Who would win, the Danes or the Geats? Lets first do some background on the two. Both are types of peoples found in the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. The Danes are the ones being tormented by Gendel, and then Grendel's mom, and have to ask for help from the Geat (and epic hero), Beowulf. So I now what you're thinking, the Geats have Beowulf, so they win, like automatically, right? Nope. Its not that simple. because Beowulf is a hero of the most epic kind, unless the Danes did something to offend him, he probably would stay out of it ( or fight on whichever side he felt was the most right). So now that he's out of the way, lets look at the countries themselves. They are separated by a body of water of some kind, so the winner would need to be able to cross it, which we know the Geats can do, as evidenced by the crossing of Beowulf. The winners wold also need a pretty awesome leader, for the whole "rallying of the troops" tradition that's in every war movie. Ever made. In that aspect, the Danes take the lead. Hrothgar is awesome! C'mon, tell me you wouldn't want your king to build the people the equivalent of an all-you-can-drink bar, even if it is being terrorized by some giant, evil monster. Which brings me to my next point, an actual army. Grendel kind of ate some of the Danes best men, leaving the Danes, without some fierce warriors. However, the Geats also lost some men, the bravest and best soldiers that Beowulf took with him on his journey. Also, if you have a guy like Beowulf on your side most of the time, how strong is your army really going to be? If Higlac (King of the Geats) had any common sense, he would of let Beowulf deal with any problems, and basically let his army fall to pieces. Or it could make him have the strongest army since the Spartans, Hmm....
And the winner is...............
The Geats
Obviously. This is a no-brainer. How hard would it be to defeat a country which spends their time getting drunk? Really? Plus, they may all be like super strong and tough like Beowulf. Who knows?
All right, this is it, the big one. The two epic heroes, fighting for the chance to continue on. Both are from the two most epic pieces of work, Beowulf and Paradise Lost, if just in length and intricate plotline. One is from the oral epic that was told during the anglo-saxon times, before William the Conqueror come over to England , and "civilized it", and the other was written by a stuffy latin master, John Milton, who was simply trying to write the best thing ever written. No big deal. Now Beowulf was the one who was trying to rid the Danes of the horrible monster, Grendel. Which, in true epic hero fashion, he did with great success, savagely ripping off his arm and hanging it to the ceiling. Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Now Satan has a much more interesting story. He tried to oust God (yes the one and only) from heaven, but him and his archangels couldn't quite get the job done, so God has to create a place for him to suffer in, called, you guessed it, HELL. And yes it did hurt when he fell from heaven, just to answer your cheesy question. So, yes it is slightly contested as to whether he was really a hero or not, but for all intents and purposes, he will be a hero. So, now that we have some background, who would win, if these two were to ever battle it out?
On the one hand, Beowulf has super-human strength (but so does Satan) but he also had good character and strong moral fibre (and Disney taught us that good always triumphs over evil), but he is the only one of his kind, and no matter how strong he is, he's ultimately alone. Satan has a whole bunch of evil minions to help him do his bidding, like Beezlebub. He also has an entire kingdom of criminals, ones who probably might help him out. However, he is kinda attached to a lake of fire though, and constantly in pain, so he might be a little weaker than he would have been pre-skirmish with God.
And the winner is....
SATAN
Yes, I realize that he is evil, not a very nice person at all. But the only person that he lost to was God, the supposedly Almighty power. My bet is that he would be able to beat anyone else who comes in his way, even tied down in Hell. Beside Beowulf is only human, and a human who doesn't believe in God (religion wasn't yet created when he was around), so where is he going to end up? Hell. Case closed.
