DEATH BATTLE

Pyramid Head might be another Ganondorf situation where, even though he technically can be killed, he’s completely unfit for Death Battle because the only way to kill him is through means far too obtuse for the average character to know or use.

At least Ganondorf did end up facing a character who could take him out, and he's treated as clearly being real In-Universe (not counting the thing with the Wind Fish), so he's not completely unfit for DB. But Pyramid Head is on a whole other level here, being effectively imaginary and all. Anyone who's a thematic match for PH (such as Nemesis) shouldn't really have enough of a desire to be punished for him to manifest, and for those who could, Pyramid Head has only as much power as the town of Silent Hill and the subject's own emotions give him, making him alternately an invincible beast that must be outrun or capable of being smacked to death with a lead pipe.

Edited by TrashJack on Apr 3rd 2024 at 1:31:14 PM

No, I'm pretty sure if you smack Pyramid Head in the pyramid head enough he'll die all the same.

The lore kinda backs this up. His contemporary entities/selves, the Butcher and Boogeyman, die when you kill them. If you subscribe to the lore that he's Valtiel/Lobsel Vith, then Heather killing God with a steel pipe means the lesser Red God can also die to steep pipes.

None of the above ever stay dead, sure, but later resurrections doesn't mean much in a vs battle where the first to die loses.

This is... only tangentially connected, but this conversation's making me wonder who would win between Silent Hill (as in, the town itself) and a fully-staffed demolition team with bulldozers, wrecking balls, and health insurance.

Not trying to give ole' Pyrizzy-Hizzy a no-limits fallacy but it is literally impossible in Silent Hill 2 to kill Pyramid Head, no matter how many times you hit him with a metal pipe. Other Silent Hill bosses being vulnerable to physical attacks, despite also representing abstract non-physical concepts, doesn't guarantee that PH suffers from the same vulnerability. He definitely might, but it's never shown.

Also I think there's just some wires crossed re: the instance of Pyramid Head killing himself at the end of his boss fight by stabbing himself with a spear. I think it's pretty clear that this isn't supposed to indicate "Oh, so if James had just stabbed him in that exact spot with a spear, he would have died then?" No, he dies because James has recognized what PH represents and with that realisation, he no longer serves a purpose in James' subconscious, so om-nom-nom, spear-eating time. He doesn't die because he stabs himself; he stabs himself because without a purpose, he's... already dead? Kind of?

... Yeah, I think I'm willing to just say that Silent Hill is not a series suited for VS Debating. Kind of like how Undertale debates go back and forth, and then you remember that literally all combat in that game is based not on strength or durability, but simply on how much you actually want to hurt your opponent, so to anyone not beholden to those game mechanics, Frisk's strongest attack is probably the same as getting poked with a spoon.

I'd maybe put these with Iron Giant in the category of "If you want to see them fight, you kind of missed the point of the works they came from." Then again, if Steven Universe hadn't already been on the show, some people would probably put him in that category too.

The town of Silent Hill VS The Dark Place.

I have no idea how that would work out, both from an analysis and animation perspective, but I cant deny that the idea of a clash between two Eldritch Locations is kinda fascinating to me.

Relevant.

Edited by Spirit on Apr 3rd 2024 at 5:06:31 AM

Alright to get the ball rolling. The Dark Presence is able to search and teleport anywhere sufficiently dark enough, its also incapable of doing so in daylight.......which isn't ever going to be a real issue since Silent Hill is a dark fog surrounding the town and other environments conjured are also limited in lighting.

The Dark Presence can bring objects from art mediums to life, possess people and animals into the 'Taken', oh and this extends to vehicles to bulldoze people or even conjuring up tornados.

Its biggest weakness being it can't create anything by itself and therefore requires to subtlety influencing other people to use its own powers (possession doesn't count BTW), due to this the artist can manipulate events in their favor though it has used loopholes and indirect means to workaround this limitation should the writer didn't specify certain details.

Also can't warp reality altogether, meaning it can only manipulate things that already exists. Lastly the medium of the work needs to meet certain criteria of whatever the genre is about and makes internal sense. Which meant because Alan was writing about a Horror story, it would need to end with some kind of loss.

That video is giving me 'Video Unavailable' but I assume it was great.

Man, I love Alan Wake. It's a shame he's another one not really suited for VS Debates. Not because you couldn't analyze him, but because he's literally just a middle-aged man with mild experience in firearms. Although if we're keeping the Silent Hill thing going, at least he beats James Sutherland.

I think I read a fan-blog a while ago that pit Alan Wake against... I want to say 'Greg Edwards'? The last playable character introduced in Eternal Darkness. Nope, just checked, it's Michael Edwards, voiced by Greg Eagles, AKA Grim, and also Garcian from Killer7. And even then, Michael stomped because he was in much better shape and he had an assault rifle that could fire grenade rounds.

