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Boogaleeboo posted:It was popular because it's something you can throw by your hip and still wear clothes while walking about. It's more popular as a personal weapon, not a weapon of war, and it's popular for reasons that don't include "Superiority at killing folks". You walk around with a loaded crossbow, people tend to think of you as an rear end in a top hat and throw you in jail at best. Or in the case of the samurai, as a status symbol of how much better you were than poors. You throw a sword at your side under a cloak, people are less likely to give you poo poo. To generalize a larger issue. No, the longsword was actually quite good at killing folks. It's got a long edge that produces really nasty wounds with minimal effort on unarmored targets, a tip that can pierce chainmail, and it's very user-friendly. Your problem is that you are confusing weapons with battlefield tactics. The longsword is a fine weapon and you'd be happy to go up against 99.9% of opponents with a steel longsword. You wouldn't be wishing for a crossbow or a mace or whatever. But people don't intend to use longswords on the battlefield because they're expensive and other weapons like pikes or bows leverage large formations of men better. I mean, technically the general doesn't even really need a weapon since the best way to leverage him is to have him at hollering distance giving orders. And you identify this as a problem with the longsword, and call them ceremonial dueling weapons, because basically you're an idiot. However a lot of those people, including the general, are still carrying longswords or arming swords, just in case they do end up in a fight and need the best weapon they can reasonably carry around. Because the longsword is superior at killing folks. A crossbow is a good weapon in formation, but its awful in close quarters. You might think a longbow is better, but it's actually not an easy weapon to use well. A mace or hammer? Don't joke, you're not likely to be face to face with a 15th century German knight and a longsword is better at killing everybody except the very heavily armored. A spear or especially pike again gets its value from being used en masse; it's not superior to a longsword as a killing instrument on its own. In fact a battlefield pike those supremely "useful" weapons are a bunch of useless 16 foot poles outside of close formation. So to sum up: no, the longsword was not popular for 1000 years because it was convenient and looked nice but wasn't good at killing people. It was great at killing people. It was the best money could buy in terms of killing people. It just wasn't as suited for mass formations on battlefield as other weapons like the pike or crossbow which were cheap and suited for formation tactics while they individually did not compare favorably to a sword. It's a question of tactics and logistics, not of weapons technology, and you've confused an excellent weapon for a bad one because you're confused about what is a tactic and what's a weapon. Again, you could make the same specious argument about handguns and howitzers, and come to the same conclusion that handguns are useless ceremonial weapons and really what you'd want against a 21st century opponent is a howitzer. Which when you stop to reflect on what situations the average person is likely to encounter should strike you as a stupid loving conclusion. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 20:18 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 20:12
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The longsword was actually not just a sidearm. It wouldn't be unusual to see both French and English knights on foot use it as their primary weapon during the Hundred Years War, for example.Sydin posted:All this taught me was that, if you have to fight dudes in plate with a sword, the best way is to just treat your sword like short spear and stick em' with the pointy end. Which begs the question why anybody would bother to carry an expensive sword around in the era of plate mail when a much cheaper spear would be miles more effective. Or they could grip the blade and smash them on the head with the pommel/guard, in what's charmingly known as a murder strike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e0xr-aZJos tooterfish fucked around with this message at 20:18 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 20:16
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In Mount and Blade I used a morningstar as a 1 hand weapon and 2 handweapon. It was great for killing everyone including armor havers. You are wrong sir.
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May 20, 2015 20:19
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whoflungpoop posted:Northmen fight like this *stabs brutally* Let's talk about marital rape.
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May 20, 2015 20:24
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I miss Halfthor.
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May 20, 2015 20:26
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Can we at least all agree that a whip is the dumbest weapon to use in a street fight
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May 20, 2015 20:28
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Fighting half naked while dual-wielding daggers is the superior fighting strategy, as Ramsay and Dark Souls has taught us.
RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 20:45 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 20:34
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Can we at least all agree that a whip is the dumbest weapon to use in a street fight In addition to this, it doesn't look cool despite what some people may think.
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May 20, 2015 20:40
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Fight Club Sandwich posted:Longsword is ok for the first hour or so of the game but you should really get a zweihander or drake sword to clear the manserpents in sen's fortress This sounds cool, if you just made it up make it up more.