This might just be the strangest, most peculiar match-up of the whole tournament.... In one corner we have the mighty Geats, the anglo-saxon army, and in the other, we have one of the most famous examples of satire, the infanticide-promoting A Modest Proposal. Well, how should I compare thee? Certainly not to a summer's day. While I do believe that A Modest Proposal would win in a battle of wits, in a test of shear cleverness, that the Geats wouldn't even be able to spell their own name, it is an entire army trying to fight one, well-spoken man. Unless the speaker could convince the Geats that eating their children would be the best way to combat their problems.... Which is entirely possible, but remains unlikely, they were anglo-saxons not cannibalistic neanderthals. And the Geats didn't even speak the same language as the speaker, so persuasive powers mean nothing if you can't be understood so....
The winner is....
THE GEATS
I was rooting for the projector of A Modest Proposal, but lets be as realistic as possible (if thats even achievable?), if he was transported to the homeland of the Geats, he would be slaughtered by the war-like nation before he even had a chance to suggest that eating children was a viable option for overpopulation problems.
Now that another 8 contestants have been left behind with only their tears to comfort them, we move forward into the mayhem that is quarterfinals! This is where things start to get interesting folks, so stay tuned!
The matches are as follows:
Gray vs. Milton
Ulysses vs. Geats
Satan vs. Lamb
Petrarch vs. Epic
Going in to this match, the odds are heavily leaning towards Ulysses winning, the Geats appear to be weak without their Beowulf and the Ithacans(?) Ithacites(?), the army of Ithaca and their leader Ulysses seem more than able to crush them. So if you are a supporter of the Geats, I suggest you continue below for this could get mighty ugly. Not to say that the Geats aren't amazing warriors, obviously they have some skill if their army produced Beowulf, and they had a slight technical advantage of the bow and arrow (Ooooo... so high-tech). But the Geats are essentially Swedish, and unless I've seriously missed something, the Swedes aren't exactly known for their military might. Ikea and ABBA, sure, but no great warrior nation. Now the Greeks have a slightly better military track record; they did get invaded by the Romans, but then again so did everyone at some point. They main advantage Ulysses is going to have is his cleverness, as early Europe was at somewhat of a lull in learning and thinking. I mean, the Geats are not going to fall for the horse trick again, but surely Ulysses can think of something? Again, I'm going to assume that Ulysses actually makes it to his destination and doesn't make enemies with the wind or something...
Who would win?
Ulysses
This was not a surprise. I told you what was going to happen. While Ulysses may have less men or a physically weaker army ( or I guess it would be a navy?), the Lit nerd writing this is going to believe that brain is better than brawn (sorry for the cliche...) Feel free to disagree (that rhymes!), but Ulysses is going to have to invest in a compass, because he is on his way to the semifinals!
Who would win, the Danes or the Geats? Lets first do some background on the two. Both are types of peoples found in the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. The Danes are the ones being tormented by Gendel, and then Grendel's mom, and have to ask for help from the Geat (and epic hero), Beowulf. So I now what you're thinking, the Geats have Beowulf, so they win, like automatically, right? Nope. Its not that simple. because Beowulf is a hero of the most epic kind, unless the Danes did something to offend him, he probably would stay out of it ( or fight on whichever side he felt was the most right). So now that he's out of the way, lets look at the countries themselves. They are separated by a body of water of some kind, so the winner would need to be able to cross it, which we know the Geats can do, as evidenced by the crossing of Beowulf. The winners wold also need a pretty awesome leader, for the whole "rallying of the troops" tradition that's in every war movie. Ever made. In that aspect, the Danes take the lead. Hrothgar is awesome! C'mon, tell me you wouldn't want your king to build the people the equivalent of an all-you-can-drink bar, even if it is being terrorized by some giant, evil monster. Which brings me to my next point, an actual army. Grendel kind of ate some of the Danes best men, leaving the Danes, without some fierce warriors. However, the Geats also lost some men, the bravest and best soldiers that Beowulf took with him on his journey. Also, if you have a guy like Beowulf on your side most of the time, how strong is your army really going to be? If Higlac (King of the Geats) had any common sense, he would of let Beowulf deal with any problems, and basically let his army fall to pieces. Or it could make him have the strongest army since the Spartans, Hmm....
