Last time, it got really silly, as Harry Dresden went up against Conan. The comments section is chock full of hilarity. What's more - and I truly wish I could find the comment - Jim Butcher (creator of Dresden) himself commented on the situation. He says Conan would win. So, you'd think the guy who created Harry Dresden would know what he was talking about, right? Apparently not, as some people said "yeah, but that's just him being polite." I guess George R. R. Martin disagrees, since when one of his characters went up against Hermione Granger, poor Hermione ends up in pieces. Again, I really wish I could find that post.
This year, though, another Howard hero gets in the spotlight: Solomon Kane. His first match is against Malazan's Quick Ben, who I understand is a sorcerer with intimidating intelligence and power, and a favourite for some commentators. Since I know nothing about Quick Ben's abilities, I can't really comment on what way the battle would go, but I can say that Kane with the Staff of Solomon is a force to be reckoned with. It'll be interesting to see how this year's battle goes. It was noted that this was more of a popularity contest (nooo, really?) than an honest assessment of a character's strength, so I guess this'll go down to Malazan fans/Kane haters vs Kane fans/Malazan haters rather than an actual empirical contest. It's a shame they went with these two first, as if Kane goes out early, I'll be disappointed.
Here's the list of contenders:
Martin — Redwall series, Brian Jacques
Logen Ninefingers — First Law trilogy, Joe Abercrombie
Solomon Kane — Solomon Kane stories, Robert E. Howard
Pug — Magician series, Raymond E. Feist
Jon Snow — A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin
Severus Snape — Harry Potter series, JK Rowling
Lestat — Interview With a Vampire, Anne Rice
Quick Ben — Malazan series, Steven Erikson
FitzChivalry — Farseer series, Robin Hobb
Mandorallen — Belgariad series, David Eddings
Vin — Mistborn series, Brandon Sanderson
Beowulf — Beowulf
Thomas Covenant — The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
Corvis Rebaine — The Conqueror’s Shadow, Ari Marmell
Paul Atreides — Dune series, Frank Herbert
Allanon — Shannara series, Terry Brooks
Druss — Druss series, David Gemmell
Severian — The Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe
Perrin — Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan
Tasselhoff Burrfoot — Dragonlance series, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Gollum — Lord of the Rings series, JRR Tolkien
Arlen — Demon Cycle series, Peter V. Brett
Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander — Sword of Truth series, Terry Goodkind
Molly Millions — Neuromancer, William Gibson
John Carter — John Carter of Mars stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Takeshi Kovacs — Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan
Percy Jackson — Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Rick Riordan
Alvin Maker — The Tales of Alvin Maker series, Orson Scott Card
Katniss Everdeen — Hunger Games series, Suzanne Collins
Jacob Black — Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer
Eric Northman — Southern Vampire Mysteries series, Charlaine Harris
Tally Youngblood — Uglies series, Scott Westerfeld
I don't know who half of these characters are. What the hell is Gollum doing there? I predict that Snape could win this: Harry Potter magic in the hands of a competent wizard is a frightening thing, and Snape's one of the few competent characters in the series. I'm not as big a fan of Druss as other Sword-and-Sorcery fans are, but I'm hoping he does well too. If Kane doesn't go the distance, I'm pulling for John Carter. Jon Snow's one of the Westeros residents I don't despise, so I'd be ok with him doing well. Jacob is going to die a horrible death by virtue of the series he stars in. Beowulf is probably this year's "ridiculously overpowered" character, if we're going by the original and not the watered-down adaptations. If Thomas Covenant gets past the first round, so help me...
Let the games begin!
can Lestat be killed?
ReplyDeleteMartin from Redwall, really. Any other character, even gollum, puts his foot down and walks away with a win and a small puncture wound on his foot.
Gollum was kind of scrappy though, you have to give him that. Horrible grasping strength, wasn't that mentioned in one of the books? And who knows, maybe he has the Ring.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, even above Kane (who should hang around for a while based on his righteousness alone) I'm going with John Carter - assuming he has his Martian landscape granted abilities and not his Earth abilities.
It's been a long time since I read them but wasn't Tasslehoff the comic relief in the Dragonlance novels? Maybe I'm confusing him with the half-elf though. Can't remember.
- Aaron
What a stupid thing to waste brain power on.
ReplyDeleteMartin in a lock. He's got a sword forged of meteor-metal and he fought wolverines, people. Wolverines! And stoats!
ReplyDeleteThat mouse is-dare I say it-dynamite.
can Lestat be killed?
ReplyDeleteHmm, never thought of that. Kane could probably banish him, if nothing else.
