Board 8 > King of Fighters 2020 (NOT MERCS) R1D27: Popeye vs Illryia (High)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to the King of Fighters 2020 (NOT MERCS) Simulated Character Battle Tournament!

The game is simple. The two* listed characters are placed in an (imaginary) location with a variety of (imaginary) environments, kind of like a picture in a child's schoolbook that describes different types of geological features. Within a ten mile radius, there is an (imaginary) urban downtown, exurbs, plains, snow-clad mountains at the edge, dry plains, etc. Fighters start wherever is most appropriate for them, but feel increasingly compelled to seek out their opponent and fight. Strong-willed fighters can try to hold out in their chosen environment for longer... eventually, all will succumb and actively search for the other to battle.

To participate, just vote in bold for whichever character you believe will win. Giving reasoning is optional, but please be polite and read what others have said and carefully make your decision. I'll ping the nominators (they can opt out) to give arguments if they wish.

Results/Discussion: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78797189

TODAY'S PARTICIPANTS:
Popeye (Popeye)

Spinach.

vs

Illyria (Buffy)

A time manipulator with "probably unlimited powers", Illryia is empathic to such an extent she can read the powers and motivations of those she encounters

@rwlh @Dancedreamer

FIGHT

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This should really be another Ipkiss vs Broly, but I'm just going to vote Popeye anyway.

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So she could find out that Popeye eating spinach makes him buff as hell and go back to stop him from eating it? I think? I don't know what she does.

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rewinding time and knowing your opponent's powers don't help if you're super outclassed

but I don't know anything about Illyria outside that blurb so I'll wait for arguments
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Here's a Popeye respect thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/9l5unr/respect_popeye_the_sailor_man_popeye/

Some Popeye feats from the thread:
- Turns a bull into a meat market with a punch:
https://gfycat.com/sizzlingwetindianspinyloach

- Punches Bluto around the earth:
https://gfycat.com/rapidoddballagama

- Blocks bullets with his bare hands, then spits them out of his mouth:
https://gfycat.com/abandonedenchantingelephantbeetle

- Recovers from disintegration:
https://gfycat.com/deliriousraggedfieldmouse
https://gfycat.com/knobbybackamericanblackvulture

Etc., etc., you can read the thread.

...however. This might be a very bad matchup for Popeye. Because...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Hag

"Because she is a woman, Popeye cannot physically attack her. His honor says that he would never hit a woman, even someone as evil as the Sea Hag. In such cases, it is Olive Oyl herself who steps in and does physical damage to her. One notable exception to this is in the 1960s cartoon, "Old Salt Tale" where Popeye grabs her whip and uses it to fling her into the sea."

Hmm.

Is it in Illyria's character to play on a weakness like that? If her empath stuff is as impressive as it sounds she'll know about that pretty much immediately, and well, Popeye tossed away his spinach for Bluto of all people because he felt bad for him.

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Shonen_Bat posted...

So she could find out that Popeye eating spinach makes him buff as hell and go back to stop him from eating it? I think? I don't know what she does.

Not even the animator could keep Popeye from eating spinach so I dunno if she could

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The thing about the Sea Hag happens in this cartoon:
https://youtu.be/fC4YE_582FQ?t=121

Popeye doesn't strike her directly, but he still dispatches with her by grabbing her whip and tossing her into the sea. So we can probably assume he'd look for a way to win over Illyria that wouldn't involve directly striking her.

If he did do something like that to win, like removing her from the battlefield somehow, and she survived it, then she'd be able to turn back time so it never happened. Popeye probably needs to kill her to win, and if he's unwilling to even hit her I'm not sure how he'd do that.

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If Popeye can chuck her into the sea at will, and all Illyria can do is rewind time to restart the fight so she can get chucked into the sea again, I'm inclined to count that as a win for Popeye. (And this is assuming she doesn't get concussed or something that would render her unable to use her powers)

Popeye for now
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depends on what she's able to do after learning more about him I guess, she at least seems smart enough to not keep trying the same thing if all it's getting her is a trip across the sea

I have no idea how charismatic she is but she'll learn all of his weaknesses and Popeye is pretty easy to fool sometimes, I don't think it's impossible that she just convinces him to ring himself out to avoid fighting her

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I think Popeye has some weaknesses, like the fact that his big attacks always seem to require a lot of wind up and exaggerated motions. Not everyone is going to stand there like Bluto and take it. Though I don't think this prevents him from grabbing someone quickly when the situation calls for it. It's true that he might or might not be willing to fight her, but, this is a contest where the characters are compelled to fight each other -- so I typically find that kind of reasoning shaky at BEST and it doesn't really seem airtight in this case either.

