The Tao of Zangief

Street Fighter II came out in 1991, when I was 16 years old. It was a profound, formative influence on my gaming tastes, in much the way that Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High was to my sexuality.

You could play one of a number of different characters, each with their own unique fighting style, from the Sumo wrestler to the little Chinese girl with thighs of steel to the green-skinned Brazilian mutant with the electric skin.

Because, you know, the long tradition of green-skinned mutants with electric skin in Brazilian literature. And all.

My favorite quickly became apparent: Zangief, the hirsuite Russian wrestler pictured above. I picked him almost every time. And lost. And lost. And lost.

Why? Because if you wanted to win, you couldn't pick Zangief. You couldn't pick the fire-breathing yoga guy with the rubber limbs either. You *definitely* couldn't pick the Sumo guy, because he sucked.

No. If you wanted to win, you had to pick Ken or Ryu. Ken and Ryu were karate-fightin', fireball-throwin', dragon-punchin' douchebags who also happened to be cheesy as all hell. They could trap you in the corner with fireballs and dragon punches and hurricane kicks and cheese you to death no matter what you did. To top it all off, there was no discernible difference between the two, except that Ken was blonde and American, whereas Ryu was Japanese and straight.

Ken/Ryu was the only thing to play if you were serious about staying on that machine for more than a minute and a half. They were the cool characters, because they won.

And this is why, despite the fact that Zangief's conspicuously sculpted body hair did nothing to inspire confidence, I never, ever picked them.


Ken and Ryu were the easy choice. The popular choice. The choice of plebes. There was no possibility in them.

With Zangief, every once in a while, spinning my joystick with a mad and frenzied intensity, I would grab my opponent, do a ludicrously impossible spinning piledriver, and kill my opponent by knocking half of his health in one shot.

It almost never happened. But when it did, it was glorious.

In every game I have played since then, I always pick the Zangief. The hard to play, hinky, one-arm-tied-behind-your-back character/race/mana color/member of the Battlestar Galactica crew. If the faction/Pokemon/color of wooden blocks becomes the obviously superior choice over time, say because I have uncovered some new unbeatable strategy, I abandon them immediately, and find a new Zangief. Because I don't play games to win. I win to show how smart I am. And you can't do that with Ken or Ryu.

It bleeds over into my acting as well. Is everyone else standing? Then I, by god, shall hunker. Is looking deeply into my scene partners eyes the only choice that makes any sense in hell? Then I shall examine the samovar in great detail. Because anyone can act. It takes someone totally smart and pretty to act while making, not just interesting or creative, but totally counterintuitive choices.

In life, you will be offered many a Ken/Ryu. My advise is? Go for the Zangief, every time. Not because no one else is doing it. Not because it's a morally better choice. Because every once in a while, you will beat face, and they will know, deep in their hearts, how much better you are than them.

-- The Prolix Wag

You say “pretentious, condescending prick” like it’s some kind of bad thing.