jaxthejester
Visit The Halls of Hulk!
Originally posted by Pillow Biter
Often powers don't get used for reasons that can't be explained "in comics". CIS doesn't cover it. Surfer, contrary to popular opinion, doesn't tend to just blast and punch with the occasional use of shields because he is a lousy fighter. He does it because that is what makes for visually interesting fights--or even just interesting fights. If he transmuted people or stopped time, anyone without a cosmically versatile power set could never be a challenge to him.The truth is that for the most part writers don't really care that much about how power sets match up in a fight. Characters have a certain pecking order and their fights tend to bear that out, regardless of whether their power sets actually match up well against another guy. Of course exceptions abound, but by and large that is how it works. When Hulk fights a speedster, or a ranged flyer, he'll find a way to tag him. When Superman beats up Martian Manhunter, he'll find a way to punch him hard despite J'onn being, in theory, pretty much immune to punching via intangibility and a completely fluid physical structure.
I don't know if this will help shed light or not, but I'll give it a go:
We understand that writers often make characters do foolish things simply to advance the story at hand.
And we also understand that as a result of this approach, writers often make no excuse/reasoning for said behaviors. Because there is none.
That's why we do it for the writers. As part of our Comic Debate game.
We come up with a feasible (enough) reason for the game to work.
And we then use the term "PIS" to define those events we choose to ignore, and "CIS" to define those that we choose to incorporate.
We know (for example) that PIS is why Surfer doesn't use transmutation more often in combat.
But we also know that said PIS happens so much, that the "norm" for Surfer is to blast rather than transmute (based on total showings).
Thus we know the "is", just not the "why"- and we need the "why" for the game to work.
Using a literal "why" breaks the game for us. We have no desire to debate writer choices. We wish to debate fictional super beings as if they were real.
As such, we choose to associate their on-panel behavior with a necessary mental quirk to make it fit into our weighing mechanisms.
We come up with our own reason. One that works for the game.
We apply the "house rule" that since Surfer "does not" transmute things more often than he blasts things, then Surfer himself must be attributed a reason for said "does not" behavior.
In the case of Vs. Board Debates- we accredit this behavior to a personality quirk. We state that this is "simply not how Surfer fights."
We know that, in reality, it is because the writer dictates his actions. But we choose to deduce a probable path of behaviors based on said actions "as if" Surfer were making these choices of his own volition.
We then, by necessity, apply what we think are the likely reasons that Surfer would "choose" to follow these pre-written actions. Or put simply- we pretend that his penchant for blasting things is due to his own personality, rather than the whims of a writer.
Then we apply a fictional probability matrix to his fictional personality, and debate the likeliness that Surfer will or will not once again "blast rather than transmute" in a given a vs. match.
So yes, we know that writers do indeed nerf characters to fit stories.
We simply have a different approach to how we filter it for our game:
1. We pretend that the character is "real" and thus responsible for their own choices.
2. Thus when we see the character perform below their own maximum potential, we accredit this to "character choice."
3. We pretend that said choice must have some explanation (outside of writer nerfing; because, for the sake of the game, we are pretending the character is not pre-written).
3. We attribute fictional psychological limitations to the character to explain these choices.
4. Then we debate how likely the character is to suffer these attributed mental quirks in a given fictional encounter.
Which is why you hear arguments such as "Surfer tends to just blast in combat..."
This is because it is true in a literal sense. If one were to look at every combat showing from Surfer in every canon 616 comic written to date, I imagine that we would see a very high percentage of "blast when I should be transmuting" behaviors.
The writer chooses to apply these behaviors to promote the story line.
But we choose to interpret the behaviors as mental limitations that can dictate how a character is also likely to behave in the future.
Thus we say that Surfer tends to blast in combat, and deduce that a foe such as Superman has a chance at knocking him out because of this tendency.
We know that Surfer "could" just turn Superman's outfit into Kryptonite.
We know that the "writer" is the only reason he doesn't.
But we choose to pretend that "his own" behavioral quirks are what drive him instead.
And we debate probable outcomes accordingly.
And if a given specific showing is so far out of line that we find it in conflict with the "norm" that we've applied to the character, then we also debate the validity of said showings existence. I.E.- we debate the validity of (what we consider) PIS.
And we define PIS as those behaviors which conflict with the norm to such a degree that they wreck the game.
This is one of the few times that we step away from the game to discuss the "real" happenings of comic behavior- when debating if something is PIS. Which, in effect, is just debating if we should allow said behavior to fall under the fictional umbrella of acceptable behaviors that we have attributed to the character at hand.