VS Discussion: The Anti-Debaters

Hello everyone, Hero's Shade here! Today I thought I'd whip up a quick blog page to talk about something that irks me about the VS community, and is unfortunately becoming largely more prominent lately. Yes, I know, VS debating is terrible and water is wet, news at 11.

Have you ever been to a freind's house and played a game with them, and said friend has their own set of house rules that put you at an obvious disadvantage? Well, if you can't recall being in a situation like that, let's say you're playing chess with someone. You begin the game and attempt to move a pawn forward two spaces, but your opponent tells you that because of their house rules you can only move pawns one space at the beginning of your turn. He later revises this rule when he does just that, saying you can only do it once per game. Later, you move your pawn to his side of the board to make it a queen, which would put his king in check, and he has no way of eliminating that pawn. He pulls the house rules card on you yet again saying that you can't make your pawn a queen, only a knight or a rook, and those just so happen to be the two pieces that can't put the king in check on that particular turn. At this point, it becomes clear that this player will just bend the rules in any way that would benefit him and prevent him from losing, even though it is clear that you'd be the winner in this scenario if the game was being played normally.

Now, I'm not going to knock anyone for playing games by their own house rules as long as they are discussed beforehand, but hopefully I made my analogy clear. The rule-changer in this scenario is preventing any situation where the other player would be winning by meta-gaming and cheating himself out of losing rather than simply resorting to the options already available to him and being a good sport. Or how about this, playing a fighting game where one player is using hacks and cheats to win against another player who is playing fairly. This doesn't prove that you're any more skilled than the other player, all it proves is that you can cheat and deny victory from other people who deserve it. In fact, there some situations where it hasn't worked, but that's beside the point.

It makes more sense to use a universal set of rules that anyone can work off of on hand rather than make your own and expect everyone else to follow the rules you made, yes? And that brings us back to VS debating. Debating in general is a logical exorcise. It is best done after extensive research (and I don't just mean spending ten minutes skimming wikis lmao) to compare the facts you've compiled with someone else, as well as-to an extent- the rhetoric used to present information. It is a very informative and enriching experience for those who know what they're doing.


Unfortunately, there are those who will essentially become Obi-Wan ("I have the High Ground, DON'T TRY IT!") and attempt to avoid or hand-wave information and rhetoric. I refer to these people as "Anti-debaters", because they essentially defeat the whole purpose of debating as a logical exorcise, and because they create a lot of the negative stereotypes associated with internet VS debating, which I'm sorry to say are accurate, more often than not. However, I will make an attempt to inform people of these Anti-debating tactics, as well as to purge  educate  also inform those who use them, so hopefully less people will resort to them and less people will be turned off and discouraged by this hobby.

"VS is just opinions anyway"

 

This mentality is one of main reasons I decided to write this blog, because it's one of the best examples of Anti-debating. People who say this during debates likely only say this because actual evidence presented to them goes against their pre-conceived notions of a character or series, or resort to this as a last ditch effort to declare victory in an argument.

This is also counter-intuitive and circular logic, because these people will often present a character as the irrefutable, objective winner, and when they run out of arguments (if any) will claim that it is their opinion that this character will win. If it's an opinion, by definition, it is neither irrefutable nor objective. Which... means it's still open for debate. Hypocrite that you are! Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

Now, a lot of people who say that debating is opinion-based take issue with calculations. Which is fair enough, there are some calculations that can be revised or refuted. But saying all calcs are wrong or that calcs can't be applied to fiction at all is just silly. Yes, we are talking about fictional worlds that may or may not follow the same rules as ours, but most fictional universes have the same universal constants as ours, like gravity. And the very few that don't are the exception rather than the rule. For example, you won't just see people floating around when you're catching up on the Walking Dead, the fact that there's fictional elements like zombies doesn't change the fact that physics are still a thing in their world. Therefore, it only makes sense that they should also follow the same general laws of physics (which you can apply math to because anything that exerts force can be measured in kinetic energy).

Says who? This guy named Occam. He makes great razors. 

"Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the simpler one is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is."

" Occam's razor (also Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; Latin: lex parsimoniae "law of parsimony") is the problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the one that makes the fewest assumptions."

My point is that there are things in fiction that you legitimately cannot argue against. Take the Greek legend The Twelve Labors of Hercules for example. The feats he performs in the story have a huge impact on the world around him, and are a driving force for the narrative in general. They happened. Your argument is invalid. The same can be said about most of fiction, like a hero defeating a villain, or a character performing a certain feat triggering a specific event to happen (say, causing a volcano to explode, resulting in a major conflict). Now, when it comes to varying versions of the story, such as if Hercules fought the Hydra alone or with his cousin or nephew, those things are subjective. But more often than not it won't be a deciding factor and there are plenty more examples and pieces of evidence that are much more blatant and concise.

The Stonewallers

This one is pretty self-explanatory, so expect this section to be short. 