Gollum was kind of scrappy though, you have to give him that. Horrible grasping strength, wasn't that mentioned in one of the books? And who knows, maybe he has the Ring.
Problem is, most of the other contenders are armed. If this was a wrasslin' bout, Gollum might not do too badly, but against dudes with magic, swords and guns? Poor Smeagol.
Anyway, even above Kane (who should hang around for a while based on his righteousness alone) I'm going with John Carter - assuming he has his Martian landscape granted abilities and not his Earth abilities.
Hmm, that might be tricky. Even so, Carter's a war vet, which is nothing to be sneezed at.
What a stupid thing to waste brain power on.
A gloriously stupid thing! Indeed, sometimes I think it would be more interesting and worthwhile to wonder what would happen if someone met the other. The little story with Ben and Kane interests me a lot more than trying to figure out who wins: in fact, a villain like Ben would make an interesting character in a Kane pastiche.
Martin in a lock. He's got a sword forged of meteor-metal and he fought wolverines, people. Wolverines! And stoats!
Wolverines? Stoats? Pfft, call me when he fights a Honey Badger.
(In all seriousness, now I simply must start reading Redwall!)
Thomas Covenant and Tasselhoff: dead first round. Probably before they even get to the battlefield.
ReplyDeleteTo be nice, we could assume that as an "uplifted" mouse Martin would be about the same size compared to a human as Reepicheep, which would at least give him a fighting chance.
ReplyDelete"If this was a wrasslin' bout, Gollum might not do too badly, but against dudes with magic, swords and guns? Poor Smeagol."
Well, according to the brackets, Gollum's first matchup is against . . . Molly Millions. Well, there went his chances . . .
Gentlemen, this is yet another geek variant of "Enterprise-D vs Star Destroyer." Vide...
ReplyDeletehttp://martianoutpost.com/2007/12/ultimate-battle-uss-enterprise-vs-a-star-destroyer-%E2%80%93-battle-of-the-ships/
Tex
(besides, everyone knows Longcat could defeat them all)
I got soured on these things due to one that used to be on the White Wolf Publishing forum I frequented, years and years ago. The dude who ran the contest also put in several characters from his self-published novels, and his fans talked them up over and over. My friends and I took notice when his big villain went up against Conan, and we quickly noticed an interesting fluke in the guy's 'parameters' for the contest - anyone more powerful than said villain was apparently just too powerful to be in the contest. We called him on this b.s., argued for Conan (who lost), and then against the villain in all their later matches - eventually, they were beaten by Hellboy. In the next contest, we were told we 'couldn't play' anymore, because we were so mean.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It's bad enough when the fans's votes are subjective, but when the people running it don't even try being fair, well, what's the point?
mary sue would defeat them all....except for chuck norris! cheers!-mario
ReplyDeleteChuck Norris is his own Mary Sue.
ReplyDeleteBut the rest of that…not only does it not back up the claim that I was being called on some “b.s.” but…it’s kind of petty, isn’t it? It sounds more like a petulant child throwing a tantrum because *his* favorite character is going to lose an imaginary fight, so he insults me, my writing, the game rules, my fans, and pretty much acts rather unpleasantly.
ReplyDeleteBut, we don’t want to dwell on any of these points for too long, let’s move on!
“(We)…argued for Conan (who lost), and then against the villain in all their later matches - eventually, they were beaten by Hellboy. In the next contest, we were told we 'couldn't play' anymore, because we were so mean.”
Oh, I see where you’re confused!
Yes, you did continue to argue against my villain, as well as my other character. In fact, you never did anything else, and you were usually the majority of the voices against my characters at all. The Crown only lost that fight against Hellboy (who I am also a huge, HUGE fan of, by the way) because of all of your stacked votes, while I was abstaining from voting in the interest of fairness.
Hmmm…you went out of your way to vote against my characters no matter what the logic of the scenario was, while I abstained. That hardly seems like the act of objective players, does it?
Oh, which leads to that last part. See, you were kicked out because in the second running of the GOTFT, you cast a blatant vote for Marvel Comic’s character “Kingpin” vs. the Crown. See, it was openly acknowledged in that fight that poor Mr. Fisk was dead meat in that fight. He just got a terrible draw.
Yet, you came in, voted by posting his name, and left! Just like that! When you were asked by players to explain your logic, you didn’t even bother to try to give a justification of why a man who is a very capable martial artist, but “just” a mortal, would somehow be able to beat the Crown. It seemed to me at that point that it was clear to everyone, not just me, that you were acting out of bias and not playing fairly, so I formally removed you from the game. A game I was running on my own time, and posted online, for free, for anyone and everyone to play because hey, we’re geeks.
What was your response?
