Shovel Knight Discussion Rule Proposal

[Deagonx]

I also agree with Bambu and DarkGrath.

 

[ZillertheBucko]

Yeah okay this thread is gonna die soon since everybody’s already voted, so I think I might as well make another crt for the mirror of fate stuff.
If that gets accepted then the Kratos scaling could become a non outlier, and we could get rid of the discussion rule…but that’s for another day. I’m just gonna leave this now.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Yeah okay this thread is gonna die soon since everybody’s already voted, so I think I might as well make another crt for the mirror of fate stuff.
If that gets accepted then the Kratos scaling could become a non outlier, and we could get rid of the discussion rule…but that’s for another day. I’m just gonna leave this now.

Actually, Bambu's and Grath's points is that this straight up won't be counted as canon. If that's the accepted result, there won't be any scaling to consider at all.

 

[Shmooply]

The large building argument is fatally flawed, given that an 8-C would be completely invulnerable to the falling rubble to begin with
it’s also fundamentally dishonest, because it was never explicitly stated (to my knowledge) that it was the building that threatened them, but more likely the death of the remnant of fate, who was releasing all its energy causing the building to explode. In short, it’s not a good anti feat, nor is it really true to begin with.

I linked the full context of the outlier, and you only focused on the falling rubble part. Please explain to me how would characters that barely scratch the baseline of 8-C be able to survive this.

Also, the same logic that you use for the Mirror’s consuming of the world would apply to the remnant’s feat of threatening shield knight whike dying, since both were really done as suicide attacks. Either the mirror’s attack doesn’t count (I am fine with this) and the remnant’s also doesn’t, or they both count, meaning they would scale regardless.

The move she used on both Shovel Knight and Shield Knight? There's a very obvious difference. The mirror was shattered and it was obvious it had no control over what it was doing, then there's also the fact it was already melting down to begin with and was maintained by weak magic users. Remmant was her using her magic to catch Shovel Knight by surprise, and to overwhelm Shield Knight so she could die alongside her.

Also, the remnant of fate is the embodiment of the enchantress’ magic to begin with, so defeating it automatically scales shovel and shield knight to its magic

yea fair enough i cant come up with any counterpoints for this

 

[Armorchompy]

I'll address this.

The plot of Shovel Knight Showdown revolves around the Mirror of Fate, a magical item that was supposedly created by the Enchantress, and the mirror world within it.

This is a prep feat, it wouldn't scale to her to begin with. We don't know the specifics.

One of the arguments used for why the cast would scale to this feat is that they destroy the mirror itself, and it's shown that the mirror is destroying the dimension. Not only is it stated that the mirror is severely weakened prior to its fight with the cast, but the only way the mirror starts "destroying" the dimension is due to it peforming some suicide move where it turns into a portal and starts sucking up the arena, but keep in mind that it completely shuts off right after it consumes the arena its in, so it's very unlikely that it straight up destroyed the entire mirror dimension.

It's also a mirror, lmao. Those are pretty frail. I don't see why it being bound to some realm would cause it to spike up in durability.

The large building argument is fatally flawed, given that an 8-C would be completely invulnerable to the falling rubble to begin with

It still shows that the characters aren't meant to be universal lmao.

it’s also fundamentally dishonest, because it was never explicitly stated (to my knowledge) that it was the building that threatened them, but more likely the death of the remnant of fate, who was releasing all its energy causing the building to explode. In short, it’s not a good anti feat, nor is it really true to begin with.

That's just headcanon.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Staff that agreed with canonicity: @KingTempest, @Lonkitt, @LephyrTheRevanchist, @Flashlight237 & @LordGriffin1000 (though LG agreed specifically that this should be a separate key on the profile for Shovel Knight)

Staff that agreed with a solid scaling: @KingTempest, @Lonkitt

Staff that disagree with canonicity: @Mr._Bambu, @DarkGrath, @Planck69, @Antvasima, @Deagonx

Staff that disagree with scaling, even if the verses are canon to each other: @Armorchompy, @DarkGrath, @Mr._Bambu, @LephyrTheRevanchist, @Theglassman12, @DarkDragonMedeus, @KLOL506, @Flashlight237

Updated.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

That's just headcanon.

Not only is it headcanon, it's just straight up wrong.

The full scene

By the time the remnant was defeated, the tower was collapsing (reminder, an event actually caused by Plague Knight), and Shield Knight cites this as the reason they need to escape. Nothing indicates is her magic doing anything (besides wounding Shovel Knight in a last ditch effort to take him down with her).

 

[ZillertheBucko]

is there an SK discussion thread?

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

is there an SK discussion thread?

Here

 

[ZillertheBucko]

Here

Dead verse…but I will continue the discussion about the mirror of fate with any knowledgeable enough members there at some point.

 

[Qawsedf234]

I will repeat: our specific definitions of canon as they are would not permit this, as we require canon crossovers to make a substantial investment in order to be used as such. Magic the Gathering having multitudes of books crossing over with D&D has an argument, Kratos appearing in one (1) version of the Shovel Knight games as a miniboss does not, and nor should he.

