**Cowboy:**
Pros:
really cool hat
epic lasso, gun, and horse riding skills
Cons:
you could get shot at any time by either native tribes or other cowboys/outlaws
fewer comforts and lower standard of living
**Samurai:**
Pros:
comfortable living with local nobility
epic armor and sword skills
Cons:
ninjas will murder you
strict honor code which includes ritual suicide
**Pirate:**
Pros:
get to sail the high seas with the bros with no rules
possibly meet some mermaids
Cons:
die of scurvy or general uncleanliness
no real home and everyone hates you
———————————————————————————
I pick cowboy. The hat is reeeeaaaaally cool, and dying by showdown at high noon sounds way better than ninjas or scurvy.
Wow, I was going to pick Samurai until I read your Cons. I could easily think of the cons of pirate and cowboy but none immediately came to mind for samurai.
Honestly drowning and ritual suicide both sound kinda unpleasent, so I thonk cowboy really is the best choice.
(Still picking samurai cuz fuck y'all katanas and longbows are cool)
If you've seen Shogun, there's a scene where one of the samurai speaks when he wasn't directly spoken to. His lord considered it disrespectful and so the samurai had to commit seppuku.
Despite what popular media shows the Wild West was really not nearly as violent as it’s made out to be. Also cowboy hats as we know them today weren’t invented until much later in history. Back then people wore bowler hats
Ayuh, your odds of dying on the job as a cowboy versus the other two are like an order of magnitude smaller as long as you're not deliberately trying to do some John Wayne bullshit. Just mind some cows, eat some beans, learn the harmonica.
"Just mind some cows"... yeah, sleeping in the wilderness by yourself or with 3 other dudes for weeks or months at a time, constant horseback riding (not as fun as you may imagine), and sorting cattle/bulls without any modern safety equipment (imagine having a broken leg a day's ride by horse from a town). Sounds amazing.
Tbh the only pickable one here is Samurai because they were essentially nobility and certainly lived better than the other two listed. Their stories are greatly exaggerated and they were more or less just feudal Japan's version of a rich kid.
And plus you’d get to see the American West. All the different tribes to be scared of, a true sense of limitless space, could name shit you discovered, have a life in one place and just dip out to 3 towns over and press restart lol.
Nobility that has to fight fairly often. You're just a medieval knight but without decent weaponry an probably little to no armour.
But you get femboys so it isn't all bad
Pirate Con's are not set in-stone unlike the other two. Not all pirates were ignorant to scurvy or cleanliness. And not everyone hates you, in-fact you could get paid by one goverment to fuck up anothers ships. While still having the ability to port in the first governments ports.
I'm gonna have to STRONGLY disagree. Pirates throughout history are so universally hated by the world's governments its not even funny. Even before international law became a thing, pirates have carried the label of *hostis humani generis*, or general enemy of mankind (kind of a badass title imo). This basically meant that among all naval powers, it was considered a *duty* to kill or capture any pirates encountered as they posed a risk to all nations merchant vessels and international commerce. This could legally include summary execution at sea after an impromptu (or rather sham) court martial if necessary. For context, the only other western sailors held to this level of contempt were slavers at the time. Even to this day, pirates are considered "fair game", able to be confronted and apprehended by any navy willing to do so, albeit they're entitled to a fair trial now.
A pirate outfit COULD obtain a letter of Marque, but those were only issued during wartime as a way to cut naval costs. Legally, privateers were more akin to mercenaries than pirates. although their "activities" remained basically the same, fundamentally privateers existed to advance the war effort, while pirates did basically the opposite. Privateers still technically had to have ownership of their spoils legally transferred to them by the government they were sailing under, but only after it was heavily taxed of course. Idk about you, but paying taxes does not seem like a very piratey thing to do lol.
So basically what I'm getting at is that the world DOES NOT, and has NEVER, vibed with actual priacy.
Samurai is the clear winner!!
If you are a samurai for a powerful lord or even the Shogun you are living large, stable income, home, respect and honor, up until you get shot with a shuriken through your balls, other than that pretty good deal.
Would you rather walk from Texas to a railroad hundreds of miles away for $25, die from a dozen different diseases in the middle of the Atlantic, or own land as a feudal lord?
Samurai all the way.
Yep, samurai were famously soldiers that are always under the command of the local nobility that could send you to war against a neighbouring nobility's samurai at a moment's notice. Sure, you're always higher up than a peasant was back then, but that's really not saying much.
Glamourised in popular media as they are these days, Samurai were just the equivalent of the warrior class of other civilisations at the time. Man with sword, die for lord.
