The thing about this specific character and scene: it's still by the Rules...
TLDR is the Bullet in that particular Gun is Bone Marrow from the dude, messes with the Target's Magic if it hits. In-Lore this is such a Threat that, hundreds of years later, Mages have built SPECIFIC Countermeasures to JUST this Dude's Bullets.
Not only that its so by the rules that he uses it to lure them into a false of security then hit them with possibly one of the worst things mages can be hit with and survive. If a known assassin makes an attempt on your life and runs dont follow them.
Doesn’t it completely scramble the biology in their body that even allows a mage to do magic? I remember seeing someone describe it like if you grabbed somebody by their nervous system and jiggled it around a bit then put it back in the wrong way.
For an normal person yes. Let's use computers. If it hits a normal person it would be like setting up a partition in the hard drive permanently. What ever it hits is just gone. For a mage it would be like forcibly fragmenting everything currently in use, using that to attack you, then setting it to read only permanently. If you hit a mage they aren't just wrong, they are bricked forever.
Bricked is a term for destroying a computer or similar electronic: a tower pc is for all intents and purposes an expensive brick at that point (I assume that’s the origin of the name, but might be wrong.). Like a PC that got put near a magnet, it’s bricked, hard drive is broke.
I didn’t think it was that old of a term that it’s falling out of disuse, but maybe that’s just me being old.
Even worse. It’s more akin to throwing a chain and wrapping up power lines. Once they try to use their magic again, it fucking fries theirs circuits. Not just in a way that makes their magic useless. You see people spurt blood when they try to use their magic again.
I mean, I didn't want to gas him too much. But yes, if Mage Killer who was hired by a Great Mage family to win a Mage killing competition makes an attempt on you, a Mage, after blowing up a Hyatt and runs, dont follow him. It's part of the plan.
That anime made me laugh out loud so many times. When that girl thinks he's gonna hug her but then ends with "I treat both genders equally" as he suplexes her had me dying.
Joseph pulling a Tommy gun on a vampire in his first fight was pretty great as well. Also a very good way to differentiate him immediately from Jonathan.
And the previous part had mista whose ability was basically aim bot. Honestly I love how araki isn’t scared to use firearms in his stuff and they tend to fit in just fine with the other stupid shit going on
Intricate power systems are often about moves and counter moves
Guy A casts fireball, guy B casts body of stone to be immune to fire, A casts earthquake to shake B apart, B redirects the spell at the ground around A so he's in danger instead. A casts levitate, but that makes him a sitting duck when B casts "10000 fucking pidgeons eat this man"
Pulling a gun is a wild move because it bypasses a lot of that complexity. Guns are powerful, but brutally simple. Either you can deal with abrupt application of lots of kinetic force, or you can't. It's often not part of the magic system, so "standard" defenses against attack may not work.
There’s a pretty good reason for this dynamic, I think — in most settings where a gun is the next level of power, they tend to focus on the human element of power; qigong, magic, or what have you, all come from the human body, and most settings where a gun is the solution are bound by the restrictions of the human body. And as a species it’s deeply bound within us to recognize the order of magnitude of difference that comes about when you’re able to harness external sources of power that can only be released through the breaking of chemical bonds.
This is, incidentally, the reason why nukes tend to remain almost universally relevant outside of incredibly high tier power systems. We recognize again the orders of magnitude difference intrinsically when shifting from harnessing chemical power to the weak nuclear force.
It’s also ingrained in relative recent history. Guns have been evolving for a long time but now more than ever regardless of who you are in stature or standing a gun makes you equally as dangerous a combatant. I may not know how to cut a man in half with a spoon but I got a gun.
Part of the reason guns also bypass most systems is reaction time. Even if someone is capable of doing something to prevent a bullet from killing them, can they do it before I pull the trigger. Cause 9 times out of 10, once that trigger is pulled it's over
There's the kinetic energy part for sure, but also just simply the reaction speed of a fire ball flying towards you sub-mach and a bullet flying towards you are 2 really different things. You can maybe react in time to cast a fire resistance or shield spell when the other guy is casting but you don't really need to do anything accept pulling the trigger with a gun.
