I don't think most people did have a Vannay type. That kind of one to one instruction is pretty high dollar.
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meh...In the right public schools it happens. I had one... Mr. Schumann. I like would have never continued writing poetry without his constant prompting.
Cort.
It'd suck for a long time, being beaten black and blue every day and verbally degraded. But you'd come out worth more than any regular man, a true gunslinger. ..assuming you don't get sent west.
I voted for Cort as it was my gut feeling but I fear for what day to day tutelage under Cort would be like aside from the beating!!
Maybe Cort's rough coaching was to put fire in the potential gunslinger's bellies and maybe a little hatred for Cort to give them the balls to challenge him with the stakes being so high? Maybe?
How and why does that disgust you Jean?
Where is this thread?
Oh I remember now! :lol:
No, it is here.
I'd have to go with Vannay. I'd get tired of a self-aggrandizing sadist like Cort pretty quickly; being beaten for not being able to count a perfect minute with my eyes closed seems like an insane reaction to an pointless and humiliating challenge. If a dude like Cort was running around in our world, he'd probably either end up as a professional torturer for the mob, a psychotic vigilante sniping immigrants on the boarder, or a drunken Jeopardy enthusiast.
In fact, now that I think of it, I'd rather have anyone else as a teacher than Cort. What an asshole. I'm surprised it took as long as it did for somebody to poison the bastard.
This is a difficult question.
In a general sense, if I were a tabula rasa I would certainly choose Vannay, because I think brains and emotions go before muscles, fighting skills and general toughness. I myself have definitely had more Vannay-like influences in my life.
If I had to say what kind of teacher I could use right now, that would be Cort, to teach me a bit of ruthlessness (make me a corporate warrior :lol:).
I don't see him as pointlessly sadistic - tough times call for tough teachers, these boys were being trained to become fighters, so in a sense they needed to be tempered like steel. I'm not sure a wimp would make a good warrior or be able to lead by example. Yes, I'm exaggerating here - not everyone who has not been beaten up is a wuss (far from that), but that's our perception not theirs.
I couldn't disagree more. I think if Corn was running in our world he would be a martial art teacher or something similar. He would still teach children how to stand and be true. Don't misunderstand me, I wouldn't like to have him as a teacher because I am sure he would break my soul, I am not strong enough. But I think he was a good teacher for gunslingers.
I agree that he did a good job of stripping children of their humanity and reforging them into dispassionate killing machines. Besides that, he was kind of a one-trick pony.
Don't get me wrong; people like Cort have had their uses. George Patton was pretty similar in a lot of ways. But there's a pretty big difference between teaching and commanding.
I don't think that all the gunslingers turned out to be as emotionless as Roland. There was Cuthbert and Alain for example. They were taught by the same teachers and they were so different from Roland. so IMHO it wasn't Cort who made Roland the cruelness man he had been for long before he built-up his new tet. In fact it was Roland himself who created himself.
I agree with Letti and Rain. Cort and Vannay worked with that they had, and I have a strong inkling that Roland was as emotionally detached as a pre-adolescent as he was during his young adulthood/adulthood. Also, do you think that Roland would have survived the onslaught at Tull if Cort had ruffled his hair and put a band-aid every time he had a booboo ? He wasn't training bureaucrats or politicians, he was training knights meant to survive in the most dire of circumstances, able to overcome the most extreme contingencies. Cort did what was necessary to ensure that they would adapt and adapt well to any situation. Plus, Roland himself named Cort his lifes greatest teacher, that's got to count for something right ?
Typing this has made me realize that I wish we had known a great deal more about both Cort and Vannay, especially the latter.