Celebrim
Legend
Huh? What is more fraudulent and deceptive than taking part in a competition when one is orders of magnitude superior to any of the other competitors?
I'm quite at a loss to see how anything fraudulent or deceptive takes place.
Any illusion of fair play has been shattered...
How? Fair play doesn't gaurantee equal odds of winning. Indeed, under fair play I might have no chance of winning. If I play the world chess champion fair and square, he'll beat me fair and square every time. What's fraudulant or deceptive about that?
....and even the faintest of hopes the other competitors might have of winning have been destroyed.
I'm beginning to see your problem. You think 'fair' in this context means 'not extreme', which is one possible definition fair ('we are having fair weather'), but not the one used in context of a competition. If I race Usain bolt, and there is a 'fair chance' of me winning then it is a very unfair competition indeed. Dash is playing by the same rules as everyone else. He's a eight year old boy that attends an elementary shool. The race is open presumably to everyone matching that description. How is he cheating?
And if you say, "Well, he's a super. He's clearly better than everyone else!", then where do you draw the line? Would it be ok for him to be only 10% faster than the other boys? How about 30%? If Dash drops out, would it be cheating for the next fastest boy to remain in the race? How do you know he isn't a super too? Who would decide what the limit of greatness allowed in a competition would be before you were disqualified from it? And, if you could be disqualified on the grounds of your greatness, wouldn't the resulting competition then just be a celebration of mediocrity? And, if you could be disqualified for being too fast, in what sense would the resulting competition be 'fair'?
In the case of Dash and Bob, I don't have to draw a line that skirts "human normal." Dash has super speed. On screen, it's made clear that he outclasses by orders of magnitude any runner without super speed. To run in a race where nobody but him has super speed, and win, is to cheat.
Why?
Likewise, Bob has super strength. On screen, it's made clear that he outclasses by orders of magnitude any weightlifter without super strength. To lift weights in a competition where nobody but him has super strength, and win, is to cheat.
Why?
Though the limits of "human normal" are creeping upward every decade, Dash and Bob are not nearly in the same league. Competing with normal humans, for them, is cheating.
I'm at a loss to see why. When they run the Olympic races, many participants come from small nations where there are few competitors and low levels of competition. These participants are wildly outclassed by the strongest competitors, and indeed would likely be outclassed by the third or fifth or tenth or 50th runners up of the stronger nations in that particular sport. Is it cheating for the faster, stronger, more skilled competitors to even be in the competition?