hello my name is Jill Bearup you're watching a princess bride fight analysis prepare to learn
something about why Inigo vs count Rugen is such a topsy-turvy curly-wurly crazy kind of sword fight.
hopefully. a few months ago i brought you the cliffs of insanity duel and for christmas i
my video about the cliffs of insanity fight then you might want to watch that first because we're
not really going to go into depth on that here to explain Inigo's final fight we need to explain his
arc and yes we are now trying to pronounce his name correctly as opposed to the way that it's
spelled in the book. Spanish has the most consistent way of pronouncing things in the
world i thought i was doing really well but no that's not even how you spell it we learned before
the cliffs of insanity duel that when he was 11 Inigo's swordmaker father was killed in front of
him by the six-fingered man who was basically trying to swindle him the six-fingered man
is later revealed to be count rugen prince Humperdinck's right-hand man little inigo
challenged Rugen to a duel was given two facial scars for his trouble and spent the rest of his
life studying fencing and searching for the six fingered man to avenge his father's death. But
20 years is a long time and a man has to eat and indeed drink himself into a despairing
stupor hence working for Vizzini hence being ordered to kill the man in black
at least that was the plan the cliffs of insanity duel is as i previously discussed
a triumph of style and substance giving us character information and exposition
setting up for later and generally also just being a swashbucklingly good time. These are two men
at or near the height of their fighting prowess and the thrill they experience fighting each
other transfers to us as the audience. Westley's win feels earned but it also feels a little bit
inevitable he has to win because true love and even a wizard will grow rusty if he becomes an
alcoholic and doesn't practice very much not that kind of wizard let me explain no there is too much
let me sum up. Inigo in the book isn't just a master swordsman he is above that he is a
wizard swordsman he's just so good you think it's magic but he hasn't really been training
so hard recently and alcohol isn't much of a performance enhancer and he's fighting for the
thrill of it and because Vizzini told him to and what's that thematically speaking when compared
to true love? in the book we're told that he's better on the rocky terrain but once they get
out into the open the man in black is just a shade better at everything and they're done
this isn't exactly what happens in the screenplay but who cares because it's such a fun fight
also in the book this all takes place at night whereas in the film it takes place at sunrise
which is much nicer because it means that you can actually see what's going on. Inigo vs. Count
Rugen takes place after dark but we're indoors and so it's well lit there are torches and things when
inigo loses to westley and yes it is westley not wesley check the book he doesn't lose his
purpose but he loses hope and so he returns to the thieves forest/thieves quarter in the book gets
drunk and waits for Vizzini. he's found instead by Fezzik who nurses him back to something resembling
sobriety if not health. So here's a confession for you normally i'm a book over movie person
almost exclusively but for the princess bride it's the exact opposite there are several passages in
the book which i really like and kind of wish had made it into the film but generally...I
think that's especially true because the framing device in the film with the grandfather and the
sick grandson seems sweet and sentimental in a good way and vaguely nostalgic whereas in the
book i just kind of feel like i'm being lied to. I know that fiction is made up okay but this feels
uncomfortably like an author inserting themself in an RPF kind of way into their story and it's just
uncomfortable. The nebula version of this video aside from being allowed to have swearing in it
also contains an extended discussion on the RPF feel of the novel and why i didn't really
like that very much it's not really relevant it's just that i have some opinions sorry right where
were we? Inigo's life to this point has been one of suffering hammered into purpose, and with that
purpose the eventual sure and certain knowledge that he is the best and no one can beat him until
someone does and it's in this state of loss that we pick up with him again and his reaction to
that is part of what sells him as a sympathetic character because when he's told that Rugen is
alive that he's in the castle that vengeance is at long last within his grasp he passes out but
after that he assesses the situation he knows he's not smart enough to get into the castle
by himself he knows that he's not a planner he knows that he needs Vizzini. no not Vizzini, i
need the man in black. as i said in that previous video these two characters have a connection
which is undeniable. Inigo instinctively trusts Westley and has good reason to given that he
is alive which speaks to westley's ability to be merciful and we already know about Inigo's
heartbreak because of that set up on the cliffs of insanity earlier honorable men I said and that
honor that kinship is what sparks this decision. Westley is in the area and not dead though he is
dying and he does die before they get to him but when you have a miracle man and also a sword or
the spirit of your father or similar that wants you to succeed that's a significant inconvenience
but not an insurmountable problem. so with westley resurrected a wheelbarrow and a holocaust cloak
(that's holocaust with a small 'h' like consumed by fire we're still pretending after all that
this is a translation of a novel that was written before world war ii) they successfully break into
the castle where buttercup has not actually been legally married but seems to think that she has
the arc of the fight begins here with our first surprise after inigo quickly dispatches the four
guards rugen is prepared to fight until we get that iconic line Hello. My name is inigo montoya.
