The Deadliest Warrior

[trinityvixen]

bigscary and negativeq tried to distract me with one example of hegemonic masculinity issues in the popular culture, but I've been more absorbed by another: The Deadliest Warrior.

If you read the episode list, it just gets progressively more ridiculous. (Pirate vs Knight? Isn't that fight entirely decided by the environment?) Regardless, a scientific deconstruction of many different cultures' ultimate warrior classes is a pretty fun bit of speculation, and they have a doctor and a couple of engineers to monitor the data. (Nowhere on display: sadness that every major culture ever spent more effort creating killing machines than they did almost any other endeavor.) They go through more ballistics-gel dummies than the Mythbusters guys. The weapons are broken down into classes and compared against each other (as in, what damage they can do and which can do the most) and each round has a declared winner. It's dead fascinating (emphasis on dead), especially as various weapons/defensive armors are proven to have been crafted as they are for very good reasons. (Great example: the Samurai helmet has many different angled planes, and a Viking axe skidded off it almost immediately. Still probably brained the dude as the shock broke his spine...)

The real point of the show is to allow various dudes, who have dedicated themselves to mastering long-extinct methods of warfare, to hose each other down with their massive...skills. It's all the macho posturing even the UFC audience, deadened as they are on testosterone injections, can appreciate. For the love of all that is holy (aka these guys' GIANT COCKS), the studio in which they film this stuff is called their "Fight Club." ::rolls eyes::

It's still far too much fun to see these things put to use. If you can just ignore the two groups being riled up against each other (this is more fake than the WWE), it's worth it for the re-enactments and the scientific breakdown of exactly how each culture killed the shit out of their people. Because it's supposed to be a "mystery" as to who will win, it seems like they break down the four classes of weapons such that each group has an even number of wins. Which is exceedingly artificial, but, hey, it's television.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Every time I see ads for this, I think, "this is so awesome I can't believe they didn't come up with it before." The ads always have some very serious guy saying something like "a ninja will kill you ded."

And I actually find ancient warfare pretty interesting. I've never studied it, but the bits I've come across in various other readings have always been enlightening.

Yeah, sure, it's all about how every culture has killing machines, but Spartan vs. Ninja! Awesome!

(Also, I suspect a show about their dominance due to agricultural advances would not get the same ratings.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

They're stretching here a wee little bit, seeing as they had "Gladiator vs Apache" before and are now revisiting that first sort of ground with "Spartan vs Ninja," but whatever. They are technically different. (For that matter, I could complain about using Ninja after using Samurai, but they are TOTALLY different.)

It's the Pirate vs Knight that makes me go "WHAT?!!"

The show is actually pretty fun, if you can ignore the posturing. (Mostly, I can.)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also, tell me there's an amazon episode. Cause that I'd have to see. Given that almost everything in pop culture about amazons was made up by horny outsiders, makes me wonder how they'd handle it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

So far, with the episodes listed, there are not plans for any Amazonian throwdowns. I did mention hegemonic masculinity issues LIEK WOAH, yes?

And I'm sure they wouldn't be able to handle it. Because there's no way the over-pumped experts on the other side would be able to contain themselves even if the opponents were women. It would probably be hugely uncomfortable--for all involved.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I think the real problem is that we know next to nothing about Amazons. They might be a long-lost memory of the Phrygians, but the same could be said (say) about Centaurs.

Say what you will about that list, but at least everyone on it actually existed.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

I still need to watch this show, but it's right up against Bizarre Foods on the Travel channels and for me that takes priority. The one I'm most interested in is the Viking vs. Samurai given who I heard one. My math, given all that I know about both groups and what they were known for, said they both died. Samurai would land the fatal blow first, the Viking (I'm assuming a berserker) would have the common sense to drop first, would hold the weapon in his person, and drop the Samurai in one blow..... then fall over dead himself.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You're close. They do have to decide a winner, so they had one, but out of a thousand computer-generated matches, the victor only eeked out a couple dozen more victories than the loser. For my part, I was pretty sure that the Samurai would win because of the discipline issues (berserking is only a useful tactic if you can surprise or intimidate, and Samurais seem, well, not very slow or frightened ever), and, of course, the fact that the katana is a lightning-fast killing weapon of almost no equal. You'd be surprised what resulted from the individual weapons' tests, though, as I said, there were several that felt like they were being generous to the one side that was clearly overmatched in both episodes I saw such that each had two weapon victories so it was "a tie" until the final computations.

Whatever. I'm totally fine with watching people who have honed their skills at these things do their stuff. The man using the katana on three rolled up tatami mats in the blink of an eye (nay, faster) was dead impressive.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Having not seen the eps in question I can say anything 100%, but I somehow doubt they took a couple of the berserker's more interesting traits into account. The biggest problem of course is trying to separate out the fact and fiction of the berserker (like swords and spears being unable to "bite" their skin). Interesting parallels do exist though between what berserkers were known for and certain martial legends of other cultures. One of the easiest mistakes often made, at least from many accounts, was that berserkers were dumb brutes on the battlefield. Some accounts on how one becomes a berserker parallels shamanic training seen the world over. The hardest part of course is trying to quantify how one would continue to operate after the fatal blow is struck against them (best parallel I can think of for this involves animals such as bears and how they press an attack even after being shot in a vital spot).

...in short I'm curious what they quantified and to what degree ^_^ I heard about the katana test, and how many things it passed through on one stroke ^_^

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The long and short of it was that Samurai are disciplined, relentless warriors and Vikings were strong but not all that disciplined and relentless warriors. In the other fight I saw, the Apache vs the Gladiator, the winner was more decisive, both combatants being mostly cautious, especially up close. In the Samurai vs Viking, they went at it pretty hard. Like I said, this is probably because the match up was very close--as in, one would only defeat the other about 50% of the time. I felt like the loser, taking the defeating blow before the kill, gave up a liiiiiittle bit too easy, but they had to end it with a winner. That seems to be a requirement.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Not that I think this will get me watching live TV any time soon (so many DVDs to watch, so many games to play...), but I think it's an awesome concept for a show.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's a really cool concept for a show because you learn about different weapons. You might think you know what's what, but you learn little things that are way more interesting than the smashy-smashy parts. Like the thing about the Samurai helmet. Or the fact that Samurai would, as part of their training with the yumi, could call out what body parts they'd hit and hit them. (For reals, yo, the Samurai they had testing weapons put out two eyes on a dummy from tens of feet away.) There are also interesting overlaps of the obvious and not-so inventions for fighting. Like the Apache and the Samurai were both bow fighters, but the Apache had an animal skin shield and no armor whereas the Samurai had lots of armor but no shield, even though both, as fighters, relied on quick, disabling movements. Learning about the cult of the warrior in different cultures is fascinating.

If you'd like to see some episodes, I could see that you might find a way to do that...

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

My money's on the guy with the nukes.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

They're going to get into ballistic-weapon "warriors" soon. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1281313/episodes#season-1) My money's on the Yakuza.