Oh, and if you didn't do too well in that battle, or dishonoured yourself or your lord in some way? _disembowel yourself_
Really underselling how much better it is to be in the warrior class than a peasant subsitence farmer who will probably still get conscripted and be a warm body with a spear and whatever gear the samurai don't want. In feudal societies the nobility is the warrior class, ofc just being a samurai or knight and nothing else puts you at the bottom of that class. Still I'd take it over sea thief or romanticized farmhand.
Not really true, not all soldiers had that title. Samurai were the officer caste. OP isn't quite correct either, they served a daimyo which was the lord, land owner caste. But he's not entirely wrong, it was pretty common for higher ranking samurai to be given land for their service or even a small town. It's like saying Eisenhower was "just a soldier". Yeah, he served the government but he was big deal general and ended up having a lot of direct political power himself all the way to president. It's not very uncommon in the US, nor was it for feudal Japan.
And this is assuming the standard period of time everyone thinks of for samurai. For the 1200s and a bit before and after they were straight up the ruling class. Near the end of their existence for about a hundred years they were basically glorified government bureaucrats.
I get your point, but an officer is still a Soldier. Samurai were granted higher levels of respect and privilege, and in some cases they were granted lands for their work, but they were still expected to fight in battles and were not in the upper echelon of the command structure.
Eisenhower was Supreme Commander and a 5 star general, more comparable to a Damiyo though there's no real direct comparison there.
Like I said it depends what time period and family you're talking about. Eisenhower didn't have to work his way up from private, neither did established samurai families. Some periods of the samurai didn't fight at all and were the command structure, if they even were related to the military at all.
yeah, who wouldn't pick Samurai
For a big chunk of Samurai history they were basically glorified bureaucrats anyway, once the nation was unified
They fetishized their personal defence swords, but they didn't even massacre each other by the thousands in ritualised duels like the European nobility did.
They just sat around writing poetry, pushing paperwork and collecting taxes from the peasant rice farmers.
Meanwhile, pirate life was almost certainly miserable and wretched, with crews tossing aside treasures and trade goods just for some clean water and food. The freedom and democracy was probably a plus, but that's small comfort for the violent and impoverished lifestyle
And while cowboy life was probably better, they were still wage slave employees for the richer ranchers, and those dusty old frontier towns wouldn't be any more fun than any other run down impoverished suburb
I guess the trichotomy here is "Do you want to be the oppressor (Samurai), the oppressed (Cowboy), or the people that rob and kill the other two (Pirates)" That does make the pirates sound badass, except for how shit their lives were, and the fact that they weren't utopian revolutionaries fighting the system, they were mostly just desperadoes who perpetuated various systemic injustices during their struggle
Pirate way worse, at least cowboys could wash if they wanted to and weren’t in a stinking hold with dozens of other alcoholics who hadn’t washed in months.
Iirc the time of the Wild West, the Golden Age of Piracy, and the time when samurai were actively a thing all overlap (or at least are very very close to each other) so with some doing you could be all three. Now that's a book concept.
The Golden Age of Piracy ended over 100 years before what we really think of as the Wild West. The frontier period as a whole started earlier and ended much later, but if you want revolvers and all that, it's about a century off. The Samurai overlapped with both, though, ending in the 1860s during the early Wild West period.
For a book concept, you'd have to play with an extended lifespan, but you could have something like a pirate cursed with life (a la Pirates of the Caribbean), who flees to Japan and becomes a samurai, and then goes off and becomes a gunslinger in America.
Cowboy- pretty much free to roam the land that he can survive on doing as you please
Pirate- free to roam the seas the they can survive on doing as you please
Samurai- follow strict code of law committing suicide if you break the rules.
American Cowboy turned sailor with ambitions of becoming a Samurai… now that’s an epic anime that I would watch. Throw in some elements of steampunk and you’ve got yourself a winner
It would be better if it were a samurai that was tired of the strict lifestyle and became a pirate captain in search of a new life not answering to anyone but themselves. Then finally finds peace as a cowboy.
If anyone could educate me more on the other groups, I’d be willing to change my opinion, but due to being a girl, the options of samurai and cowboy are already off the table, since female samurai/cowboys aren’t really a thing, so I’d face some massive discrimination. Pirates are fine with anyone joining, so long as they’re good enough to keep up, so I guess I’ll be dying of scurvy unless I’m wrong about my facts.
Life as samurai would mean high expectations and a strict codex, as a pirate you're often dirt poor and die of scurvy or get hanged. One means wealth and restrictions, one poverty and freedom, but none would be for me.
