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high feats vs low feats vs author intent
lol the recent spate of threads has brought to light the sheer idiocy of lowballing. it leads to ludicrous conclusions and paints characters in unrealistic lights. using strictly high feats is nearly equally disingenuous but....the forum does use full capacity, so it can be viewed as more acceptable, especially if there are multiple examples of similar feats. outliers, as always, should be discounted out hand.
i think one thing that is left out of the equation is authorial intent. we readers should be able to determine intent, and i think intent should be taken into account--in fact, in some cases, it may be the MOST important thing, outweighing feats and battles.
looking for thoughts on this. it is sometimes (often times) hard to prove intent--usually one needs to read the whole arc to determine intent. but it is rarely if ever brought up in matches. different authors view things differently.
for example--if one author views a a supernova as the be-all-end-all of power, and has a character survive a supernova blast, but another author has a character survive a universe-busting blast, is the supernova blast any less than the universe busting blast, relatively speaking? think of the oft-cited sternity blast that was....planetary level. the INTENT was clear, but the result, and description were not what some would like. does that lessen the blast?
it is my opinion that intent should play a much larger role in the forum than it does. is this irreconcilable in a feat-based forum? i think intent can eliminate a great deal of the ludicrous lowballing--and at times, cherrypicking--that we see in the forum and lead to better, more thought out discussion.
as a tangential point--should constant lowballing come with a steeper punishment? would you like to see mods crack down on this?
Amazing thread. I think this is based on the people that are debating tbh. Some people (dont to dish out names but it is soooooo difficult not doing it) primarily debate using high showings for one character while using low showings for the character their repping. A good example of this is Jane Thor. In an Avengers book, beating her is irrelevant because she have a couple of low showings but if you beat her outside of the book, the ft counts. This is just an example. Again, this depends primarily on the person that is debating. I've seen people say that Flash could speed steal and snatch your organs out an under the same breath call Thor low Herald. I cant wait to see the responses in here because this is interesting.
1). We're past the point where low-balling is something that will be punished [and, at this point, it would be unfair, given some of the people that 'survived' here since the last decade]. I haven't read any of the threads lately, but as you might know, nothing compares to around 2012-ish. I mean, we've had Thanos vs Lucifer [at some point, it was even argued Thanos has greater willpower]. I find it hard to believe anything, from any side, approaches anything like that.
2). We'll all never be able to 'get along' because some of us are playing checkers, while other are playing paintball, and others are playing soccer. We each use different arguments - some use relative feats, some use high feats, some use low feats, some use combos, some don't even understand the feats, some don't even read comics, some people know they can't compete in one, so they use the other etc. Speaking past each other, basically.
3). I think the best way to analyze feats themselves is by, as you said, understanding that not all writers are the same. Each story, and each character, is scaled for what the writer wants, at that point. So, for example [and I keep going back to this, but it's so in your face], if Mangog dies in the sun, it doesn't mean anything. The same way, if Mangog went through a black hole, it also wouldn't mean anything. It's just how that particular writer, at that particular moment in time, wants to 'scale' his story. Unfortunately, for the forum [and these types of discussions in general, on any forum], it's hard to really only go by writer's intent. It's kind of a subjective cop-out that, if your 'opponent' doesn't want to engage in, you're just kind of left shrugging your shoulder. So if somebody would want to go 'literal' and argue that Mangog would get incinerated by Gladiator's heat vision, while you'd try to argue relative showings, there's not much that can be done, as you'd both be speaking in different directions. And third of it, once we assume that characters don't act stupid [which story requires], then it's hard to go by relative portrayals. Because in relative portrayals, everybody acts stupid around somebody else, and we'd be left with a bunch of people screaming "No, your character is too dumb to do this! No, yours is!". So, in essence, I think the way we approach the rules is fine [i.e. full-capacity, smart fighting], but the way we approach the feats is kind of not seeing the forrest from the trees [i.e. feats within the context of the writer, of the scale of the story, how much sense they make etc.]. Does that make sense?
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Last edited by Philosophía on Feb 11th, 2019 at 10:43 PM
I’ve been on this forum for many years. Rarely will you have people change their minds based on arguments. I can’t recall many people here who even after being given irrefutable proof change their mind. Hell, I recall reading a while back a poster (I won’t name) back track on something they agreed on.
People on internet just have huge egos. At best, you get people saying “agree to disagree” and they realize neither one will drop it. This is why BZs have judge because at the end of the day, ego, internet, and bias views just get in the way. The recent threads which prompted the question is evidence of that
A bad showing for X (insert whomever) is either
1. Used to show how weak X is
2. How strong Y is
Egos and being biased can “interpret” this differently. Did Superman just get KOed by a GL because the GL is strong or is Superman really weak. You’ll always see two sides to this even though, it can be pretty f***** easy to see the intention of both author and various other feats. Like Philo said, it’s practically down to the game the poster is trying to play. You want to make someone look weak, you’ll find something, especially when X character shows up in practically any event.
