male half of the human race, and not the alternative name of the race as a whole.
Fire - Douse (admittedly this is stretching it, treating fire as a verb)
Has to be a noun only.

sozboz wrote:Light - Heavy
Again, has to be a noun.
DVD - Knightmare
LOL, very good!
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Helvellyn »

HStorm wrote:
Helvellyn wrote: Man - Woman (the only alternative that stands up to any scrutiny IMO)
Only if you assume that it is referring to a representative of the male half of the human race, and not the alternative name of the race as a whole.
Then there isn't one. All other suggestions simply come under "something else", not opposites, and make no more sense than saying "turkey" is the opposite of "wombat" (although I admit that this runs the risk of becoming dangerously philiosphical and off-topic).
Fire - Douse (admittedly this is stretching it, treating fire as a verb)
Has to be a noun only.
OK, I'll try Fire - Extinguisher

And for light, how about shroud (or should it be shrud :-) )
Last edited by Helvellyn on 28 Jun 2008, 13:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Fidjit »

In my point of view, daughter should have been son, brother and sister if that is quite clearly put? :)

In all honesty I couldn't stand this bunch, they screamed and were so badly organised. As for pleading their innocence to Gundrada was rather pathetic. Nope, this team gets a thumbs down from me...

Quite a few quests were not understandable, methinks that was a filler that Tim Child plucked off the street! LOL ;D

The final series was ultimately the most confusing of all. Why was it there? I think that this was Knightmares' funeral, ten episodes, a shortcut! This was (IMO) the worst series coupled with Series Five (Because the fifth dragged so slowly)
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Re:quests u did not understand??

Post by Mystara »

I have to say that I hated that quest from the moment I saw it.
As you point out, there are several opposites for each noun. But the problem is so much harder than that....

I can't remember the exact instructions, but wasn't it something like "If you don't answer 2 or more of my questions correctly, I won't give you any assistance at all".

So we start with a double negative. They then have to determine whether that entire statement is an opposite (triple negative) (ie. do they have to do the opposite of those instructions?) then they might have to negate/change the nounds (4 negatives) and so on. It's not clear exactly what has to be done.

Even after that, Merlin's response is useless. "Falsehood!". Is that because the answer was wrong (as you were meant to do) or that it was correct (which was the wrong thing to do) or that it was genuinely false, or.....

Too many negatives, not clear enough.
I did find Treguard hilarious though.
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