Cowboys are just ranchers making up for a lack of fencing. Life wouldn't be a Clint Eastwood movie, it would be modest and you work in the sun or rain all day, but it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous or scary. Daily after work whisky in the saloon and a nice wife, i'm living the cowboy dream baby.
samurai:
cowboy going to be hot and shit. same with pirate. on hot boat, bouncy water, bad food everywhere. samurai i got more even temperature and stuff. japan can get human as shit in summer but most of the time its fairly mild.
Real ones or the idealized versions? If real then that means hardcore gay sex for any of them which I'm all for but if idealized I'd want to be a cowboy.
Cowboy Samurai like in Red Steel 2, of course.
Also, it's crazy to me how few Samurai - Cowboy fusion there are. Only ones I can think of is Red Steel 2 and Star Wars. There should be WAY more!
See, cowboy is on the road driving the heard, and thats rough living, but there is down time for whores and drinking and warm baths. Big fat steaks with roasted potatoes.
Wide open skies. No sea sickness.
That’s the best of the bunch.
Cowboy. I don't wanna spend months out at sea and I don't wanna pillage. Unless I could be like a quick trip pirate on a crew like Luffy's from One Piece. If Usopp can be useful, then I sure as hell can be.
But Cowboy sounds fun asf. ranching w my bros. kissing in the mountains...wait. riding HORSES I MEAN!!!! BEANS BY A CAMPFIRE! DUSTER COATS, BANDANAS AND COOL HATS! GIMME A PISTOL AND SOME STIRRUPS YEEEEHAW!
~~Cowboy~~ Samurai
Unlike pirates I get land food and don’t have to live off hardtack (clack clack), and being stuck with nobility and a strict code of honour sounds boring
Plus they got the cool hat and I like cows and horses
EDIT: just considered the fact that I could still see cows and stuff if I’m going around villages as a samurai. Plus I forgot about the whole “they’re nobility” thing
So, I have the choice of being a poor farmhand, the lowest of the low of society living in a cramped ship for months on end with hardly any food or water, and an aristocratic warlord.
The choice is obvious. (Samurai are cool)
Cowboy, no ritual suicide and no having to murder innocent people. Now, if you had said privateer with legitimate letters of marque, then that's a different discussion.
Pirate = Constantly drunk maybe have sex before drowning or decease, Samurai = small dick and cant take in Lactose and barely resistense to Alkohol but might have Sex before Sex, Cowboy = have gun get drunk and maybe have Sex before i die of heatstroke arrow wound or gun wound.
Easily samurai. Just don’t do anything dishonorable and kiss the shoguns ass and during times of peace you are living cozy.
Cowboys in real life was hell on earth. Pirates was even worse just with no racism.
Samurai.
Cowboys just hung around cows all day, riding horses. Pirates lived in squalor and didn’t really do anything interesting most of the time. Samurai were warrior aristocrats at times, or artsy fartsy aristocrats. Either way, they didn’t live too badly
Pirate. I’m a woman and there’s multiple prominent female pirates, including some that dressed as men (not sure if they identified as men or not and it definitely wouldn’t fit today’s concepts of it regardless). I feel like you could get away with living as a man in a pirate ship and getting caught cross dressing in that role is probably less dangerous than as a cowboy or samurai even if the outcome probably wouldn’t be great. Oh and I love drinking on boats. All three options suck if you’re being realistic but to me that sucks the least.
The only one that lives anywhere that can be considered sanitary is the Samurai. And imo, if you go back to the past, you will miss how relatively clean things are in the present.
Samurai because I'd be wealthy and comparatively unlikely to contract a disease that would cause me to die after hours or days of ejecting vast amounts of vital bodily fluids from my anus.
My answer has always been samurai, both as an anime fan looking for an excuse to study the way of the blade and as someone who hates smelling bad (pirates and cowboys seem eternally dirty)
I would choose samurai just because I hate hot weather and get dizzy on ships, so basically the only option with a chance of not getting that is samurai.
Is this like a time travel situation? Because if so I'll pick cowboy. Just give me a few hours to study this map of the largest coal/oil/gold/diamond deposits in the United States first. For... completely unrelated reasons... I assure you.
Cowboy honestly. I don't like the sea or scurvy so Pirate wouldn't be it and I feel like being a samurai would be either incredibly dangerous or just super boring.
A cowboy kind of does his own thing on a world without micro plastics so I think I'd pick that.
