Biff was basically guaranteed to win the fight against his nemesis from the get-go, given that he was his own nemesis. So if he wins, he wins…and if he wins, he wins. And if he loses, he still wins. Even if he also loses, even if he wins. When people say that overcoming yourself is the hardest struggle, they’re probably referring just to how confusing that kind of reasoning can get. >_>
Of course that is only the big-picture view. If you look closer, you begin to see that Biff actually isn’t quite himself in this context. There are two distinct flavors of Biff involved here – old/new Biff, dumb/smart Biff or however you want to distinguish them. The smarter Biff uses the brains/brawn dichotomy, so let’s go with that, giving us brains!Biff vs. brawn!Biff. I’m not sure which dichotomy brawn!Biff is using, since it’s possible he hasn’t actually noticed the similarities to begin with. >_>
Anyway, brains!Biff’s simulation of the hypothetical match-up against his nemesis results in a pretty typical result: brawn wins, but then brains finesses the results into the opposite. It often ends that way – brawn has advantages when it comes to winning the battle as such, but it tends to be out of its depth when it comes to the exploitation phase, and that’s where brains has a chance to get back on top. Sun Tzu says that supreme generalship consists in winning without fighting, but Biff proves that winning by losing also works – although the pain involved still makes the “without fighting” option more attractive.
More on Thursday.
I just want to say this outcome is genius and I got a legitimate laugh out of that last panel.
Thank! I’m myself kinda happy with how this all played out – I really hadn’t planned for it, but the whole glasses-make-you-smart stereotype fit into this just about perfectly, by chance. XD
This was absolutely the best of these hypothetical fights thus far.
Don’t get me wrong. Snuka vs. Gouda was fun and hilarious, the Princess’ fight was super efficient in that it resolved 3 different protagonist’s existential conflicts at once, and Mopey’s fight reminded us of the valuable lesson that all the knowledge and achievements in the world matter naught if no one’s listening to you…
But this?
Not only is it super clever, it resolves the conflict in a way that is undeniably impossible to counter. Arguably Mopey, Snuka, and their three otherworldly allies could face their foes again with different results. I’m not saying they will, because it’s a movie and that’d waste screen time. but while most of them (save Snuka) overcame their foes… they as people didn’t grow as people in a way to achieve a philosophical or moral victory. They didn’t exorcise their demons, they won without needing to.
This?
Even if Smart-Biff had to fight against his less intellectually gifted past once more, it feels like this would just loop endlessly. Smart-Biff always has a “win”, and has effectively defeated the very POINT of the conflict. His character growth (As much as a character in a B-Movie might get) has effectively proven that he’ll always win over Dumb-Biff simply because Dumb-Biff will always grow to become him.
Well, that’s what it would mean if this wasn’t a hypothetical thought experiment, anyway!
Either way, it’s funny and great writing!
Thanks a lot! I really can’t claim that this was something I had set up to work out like this from the start – my first plan had been to skip those confrontations completely, and when I then decided to work them in after all, I had to come up with ideas from scratch. And this one was definitely the best, and the only actually good one of the series – the mechanism of the glasses that raise your intelligence worked out great in this context.
And while drawing the strip, I realized that it all plays out like in Final Fantasy X: if you defeat Sin, you end up becoming the next iteration of Sin for the following cycle, making Sin essentially invincible and inevitable (until the events of the game, of course). And brawn!Biff also perfectly the role of the champion in that cycle, because I’m sure he hates brains!Biff with a passion and would consider suddenly turning into him a terrible curse (before it happens). XD
I have a song for that. SING WITH ME NOW!
https://youtu.be/VxCPQeRR2qU
It’s actually more “Muscles vs. Heads”, but I’ll take it. XD