Deadliest Warrior

Salamu

I am up to date with True Blood having watched all three seasons available to me to date and I have watched seasons 1 and 2 of the Tudors and am hoping to get seasons Three and Four soon.

Now I am busy watching my new favourite series…Deadliest Warrior

I have spoken about this before on this blog. But that was after viewing a rather one-sided fight between William Wallace and Shaka Zulu. And I only saw the simulation, I didn’t get to see the whole production put into a single show.

The reason I love this series is that I am an Anthropologist at heart. I have read numerous books on Shaka Zulu, Attila the Hun, the Samurai, Vikings and Romans and can say that although I might not be an ABSOLUTE authority on the subject. I can be trusted as a reliable source on specific cultures.

The whole concept of the series is this: warriors which the public think are the worlds deadliest are pitted against each other in a simulated fight to the death. Concept plain and simple! Which is sometimes good for a series. Or even movies for that matter.

Because most of the warriors/tribes are long dead, modern day experts, who are at times direct descendents from the warrior tribes in question, test five weapons of each of the warriors. These tests are then put into a computer programme, designed by Slytherin Studios, which simulates 1 000 fights between the warriors in order to get a winner. This is to prevent a single lucky blow ultimately deciding an important thing such as who is deadliest.

But you ask…if the warriors in question are long dead, how can this be important in any way? Well, as discussed we have current experts who are either passionate about the warrior in question and their fighting methods or are direct decedents of the warrior in question. So MASSIVE amounts of PRIDE is at stake. And as we know, people can get VERY hot under the collar when pride is at stake.

Case in point…last night I watched the episode that pitted Attila the Hun against Alexander The Great. And the experts from each team where at each other the whole episode with sarcastic chirps and trash talking. In the first episode of the first season, Apache vs Gladiator, one of the Apache experts got so offended by a sly comment from one of the Gladiator experts that he picked up a Tomahawk and was ready to scalp him. The only thing holding him back was the other Apache expert.

And the experts get severely pissed of when their warrior loses! In the episode Shaolin Monk vs Maori, the Maori experts [all decedents of actual Maori tribes] were very surprised that they lost. But in true Kiwi fashion, their sense of humour came trough. At the end the expert said: This battle was run trough a computer and said that the little monk guy beat my huge Maori? The computer must be Chinese!

What makes this funny is that most likely the computer was Chinese and the Shaolin monks came from China.

Taking into account the tests put into the production of one of these episodes the concept of the show makes a whole lot more sense to me then the first time I commented on this.

When I originally commented, I said it was rather unfair because certain warriors will be fighting in unfamiliar terrain. And as we all know, some of histories greatest battles have been decided on terrain alone. However, at times it doesn’t really matter what terrain you fight in, superior weapons and armour will account for the advantage gained in fighting in unfamiliar terrain.

Or will it? The first episode matched up a Gladiator with an Apache Indian, and the Apache won despite using rather primitive weapons when compared to the weapons used by Gladiators. This was because the fight took place in a forest environment where the Apache could use many elements of the terrain to his advantage. If the fight had taken place in a ring [gladiatorial arena] environment where the Apache cant ‘sneak up’ on the Gladiator as it were., the result could have been VERY different.

For those familiar with the series, my favourite episodes are listed below:
Apache vs Gladiator
Viking vs Samurai
Green Beret vs Spetsnaz
Shaolin Monk vs Maori Warrior
IRA vs Taliban
Swat vs GSG9
Attila the Hun vs Alexander The Great

I did enjoy the episode William Wallace vs Shaka Zulu, despite Shaka being decimated by Wallace. I just had a problem with the fact that the so called ‘experts’ that they had fighting the cause for Shaka were questionable at best. They had the moves and they were well versed in Zulu warfare. But they had little to no clue on tactics used by Shaka. The production people could have really flown in an expert from South Africa.

Winners from the episodes that I have enjoyed are the Apache, the Samurai, the Spetsnaz, the Shaolin Monk, the IRA, Swat and Attila the Hun.

Now what would be interesting is if we took the winners from the various fights and pitted them against each other. I mean how awesome would it be to see a Samurai warrior up against a Spartan [the winner of the episode Spartan vs Ninja]? Or an Apache against a Shaolin Monk?

I must say that I am very much enjoying this series and hope to get my hands on season three soon.