Talk:Castle Britannia

Castle Britannia or Lord British's Castle ?

Okay I am kind of wondering about this becaues I am replaying the whole series right now. But is Lord British's Castle *ever* called "Castle Britannia" at any point in the core series? So far up to Ultima V, the Castle is always referenced as "Lord British's Castle" and now that I think of it, I am pretty sure that it was referenced as such throuhought the whole series, and that the name "Castle Britannia" only came with Ultima Online. I'm not 100% sure about that, hence my question - but if that's the case wouldn't it be more proper to name the article Lord British's Castle instead of "Castle Britannia" (I like the "Castle Britannia" term, but if it's only a UO reference its canonicity is questionnable) --77.192.70.22 10:08, August 29, 2010 (UTC)

I've just checked all the manuals and dialogue transcripts. It almost looked like your suspicion was going to turn out to be correct, but I did find mention of Castle Britannia a couple of times in U4 and once in U6. Still, it's surprising how little it's actually referred to by that name. --Terilem 10:57, August 29, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the name of the castle is Castle Britannia as first established in U4. However, Castle Britannia is of course... Lord British's Castle. :P --Warder Dragon 11:22, August 29, 2010 (UTC)

Infinity / Earlier Ultimas

Two things: 1. Where is it said that Castle Britannia is the symbol of Infinity in Britannia? I haven't been able to find any references for it. 2. Likewise, I'm not sure about LB's castle in some of the earlier Ultimas - or at least not in Ultima 2 - being the same keep as Castle Britannia. We're talking about a different planet there!

--Warder Dragon (talk) 05:05, 2 April 2013 (PDT)

2. In general it's a good idea to take a moment to consider the possibility that two things w/the same name in different games aren't the same thing. The example Warder gives a good one, but then again, the castle could have been moved brick-by-brick (or considering British's outrageous magical skill, castle-by-castle) back to Britannia. It could also be said that all instances of the castle are spiritually the same, if not physically. Is there a particular passage that implies they are physically the same castle? The Ultra-Mind (talk) 06:54, 2 April 2013 (PDT)

I think we can safely assume that from Ultima IV onwards, it is the same castle (and we can refer to this one as Castle Britannia, as it is first called by that name in Ultima IV). So the questions is whether the castles in Ultima I, II, III and IV are the same. First, the article doesn't really claim that all of these castles are the same; it states that between Ultima III and IV, "Whether the old castle was destroyed by these events and rebuilt, or stood strong against the twisting geography has been lost to history". This is a clear implication to me that the article is talking about the castle(s) that has belonged Lord British, rather to a particular physical version of the castle. That said, Ultima IV's manual seems to imply that the castle in that game was a new castle. It states: "[Lord British's castle] is the greatest architectural structure of the new age." Which to me means it was a new physical castle.

Now, on a similar line to this one, I think this article maybe should be renamed to the Castle of Lord British. If it is going to talk about the castle(s) of Lord British, regardless on whether they are the same or not (and I think we can't find out if each castle in Ultima I, II and III are the same), it would make more sense for it to have this name. Besides, the castle is almost always refered to as Castle of Lord British (most prominently on the manuals of Ultima IV, V, VI and VII), or more colloquially as Lord British's castle. It is only called Castle Britannia by two jesters in Ultima IV, one character in Ultima VI, and the cluebook of Ultima V. I don't say we should remove every mention of the term Castle Britannia from the article, but it just doesn't seem to be the most popular name. Besides, it has only been (sparsely) called Castle Britania since Ultima IV, most likely because it wasn't called that way before Britannia was formed. So even if this was the same castle as the ones in previous Ultimas (and I think it is not), it most likely didn't have the name "Castle Britannia" back then.

I think all of this may be enough to rename the article to the Castle of Lord British, clear up part of the article to indicate that the continuity of the castle in the first three games is not clear, and mention that it has been sparsely called Castle Britannia from Ultima IV onwards.

Oh, and as an added bonus, it is called Castle British consistently through Ultima Underworld II.... --Sega381 (talk) 19:12, 3 April 2013 (PDT)

I think it's important not to forget there's also the "Entering Castle Britannia" message that pops up when you enter in U4 and U5. --Terilem (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2013 (PDT)

My bad, the message says Castle Britannia in U4 and Castle of Lord British in U5. --Terilem (talk) 19:42, 3 April 2013 (PDT)

Well, the name of the castle is quite clearly Castle Britannia in U4. However, the name of the article could be changed if we want to include every castle LB has inhabited. Furthermore, the article does suggest that the U2 castle is the same castle as the one in Sosaria: "Due to either temporal meddling of the sorceress Minax or due to the king's own attempts to impact events on the planet, however, Castle Britannia somehow existed in multiple time-zones on Earth, and was present in both Earth (1423 B.C.) and in Earth (1990 A.D.).". I think that sentence definitely needs correction, as it is based on unnecessary speculation, unless I've missed something. --Warder, not logged in

So Terilem did a great work cleaning up the confusions inside the article. Should we then go on and rename the article to the Castle of Lord British? This would require some adjustments in the article as well. Another, maybe simpler option is to decide this article is going to be about Castle Britannia (which is kinda the way it is right now), and make it a bit clearer in the text than in Ultima I, II and III, there were castles that were just precursors of Castle Britannia. This may be easier than changing the focus of the article and potentially some articles that link here as well.--Sega381 (talk) 09:50, 4 April 2013 (PDT)

I just made a few changes to the article trying to follow the second option I mentioned above. Feel free to disagree/undo/propose other ideas if you want to.--Sega381 (talk) 10:08, 4 April 2013 (PDT)

It looks much better now, thanks guys. There's still the matter of Infinity, though - I haven't been able to find a reference for it. Anyone else have any luck? --Warder Dragon (talk) 23:49, 4 April 2013 (PDT)

I've removed the part about Infinity for the time being. I don't recall ever seeing anything connecting the two. The only possible explanation I can think of is that Infinity is the unifying Britannian axiom, and Castle Britannia is representative of the realm, therefore Infinity = Castle Britannia. I think that is incredibly tenuous, though, and certainly disagree with it being authoritatively stated here. --Terilem (talk) 05:15, 5 April 2013 (PDT)