The decent thing to do is at best have a bunch of judges who can make a decision. Majority rule so even if some of them disagree, it’s fine. Think SCOTUS! If certain debates just don’t end, post on the SCOTKMF.
They will judge the feat in question. Obviously, not everything should be debatable; do you really need judges to tell you that Sue can’t tank a hit from a celestial who is intending to kill her? Do you need someone to explain to you that one author giving high feats (justifying high herald) doesn’t exclude the 50 other authors writing the hero/villain as a mid herald?
Some things should be pretty clear by now. The rules are pretty good so far.
If Lex builds a gun that harnesses the power of a light bulb, and then uses that gun to kill Superman, I would not claim that a light bulb's worth of energy > Superman.
Point is: some authors have very different takes on what 'ultimate power' is in comics, and that authorial intent does need to be considered first and foremost in many cases. Ignoring authorial intent in favor of blindly lowballing is no bueno.
If you take, say, Val Armorr vs Batman, one could lowball the crap out of Val with examples of struggling against thugs Phantom Girl easily takes, for example. Or on the other side, seriously argue Batmans durability lets him tank Damage and Wonder Woman.
Strip away the bs, and it becomes obvious someone who can punch away a literal mountain of ice and snow with a punch, or dodge Superman class speed from Ultra Boy, should one shot Batman, every single time.
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I definitely see where you're coming from and can agree with your supporting of relative portrayals, and I think it largely works when confined to a single setting, but what about when the match-up is cross-company? How can relying on relative portrayals work when there's no in-universe relation between the characters, i.e., what does Galactus' relative power level in Marvel matter when he's put up against something from a different setting like, oh, Oa for a completely random and not at all topical example?
In that case, I'd combine both feats and relative portrayals. For example, you'd need a baseline to agree upon - what are the Guardians generally portrayed as? Let's say somebody like Ganthet, for example, is a skyfather-type [looks like a peer to Zeus/Odin and the like when they meet, and has the feats]. In GL: Rebirth it was even implied to be above Spectre [with the weirdest sentence structure ever]. The rest, maybe lower. How did they look against SCW Anti-Monitor? Eh. Not that great. But one of them did manage to temporarily restrain, warp and [inadvertently] power-up Prime. So they'd, generally, be in a trans-skyfather area. Galactus is generally above skyfathers, but they have numbers. And he's even more so than that with the multiple-planets, with which he could contend with multiple "Galactus" beings. So that's at least the 'baseline' that you'd lean for Galactus. And then you get into general range of feats, and maybe even the prior assumptions prove to be incorrect [like, say, the collective guardians being more towards abstract, or whatnot]. You start looking at Parallax, at the entities, at how powerful they are, how the Guardians interact with them, etc.
It's different, because if you don't start with at least a bigger picture, it's just throwing stuff. "Prime took a Universe wiping explosion to the face! A Guardian restrained and warped him in the multiverse! Galactus wiped out a galaxy!" etc. It's disjointed, and random, since everybody's grabbing the biggest thing they can find.
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Last edited by Philosophía on Feb 12th, 2019 at 02:47 AM
this just my personally opinion,i think these problems is main at writers and readers relationship
i mean a characters how powerful essentially is part of a story.and writers has authority to decide story.
but in other side,a story i think when writer writting and give it to other persons read,this story is not only just belongings to writer's,reader also ineracts with these fictional stuffs（i partially support the death of author theory）.like writers could decide story,readers also have authority interpretation it or accept/support it or not
and in comics,this is more complicate,because there have so many writers,and have been pubilished so long.
so i think most important is respect you debater,and don't take it too serious,after all,we reading comics just for fun,here in fictional stuffs(especially in comics)haven't absolutely axiom,just like people most acceptable range(like if superman no more powerful than a ordinary man,then i think most people couldn't accept it,right?)
Last edited by qwertyuiop1998 on Feb 12th, 2019 at 03:13 AM
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Well for arguing characters across companies we need a baseline which comes from quantifiable feats. Such feats should be averaged with outliers thrown out. That establishs an approximate baseline.
Characters in the same company we can use more of relative portrayals (unless characters fought stupidly enough)with some quantifiable feats.
My take is that feats against other characters hold no water if that character didn't fight near to the best of his abilities.
And many of us are extremely bias. Here is a prime example.
Thanos, who has absolutely no grade A super speed (or grade B) can beat Surfer in a forum within moments (a short fight). Yet when Surfer fights Superman in a forum (both are operating at full capacity) then Surfer can keep up with Superman's speed. This is a contradiction, unless one views Superman speed is Thanos level or below.
My take is if Surfer, at full capacity, can keep up with Superman, at full capacity, then Surfer should view Thanos in super slow motion and make any fight with him a very long fight (unless Surfer spams black holes all day).
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