If your going to be certain about anything, be certain about uncertainty. If you can't demonstrate knowledge you probably don't actually have knowledge, if you don't have knowledge, you probably shouldn't assert anything that sounds or paints the idea that you do have knowledge. Its better to honestly admit ignorance and try to learn what others may know than to pretend to know and act defensively when questioned. Knowledge is broad and can be relative, meaning that how you apply it can be questioned, or additional context may be shed, so when you apply it, make sure you have good reasons and also question your own knowledge. Along this line when others apply knowledge be aware that you can question them and that they may have good reasons as far as their application. The better job you do at questioning your arguments or falsifying them before you apply them, the easier it is to counter others questioning and the better the reasons you have behind your arguments and knowledge the more explanatory power you possess when you eventually have to assert why your argument and reasoning is superior to the other peoples assertions and arguments.
Battles isn't the be all or end all of debating. In the grand scheme of things its Greg Land. Knowing a bit about science, philosophy, politics, religion, history and the arguments and debates each have and have had will let you spot fallacious arguments faster and help you refrain from instinctively throwing out personal opinions that don't really actually reflect how you think about things. Do you want to debate to apologize for your favorite characters or undermine characters that upset you, or do you want to objectively ration and speculate about fictional entities and the creative forces that govern them?
A lot of people are overly emotional, and the people who aren't overly emotional? Actually they are overly emotional too, because overly emotional people often don't realize they are overly emotional, they often consider themselves very reasonable and rational, but what they consider and what they are don't always line up and thats pretty much true of all people and there perceptions in a broad sense. A lot of people that you are going to debate with are probably going to make a lot of claims and assertions that they just feel are right and correct and common sense, but they won't actually have any good reasonable basis or knowledge for their claims. In this sense you could end up being a good debater by watching the people debating you implode with fallacious arguments but you also don't want to fall into that group yourself. Also there isn't anything inherently wrong with being overly emotional, but it means when you question people they can - well they will get defensive and they can attack you, and they can project in on to you as well and start making claims about you with phrases that try to make them sound really reasonable, oh and passive aggressiveness as well if you wound their ego. Really ultimately the best way to be here is to be patient. Sincerely patient too mind you heh heh. Battles should be fun, for all people, and sometimes apologizing to an upset person is the fastest way for them to realize you are only there to have fun too, not judge or offend them like they may have mistakenly presumed.
I was being pretty broad there but hope helps and have fun in Battles and Debating in general!
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