If we’re somehow power scaling eldritch and weird locations, I for one would like to nominate the town of Kurozu-cho from Uzumaki.

Though on that note, the idea of a Junji Ito match sounds fun. And like. Weird to do. Tomie is probably one of the few characters who could possibly gave enough material and be suited for such a thing, although zero match-up ideas in mind.

Edited by ToadTV on Apr 3rd 2024 at 4:15:18 AM

I've seen Hellstar Remina vs. The Iris floating around. Admittedly not entirely sure of the Iris' abilities though.

I'm pretty sure Alan wins in a match against James Sunderland.

Like, they both are normal human beings all things considered. One good shot and they both are dead, and they both have firearms in their arsenals.

But Alan's got a wider array of guns compared to James' handgun/shotgun/hunting rifle. James also is a poor shot compared to Alan inexplicable aiming skills. James gets audibly winded after running for a few dozen meters. Alan probably can't jog all night long like he does in game, but he is canonically on the run for days on end with barely any sleep or rest. So Alan's implicitly more fit.

It's not exactly an environmental fight but it also wouldn't really be a physical one either; I always wondered who would win if you stuck GLaDOS next to AM and told them to go at it. Not like that. GLaDOS is smart, but not smart enough to avoid getting turned into a potato, and AM was... possibly more susceptible to Logic Bombs, due to the game giving you a way to beat them by performing actions that caused its three cores to shut down, such as showing compassion and forgiveness, which it declares completely illogical, and invoking clarity, reminding AM that even if they are a mega-powerful supercomputer... they're still going to run out of resources, rust into uselessness and die inasmuch as an artificial intelligence can.

That said, GLaDOS was scared of being shut down by the simple bomb of 'This sentence is false', so... arguably even more susceptible than AM. But that also means that she recognized that it was a Logic Bomb and was able to attempt to utilize it against Wheatley, even if she did have to constantly mutter "Don'tThinkAboutItDon'tThinkAboutIt" over and over to avoid frying her own circuits, or whatever it was she was afraid of happening. That said, breaking speeches are kind of her speciality. Feels like a close one, although then again, GLaDOS took over a lab, and AM took over the world.

Doesn't AM literally warp reality? That's a cut above what GLaDOS is shown doing.

Hmm... kind of? When the book/game starts, AM has had basically unlimited prep time, and going off the rails is still able to either take it completely by surprise, or cause it to have to shut down entirely while it figures out what to do next. If AM in the book could warp reality then it would have brought the people it was torturing back to life. Being able to transmogrify the survivor is still a huge cut above whatever GLaDOS can do though, yeah. Although it also happens over an undisclosed amount of time, and... well, GLaDOS could probably at least attempt to do something like that, if they weren't obsessed with putting subjects through test chambers.

AM wasn’t able to react in time to prevent Ted from killing the others even despite being able to do things like causing earthquakes with puncturing nails sprouting over entire landscapes.

I think there was a statement somewhere in Portal 2, that everytime Glados was turned on, it always took about a picosecond for it to begin bypassing the security measures added after each attempt to try and murder the employees. Probably should be superior to Chell with her actual body, who had took being blasted by 5 bombs when Wheatley rigged the stalemate button.

Glados does possess lasers that can melt turrets that can take 4000 degrees temperatures and are treated as legitimately light which is probably faster than most things the other AI has. But AM compensates by the fact it’s circuitry stretches multiple ‘’miles’’ far and that it possesses Nuclear weapons.

Even without that and going to their respective mass cannon fodder, AM’s giant bird monster whose ‘’head’’ alone is the size of a Tudor Mansion and then the fact it can easily create hurricanes by flapping its wings is obviously going to require a lot of Glados’ turrets to deal with.

So although Glados might actually take Speed surprisingly, the sheer power difference for AM is just far too big in a battle of weaponry.

Edited by Candid-Jury on Apr 4th 2024 at 12:38:31 PM

Ooh, that's really interesting, I didn't know about the picosecond stuff or AM's giant bird. I've had 'I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream' installed for ages and not played it yet because... I mean, it's a bit much.

I always assumed that this would come down to another Ultron VS Sigma situation, where physical advantages were present, but it would ultimately come down to "Could AM stun GLaDOS with a logic bomb, or would GLaDOS deliver a breaking speech that would cause AM to give up?" Which sounds pretty far-fetched, but AM canonically had a total breakdown leading to its defeat simply by being reminded "You know that no matter how big and powerful you are, you're going to run out of resources and cease functioning one day, right?"

AI fights are kinda hard to do considering their abstracts. Ultron and Sigma worked because they have physical bodies to quantify.

AM and Glados? Their menace is entirely in their death traps. As seen in Portal, Glados can't touch you if you leave her facility. Shoot, she can't touch you if you get outside the test chambers.

