what is the standard?

You wouldn't use a question mark there. It's not really a question. I'd write it this way:

"Perhaps we can use the human to motivate him if he can’t rid himself of this passion he feels for her," the master said. (I think you'd lowercase "master" unless it's some kind of proper name.)

If you did have a quote that ended in a question mark, as in your example, "the" would be lowercase.

No, in that case "the" wouldn't be capitalized.

As far as capitalization of The Master vs. the Master, I think it's like the Colonel, perhaps. Compare that to The Flying Waldini, and I think the flying dude has an actual title to use for himself.

I'm not a grammar expert by a long shot, so these are just thoughts I look up many, many things for my edits

As far as the question mark goes, I really hope that English allows questions based on voice pattern. Does that make sense? In French, for instance, you can take a statement and make it a question by how it is said. I've studied other languages more recently than English, so I'm unclear on whether it's allowed here, grammatically. I'd be interested to learn how to note that construction for readers if not by a question mark.

backslashbaby said:

As far as the question mark goes, I really hope that English allows questions based on voice pattern. Does that make sense? In French, for instance, you can take a statement and make it a question by how it is said. I've studied other languages more recently than English, so I'm unclear on whether it's allowed here, grammatically. I'd be interested to learn how to note that construction for readers if not by a question mark.

Click to expand...

It's okay, as far as I'm concerned. There's a difference between:
and
I think the main problem (if there is one at all) with the original is that the question mark comes only after a dependent clause. Statement-syntax with question intonation tends to be simpler. Compicated sentences of this type tend to be intoned like suggestions, rather than questions -- hypothesis alert (I haven't checked this at all!). Compare:
I'd accept all four versions, but I personally wouldn't use a).

That makes sense, and I agree. We must have a preference for a bit of structural difference for a complex question. Interesting!

Did teh Master ask or suggest? Not at all the same thing. The question mark means "he asked." If you want him to suggest, you need to write:

"Perhaps we can use the human to motivate him if he can’t rid himself of this passion he feels for her," the Master suggested.

One annoying thing is that newspapers and universities and God knows what-all have started wanting their 'the' capitalized. Not the Plain Dealer, or the New York Times, but The Plain Dealer or The New York Times. Not Ohio State University, but The Ohio State University.

I think it looks silly and pretentious. And it causes confusion, as we see here, about perfectly normal titles like the Master, the Flying Wallendas, the Atlantic Ocean.

bonitakale said:

One annoying thing is that newspapers and universities and God knows what-all have started wanting their 'the' capitalized. Not the Plain Dealer, or the New York Times, but The Plain Dealer or The New York Times. Not Ohio State University, but The Ohio State University.

I think it looks silly and pretentious. And it causes confusion, as we see here, about perfectly normal titles like the Master, the Flying Wallendas, the Atlantic Ocean.

Click to expand...

Ah! Yes, thank you. I couldn't figure out how you knew someone ranked a capitalized The