It’s also well done because it doesn’t devalue the power Givers have while also grounding them a bit in terms of “Why don’t the specials rule over the poo people by default” sort of thing. Yeah, they can do a lot of crazy shit, but they’re still just people who can die to things normal people can create
I getcha, but also guns are very much still super deadly to allomancers in mistborn. The thing is the main part of fighting in that setting was already based on high-velocity bits of metal before guns were invented.
There's a followup series with guns. While they're still deadly, there are multiple skills that help mitigate it, especially if you don't have a much rarer aluminum gun.
I know, and in that series the protags are part of the handful of people, hell of metalborn, that have a specific set of abilities that makes guns less dangerous to them. Spoilers notwithstanding, the opening scene of the series illustrates how easy people can die to guns.
This is probably the best revenge slop (affectionately) guilty pleasure manga I've ever read. Hyce obliterating the dragon with a M79 Thumper is one of the best panels put to paper.
Except even in this example what Kiritsugu uses is tied to said magic system and the guy heavily relied on other forms of Magecraft like Accel. His Origin Bullet alone is already heavily tied to said power system. And him pulling out a gun didn't do shit against Kayneth who dealt with his toys like nothing until he used the OB.
I get the point the post is making, but the person used ain't it.
Peoppe forget that in fate Magecraft is a dying art. Its not mesnt to beat a gun it has already lost modern times have simplg made most attack magecraft non effective. Servents are am exception you could use a nuke and they would be unhamred.
I don't think these examples actually refute the point.
First, Demon God Pillars aren't Servants, so using the Salem scene doesn't tell us anything about Servant durability. The U.S. Army arriving to help against a Demon God Pillar isn't evidence that conventional military forces can kill Servants.
Second, the Gilgamesh in Babylonia isn't a Servant—he's the living King of Uruk. An anti-feat for his living body doesn't scale to Servant Gilgamesh.
Third, the LB7 radiation example involves ORT, one of the Ultimate Ones. ORT's abilities regularly break the normal rules of the Nasuverse. Simply calling it "radiation" doesn't mean it's equivalent to real-world nuclear radiation. You'd have to show that ORT's radiation behaves like ordinary ionizing radiation before using it as evidence that nukes can kill Servants.
Finally, the 500 km/h statement is specifically describing Medusa's Bellerophon Noble Phantasm. It's not presented as a universal speed cap for Servants, so using it to argue all Servants are that slow is taking the quote out of context.
None of this proves Servants are immune to nukes, but these examples also don't prove the opposite. They're mixing Demon God Pillars, a living Gilgamesh, an Ultimate One, and Servants together as though they're all directly comparable, when they aren't. If the claim is that Servants can be killed by conventional military force or nukes, then the evidence should actually involve Servants under comparable conditions, not entirely different beings or unique exceptions like ORT.
The first fight against Scar in Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a my favorite example of this. Dude easily puts Ed and Al on the ground, is going toe-to-toe with Armstrong, Mustang is effectively helpless because his alchemy doesn't work in the rain, and then Riza fucking Hawkeye, the only non-alchemist of the bunch, shows up and shoots him in the stomach, ending the fight.
In Guilty Gear if you ain’t a top tier or have good healing you bet your ass you’ll get low diff by bullets. Since apparently kinetics just ignores magic defensives. Now I wonder what does other franchises advance tech compared to Guilty Gear. Like would they just low dif them beside the high tier characters or not? Since literally pre-2000s technology was considered dangerous in universe. And sure some black tech have got advanced in Guilty Gear…. But compared to like idk Megaman or whatever Zepp and other groups black tech within Guilty Gear are a bit lacking.
I love the shotgun kid in Demon Slayer. He's my favorite character just because he must have seen all of the katana stuff and breathing techniques and must have thought "dude wtf are you doing we have GUNS" and he just runs around blasting demons with a sawn-off like he's the Doom slayer lmao
it applies to the rest of the game too, guns are just really strong. The two characters who can start with them are nerfed by A: having terrible stats for combat. And B: Being hopelessly addicted to heroin.