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May 20, 2015 20:41
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Arglebargle III posted:Let's talk about marital rape.
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May 20, 2015 20:46
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I'm so sorry.  I didn't mean to bring the medieval spergs in, let's just go back to rapechat.
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May 20, 2015 20:58
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Sydin posted:I'm so sorry. To be fair that just flairs up a different aspect of being a medieval sperg.
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May 20, 2015 21:01
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whoflungpoop posted:I didn't mind when it was Drogo or Jaime but these butt ugly rapists need to go The mountain is pretty cute, in my opinion.
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May 20, 2015 21:03
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The mountain is, at least the new version. But would you let the Hound take you?
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May 20, 2015 21:21
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This is the first episode where I felt that the writers were treating their audience like idiots.
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May 20, 2015 21:34
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The Bad Show.
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May 20, 2015 21:44
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So, warhammers aren't effective? How does the situation change if it's a runeword maul and I'm dual-casting Fury and Feral Rage to compound damage and increase attack speed? Would that have worked better during the Hundred Years War?
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May 20, 2015 21:51
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Robert Baratheon's weapon of choice was the warhammer, if that helps. Since he came from the Stormlands he must have also slotted a Lightning Gem, which gives bonus attack against dragons.
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May 20, 2015 21:53
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https://us.beamly.com/tv-news/2015/...grrmeditoranger Editor not happy with changes. She's in for more pain, I bet.
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May 20, 2015 22:16
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Xealot posted:So, warhammers aren't effective? How does the situation change if it's a runeword maul and I'm dual-casting Fury and Feral Rage to compound damage and increase attack speed? 
tooterfish fucked around with this message at 22:25 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 22:21
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cjg posted:https://us.beamly.com/tv-news/2015/...grrmeditoranger She's not a very good editor going by the state of the books so who gives a poo poo what she thinks  "Read the books if you want to know the story the way the author intended it" - gently caress off. I guess she is not aware that GURM is involved with the TV show? Guess she's another "source material should be filmed as written" puritan with no clue that what works in a novel doesn't always translate well to screen.
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May 20, 2015 22:25
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Maybe if the books didn't take so drat long to come out they could have stayed more true to them. When you run out of material and you're not sure where storylines go, you have to be a little creative.
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May 20, 2015 22:32
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marktheando posted:I don't particularly want to watch a GoT fight scene that's two dudes in plate wrestling around in the mud trying to slip knives into the gaps in each others armour, no matter how realistic it is. I would find it amusing to have 2 notable characters in full armor (with a proper helmet) having a season ending showdown with whole armies watching on, only to realize 5 minutes into the duel they absolutely can not harm eachother no matter what they do and the whole thing is an awkward letdown to everyone involved. Maybe Stannis and Brienne duel! Pod makes for a great awkward onlooker. I dont know what happened to Briennes helmet though, she had a good one during her introduction fight.
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May 20, 2015 22:32
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cjg posted:https://us.beamly.com/tv-news/2015/...grrmeditoranger
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May 20, 2015 22:35
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cjg posted:https://us.beamly.com/tv-news/2015/...grrmeditoranger I, the book editor of these books, am of the unbiased opinion that the books are better Different media, you say? Extremely different ways of conveying emotion and information, you say?
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May 20, 2015 22:55
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cjg posted:https://us.beamly.com/tv-news/2015/...grrmeditoranger Like putting your name on toilet paper and then complaining when people use it to wipe they rear end
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May 20, 2015 23:16
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Maybe if GRRM had someone who would push him to meet deadlines when releasing his books, the book series would be finished by now and the show wouldn't have to deviate quite so much. Too bad such a role simply doesn't exist.