The big thing for me is not even the difference in power, but the difference in durability. Popeye can comfortably soak ANY attack she is capable of launching. If there was a nuclear launch site on the battlefield and she gained access to it, and pelted him with nukes, he would probably just punch then into the sun or weather the explosions without taking any damage.

My logic is similar to Drak's way of thinking above.

Literally what the fuck is she going to do other than rewind time and keep repeatedly losing?

POPEYE, comfortably

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Illyria

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-universe-respect-thread-1748616/

I'm' not convinced Popeye has any answer to anything she's capable of. Her Time Control lets her completely freeze targets in midair--so unless you have some protection against time manipulation or a way to just no sell being frozen, any fight is over before it begins. You try anything, she completely freezes you in time, the end.

Even if we grant Popeye the ability to move in frozen time (toon force, sure, why not?), Illyria's teleportation is still completely busted. She can open portals to anywhere, even other dimensions.

Also she can warp other people without creating portals. She doesn't even need line of sight--she just moves whoever she wants to wherever she wants them, with no buildup or warning. Not only can you not remove her from the battlefield (she'll just warp back), she can remove you from the battlefield. Without being anywhere near you.

Then she has high durability (completely no-sells being incinerated by a dragon) and rapid healing, so even if we grant Popeye immunity to battlefield removal, he's going to have to go all-out to actually hurt her. Which judging by the arguments doesn't seem likely?

...also she can control plants for some God forsaken reason. Apparently she restrains an ancient God by ensaring it in a bunch of vines because everything about this character is terrible.

And that's all her weakened human form. If the nomination was for TRUE ELDER GOD ILLYRIA then...uggghhhhhhh....

........Unvote, I now hate Illyria.


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...Okay

so if Popeye gets shipped off to, I don't know, the fucking Star Wars universe or something, and he's able to return from that somehow, is he going to bother going back to fight someone that he really doesn't want to hurt or is he just going to go home

I don't feel like there's any point in this where he goes all-out six cans of spinach bodying Goku and Superman like it's a WWE match, just to fight some random woman who hasn't really provoked him at all when he doesn't even like fighting women

Illyria, but I like it less now


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Just based on that link, Illyria's time manipulation seems inconsistent at best. (a good opponent for Popeye lmao)
- It seems like she doesn't do clock rewinds. She manipulates time on her targets, making them either slow, stop, or go backwards in time.
- Her best feat is rewinding time for a millennia-old dragon and turning him back into a baby. That's pretty good! But it seems to be a one-off thing.
- She can also stop time, though a character says she can't do it any more? Not clear about this.
- Most often, she just slows down time for her targets so they're moving in extreme slow motion.

Also her offensive feats are stuff like "she can punch a demon through a stone wall, and smash a car" which is...probably not going to faze Popeye?
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Shonen_Bat posted...

...Okay

so if Popeye gets shipped off to, I don't know, the fucking Star Wars universe or something, and he's able to return from that somehow, is he going to bother going back to fight someone that he really doesn't want to hurt or is he just going to go home

I don't feel like there's any point in this where he goes all-out six cans of spinach bodying Goku and Superman like it's a WWE match, just to fight some random woman who hasn't really provoked him at all when he doesn't even like fighting women

Illyria, but I like it less now

Given the rules of "combatants are compelled to seek each other out and fight" I would assume yes? She doesn't seem like she can do anything to actually hurt Popeye and spinach hax might just make him straight up immune to time manipulation because spinach

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I think her time manipulation would probably get her the win here (him being immune to it sounds kind of sketchy unless he has a showing of being immune to it, if we give him that then we could just start applying literally anything to him) but it sounds so inconsistent that I don't know if she could actually do anything with it that would win the battle and she's honestly just starting to bother me in general

Unvote

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How is strength going to beat time and space manipulation. Like can one of the Popeye voters explain HOW he actually reaches her to throw her in the sea. Its pretty obvious how she can incapacitate him, teleport him, slow/freeze him.