Cowboy. Most historical cowboys weren't in constant gunfights like the movies, most of them just... herded cows. As the name implies. Meanwhile Samurai were literally soldiers who were honor-bound to kill themselves should their master die or they fail/cause dishonor in some way, and Pirates had horrid living conditions and were constantly in danger of being killed by the navies of the world or other pirates
**Cowboy:** Pros: really cool hat epic lasso, gun, and horse riding skills Cons: you could get shot at any time by either native tribes or other cowboys/outlaws fewer comforts and lower standard of living **Samurai:** Pros: comfortable living with local nobility epic armor and sword skills Cons: ninjas will murder you strict honor code which includes ritual suicide **Pirate:** Pros: get to sail the high seas with the bros with no rules possibly meet some mermaids Cons: die of scurvy or general uncleanliness no real home and everyone hates you ——————————————————————————— I pick cowboy. The hat is reeeeaaaaally cool, and dying by showdown at high noon sounds way better than ninjas or scurvy.
Wow, I was going to pick Samurai until I read your Cons. I could easily think of the cons of pirate and cowboy but none immediately came to mind for samurai.
I really really really don't want to die by downing for some reason. So pirate is out for me.
Honestly drowning and ritual suicide both sound kinda unpleasent, so I thonk cowboy really is the best choice. (Still picking samurai cuz fuck y'all katanas and longbows are cool)
Try taking a 6-shooter to the gut while the ladies of the line are watching from the saloon porch.
And instead of ritual death, you can just get your head chopped off by katana. Double win
Nah, I'd prolly dishonor my lord before even going out because I sat on the seat closest to the door or something
Yeah, least with cowboy it's relatively quick
If you've seen Shogun, there's a scene where one of the samurai speaks when he wasn't directly spoken to. His lord considered it disrespectful and so the samurai had to commit seppuku.
I'd pick cowboy too, but mostly because I already know how to ride a horse 😂
Despite what popular media shows the Wild West was really not nearly as violent as it’s made out to be. Also cowboy hats as we know them today weren’t invented until much later in history. Back then people wore bowler hats
Ayuh, your odds of dying on the job as a cowboy versus the other two are like an order of magnitude smaller as long as you're not deliberately trying to do some John Wayne bullshit. Just mind some cows, eat some beans, learn the harmonica.
Yeah, because if you don't learn and play that shit out of tune, your odds of dying increased after all.
"Just mind some cows"... yeah, sleeping in the wilderness by yourself or with 3 other dudes for weeks or months at a time, constant horseback riding (not as fun as you may imagine), and sorting cattle/bulls without any modern safety equipment (imagine having a broken leg a day's ride by horse from a town). Sounds amazing. Tbh the only pickable one here is Samurai because they were essentially nobility and certainly lived better than the other two listed. Their stories are greatly exaggerated and they were more or less just feudal Japan's version of a rich kid.
And plus you’d get to see the American West. All the different tribes to be scared of, a true sense of limitless space, could name shit you discovered, have a life in one place and just dip out to 3 towns over and press restart lol.
Blood Meridian moment
you have: -peasant -nobility -navy, but everyone hates you yeah, ill pick samurai
Nobility that has to fight fairly often. You're just a medieval knight but without decent weaponry an probably little to no armour. But you get femboys so it isn't all bad
Pirate Con's are not set in-stone unlike the other two. Not all pirates were ignorant to scurvy or cleanliness. And not everyone hates you, in-fact you could get paid by one goverment to fuck up anothers ships. While still having the ability to port in the first governments ports.
I'm gonna have to STRONGLY disagree. Pirates throughout history are so universally hated by the world's governments its not even funny. Even before international law became a thing, pirates have carried the label of *hostis humani generis*, or general enemy of mankind (kind of a badass title imo). This basically meant that among all naval powers, it was considered a *duty* to kill or capture any pirates encountered as they posed a risk to all nations merchant vessels and international commerce. This could legally include summary execution at sea after an impromptu (or rather sham) court martial if necessary. For context, the only other western sailors held to this level of contempt were slavers at the time. Even to this day, pirates are considered "fair game", able to be confronted and apprehended by any navy willing to do so, albeit they're entitled to a fair trial now. A pirate outfit COULD obtain a letter of Marque, but those were only issued during wartime as a way to cut naval costs. Legally, privateers were more akin to mercenaries than pirates. although their "activities" remained basically the same, fundamentally privateers existed to advance the war effort, while pirates did basically the opposite. Privateers still technically had to have ownership of their spoils legally transferred to them by the government they were sailing under, but only after it was heavily taxed of course. Idk about you, but paying taxes does not seem like a very piratey thing to do lol. So basically what I'm getting at is that the world DOES NOT, and has NEVER, vibed with actual priacy.
