Probably the creative tension inherent in its rather vague definition.
That is, the SCA brings together folks with a very broad array of
interests in period -- everything from folks who mostly know about
period from fantasy to hardcore scholars who focus mainly on one
particular topic. The cross-pollination of those attitudes winds up
teaching everyone stuff that they didn't know, and leads to a lot of
experimentation.
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Of course, it's also the Society's great weakness -- that "broad tent"
approach means that the SCA has little hope of ever being truly period
as an aggregate. Little isolated bits of the SCA can be very authentic,
but the larger the scale you look at, the less likely it is to match
period models. That's because the Society is basically a gigantic
compromise among many differing interests.
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But overall, I think it's what defines the SCA, and makes it different
both from a simple LARP club and from an academic forum. It combines
many different elements in a way that constantly provides new ideas, in
all directions...
