If Kassandra didn't have access to any of her superpowers, how do you think she would fare against Lara Croft in a one-on-one fight? What about Nadine from Uncharted or Abby from the Last of Us? My opinion changes depending on if normal weapons like guns or bows are allowed. If no weapons are allowed, I honestly think Abby would win, but no one else would. If normal weapons are allowed, it gets more complicated. I would be interested to hear what you think.
ooh, great question! And one that's difficult to answer—as you pointed out, it really depends on the situation.
My glib answer is that as a writer, I could show any of these characters defeating any other in a realistic way that you'd believe. That's my superpower.
So without going back to you and asking for more specifics, the best I can do is walk you through my thought process for writing a believable action scene between two characters.
(Lots of talk about writing action scenes after the jump!)
The first thing I think about is the situation and setting: Where are they fighting? When are they fighting? What universe are they in? Are they in our reality as we know it, or the mostly-realistic-with-a-dash-of-fantasy worlds of AC: Odyssey or the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, or somewhere else entirely?
The situation and setting are crucial. Kassandra and Lara fighting in a traditional dojo would be much different than having them fight in a pine forest, or the war-torn Athens of AC:O, or a mining base on Mars. As Kassandra says to Kyra in The Breaking: "I'm surrounded by weapons." The setting determines what unconventional weapons might be at hand, if any, what cover is available, what bystanders or dangers might need to be accounted for.
Once I've established the setting of the scene, I start thinking about weapons in more detail. Do the combatants have formal training? What kinds of weapons and how much actual combat usage? How does the universe they're in treat weapons? As much as I love AC:O, that game puts all types of melee weapons on equal footing regardless of reach (length). It works within that universe because the game is consistent about its combat, but in the real world a dagger is no match for a polearm and that's fact.
Weapons tilt the table. Think of the moment in the Tomb Raider reboot where Lara gets that first gun. Her opponents could have 20 years of martial arts training and outweigh her by 50kg, but that doesn't matter a whit against a ranged firearm. The gun is the equalizer.
Setting matters. Weapons matter. Only when those parameters are sorted do I consider the physical abilities and hand-to-hand combat experience of the respective fighters. There are so many what-ifs to consider, and making everything fit together makes for a good logic puzzle. (And I haven't even gotten into the characterization aspects of writing action: not everyone has a killer instinct, and that matters!)
But let's go back to your original question and simplify things by thinking of the most basic scenario for unarmed combat: a bout taking place in the real world, in a neutral location like a dojo.
Even without superpowers, Kassandra is an impressive physical specimen. She has the strength to overpower opponents and the advantage of reach. She'd have a disadvantage in endurance, however, since all that muscle mass she's carrying is going to need energy to move it. (A good example of "strength vs endurance" affecting muscle mass can be seen in sprinters vs marathon runners.)
We'd also have to establish which Kassandra is fighting: young Kassandra (as we meet her in Kephallonia) or Kassandra at the top of her game, winner of the Olympic pankration and honed by at least five years of fighting damn near every mercenary and soldier of renown in ancient Greece.
To defeat her in unarmed combat in the real world, an opponent would have to:
outmatch her in physical ability and have just enough hand-to-hand combat experience to use it to their advantage, or
equal her in physical ability and hand-to-hand combat experience, or
have so much more experience that they could overcome all of her other advantages
That's a tough ask, and I don't really see Lara, Nadine, or Abby having enough hand-to-hand combat experience to pull it off, even against a young, less experienced Kassandra. I think Abby would come the closest, and if she went off and studied a bunch of hand-to-hand styles intensively for several years she'd make it an even fight.
So, to recap: it's definitely possible to contrive situations where one of them could defeat a non-superpowered Kassandra. I'd choose a setting and weapons that would support the challenger's strengths, and adjust Kassandra's experience accordingly.
5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?–Maple trees are my favorite, so I guess I’ll go with that.
10. What were you doing at midnight last night?–Sleeping. Night owl I am most definitely not.
15. Do you like someone?–Sure. I like lots of people. Or, well, ‘lots’ might be an exaggeration, but yeah…
20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)–Fuck if I know.
25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?–Books & wine
30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?–My laptop.
35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?–I am a fucking amazing….[insert anything you’d like here].
40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?–Sunrises
45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?–More patience
50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?–Honestly, there have been so many. Most recent was probably breaking down what, exactly, constituted a legal backstroke because technically what you think of as backstroke isn’t the only way to swim it without being disqualified.
55. Can you do any accents other than your own?–Not well, no.
In every AU, Kassandra is estranged (or otherwise separated) from her family. This causes her angst in some AUs more than others, and also offers the possibility of reconciliation.
In every AU, Kassandra has taken the Delphic maxim "know thyself" to heart. She rarely lacks confidence, and when she does, it's a big fucking deal.
In every kyssandra AU, Kassandra deeply, deeply loves Kyra, and once she realizes it, her love never wavers, not once. (Well, except for this one teensy-weensy AU I'm writing... but... you'll see...)
