[Dancer+]

Agreed.

Mok is being kept plenty busy by the Seguleh first too er...not in that way.

I think we can safely say that no substantiated collective opinion has come out of this discussion. It is a rough split I think.

[Blacksox]

Dancer;250149 said:

Agreed.

Mok is being kept plenty busy by the Seguleh first too er...not in that way.

Kind of makes you wonder about Envy's comment on Mok's growing prowess!

[Coldsnap]

I vote tool for a few reasons, and none of which tries to contradict the very well thought out and insightful pro-MOK arguements posted above. Please don't get me wrong about that.
Tool gained first sword status prior to the ritual and over hundreds of thousands years was able to become much more advanced. However, he was also as we know, clanless so to speak and in the grips of the all-encompassing desire for the oblivion of death... and end to it all. I always got the feeling that nothing truly motivated the tlann anymore short of an almost instinctual reaction to the prescence of a jaghut. And even that was a stretch with tool, who was more than willing to partake in freeing Raest and wasn't overly consumed with hatred for Panion until Toc was taken and tortured.
Thus, I think mortal Tool has hundreds of thousands of years of experience, having started it off as the greatest swordsman of a once powerful people, and now has something that no other imass has had since the ritual... Passion. Just my reasoning. It might be a stalemate, it might be that Mok would win... but in my opinion, Tool would win, barely walking away with trails of blood pouring from deep, possible lethal wounds.

[pastures]

Tool vs Mok... depends on who has progressed more since the last fight. Certainly mortal Tool has some extra benefits vis-a-vis undead Tool. But the Seguleh live for fighting.... I like to think Mok got more out of the fight with Tool than Tool did. Hence Mok is now more advanced. I'm pretty sure the Seguleh can also learn *during* a fight. But that's just my conjecture.

[Imperial Historian]

Almost certainly in a fight between tool and mok, whichever Se thought would make a better story would win

That said if you consider the textual evidence, we can't know, but it's most likely Mok would win, from the following points:
1. Tool was unmatched among the imass, thats a fact, but how many imass are there in reality? there were 7 clans left, whose numbers as they stand are maximum 60,000, and in most cases significantly less, assuming attrition, lets say that we started off with 100,000 in each clan, then add a few more for good measure = a million imass, so Tool is the best swordsman out of a million imass.
2. The imass in general fought against jaghut, not particularly against each other, that requires swordplay to defeat a supremely powerful opponent who requires a large number of powerful blows to disable, see the seemingly indestructible nature of some of the jaghut, with several others to help, hence the masisve power of the two handed imass blades, the focus is clearly not on one on one duels.
3. Mok is a seguleh, a culture which spends their whole life fighting other people with sharp pointy objects, to the point where it is there sole aim in life. A single 14 year old seguleh senu is a swordsman almost without equal among the vast majority of people, it's not unreasonable to suggest that senu is one of the best out of a million people, and mok is one of the best out of culture whose average member is around that level, who specialises in fighting duels, he's got a definite advantage in a one on one duel with his weapon choice as well.
4. Tool is almost certainly faster, but as has been stated he loses some other abilities, but I think he probably is stronger than he was in a one on one duel, he probably can't take on armies as easily, but he's got an army of his own to back him up. That said he has acknowledged Mok as his superior after there fight in MOI, and earlier on expressed his doubt about beating him, the imass time has passed the masses of humanity have managed to produce someone who can beat the imass first sword.

Tool is good, very good but Mok is freakishly good and I'd bet money on him winning again. That said if I had to choose between Tool and Mok as someone to defend my life... I'd choose tool.

[Richard]

I like Tool a lot more than Mok, so I'd like to think Tool would win. (I'm biased and would like to make that clear now.)

Tool has a lot more to fight for now. Motivation is a key elelment to determining how prepared you are to contemplate failure. If you're thinking about how you could lose you're not thinking up ways in which you could win. So now Tool is alive and has family and tribe to fight for and protect I can see him being a whole lot more determined than before. However in counter-point to this are the final events of Reaper's gale where he discovered (to late) Toc the younger. This must have had a profound negative effect on him.

