This will be my last post on this topic and this debate in general, as I'm positively livid ... and that's extremely unusual for me in any such discussion (I normally just do this stuff for kicks and don't feel anything about it at all). In a moment, I'll explain WHY I'm angry.
First, yes, I know there was a comic book Blade. I also know that the movies effectively revived AND revised him, so yes, I'm going by the movies.
Second, Wickerman, I did a little research. I said to myself, "Hey, didn't I once thumb through a book wherein Errtu was taking on Drizzt's entire party at once and practically beating them?" That didn't seem to fit, somehow, with Drizzt whipping Errtu solo (or just with Guen).
But hey, guess what? I happen to do part-time work in a bookstore! How handy. It just so happens I was able to flip through The Crystal Shard today -- as, no, I didn't read all of the Drizzt books ... only the Dark Elf Trilogy. So I needed to check up on some claims you made.
And what did I find out about the Drizzt/Errtu fight? That it went something like this:
1. Once the talking stops and the fighting is about to start, Errtu uses his power to burst into flame. Drizzt is immediately having difficulty dealing with the heat and the brightness.
2. Errtu moves to swing his sword, and Drizzt braces himself to defend, but Guen (his panther) leaps onto the demon's arm. Errtu shoves Guen against the wall in an effort to dislodge it but otherwise focuses on Drizzt ... continuing to fight with a panther attached to his arm.
3. Errtu swings his whip instead, "too quickly for the drow, still reeling from the sudden burst of brightness of the flames, to deflect the blow or dodge aside." He then yanks Drizzt off of his feet with ease.
4. Errtu drags Drizzt into his flames. Drizzt knows he's thoroughly beaten and has no way to respond and even flatly states, "And so I die."
5. The flames don't burn Drizzt. In fact, after a moment, they go out. Neither Errtu nor Drizzt immediately know why, but it turns out that a new scimitar Drizzt happened to pick up earlier did it.
6. Drizzt tries to attack with his other scimitar, but it does nothing. He attacks with the one that saved him from the flames (easily hitting since Errtu doesn't believe he has any reason to try to block it), and since it has the magic needed to do it, he cuts into Errtu's knee ... surprising both of them.
7. Drizzt then follows up on a surprised and crippled opponent with a blow to the chest, banishing him. Yay.
That's your epic "Drizzt beat Errtu" battle, right there, in a nutshell. Bottom line? He basically struck an opponent in the knee who wasn't trying to block the attack, then stabbed the crippled and surprised opponent in the chest. *I* could have done that, for God's sake!
Meanwhile, someone was trying to compare him to Spider-Man in terms of dodging ability? My ***. He didn't even dodge ONE ATTACK. He only even SURVIVED because (a) Errtu was playing with him, (b) he happened by blind freaking luck to have picked up a magical toy that could save him, and (c) he was then able to do the swordplay equivalent of a sucker punch with said toy.
Not only does that battle NOT highlight his swordfighting or dodging ability (if anything, he looks a little pathetic in it), but it can't even be used to show how smart he is. It's not like he planned it that way -- he was as surprised by what happened as Errtu. He just blundered into a technical win. It would be like having Superman kick you around and then pick you up by the scruff of the neck, only to find that you somehow managed to pick up a big lump of kryptonite earlier without even realizing what you'd found.
And what makes me angry here is that you, Wickerman, represented it as though Drizzt beat Errtu straight up, when instead, he blundered into a win through sheer dumb luck. That's even more of a misrepresentation than people claiming Batman can easily defeat the JLA just because he was able to come up with a way to beat them after YEARS of ONE-SIDED prep-time. In fact, it's so much of a misrepresentation, I would instead call it a LIE.
As for the giants Drizzt fought with Wulgar (AND Guen!) ...? Sure, they won, but they cheated like hell. They did things like surprise them and fling powder into their eyes, sneak up behind a group and hamstring the last one in line ... etc. And when they did end up in a face-to-face fight, Drizzt got knocked down, and it was flatly stated that he was about to be dealt a death-blow by the giant facing him when Guen jumped in and saved his behind. That blow that would have killed Drizzt, by the way, would probably have been enough to briefly stun a guy like Blade who can survive having his head used to knock out a chunk of a pillar.
So once again, a misrepresentation. Not to the extent of the flat-out BS you presented with the Errtu fight, but ... still, a misrepresentation. Drizzt and friends didn't beat the giants in ANYthing like a fair fight, which is what counts if we're talking about pitting Blade against Drizzt in a straight-up swordfight.
And that's it. I'm done here. I don't like being lied to, and I'm not going to continue to waste my time researching every claim that's made about Drizzt ... which I'd clearly have to do if this continued.