I have a hefty stack of exams to grade sitting on my dining room table downstairs, so naturally I am playing with Blogger and investigating all the fun little gadgets and template upgrades I have been blissfully ignorant of until now. I have discovered that I can add a poll application, which will allow you, my lovely readers, to vote on whatever question I choose to put to you.
No voting today—just an idea. I follow the blog of George R. R. Martin, partly to look for indications that his next Ice & Fire novel will be finished soon, but also because he's a funny and engaging blogger in his own right. In the last few weeks, the SF/Fantasy news blog Suvudu has done a March Madness series of fantasy cage matches, in which they have pitted characters from fantasy novels (including Gandalf, Aragorn, Dumbledore, Roland from Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Drizzt Do'Urden from R.A. Salvatore's the Forgotten Realms series, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu, Aslan, Eragon, and Jaime Lannister from Ice & Fire—hence Martin's interest) against each other in fights to the death. The blog writers provided little sketches of how they imagined the fights would go, and suggested a projected winner, but the results were ultimately left up to fan voting—often with surprising results. You can review the results in the left masthead of the Suvudu site—I won't spoil the fun by offering spoilers.
It was, to borrow a recently coined term, enough to give one a geekgasm.
After my first exam yesterday, I took my students down to the Duke of Duckworth for a drink, and at one point the conversation drifted into an extended riff on the general crappiness of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. I of course brought up the brilliant t-shirt, modeled beautifully by Nikki Stafford here, that says "... and then Buffy staked Edward. The End." And as will often happen in such conversations, there was much speculation on just how badly Edward Cullen would get his ass handed to him if he were to encounter Buffy, or Angel, or Blade, or Spike, or really any other vampire / vampire killer out there.
Which brings me to my funky blogger polling app. I propose a series of vampire cage matches, modeled on (or stolen from, if you prefer) the Suvudu model. I will take sixteen vamps (the full thirty-two would just be unwieldy), arrive at a ranking, and pair them off appropriately. I will write a blurb suggesting how the fight will go, project a winner, and open the match up to voting. Sound good?
I've arrived at a first draft list of vamps, but would like reader input. If you think I've missed someone important or included someone who shouldn't be there, let me know. I will take all suggestions under consideration. Here are the rules:
- This is exclusively a film and television tournament. The vampires must have a specific incarnation on the big or small screen, and in the event that a character appears in different forms (e.g. Lestat in Interview vs. Queen of the Damned), one must be specified.
- NO DRACULAS. Two reasons: first, it hardly seems fair to the others. Second, there are so damn many versions out there, we could have a tournament simply among his various film incarnations. An idea for the future perhaps, but let's leave the daddy of all vamps on the sidelines for this one, OK?
Um, OK. That's it. Just those two rules.
Here's my draft list, which is totally open to suggestions for change. And if it seems heavy on the Buffy/Angel characters, that's only because Joss Whedon is a god. Not THE god. But certainly A god.
Selene (Underworld)
Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel)
Lestat (Interview with the Vampire)
Miriam Blaylock (The Hunger)
Blade (Blade)
Darla (Buffy, Angel)
David (The Lost Boys—you know, the Jack Bauer vamp)
Akasha (Queen of the Damned)
Bill Compton (True Blood)
Edward Cullen (Twilight)
Spike (Buffy, Angel)
Marlow (Thirty Days of Night)
Charles Bromley (Daybreakers)
Max Schreck (Shadow of the Vampire)
The Master (Buffy)
Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Till Dawn)
OK, let's hear everyone's thoughts—and the way they should be ranked, too.
Sigh. And now, back to grading exams ...
