[Sinisdar Toste]

seint kanem, on 14 October 2011 - 02:15 AM, said:

Shrug, on 17 August 2011 - 09:57 AM, said:

@Bauchelain: RIght, I haven't seen NoK yet so that's a piece I am missing. That does change things.

Strange why the Avowed talking about Skinner fighting Dassem would equate their fight with breaking the Crimson Guard up though...the duel and the battle are two separate things on two entirely different scales. I'll work my way into NoK and look at the context, because what Temper says is actually quite ambiguous, assuming you are quoting directly?

its possible during the clash of dassems army and the CG army, skinner and dassem dueled personally. so their armies fought which broke the CG, and the commanders did as well leading to the stand still. but i have a question though. in NOK the 7 cities champions dassem beat, were they the same avowed of the CG, or were they different? i dont remember the line dassem killing the avowed but i remember him destroying each of the 7 cities champions

the seven cities champions and the the crimson guard are completely seperate.

[Nefarious_Bread]

Brys Beddict will carve them all up. Most underrated swordsman in Wu..... Back on topic......

IB is an stalwart Avowed with commendation from peers as to the merit of his martial prowess . Extenuating circumstances leading to poor form in one bout.shouldnt leave you that mystified about how bad-ass he really is. Skinner is on another level strength wise, he fought Dassem to a stand still, back when Whiskey Jack was good enough to hold Dassem aswell. (sparring or no). now back off topic, In my limited exposure to Malazempire forum The Badass List of Badass Characters sorts out the pissing contest hands down, these discussions generally fall away to the size of the swords in the end, as you can see with my opening statement to your topic

This post has been edited by Nefarious_Bread: 14 October 2011 - 09:32 AM

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

I'll just bring up some things to keep in mind for the OP...

1. Iron Bars was just shot in the chest at short range with a quarrel and beaten by a group of men with clubs right before that fight, and had been floating at sea in a dinghy with no food or water right before that.

2. He had no idea who the Seguleh were, or any clue as to their fighting style.

3. He won, and did so in apparently impressive enough fashion to be challenged by someone ranked in the top 20 of the Seguleh.

4. In between RotCG and the last time Dassem and Skinner fought, Dassem has acquired maybe the most powerful sword in the world, and also Ascended to being a GOD.

[Abyss]

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 14 October 2011 - 03:21 PM, said:

...4. In between RotCG and the last time Dassem and Skinner fought, Dassem has acquired maybe the most powerful sword in the world, and also Ascended to being a GOD.

i hate to jump into a ho'd win but RCG showed us that since the last time they fought, Skinner acquired a poison sword and armour that Dassem couldn't pierce such that he resorted to hitting Skinner in the face.

We could debate the finer points of whether Dassem was acting in his God of Sorrow aspect or his mortal/immortal Traveller aspect and how that affects his relative power in a fight he jumped into only to defend his surviving friends, but my point is that Skinner has also had a power-up since their last fight, and their fight in RCG was inconclisve with an edge to Dassem, but keeping in mind that at that point Skinner had already fought Greymane and Temper / Ferrule to a standstill.

- Abyss, notes THE ANSWER IS WOLVERINE!!!1!.

[Salt-Man Z]

Abyss, on 07 April 2011 - 06:36 PM, said:

Ho'd win aside...

Abyss, on 14 October 2011 - 03:54 PM, said:

i hate to jump into a ho'd win

You keep typing this, and in the context of RotCG it makes me giggle every time.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 14 October 2011 - 10:10 PM

[iron chef iskaral]

The Ardata armor kind of pissed me off too. I was really expecting to see a duel between equal swordsmen, not some bumbling loser crutching on his OP magic armor to outlast Dassem's fury.

I think there is an easy excuse though. We've seen that Skinner is pretty much a dick. He's arrogant. He likes to mock and tease.

(I DONT THINK THIS IS A SPOILER BUT JUST TO BE SAFE AS IM NEW HERE - SPOILER!)
Freshest in my mind is the end of Stonewielder.
(END OF PERHAPS A SPOILER)

Anyway, yeah, I just explained it away by saying he's hardly trying, just mocking Dassem, and his retreat had more to do with the general state of his Disavowed than the status of his duel w/ Dassem.

btw how do i do that cool thing where i make a box that forces you to click to see a spoiler?

thanks!

