How do you fancy your chances in a fight against Mother Earth? In this type of conflict, that is exactly what our protagonists are facing. Whether it’s wildlife (Jaws), natural disasters (The Day After Tomorrow), the weather (The Perfect Storm), or a post-apocalyptic landscape (The Road), the antagonists in this type of conflict cannot be reasoned with.
Stories that feature a “character vs. nature” conflict will usually center on a character’s survival.
Freddy and Jason are sources of nature. They have left their human elements behind when they died, and are now physical manifestations of revenge. They're no longer even killing people that had anything to do with their deaths, they just hunt people that end up at the wrong place. Once you have entered their domains, there is rarely any escape.
They can't be the reasoned with, they can't be killed, and they will never stop seeking revenge. They are now eternal elements of Crystal Lake and Elm Street.
In Freddy vs Jason, it's like when 2 weather patterns come together to make a deadly storm. The primary story was still about the kids trying to escape them.
To us as humans, there appears to be a secondary conflict between Freddy and Jason, but I feel you could argue that isn't an actual conflict, as neither Freddy or Jason have any agency. They can't not kill each other. They just don't function that way. As with the storm, they are just 2 elements that mix violently. It's no more a conflict than any story that has rain: the rain is not a conflict between the air and the water vapor held within it, it's just what the laws of the world dictate happens when the air is supersaturated.
(Ok, done editing now. I got more into this than I anticipated...)
Yup, it's not like storm fronts go away forever. They just reach equilibrium for a time before their inevitable return, just like how Jason and Freddy got their reboots after this movie.
I would say when two opposing personified forces clash it becomes a man vs man fight.
IMO Man to Man covers peer against peer as well as literal fights between two normal human beings.
Fights between particular vampires in the Castlevania series would also be considered man to man even if they are very specifically not human, they are still people with thought process and human level decision making ability, so man vs man conflict still applies.
I agree with this assessment. Any 2 supernatural beings against each other is essentially man vs man. Them fighting involves agency, otherwise it'd be too boring to make a story about.
If we had 2 reanimated skeltons swordfighting, it would be cool for a couple minutes, but they can't talk, they can't plot and scheme, and they'd just keep on fighting with no purpose or end. Not a great story.
I don't know the origins of the Castlevania vampires, a quick look shows many origins, but the Vampire Chronicles vampires still seem very much man vs man. IIRC, they basically are just regular people essentially possessed by part of an original Egyptian demon. When the demon part of them is killed, that's why they just die. So for plot purposes, they're just guys with a chronic illness. They still retain all the characteristics and associated drama of the people they were when they were alive.
I was talking more about the Netflix series, both the original and Nocturne feature very supernatural beings who nevertheless have the agency that is key in calling either party to the fight a person for the sake of man vs X
I disagreed with you initially, but if we look at Freddy as the main character, this works.
The story is Freddy-centric, Freddy basically contracts Jason, as society has found a workaround preventing Freddy from doing his things.
The plan with Jason backfires, much like your classic golem or Frankenstein type situation of raising the dead and losing control. But it's Freddy's issue with society meeting him down that initiated that secondary conflict.
Though part of the story is from the kid's POV, much is still Freddy, much more so than Jason, and they could have told the whole story from Freddy's POV and it'd be the exact same thing.
I'm not sure what that falls under. Maybe it's Man vs. Society vs. Society. Actually it's more like a dozen little societies, and a couple of big ones. I'd just call it a battle royale and be done with it. But no matter which departments lose, the lawyers and bankers are the ones that won.