User:MrWarnerTheGreat/Sandbox

Introduction

As of now, a majority of people have this idea that Todd is the most powerful Scott Pilgrim character and that nobody scales to him. This blog is here to debunk this idea since it's getting increasingly annoying facing the same arguments over and over again. If anyone has any disagreements with this blog, please share your thoughts and refutes in the comments.

Author and Official Statements

Clash at Demonhead Extras

To start, we have Todd's character draft description. This comes from the extra content pages in volume 2 about Clash At Demonhead where it states

“

He turned out to be bigger, stronger, and more powerful than Scott, but equally dumb, or even dumber.

„

Now there are several issues with this that I feel a lot of people blatantly ignore or just don't understand. For starters, the actual context of this statement refers to Todd's telekinetic ranged abilities. Todd doesn't actually ever fight Scott physically and just uses his ranged abilities. In both instances shown here, Scott misses and Todd responds by throwing him with his telekinesis. At best, this proves Todd has superior lifting strength, which means nothing in comparison to both's raw attack potency.

• 

  Scott begins to throw a punch

• 

  Todd dodges and activates his vegan powers

• 

  Todd telekinetically restrains Scott

• 

  Then he begins to lift Scott in the air, choking him

• 

  Todd then proceeds to throw Scott through the wall

• 

  He explains how vegan powers work to Scott and co

Secondly, as shown in the first scan, Todd goes out of his way to dodge Scott's punches. While this could be because he finds getting hit annoying, several other instances in the volume show otherwise. Him dodging these attacks are because he is more than aware of how strong Scott and co is, which directly affects how he chooses to fight Scott (Something Scott even says himself).

• 

  Envy kicks Todd in the balls

• 

  Todd then blasts Envy back with an energy beam

• 

  Scott then lands a successful blow on Todd with his guitar

Another thing to point out about the second statement is that O’Malley compares them to Ryu and Ken, who are rivals around the same level of power, so all this would imply is that Todd is somewhat more powerful, but not to an extent that would put him above Scott’s league by entire tiers, which is shown towards the ending of volume three.

Bryan's Tumblr Statement

Next off, we have Bryan's statement from tumbler which is fairly similar to the first one

“	Matthew went all-out because he sucks. Todd would never go all-out. If he went all-out, he wouldn’t be Todd. Todd is a smarmy jerk who wants to toy with Scott and feel cool and superior without trying. That’s the point of Todd.	„
	~ Bryan's Answer

First off, let's take a look at the original question here.

“

''"How come Todd Ingram didn't kill Scott in the beginning of volume 3? If he can punch a hole in the moon, couldn't he have finished off Scott the moment they met? At least Matthew Patel made the effort to go all-out in their first meeting.

„

So based on the way the commenter views Todd, it's clear he doesn't see Scott as any more than an average joe who happens to know martial arts, which Bryan seems to follow along with. So by accepting what Bryan says about Todd, you alternatively accept Scott as an average human martial artist.

"That's a massive assumption on your end. We don't know what either Bryan or the reader are thinking."

To a degree, this is true. However, we are expecting a casual reader and author to understand vs debating rules such as tiers, area of effect, scaling, and outliers. Of course they're going to say the dude who makes massive explosions is stronger. Heck, our Creation vs Destruction page paints this notion very clearly. They don't even bother to mention some of the feats Matthew does that no normal person could physically do (We'll cover those later). Instead he decides to mock Matthew for it.

Furthermore, even if Bryan was right about his character's stats, his answer directly contradicts Todd's character. He's never shown to act cocky to the point of holding back to Scott's level or to torture Scott for fun, nor has this been stated by him or anyone else (There are even times where Todd is putting a significant amount of effort into competing against Scott).

• 

  Crash and the Boys block Todd's attack

• 

  Scott then jumps forward and strikes at Todd

• 

  Todd blocks the attack and sends a shockwave, sending everyone flying flying

Funny enough, who Bryan was really referring to in this question was Envy, who wanted to torment Scott for the sake of pleasure. It even says at the beginning of the volume that Todd doesn't want to make Scott suffer and just wants to end the fight as soon as possible. And as shown later, this is not because Todd thinks Scott is a joke in terms of physical abilities.

So not only is Bryan's answer a bad representation of the character's physical stats and mockery to some of his characters, he outright contradicts the morality of the antagonist for this volume, which is blatant Death of the Author, moving on.

Arguments against Scott Scaling

Todd is only continental with his Vegan Powers

I honestly have no idea where this idea spawned from (Pretty sure it originated from vsbw). It's established in the flashbacks that Todd went to vegan academy in order to learn the ancient secrets of his people.

“	Soon enough, the boy had to leave for the faraway school where he would learn the ancient secrets of his people, The Vegans. There on the train platform, the boy and girl vowed Always To Be True and Never To Waver.	„
	~ Envy Adams

"But we see the energy from Todd's vegan powers when he punches the moon, that makes your previous argument irrelevant."

No we do not. We see the shockwave created from his punch before it hits the planet. And why are we suddenly throwing out the already established timeline for this incredibly small "if"? The only thing established in the flashbacks hinting this is that Todd was already a vegan, which is what's required to even get into Vegan Academy in the first place.

