A few things to keep in mind before continuing. Firstly, this post is assuming that you are completely caught up on the Hunter X Hunter manga. Although I'll try not to post major spoilers, this will be using information that's present in the manga and not all of it is true throughout. Secondly, I'm looking at every character's PROBABILITY of winning. Since the Succession War is not over, I will be looking at every character's chances based on who they have, what powers they possess, and the nature of their nen beasts. Finally, this post will assume that a winner will come from the Succession War as, though characters like Kurapika are attempting to end the Succession War without actually possessing a victor, much of the arc suggests that the arc cannot finish without a winner, be it because the characters will die if they escape, or if the ship will refuse to land if a victor is not decided. In another series, like Naruto for example, Kurapika's goal would be feasible with enough power and luck. However, Hunter X Hunter has always been much more realistic in the sense that if something seems like it's far greater than you, there's very little that can be done about it. With that said, let's begin.
First an overview of each Prince. Note, not all of them are male, but they are all called Princes within the continuity to prevent biases based on gender.
First is Benjamin. Benjamin is the 1st Prince and he seems to have the strongest guard. He has the largest number of followers that are strong and loyal and many of them start off with Nen abilities without needing assistance from the Hunter Association. In addition, his own power, Benjamin Baton, allows him to gain the Nen abilities of his followers upon their deaths. How or why this is possible is unknown but the fact that he starts off with this ability where others train during the arc suggests that he did this with the full intention of making himself stronger. Be that as it may, he seems to be the only prince that will get stronger as his numbers are whittled down.
Next is Camilla, the second Prince and the first to be a woman. Now, at first glance, she seems to have some pretty strong odds of winning. Though her followers are all untouchables, meaning their curses are going to be nearly useless in this succession war, her Nen ability is a post-mortem type, one that absorbs the soul of the one who killed her and uses it to resurrect herself. This lends her well to the whole one woman army thing better than Benjamin but I assume the weakness of this ability is that it assumes someone killed her, meaning death by any other means will cause it to not work.
Next is Zhang Lei, the third prince. Now, here's where things start to get interesting. Zhang Lei is the first prince to not have a nen ability but unlike them, his nen beast has already begun working. Every day, his nen beast releases a coin from its mouth which is then distributed among his followers. What the coins do is currently unknown, other than their value increases over time. Zhang Lei himself suspects that this power will not activate until he is already king but I find this to be a fallacy, as it's established within the series itself that the nen beasts are only active for the duration of the succession war. This suggests that its power is simply unknown currently. One theory suggests that the coins are supposed to be exchanged for something but how one would do that or for what purpose are unknown. Zhang Lei is a bit of a wild card here because so much of what he's capable of is unknown, even to him.
Next is Tserriednich, the fourth Prince and Kurapika's motivation for joining the expedition. Tserriednich is unique among these princes as, although he did not start off a nen user, he gathered ability with it faster than any other nen user known to the series, with the exception of some chimera ants who were born with the power. His Nen ability, parallel future, allows him to close his eyes, see the next ten seconds that are about to occur and open his eyes without any time passing. If he holds his eyes past those ten seconds, time will pass as normal only with him seeing ten seconds into the future. Once he opens his eyes, he has ten seconds to act without the timeline recognizing him before it adjusts. As for his Nen beast, it sets punishments to those who lie to its owner. If they lie once, they receive a warning. If the warning is not heeded, they receive a punishment in the form of a facial scar. If they continue, a fate worse than death will follow. All of this seems pretty overpowered, the problem is how he'll hold up against Kurapika. Keep in mind, due to owning the remaining Scarlet Eyes as well as the head of his best friend Pairo, he basically has a target on his back that will be shot at the moment he goes after Prince Woble, we'll talk about him later.
Next Prince Tubeppa, a scientist whose abilities are currently unknown but her nen beast has the ability to synthesize pretty much any chemical. It's a collaborative type, and as a result requires a partner. How far this ability goes or how it can be used is thus far unknown.
Next Prince Tyson, one of the less aggressive Princes, his nen beast distributes smaller nen beasts that attach to those who read about his teachings. The more they learn about his teachings the happier they'll become. If they break the teachings, harsh punishments will be dolled out. This may sound bad on paper, but Tyson's teaching are all about love, acceptance, and forgiveness, meaning that the only way to break his teachings is to, whether ironically or appropriately, harm another person. This substantially reduces his odds of winning.
Next Prince Luzurus has an unknown ability as he's probably featured the least of the princes in the manga thus far, you know relatively speaking. However, his nen beast appears to have a coercive manipulation ability. It uses what the target loves as bait before springing the trap.
Next Sale-Sale, doesn't appear to have any nen abilities but his nen beast emits a type of fog that causes others to want to gain his favor. When enough has been inhaled, a version of it appears over their heads, indicating that they are fully loyal. The extent of this ability is unknown.
Next Prince Halkenburg has a collaborative type nen beast that does two things: first, it makes him and his subjects stronger the closer together they become. Secondly, he can fire off the soul of one of his subjects as an arrow to possess the body of another. This has great utility as a military weapon and as a result has caused Prince Benjamin to refer to him as the primary threat, even over Camilla.
