Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5035900-20180818111528

I'm not about to go around saying "Change it or else." This is just my opinion on the matter:

Ever since Killer Instinct (2013) revealed that the playable Riptor's gender of that game was female, it seems so many go back to this episode and suddenly crowned it the moniker of being "the original battle where a male beat a female." They're certainly free to feel that way if they choose...

But from my perspective, it really isn't. Nothing about the battle conveys the theme at all and even changes to the Riptor character years after this episode don't suddenly rewind back in time to change everything about this one. In any case, I have three points to my argument:

1. Riptor's gender changing and/or being specified years after the episode's release does not make it suddenly apply to this episode

And I know, the argument could be made that "the original Riptor had to be female" due to its ending in Killer Instinct where Riptor lays an egg. Sure, it's not unreasonable as for majority of species, it's the female that gives birth or lays an egg, but the keyword there is MAJORITY of species. As in there are exceptions to the rules where either males or even animals that are technically neither gender can do the same. I mean if a giant corporation like UltraTech can bring a skeleton back to life, I'm sure them being able to make a male dinosaur lay eggs wouldn't be that far-fetched for them to be able to accomplish.

But I would also ask if the Riptor of the original KI in the 90's and the Riptor of the 2013 Killer Instinct's rebooted universe are actually the same individual. Recall that the Glacius in the 2nd Killer Instinct was not actually the same individual as the one in the first. They hailed from the same race, but the Glacius of KI2 was actually a descendant of the first, and technically its own separate character. In the KI comics, there were actually tons of Riptor's, not just one, and in the 2013 universe, there were several Riptor units before the playable character.

2. This doesn't make this the first-ever battle where the male won against the female

Remember how long it seemed to go on where males just couldn't seem to win a Death Battle against a female combatant to the point it was joked that "Y chromosomes can't win if an X chromosome is involved"? Then Dante VS Bayonetta came along and now anything was possible. But now it seems like Yoshi VS Riptor is suddenly being declared retroactively "the actual first time that happened" as Riptor in the latest Killer Instinct is a female.

But again, the Riptor of this new rebooted Killer Instinct being made female was just a few years ago. How long ago was Yoshi VS Riptor? Years before that, back when Riptor only appeared in one single game and in the comics with an undisclosed gender. I just don't see how the gender of the latest version of Riptor suddenly transfers back to the original KI's, where the original creators didn't even bother to specify, either because "Who cares, it's a dinosaur" or "Maybe it's a male, I don't know".

Especially considering Orchid's Heart Attack no mercy doesn't result in Riptor jealously stomping on the ground in defeat. Let me be clear: "Why should the physical gender dictate how the move affects them", is a perfectly fair question to ask. I'm sure at the time of its creation, KI's creators just said "Hey, we'll have the move kill everyone but Orchid" and probably didn't give it much more thought than that because hey, they were making a goofy fun 90's fighting game.

3. It really doesn't live up to the title "Battle of the Gender"-themed Death Battles

Now for the sake of clarity, yes, this is the description of the category so far:

"These are the Death Battles that have a Male combatant and a Female combatant pitted against each other."

And by those lines, yes, it sounds like any battle with a male against a female qualifies (again, if reboot Riptor being female automatically ripples back to the original Riptor as well). But really look at the title of the category: Battle of the Gender-THEMED Death Battles. As in "This episode's theme is about a battle of the genders". And that's where it really doesn't fit Yoshi VS Riptor.

In the episode proper, Yoshi is listed as possibly being asexual and Riptor is referred to as "he" by both Wizard and Boomstick. It's far more-so "Dinosaurs-themed" than anything relating to "a male fighting a female". And no, I don't think this was Ben and Chad "intentionally overlooking" Riptor's possible gender: the original Killer Instinct never specified, always leaving it a question in the air regarding Riptor's gender as the game just says "it's a dinosaur". So for them, it was either a male vs male or a battle where neither combatant's gender could be completely 100% specified and really didn't consider gender in regards to either combatant as it was always just "a battle of video game dinosaurs".

I could very well be wrong about all of this. I could have possibly made ignorant statements regarding gender. I probably could've put way more thought into this before typing it out. But this had been on my mind for several years now and I felt like conveying it, if only just to start a conversation regarding the episode's categorization. 