ENTER NEW CHALLENGER: COWBOY

At first glance, cowboys have the obvious advantage of toting firearms. You’ve all seen Raiders of the Lost Ark; it doesn’t matter how flashy you are with a blade, a bullet in the face is still a bullet in the face. Ninjas, practicing stealth and secrecy above all else, aren’t known for wearing Kevlar.The other distinct advantage cowboys have is the tendency to loiter about in wide open spaces, generally with very little in the way of cover. While they are occasionally known to wander into tight canyons, cramped quarters for the cowboy also means cramped quarters for the ninja, with no advantage to either. What towns your average cowboy may pass through are generally small with the buildings widely dispersed, and limited places for a ninja to lurk with any success. How a ninja is to sneak up on a cowboy under such circumstances poses a constant challenge.Ignoring those cowboys too drunk to be of use, the cowboy in his natural element is difficult to approach undetected, and the chances are any cowboy half on the ball will notice some hopped up attacker in black pyjamas out on the prairie right quick, and do the Indiana Jones thing.The ninja is not without the art of camouflage, and in many cases, if the path of their intended target is known, will dig themselves a hole in the ground, cover it over with a straw mat, and then cover that over with dirt so as to be indistinguishable from the terrain, thus allowing the cowboy to approach them unheedingly, and the ninja to launch a surprise attack.The issue of the gun remains, however, and any cowboy worth his money is a quick draw and could probably get a slug into the ninja, even if the ninja were to dispense with closing the distance and throw darts at them instead.In terms of combat capabilities, cowboys and pirates are on equal footing, with the only real difference being that one comes on a horse, and the other on a ship. A pirate would have considerable advantage over any landlubber cowboy that attempted to engage in battle at sea, that said, cowboys are generally considered fast guns, and accurate guns, which pirates aren’t. In a shoot out between a seasick cowboy and a pirate, I’d put my money on the cowboy. Sucks to be a pirate.It would appear then that the cowboy is the natural victor, if it were not for the fact that they are bound by the laws of their genre; the Western.What do cowboys do? Cowboys die.They’re exceptionally good at dying. By the curious code of honour that governs the wild west, they live hard lives and then die for something both indescribably important and usually pretty pointless. Even if you were to take away the savage Indians, inhospitable landscapes, stupid out-of-place pirates and wicked banditos, they would find themselves in duel after duel in the main street of any town, shooting each other down at dawn, noon, sunset, afternoon tea, whenever. They can’t help it. They’re cowboys.It isn’t actually necessary for a ninja to get anywhere near a cowboy for the cowboy to die. The ninjas can stay in the Ritz drinking martinis while all cowboys kill themselves off, and drive their genre to the brink of extinction. Which is what they’ve done.