Tool has a lot of experience, no one could argue that and probably knows more about fighting styles and techniques than anyone. Introspection being one his character traits and that leads to thinking hard about how other's ideas and techniques work. Also his pride does not marr his abilities which is quite unique amongst the personalities of the world. This all works to his advantage in a fight.

Mok on the other hand also has a number of things in his favour. Firstly he spends his entire life training to become the best fighter. The comment about his surprising advancement in skill always suggested to me that it might not be entirely his own natural talent but that's speculation in another direction. He won last time because he was the better fighter. In all likelyhood he will still possess the better technique. Not least because he has far better competition to practice against. (Local competition and rivals are often the best if not only means of improving beyond you own natural level of competence.) Tool has no such opponents to train against. At least none that are mentioned.

The comments about weapon advantages are not very convincing to my mind. Every weapon has virtues which their users will tout as proof of their superiority. It's not often the case and many weapons rely on specific conditions to defeat other weapons. The key to many fighters success is their ability to bring these condition about. Fighting with two swords has many disadavantages mainly rovolving around how the blades will often block each other. They are very powerful on the attack but rather poor for defense. In particular against a two-handed sword.

A worthwhile note about double handed swords (in particular broadswords) is that they were designed as all round melee weapons effective both at distance and up close. Once you got inside an opponents range you switched grips and used the sword with a range of holds turning it into a bludgeoning weapon, stabbing sword to something close to stave fighting. Medieval fighting techniques were surprisingly complicated and the range of weapons favoured represent personal tastes and opponents as much as all round effectiveness.

Back to Tool versus Mok. Though Mok won the fight back in memories of ice it is worth noting that by the time they reached Toc, Tool had let his body suffer a lot of damage. Nothing really severe but as is pointed out in the other books physical damage does significantly affect how T'lan can move and fight. Mok being flesh and blood heals (over time) and unless he suffers massive damage (in which case he's probably dead) he will always go back to starting fitness. Tool did not when he was still part of the ritual. So Tool was likely in pretty poor condition going into the fight. Also the result of the fight was not his only concern so the distraction was also likely to have affected his performance. This kind of conjecture is far from flawless and is really just my reading of the events.

I would like to think Tool would win. However whichever made the better story is the more likely outcome.

[tiam]

This is pointless. This always comes up. Tool takes injuries from thurule and is only able to keep going because of his undeadness.

[Veilside]

tiam;251330 said:

This is pointless. This always comes up. Tool takes injuries from thurule and is only able to keep going because of his undeadness.

He was using the flat of his blade in that duel, which would have made the fight much harder for him. I still think Mok would defeat Tool though.

[Dancer+]

Tool was largely unprepared too.

I'm just going to say that Mok would be toast in an unascended form, I've provided all the evidence. Prove me wrong. Everyone seems to have this overawering love of the Seguleh, it's unrealistic.

[Veilside]

Dancer;251418 said:

Tool was largely unprepared too.

I'm just going to say that Mok would be toast in an unascended form, I've provided all the evidence. Prove me wrong. Everyone seems to have this overawering love of the Seguleh, it's unrealistic.

If Tool was unprepared then that's a huge defect for a swordsman, especially considering he was in an enemy controlled city under siege.

I like what Richard said about Mok's power not neccesarily all being his own. We know from NoK that warriors can be blessed and anointed by a god and receive a lot of powers from that, so maybe the Seguleh have some kind of similar ritual for their very high ranked leaders?

[Dancer+]

Tool was unprepared for Thurule, not Mok. If he was unprepared for Mok and other things in the city then it would be quite a negative quality.

[Svaran]

Ain said:

, Tool has beaten Mok before,

he has? when did this happen?

[Optimus Prime]

He didn't beat Mok. He beat his brothers.

Mok beat Tool, and as I remember it, it was a battle that Tool was able to draw out longer than normal...but the outcome was never much in doubt.