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May 20, 2015 23:26
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Mr Beens posted:She's not a very good editor going by the state of the books so who gives a poo poo what she thinks The fact he's given his blessing to the changes loudly and vocally, over and over again, makes this seem really silly. We're sure as hell not in an Alan Moore situation here. The man is absolutely happy to let HBO have their take on things. Also, since Lora's book version fate has been spoiled repeatedly everywhere (I won't be repeating it), I will say.. I actually prefer what they're doing with the TV version. I have a feeling he may not survive this, or be injured in this way, but if he's injured or killed for these reasons, it's far more appalling, tragic, and honestly probably has something more to say. And despite her bitching about Loras being treated badly on the show, I've always held him as in the top 7 straight up sword fighters we've seen (which included the likes of Brienne, Arglebargle III posted:So to sum up: no, the longsword was not popular for 1000 years because it was convenient and looked nice but wasn't good at killing people. It was great at killing people. It was the best money could buy in terms of killing people. It just wasn't as suited for mass formations on battlefield as other weapons like the pike or crossbow which were cheap and suited for formation tactics while they individually did not compare favorably to a sword. It's a question of tactics and logistics, not of weapons technology, and you've confused an excellent weapon for a bad one because you're confused about what is a tactic and what's a weapon. The Longsword was very good, there's a reason it's remembered well. I've always loved the Falcata when it comes to swords, though, because it ups the user-friendly thing and it also has some nice bashing heft against heavy armor. A sword you could make and distribute to farmers with minimal training, and still get results with. I'm guessing it might be a bit dated by the era of tech Game of Thrones has in general, though. I'm not really sure how popular it remained in the middle ages. It utterly wrecked Roman legionaries, though. Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 00:02 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 23:56
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Arglebargle III posted:So to sum up: no, the longsword was not popular for 1000 years because it was convenient and looked nice but wasn't good at killing people. It was great at killing people. It was the best money could buy in terms of killing people. It just wasn't as suited for mass formations on battlefield as other weapons like the pike or crossbow which were cheap and suited for formation tactics while they individually did not compare favorably to a sword. It's a question of tactics and logistics, not of weapons technology, and you've confused an excellent weapon for a bad one because you're confused about what is a tactic and what's a weapon. Yeah. Longswords were really really good weapons, also they were brutally effective weapons for cavalry in some form or another for basically the entire history of warfare till the invention of the machine gun and the disappearance of horse mounted fighters as an arm of most militaries. Both of these things, horse and sword, were generally super expensive so a better army would probably be the guys that could arm the most reasonably trained or battle hardened levy spearmen or pike men or whatever but that doesn't mean that long swords weren't extremely useful and valuable beyond their marking of status.
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May 21, 2015 00:31
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Swords have transcended realism because of how iconic they are. Put a sword in any character's hand and it defines them. How heavy they make it look, how they move with it, if they lean on it. Oh god, he's fighting with it still in the scabbard, how skilled he must be! Few people care that spear and pikes and stuff were the real rockstars of warfare.
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May 21, 2015 01:20
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BlackJosh posted:Yeah. Longswords were really really good weapons, also they were brutally effective weapons for cavalry in some form or another for basically the entire history of warfare till the invention of the machine gun and the disappearance of horse mounted fighters as an arm of most militaries. Both of these things, horse and sword, were generally super expensive so a better army would probably be the guys that could arm the most reasonably trained or battle hardened levy spearmen or pike men or whatever but that doesn't mean that long swords weren't extremely useful and valuable beyond their marking of status. Cavalry pretty much always favoured lances and one handed swords. In the early middle ages it'd be what we now call an arming or knightly sword (although they'd just call it a "sword"), later on it'd be some form of backsword or sabre. You're right though, cavalry with sword was a staple of battlefields well into the gunpowder age, and even as late as the early 20th century.
