Contest of Champions

10

Gamora and Nebula march Sif and I out of the palace and down the streets towards the stretch of the Bifrost that reaches out to the observatory. Head held high, Sif doesn't even need Nebula's restraining hand. She isn't going to flee from her chance at achieving prestige before the entire galaxy. She's been waiting for this her entire life.

Gamora, however, keeps her hand on my arm as we walk, and it's rough enough for me to be irritated by it. The crowds press around us and behind us, too close for me to inquire both about her hold on me and the broken moment we shared just minutes ago. So I don't ask, I don't speak. I just walk.

As the Bifrost slithers into the observatory where Heimdall used to keep watch in the days before Thanos, a ship hovers, prepared to transport us to Titan, where the Contest is always held. The Statesman is the ship always used for the Asgardian contenders. Although it doesn't look like much on the outside, it is an entirely different level of comfort inside.

Or so I'm told.

I spot the cameras flying around us, catching every angle they can as Sif and I stand before the boarding ramp. Gamora and Nebula take a step back from us as we turn to acknowledge the crowds. Sif waves, smiling eagerly, playing up her status as a celebrated warrior, but I just spread my hands out with a slight, crafty smile on my lips, acting a bit above it all.

We are both being analyzed now by whoever is watching our Reaping live in the other districts and in Titan, and by the crowd before us. Sif's enthusiasm marks her as one of the traditional nobility of Asgard: eager to fight, doomed to die. Asgard is not a favorite in the Contest, and never receives many sponsors. Sif's approach will not distinguish her from past contenders in Asgard. Typical contenders are either common folk or warrior, and neither group fare well when the Contest begins.

My more arrogant, crafty look, however, is not seen often in the Contest, especially not among Asgardians. And since I have a promise to keep, whatever it takes, I need to show sponsors off the bat that I am not a typical Asgardian.

Hopefully, it's working.

Different contenders have employed different strategies throughout the publicity campaigns leading up to the actual Contest. Since you are being filmed or watched at nearly every location – at the Reaping itself, at the ship's boarding ramp, on entrance into Titan, and so on – you need to have your act together. But not everyone does. The contenders who win, however, usually always do. They're typically playing some angle.

Because two of my siblings are champions and I personally know the only other champion in Asgard, I'm familiar with Contest strategy. My brother's was his cockiness. He was strong, handsome, and loud. He was very good playing the arrogant angle, and he had the strength to back it up.

Hela didn't have an angle. She was just...Hela. Enigmatic, powerful, looming, aloof. She was herself.

And both she and Thor proved they had reasons to act the way they did, for their actions in the arena kept true to their expected images. Some champions who started out building a cocky persona initially lost sponsors when they couldn't prove themselves right from the start. Tony Stark and Stephen Strange were two such champions. Both of them suffered debilitating losses on the first day that caused the odds against them to rise swiftly, but they managed to make it back to the top, against all odds.

Wanda Maximoff, the champion of two years ago, had yet another strategy that she had used, although it didn't seem quite intentional. She had kept quiet, and had even had some panic attacks during her interview and the first day in the arena, but in the Contest, she had proven herself able to kill the other contenders without even touching them.

So presentation is very important, and I have had plenty of practice with being in the public eye, being the son of Odin and the youngest brother of two champions and a former Avenger. My approach has always been to be quiet, lurking in the shadows, keeping my mouth shut and my head down. Although that strategy is different from Sif's, it is similar to all of the lower class contenders from Asgard. I don't need my quietness to be interpreted as unsureness, as a lack of conviction.