Happy March Madness, everyone! Every year in March, I find myself roped into all sorts of fantasy and sci-fi fight conversations. “Who would win in a fight between X and Y” is a constant topic among fans as everyone wants to make an inane argument about who would win in fisticuffs. Boring. This year I decided to take a different angle on this beloved March tradition and instead take a glance at a different metric to assess characters. For 2024, I want to know who would get the last laugh.
Below you will find a list of all of the characters the Quill to Live team put forth as hilarious smartasses who are great in an argument, and where they are from. The goal of this competition is to determine who would get the last witty word in an argument between various characters. Due to the limit of our collective reading (great as it may be), we obviously couldn’t get every single clever clog on the bracket, but we have some real powerhouses in play.
- Eugenides – The Queen’s Thief series
- Ling Taishi – The Art of Prophecy series
- Locke Lamora – Gentleman Bastard series
- Crowley – Good Omens
- Magnus Bane – Shadowhunter series
- Father Chains – Gentleman Bastard series
- Hoid – Cosmere
- Toph Befong – Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Sand dan Glokta – The First Law
- Ana Dolabra – The Tainted Cup
- Brasti Goodbow – The Greatcoats
- Hari Michaelson – Heroes Die
- Sam Vimes – Discworld
- Gideon Nav – Gideon the Ninth
- Mat Cauthon – Wheel of Time
- Miles Vorkosigan – Vorkosigan Saga
- Kinch Na Shannack – The Blacktongue Thief
- Hadrian Blackwater – The Riyria Chronicles
- Tehol Beddict – Malazan Book Of The Fallen
- Shallan Davar – The Stormlight Archive
- Tara Abernathy – Craft Sequence
- Ferius Parfax – Spellslinger
- Murderbot – Murderbot Sequence
- Three Seagrass – Teixcalaanli
- Nanny Ogg – Discworld
- Nicomo Cosca – Best Served Cold
- Tyrion Lannister – Game of Thrones
- Chrisjen Avasarala – The Expanse
- Elli Quinn – Vorkosigan Saga
- Boots Elsworth – The Salvagers
- Jaskier – The Witcher
- Vlad Taltos – Jhereg
Now in order to make this as fair as possible, we randomized all of the matchups and slotted them into a bracket. We then had QTL members who were familiar with both characters in the match-up go through a very scientific, meticulous, and objective system to determine the true unarguable winners of each match-up. I jest; we mostly went off vibes. This is obviously extremely subjective, sorry if one of us dunked on your favorite. In order to save us all some time and real estate, here is the completed bracket so you can react to it from start to finish.
Our grand winner is Tehol Beddict, all hail his name, long live Malazan (go read it if you haven’t). But, the interesting part of these mock arguments to us is less who the grand winner is, and more certain matchups and how we think they would play out. So instead, for the rest of this piece, I want to talk about a bunch of specific throwdowns and why I think they are interesting.
1) Jaskier vs. Murderbot – One of the big throwdowns of round one, these two titans of tittery both were favored by different members going into the competition with high chances. Their matchup was one of much debate, but we eventually gave it to Jaskier. Murderbot is one of the wittiest contestants with an extremely surprising and dry sense of humor that we think would take many contestants by surprise, giving Murderbot an advantage. In addition, being an AI would also probably put a number of people off their game, including Jaskier. The problem we kept running into was that we didn’t think Murderbot would care about the competition. They would simply see it as not worth their time and retreat inward even with the perfect comeback and devastating last word. Murderbot could have had it all if they could muster up a single fuck to give.
2) Boots Vs. Ferius – A double underdog street brawl, the Boots vs. Ferius match-up is a competition between two unassuming southern ladies, each with a pouch of quaint sayings. This randomized matchup was a great shame as I think both of these older ladies could have worked over a number of the hotheaded men in the ranks, but they got placed against each other in round one. In terms of mysterious country energy, Ferius likely just edges out Boots which is why we gave her the win. Tragically, Ferius ultimately didn’t get to show her stuff much either, as she met Three Seagrass in round two (another insane matchup that we will get to in a bit).
