Quasadu

Linda Hamilton comes to mind.

Edit to clarify: I mean as an example of a woman who bulked up for a role, not as someone who should play WW today, obviously.

As I recall (and it's been a while, so I could be off) the whole point of the Dark Avengers was that they wanted to appear to be the good guys, so they took on the personas of the real Avengers. Norman Osborne took on two personas at once - Iron Man and Captain America - as the Iron Patriot. It was kind of a way of bringing together the two sides of the Civil War by merging the opposing leaders of that conflict.

That's potentially true, it just depends on how it is handled in the story. For all we know, the Iron Patriot thing could only happen in the last ten minutes of the movie and Steve and the general public never have enough time to form an opinion about it before Tony smacks him down. Or maybe Steve's 'out of town' for the whole movie and while there's a huge public reaction, that is resolved by the end of the film so that the public knows that it was just some ****** trying to capitalize on the image and wasn't really Cap. Or maybe it DOES have spillover into the next Cap movie. We just don't know.

I don't think you have to get into the nitty gritty. The world knows that a hero going by the name Captain America and dressed like the Captain America of WWII is out there and that he helped save the world along with Iron Man. That is all that needs to be understood to know that combining the imagery of Iron Man and Captain America in one person is going to instantly draw a particular kind of positive reaction from the public.

Does the world need to know that it's Steve Rogers, though? Does that matter? They know it's Captain America, whether they know it's the same guy from 1944 or not. The waitress says, "Captain America saved my life."

It was addressed at the end of the Avengers - it was all over the news.

Considering that in the comics, that was exactly the point, I would assume that it's also the point in the movie.

This.

MODUCK for the win.

Yeah. The "he's adopted" line wasn't mean to imply "...and that's why he's evil." It was meant to imply "... so he's not REALLY my brother." It was Thor's way of backing out of defending the guy.

Uh, no. That's his father.

There is a line in the beginning of Iron Man where he tells the reporter, "My father fought the Nazi's and helped develop the atom bomb."

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=288343

I wasn't trying to imply you were changing your position, just that it wasn't clear what the core of your complaint was. Certainly some of that is on me, as the reader. But like Chyll said, I get what you're saying, I just don't find it to be worth a second thought. And that's not for lack of understanding of historical events, it's just that I don't see that as relevant. In the end, of course, it's all subjective.

Also I want to mention, I realize I can be a little overly argumentative in these kind of debates, but I didn't intend any ill will... I just find these kinds of discussions fun.

Extrapolate from that as you will...

If THAT is your problem (which is again, not what you have been saying all along) then your complaints about the Wall are in the wrong direction.

Because yes, you have to hand wave the idea that the people of Westeros have not had any real cultural or technological advancement for thousands of years, at least until such time as a real reason is given. I have no problem with that.

But you do NOT have to hand wave to accept the idea that the Others have had no advancement, or the giants, or the snarks and grumpkins, because you can't apply human nature to things that aren't human. Might as well ask why dolphins have not made cultural and technological advancements the way humans have. You have no idea what the Others are, so you have no idea if they would have made advancements in culture or technology.

So your complaint about the Wall shouldn't be "how does it work" so much as "why isn't the land north of the Wall tamed and the Others eradicated altogether?"

Because even if the people of Westeros only advanced half as fast as the people of Earth did, they'd be way past us, while the Others might still be exactly the same as they ever were.

I don't find that a valid comparison at all, for many reasons, but like MM said, you've dug in, so I'll just stop.

Once again you are ignoring the part about how it's not protecting against an invading army that uses technology. It is protecting against magical snarks and grumpkins. And also, Hadrian's Wall wasn't 700 feet high, 300 miles long, and over 30 feet thick, made of sheer ice, and topped off with magical "thou shalt not pass" spells.

And finally, we're NOT supposed to believe that the Wall is a permanent solution. We're supposed to believe that the people who built the thing wanted it to help protect them - whether they expected it to work forever and ever doesn't matter - they built it and created the Watch to protect them. Just like the Romans did. The fact that these guys made it work for a long time when the Romans couldn't is entirely dependent on the previously-mentioned different circumstances which you're just not willing to acknowledge as significant.

I agree that 8000 years is a bit much to ask. But that aside, the idea that the Wall has EVER been an effective deterrent has been entirely dependent on the Night's Watch, and on the nature of the things it is protecting against. Ignoring those aspects of the story is not giving fair consideration to the concept. To recap some of the reasons why it's not such a stretch that the Wall serves a valid purpose (aside from the length of time being what it is):

Regarding Wildlings:
1 - It's not meant to keep out wildlings.
2 - Wildlings don't really care about crossing the Wall anyway.
3 - Wildlings have never ever been organized enough on a whole to get past the Wall and the Watch, except in small numbers (which they do from time to time), even if they DID care.

Regarding Snarks and Grumpkins:
1. The Wall is magical. That helps with the snarks and grumpkins.
2. The snarks and grumpkins rely on winter. The Night's Watch knows this. "Winter is Coming" isn't just a cool catch phrase. Preparation matters.
3. The Night's Watch knows other things - or they once did - which I can't expand on without getting spoilery. They also had some help in the past, which I also cannot expand on.
4. The snarks and grumpkins haven't been seen for a long, long time. That is why the Night's Watch isn't ready to fight them now.They've forgotten, and they've dwindled. In the past, they were ready, and they did know how to fight them, and they did a darn good job of it. But it was never easy, and the Wall never did it all by itself.

With those things in mind, I think it's not that hard to buy the idea that the Wall and the Night's Watch have been, in the past, an effective barrier against the snarks and grumpkins. Again, the 8000 years part might be a little hard to swallow, but the general concept works.

Edit: Your complaint that you have to take for granted that the wall works is really missing the point. What you're expected to believe isn't that the Wall works, it's that the Night's Watch works - or more accurately, that the Night's Watch ONCE worked. And the Wall helps.

But that's not what you've been saying all along. What you started out saying was that you did not like having to suspend disbelief that the Wall was effective at preventing an invasion, or that the people of the seven kingdoms expected it to be effective.

As to this new point, I will just agree with MentalMaden and say don't try too hard to anticipate Martin, because he might just surprise you.