These are the people who will have a list of reasons, if not one reason, why they think a character should win, and will never back down from those points or present any new information despite those reasons being repeatedly contested. Said arguments against those points will either be ignored or argued around in circles and/or buried in a sea of comments, only for the stonewaller to continue to present their points as the clincher to newcomers and lurkers. Stonewallers will also use those same points to go against anything the debaters bringing in actual evidence have to say.

Now, it is true that there are times where the information you would present is accurate and the refutations against it are wrong (for example let's say you are arguing something Mario related and somebody argues against your points using an example from the US version SMB2, which is in a dream) , and you often have to repeat yourself. But I'm talking about instances where say, people will claim Saitama will always beat anyone with one punch (I'll get to NLFs later) despite being presented examples from his own series where it took more than one punch to beat someone, and will continue to insist the idea that he always beats enemies with one punch despite being proven wrong multiple times.

This is not debating. This is the age-old children's playground argument of "nuh-uh, is too is too!"

The Hive Minds/The Yes Men

Again, self-explanatory, and you can easily see the issue with this simply by watching the video above. Hive minds and yes men are two different issues, but they do go hand in hand. 

I've been in plenty of situations where a mod on a VS site will just agree with whatever the last thing was that was posted, even if said posts are on opposing sides of the argument. Said mods would often be in charge of whatever was posted on the wiki and main page, which is concerning. There is essentially no debate, and nobody disagrees with anything, aside from outsiders who don't think the same way they do. So you have proverbial Superintendents letting metaphorical houses burn down because they were convinced the Arora Borealis is in the kitchen, despite the fact that those hamburgers are obviously grilled.

Proof by Example

There are plenty of people out there who, rather than going by generally accepted methods like feats, go by arbitrary views or concepts when it comes to certain characters and works of fiction, and Proof by Example Fallacy aka No Limits Fallacy is certainly a by-product of that.

For instance, I have argued with people (who shall remain unnamed, but if you were there you know who they are and I'm sorry for triggering the PTSD flashbacks) who believed that Psycho Mantis could convince any character to kill themselves, or that Freddy Kruegar with the Power Glove had control over any video game character, like he could just snap his fingers and kill Kratos or Asura.

And the biggest problem with this is that they believe that this is the only way to look at fictional characters, and that feats are just secondary, or that they don't matter at all. They believe these subjective concepts are the correct and accurate way and that using numbers, calcs, feats and actual examples from the series is nonsensical and silly.

Going back to what I started this with, these people essentially expect you to drop everything you knew about the characters and debating in general and perform the same mental gymnastics with them.

Me and my friends have this inside joke where you could break these peoples' minds by asking them if Ganondorf could survive a punch from Saitama, and just watch the beauty unfold.

Oh wait, silly me. Whoever wins is whichever character they're a bigger fan of.

Toxic Fanbases

Now, I will openly admit that I am an elitist. I've been doing this for about 5+ years now and have lurked and participated in various VS communities, read tons of respect threads, read plenty of comics, watched tons of TV shows (yeah I know, watching TV, so difficult), as well as written many blogs on and researched many characters. I like to think I know what I'm doing, and I believe there's nothing wrong with being proud of what you do. However, there is a line to be drawn. This should go without saying, but if you tell someone to go kill themselves or just in general act like an asshole or condescend someone the entire time they just want to have a rational conversation with you, chances are they're not going to want to hear your points. This also works conversely. Don't dismiss someone's arguments just because you think they're an elitist, try to hear them out and if they're being toxic just let the mods handle it. Just be respectful to each other. Because at that point there's no actual debate taking place and it devolves to a pissing contest. You're arguing about fake characters on the internet for fuck sake, there's no need to make it personal.

The Posers

 

That guy. You know the one. That guy who only knows memes or surface knowledge about a character and acts like an expert. That guy.

That guy who thinks Aquaman loses every fight because of Robot Chicken, yet had they actually bothered to look even a bit deeper into the character they'd know that that portrayal of the character is exclusively from a cartoon that came out 50+ years ago, and that Aquaman actually has superhuman strength, speed, and agility, can summon tidal waves, and that communicating telepathically with fish isn't a "dumb power" when you can use it to summon sharks and giant squids, not to mention prehistoric creatures and mythical figures like the Kraken.

That guy who thinks Deadpool has metafictional manipulation and can beat anyone because he's immortal, yet in the recent comics he had his deathless curse taken away, the comics clearly establish that healing factor has a limit, and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe is a non-canon elseworld that exists solely for the purpose of DP killing everyone, thus them being horrendously nerfed.

That guy will also continue to act like an expert despite being shut down several times by people who actually know what they're talking about.

Don't be that guy.

Conclusion

Well then, I think that just about wraps things up. Let me know if you have anything you'd like me to add or take issue with anything I said here, and I will gladly discuss with you.

I am Hero's Shade, and thanks for reading!