Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Sauron Vs. Darth Vader

With two nerdy competition requests in two days, I figured it was time for a rush order of dorkiness, and so I put some of the other less socially-challenged competitions on the back burner, and rolled up the sleeves of my Watchman shirt.
This pocket-protecting request comes from Anna Russell. Darth Vader you know. He wears all black, covers his disfigured face with a helmet, breathes heavily, and totally digs the Dark Side. Sauron you might not know as well. He's that dude in the first Lord of the Rings movie who's got the crazy all black, spiky costume that looks like it belongs at a death metal concert or an S&M club, and then throughout the remainder of the movies, he's essentially a big floating eye surrounded by fire. Sweet, right?
Push up your glasses and put down your Next Generation DVDs, because it's time to take these two evil overlords and decide Who's More Awesome.

Archery: Neither one is very well equipped to fire a bow and arrow: sauron has no physical form without the Ring and Darth Vader has no arms or legs without his robotic body. But they both command minions (Yes! I'm so fucking excited to use that word), and Sauron's minions, not to mention almost everyone else in the LOTR trilogy, especially Legolas (who knew Orlando Bloom could be such a badass?), fire tons of bows and arrows. Point one for that faithful eye in the sky.

Swimsuit: The whole not having a physical form thing is really gonna fuck stuff up for Sauron, especially in this category. But forgetting that, even when he did have form, the jagged armor he wore would rip up any bathing suit that came in contact. Vader on the other hand has smooth, sleek armor, perfect for a bathing suit. Using "smooth" and "sleek" to describe Darth Vader was kind of creepy, wasn't it? Oh well, regardless, the Dark Side's number one advocate gets his first point.

Chess: This is the first face-0ff thus far in which both competitors are unbelievably qualified for chess. They both manage gigantic armies (see the word "minions" from two paragraphs up. I'm still excited about that), and think in terms of chess-like strategy constantly. Vader's main advantage would be his Jedi mind control, which he could use on anyone but Suaron to force a bad chess move, but Sauron has no body, and so there's no hand to force. But Sauron's ability to see all gives him just enough advantage to scrape ahead of Vader and take point two for the Tolkien crowd.

Racing: Let's forget their individual speeds, because one has no body and the other has no legs. Thinking on a broader scale, Vader lives in space, and we all know that spaceships are ludicrously fast, while things in Middle Earth move at the speed of horses and hobbits. Vader ties it up with his second point.

Fighting: Again, let's neglect a few things. Forget the armies upon armies and the intimidating supernatural abilities. Bring it back to the basics: swords. Well, sword-like things. In the movies, when Suaron has form, he has this gigantic badass scepter which he uses to swat elves and men aside like he's chopping down daises. But Vader and his Star Wars crew have light sabers, and light sabers are pretty much the ultimate in dueling technology. Plus Vader fought his own son and later his boss. The man is always down for a fight, regardless of who he's fighting. And so Vader pulls ahead with his third point.

Wine Tasting: A burnt face is never good for wine tasting, but no face is even worse. But Suaron sees everything, and I'm pretty sure covered-up wine labels are included in everything. Tied again.

Pie Eating: It's a sadly simple way to end things, but sorry Suaron, you have no body and hence no stomach or mouth. You can't eat pies without either of those. Just ask any collagen-injected anorexic actress. So Vader wins it, 4-3, and all he had to do was have a mouth and stomach.

With that Lucas can celebrate again, having redeemed himself from screwing his fans over with episodes 1-3.

Upcoming requested battles: Penis vs. Vagina, Cats Vs. Dogs, Politicians Vs. Entertainers, and The Balrog Vs. The Shai-Hulud.

Have a competition in mind? Leave it in the comments and I'll tell you Who's More Awesome.

(flickr photo Darth Vader 1024x268 by gogen001; http://www.flickr.com/photos/gogen001/2784247641/)

(flickr photo the one ring by Katie Tegtmeyer; http://www.flickr.com/photos/katietegtmeyer/38577075/)

18 comments:

  1. Man I needed that Nerdvana recharge.

    Thank you.

    So glad Vader won. (Whew.)

    BTW, that upcoming penis vs. vagina thing is going to be a scorcher.

