Analyzing my favorite Death Prediction so far

I hope it's not too insulting to say that the majority of death predictions or fan written death battles are not great. Sturgeon's law holds that 90% of everything is trash" and while that might be imo a little extreme statistically half of all death predictions will be below the average line. However I wanted to use my usual method of judging Death Battles; analyzing premise, pre-fight, fight and post-fight towards my favorite death prediction to show how it truely excels in all these areas.

 My favorite death prediction is Death Battle Prediction: Fuu vs Talim by Thor Gunderson1058. Full Disclosure: Thor is a friend of mine but I don't think that is biasing my judgement and I hope this full explanation of my reasons will convince you of so as well.

Warning: Spoilers for this masterful blog. Please read it first.

Premise:

Let us first analyze the premise of Fuu vs Talim. The first metric that I use to analyze a premise is to judge it's evenness, and this honestly is where most Death Battles and Death Predictions struggle. I care strongly about matches being even. This is because of two reasons one being purely emotional; to put a character in a matchup they can't win simply feels bad, it feels mean to the character and their fans. It's not something I would do even if I didn't like the character, I prefer a positive environment where all people try to build up each others preferences and favorites.

On a more rational level unbalanced matches I think are much less interesting and that leads into the bigger point. There are matches that are "even" but are not "interesting" because for instance one character can only use 10% of their capacities. Obviously it's harder to make good matchups for some charaters then others. That said it is better to find the most optimal matchup possible. An interesting matchup is a matchup that uses each character's capacities to the fullest and thus takes best possible advantage of the matchup. Obviously a stomp doesn't do this because one side can't use any of their capacity but a matchup that is even but where one side again can't use most of their abilities is also not very interesting. So how does Fuu vs Talim do on this front.

Absolutely brilliantly. I have never been more unsure of who would win going into a death prediction then I was for this one. It's a very even matchup and more so it's interestingly even. It's pretty easy for me to find a hypothetically even matchup just by matching the stats but this is a matchup with numerous important advantages and counters for each side. It's not even summarizable like one has at an advantage at a certain range or one is better in the short term and the other wins if they can outlast or another common maxim, the two have different advantages and shortcomings at different contexts so the fight is a constantly evolving beast.

But beyond the fight should be interesting there are other points about the premise. For instance the many people think the fight should be thematic. This is not something I really care about though I try to follow it for the benefit of others. Now Thor doesn't just make a thematic matchup, and it IS indeed thematic, as can be evidenced in Thor's introductory paragraph: "When you for some reason think of purehearted teenage girls traversing a medevil fantasy land slaying monsters with blades and wind powers, it's almost certainly one of these two.", but Thor goes a step further in actually making them thematically opposed versions of the archetype they share, the traveler archeype which will become important in discussing their weaknesses and in terms of their various advantages.

I also have to give credit for doing a matchup that contains perhaps not the most famous characters in the world.

And finally and this is the least important consideration of mine but I also obviously appreciate the inclusion of a character I personally have a connection to, that being Fuu. This is the least of my considerations. If you make a boring match premise I won't like it regardless of if it has a character I like. And I will appreciate a match that is interesting and even regardless of if I know the two characters. But I am human, and I of course appreciate seeing characters I know.

Pre-Fight:

So the Pre-Fight I assess in two seperate ways; the information presented and the way it is presented. Chiefly in importance is the accuracy of the informance, and following that is the information being presented well.

Obviously all the information is correct, at least as far as I know, I don't actually know too much about Soul Calibur however all the information I read seems well supported and well logical in reasoning.

When I am making a death prediction, I do this thing segmented where all the non-fight sections I write as though I am making an argument, if a really comprehensive argument, for one to win and the fight is more of a story but Thor's blogs, especially this one it seemed to me carry the narrative spirit through the whole pre-fight section. I include the backstory section pretty much out of obligation for instance yet Thor involves the reader in the whole of character's narrative.

This tiers into how Thor presents the information, particularly in this blog, full of gifs (something I am completely technically inept at using and only use one at the start of each section). Everytime I compare one of my death predictions, it comes across as cold and stuffy and overly formal to the natural-flowing warmth present in Thor's sections, the "voice" as it called in academic classes. Something as simple as putting the characters personal information like height, weight, and age below little chibis of them gives flavor. The whole of the blog is filled with visuals and music that not only fit hte area but vary across several mediums from written dialogue to gameplay for Talim and from anime footage to manga scans for Fuu.