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Illyria

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Illyria

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Guys, Popeye is one of the most powerful toonforce characters there is, he can casually ignore all the laws of physics, reality and the universe if he feels like it.

here's how the fight will go down:

Illyria will freeze Popeye in time, Popeye will say (in his head) 'I've had all I can stands and I cant stands no more' and will his spinach to jump out of the can and walk into his mouth, activating god mode and freeing him.
Illyria will then toss him into another reality but he just punches a hole in the fabric of the universe and comes back, and decks Illyria so hard she turns into a buffy action figure which flies neatly on to the shelf in a toy store.

Popeye

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Illryia

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Popeye

Like, it is the easiest gag to imagine Popeye seeing her go back in time, watching her literally rewind the film reel, and have his arm come out of it and go "nope, right back here, missy", dragging her back to the fixed point. Considering that he does kick ass so badly that he destroys the reel itself (Goonieland), thus warping him forward in time to a point where he and his pappy have beaten a seemingly endless army, time powers make me go "yeah, this is something Popeye's used to". At the.very least, I don't think the Illryia can BEAT Popeye in any meaningful way other than annoying him, and I think she'd probably surrender just to escape an endless time loop fighting something she can't beat (because Popeye sure as Hell isn't going to back down from something he's even slightly invested in).

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Popeye

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Question: Are we considering a "ring out" a victory for the purposes of these matches? I would think a ring out with an easy way back would allow the match to continue, but a ring out where the character can't return easily seems like a victory for their opponent to me.

So if Illyria can teleport Popeye wherever she wants, and Popeye can't easily return to the battlefield, I'd count that as a win for Illyria.

These are the two ways I can picture this fight going down:
- Illyria tries basic manipulation on Popeye but Popeye no-sells it and incapacitates her. Popeye's attack power seems beyond what Illyria has tanked before, so even if Popeye is trying to not directly harm her, she might still become unable to fight.
- Alternately, Popeye is unable to incapacitate illyria, she continues to rewind time, and she eventually gets wise to the fact that she needs to just freaking get rid of this dude. Or maybe, upon repeatedly seeing the effects of the can in Popeye's pocket, she steals Popeye's spinach. Maybe she even uses it herself. Spinach has been shown to have ridiculous effects in the Popeye universe to others who eat it, including dogs.

Also, I don't think Popeye can do just anything. I think we should keep potential Popeye abilities to what he demonstrates in his canon.

Still unsure here.

Would Popeye even have spinach? Mario & Shadow's matches established that temporary power boosts--no matter how iconic or integral to the character--are not included. Not only does Mario not get Starmen, he doesn't even get metal caps or any other timed power-up. Shadow relies on Chaos Emeralds and tends to always have one, no matter how illogical: in Sonic Heroes, you need to go through bonus stages to collect the Emeralds. And yet, Shadow always happens to have one to use for Team Dark's Super regardless of bonus stages because it's Shadow and he always has one. But while it's what he's known for and important for his powers, it counts as temporary and not valid.

Spinach is not a permanent power-up; iconic and a defining trait of the character, but not permanent.

(There's also the hyper dumb argument: If Popeye has powers directly related to being in a cartoon--like altering the film reel directly--then like Neo, he should lose his powers when not in a cartoon. </.<

...though now I am slightly curious if he has any epic fourth-wall breaking moments in the comics...)

...Please don't take either of those arguments too seriously.

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Raetsel_Lapin posted...

Mario & Shadow's matches established that temporary power boosts--no matter how iconic or integral to the character--are not included. Not only does Mario not get Starmen, he doesn't even get metal caps or any other timed power-up

Who said this?

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For Mario, it was an agreeement between NFUN & Karo

<quote><cite>Lopen posted...</cite>

no"not mercs" nerfs means he has invincibility stars

<cite>NFUN posted...</cite>

PrinceKaro would you say that it's fair for Mario to have permanent powerups accessible (fire flower, feather, etc) and not temporary powers (jumbo, metal, Starman, etc)?

<cite>Prince Karo posted</cite>

certainly</quote>

In response to you saying Mario would have Starmen, NFUN just reposted him & Karo agreeing that he wouldn't.

For Shadow NFUN just says no Chaos Emeralds, with no discussion on the matter.

EDIT: Forgot I switched to the new post format to post an image somewhere. Forgive the broken HTML, switching text boxes to better quote a forbidden archive seems like more effort than I want to put into this match.

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The character description of popeye in the first post is literally just the word 'spinach' so it is safe to assume that the leafy greens are in play here. it would make no sense for him to be high tier otherwise

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PrinceKaro posted...

