[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Itse

I'm in.

As expected, commentary on the categories:

Monarch
Politician
Warlord
Commander
Soldier

I have trouble setting those categories apart. I assumen you mean "commander" in the military sense, and that "soldier" means a fighter but NOT a commander, but warlord?

That seems too arbitrary, basicly just about any historical commander could also be a warlord and vice versa? I wouldn't want to go into definitions of formal armies as a separating factor, 'cause that can get messy.

My thought is that a warlord is akin to a military dictator: both military and civil control over a nation or region, while a commander is simply responsible for military. The distinction is pretty clear in my mind, but maybe it's not that significant a distinction. I don't mind seeing them combined.

How about Outlaw and Rebel as a categories? Some marvelous historical people there.

I don't see why mercenary and soldier need to be separate really.

Outlaw was sort of what I was going for in the mercenary/vigilante category, but that word never occured to me. And I don't mind rebel as a category.

Also wouldn't Scientist/Inventor be essentially the same thing, the difference being mostly formal/nonformal, which is again tricky when you go across history and different cultures.

I see the difference as being that the inventor is known for producing tangible things, while the scientist is responsible for adding to human knowledge. Yeah, there's definitely some overlap, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, and there are just so many interesting figures in the two realms that it can definitely fill two categories.

Artist propably means visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, so forth), since you separated composer and writer as different categories? (just to make sure, nothing wrong with such a category, I'm just trying to figure them out).

Although I think it might be best to not have that many categories so we can pull this the whole way through, and cutting out composer would seem simple enough, as it's just a type of artist anyway.

Yeah, I was trying to think up a better word for this since artist is nebulous. Although I don't know about cutting out composer; there's just too many great figures from both disciplines.

I'd add Thinker to Philosopher to cover the less formal leaders in thought.

Great idea, totally agree.