Who would win in a fight, Kenshiro or Golgo 13?
Lina Inverse or KOS-MOS?
Toilet Paper or a Snickers Bar?
I love this sort of argument generally, but it’s generally considered in very poor taste by large parts of fandoms, tired of seeing them. It is considered a useless endeavor, be it in the “unstoppable force vs immovable object” sense, or just being futile and biased based on favoritism by the people arguing. , but there is a wrong way to do it, as stated, and there is a right way to do it, which begins with realizing its uselessness is not a problem at all.
At the end of the first Phoenix Wright game, and this is the point where those of you who haven’t played should turn back in case you don’t want to get spoiled, the message given is that in a court of law the prosecution and defense aren’t working against each other but with each other to arrive at the truth. This is what you should be doing with VS arguments, except that there’s clearly no actual truth. You may want to reach for it, but the goal is not to grind the other person underneath your forum avatar’s heel. The real goal instead is to build upon each other’s arguments and logic and to challenge each other’s opinions in order to promote critical thinking, even if it’s all in jest.
There’s never really a loser in VS arguments, and that’s the fun of it. Work on opposite sides, but work together, just as Phoenix and Edgeworth* do.
*Substitute their Japanese names if you so feel inclined.
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September 1, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Cacti
That’s all good and all,
but who’d win in a cat fight,
Ogiue or Kallen?
September 2, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Hisui
The answers are obviously Kenshiro, Lina Inverse, and the Snickers Bar.
Kenshiro wins because slow bullets could never kill the master of Hokuto Shinken.
Lina Inverse is uber hax so of course she wins (The again I only played Xenosaga 1 so maybe she gets uber hax herself in later games).
Snicker Bars win because I will always buy the snickers bar over the toilet paper because I can steal toilet paper from work.
I agree with your opinion that VS. arguments don’t have to be hate filled unless wastes of times but I feel that this is only true when you can control who participates in the discussion. If you know the temperament of everyone involved in such a discussion they can be quite fascinating. If you release such an argument on some random part of the Internet outside a tight knight community you are most probably going to get jack and squat worth of meaningful dialog.
You need the Phoenix and Edgeworth combination because the Phoenix and J Random Winston Payne combination will never get anything done.