Comment Re: Here's an idea (Score 1) 1029
You did dismiss the wikipedia entry.
What am I alleged to have dismissed? What specific fact are you pointing to that proves your position? The answer is none, because you didn't cite any particular fact in the article that allegedly proves your point.
He's not a superhero, just like Tarzan is not a superhero, as isn't Zorro
I'm not familiar enough with Tarzan to make a claim one way or the other. But Zorro? Of course he's a superhero. He was Batman before there was a Batman. Hell, he's even specifically mentioned on that list I linked earlier. You know, the one you keep pretending "proves" the Lone Ranger not to be one by omission?
I think your anger and frustration show how much you care. I appreciate that you care so much and I am sure you are quite a valuable person
My anger and frustration are in your imagination; the fact that I'm thorough in my responses doesn't suggest otherwise. And you clearly care about this at least as much as I do, since you continue to respond. Also, this emotional argument that you're making is transparently a venting of your frustration that you're losing. You're acting like one of those XBox Live kids who loses a round of Halo and angrily accuses that his opponent of being a loser who just plays video games all day.
However, I don't care how many superhero tropes he fulfills, the thing is that he continues not to be a superhero.
Fulfilling numerous superhero tropes IS what makes a character a superhero. You still haven't stated anything that disqualifies him as one.
For example "The Man With No Name" is also not a superhero, and although he lacks the mask he still conceals his identity (by having no name). He's not a superhero is he?
I wouldn't say so, no. But he has far fewer "superhero" attributes than, say, the Lone Ranger. I'm not claiming one or two things qualify, but the Lone Ranger has too many of them not to be one. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc.
I already bought into a person not needing superpowers to be a superhero, but this does not make him a superhero. For example Hawkeye, he is an unbelievably good archer, far better than any real archer could be, thus he's a superhero.
If Hawkeye were merely a competent archer, and had only bows and arrows that could exist in real life, he'd still be a superhero (just as Kick-Ass is a superhero despite having crap fighting skills). You claim you've conceded that superhuman abilities aren't necessary for a superhero, but what you're missing is that "super-skill" is itself such an ability. However, even that point is moot, because...
The Lone Ranger, while good with his gun was not amazing with it
And before you say it: No, I'm not claiming that every character with Improbable Aiming Skills is automatically a superhero, so you can put whatever TV cop you were about to offer up as yet another strawman to rest.
So, be cool, you can't win them all and you can't win this one because you are wrong
Then why can't you prove me wrong? Why can't you name the elusive must-have trait for superheroes that the Lone Ranger lacks? Why do you keep falling back on strawman arguments, appeal to popularity, argument from ignorance, and practically every other logical fallacy in the book?
did you ask your friends? All 10,000 of them?
Let's pretend I did and that they all said no. How would that prove you right, given that facts are not changed by popular opinion? It wouldn't, and couldn't. The pretense that it can is what we call appeal to popularity.
But as it happens, I did have a debate on this topic with some friends ten or twelve years ago. And I was arguing your position. And I did a much better job of it than you are doing now. But in the end, I couldn't deny the facts that were laid out before me. We concluded that the characters in question (this actually started around Zorro if memory serves, but the Ranger was brought up too) have so much in common with superheroes that they either:
A) are superheroes themselves, or
b) are exactly like superheroes in every way except one all-important one that "everybody knows" but nobody can articulate despite its obvious nature.
Occam's Razor suggests that A is the right way to go.
That's how I know I am not in fact losing this argument. I already lost it from your side.