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May 21, 2015 02:17
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BlackJosh posted:Longswords were really really good weapons, also they were brutally effective weapons for cavalry in some form or another for basically the entire history of warfare till the invention of the machine gun and the disappearance of horse mounted fighters as an arm of most militaries. I've been letting a lot of this go because nobody needs 400 pages of mil-sperg bullshit from before the dawn of proper oral hygiene and the ability to conceive that women might be sentient.....but gently caress it, I have seven minutes to kill and I type fast. And anyone in this thread deserves to suffer. The longsword is a specific thing that existed for about a scant few centuries, and even if we go with some generalized "really big loving sword" we aren't looking at anything near the entire history of warfare [The Romans did quite well with something that for most periods was a jumped up dagger, and by no stretch of the imagination could be called a longsword]. Perhaps....oh, 5,000 years of total existence for the sword *maybe*, of which it was meaningful for....2? We are talking about the aforementioned jumped up daggers for a few thousand of that also, and I'd really only give the 'big sword' a thousand years tops. Otherwise you have something like a saber-ish thing for a lot of it, which is certainly a sword but...eh. It's a different beast. You might as well call a glaive a sword at that point, because it's kind of like a sword with a very long handle! And the fact it was pointless is why the longsword changed. It's not great on the ground in formation, it's not great on horseback, it has niche uses in specific situations, but it's rarely going to be anyone's first choice for anything. So it went away and other things took it's place. Mostly the saber and the firearm. People close on the dudes with firearms, the guys with pikes poke the poo poo out of them, war over. You want dudes on fast horses to ride folk down, you give them a saber and let them hack away at peasant scum if you don't want them to just use a pole arm. The pole weapon [To simplify the wide range of weapons that take that basic concept of "Stick with deadly poo poo at the end"] is something so functionally perfect even when we had rifles we thought "Why don't we put a blade on the end of that to make it more spear-like?", and it's still getting kills in Iraq. It's been used for the better part of 400,000 years. And no, I didn't add some zeroes there. Perhaps 5, but at that point we are talking about a time so far back any evidence surviving becomes so unlikely as to make it a miracle we get anything usable. And they aren't restricted to humans, either. Chimpanzees have been shown to use them. Orangutans spear fish. That poo poo is primal. The longsword is not useless, it's not terrible, it's not even bad, it's just incredibly niche in a way the spear never, literally never, was. It is perhaps the most universal weapon in organized warfare the world over, and it's been the backbone of the majority of armed forces before the gun became cool. The mythology of the sword inflates it's importance where the stark reality of combat doesn't bear it out. Related to that, it also has the benefit of being the implement of war people were most likely to see in many cultures. They might hunt with a spear or a bow, but a sword? A sword kills people. That's it, that's all it does. Even if a spear or bow [Or a dagger, another unsung hero of warfare] is a variant that clearly only exists to make human beings no longer alive, it's just not the same. There's something about a weapon that from beginning to end only exists to take a human life. The fact that it's also the implement of war most likely to be carried outside war? That only inflates it's allure. Someone with a spear or a bow may just be looking for dinner. Someone with a sword is announcing their willingness to take a human life. Hence dueling cultures the world over, and it's mythology. Death is sexy, and swords say death in a way that the more common implements of war just...didn't, and don't. That's why even though the sword [And melee combat in general] was basically well on the way out by....oh, lets call it the late 16th century, it still stuck in the mind for centuries after. Around the time of Le Morte d'Arthur the firearm had started to make it's move the world over and that was that. Wouldn't take long for everyone to take one look at that and start redefining warfare, but the idea and excitement of the swordsman was just too cool. It's why most people think of the Three Musketeers as swashbuckling duelists, and not some dudes with guns that shot people in the face. Or why Seven Samurai is the story of some cool dudes with big personalities and swords, and not a bunch of guys with tanegashima shooting bandit scum while laughing over drinks. The sword is sexy, the gun in many ways just...doesn't match. Not even today, in the era of infinite gun porn and explosions, have we managed to shake the sword. There's just something about it.  TL:DR: The sword is a metaphor for your penis, and you aren't going to pretend your penis is unimportant. But it is. Nobody cares about your penis.
Mulva fucked around with this message at 02:20 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 02:17
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Blazing Ownager posted:And despite her bitching about Loras being treated badly on the show, I've always held him as in the top 7 straight up sword fighters we've seen (which included the likes of Brienne, Excluding Daario because he's done little but including Loras doesn't really make sense. Daario's fought far more recently than Loras (did we ever see Loras fight outside a tourney?) Also, if you include people who are no longer able in the list, Jaime should be there, what with that being his whole thing (it was even brought up last episode) And two of those people are not really sword fighters
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May 21, 2015 02:20
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Loras fought at the Blackwater.