[Svaran]

Sheesh - Tool said himself that he had never seen such skill as possessed by Mok when he sliced up that hunter in MOI, they would have fought there an then if lady Envy had not intervened and caused Mok to pass out.

[Dancer+]

Svaran;256473 said:

Sheesh - Tool said himself that he had never seen such skill as possessed by Mok when he sliced up that hunter in MOI, they would have fought there an then if lady Envy had not intervened and caused Mok to pass out.

That does not necessarily mean Mok is above Tool. Tool cannot see himself for a start.

[Icarium]

"Richard" said:

Fighting with two swords has many disadavantages mainly revolving around how the blades will often block each other. They are very powerful on the attack but rather poor for defense. In particular against a two-handed sword.

Not true. There are in fact quite a few effective methods for defence against a two-handed swords using twin short swords. And I don't feel that Karsa can be used as a basis for anything, as he is a one of a kind very messed up character at this stage, coolness aside.

"Richard" said:

The comments about weapon advantages are not very convincing to my mind. Every weapon has virtues which their users will tout as proof of their superiority. It's not often the case and many weapons rely on specific conditions to defeat other weapons. The key to many fighters success is their ability to bring these condition about.

Firstly, the point people were trying to make was not, I believe, that Tool would lose a rematch because of his choice of weapon, only that this may have been a factor in his losing the first fight. I agree, all weapons rely on specific conditions to defeat other weapons. They rely on them to the point that a weapon designed to combat one weapon may not be able to combat another effectively at all. The conditions required for x weapon to beat y may in fact not exist, if x weapon was designed originally for use against weapon z... SO I don't think your argument really holds at all. There is no evidence that Tool was more or less skilled than Mok, and vice versa. That fight was very close, and any rematch would be too. Obviously, not being undead would require Tool to adopt a far different style of combat. But one could suggest that it would be the style that won him the title of First Sword in the first place. Combined with increased speed, not being able to take hits wouldn't matter, in my humble opinion. Because you have to hit him first. Personally, I'd say Tool, by a narrow margin.

Incidentally, what is this "Rake got to Seventh and couldn't continue" business? Afaik, he refused to look down, ever, and so fought more or less every Seguleh he met. SE leaves it hanging doesn't he? I have no recollection of any mention or even inference of Rake leaving due to inability to continue fighting. So maybe he didn't feel like it (Dragnipur taking souls - he's not totally unfeeling all the time *rolls eyes* - plenty of evidence for that statement if you look-), or finished whatever it was he went there to do in the first place, and left?

[Dancer+]

Rake withdrew to his warren to stop the beating of his heart. I think it is implied that he left after that. His visit to Seguleh island was only a couple of hours, iirc.

As I said in another thread, there was no "noteworthy" damage that Envy had to mention so Rake was likely not even particularly damaged.

[Skywalker]

Dancer;259164 said:

Rake withdrew to his warren to stop the beating of his heart. I think it is implied that he left after that. His visit to Seguleh island was only a couple of hours, iirc.

As I said in another thread, there was no "noteworthy" damage that Envy had to mention so Rake was likely not even particularly damaged.

The exact quote from Envy was:

Quote

Anomander Rake once crossed blades with a score of Seguleh, one after the other. He'd paid an unannounced visit to the island - knowing nothing of the inhabitants. Taking human form and fashioning a mask for himself, he elected to walk down the city's main thoroughfare. Being naturally arrogant, he showed no deference to any who crossed his path... (snip)

Two bells. That was the full duration of Rake's visit to the island and its people. He described the ferocity of that short time, and his dismay and exhaustion which led him to withdraw into his warren if only to slow the hammering of his heart.

[Sinisdar Toste]

i think rake was just surprised by the ferocity of the people, not hurt in any way.

[Dancer+]

Skywalker;259170 said:

The exact quote from Envy was:

I was about right then. I just got a few minor details slightly off, like two bells instead of two hours.

The key points were:

• Consecutively.
  
• Many Seguleh
  
• The Seventh Dead (not mentioned here)
  
• Two Hours/Bells.

I look forward to my second reread.