Originally posted by: Eloquent
Not really a fan of either Karna or Arjuna. The point on who is the greatest warrior between them is moot as I feel both were equally talented and could defeat the other on their day.
The reason why many people think Karna is a greater warrior than Arjuna is because during their final duel, Shri Krishna had to manipulate so many things to make Arjuna win such as: getting Karna to use his ace astra (forget the name) on Ghatotkacha rather than on Arjuna, Indra getting his kavach and kundal, Krishna revealing the truth about his parentage (mind games) weakening his resolve, his curse by Parshuram etc. This is all balanced by the battle of Virata in which Arjuna alone defeated not just Karna but Bhishma, Duryodhana and others.
But Mahabharata is less about the skill of a person than about the character.
Rather than their skills in archery, I like to discuss on their character.
Karna has been unduly glorified and many things being said about his mahaanta are actually not mentioned in Vyasa's Mahabharata but an imagination of later authors.
Karna had great qualities such as being daanveer, a great and loyal friend, more or less he was towards Dharma etc.
Some things I don't like about him is his misogyny, his arrogance (displayed several times) and his need to be validated by the same society he berates. Why did he gate crash the Kuru Rangabhoomi? It was for the princes of kingdom only. He wasn't invited. Why did he feel that society/people should hail him as the best archer? If he was being targetted for being a Sutaputra by the society, then he wasn't the only one. I'm sure his other brothers would also be.
In fact he got good or better parents in his fate in the form of Adhiratha and Radha Ma (better than Kunti anyways) and yet he laments his fate. Again Karna also is hot tempered: his killing of Abhimanyu was unjust. If he was the best archer, why couldn't he best that boy alone?
One thing I never understood was why did he hate Arjuna so much? What had he done personally to Karna. I don't think they even interacted before bthe Rangabhoomi scene.
The thing I hated most were his comments to Krishna Panchali in Dyut Sabha. Misogynist to the boot.
Overall he's a fascinating character i.e. Vyasa's Karna, not the other "Karna"s being shown on TV or books.
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