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May 21, 2015 02:23
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Boog I want to say this, it seems like most of your argument is talking about swords failing as warfare weapons and not being used because - when you have an army, when you're talking troops or whatever, you want spears and bows and etc. And that's true. But if you're talking - not just formal duels, but 1v1 fights, not warfare, but just...fights, a sword seems like a versatile weapon you'd want, and easier to carry around. Like, you're not planning fights, but just say...you're just walking around a city and maybe you'll get in a fight at a bar or just in the street, you don't know - that kind of setting seems like a place where a sword is what you'd want, not a spear. And really, a lot of fiction is focused on characters, and so these more small scale fights are focused on, which is also a reason swords show up more. We don't want to see armies of soldiers fighting, we want to see, say, Jamie vs. Ned. All these more personal fights are then better suited to swords, because they aren't warfare. You're also not likely to be walking in a full suit of armor, nor is anyone else, when you're just talking street level fights.
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May 21, 2015 02:31
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I would love to read a long-post about the historical use of whips in combat. Seriously, I want to give the Sand Snakes some benefit of the doubt but that poo poo makes no sense
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May 21, 2015 02:39
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Aristobulus posted:Boog I want to say this, it seems like most of your argument is talking about swords failing as warfare weapons and not being used because - when you have an army, when you're talking troops or whatever, you want spears and bows and etc. Swords were incredibly expensive to own. If you owned or were trained with a sword, then you were probably a career soldier or knight or whatever. I don't think people took their swords around with them to get a drink at the ol' pub. Street poo poo between common people was probably settled with simple little daggers and clubs and poo poo.
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May 21, 2015 02:46
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Aristobulus posted:But if you're talking - not just formal duels, but 1v1 fights, not warfare, but just...fights, a sword seems like a versatile weapon you'd want, and easier to carry around. No and yes. It's just easier to carry around. That's it. You'd have guys like George Silver talking as far back as 1599 and Paradoxes of Defence how the true weapons of defense were short swords [Which again, is something from "Yeah that's clearly a sword" to "Kind of fat dagger"], short staves, the half pike, poo poo like that, and not long swords, long rapiers, or poniards. Not just warfare, but defense. How the weapon that is superior in single combat with another was a short staff or a bill [Another of the endless variations of 'Stick with deadly thing at the end]. It's by no means an uncommon scholarly opinion even back then and earlier. It's just that nobody is going to walk around with a polearm all day, although some might have a 'walking stick' that is more interested in walking the full length up your rear end. That's it, that is literally the single greatest strength of the side arm. It's something you actually *would* wear socially at your side more often. In all other senses, if you knew you were going to kill a man and weren't tied up in machismo dick worship, you wouldn't go with a longsword or indeed any long sword. Their strengths aren't really something that lend themselves to random combat on the road or in a city. That's more the domain of something like a short sword or a dagger. Small, sharp, little bit of heft, something you can jam in a person real fast without any complications and very little training. The fact that thousands died in longer sword duels is pure culture, not anything to do with practicality. quote:You're also not likely to be walking in a full suit of armor, nor is anyone else, when you're just talking street level fights. Which is conversely one of the few reasons to bother with a longsword over a short sword or dagger. If you aren't fighting someone in any type of armor, why would you bother with a longer sword at all? Sword fighting between dudes is mostly bullshit as far as practicality goes, it's largely just wouldn't this make a cooler story? By which I don't just mean in actual fiction, I mean the reason it happened in real life. You carry a sword to attack people in your day to day life because you want to be the type of person that carries a sword to attack people in your day to day life, not because you actually care about defending yourself in the best manner possible. You want to see someone having an epic duel, not tripping someone to the ground and stabbing them 15 times in the dick with a knife. Even though actual books of medieval tactics include such moves as "Trip this guy and stab him in the dick 15 times" or "Throw rocks in his face, stab him in the dick 15 times" or "Stab yourself in the dick 15 times to horrify the enemy, stab him in the dick 15 times when he gets distracted". There's no level on which the image of sword based combat pretty much any of you had was practical or common, which is why it went away before the pike did. It was largely affectation, be it in the western European chivalric tradition or in the Eastern tradition of the samurai. Even Musashi used what is effectively a big stick in his most famous duel to bash to death a man who wielded a two handed sword at a master level. Man was no fool.
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May 21, 2015 03:22
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Hahahahahaha. Do not worry picture of an adorable kitten, I didn't let you fool me.
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May 21, 2015 03:26
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The red name I had before this was gotten arguing the political merits of the trial of Galileo over the religious implications. This poo poo hits right in my strike zone.
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May 21, 2015 03:28
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