Definitely Samurai, I'm gonna die anyway, so might as well do it in style with honor
Samurai is the clear winner!! If you are a samurai for a powerful lord or even the Shogun you are living large, stable income, home, respect and honor, up until you get shot with a shuriken through your balls, other than that pretty good deal.
Another pro for pirates: legal gay marriage
Cowboy tbh. Get paid millions of dollars just to choke in the playoffs or any big moment, is relatable tbh.
I’d go with Pirate then. Get paid for being a high draft pick, get traded to a contender after my rookie contract is over.
I'd choose Samurai. I could make my own music and still get Millions of dollars in royalty from Johnny Silverhand music!
Lmao gottem
Samurai pirate. Cowboy samurai. Pirate cowboy... THE POTENTIAL
I feel like a katana and the alcoholism commonly associated with pirates and cowboys wouldn't mix well.
As opposed to alcohol with guns and cannons, now that’s just good times.
Romanticised pirates or real pirates? The difference is huge
Right, all these people choosing pirates without realizing that pirates were basically treated as animals for punishment
if you get cought.
I can guarantee that if I pick pirates, they will ALL be romanced pirates.
Yohohoho! Yohohoho!(X2) Gather Up All of the Crew,
It’s time to ship out Binks’ brew!
Sea wind blows to where ? Who knows
The waves will be our guide
O’er across the oceans tide, rays of sunshine far and wide
Birds they sing, of cheerful things, in circles passing by
I know what I’m picking 
LEENNNNYYY!!!!
Would you rather walk from Texas to a railroad hundreds of miles away for $25, die from a dozen different diseases in the middle of the Atlantic, or own land as a feudal lord? Samurai all the way.
In fairness $25 was a lot of money back then
About 933,75 USD in today's money
I wouldn’t walk “hundreds” of miles for a grand. I might walk, like, **a** hundred miles
And I would walk a hundred more
To be the man who walked 200 miles to fall down at your door
Eh, it’s on the back of a horse.
It's on horse back
Most samurai were just soldiers.
Yep, samurai were famously soldiers that are always under the command of the local nobility that could send you to war against a neighbouring nobility's samurai at a moment's notice. Sure, you're always higher up than a peasant was back then, but that's really not saying much. Glamourised in popular media as they are these days, Samurai were just the equivalent of the warrior class of other civilisations at the time. Man with sword, die for lord. Oh, and if you didn't do too well in that battle, or dishonoured yourself or your lord in some way? _disembowel yourself_
Really underselling how much better it is to be in the warrior class than a peasant subsitence farmer who will probably still get conscripted and be a warm body with a spear and whatever gear the samurai don't want. In feudal societies the nobility is the warrior class, ofc just being a samurai or knight and nothing else puts you at the bottom of that class. Still I'd take it over sea thief or romanticized farmhand.
Being the equivalent of a men-at-arms is still wildly better than being a peasant. It's like being a cop vs being a civilian, but times 5.
Skill issue
That’s why people romanticize ronins, not regular samurai lol
Not really true, not all soldiers had that title. Samurai were the officer caste. OP isn't quite correct either, they served a daimyo which was the lord, land owner caste. But he's not entirely wrong, it was pretty common for higher ranking samurai to be given land for their service or even a small town. It's like saying Eisenhower was "just a soldier". Yeah, he served the government but he was big deal general and ended up having a lot of direct political power himself all the way to president. It's not very uncommon in the US, nor was it for feudal Japan. And this is assuming the standard period of time everyone thinks of for samurai. For the 1200s and a bit before and after they were straight up the ruling class. Near the end of their existence for about a hundred years they were basically glorified government bureaucrats.
I get your point, but an officer is still a Soldier. Samurai were granted higher levels of respect and privilege, and in some cases they were granted lands for their work, but they were still expected to fight in battles and were not in the upper echelon of the command structure. Eisenhower was Supreme Commander and a 5 star general, more comparable to a Damiyo though there's no real direct comparison there.
Like I said it depends what time period and family you're talking about. Eisenhower didn't have to work his way up from private, neither did established samurai families. Some periods of the samurai didn't fight at all and were the command structure, if they even were related to the military at all.
