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Punished by ottomans (Story by gjpain)

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Who knew a piece of furniture could be so cruel :meparto:
But what piece of furniture are you talking about? Is it a kind of spoil? :p
An ottoman is a kind of storage chest with a cushioned top so it serves as a seat as well as a box ;)
And it looks, moreover, a bit like an Ottoman Turk's turban.
God, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who reads the title of this thread and every time thinks, why is this comfy piece of furniture oppressing us? :D
 
I had no idea that the word "Ottoman" has other meaning :p
I hope its not that confusing after reading the first couple of pragraphs

It is not at all confusing, just a joke for the English-speakers. Your story made perfect sense, and was very easy to read. The subject of Ottomans in Europe is rarely used, have you any more stories?
 
have you any more stories?


I have some more in my hard drive but i havent finished yet...
 
Vlad Dracul is a more or less 'different' story of his personal interest in the European political theater of the 15th century.
Indeed it is a different story, I am not sure if all he did was for his personal interest, he was very cruel but his unorthodox tactics helped his country, just have in mind that he is still considered as a national hero in Romania. If everything was about his personal interest i think it would be much easier to ally with Turks rather than to fight them.
 
If everything was about his personal interest i think it would be much easier to ally with Turks rather than to fight them.
True, and it would be indeed the easied way; but he really hated them. The reason was that his father made an alliance with the Ottomans. Part of the deal was that Vlad and his brother were left with the Ottomans as 'political prisoners'. Despite the fact that Vlad received an elite training at the court of the sultan, he found the detention so humiliating that he hated the Ottomans immensely.
 
Hope this won't start a flame war to derail the thread. But as we are talking about whether or not the Ottomans were particularly fond of such a cruel practice, I suppose it might not be entirely inappropriate to share my thoughts about the matter.

As I see it, almost every culture had sufficient barbaric elements to make us cringe with disgust at one point or another. Fortunately for the mankind, now most of us from developed countries know that it's not cool to skew people with a stake (unless it happens in some odd fantasy place, of course, where more than half of its female population is named 'Barbara Moore'). But it's little to do with our being European or Christian, but more to do with how some cultures lag behind than others in their progress towards the civilized status.

And considering how most of those third world countries lagging behind have been exploited by the colonial powers, and when many still struggle with the political mess they left, I feel it rather unfair if we are to attribute such barbaric tendencies to their being the Ottomans, or being Muslims, or whatever their being different from us.

Of course, it's perfectly fine to explore such themes in a fantasy and that's why we are all here, freely discussing how exciting driving nails into people's wrists could be. But since it has almost became a cliche here that some uncivilized non-European people enslaving or torturing innocent white girl, I believe we need to be careful, at least, not to allow such fantasies creep into our judgement of real people from different culture because it can be such a fine line.
 
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most of us from developed countries know that it's not cool to skew people with a stake
We do? :rolleyes: :facepalm::devil:
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As I wrote at the very beginning everything is pure fantasy, I am sure that all the CF members are aware and nobody judges. Though the discussion above is about Vlad, we just wrote down some historical facts we have learned by the books, If someone has different opinion feel free to write it, there is no reason someone to be offended.

it has almost became a cliche here that some uncivilized non-European people enslaving or torturing innocent white girl
Well I think its not completely accurate, most of the stories are about crucifixion during Roman empire, there is a whole section of the forum dedicated to this "When in Rome: stories, poems and discussion".

 
One additional thought about culture and cruelty: What people are capable of doing depends a lot on the times in which they are living or what they might have seen during their lifetime.
One of the most interesting emperors in history was Friedrich II. von Staufen / Hohenstaufen or


During his lifetime, he was called by the Germans and other nations "Stupor Mundi", the "Astonishment of the World". In times, in which many people could hardly write their names, he liked to learn without break, speaking and writing six languages fluently, being very tolerant towards Jews and Muslims in his empire, reaching most of his goals without wars and always trying to be as perfect as possible.
But when he was a child, he probably witnessed an extremely cruel rebellion against his father's knights, escaping only by chance.
So, this was probably also the reason why he could also be extremely cruel in suppressing any rebellions against himself. The leaders of rebellions against him were not simply killed - he gave precise orders how to torture them as slow as possible to death - and everyone had to know that he was also able to terrorize, torture and kill the supporters of any rebellion against him. He was absolutely convinced that God had chosen him to be the emperor and to keep a certain order and hierarchy in the world which was the will of God for him. This went so far that there is a story about a very strong and aggressive hawk in his possession which killed an eagle by surprise in the same big cage of birds of prey in one of his castles.
Frederick II gave the order to kill the hawk because in Frederick's opinion, it was against the order of God that a hawk could kill an eagle. This was as impossible for him to be tolerated as a king who killed an emperor because this was against God's hierarchy in his opinion.
So, these were probably the best times of the Middle-Ages and the most intelligent human beings could also be the most cruel ones in their times.
 
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