Furthermore, the vegan powers have to be manually acquired from outside sources. This was the entire reason why he had his powers taken away from the Vegan Police. So even if he went to Vegan Academy to screw around, he still couldn't have had them in high school. Heck, even if he did, we see his hair isn't even standing up during the process as shown in the movie (The movie is viable to use here as the feat is a direct recreation of the comic's take and Bryan worked on the script during this time).

• 

  The Vegan Police show up

• 

  They explain Todd's charges

• 

  Todd reveals he lied to keep his powers

• 

  Todd tries to avoid the De-Veganizing Ray

Todd is only continental physically

I don't really see how this debunks Scott scaling when it's shown and others can damage Todd. I'm assuming that this debunk hinges on those incidents being outliers which we'll touch later. So the first reason for the two not scaling is the difference in destructive radius. Now if we assume that area of effect damage equates to higher power, we are now accepting bullets being weaker than a human punch. Confused? Look no further than our Attack potency Page.

“

To explain this, take a hypothetical example of someone punching through an interior wall vs. bullet being shot at an interior wall wall. If a bullet is shot at a wall, the wall would have a small hole go through it, however if a person punches through a wall, a big hole would be left in place due to the size of the hand, with the logic of ignoring one's energy output in place for area of effect, the person's punch would in that scenario be stronger then a bullet.

„

• 

  The size of bullet holes in a wall

• 

  The size of a hole made by a human fist

Real world logic debunks this mindset. But even if this wasn't the case, this argument would debunk 90% of arguments that involve scaling. Son Goku wouldn't even surpass planet since he doesn't destroy a planet, or effortlessly destroy the battlefield while fighting his opponents.

"Even with all of this, where is it stated that Todd's powers are relative to his AP? You conveniently ignored that."

I don't know why we'd assume they're weaker than his base stats. Especially when this is the same Todd who went out of his way to earn these powers despite not obeying the rules for vegans, and has a mental breakdown when he loses them. Heck, he even uses the vegan powers as an extension of his own physical attacks. It would be an even bigger assumption to assume they are conveniently weaker than Todd's stupidly casual continental AP.

It's an outlier in the verse

This is easily the most common argument against the scaling, and it mainly comes from people who have no understanding of what an outlier is. For a quick summary, outliers are abnormal inconsistencies commonly used in math (Surprise, this term wasn't invented by vs debaters). What people don't know is that feats higher than utter casual feats demotes the outlier argument, since it's no longer an abnormal feat. I'll pull up a few feats in the volumes to prove this

Matthew Patel punches through a ceiling

The first feat comes from the first evil exe, Matthew Patel. In his introduction, he is seen breaking through the ceiling of Club Rockit by pointing his finger. Mind you, Scott proceeds to body Matthew Patel, who wasn't even in a mood to fight during this time.

• 

  Matthew effortlessly taps and destroys the ceiling of the Rockit

• 

  Scott blocks and counterattacks Matthew with ease

• 

  He then kicks Matthew, leading into a combo

• 

  Scott begins to juggle Matthew in the air

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  Ending the combo, Scott spikes Matthew down to the ground

Scott launches someone around the world

Next, we have Scott punching someone around the planet (A feat that was calced to be 8-B by GiverOfThePeace), which Stephen Stills confirms to be true. This was done by a very early Scott Pilgrim, who treated the incident as something unimpressive.

Ramona effortlessly tears a metal pole apart

Ramona rips a steel beam from its hinges. Yet another utter casual feat. Even Stacey Pilgrim and random civilians aren't surprised with Ramona's strength. And Stacey was more upset with Ramona damaging the building (Another reason why these characters aren't dropping nuclear explosions consuming all of Toronto).

• 

  Ramona spots Knives in an extremely calm manor

• 

  She tears the steel beam and walks back to where Knives will land

• 

  The two clash with both having no struggle

Knives jumps several stories in seconds

Moving on, we have Knives jumping several stories with no visible difficulty or strain. Basically the same as Ramona's feat, only she had taken several physical blows from Ramona, thus she was physically weaker at the time.

• 

  Knives gets hit by Ramona, stunning her.

• 

  She makes her escape and jumps several floors in the mall.

• 

  Before leaving, she throws a dagger at Ramona insulting her.

Afterwards, Ramona and Stacey aren't even shocked by a ninja-like girl jumping several stories and are more concerned about who Scott dates, further establishing that fights like these aren't all that major or impressive.

Scott was losing the whole time

Even if we play devil's advocate and assume Scott was losing to Todd in a physical one-on-one, this only suggest Scott would downscale (Something we do for countless characters here, and in debating in general), which still puts him in the same range of AP as Todd. Regardless, it's directly stated why and how Scott was losing, which came down to Todd's range which Scott directly says is his main issue.