Our rules should simply state that we are not to scale Shovel Knight to his existent crossovers, as it has been discussed to death.

Yeah I'm with Bambu here. Even if it is canon to the game (which I'm not seeing) it's unusable for the site.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

With Qawsedf's disagreement, I believe that firmly turns the tide into being unaccepted as canon.

I believe we can proceed to the rule draft (though in the OP we already have a candidate).

 

[KLOL506]

WELL ****. WE TRIED.

 

[Shmooply]

It's so over, GoWcels...

 

[ZillertheBucko]

WELL ****. WE TRIED.

You were neutral the entire time who’s we

 

[KLOL506]

You were neutral the entire time who’s we

I changed sides

 

[The_Smashor]

Blade Strangers Scaling
The arguments for Shovel Knight and the rest of the cast being 2-A also don't make any sense, as while there is an infinite amount of universes in the game's cosmology, nobody scales to it, and the only proof that they do scale is a quote that says that they transcended space-time, which I really don't need to explain why that isn't enough for a 2-A rating. As such, I propose to add this to the Discussion Rule page as well:

I can actually explain Blade Strangers stuff. Lina, the final boss (Who I actually made a profile for), is stated to be capable of eventually destroying the infinite universes in Blade Strangers' multiverse.

Timeframe doesn't ultimately matter for feats of infinity, so bam. 2-A Shovel Knight (Which is consistent in story modes as the opening shows him fighting Lina alongside GV, Issac, Quote and the main character of the game). However, there is the issue that Blade Strangers is most likely a one-way canon for reasons that should be relatively obvious. The original games are canon to it, but it is not canon to them.

With our current rules for crossover profiles, however, it's more than possible to give Shovel Knight a separate profile based on his appearance in Blade Strangers.

 

[Shmooply]

Looking back on it, adding Blade Strangers to the OP was pointless. Will remove it once I'm less busy.

 

[Antvasima]

With Qawsedf's disagreement, I believe that firmly turns the tide into being unaccepted as canon.

I believe we can proceed to the rule draft (though in the OP we already have a candidate).

So is somebody here willing to write an appropriate text draft based on what was accepted here?

 

[GrathOfLux]

I'm willing to write a draft for the rule, but I do have one potentially disagreeable point I'd like to make regarding how the rule should be phrased. As it stands, while the overall agreement here is that GoW is not canon to Shovel Knight, I would prefer if the discussion rule focuses exclusively on the problems with the scaling rather than problems with the canonicity.

As it stands, I agree that GoW is not canon to Shovel Knight. However, there is still room for contention with this, and reason why some people on this thread have argued for the inverse. Furthermore, it is not set in stone - more sources of information, particularly in the form of further developer clarifications or even collaborations, could theoretically be produced in the future that would change this conclusion. It's neither unanimous/nigh-unanimous, nor is it something that couldn't be elaborated on in the future. I've seen verse-specific discussion rules used in the past to explicitly shut down discussions that are legitimately bringing new, valuable information to the table, and I'm concerned that phrasing the rule in a way that suggests we cannot argue for the canonicity in the future could be used in this manner.

Comparatively, I don't see any room for doubt on the scaling. For a multitude of distinct, very clear reasons, even if this fight was entirely canonical, we wouldn't be able to use it to scale the Shovel Knight characters to the GoW characters. Unlike the canonicity contention, where there is some reasonable disagreement between members, the vast majority of contributors here agree by this point that we simply cannot scale Shovel Knight or anyone else in the SK cast to GoW. Having a discussion rule to prevent a needless repetition of this debate, then, should be fair - for this debate to be relevant again would require quite extraordinary circumstances.

With this in mind, I'd think an adequate rule should not suggest barring future discussions on the canonicity - it should just focus on preventing trying to scale the SK cast without very strong reason for doing so. Working off of the draft suggested by the OP, I'd like to suggest this as an amendment:

"Do not try to scale Shovel Knight and the rest of the game's cast to God of War 3 Kratos based on the fight against Kratos in the Playstation versions of Shovel Knight. Whether or not this fight happened canonically in either verse, the outliers presented as well as Kratos being able to control his strength makes this feat unusable."

Given that this works off of the draft suggested by the OP, I would appreciate if they could provide their input on this amendment. @Shmooply

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Rules are written under the implication that with further legitimate evidence, they may be revisited. We have had landmark cases in which such rules are overturned- with this in mind, I think it is definitely acceptable to make the rule regarding canon and scaling in tandem. Otherwise we leave the door open to the conversation being started again regardless- "aha!", says the user, "the rule is vague regarding canon, this allows us to revisit it!".

You're right that scaling is far more silly and that more people are likely to admit that over a lack of canon, but it bears mentioning both concretely, imo.

 

[KLOL506]

"Do not try to scale Shovel Knight and the rest of the game's cast to God of War 3 Kratos based on the fight against Kratos in the Playstation versions of Shovel Knight. Whether or not this fight happened canonically in either verse, the outliers presented as well as Kratos being able to control his strength makes this feat unusable."

