Verdict+LynnM

Personally, I felt that there was no clear winner of this trial because neither side was exactly stronger than the other. There were a lot of unfair things during the trial; for example, for cross-examination, the lawyers of Position 1 could ask Position 2 witnesses questions for only one minute each, while the lawyers of Position 2 could question Grendel and the Dragon for three minutes each. I thought this put our team at a disadvantage that affected the outcome of this trial. Our position had our faults in that we weren’t totally organized and thus, some of our questions were weak. However, if I had to choose, I would still stick with my original verdict, and state that Position 1 “won” the trial and proved that “The world and everything in it is unplanned accident, existence is meaningless; the past is irrelevant; nothing matters.” Some of our strong arguments consisted of those about Grendel. According to Grendel on page 21-22: "I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back." While the bull was attacking him during Chapter 2, Grendel realizes that the bull doesn't change its tactics and is just mindlessly hitting the same place over and over; the bull has no purpose. Grendel now began to perceive the world like the bull: mindless and destructive without any plan or reason. The same goes for the goat that keeps mindlessly climbing up towards Grendel at the end of the book. Also, I think our team did well at questioning the Position 2 witnesses during the cross-examination in a way that helped us prove our perspective.