“	I can't even get near him! I need some kind of...like...last minute, poorly-set-up Deux Ex Machina!	„
	~ Scott Pilgrim

Add on that Scott, and similar characters, managed to physically harm Todd and tank attacks from him throughout the volume shows that Todd's only real advantage was his ranged abilities. Lastly, character such as Gideon Graves are directly implied to have power capable of nuking the entire west coast of Canada, along with even being called an "Ultradimensional super villain" which is directly supported by his battle in Subspace, which further proves that Todd isn't just some oddball character who's leagues greater than the rest of the cast.

• 

  Gideon's bio alludes to his destructive potential

• 

  Scott enters Ramona's Subspace.

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  Gideon mocks Scott's inferiority.

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  He explains how he's unbeatable in Subspace

• 

  Along with Ramona making him stronger based on what she wants.

Analyzing each of Todd's interactions with the cast

Scott no-sells a vegan nuke from an enraged Todd

The first major argument against this feat is that Todd only imploded Honest Eds, thus he wasn't using his full power or exerting continental levels of AP:

http://imgur.com/gallery/kNZykhE

Problem is area of effect doesn't equate to destructive capability. Otherwise characters like Mario should be destroying star systems with his jumps. We're scaling Todd's AP here off his previous feat. Mind you, him destroying Honest Eds was done with far more effort than both of his moon pulverization feats.

The next refute people like to make is that, because it was an implosion, Scott didn't actually tank anything from Todd himself.

However in the very next panel, we see Honest Eds cracking and swelling up with light pouring out of the seams as if an explosion inside was occurring.

How would the attack from Todd hit the walls and roof of Honest Eds while perfectly avoiding Scott? This wouldn't make any sense and is more likely that Scott was caught in the blow that collapsed the building.

With this, there should be no reason for Scott not to scale to Todd's implosion. This isn't even the only instance of Scott tanking a direct attack from Todd either as we'll get into later.

Scott hits Todd enough to make him bleed

Shown here near the end of the book:

http://imgur.com/gallery/q4jB6cM

Another clear as day feat for scaling. The first major refute is that due to Todd being off guard, his durability suddenly drops from Continental to Wall which objectively makes no sense.

People like to use the scene where Goku gets pierced by a laser far lower than his current tier as if Dragon Ball sets the standards for vs debating. Major issue with this, the Dragon Ball verse is a major false equivalence given how Ki works in-verse.

https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Ki#Ki_control

"Most beings cannot freely control their ki, but many who can manipulate it also learn to control the flow of ki within their bodies, allowing them to channel larger or smaller amounts of their ki reserves. In essence, they can adjust their strength to match the situation, and generate attacks which contain larger concentrations of ki than they are normally capable of. This ability is noted by Raditz when fighting Goku and Piccolo; whilst they had power levels of 416 and 408 respectively, their special attacks channelled such high levels of ki that they measured at 924 and 1,480. Despite being common amongst Earth's martial artists, this ability seems to be exceedingly rare in general, as the Frieza Force are continually surprised by the ability of Gohan, Krillin and the others to raise and suppress their power levels at will."

The only plausible explanation for something as dumb as a durability drop this massive is if his Vegan powers were like Ki and amplified his stats on command, which was adressed earlier on this blog.

Scott's other various feats of tanking Todd's attacks

There are several instances of Scott no-selling and clashing with Todd's attacks with the number one refute being Todd was holding back.

http://imgur.com/gallery/JnNS3Ko

http://imgur.com/gallery/pC1mfNY

At first, this seems like one of the few exceptions against Scott's scaling ignoring the original refute made against Todd holding back, however this is the same Todd who, while casually flying to the moon and punching a hole in it without the use of vegan powers, is going out of his way to dodge Scott's attacks:

http://imgur.com/gallery/0RU4mjK

http://imgur.com/gallery/HmS0ZUI

http://imgur.com/gallery/KvZHbaf

https://youtu.be/vqqGZBRBLcM?t=1m08s

Not only is this odd for someone countless times higher than you to go out of their way to dodge your attacks, but he's even shown putting more effort into hurting Scott than he was when flying to the moon.

Scott Pilgrim's statement

So we've gone over the issues with Scott not scaling to Todd by showing several instances of Scott tanking and hurting Todd physically, and we addressed Bryan's statements.

And just to further establish Todd isn't the most powerful character in terms of physical stats, here Scott directly says each evil ex gets harder and harder each battle.

"Not that fighting harder and harder battles for your love is getting old or anything..."

Before anyone says this doesn't necessarily refer to stats, Matthew Patel is the most skilled ex prior to Roxie, which means it's not referring to Scott having his skill challenged. And it definitely doesn't mean strategy since Todd is considered dumber than Scott.

Lastly, Gideon one-shots a base Scott, who was the same Scott to beat Todd Ingram and is roughly comparable to him then. So they're definitely getting stronger:

http://imgur.com/gallery/1rmBpsX

This makes sense given Scott Pilgrim's laws are based and directly influenced by video games (I.e Save Points, Stat Boosts through food, leveling up, etcetera) with natural progression. So each boss being physically stronger than the last makes plenty of sense in the context of their world:

http://imgur.com/gallery/4voDQhv

http://imgur.com/gallery/3gv2nDu

http://imgur.com/gallery/vWzKMdI