Welcome to Fandom Fight Force!

I’m Mike “Z-Target” Shanley and let’s hunt some Orc!

This week’s mashup will be a Battle of Blades: Link vs Aragorn

BEGIN!

BACKGROUND CHECK:

Link hails from the mystical land of Hyrule. Technically speaking, in every Legend of Zelda game, Link is the reincarnation of the legendary Hero of Time. However, every game has him learning the same moves and essentially doing the same thing: save the Princess Zelda (and ergo the kingdom) from the evil clutches of Gannondorf. Link grew (grows? It’s hard dealing with all these different Links.) up as (usually) a simple farm boy. He realizes his destiny when one of his friends goes missing and someone hands him a sword.

Because old guys in caves are usually the ones you can trust with weaponry

Link is a very agile swordsman. Many of his moves involve leaping, spinning, rolling, and flipping. Sort of like the medieval equivalent of dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and…dodging. He is able to do these acrobatic moves because he uses a one-handed sword and shield. Link, being a Hylian (and a mystical reincarnated one at that), has a limited amount of magical ability. This grants his attacks a little more oomph and the ability to cast a few spells: mainly a fireball and a magic shield. A common mechanic in the games is the Z-target ability (a revolutionary mechanic for videogames, because I know you all were wondering) that allows him to lock onto a single target and deliver accurate attacks on that target. Translating this into real life would be basically saying that Link has heightened senses beyond a normal human and especially keen eyesight.

Aragorn is a Dunedain Ranger from the northwestern area of Middle-Earth known as Arnor. He is the long-lost descendant of Iisildur, the ancient king who sliced off Sauron’s ring finger that allowed the good guys to win the war hundreds of years ago. Aragorn was raised by the Elves of Rivendell until he became of age when he went to become a Ranger. Rangers are very skilled survivalist warriors. Think Robin Hood mixed with Tonto from Lone Ranger. Aragorn is a hardy man who knows his stuff on how to survive. He also knows how to camouflage effectively and move silently. Aragorn is more than proficient at swordplay. Normally, he fights with his two-handed sword, Anduril (“Flame of the West” in Sindarin)and deals massive amounts of damage with it.

That’s right ladies, I know the name of his sword AND the name of the Elvish language. I can also recite Shakespeare in Klingon. Too far? Dang…

Aragorn can usually be found leading glorious armies of men against the evil forces of Mordor in climactic, finale-like battles. Aragorn cuts through numerous amounts of Orcs in these fights and lives through every single battle relatively unscathed. A few cuts and bruises but nothing major like a limb hacked off or anything like that. What can be gained from this? Besides from figuring out that, yes, he’s a main character it can be gleaned that Aragorn is extremely perceptive about his environment. If he can go through battles against thousands of Orcs and live through, then I’d say he was medieval Spiderman.

EQUIPMENT

Since Link’s items change from game to game, I will pick only the ones that remain constant.

Link is in possession of many an item, and when you see that he isn’t wearing a backpack, that makes it even more impressive. Link’s sword is the one and only Master Sword, a sword specifically designed for slaying evil beings. Beings whose names begin with “G” and rhyme with “Pannendorf”. Link carries a Hylian Shield, a shield that is virtually indestructible. Link wears no other armor, but his Peter Pan costume can be upgraded to withstand fire and allow him to breathe underwater, so for all intents and purposes, let’s say he’s fully loaded. Like any good blonde, pointy eared, fantasy hero, Link carries the Hero’s Bow. The Bow can fire a variety of arrows: normal, fire, ice, and light. The bow requires both hands however, so he becomes vulnerable when firing. Another long-range weapon is his boomerang

No…that’s not… that’s just not how it works (xkcd 8/17/11)

Really, it’s just a boomerang. It always returns, though, which is more than I can say about my boomerangs. Link is like a walking armory. He packs heat in the form of classic old-timey bombs. You know the ones: they look like bowling balls that someone stuck some string in. He carries a few of these to pack an extra punch. Lastly is something Link never leaves home without: the fan-favorite Hookshot. Think of it as a mechanized grappling hook. It can pull Link to somewhere or pull something towards Link, depending on the weight of the object.

Aragorn’s armory is much less impressive. Aragorn’s sword (as mentioned before) is the mighty Anduril, Flame of the West. This sword is a whopping 53 inches long (Link’s Master sword is only about a 36). This greater length gives Aragorn a good advantage over his enemies. Aragorn also carries a small hunting knife about 8 inches long. He can be very quick with this knife, having stabbed an Uruk-hai just before being beheaded, and also blocking a sword that also would have beheaded him. Aragorn normally wears a chainmail shirt that blocks all but the fiercest of attacks, shoulder plates, forearm plates, shin guards, and toughened leather pants. This allows him a nice blend of mobility and protection. His wilderness survival knowledge from Ranger-ing has taught Aragorn to always carry some athelas paste that can rapidly cure wounds and invigorate the user, like combining Neosporin with Gatorade. Ew. Whatever you don’t think of Neosporin-flavored-Gatorade. Eugh. Anyway, the last bit of equipment that Aragorn carries with him is a longbow. Although it can’t fire fire arrows, Aragorn is a crack shot with the bow, being able to shoot an Orc’s eye through a crack in the door. Why can’t that be an idiom?

RESULTS:

Link:

• Master Sword– Smaller, more mobile
• Hylian Shield– indestructable
• Assortment of gadgets– bombs, bows, boomerang, hookshot
• Acrobatic
• “Z-Target” Senses

Aragorn:

• Anduril– longer, better reach
• Armor
• Knife and bow
• Very perceptive– “medieval Spiderman”
• Stealth

I think the winner here is the Hero of Time: Link. The two are pretty matched when it comes to swordplay, so the issue comes with outwitting the other. Aragorn’s stealthy Ranger ways are nullified by Link’s Z-Targeting. Then Link would be able to bomb the guy from here to Valinor.

Then he rides into the sunset while Aragorn starts applying his Neosporin Gatorade

Thanks for reading!