Large and in charge: anyone notice how big captain sawyer was? he looked a good bit bigger than any of the lieutenants even in old age and the actor portraying him was more then 4 inches taller than hornblower at 6ft2 (which is enormous for a man of that era in depiction)
Removed Values Dissonance because the first two bullets contained too much misinformation and total bullshit.
I'll put what I added there here.
- However, the press was legally limited to sailors of homebound Britsh merchant ships, and only in wartime (merchant sailors would know their craft, unlike landsmen, and, being the only ones actually affected by the press, considered it an ocupational hazard). Outbound ships, foreign citizens, East Indiamen and colliers were legally exempt from the press (the last two due to Company influence and the coal typically ending up in the homes of Members of Parliment), as were tradesmen, such as blacksmiths, who wouldn't know anything about sailing and would therefore be useless for the several months it would take to train them. Any officer who brought a farmer or blacksmith aboard was in serious trouble.
The modern idea of press gangs is more or less flat out wrong, as there are only two known instinces of press gangs, both of which resulted in the officers responsible being severely reprimanded and likely passed over for promotion for the remainder of their careers.
Nobody hated the press more than the Admiralty, who wanted nothing more than to do away with the practise were it not for the problems with manning the fleet during wartime. Life in the Royal Navy was also better than merchant ships, as pay may be in arrears and be slightly lower but it was always guarenteed while sailing masters of merchantmen were not above stiffing their crews entirely, crews were larger which meant greater distribution of labour and less work for individual sailors, and treatment was, on average, much better (merchant captains didn't have a higher authority to answer to, and, unlike the Royal Navy, crews couldn't complain about bad treatment).
- However, the press was legally limited to sailors of homebound Britsh merchant ships, and only in wartime (merchant sailors would know their craft, unlike landsmen, and, being the only ones actually affected by the press, considered it an ocupational hazard). Outbound ships, foreign citizens, East Indiamen and colliers were legally exempt from the press (the last two due to Company influence and the coal typically ending up in the homes of Members of Parliment), as were tradesmen, such as blacksmiths, who wouldn't know anything about sailing and would therefore be useless for the several months it would take to train them. Any officer who brought a farmer or blacksmith aboard was in serious trouble.
Please do the research first before writing about a topic.
Edited by maxwellsilver Hide / Show Replies
It looks like the stuff about the pressgang (and inaccuracies thereof) is in the main article, which is fine, but what about the racism and general prejudice against anyone not British? Hornblower does use the n-word in Ship of the Line (yelling at his crew for acting like "a bunch of Portugese n——-s" and specifically orders his lieutenants to only press white sailors.
I don't think it's "total bullshit" to point out that characters are blatantly racist in the books. I'm also not sure if it goes under Values Dissonance or Deliberate Values Dissonance, because the books are set in blatantly racist times, but they were also written in a time where blatant racism was still socially acceptable.
Moved from the article:
Narm:
It would be nice if this example contained some specific context and what moments are Narm-like or why is that (the actor's portrayl? his storyline? some of his dialogue?). General examples like this are discouraged. I was engaged in some fan discussions and never noticed this reception of the character anywhere. (Though that doesn't mean it doesn't exist as Audience Reaction.)
Edited by XFllo