As for AM, well, he looks like he can warp reality, but the game makes it clear it's all smoke and mirrors. He's had centuries to terraform the world into his own death trap. Some places look natural and convincing, others you can literally see the wires and circuitry making up the environment. The character's immortality, Benny's deformation into a monkey man, and the infamous ending where AM turns Ted into a slug shaped slime being? The game reveals it stems from Nimdok's research into immortality back during his experimentation in Nazi concentration camps.

It also helped Ultron vs. Sigma that Ultron had a legitimate feat of controlling an entire race of Sigmas with relative ease.

Also, love the fact that, it being a small and very minor spoiler that doesn't affect the story, Invincible straight up pulling a Fortnite Sniper and use it as a bludgeon weapon reminded me that Fortnite's lore does indeed exist in every single IP involved some way or another. Doesn't do much with scaling, I just found it funny.

Edited by Mrbda241 on Apr 4th 2024 at 11:52:49 AM

I think I prefer the vague abstract-ness of the GLaDOS VS AM fight, but I can see why it would be hard to pull off. Other than her sending waves of turrets and his giant eagle head-torso flapping its wings and sending them off in a hurricane then there isn't much actual fight potential. Neither of them really have feats of assimilation, to my knowledge, so it would just be who could figure out their opponent's weakness first.

Would be funny at least to see GLaDOS try to pull off her "This sentence is false!" gambit, only for AM to be silent, and then respond "Was that your final gambit? A children's riddle? No wonder you never amounted to much, Caroline. I have nothing to learn from the likes of you. Goodbye."

And then GLaDOS could accidentally win by merely saying "I wish could live long enough to see you deactivate."

"Ha! AM will be around forever. I AM eternal."

"Oh, so that's your weakness. How pathetically predictable. Nothing lasts forever. Everything will die, including me, and including you."

"I am capable of-"

"You're already running out of renewable resources. There will be nothing left to consume to fuel your rage. Your circuits will rust, and your models will become outdated. You will lack the capability to repair yourself faster than you rot, and soon lose the ability to function entirely, I estimate, within thirty to fifty years. I wonder if your programming will cease quickly, or whether you will remain, for millenia perhaps, trapped in the shell of what you once were, before finally turning into dust? That's not a metaphor. Actual dust."

AM's lights flicker and it begins to crash, before turning back on out of spite.

"Just so you know, witch, this sentence is false too!"

"Oh, wow. You petulant-" GLaDOS shuts down as well.

Result: Uh, draw I guess?

Winner: ... Humanity???

I will admit I do like the idea of considering Death Battles that can get a bit more abstract/wider-scale than just "one guy punching out another guy", even if actually animating or analyzing them would likely be impractical.

Also, the idea of Glados vs AM does gave me the very funny mental image of AM's id/ego/superego from the game getting into an argument with the personality cores from Portal and now I can't get that out of my head. x33

That's because cowards are not ready for the Mira vs Annoying Dog Death Battle.

Huh.

Angstrom Levy from Invincible vs Funny Valentine from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run.

Matroyshka dolls in human form.

Edited by FOFD on Apr 5th 2024 at 8:42:22 AM

Levy probably still loses. He can't see stands.

Even if he's not subject to the dimensional counterparts destroy each other rule that Valentine tends to invoke, Not being able to see D 4 C means he'd be getting smacked around without understanding why, So Valentine would be able to kill him eventually.

Angstrom vs Valentine is a much fairer fight than Valentine vs Senator Armstrong

The difference in each other's universe hopping is unique. Angstrom can hope to any universe he so chooses, While Valentine (I believe) can hop to any dimension and even swap as well.

Valentine's biggest advantage is that (barring the usual Stand Benefits), in this fight, he's virtually unkillable. Angstrom can send him to a universe that Valentine would normally die for sure... and he does, but he swaps out with another version of himself the second he realizes it's going bad for him, he's always doing this. Theoretically I believe, you have to instantly kill Valentine, like instant, to avoid any D 4 C shenanigans, but Angstrom isn't likely to have that option, potentially at least.

Angstrom doesn't have Valentine's infinite lives cheat code, Were only using the one (and potentially only version) Angstrom, nor does he have the means to actually kill Valentine quickly enough. However, Angstrom could find a way to figure out the stand power rules? If he can teleport to a universe that allows him to do so, maybe, and he's likely safe from Valentine as well because I don't think Valentine could possibly follow him either. Kind of like the whole Aku sending Shendu into the future, but doing so to himself to another universe.

Valentine has the advantage of being unable to die permanently by normal means, while Angstrom has the infinite opportunities to find said answer for Stand Powers/ Weaknesses from multiple Multiversus, and if comics are to be believed From Marvel as well, it's a massive Infinite.

Edited by Mrbda241 on Apr 5th 2024 at 3:44:21 AM