Fandom Cage Match- Bout 6: Game of Thrones VS Lord of the Rings

[The Bard Babe]

Argh!!! I DON'T KNOWWWW!!!!!!

I mean, Merlin was in Dr Who for an episode, and it has Anthony Head in it and Arthur and Lancelot and Gwyn/Gwen, whatever her name is are all really good looking, and it's funny and has a cool plot...

 

But Avatar is sooooo cool!!! And Sokka and Zuko are just awesome, and it has cool superpowers in it.

 

I JUST CAN'T DECIDEEEE!!!!!!!

[BFG]

Ok, I'm voting Merlin over Avatar, as since both series are excellent, Merlin gets bonus points from Sword in the Stone (and the most amazing magic battle I've seen on TV) and Mary Stewart, Avatar loses a point because of the travesty of a movie.

[Jeannaisais]

I liked Merlin :)

[Basel Gill]

Merlin was okay. I never saw the appeal to Avatar, and I never even heard of Korra before Blackhoof ran a mafia game with that as the theme.

[Starrik]

Huh. This one has stirred no emotions with people. We haven't got big representations of these fanbases I guess.

[The Bard Babe]

You got an emotional response from me!! And I still haven't decided...

[Starrik]

A one-person debate is rather dull...

[The Bard Babe]

Is that a challenge? ...if so...

[Jeannaisais]

a one man debate huh?

[Starrik]

So far. Everyone else made a halfhearted committment to one or the other. Come on people, I haven't voted yet, which one is better?

[BFG]

*RR BFG stand up and throws gauntlet down*

 

I'll admit that I haven't seen any of the new series of Avatar, so I'm basing my choice of Merlin on the old series of Avatar and about the last 2 and a bit series of Merlin.

 

Avatar has several good points - the continuity of the series (in terms of once they've lost something it's lost), some of the animation is almost as good as Studio Ghibli stuff (in particular the battle sequences), the storyline is pretty cool and the idea of the diferent bending is really cool. BUT for all that can you say "deus ex machina"?

 

Avatar views itself as a kids show and steers away from making darker choices and has to have the happy ending. Compare that to Merlin which realises the thing about a kids show is that kids like to be scared. As a show, Merlin is growing up, it's getting darker and grittier, while remaining at core an older kids show.

In series 4

Lancelot dies, comes back as a zombie and is killed again

.

 

The relationship between Arthur and Merlin is fabulous, the fact that we as an audience know how often Merlin has saved Arthurs life but Arthur doesn't have a clue. The gradual introduction, and the reasoning behind them of all the things in the legend, the round table and the sword in the stone in particular (which also works as a subversion of the legend).

 

The role of magic in the world in particular is interesting. One of the things I'm looking forward to in particular is what happens when Merlin reveals his power to Arthur.

 

In short for me Merlin wins because it's darker and more absorbing.

 

 

And, the final blow, we are in a WoT forum, how many references from the Merlin legend are there in WoT, how many from Avatar? :)

[Starrik]

Nice argument BFG! Totally leaning towards Merlin now. Not absolutely convinced, because most of me loves the happy ending, but you've got brilliant points.

[BFG]

Wahoo!

 

I do like happy endings, but generally find them unsatisfactory. I'm really hoping that WoT will change this tho!

 

EDIT - besides Merlin hasn't really had an unhappy ending yet, so far the good guys haven't actually lost. Of the two characters that died, one has to happen, but the second was a surprise.

 

DOUBLE EDIT - Can you believe it, I missed the last 2 episodes, ever. If anyone spoils it for me (as it's now likely I need to wait for the DVD release) I will not be happy :)

[BFG]

I'm going to resurrect this and although I can't edit the original post I want to move this forward until I can argue for Game of Thrones :)

 

So

 

Twilight vs Dracula

 

Is there really going to be any debate on this? Has to be Dracula, right?

[Starrik]

Good idea BFG! I can edit the original post, and will do so soon, I promise!

True that there is no real debate, but I wanted to bury it!