In every canon-adjacent AU, Kassandra kills Podarkes. Sorry Kyra, she'll never let you kill your own father, no matter how much you might want to.
drinking, Kassandra
"You need to get over that girl," Gelon said. "I can't stand the sight of you moping anymore."
"She's not some girl I can just throw away," Kassandra muttered.
"She is now. Bitch threw you away, right off her island." Gelon had already moved beyond punching range, else Kassandra would have made her pay for those words. "You need a good drink, and you need a good fuck. Let's find a kapeleion."
Kassandra didn't need to be fucking anyone, especially not someone who might remind her of Kyra. And who didn't remind her of Kyra these days? The right flicker of dark hair, the right sway of a hip left Kassandra dizzy and empty.
She balled her fists tight enough to feel her blood pulsing through her fingers. Maybe Gelon was right. What harm could there be in having a few drinks?
Kassandra would drink to forget.
anger, Kassandra
I'm going to answer this one directly. I think Kassandra is far less prone to rage than most folks in the fandom seem to believe. (SPOILER WARNING for anyone who hasn't finished the main storyline of the game yet.)
My headcanon for this is based on reads of several different scenes:
when Kassandra confronts Nikolaos on the clifftop
when Kassandra talks to the mercenary in Arkadia (the "shitting iron at the gates of Hades" conversation)
when Kassandra confronts Chrysis (before the baby choice, and before killing her)
when Kassandra kills Kleon slowly
when Kassandra talks to Socrates and Hippokrates immediately after Phoibe's death
when Kassandra kills Deimos (in the tragic ending)
Arguably, Kassandra shows the most rage in the scene where Deimos kills their mater. I consider that her rage baseline. Working backwards, she's nearly at that level of rage after Phoibe's death ("I don't fucking care!" she says as she grabs Hippokrates by the throat.) She's pretty fucking angry when she kills Kleon, but I wouldn't say she's full of rage -- she's more like a stone-cold badass in that moment.
After watching all these scenes back-to-back, I think Kassandra has a rather firm grip on her anger. She certainly allows herself to feel angry, but she never loses control (except when killing Deimos). Watch again the scene with Nikolaos on the clifftop. After what Nikolaos has done, no one would be surprised if she tore him to shreds in that scene, and yet she doesn't, even if she chooses to kill him. (She even hesitates in that branch of the cutscene, and might have even spared him if he hadn't said "I loved you and your brother.")
tl;dr Kassandra is a badass with firm command of her anger. I think if there's one character prone to flying off the handle, it's Kyra. :D
For the WIP title meme: irredeemable. Sounds kinda ominous!
Oh, it’s all sorts of ominous. Here’s how it begins:
Once, her name was Terror.
Deimos, they called her, and other epithets, too. The Butcher of Pylos. The Sword of Order. The Champion of Kosmos. With a demigod's blood flowing in her veins, she'd cut a burning swath of bodies across Greece and forced the leaders of nations to their knees. She was the Chosen One, destined to bring order to this world, and she'd risen to every challenge, eliminated every enemy, conquered every polis, until her goal lay within her grasp.
But then Alexios had stopped her.
Alexios the Eagle Bearer, hero of Greece. Alexios her brother, who had proven to her that everything she'd known of herself was a lie. Alexios, who crouched beside her now, in the shadows of a dank and foul cave, watching a priest of the Followers of Ares unsheathe a dagger while three acolytes dragged a woman to their bloody altar, her pleas for mercy bouncing uselessly off the cave's stone walls.
"What now, brother?" she asked him, keeping her voice low and quiet, though she needn't have bothered — the captive's shrieks had filled the chamber, and the air thrummed with fear. She breathed it in and allowed herself a moment to savor it. Then an unwelcome twinge shot through her ribs, and she glanced at Alexios, glad that he hadn't turned and seen her. She nodded towards the altar below. "Skulking in the shadows like rats won't save that woman."
I’ve been thinking a lot about story openings lately. A long time ago, in bookstores from Dakar to LA, an author had two whole chapters to entice a reader into continuing the story. Hell, throw an entire prologue in there, readers didn’t seem to mind.
Then times changed, and authors ditched the prologues and focused on the first chapter, because readers had become fickle and distracted creatures. The internet was to blame, of course. And several more years passed, and now an author only had the very first page — a mere 500 words! — to grab a reader by their eyeballs.
Nowadays, I don’t think I have 500 words to hook your attention, I think I have about half that — what I like to call the Tumblr Attention Span. ~300 words is about how long a text post can run before people start wishing you hid the rest of it under a READ MORE jump cut.
I think an effective opening needs to immediately hit a reader with three things: a sense of character, a sense of place, and a question. The opening above is 239 words. Whether it’s effective or not remains to be seen.
Humor me and picture a watermelon. Now think of a katana. That’s your road bike. While modern road bikes take many different forms, they all have roots in race bikes that were made for the track. A katana is going to slice that watermelon to bits as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Now think of a sledgehammer. That’s your dirt bike. A hammer’s going to crush that melon to pulp. It won’t be graceful and it’ll take several hits, but it’ll do the job.
Either way, that watermelon’s gonna end up in pieces, and you’ll have massive amounts of fun making that happen.