[Sinisdar Toste]

iron chef iskaral, on 09 August 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

The Ardata armor kind of pissed me off too. I was really expecting to see a duel between equal swordsmen, not some bumbling loser crutching on his OP magic armor to outlast Dassem's fury.

I think there is an easy excuse though. We've seen that Skinner is pretty much a dick. He's arrogant. He likes to mock and tease.

(I DONT THINK THIS IS A SPOILER BUT JUST TO BE SAFE AS IM NEW HERE - SPOILER!)
Freshest in my mind is the end of Stonewielder.
(END OF PERHAPS A SPOILER)

Anyway, yeah, I just explained it away by saying he's hardly trying, just mocking Dassem, and his retreat had more to do with the general state of his Disavowed than the status of his duel w/ Dassem.

btw how do i do that cool thing where i make a box that forces you to click to see a spoiler?

thanks!

you do this [spoiler*] text [/spoiler]

but without the star in the first bracket.

its also in the list of other styles in the full editor.

welcome aboard!

[BloodIron]

I think it's just life, man. Yes, these are books and everything is literally on paper as who should be better than who. But its a living world with banana peels and hangovers and bad days and mortal wounds and rolling out of bed and just not giving a sh*t. It happens in real life fighting every day (and other avenues of life, sport as well) On paper x should be y. x should beat z. In reality x beats y who beats z who beats x. Due to all variables of being alive, off days, and styles.

Each character is fleshed out pretty well in terms of their style of a fight. We get very good ideas of how clean or dirty, how graceful or brutal a character can be. Maybe Bars matches up crappy with someone he "should beat" or have an easy time with. Maybe, in inner squad sparring, he just had Skinner's number. The point I'm trying to make is that fighting is infinitely dynamic and as unpredictable as any endeavor one could partake in. Especially when its for keeps. There is no way to rank.

Cheers.

[Vaddon Ra]

But the point is that Skinner is a serious contender for "best swordsman", and that pre-Ardata-armour, he didn't die while fighting pre-God-of-Sorrw dassem, which is something. Ho'd win aside, the point, the important point, is that Skinner is a seriously dangerous dude.

Oh he's damn good of course, regardless of whether it was him one on one with Dassem or perhaps him and his guard vs Dassem with his 'Sword' guardsmen. Also Crimson guard don't just die from being stabbed do they, perhaps Dassem was winning but all the points of contact didn't kill him cos he's avowed... we'll never know, what we know is that Dassem wins against him at the end of RotCG so at that point in time Dassem > Skinner from what we can tell.

Also, and I may be wrong, I thought Dassem was Ascended way before his 'death'. In GOTM or one of the early books it mentions who was at the chaining, which I thought was meant to be quite a long time ago, and it mentions dessembrae... if I'm wrong that's cool, I just thought that Dassem had ascended a long while back and had since rejected as much of his godhood as possible....despite that he still cant break free his god of tragedy side as seen in TTH when he walks thru daru surrounded by his moaning worshippers...

lol that's a moot point though I guess, I just thought that Dassem had ascended quite a while ago and just been trying to reject it due to his godhood being manifest in his life by losing his daughter... or whatever XD

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Not too sure if this is a

SPOILER POSSIBLY SPOILER

but JIC,

Spoiler

Theres alot more to find out about the chaining, and other subsequent chainings. SE has never stated outright how many there were, but since tCG fell down in pieces there must have been a few, and I think if SE decided to write about a new chaining that we have never heard of or discussed, he would find a way to shoehorn it into the cannon just for the sake of telling that story.

[Seiko]

Well, Skinner was two seconds fresh from a tussle with Greymane, someone who Brood ranked alongside Rake, etc. A fight he won.

As far as his armour being the only thing preventing him from being "carved up" by Dassem, I think that it was pretty obvious he just saw no need for a defensive approach, since after Dassem goes stabby stabby, and his aura of invincibility is shattered, he defends against Dassem's pressing successfully. I didn't see any discrepancies. Just the arrogant "I'm da stronkest" guy that Skinner was portrayed as throughout the book.

[theocean]

my guess is he decided to just rely on his new fancy armour... dont have be as good of a swordman if noone can hurt you with their sword.