    :^) Anna

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  2. Yeah, tell me about it. And it was suggested by an anonymous commenter, obviously (who would take credit for such a suggestion), so I can't even write them and email with the text, "why? why? why?"
    Oh well, what must be done must be done.
    And glad you approve of Vader's victory.

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  3. "Minion" is a high quality word. Agreed. "while things in Middle Earth move at the speed of horses and hobbits" <-- this made me LOL, just a little bit, though. I really want to know the quantified speed of a hobbit, that sounds like useful knowledge.

    About cleaning the microwave at work:
    1 lemon juiced + 2 cups water in a bowl
    Microwave on high for 5-10 minutes
    (The mixture will condense/cling to the walls of the microwave)
    Wipe off the gunk

    The acidity in lemon works well in a lot of cleaning scenarios, and I worry about using chemical cleaners in food preparation areas. Or maybe it's just that the lemon is my all-time 2nd favorite food item, and I always have it around....

    Also, don't worry too much about bacteria in the microwave. The cooked-on gunk probably looks gross, but if the microwave is running for a period of time >1 minute, most all bacteria should be D-E-D dead!

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  4. Excellent! Thanks. And thanks also for spelling dead the Robin Hood Men in Tights way.

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  5. I don't know, dude. I would've given Fighting to Sauron. You have to march into Mordor, and destroy the One Ring to really defeat him. Whereas one swipe of a light saber will end Vadar.

    Surely, the sheer epicness of that gives Sauron the advantage.

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  6. You make an extremely good point, but I stand by my choice, and here's why.
    A hobbit, or an elf, or anyone on Middle Earth would have to "to march into Mordor, and destroy the One Ring," but Vader could swoop in there in almost no time on his Tie Fighter, which is infinitely faster than walking there, thus taking away from the epicness. Plus, as far as destroying the ring, it'd be a cake walk for Vader, who could just use his Jedi mind control to force Gollum and his precious off the edge. Or force Gollum to toss his precious himself (although I guess whether the power of the Ring or Jedi mind control is more powerful is up for debate). Space travel and the ways of the Jedi make a once epic task much less epic.

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  7. There is nothing about this that isn't awesome. Sorry it's taken me a stupid amount of time to read it.
    Now, I'm off to show it to all my friends and start some kind of holy geek war.

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  8. No worries at all.
    Good luck with a geek war. One needs to be started. The real decider in this war will be who gets the Trekkies and the Graphic Novelites on their side. Or those like, who like them all. The swing states, if you will.

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  9. besides the fact that this is hilariously written, it is also very logical. i agree completely and will always stand by my star wars before lotr.

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  10. my first time on this site and already i have to take issue with a niggly point: Sauron *does* have a mouth -- true it is attached to another body, but it's right there in the book The Mouth of Sauron. i'm not actually debating the win here, just one of the rationales for the point.

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  11. It's a great point bronxbee. He does have a mouth, but when Tolkien writes mouth he does so metaphorically. His mouth is not an actual mouth, but more of a spokesman. And I maintain that he doesn't actually have a mouth (although I guess his mouth has a mouth). But very good point.

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  12. Sauron has a physical form without the Ring. Gollum mentions that after he has been tortured by Sauron at Bara-Dur, that he remembers that "The Dark Lord only has nine fingers, but they are enough". So your whole 'can't take form' is kind of void.

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  13. I think the actual quote is, "'He
    has only four [fingers] on the Black Hand, but they are enough', said
    Gollum shuddering." But I do know what you're talking about. I always took it as metaphorical, ie. A way of saying that Sauron is weakened by referring to the loss of his finger and ring, but he was still strong enough. Regardless, the issue of Sauron's form is pretty strongly debated, and so I chose to go with the movie's representation as that is the most commonly known representation (although does have it's flaws). But thanks for the correction.

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  14. Alongside Gollum's comment, Tolkien clearly says in his letters that Sauron has a body during the War of the Ring.

    Full discussion: http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/Creatures.html#SauronForm

    --JT

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  15. i have an idea request!!!! Sonic VS Mario!!!!! perfect huh??

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  16. Jeez, that's stupid)))

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  17. are you serious?

    I especially searched for this comparison and I can't believe that people are missing one, very important fact.

    (which is because most of the people did not read Silmarillion)

    SAURON IS A LESSER GOD. anyone thought of that?

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  18. Sauron is a demi-god! 'nuff said!

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