[BFG]

debates whether or not to play the devils advocate :)

[The Bard Babe]

No devil's advocation is allowed here.

 

Twilight was a cool concept blown way out of proportion, written crappily with a lead character so bland and lacking in definitive personality traits that she either became portrayed as inexcusably whiny and selfish or relied completely upon other characters or the reader themselves to give her any likeable characteristics.

 

Kinda like tofu.

 

I don't even know Dracula, but it wins. Original vampire beats crappy cover. *nodnod*

[BFG]

I'm not sure, I think the comedy from the first film being filmed entirely in close-ups of Bella and Edwards faces gives it some kudos (even if unintentional by the author).

[Jeannaisais]

I think by hardcore fantasy readers like ourselves in this community, we give Twilight too much of a hard time. It was definitely poorly written and I think oftentimes poorly executed in the films, but a brilliant story and plotline as far as a vampire love story goes. I mean, the most interesting part is the part human part vampire child - that should have been the start in my head. Book one could have been books one and two condensed and then the next two books would have been the struggles of the part human part vampire in the presence of the Valkiri (sp?).

 

I've read reviews on Dracula and the first couple of paragraphs when I was bored during my closing shifts at Taco Bell - brilliant writing, but definitely slower pace me thinks.

[The Bard Babe]

I enjoyed reading Twilight when it first came out, when I was in my tweens and the series had only just come out in Australia, my brother brought me a copy back from Belgium, oddly enough. I hated the second book, the others were pretty good. The plot has some good points, but more than a few bad and the character development makes me angry. I need character development. It's one of those books you read because it's an awesome concept and you get sucked into that for a bit, but then you realise that it's poorly executed.

 

And the films were rubbish. *nodnod* Well, the first two that I actually bothered seeing are. I'll need to see the rest before I can make a full comment on the films, but I'd never watch the first two again, and coming from me, that's pretty serious.   XD  I'll watch just about anything.

The only redeeming factors in the film were the hotness of Carlisle and Alice, and Bella's dad was one pretty well. I don't remember his name...

[BFG]

I think comparing Twilight to Dracula is a bit harsh, Dracula's an amazing concept, well written and intriguing characters. It's also the source of multiple spin offs (for me the most successful of which is undoubtably Terry Pratchett), many of which are better written than Twilight, indeed the concept of vampires was (to the best of my knowledge) made popular by Dracula, so in a sense Twilight is just a spin-off that's more poorly executed (will probably delve more into this argument when LotR comes up). Their was for me a semi-original twist in that the vampires could choose to be good (Buffy did it first, but it's not literature).

 

I can give Twilight an intriguing story, but can't forgive the characters. It would make more sense to compare it to Dan Brown (again intriguing story, but horrendously badly executed, with 0D characters and... (stops rant)), or Eragon (maybe not, can't think of much that's worse than Eragon). Maybe compare it to Harry Potter - except that their's character development in HP, the story (on the whole) makes sense, their's fore-shadowing, ok maybe not HP :)

 

 

Jea - you're right that the half-human child is an original concept, but I couldn't cope with any more page time that included the name Renesme *shudder* :)

[Jeannaisais]

Yeah, the name was a bit...ugh but I still think that should've been the main plot line!

[Starrik]

BFG you bring up a good point when comparing it to Harry Potter. There is still widely popular fantasy that appeals to the more hardcore, giving Twilight little excuse on this line. That being said, as a teenage nerd it would be near life-threatening for me to read them, so I can't argue much further.

[Talya]

I have to go with Dracula, the thought of twilight sends me twitching...don't like it at all...If you want a good vampire film, bram stokers dracular, or Slaem's lot or Lost boys...much, much better than Twilight! :-D

[Starrik]

Twilight-0

Dracula-4
BFG
Starrik
BB
Tayla

 

Fencesitter/Devil's Advocate: Jea

 

That's a clear win for Dracula. Now, Pokemon VS Digimon!

Come on. It has to be Pokemon, right?

 

Pokemon: 1

Starrik

 

Digimon: 0