The Contestants |
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The Breakdown |
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Advantages
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Disadvantages
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Disadvantages
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Kills
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Kills
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How we think the fight will go
“This feels suspiciously like the Tri-Wizard tournament, doesn’t it?” Hermione’s* voice came through heavily muted, unable to completely break through the shield charms surrounding the battleground.
From inside the shield, Harry moved his head to the right slightly, eyes still focused on the dark mass of trees ahead. “That was ages ago. And I turned out just fine!”
A muffled cough that sounded very much like “CEDRIC!” reached Harry’s ears. Harry chose to ignore Ron’s tickled throat, instead enjoying the predictable yet comforting “thwack!” that came afterwards.
Hermione wasn’t going to be ignored. “Healing potions are in your pack! Don’t forget there’s an extended ‘o’ on obliviate! And whatever you do, don’t forget your—”
CRASH. A wave of birds flew directly towards Harry, forcing him to cover his face with his arms. When the chaos cleared and he lifted them the first thing he saw—beyond the Hagrid-sized body—was the mask: a huge, antlered skeleton punctuated by blood-red eyes that flared, even at a distance. His eyes matched his cape… and the bloodstains running down his arms. Some of the blood was fresh.
The Horned King.
Harry flashed back to his last confrontation with Voldemort, and then was jarred back to his senses again, wand at the ready. The Horned King drew his enormous sword and advanced, at a lightning-fast pace that belied his size.
“Stupefy!”
Instead of knocking down the warrior, the spell was a mere distraction, momentarily freezing the Horned King in his path as if he were annoyed by a gnat. Eyes flaring, he advanced on Harry again, one heavy slash after another. Harry did his best to dodge and disarm his opponent with an Expeliarmus Charm. But one slice from the sword caught his leg, and he crumbled to the ground, wincing. Horned King loomed over him, ready for a final blow.
Harry barely heard Ron. “The curse! Harry, you have to use it!”
Another flashback to Voldemort. “No! No death curses!” Harry bellowed at Ron, rolling over and trying to gain as much distance as he could with his bad leg. The Horned King, realizing his prey was wounded, now took his time to walk to Harry, sword lowered.
“Accio sword!”
Harry almost didn’t believe it when he felt the weight of the Horned King’s sword yank down his arm. Before he had a chance to take a test swing, the Horned King was on him again, his bloodstained hands crushing Harry’s neck with inhuman strength. The sword fell as Harry was pulled off the ground.
Harry clawed at the Horned King’s fingers, but as the pressure in his head grew, the feelings of pain in his leg receded. His friends’ screams, already so quiet, died out. The hand gripping his wand came to rest at his side, but Harry managed to angle it up just enough…
“Redu…cio.”
The two seconds that passed felt like an eternity—and then he felt his body hit the grass. The Horned King clawed at his face, the antlered mask slowly shrinking and compressing the Horned King’s skull. Blood began to slowly drip down the sides and the eyeholes, small red rivers connecting to the mass of blood on his arms.
The warrior fell backwards. Hands that were once in a vice-like grip on the mask were now clawing at it in spasms. Cacophonous bone covered any sounds of agony that might have escaped the Horned King’s mouth. Then the hands stopped.
Harry remained on the ground, not wanting to see what had become of the man behind the mask. “No, Hermione,” he wheezed between large gasps of breath. “This is not the Tri-Wizard Tournament.”
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*Yes, we realize Hermione’s supposed to be dead as a doornail. But as with many a fantasy character, she’s been miraculously revived by the Suvudu gods as a spectator (with no memory of her hands-down** defeat).
** And yes, we’re reviving Cage Match’s two-year old Jaime Lannister hand joke along with her. You think we could resist?
Predicted Winner: Harry Potter
NOTE: THIS MATCH ENDS ON THURSDAY, MARCH 8th, 2012, AT 5 PM, EST
Check out the next match in the Hogwarts: Quidditch Pitch bracket!