One small correction: It isn't GoW3 Kratos SK would be fighting, but rather, technically, Norse Kratos (Minus the Leviathan Axe, Draupnir Spear and other Norse gear). Given the entire context of attempting to hide the spoilers for Kratos going North.

 

[GrathOfLux]

Rules are written under the implication that with further legitimate evidence, they may be revisited. We have had landmark cases in which such rules are overturned- with this in mind, I think it is definitely acceptable to make the rule regarding canon and scaling in tandem. Otherwise we leave the door open to the conversation being started again regardless- "aha!", says the user, "the rule is vague regarding canon, this allows us to revisit it!".

You're right that scaling is far more silly and that more people are likely to admit that over a lack of canon, but it bears mentioning both concretely, imo.

Fair enough. I'm admittedly cautious about the various past cases where these kinds of verse-specific discussion rules were adhered to far too strictly, but I suppose the inverse concern is also quite notable. I'll update the draft to mention both concretely.

One small correction: It isn't GoW3 Kratos SK would be fighting, but rather, technically, Norse Kratos (Minus the Leviathan Axe, Draupnir Spear and other Norse gear). Given the entire context of attempting to hide the spoilers for Kratos going North.

In regard to being purported as taking place in some broad time period between GoW 3 and GoW 4 (which we know was a time period of at least 150 years, given the references to the Greek saga in Tyr's vault), it may just be more appropriate to just say "Kratos" in general and not specify a game.

With this in mind, would this perhaps be more appropriate?

"Do not try to scale Shovel Knight and the rest of the game's cast to Kratos based on the fight against Kratos in the Playstation versions of Shovel Knight. The sources that suggest this fight to be canonical have been deemed unreliable, and the outliers presented as well as Kratos being able to control his strength makes this feat unusable for scaling."

 

[KLOL506]

More or less.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Approve of the adjusted rule. Good job, Grath.

 

[GrathOfLux]

Wonderful.

I doubt there would be any issues with implementing this now, but for the sake of transparency, I'd like to check if this sits well with some of the other staff who have given input. Namely, @LephyrTheRevanchist , @Qawsedf234 , @DarkDragonMedeus , and @Armorchompy .

 

[Shmooply]

"Do not try to scale Shovel Knight and the rest of the game's cast to God of War 3 Kratos based on the fight against Kratos in the Playstation versions of Shovel Knight. Whether or not this fight happened canonically in either verse, the outliers presented as well as Kratos being able to control his strength makes this feat unusable."

Given that this works off of the draft suggested by the OP, I would appreciate if they could provide their input on this amendment. @Shmooply

Looks good.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Wonderful.

I doubt there would be any issues with implementing this now, but for the sake of transparency, I'd like to check if this sits well with some of the other staff who have given input. Namely, @LephyrTheRevanchist , @Qawsedf234 , @DarkDragonMedeus , and @Armorchompy .

Fine by me

 

[Aetheric Pariah]

Alright, there seems to be a massive amount of misinterpretation here on the crossover. The crossover is canon, irrefutably. Multiple authoritative figures on both sides have bluntly stated it is so, with cory even stating the crossover was vital for kratos because it was the first time they showcased him and what he was up to after GoW 3.

The issue is just scaling, and the scaling is just.....yeah. It's a definitional outlier plain and simple, there's nothing else really to it. Disregarding the whole "shovel knight scaling to kratos" ordeal by dismissing it as being non-canon it just outright wrong. The scaling doesn't work because shovel knight as a verse has 0 weight behind it and that's all there is to it. Crossovers (canon or not) are always done with the idea of fanservice in mind, with technicalities like "scaling" taking a major backseat. Also:

- The developers of God of War are already known for trying to push for the canonicity of crossovers that are nonsensical and which they have no authority over. God of War: Ragnarok references everything from Horizon: Zero Dawn, to the Last of Us, to Ratchet & Clank, to Death Stranding, to Ghost of Tsushima, and even a Playstation baseball game. They have no authority to say that these are actually all a part of some Playstation multiverse - they don't get to say that God of War is canon to a whole bunch of IPs they don't own. Yet for the purposes of the GoW story, the developers say they are.

What even is this take. Having fun little call to's and easter eggs in a series is not attempting to brute force another series to be canon to yours. Elden Ring has the Dragon Slayer in it, it's not like they're making a claim to be canon to Berserk by doing so. Aloy can have kratos' tattoos applied to her cosmetically in her game, same as Jin in ghost of tsushima. That's not those verses laying claim to be canon to GoW, it's just developers giving a nod and appreciation to an acquainted franchise and nothing more. How this can go over anyone's heads is uncanny to me.


Not attempting to come off as harsh in any way, but disregarding power scaling by denouncing an official entry is not the way to handle things. The most minimalistic of critical analysis can show you why Shovel Knight has no grounds for scaling here.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

On the wiki, we have a concrete but different definition of what is or is not canon. Much of the discussion has been revolving around these definitions, and though you're extremely late to weigh in on said discussion, I do encourage you to read through it if only so you can better understand what we mean when we're saying it is non-canon.

Cheers though.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Actually I ought to close this, given a conclusion was reached yesterday and staff can speak up if they want. Avoids spam.