3) Crowley vs. Nicomo – Crowley, in general, was a tough contestant to assess. A good portion of this was because of the discrepancy in his wittiness in the book and his very recent show (where he is shown to be much more cutting with his words). His divine nature also made him a bit of a wild card, as we felt his sense of humor was just off enough to give him an edge on a lot of contestants. This can be seen clearly in his takedown of Nicomo, a beloved silver-tongued drunk who gets the best of almost everyone around him. In the end, Nicomo is too prone to missteps despite his way with words, and we felt this would give Crowley the edge with his thousands of years of experience.
4) Nanny Ogg Vs. Hoid – This matchup was one of the most debated in the final tournament with only a bare majority pushing Ogg into victory in the end. Nanny Ogg was a powerful contestant across the board, and her specialty of being able to handle hotheaded brilliant young men certainly helped her go far in the entire bracket. We eventually gave her a loss to Miles, because Miles’ experience with his beloved mother taught him never to assume gender or age was a weakness in a world ruled by young men. But jumping back to this matching, Hoid was another heavyweight favored to win the entire thing. He is the King’s Wit, after all, and almost all of his dialogue across the Cosmere is him getting in the last word. Yet, the issue some of us kept coming back to is Hoid’s tendency to just peace out. He is never invested in one thing, and he is quite flaky. We just don’t think his heart would be in it enough to take this battle over Ogg, giving her the win.
5) Avasarala vs. Tehol – Avasarala is a titan who just ripped through most of her competition until she slammed into Tehol in the quarter-finals. Her age and position make her one of the most unassuming contestants. Combined with her staggering intellect, quick wits, and vicious mouth, she eviscerated Tara and Jaskier in our minds, easily moving up the bracket. Unfortunately for Avasarala, Tehol is someone who wouldn’t blink at her experience, has a very similar scope of humor, would be nonplussed by her words, and has an edge of insanity about him that gives him the definite edge. I honestly don’t think there is a single person on this list other than Tehol who has a shot of beating her.
6) Three Seagrass vs. Tehol – In a similar vein, almost all of Three Seagrass’ matches were interesting. Three Seagrass has a very different sense of humor compared to most of the other contestants. Her bureaucratic style, complex mind, and general unflappability mean that most of these buffoons wash off her like water off a duck’s back. Three Seagrass eats Hari and Magnus, no contest. Her matchup with Ferius is much more interesting, though. Ferius has a similar vibe of walking to her own path, which makes this a very strange matchup. I cannot imagine what the conversation between these two would sound like, but I do think that Three Seagrass would be better at ferreting out Ferius’ deal compared to vice versa. This just leaves her final matchup, Tehol, who, unfortunately, is her Achilles heel. Tehol would have absolutely no issue adopting Three Seagrass’ form of humor and then besting her in her own court(imagine Tehol learning Teixcalaanli poetry just for the effort, you know he would). Thus ends the amazing underdog run of Three Seagrass.
7) Tehol vs. Miles – Our finalists! This is a close match between two of the most iconic rakes in the entirety of the fantasy genre. These men have it all: brains, personality, experience, humor, tenacity, and tinged with an inspired unhingedness. They are so close on a number of metrics that this was very difficult to assess. What it eventually came down to is Tehol having the edge in the unexpected and Miles having the edge in flexibility. Ironically, these two edges mostly cancel each other out. We eventually decided that Tehol’s track record seemed like it would indicate it would go his way, but no one was sure of this matchup. Although, this clash was somehow not our closest throwdown of big names.
8) Miles vs. Locke – That honor belongs to this matchup. Many of us guessed that we would need to make the call on this matchup eventually and yet none of us really had a good idea when we got here. Miles and Locke are so similar that they are just shades of the same explosive person. They are so similar on so many metrics, and their personalities are like two equal-sized suns messing up the orbit of everyone around them. We eventually gave the win to Miles for the same edge we listed in the Tehol matchup: Miles has flexibility. This is where the larger body of Miles’ books gave him an advantage, as he has a better track record of recovery over the body of his work compared to Locke. This was the hardest matchup to decide, but they all were interesting. Who do you think would win?
3 thoughts on “QTL March Madness 2024 – The Last Laugh”