The dust has settled, the arena has been cleared, and the votes are in! Your two worthy finalists will be:
Rand Al’Thor
Jaime Lannister
The final match will go live at 10:30 am Eastern on Tuesday, April 6th. Watch for our next wrap-up video–and a very special surprise!
Photograph: Swordfight at the medieval festival in Dortmund 2004, courtesy of Pacifier, via Wikimedia commons.
I think people are neglecting the fact that balefire kills dragons as well as they kill anything else. Aces would make things more interesting, but if they did the Trial of Seven you could assume Team Rand would be people almost entirely from Wheel of time except for maybe the Lord Ruler if you were going to fire power.
I think this whole “Trial of Seven” thing is a bit complex. There’s a much simpler way to make it a fair fight, operating within the rules of the WOT universe.
If memory serves, there are a few places where you can’t access the One Source. Ogier sanctuaries are one of them. I think there was a city as well where the Power was blocked off. If Jaime gets to choose the time and place of the fight, he could say he wants it in one of those spots.
Fair fight, sword on sword, no balefire or any of that stuff.
Mano a Mano! Trial of seven becomes too complicated, there are too many characters in all their works….(and I suspect Mr Martin has something up his sleeve!:) he usually does in the books after all) and a major problem is, RJ isn’t alive to choose his seven, so it would be slightly unfair. So i think we should stay with 1 on 1. I’d still go with voting Jaime I believe…
And then lose to the Sword of the Morning, maybe? *wakes up* No? Ah, well…
Though I would like to see Conan (probably) take out Gregor Clegane, I admit
Long live Jaime!!!
I’d like to see a Trial by Seven. I’d even be willing to handicap the Wild Cards options by limiting it to George’s own creations. Of course, that means Hiram Worchester can make Rand’s arms too heavy to aim any balefire, while THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TURTLE kicks the asses of everyone else. Then Jaime can come walking up like the King at the end of Dragonslayer, and claim victory.
if Dragons from SOIAF are to be allowed ,then the Dark One from WOT also should be allowed; he also is a character from WOT BOOKS,
Seven! Seven! Seven! SEVEN!!!!!!!!!!
Before we plunge into the my Hero’s power/magic/looks is more awesome than your Hero’s power/magic/looks debate, perhaps we should take a moment to consider what gives a fictional character power (and I do not limit this to fantsy/SF characters).
In short: we do (or at least our imagenations).
An author may create a world bending character with God like powers but if the character lies flat on the page, it remains powerless over us. Characters that engage/inspire/enrage us have almost Inkspell like powers to come off the page and impact our lives.
Ser Jamie Lannister beat Chtulu becasuse it made a better story than God awakes steps on Jamie and then goes back to sleep (see GRRM’s description of the battle for contrast).
Beowulf v. Grendal
St. George v. the Dragon
Hamlet v. well …. Hamlet
Frodo v. Sauron
Cersari v. Ned Stark
The winner never had the most Hit Points but always made the better story.
So let the winner be the character that most changes us, entertains us or just plain sticks with us.
TomT
Are these simply characters from the universe, or people who would actually fight on behalf of the character in the cage match. I have not read Martin’s books, but people give me the impression that Jaime is a bit of an unliked bastard.
If you are just picking chars from the books, what is to stop rand from rolling in with Shadar Haran (you can’t use magic on him, or near him, and he will crush you) or Ishmael, who just rips peoples souls from their bodies. Hell, how bout bring the dark one himself.
That’s a bit harsh
Though I admit the agony of waiting is telling on my nerves too. Still and all, I would rather have a good book than a hastily written one – if he can live up to the levels of “Storm of Swords” I shall be a happy man*.
*that is, if he lives up to it in my lifetime. But since he is at least 30 years my senior, I assume that if he manages to write it, I shall live long enough to read it!
So with this trial of seven idea … I count at least three god-like characters from Jordan and Sanderson’s work (the Creator, the Dark One, the guy who absorbed the fusion of Ruin and Preservation at the end of Mistborn 3). Given that there’s no narrative presented on what the limits of their powers might actually be (nor those of some of the other largely undefined WoT heavy hitters like Shaidar Haran, Isam/Luc, Padan Fain, or Jearom the historical uber-blademaster), how are we even supposed to judge such a contest?
I’m familiar with Martin’s work beyond what’s on wiki about aSoIF, but presumably Martin must also have some God-like characters up his sleeve to suggest this.
No disrespect to the author, but I don’t think bringing in six backup characters who totally outclass the actual ‘main’ entrant makes much sense. Loading up both sides on enough supporting firepower to destroy the entire universe instantly kind of invalidates the challenge aspect – even worse than “balefire, bitches!”.
Pardon me, NOT familiar with Martin’s work…
Martin actually doesn’t have any god characters in his works, really. The closest you could get to that would be Daenaerys Targareyn (I just know I’m messing that name up), who right now has three semi-grown dragons at her beck and call.
For me anyway it’s part of the reason I love his books…no single person can just go BLAMO and wipe everyone out, everything is a nasty, dirty, bitter struggle to survive and triumph. Not a critique of anyone else, just a reason I like Martin.
I think Martin’s toughest characters come from Tuf Voyaging. If Tuf get’s the seedship, that’s a weapon on par with channeling, at the least.