The character description of popeye in the first post is literally just the word 'spinach' so it is safe to assume that the leafy greens are in play here. it would make no sense for him to be high tier otherwise

Fair point about the opening post. I wouldn't really use tier placement as a gauge of power (to be quite honest, I think I should have argued Popeye & Illyria as both being in the broken tier above this one), but even I can't really argue against the write-up.


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So hes relying on spinach?
He cant will it into his mouth if she can control time and read his thoughts, shed just stop time or slow it and stop the spinach reaching him, didnt somebody say she can control plant matter?
This isnt a favourite character contest and saying cartoons can make him win. Ok, is this specifically in Popeyes world not Illyrias because if its not in Popeyes world and its a world of supernatural horror being funny gets him murdered.

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The fighters apparently have enough prep time to meet each other, according to the opening blurb. So he probably will have eaten before he gets there. And if she tried time travel shenanigans, as said, Popeye has shown he can seriously ignore that shit because Spinach

Popeye really should be in Broken tier but oh well

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5tarscream posted...

didnt somebody say she can control plant matter?

Yeah, she can both communicate with & control plants. The show once claimed she spent two hours mind-melding with a potted fern; in the comics, she stopped a rampaging Old One (ancient demon god thing) by having all the vines in a jungle wrap around him.
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DeathChicken posted...

The fighters apparently have enough prep time to meet each other, according to the opening blurb. So he probably will have eaten before he gets there. And if she tried time travel shenanigans, as said, Popeye has shown he can seriously ignore that shit because Spinach

Popeye really should be in Broken tier but oh well

I don't think Popeye would pop spinach into his mouth before he sees what he's up against. He never seems to start any of the cartoons with it already in play; it's always a last-ditch effort to come back from behind.

Illyria seems like she takes it more often than not. If Popeye doesn't knock her out - which he'll be averse to doing because he'll see his opponent is a woman - she can jump back in time, see where he gets his strength, and either manipulate it (she can control plants, but failing that she can just teleport the can away) or eat the spinach herself (I don't know if that's within her personality or not though).

Honestly this just seems like a bad matchup for Popeye. Even if he can no-sell her teleportation, he can't stop her from teleporting his spinach after she goes back in time a few times to assess the fight. On top of that, he won't be fighting to kill because she's a woman.

Illyria.

can Popeye even do anything about her time manipulation? one episode has him making and using a time machine to visit the past and come back, if spinach did give him that power why would he not just... use it

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popeye doesnt start out with spinach IMO but he spawns in a grocery store/farmer's market because obviously that's his first play. i dont think it really matters

and he definitely doesn't start out already powered up because that's never how the cartoon is

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I don't buy Illyria controlling the spinach with her plant powers (as far as I know she can manipulate live vegetation but it seems a stretch to go from there to canned dead spinach leaves). Teleportation works, though.

I'm still iffy about Illyria because she seems reluctant to use a lot of her better powers. Like, she seems to have a lot of "regular" fights where she doesn't slowga the enemy, or teleport them away, or use time rewinds on them. (e.g. with the dragon, she only busts out the mega-rewind after losing a physical slugfest and then watching him kill one of her friends in front of her.) But since Popeye is a reluctant fighter, she'll probably have time to realize she needs to bust out the big guns and then do it.

change to Illyria
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Illyria

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Popeye

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Popeye
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Raetsel_Lapin posted...

Would Popeye even have spinach? Mario & Shadow's matches established that temporary power boosts--no matter how iconic or integral to the character--are not included. Not only does Mario not get Starmen, he doesn't even get metal caps or any other timed power-up. Shadow relies on Chaos Emeralds and tends to always have one, no matter how illogical: in Sonic Heroes, you need to go through bonus stages to collect the Emeralds. And yet, Shadow always happens to have one to use for Team Dark's Super regardless of bonus stages because it's Shadow and he always has one. But while it's what he's known for and important for his powers, it counts as temporary and not valid.

Spinach is not a permanent power-up; iconic and a defining trait of the character, but not permanent.

Thats like having Link without any of his weapons
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Hbthebattle posted...

Thats like having Link without any of his weapons

Unless Link's weapons are prone to vanishing from existence after a set period of time then no, not really. Also NFUN already agreed that (he thinks) Popeye wouldn't start with spinach, but there's spinach available in the world so it's a moot point anyway.
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rip botw link
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