John O’Brien Vs. Raven: Who Would Win?

Since i was asked to answer this, i will.

The short version is likely, neither. But here’s how it would play out.

Raven’s offensive capability is pretty lame. Dont get me weong, if he was mugged by 3 ruffians he’d make mincemeat of them. As mentioned previously, most post humans learn some type of fighting or weapon skill, since as you pop round narratives, sooner or later you’re going to run into trouble, so at some point, in some narrative, they take the time to learn some method of defense.

Raven’s cane conceals a rapier which he was taught to use by Lloyd, who is excellent at it, and who was taught by Cyrano De Bergerac in a slightly obscure narrativebest left unexplored. Raven also carries knives in his long, purple coat, and knives are his real specialty. A group of ruffians would be done away with post haste.

The trouble is, knives and a rapier wouldnt last 5 seconds against John O’Brien, who is armored to the gills and has very big guns sticking out of him. You know the saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight? Since John O’Brien is like a one man Marine platoon, you might as well throw a rock and then use the knife to kill yourself before John does.

So why wouldn’t John obliterate Raven in seconds?

Well, Raven , as a PH, has a certain command over tropes and archetypes. He would essentially go Bugs Bunny on John. John easily falls into an archetype of a Bugs Bunny villain, and Raven is a trickster archetype already. So picture an average old style cartoon playing out, and this is your fight.

So why wouldn’t John be onliterated? A few reasons:

1. He is actually more deadly than your average Bugs Bunny/ Tom & Jerry bad guy. Elmer Fudd can’t actually kill anybody. John can. It’s actually his defining narrative feature and changing tropes wont change this aspect.

2. The trickster in these situations also can’t actually kill the aggressor. They can pull all sorts of tricks, and bring a LOT of pain, but by playing this trope, Raven has to abide by the rules of the trope. And the trope rules are that the trickster cannot kill.

3. John’s tragic pathos lends him a realism and dimension that normal aggressors in the trope dont possess. John doesn’t know how to use this to his advantage, but it does mean that some tricks of the trope won’t always work perfectly.

Now, if the situation gets too dangerous Raven will exit the narrative, assuming he can at that point, but likely he can. If he’s using a Bugs Bunny-esque trickster trope, he can always draw a road on a wall and exit that way. Or, if he’s stuck in a more realism based trope, there’s still a lot of ways to exit the narrative. Think of any action scene where one of the combatants myteriosly vanishes. He’ll pull out one of those and just get out.

There’s also the questionof whether the trickster can be killed. Sure John’s lethalness cannot be taken away, but this doesn’t mean he could actually kill the trickster. Even in What’s Opera, Doc, Bugs Bunny does not actually die. Whether or not it’s even possible to kill Raven if he’s operating in this trope is a real question.

So there you go. The probable outcome to a ridiculous scenario.

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