Main Menu

Lolotte's Secret

Started by writerlove, August 06, 2012, 12:29:09 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

writerlove

Straight off the press! Lolotte explores her troubled past and find out the answer to the Sphinx's first riddle! Can you solve the second one? Place comments about what you think is the answer below!

http://www.postudios.com/fourwinds/?p=1170
"Love can't be banished, even from this place. ... still less can it be banished from my heart."
"ENOUGH! Burden me not with thy poetry."-KQ6

drusain

I absolutely love the Sphinx drawing in this one. It's such a beautiful design but you can really tell from it that even if you were a Black Cloak, it's really something you just don't mess with. It really looks like something that will murder you if you don't play by its rules.

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

KatieHal

Love the sphinx! And that we get to see the next riddle before the answer....anyone got any guesses on the answer to this one?

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

snabbott

Quote from: KatieHal on August 06, 2012, 01:37:48 PM
And that we get to see the next riddle before the answer...
???

I don't follow how the answer satisfies a couple of parts of the riddle:
[spoiler]
But my existence is a contradiction.

and

For when you have believed to have known me, I already no longer exist.
[/spoiler]

Steve Abbott | Beta Tester | The Silver Lining

drusain

[spoiler]The intent for both of those lines was to show that the answer was something that couldn't exist, even if people claimed for it to be so.

For someone to say that there is something is perfect contradicts the fact that it can't be perfect. Someone can claim that something (like a peddler's wares or king's plans)  is 'perfect' but there's nothing universally considered perfect in the world, so it can't be perfect. So saying something is perfect must then be a contradiction.

The same strand of logic is in the second line you brought up. If someone believes that something is perfect, then it can't be perfect. If someone considered something perfect, then it's already something that isn't so.

When I wrote this, though, I had a few synonyms in mind, and one of them was perfection = impossible, and maybe not everyone agrees that they are synonyms.

I tried to make this riddle really perplexing because I was thinking "well I have to make this really difficult and abstract because if there's one audience that can solve a riddle, it's questers. So if it's really easy, they'll figure it out way too soon before the next article is written." I thought people would interact on here and try and figure it out though and they didn't, so I shouldn't have expected it. The coming ones will be less complicated I think, including the second riddle I left in this article.[/spoiler]


Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

snabbott

Quote from: drusain on August 07, 2012, 10:11:24 AM
[spoiler]The intent for both of those lines was to show that the answer was something that couldn't exist, even if people claimed for it to be so.

For someone to say that there is something is perfect contradicts the fact that it can't be perfect. Someone can claim that something (like a peddler's wares or king's plans)  is 'perfect' but there's nothing universally considered perfect in the world, so it can't be perfect. So saying something is perfect must then be a contradiction.

The same strand of logic is in the second line you brought up. If someone believes that something is perfect, then it can't be perfect. If someone considered something perfect, then it's already something that isn't so.

When I wrote this, though, I had a few synonyms in mind, and one of them was perfection = impossible, and maybe not everyone agrees that they are synonyms.

I tried to make this riddle really perplexing because I was thinking "well I have to make this really difficult and abstract because if there's one audience that can solve a riddle, it's questers. So if it's really easy, they'll figure it out way too soon before the next article is written." I thought people would interact on here and try and figure it out though and they didn't, so I shouldn't have expected it. The coming ones will be less complicated I think, including the second riddle I left in this article.[/spoiler]



Interesting. I see where you're coming from, but what threw me off was:
[spoiler]
The second line I mentioned:
     For when you have believed to have known me, I already no longer exist.
seems to imply that the thing did exist until you believed you knew it - that your belief somehow caused it to cease to exist.

To me, "existence is a contradiction" implied a paradox, which let me to think of "nothing" - but that didn't fit the rest.
[/spoiler]
Anyway, I don't mean to be so critical - I was just trying to understand. I'm enjoying the stories and the challenge of the riddles!

I didn't realize public speculation on the answers was encouraged.

QuoteI am what something that once was.
Though I am the color of silver, I am nothing precious
For I embody the cold material of death.
I burn and I glow, like the embers in a flame
And once my light dims, I will return back into the earth.
What am I?
Is there an extra word in the first sentence? Or something missing?

Solidified lava (e.g. obsidian) is what comes to mind - but I don't know about the "silver" part.

Steve Abbott | Beta Tester | The Silver Lining

drusain

Whoops that first "what" shouldn't be there. Having a typo in a riddle kinda sucks. I'll get that fixed asap

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham