Discussion PlayingWith / CombatPragmatist

Aye. Also, I am sure that most of these things are not actually deconstructions:

• Deconstructed:
  • Bob is smart enough to bring a gun of his own, knowing Alice would not be honorable enough to fight fair.
  • Alice bring a gun but misses her shot, since she never fought fair she never bothered training her aim or react if Bob moves too fast for her.
  • Alice's way of fighting is seen as dirty: she quickly gains a bad reputation as a weakling and/or Dirty Coward for not fighting with strength, skill, or honor.
  • In addition to the above bullet point, while Alice thinks she is fighting "smartly" other people think she is an overtly cruel bitch (endangering noncombatants and torturing incapacitated enemies for the sake of terrorizing the rest into compliance does that) and pisses them off to the point that they will perform tactics they chose to outlaw just to have a shot at getting rid of her. All that Alice has brought down on herself is a degree of escalation she will be hard-pressed to withstand, let alone defuse and she can just forget about topping.
  • Alice's lack of standards while fighting means that, in the rare instance where she is defeated, Bob shows her no mercy because he does not expect it in turn.
  • Alice is normally alright with using underhanded tactics because her opponents are normally scum anyways but is a bit hesitant when she is forced to fight a brainwashed ally.
  • Alice shoots Bob down and claims herself victorious but was deemed the loser as she failed a Secret Test of Character and was banished due to her underhanded ways.
  • The Big Bad tries to exploit Alice's cynical underhanded nature by getting Alice's pragmatic tactics to backfire horribly on her, such as having the berserk werewolf that she shot in the head instead of using The Power of Love to non-lethally dispel his curse turn out to be her boyfriend.
  • There are rules (spoken or not) to this "game", and the "penalty" for either side breaking them is severe: Alice thus gets to see her Doomed Hometown destroyed because a lesson had to be given about what happens if someone "cheats".
  • Alice is good at fighting dirty, setting up traps and quick-drawing... but unfortunately she is very bad at fighting fair, because she lacks the physicality or she has a very bad sense for split-second planning; if anybody survives her initial ambush, Alice is screwed.
  • Similar to the above, Alice's tactics are meant to seed terror and keep people from messing up with her no more than once (as Orson Scott Card termed it, "win this and all other future fights"). Sounds well and good against garden-variety Red Shirt mooks that are there because they Signed Up for the Dental, but unfortunately fanatics who are determined to cause any harm to her no matter the cost (or people too stupid to understand they're supposed to be scared, or too pissed off to care about such things as tactical analysis or even being three-quarters dead) are a wholly different story.
  • Alice is forced into a weaponless duel, and is stripped of all her hidden weapons beforehand. Probably more than a bit literally.
  • By painting herself as a disproportionately brutal person (even if she prefers of it as pragmatism), she finds herself scaring off everybody she likes or loves who cannot (hell, will not) think the same way.
  • Word of Alice's refusal to fight fair and underhanded tactics quickly spreads and future opponents focus their efforts on taking her out first, knowing better than to keep her in the fight.
  • Bob was just going to give Alice a few bruises and a little trash-talk, tops; but, the fact she cheated pisses him off so much that he brutalizes the living daylights out of her: it may create a Cycle of Revenge and/or traumatize her.
    • In addition, said cycle could even cause outsiders, up to and including children as well as elders, to take the Nuclear Option (metaphorically and/or literally) when dealing with those like Alice and/or Bob, all to send a powerful message about the importance of honor and respect, especially when civilian lives are threatened.
  • If Alice had just fought normally in a mugging situation she probably could claim self-defense. But her overkill tactics allow the thief's Amoral Attorney to paint her as the aggressor and local laws may still think you did a no-no (if you had enough time to draw a gun on someone you probably had enough time to start running, and if you had enough presence of mind to aim for the balls you probably didn't felt threatened).