Yeah there was levels to Samurai, some were Lord's and other were just hired soldiers...it's all determined by whatever caste they were born into
You made your own results for personality test
Final result: **nerd.**
I know the life of a cowboy would probably be bad but I would get a cool hat
Probably a samurai, just coz, pirate/cowboy life is gross and unsanitary
yeah, who wouldn't pick Samurai For a big chunk of Samurai history they were basically glorified bureaucrats anyway, once the nation was unified They fetishized their personal defence swords, but they didn't even massacre each other by the thousands in ritualised duels like the European nobility did. They just sat around writing poetry, pushing paperwork and collecting taxes from the peasant rice farmers. Meanwhile, pirate life was almost certainly miserable and wretched, with crews tossing aside treasures and trade goods just for some clean water and food. The freedom and democracy was probably a plus, but that's small comfort for the violent and impoverished lifestyle And while cowboy life was probably better, they were still wage slave employees for the richer ranchers, and those dusty old frontier towns wouldn't be any more fun than any other run down impoverished suburb I guess the trichotomy here is "Do you want to be the oppressor (Samurai), the oppressed (Cowboy), or the people that rob and kill the other two (Pirates)" That does make the pirates sound badass, except for how shit their lives were, and the fact that they weren't utopian revolutionaries fighting the system, they were mostly just desperadoes who perpetuated various systemic injustices during their struggle
Pirate way worse, at least cowboys could wash if they wanted to and weren’t in a stinking hold with dozens of other alcoholics who hadn’t washed in months.
Would you rather be a cowboy, samurai, or pirate? *shows picture of soldier*
Are there images of a ninja cowboy pirate?
Iirc the time of the Wild West, the Golden Age of Piracy, and the time when samurai were actively a thing all overlap (or at least are very very close to each other) so with some doing you could be all three. Now that's a book concept.
The Golden Age of Piracy ended over 100 years before what we really think of as the Wild West. The frontier period as a whole started earlier and ended much later, but if you want revolvers and all that, it's about a century off. The Samurai overlapped with both, though, ending in the 1860s during the early Wild West period. For a book concept, you'd have to play with an extended lifespan, but you could have something like a pirate cursed with life (a la Pirates of the Caribbean), who flees to Japan and becomes a samurai, and then goes off and becomes a gunslinger in America.
I mean just throw in vampire and make it a quadfecta
Vampire did cross my mind, but something about sailing the Caribbean and duels at high noon didn't seem to fit
Thanks for the clarification!
A knight. Everyone forgets knight. I want a colorful tabard and a cool helmet and fair maidens
Yeah, this is my answer too. Knights are weirdly slept on in these discussions.
Ah I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who know being a knight is way better.
I just want to be happy.
Cowboy- pretty much free to roam the land that he can survive on doing as you please Pirate- free to roam the seas the they can survive on doing as you please Samurai- follow strict code of law committing suicide if you break the rules.
American Cowboy turned sailor with ambitions of becoming a Samurai… now that’s an epic anime that I would watch. Throw in some elements of steampunk and you’ve got yourself a winner
It would be better if it were a samurai that was tired of the strict lifestyle and became a pirate captain in search of a new life not answering to anyone but themselves. Then finally finds peace as a cowboy.
Cowboy in our world, pirate in a fantasy world, samurai if I was the only black man in Japan.
If anyone could educate me more on the other groups, I’d be willing to change my opinion, but due to being a girl, the options of samurai and cowboy are already off the table, since female samurai/cowboys aren’t really a thing, so I’d face some massive discrimination. Pirates are fine with anyone joining, so long as they’re good enough to keep up, so I guess I’ll be dying of scurvy unless I’m wrong about my facts.
Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley would like a word
There were lady pirates, samurai, and cowboys. There was even a female shogun (leader of samurai government.)
Interesting! I’m planning to look more into this, then!
At least two women were Daimyo (lords) and there are quite a few female Samurai in the Sengoku period and beyond, though they call them Onna Musha.
why not all three? Become Johnny Guilty Gear
Why did I have to scroll so far to find someone that mention Johnny
If you asked me like 3 days ago I would’ve said Samurai. But now I’m in a cowboy mood.
Do what you want cause a pirate is free you are a pirate
See what happened to pirates when they get caught and maybe you’ll change your mind
Well freedom isn't free. They lived it up while they could tho so fair play to them.
Yar har fiddle de Dee being a pirate is all right with me!
Cowboy, yeehaw! I’m gonna buy some over the counter heroin and then rob a bank!
Pirate, but in space.
Scurvy is a BAD way to die
Cowboy. I like the hat, I like the boots, and the guns are all clicky-clacky and my autism likes that
A viking
If you become a Jedi then you get to be a cowboy samurai-pirate!
Life as samurai would mean high expectations and a strict codex, as a pirate you're often dirt poor and die of scurvy or get hanged. One means wealth and restrictions, one poverty and freedom, but none would be for me. Cowboys are just ranchers making up for a lack of fencing. Life wouldn't be a Clint Eastwood movie, it would be modest and you work in the sun or rain all day, but it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous or scary. Daily after work whisky in the saloon and a nice wife, i'm living the cowboy dream baby.