you killed my father. prepare to die." at which point Rugen runs away and so instead
of the sword fighting starting here we have to chase Rugen down and Fezzik has to be called
in to help and the humor of westley being mostly incapacitated is balanced by this dreadful sort of
comic desperation and then we cut away buttercup is planning to kill herself Fezzik is confused
inigo is running running still running we ramp up the suspense and then shock pain anti-climax. is
your heart breaking right now because mine always does a little bit. in the movie the little boy
asks the grandfather who gets humperdinck and the grandfather says no one gets him,
he lives. We've already heard that. might we have come all this way for nothing could Rugen
survive too is one of our major characters going to die no because this is not that kind of movie
instead rugen who is a sadist stops to monologue "i think that's the worst thing i've ever heard.
how marvelous" oof terrible idea because this is not an entertainment fight
this is not about flash or style or fun this is as deadly serious as we get
in this film this is the arc of one of the major characters reaching its conclusion with the death
of the man that he has been hunting for 20 years. this is not a connection fight this
is the final reckoning it can't end here right because inigo loved his father this is his true
love fight and so after a brief cutaway to buttercup and westley just to reassure us
that those two kids are going to be okay because we really need to focus right now inigo gets up
and now we begin in earnest nearly everything that we know about inigo and his fighting style to this
point is gone the flash the fluidity of movement the joy all of it the only things that are left
are skill and determination he is leaning against a wall with his fist stuck into a knife wound he
is dying and yet he deflects the two killing blows into mere flesh wounds which he doesn't even react
to; one to the left shoulder, one to the right arm he pushes himself off the wall and stands unaided
and then he falls. rugen seizes his chance but no all the blows are parried and indigo stands
again and this time he sounds stronger and then he actually starts to fight back kind of
i talked in the cliffs of insanity fight about how one of the ways we achieve interest in long
fights is by dialing the complexity up or down or the intensity up or down with complexity you can
change the complexity of the moves themselves or you can change the complexity of the environment
and a good modern example of this is the jack versus will fight in pirates of the caribbean
curse of the black pearl which conveniently i also have a video about in this fight we don't vary the
intensity up and down while trending upwards we just ramp it up from nearly dead shuffling forward
to proper fencing stance for that final blow. Inigo is desperate he's in agony but instead of
having the fight wear him down he gets stronger as it progresses his energy increases as he gets
closer to the vengeance he has trained for for two decades it's more typical to go the other
way where the fighters get more tired as they go on see for example Rob Roy or maybe the hallway
fight in daredevil season one but his strength increasing as we go along is one of the things
that we do completely backwards in this fight and I love it and that's not the only thing that's the
wrong way around note at this point that Rugen is sensibly wary though perhaps not wary enough he
runs away he throws the knife to kill from afar and even when he tries to strike these killing
blows it's stab and recover stab and recover overhead cut and recover he keeps his distance and
when Inigo stands Rugen retreats and then Rugen keeps retreating. and this is the second thing
which is the wrong way round that makes the fight so powerful not only is Inigo getting less tired
as we go on but the character who is attacking is also the one who is retreating. normally you
passing step forward or advance or at least lean somewhat in the direction of your opponent when
you're attacking you don't have to but it's more usual shall we say especially in stage combat,
in media, you want to be clear who's attacking and who's defending and so generally speaking you've
got to go forward while you're attacking and go backward while you're defending. this fight
is completely on its head. the uninjured man the one who's making all the attacks well up to
a point but we'll get there is the one retreating and the gravely injured man just walks forward and
forward he's not even in a fencing stance he's just walking forward and parrying anything that
comes his way but all he wants is to be closer to the man who killed his father he doesn't attack
not yet. now this is a pretty short fight compared to the cliffs of insanity most fights are pretty
short fights compared to the cliffs of insanity so we keep on with this pattern until "hello! my name
is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." "Stop saying that!" it's at this point
that anger finally overcomes fear and rugen stops retreating but until this point it's just been in
ego walking in ego parrying rugen attacking but retreating and it looks strange and slightly wrong
and counterintuitive and i love it at this point though inigo has found the strength to attack
and attack he does. at this point inigo could just kill him but instead we start by giving rugen the
echoes of inigo's own most recent injuries one left one right, and then he advances, and then
that callback to the two facial scars that he was given, and then the fencing stance and then the
end. inigo pays back each of the lesser injuries bestowed on him which closes the circle for us
you'll note though that he doesn't pay back the knife wound both because it was dishonorable
in the first place and also because it might be fatal. the killing blow however must be the echo
speaking it's just kind of pain but you know in a cathartic kind of way. Mandy Patinkin
talks about delivering his line as if it were to the cancer that killed his father and it's just
ow my feelings my feelings um it is perhaps for this reason that prince humperdink survives
i mean yes he's a terrible awful person but it's not necessary to kill him at this point and Count
Rugen's death is so powerful and so meaningful that at this point there's nothing left to do but
ride off into the night humperdinck is a loose end but you can't top this moment and so they don't
even try another reason that i prefer the movie to the book incidentally is that the movie lets them
have this moment this happy ending whereas the book is like yeah that's not gonna last is it and I'm a sucker for a happy ending.