Honour, loyalty and wenches

I thought it was about time that I gave my opinion on the great debate of the 21^st century. No, not that one, although I’ll get to it later. I’m here to talk about the controversial matter of pirates versus ninjas. I’m one of the enlightened few who recognise the superiority of pirates. For the sake of this argument, historical accuracy isn’t overly important, unless I say so.

Let’s start with the fighting aspect of the argument. Now a pirate versus a ninja would be like a mongoose versus cobra type fight. But the argument has always been a pluralised matter. Ninjas fight better when they’ve got plenty of room to move round, but put them in a close combat situation and they’re completely buggered. Whenever a hero encounters a room full of ninjas, at the end of it all, the hero is able to walk away. The same can’t be said for the ninjas, some are lucky enough to crawl away. Pirates, on the other hand, spend most of their time on tight, crowded boats, and as a result, are more accustomed to the event of close combat.

Another important aspect is that of life expectancy. There are plenty of wise old pirates, but ninjas are lucky if they can even get to two days before retirement. In the event of capture, ninjas immediately die. So if you want to kill a ninja, just hold onto their arm for 10 seconds. Pirates may rarely get captured, but they won’t say anything, and whatever body part is forcibly removed can easily be replaced with an artefact of coolness, like an eye patch, hook or parrot. In fact, anything worn by a pirate becomes freaking sweet, especially compared with ninjas sole wardrobe of pyjamas.

Now for the most important aspect; honour. Pirates were very loyal creatures, all loot was divided evenly based on rank and duty, so if you were playing Sonic rather than attacking the Dutch East India Trading Company, start thinking of the story you tell your wench explaining why there's a chioce between ham and rum, rather than both.  Ninja’s, on the other hand, would totally murder a baby. Except in the upcoming movie “Warrior’s Way”, where a ninja refuses to kill a baby, so he becomes a cowboy. * Plus pirates only steal material possessions or loot. Ninjas stole their whole concept. Yes, ninjas are plagiarisms of Saracens and nobody likes a plagiarist. There are probably some of you saying the same thing about pirates and Vikings, but pirates only attacked naval and trading ships. Vikings went after whole villages.

* Possibly with aspirations to one day move up the cool scale to the class of pirate.