Death Battle does this thing where they take one point from an obscure souce and fixiate on it, almost as if to show how impressive their research was, and indeed overly fixiating on one of these is what has led to some of their most infamous gaffes like focusing on how Toph can see rocks in the air would somehow be an advantage against Gaara instead of just a lack of a relatively minor disadvantage. It is a good find, but what is TRULY impressive is filling your whole work with similar minor pieces of information and Thor fills the blog with myriad tiny pieces of information. Consider for instance just the small fact that Talim's weapons were designed to counter Fuu's weapon which Thor notes. If this was an old Death Battle episode I could see them totally ignoring the character stats, just saying their weapons and armor, saying they both have wind powers and the in the analysis saying Talim's weapons counter Fuu's weapons as the sole reason why Fuu would beat Talim. And to be honest, there's a number of death predictions that are of similar complexity.

Yet this is one of the many tiny points that Thor fills out his death analysis with. Consider as well that Thor did research to see if Talim would even know if Fuu's glasses are of relevance or the easily missed point that Fuu's final Escudo armor restore her sight or how Fuu's healing works somehow on clothes. Even I have who have seen MKR numerous times did not realize that Fuu's healing worked on clothing nor did I see Ascot's speed feat.

Sometimes I feel that my blogs are merely works of misdirection, simply obfuscating the most important points, yet Thor puts actual sections to explictly state their advantages and disadvantages before the fight, as if to show directly that there is no obfuscation and to give all the relevant information again and directly about how they would interact.

And this doesn't even get how well he sets up the fight scene with this because even more impressive then that is how he sets up their archtypal opposition. This in particular is notable here because their power differences reflect their personality differences with the emotions of Fuu reflecting her will, the godlike will of the knight of Cephiro reflected in her less presence and more defensive and long-ranged arsenal versus the more light-hearted more level-headed mind of the gentle wind dancer which focuses on more close range and quick bursts of motion, like the gentle winds of the meadows vs the intense burning wind of a desert.

Fight:

So the fight is seperated into 4 sections by the musical scores.

The first section is set up for the fight and it's just genius. Let me compare to something I wrote that I was really proud off. In my Sailor Pluto vs Yuuko Ichihara blog, I had Sailor Pluto target of the weapons in Yuuko's storeroom, the Star Wand. This is because the Star Wand has the energies of the stars associated with Sakura and Sailor Senshi can sense stellar energies. This I was proud of because it combined seamlessly two different series but if you don't know both series it is a confusing and hard to follow event. To understand it, you need to know both series. Yet Thor here in this introduction manages to do the impossible and make a believable way for these two purehearted girls to fight and what's so genius about it is that if you only know one series, the sequence of events will be perfectly compehensible but if you know both, then it gives rise to a greater sequence of events, the tragic misunderstanding where Fuu mistakes Talim's target as Hikaru. In that way it's not just a merger of the traits of two different series seamlessly but it is the creation of a series of events greater then the sum of parts, the ultimate goal of a crossover of two different series, a proceeding of events that takes advantages of both series plot, and at the same time is perfectly understandable with knowledge of just one. It's absoltuely great! There's also such cool MKR references to Ferio, Lantis, Chizeta and the Spring of Eterna and it all flows completely naturally.

The second section contains their intial melee and the first stirrings of their elemental powers. The melee is described with elegance and grace as befitting two nimble wind-users and wholly fitting of their arsenals. The ending is such a strong image to leave off the section too, with the two reaffirming their wills and it sets up the underlying current of the fight. While both are gentle wind-users, there is a dangerous iron will to both, as seen by Talim's stubborness in changing the minds of others, and of course Fuu's will as a magic knight. This contrast is felt in the physicality of their fight despite the hypothetically more ethereal nature of their wind manipulation. Despite wind's intrinsic nature as the gas that has the least immediate damaging property, both the characters user an underlying physical force representing their strong wills. 

