Today's Match-Up: Giles vs Rasputin
vs
Rupert "Ripper" Giles (watcher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) vs Grigori Rasputin (the mad monk of Russia)
One taught the Slayer, the other taught the Czarina. One fought vampires, the other possibly was a vampire. Both got laid a lot. Which will win in this fight to the death? VOTE NOW!
Winner:
Grigori Rasputin (11 votes)
over
Rupert "Ripper" Giles (7 votes)
As sad as I am to see Giles defeated (being the huge Buffy fan that I am), I'm not surprised, and he did do a lot better than I anticipated. In the end, however, Rasputin's sheer popularity won him the contest and a place in the soon-to-come Round Deuce.
Featured commentary:
When I was in second year university, I, and about half the people in my program at school, were involved in a student production called "1918." It was about the fall of the Czars in Russia, and heavily involved Rasputin.
It was also just about the worst script/production I've ever been a part of and/or seen.
I played Dr. Botkin, the Doctor of the young Tsarevich Alexei whose haemophilia Rasputin is said to have miraculously cured. When this happenned in the play, Rasputin came in, touched the child, and he was magically better. Soon after this I, as the sound, scientific voice, mysteriously stated that I could find no medical explaination. Of course, I was standing about 3 meters away from the entire affair, and never approached the boy to run any tests, or even to confirm that he was healed.
Another scene involving Rasputin (thankfully) did not include me. This was the scene where he was supposedly shot, but turned out okay because he was unkillable. In this scene, the gun sound effect didn't work, so it was really easy for the audience to see how Rasputin was okay: As far as they knew, he hadn't been shot. Eventually the actors playing the assassins settled for throwing their guns at Rasputin.
So what does all this tell me about Rasputin? Well, he's said to have had this miraculous power to heal the boy, but really no one checked up on that. He's said to have survived gunshots, but really there were no bullets in the guns, and he actually just survived having guns thrown at him. Rasputin is basically seen as this magical figure only because the Russians are really fucking dumb.
Hey, you know who isn't really fucking dumb? Giles. He'd notice that Rasputin was just some douche with an ugly beard and stab him through the heart. - jiminwindsor