Episode 681 - Swords and armour
Apr 1, 2024
Today we're talking about swords and armour, the reality of those things and their use in fiction. I've always had a bit of an interest in swords since I was a little kid because I loved them in fairy-tales, comics and fantasy: The Three musketeers, puss in boots, Zorro, the Narnia books, Robin Hood, Errol Flynn movies, King Arthur, Conan, Asterix and more. Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Topics and Show Notes
I only started seriously collecting them as an adult though when I needed the correct costume sabre to go with the hussar uniform I put together. I started with replicas and very quickly moved to buying expensive antiques. So I have a collection of real military sabres now, some over 200 years old and i've learned a lot about swords in general in the mean time.
A sword is a long piece of sharp metal with a handle at one end, it's ancient technology that's been constantly updated over the centuries. Most cultures developed their own versions, starting with bronze and then moving to steel. Swords are heavily symbolic of power, royalty, command, control, action, chivalry, and nobility.
There are many sword myths: A popular modern internet myth is to say swords were always “secondary weapons” or “side arms” in history while pole-arms with the “primary” weapon. Which is a silly simplification, the use and importance of the sword was always context based, they were “primary” weapons in many instances and situations; on the battlefield by Roman legionaries, by Hungarian hussars, Landsknechts and their giant swords, sailors and their cutlasses, by any solder who fought in a confined space, and the sword was the main civilian weapon for centuries.
Another silly myth is that Japanese katana swords were the best, lightest, sharpest, most sophisticated swords, of course none of that is true. Swords are much the same the world over with none being really better than any other, they're just better for their own particular geographical, cultural and historical contexts. “Folding” the steel in a katana is just a clever yet primitive solution to reducing the concentration of impurities in the metal, there are other, easier, better ways to do that but that method stuck because it became a tradition. And no, “European” swords were not heavier, clumsier or blunter.
Then there's the modern myth of swords being worn on the back for use, which was never done in history because any sword the size of your arm or longer is impossible to draw from the back, unless you do weird things. Swords with worn on the hip, waist, or carried on a horse generally. it looks cool but it's useless.
Another myth is that the straight swords that knights used were called “broadswords”. That term came about much later when skinny swords like rapiers, smallswords, and spadroons were popular It was a way of differentiating swords that were a bit wider than the more popular thin swords, and they usually had basket hilts.
I could nerd out much deeper and talk about pattern welding, Ulfbert swords, crucible steel, Damascus swords, tempering, differential hardening, tangs, grips, guards, rapiers, sideswords, pala, Kilij, small swords etc, but I won't! What is your favourite sword or favourite swordsperson? My fave has to be Nothung, the sword of Beowulf, just because it has such a cool name. And my fave swordsperson has to be Inigo Montoya
This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by Soulmates by SirMollington - A contemplative, dreamy, floaty, trip through clouds of muted colour, in a world of quiet stasis against a slow, jazzy background.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Sandra's Day - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/mar/26/featured-comic-soulmates-by-sirmollington/
Featured music:
Soulmates by SirMollington - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Soulmates_by_SirMollington/ - by Sir_Mollington, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 600 - AI is bad at art
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here's a lot of buzz about so called AI generated art at the moment using programs like Dall-E, Neural blender, Dream studio lite and so on. People use text prompts, i.e. “flying clockwork fish balloon” and the AI generates “art” based upon that. It usually does this by using actual art and photography created by real people, and visually mixing them to create a new image. Some results are much better than others.
Episode 571 - Myths of fiction
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There are so many really silly cliché myths from fiction that we all just tend to accept. They're objectively stupid but they get repeated so often that we don't bat an eye when we see them and we can even start to believe them in reality. I thought it'd be fun to dig into them in a Quackcast. I made a thread in the forum for people to contribute to. Unfortunately we didn't get to many in the Quackcast but there's always time to do another!
Episode 423 - Fave weapons in fiction?
Apr 22, 2019
What's your favourite weapon in fiction? Mine are ridiculously giant swords, huge anti-tank rifles, and mecha. There are a lot of complex reasons for weapon choices in fiction, a Kalashnikov assault rifles for example signals certain things about the person carrying it: They're usually a bad guy for a start. This originated during the cold war, with certain types of bad guys using AKs. First it was Soviet Bloc soldiers, then it was Viet Con and rebels from South East Asia, then it became the “terrorist” weapon. The sub machine gun is the weapon of the bad guy. Terrorists used to use Uzis (before they turned to AKs), bank robbers used to use Mac 10s, now it's the HK MP5. Good guys carry an M-16 or AR-15 rifle. In historical fiction traditionally the bad guys carries curved swords while the good guys had straight swords, this came from crusades. Minor characters carry spears and heroes carry swords. Women, weaker characters and rebels carry bows. Giant swords and guns are often given to smaller characters in anime (usually female), as an obvious contrast with their small size. It's meant to emphasis the fact they're sort of a “mighty mouse”.
Episode 256 - Using and creating weapons in fiction
Feb 1, 2016
Tantz Aerine, Banes and Ozoneocean discuss the topic of using and creating weapons in fiction and some of the pitfalls involved- all the things you can easily do wrong and do better! Stuff like using overly specialised weapons in too general a role, like giant swords where they'd be next to useless, or tricked out assault rifles with way too many things hooked onto them so they're oversized and weight a ton- also copying ideas and tropes about weapons usage without understanding why the exist and in the process making many of the same mistakes as others have in the past.