The third section brings the duality fuller into conflict, begining with the eruption of a mighty tornado, an inhere paradox of the ethereal winds causing physical destruction, at once light-hearted and heavy-hearted reflecting the paradox of these two pure-hearted girls driven to brutal violence by their wills. This section is filled with so many cool moments, and it all flows so naturally. The way Talim trusts in the winds to guide her when faced with Fuu's invisible winds, the way that Fuu thinks of her beloved friend Hikaru and what she would do when she is danger. And most beautifully on a second read through is the final line foreshadowing to the verdict "Bare witness to my final dance" which makes me choked up for a character I wasn't even familiar with before reading the blog.

But then we go into the fourth section and this is .... it's just so great. The two create a greater cyclone as they despeately physically struggle, again creating the paradox, the paradox of the wind manipulation both Fuu and Talim got for their pure lighthearts and the harshness of their hardhearted will represented in their physicality. This moment builds to their unification as they are forced together.

But then comes the ending where Talim traps Fuu's weapon before Fuu revealing she had planned for this and letting the weight of her sword trap Talim. I can't even....

THIS! THIS! THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE THESE FIGHTS! THIS IS EXACTLY HOW YOU DO IT!!!

I don't even know how to express how perfect the moment is. Reading it is one of my favorite moments in my entire history of vs debating.

There's a primordial joy in vs debating to me, not unlike solving a puzzle. This is the joy of seeing parallels and counters in series developed independently. It's finding a perfect solution when a solution wasn't supposed to exist. This is why I made verse strategy guides, this is why I understand why Death Battle wanted to focus on "counters" not stats, because this finding "counters" is to me the heart of this hobby. Part of this comes from my love of the Clamp multiverse Magic Knight Rayearth is a part of. It is a recurring theme in Clamp that magic is contained in the mundane, that tiny details can make all the difference.

This tiny point about Fuu, that her sword becomes incredibly heavy should anyone try to wield it, being used it's just...it's so perfect. It's an excellent example of this theme of Clamp, it is an exemplar of this facet of this hobby.

And thematically and imagery wise omg! Einstein famously in coming up with the theory of relativity posited that you would be unable to tell the difference between shining a light out of a rocket accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2 and shining a light on Earth with a gravity of 9.8 m/s^2. I see reflections of that great breakthrough in human thinking in this, the way that the difference in the movement through space is judged from perspective, the way it thematically unifies Fuu's wind powers and her physicality just like her fierce will that allowed her to reach godly levels of will is just another perspective of her pure-hearted will to help her friends since it's the latter that let her reach reach the latter. In this moment I feel the primordial sense of gravity in Fuu's sword and in it the sheer spirit of wind's variabiltiy of gentle breeze to harsh cyclone.

And it's so perfectly in-character. I have many memories as a young girl of watching Magic Knight Rayearth, and seeing the Magic Knights proceed by their will and by their unique skills, like Fuu's tactical mind that learns from encounters. I was rooting for Fuu just because I knew her more but that moment was just so...it really did feel like I was a young girl watching MKR again! Archetypally, it showcases the rational mind of Fuu, the rational mind associated with that pure transcendent rationality that floats freely over the domain of Earthly causes and passions.

This moment is the perfect embodiment of Fuu's virtues and character. It is SO great!

Post-Fight:

When I am judging the Post Fight, I am judging firstly by how accurate the information is, and secondly by how well set up the information was. And in both this blog does great.

The information is as far as I can think, very accurate, and coves numerous situations in a way thorough yet clear. It focuses on the long range/close range dichotomy and expresses that both are for different reasons ones that give advantage to Fuu. It goes over their self-support abilities as well and demonstrates how Fuu's are simply more tactically advantageous here.

It also avoids the annoying tendency I've seen a large number of people do where they hide or obfuscate the most important information until the ending, instead using stricty information that was presented clearly in the advantages/disadvantages.

The Post-Fight section is somewhat brief though as both characters have somewhat small arsenals, this is to be expected and it does a really good job of presenting the conclusion clearly instead of throwing in a lot of extra details and extreme scenarios to talk about possiblities that are unlikely that would end up muddying the clarity of the section.







This is my favorite Death Prediction. If you want to know how to make a Death Prediction, you should definitely read this for reference. If you will, it blows me away with it's excellence.