Harry Potter is a character from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; The Horned King is a character from The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander
Harry Potter image courtesy of *sumo0172. The Horned King image courtesy of Yearling Books
Cage Match fans: We are looking forward to hearing your responses! If possible, please abstain from including potential spoilers about the books in your comments (and if you need spoilers to make your case, start your comments with: “SPOILER ALERT!”
Thanks!
Ummm… Just so you know, reducio is not a shrinking curse. It’s a blasting curse. It
educes things to smithereens…
And blowing the Horned King’s head off would be rather more effective than crushing it with a slowly shrinking mask, don’t you think?
eh, nevermind. that’s reducto. wow, I really need to reread those books…
Oh please, don’t let Harry Potter win!
I’m sorry but the Horned King would have simply savaged Harry the moment the fight started. This will end up being about popularity more than anything else.
The Horned King would win this. I love Harry Potter but his ‘I don’t want to kill people’ attitude would have seen him dead within minutes, if not seconds.
Let’s be honest – The Horned King would win this. I’m very suprised to see that the match is so close. I half expected all the Harry Potter fans to decend en masse and runnaway with the votes but it seems Alexander has a stronger fanbase then I gave credit for. Here’s hoping the Horned King can pull ahead and win this thing!
Wow, I came here expecting my vote to be nothing more than show but this is close!!! I also thought Harry Potter would runaway with it purely based on the size of its fanbase but this is an actual battle! I firmly believe the Horned King would win – I thought the write-up didn’t really do him justice either. FIngerscrossed enough of us come together and the Horned King wins this!
Since when did Harry suddenly develop this crippling code of battlefield honor?
In the last book, he uses two of the Unforgivable Curses, and not even on the battlefield, either. He doesn’t even need them, anyway. What’s to stop him from jumping on his broom, flying above the battlefield, and pelting the Horned King with deadly spells until he collapses? The shown Reducto was just one example.
The Horned King has no way to win. Harry’s arsenal is several times larger; he has options. If he applies his skills and powers with even an iota of intelligence, this fight is in the bag for him.
I’m not as convinced that Harry would win. He does tend to hesitate a lot and I think that would be his downfall. The Horned King would just attack him before he got his bearings. (Though, my opinion on this matter is second-hand as I haven’t read the Book of Three – I’m working off what others and the Internet tells me).
You’re right. If Harry hesitated it would all be over very fast and very bloodily.
I’d love to see the Horned King move on…but Harry Potter crushes Dark Lords all day. It’s what he does.
It wasn’t even realistic that Harry beat Voldemort, let alone a serious villian. Oh sure, magic users have an advantage against a warrior but the Horned King is not without supernatural abilities of his own (as far as I remember). Unless Harry flat out one-shots him with a killing curse, the King could kill him with his bare hands.
all I know about the horned king I learned here. Someone could Enumerate the horned kings supernatural abilities, the ones Joe mentioned. That would be great.
I feel like Harry’s PERFECT cloak of invisibility has been completely ignored. If Harry was given a chance to prepare for a battle, he’d come cloaked.
Also, I want to point out he flattened a giant troll in his first year, with help. Luck is Harry’s super power. But all the same, giant melee based foes aren’t new to harry.
The cloak, plus the broom, plus his wand would make harry a tough opponent for a melee berserker. Yet at the same time, Harry does very little intentional magical damage.
Expelliamus would disarm the guy as many times as needed. and Harry would probably be either invisible or (/and) flying around on a broom. and he’d probably kill him the same way he nearly killed Malfoy in half Blood prince.
@Nexious
harry could easily stun him and win….or even Expelliarmus and win…no need to kill..
harry can just bombarda the ground beneath the hornd king the place a small mountain on top of him
Let’s give Harry this one. I don’t think either he or The Horned King stand a chance against Kylar in the next round anyway.
I must admit, I was worried at first that the Horned King would take this one on votes, but it looks like Harry came through in the end.
Another Dark Lord under his belt, I guess.
Realistically there is no way that Harry can win in the end, eventually he will run up against something that the HP canon has no answer to and that will be the end of it.
What happened to the requirement of speaking his true name to defeat him?