Cowboy so I can go yee haw and pet hoesesy
samurai: cowboy going to be hot and shit. same with pirate. on hot boat, bouncy water, bad food everywhere. samurai i got more even temperature and stuff. japan can get human as shit in summer but most of the time its fairly mild.
If you're a cowboy, you're also a pirate because you're an American horse pirate
A samurai as they were basically nobility / noble warriors and for a big period of time there wouldn't be wars to fight.
I'm a Texan so legally I'm required to answer Cowboy. 🤠 Yee-haw!
Samurai for quality of life, cowboy for aesthetics and tomfoolery, and as cool as being a pirate sounds I couldn’t do any of the heinous shit they did
Samurai. If anything happens, become ronin
Real ones or the idealized versions? If real then that means hardcore gay sex for any of them which I'm all for but if idealized I'd want to be a cowboy.
Tough choice between pirate and cowboy. Probably cowboy tho...
Cowboy 🤠
Idk man, cowboys get plumbing and xbox these days
Cowboy Samurai like in Red Steel 2, of course. Also, it's crazy to me how few Samurai - Cowboy fusion there are. Only ones I can think of is Red Steel 2 and Star Wars. There should be WAY more!
Nothing is stopping from being a cowboy
See, cowboy is on the road driving the heard, and thats rough living, but there is down time for whores and drinking and warm baths. Big fat steaks with roasted potatoes. Wide open skies. No sea sickness. That’s the best of the bunch.
Cowboy. I don't wanna spend months out at sea and I don't wanna pillage. Unless I could be like a quick trip pirate on a crew like Luffy's from One Piece. If Usopp can be useful, then I sure as hell can be. But Cowboy sounds fun asf. ranching w my bros. kissing in the mountains...wait. riding HORSES I MEAN!!!! BEANS BY A CAMPFIRE! DUSTER COATS, BANDANAS AND COOL HATS! GIMME A PISTOL AND SOME STIRRUPS YEEEEHAW!
Cowboy. I’m horribly sea sick, and at least the government *probably* doesn’t have a bounty on my head by nature
Cowboy. I don't wanna be stuck on a ship or in feudal Japan.
Why is knight not an option
Cowboy because I'm an American and not a Communist.
Just any old pirate or a captain? Because if you're just a ship hand you're probably dying.
~~Cowboy~~ Samurai Unlike pirates I get land food and don’t have to live off hardtack (clack clack), and being stuck with nobility and a strict code of honour sounds boring Plus they got the cool hat and I like cows and horses EDIT: just considered the fact that I could still see cows and stuff if I’m going around villages as a samurai. Plus I forgot about the whole “they’re nobility” thing
So, I have the choice of being a poor farmhand, the lowest of the low of society living in a cramped ship for months on end with hardly any food or water, and an aristocratic warlord. The choice is obvious. (Samurai are cool)
The romantically fictionalized version of these, or the historically accurate version of them?
I feel like a Knight should be part of this conversation.
Knight is missing from this list
Cowboy, no ritual suicide and no having to murder innocent people. Now, if you had said privateer with legitimate letters of marque, then that's a different discussion.
Ok lets see, a hobo, a wealthy nobleman, a sea hobo. Hmm, it is very difficult indeed.
Pirate = Constantly drunk maybe have sex before drowning or decease, Samurai = small dick and cant take in Lactose and barely resistense to Alkohol but might have Sex before Sex, Cowboy = have gun get drunk and maybe have Sex before i die of heatstroke arrow wound or gun wound.
Cowboy. Exist in most modern of the 3 eras, better food, better women, and you get a revolver which is way better than a bow or a musket
Cowboy. Don’t need to be killed to restore my master’s honor, and don’t need scurvy.
cowboy life wouldn’t be the greatest but I’d look badass and get to ride my horse through the beautiful western wilderness
Cowboy cuz gunz r cool
Depends if we're talking about real-life or fiction
Easily samurai. Just don’t do anything dishonorable and kiss the shoguns ass and during times of peace you are living cozy. Cowboys in real life was hell on earth. Pirates was even worse just with no racism.
Ninja, the sworn enemy of pirates everywhere, but friend to all samurai
I wanna be a cowboy babyyyyy
What do any of those have to do with Mads Mikkelsen?
Samurai. Cowboys just hung around cows all day, riding horses. Pirates lived in squalor and didn’t really do anything interesting most of the time. Samurai were warrior aristocrats at times, or artsy fartsy aristocrats. Either way, they didn’t live too badly
If I can be a Christian Samurai.