Next Prince Kacho and Fugetsu do not possess any nen abilities but both have nen beasts that involve both characters. Kacho's nen beast does not activate until one of the two have died, then it appears as the deceased and poses as them with the only goal to protect the one that remains. Fugetsu meanwhile, has a nen beast with a teleportation type ability. Fugetsu opens the door that takes them anywhere, and Kacho opens the door that takes them back where they started.
Prince Momoze has no nen ability but her nen beast is one that will ask the question "are you free?" If you answer no, it will pester you until you answer affirmatively. Once you do, it'll possess you and control your mind and your actions.
Finally Prince Marayam and Woble are unknown due to being children who have not participated in a fight. However, they both possess some of the strongest nen users as part of their guard, with Marayam having Hanzo and Bisky, and Woble having Kurapika.
Alright, now let's discuss probability. Firstly, of the fourteen princes, I don't think it's any surprise that princes 10-14 all have a minimal shot at survival. Mainly because of this group, two of them require the other, none have any battle experience, the 12th has a dangerous enough ability to get a target painted on her, and the latter two are literal babies. As a result, this contest seems like it will come down to the remaining 9. So let's tackle them.
Firstly, I didn't talk about the nen abilities of the nen beasts for Benjamin and Camilla because they haven't featured enough to show their abilities. However, these two will be front runners guaranteed once their nen beasts start battling. Benjamin seems like a good front runner so far because his ability will make him stronger as his men die off, though obviously a limit is placed on how much power he can use. Camilla, on the other hand, is lethal in a death match but if she is detained she cannot use her power. In addition, if her cause of death is indirect, like you can trace it to something else other than the one who caused it, her ability may not manifest. Such as throwing her off the ship for example. That said, these two are strong but with enough unknowns that we can't say for certain how this will go for them.
Tserriednich interests me a fair bit, however. Firstly, his parallel future ability is quite overpowered, it allows him to remain active in a timespan without anyone knowing where he is for ten seconds. This isn't even a matter of hiding his presence like with Meleoron, however. It's more like they're perceiving events on the original timeline and ten seconds after he shifts it, it readjusts, making it so that they can't even detect where he is in that time. I imagine if he had this ability against Meruem, he would have been quite the dangerous man. Meruem could perhaps have figured it out but would've been unable to do anything about it. That said, I'm inclined to put Tserriednich lower on the list for no other reason than because Kurapika.
Let me explain. Kurapika is the protagonist of this arc. After Gon lost his nen abilities and Killua went to go adventuring with Alluka, Kurapika went after Tserriednich in order to get the scarlet eyes that he possesses and kill Tserriednich. Now, I'm of two minds on this. Firstly, this is a shounen. And while I agree a fair bit that Hunter X Hunter is a bit of a deconstruction of the shounen genre, it still allows shounen tropes to operate. And I very much doubt the series will end without Kurapika getting back the scarlet eyes.
Note what I said there. Kurapika's goal is to get back the eyes, not necessarily to kill the ones who took them. As a result, if Tserriednich chooses to return the scarlet eyes without a fight, for some unknown reason, I could see Kurapika being content with that, though he could also very easily decide to kill Tserriednich even in spite of that. However, depending on when Kurapika will die, it's possible that Tserriednich will be eliminated by Kurapika before winning the war. It's possible things could be different but I don't know. However, in terms of available information, he definitely seems to be the most powerful.
Princes 5-8 are all effectively useless. They do not have battle minds the way their elder siblings do and many of them may even receive punishment if they choose to fight.
Halkenburg is the most interesting as, despite being the youngest of these nine, his ability seems to be quite powerful. He can use it to eliminate his opponent's men without losing any of his own, creating an overwhelming power in number battles. For Tserriednich and Camilla, this is largely a non-issue, but for Benjamin and the other Princes this is quite substantial. The characters in the series are right to fear him.
That said, Zhang Lei is the one that concerns me. Although he has no abilities thus far, I don't see that being a definitive low probability, just that he's most likely a sleeper type, one who could show up with an ability that is extremely dangerous and one we have not accounted for. The nen beasts have powers that reflect their owner's personality but I don't necessarily believe that that means it won't do anything until he becomes king. I theorize that the coins will increase in value as the holders remain loyal to him and then will either punish those who betray or grant powers when the holder exchanges the coin depending on its current value.
That said, I think Tserriednich is the one who has the highest probability due to how overpowered his skill is. Camilla is right behind due to her own post-mortem nen not having too many counters. Finally, Halkenburg and Benjamin are around 3rd and 4th respectively. Everyone else is a non-factor as they either do not have substantial abilities, have already died, or are dependent on their minions. The thing that will turn the tide is Kurapika and his group of Hunters who are protecting the weaker princes and who are far and away more powerful than the other characters. Hell, I could see Kurapika defeating Camilla by absorbing her ability before killing her, rendering it unable to activate.
Ultimately, we'll have to wait and see.
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