kackamee
Smash Master
O.o woah, woah...Wha? I do think that when ARS knocked Crio into the klaptrap was fair and that there wasn't a reason for ARS to suicide. But....I'm pretty sure your wrong on the point that he made people feel "uncomfortable" by him suiciding. Sure he did it, and some people may have disagreed about why he did it. But seriously....How in the world was he possibly being selfish????? If anything I'm sure he gained more of everyones respect (which he has already) by doing what he thought was right and trying to make the matches as fair as possible. Different example: ARS was playing me on....Battlefield I think. The end of the squall animation slid off the stange and Popo nor Nana grabbed the edge, I died. ARS did somthing I really didn't expect and killed himself too. I'm not sure if I remeber correctly (It was about my 1st or 2nd time playing him) but he still won that match, but I won the set. I gained plenty of respect toward him and I realized that he was a very honorable person.Akuma's hard banned in most st tournaments in the US. He's soft banned in Japan, but their culture puts a lot more importance on the way people perceive you, so if one of the best players there went Akuma, the loss of face would be pretty **** unbearable. We don't have that kind of cultural construct in the US, which is why Akuma is outright banned here. Otherwise, I'm sure you'd eventually get several people who are very good with Akuma winning every tournament, despite popular opinion against them.
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But really, your concept of honor is arbitrary, which is the biggest issue that I take with your position. You do realize that veterans of Jungle Japes generally avoid the underside of the level like the plague, and that the fact that you put Crio under the level at all shows that you played the level better than he did, right? You had won that match by properly using the level's mechanics. This is no different from you using the fact that Falco can't safely recover to the ledge on Lylat in Round 1. Why is attacking Falco out of his only safe recovery option honorable, when hitting someone into the Klaptrap isn't? I don't see where you're drawing the line.
The strangest part is, no one understood why you did it. No one even appreciated what you did for what it was. They saw it as a match that had been exciting and interesting which you kinda ruined with your sudden suicide. Ultimately, you probably left a lot of people feeling conflicted, and Crio says in the comments that he didn't deserve that win. So despite all your talk of honor, you're just making people uncomfortable. And I think I'm getting at the most itchy part of the topic.
I've always viewed honor as something that you can't ascribe to yourself based on your own acts. You cannot help an old lady across the street and proclaim, "therefore am I honorable!" It doesn't work like that. Your peers have to see you do this (or similar acts), and understand it to be rooted in your nature as a person. Maybe you'll slip occasionally, but if your peers know you to be on the whole a good person, you'll save your honor simply by apologizing. There's no need for theatrics. This isn't unlike the concept of face in Japan; honor has to do with your worth in society. The difference is, most Americans place other values above honor.
But what you're doing is different. Everyone at that tournament would have thought no less of you had you taken that match and simply said that you probably didn't deserve the win. There was no honor at stake. And yet you still insisted that the match end according to values and beliefs that you held. And therein lies the rub. It wasn't about your honor as perceived by your peers. It was all about you. This was all a question of your self worth. You have a crippling belief that if you don't win your way, you haven't won the right way. Not only is this false, but it's even a little bit selfish. Anyone watching that match will have wanted you to win, for several reasons (character choice high among them). In spite of this massive public will, you made the entire outcome of the tournament about your self-worth. You could have made a whole lot of people feel just a little bit warmer inside, but you chose to end the match feeling smug because you were "honorable." This is what made everyone there uncomfortable. They felt cheated.
You would do well to at least disabuse yourself of the notion that your decisions along those lines are in any way honorable. The sooner you do that, the sooner you can really take your play to the next level.
Winning a match then saying "I probably didnt deserve that win" instead of making the match fair and getting the outcome that both players deserve is a very honorable thing to do indeed. I play smash to have a good time. I'm 12 and broke so I hardly get to go to tourneys anyway. I'd rather have people thinking of me as the person who did the right thing instead of the person who didn't deserve that win and walked away with the money he didn't deserve.