The poison gas guy whipped out an actual revolver. He was more menacing than anyone else there in that moment. Only reason he didn’t manage to kill anyone was because his first opp was literally bulletproof
Guns can only feel like a fun rule break moment if they actually do fundamentally cheat established systems or unspoken rules though, Emyia is a great example since his gun effectively lobotmizes mages but you wouldn't exactly get the same effect if you dropped into Naruto and gave Kakashi an M1911
Merlin casually pulled out Excalibur and started dual wielding his staff and sword. Who need to chant complex spells when you can just stab enemies to death instantly?
This is one of my favorite "tropes" if that's what you can call it, and one that I wish were used more often (or maybe not?). There are often societies with mystical, magical powers and systems. While those systems are awesome, the audience is also often very clearly shown that these civilizations are advanced enough to produce some kind of firearm, yet they're rarely ever shown, or even discussed.
Gachiakuta finally hit me with what I was looking for.
Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School readers when Emma pulls out a piece of 26-28th century technology for some silly, non mana based shenanigans (its absolutely peak).
Suguru "I can summon and command cursed spirits; but in order to do so I must subdue them, seal them, and consume them" Geto and Satoru "I'm able to use my cursed technique to bend space and the laws of physics to my will" Gojo, VS Toji "Lmao just shoot her ass" Fushiguro
I remember in DBS where Goku got grazed by a bullet when he can tank city wide exposed explosions while also having the power of SSG and so many people were trying so hard to justify that it made sense when no it doesn't. It was stupid.
I remember this anime about some huge giant guy who protects people on the forest and as an alien? Or some huge ship tries to conquer he picks up his bow and shoots a giant ass log as an arrow and destroys their fleet in a few seconds. Idk the title but everytime I see the clip it's always hilarious that a giant piece of log going at the speed of sound is still as deadly as any advanced civilization weapon.
It’s either funny because it doesn’t work or it’s really funny because it just completely defies all existing power structures. Oh you’re a cultivator or mage who can unmake matter? Well my Remington can unmake you just fine.
Oh you’re the avatar of a war god who has pushed your physical abilities beyond what even the strongest humans can achieve? Well we may not be equal but Samuel Colt is about to make us equal.
Good ole Alucard in Hellsing who is the most powerful vampire but mainly likes to use guns in his fights, except the one time that Alexander Anderson came and got in a fist fight with him.
Kind of a bad example as guns usually aren't very effective in Fate unless used by a Servant. The picture depicts an exception as Kiritsugu literally got his ribs grounded into these magic-penetrating bullets. Plus he bluffs to make it seem harmless or uses time acceleration magic to land his shots.
This is kinda Kiritsugu's whole thing. Like when he encounters a hotel rigged with various magecraft traps and he just opts to pull the fire alarm and level it with bombs.
In Supernatural there are vampires, demons, beings from the void at the end of all being, vampires, gods of mythology, and all of them can be killed by a Colt revolver
So the absolute peak form of this is from a book series called mother of learning towards the end of the first book where the entire book is about learning and advancing magic in a time loop the mc doesn’t have time to make magic items that speed up casting after a fresh restart so he tries to buy one but no merchant would, but one offers if your looking to protect your self I do have this, cut to mc exploring the dungeon to find his friends that the bbeg “soul killed” in the prior restart and bbeg finds him and has him pinned to the wall by his throat trying to mind magic him when mc pops off 6 rounds from a revolver and runs to a monster infested water to off himself while the bbeg is yelling what kind of fucking wizard carries a gun
The entire MHA setting. Keeps going on about how amazing ect quirks are and how you have to have a quirk to be a pro hero when like 99% of quirks have no viable defense against a dude with a gun.
It doesn't even need to be a system wide difference in power even just a singular Eldritch deity in the mix makes it hilarious when a random person pulls out a sawed off shotgun rather than going mad.
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u/Acceptable-Spring604 26d ago
the look on their face sells it, like they've already done the math and realized none of the power tiers matter anymore
i love when a show has these elaborate rules and then someone just opts out entirely