“CHAOSCLOCKWORK wrote: What’s this? I’ve been blacklisted? Exiled from the wankery club? Oh well, Mage spoilers are up, time to lurk somewhere interesting.”
Oh, my. That doesn’t sound like you were kicked out for being “too mean” at all, does it? It sounds a lot more like you were acting very unfairly, the very thing you’re complaining about here. Then, when you were called on that unfairness, you again acted like a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum and tried to turn it around on me!
So, that just leaves me with my final point: I do agree with you on one thing. It really is bad when the fan’s votes are subjective. If you and epicary, Stampede_ and ashen_wind could have just said “Oh well, we like Conan and don’t like that he’s losing, but if that’s the outcome, hey, bummer, guess we’ll go on with our lives and not write venomous posts insulting someone we don’t even know”…
…well, if you’d done that, you wouldn’t look like a complete hypocrite now, would you?
At any rate, for anyone that wants to see the rest of those quotes and how that mess of a thread went, you can hit the link/URL I posted. It really was a fun game, but instances like this are why I stopped running it: I got tired of being attacked like this. I’m glad to see other games are going strong and much more successfully than I ever was.
Oh, and CC, the next time you try to lie about someone online, you might want to make sure they don’t have old quotes of yours saved that prove your deceit.
So, I’m looking at one of my favorite subjects, “geek vs. fights,” and see that someone has mentioned me! But CC seems to have a faulty memory. Let’s go over what really happened, shall we?
ReplyDelete“My friends and I ...quickly noticed an interesting fluke in the guy's 'parameters' for the contest - anyone more powerful than said villain was apparently just too powerful to be in the contest. We called him on this b.s…”
I just happen to have some of CC’s very own quotes from that thread. Let’s make a contrast!
“So why did I vote for Conan? Many reasons. First off, he's the only REAL literary character in this bout. I don't count characters that are from unpublished stories being soliceted from the author's mother's basement…[As an aside, it's pretty dickish to create a character deathmatch contest and than fill the seeds to busting with your own lame-ass characters.]”
“Now, I admit, I respect the fact that Mr. Flight is hosting these bouts, and taking the time to wade through these responses. But if he wanted to advertise his bargain-basement series, there are plenty of tactics to use without resorting to random whorebaggery…Flight, I'm glad if you are reading this, because, writing ability aside, you really need to have more respect, both for your own writings, and everyone else's.”
This has nothing to do with the game rules. We did revise some things later, which led to my character, a vampire called the Crown of Thorns, being moved into a higher league for inhumanly powerful characters. That idea didn’t come about until later, but claiming that the rules specifically made her the most powerful? In those days we had names like Samus Aran and Gandalf the White in the game, so that’s not a very fair claim, is it?
But the rest of that…not only does it not back up the claim that I was being called on some “b.s.” but it’s kind of petty, isn’t it?
But, we don’t want to dwell on any one point, let’s move on!
“(We)…argued for Conan (who lost), and then against the villain in all their later matches - eventually, they were beaten by Hellboy. In the next contest, we were told we 'couldn't play' anymore, because we were so mean.”
Oh, I see where you’re confused!
Yes, you and your friends did continue to argue against my both of my characters. The Crown only lost that fight against Hellboy (who I am also a huge fan of, by the way) because of all of your votes, while I was abstaining from voting in the interest of fairness.
Hmmm…you went out of your way to vote against my characters no matter what the scenario was, while I abstained. That hardly sounds objective, does it?
Oh, which leads to the last part. You were kicked out because in the second GOTFT, you cast a vote for Marvel Comic’s “Kingpin” vs. the Crown. It was accepted in that fight that poor Mr. Fisk was dead meat. He just got a terrible draw.
Yet you came in, voted and left! When you were asked by players to explain, you didn’t even try to justify why Fisk would be able to beat the Crown. It seemed to me at that point it was clear to everyone that you were acting out of bias, so I formally removed you from the game, one I was running on my own time and posted online, for free, for anyone to play.
Your response?
“What’s this? I’ve been blacklisted? Exiled from the wankery club? Oh well...time to lurk somewhere interesting.”
That doesn’t sound like you were kicked for being “too mean”, does it? It sounds more like you were acting unfairly, the very thing you’re complaining about here.
So, that just leaves me with my final point: it really is bad when the fan’s votes are subjective. If you had just said “Oh well, I like Conan and don’t like that he’s losing, but hey, guess I’ll go on with my life and not write posts insulting someone I don’t even know…”
…well, then you wouldn’t look like a complete hypocrite now, would you?
The GOTFT was a fun game, but things like this are why I stopped running it. I’m glad to see other games are going strong.