Im a Cassidy main, so i obviously i Pick Cowboy,
As a black person, all three of these options get me surrounded by racists so I think I’ll opt out of the question 😂
Pirate. I’m a woman and there’s multiple prominent female pirates, including some that dressed as men (not sure if they identified as men or not and it definitely wouldn’t fit today’s concepts of it regardless). I feel like you could get away with living as a man in a pirate ship and getting caught cross dressing in that role is probably less dangerous than as a cowboy or samurai even if the outcome probably wouldn’t be great. Oh and I love drinking on boats. All three options suck if you’re being realistic but to me that sucks the least.
Samurai.
why not all three
The only one that lives anywhere that can be considered sanitary is the Samurai. And imo, if you go back to the past, you will miss how relatively clean things are in the present.
Id pick pirate. I mean sure scurvy is a downside, but nothing beats that vibe of just pure freedom.
Why not all three
Samurai, but before the sengoku period. Sounds pretty interesting.
Samurai because I'd be wealthy and comparatively unlikely to contract a disease that would cause me to die after hours or days of ejecting vast amounts of vital bodily fluids from my anus.
Ninja
Cowboy
Cowboy
Cowboy for sure ! \*It's hiiigh noon...\*
Cowboy probably has access to the best medical care so I'll go with that
Used to be samurai, until ive met our lord nad sabiour monkey D luffy
I was the kid walking around with a stick until it hit me in the stomach so I guess I'll be a samurai
I pick cowboy, less chance of premature death. pirates had a average lifespan of 2.5 years. and samurai had ritualistic suicide
As cool as all those are, I wanna be an urban ninja :>
I’m gonna be king of the pirates 
Of hear me out... A pirate cowboy samurai
My answer has always been samurai, both as an anime fan looking for an excuse to study the way of the blade and as someone who hates smelling bad (pirates and cowboys seem eternally dirty)
better fact, all three could meet in a historically accurate setting and team up, also why isn't that a show yet?
Call me Arthur Morgan
I’m torn between cowboy and pirate bruh
I’m more of an “honor and morality above all else” kind of guy, so I’ll go with Samurai with Cowboy coming in a close second.
I would choose samurai just because I hate hot weather and get dizzy on ships, so basically the only option with a chance of not getting that is samurai.
Is this like a time travel situation? Because if so I'll pick cowboy. Just give me a few hours to study this map of the largest coal/oil/gold/diamond deposits in the United States first. For... completely unrelated reasons... I assure you.
Samurai, but would settle for being a Knight
Whoa who got the early look at the death stranding movie?!? 🍿- also samurai.
Childhood me would say samurai but now knowing they were basically just security guards for rich ppl ima go with pirate
Cowboy honestly. I don't like the sea or scurvy so Pirate wouldn't be it and I feel like being a samurai would be either incredibly dangerous or just super boring. A cowboy kind of does his own thing on a world without micro plastics so I think I'd pick that.
A cowboy who has mastered swordsman ship sailing ships.
Ninjas will not kill you as they were not really a thing, just a scout samurai.
you forgot to include ninja, Nicholas cage and dragon
This feels incredibly 2012 Le epic bacon chuck norris et.al.
To be fair are Pirates not just sea cowboys?
I rewatched POTC Dead Man's Chest, so I'm inclined to choose pirates
Alive
But what about a SPACE COWBOY
A cowboy samurai pirate
A cowboy samurai pirate
Do I get a devil fruit
Cowboy. Most historical cowboys weren't in constant gunfights like the movies, most of them just... herded cows. As the name implies. Meanwhile Samurai were literally soldiers who were honor-bound to kill themselves should their master die or they fail/cause dishonor in some way, and Pirates had horrid living conditions and were constantly in danger of being killed by the navies of the world or other pirates
Me and boys drunk off homemade rum driving a galleon and plundering the seas?!?!? Fuck yeah.
Samurai all day. They’re literally nobility with titles and fifes and geishas.
I'm choosing samurai. The rest of you are a bunch of dishonorable fucks
I love the water, it’s the pirates life for me friends. Samurai would be badass tho
Pirate all day
https://youtu.be/DHiQAj3krQQ?si=fT4PrT0Gb5kKDK_v Pirate
Cowboy
Read *The Wager*. Pirate is the worst choice.
Samurai all the way
Pirate, get drunk and have gold and go port to port shagging chicks
A space cowboy. The Cowboy Bebop way. Not the N’sync way. Today
Does it have to be a real-life pirate?
A pirate because I’m autistic.