Unsung Knight by LeBeauviolette
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A rare example of a specialized armored fighting sword with a blunted section of blade,
OaL: 53.3 in/135.5 cm
Width: 10.9 in/27.8 cm
Depth: 1.8 in/4.5 cm
Weight: 5.6 lbs/2.6 kg
Germany, ca. 1520, housed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
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Historical fencing treatise diagrams that look like they're from some kind of wizard manual out of context
The Flower of Battle, Fiore dei Liberi
Trattato di Scientia d'Arme, con vn Dialogo di Filosofia, Camillo Agrippa
Academie de l'Espée, Gérard Thibault d'Anvers
Academie de l'Espée, Gérard Thibault d'Anvers
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I think there’s a pretty good argument to be made that Gideon Nav’s weapon of choice isn’t a longsword, but something bigger, more comparable to a zweihander or a montante.
Like yes, of course Gideon uses a longsword because we as a fandom have a special place in our hearts for longsword and there’s probably Word of God from Tamsyn about it, but if we look at the text *archaeologically* how is this weapon actually described?
Getting this out of the way: it’s called a two-hander (literally English for zweihander) as often as a longsword but I don’t think that says much on its own. Neither are technical terms (“longsword,” historically, has been used to describe many weapons including, ironically, rapiers) and “two-hander” is pretty descriptive of what we think of as a longsword. Another potential fallacy that won’t help us is how everyone seems to regard Gideon’s “longsword” as a brute’s weapon with little finesse behind it. This isn’t true of longsword, but it *does* ring true for a take from snotty rapier people, and this series has an astonishing number of those in it.
Rather, I think the best argument is found in how we’re told these weapons are used. We never get to see Cohort swordsmen in action but they sound more like zweihander-wielding doppelsoldners than fighters practicing blossfechten or harnischfecten. Front line shock troops widely regarded as insane (at least by normal, non-House people), the Cohort's swordfighters seem to trained to take on large numbers of enemies at once and—critically—they don’t seem to fight *other people with swords.* Blood of Eden doesn’t use swords and there are no references to other anti-House resistance movements using them. So what makes the most sense here? Longsword, a surprisingly technical weapon most often used to fight other people with longswords? Or the whirling battle dance of the montante, designed to shock and terrify and cleave through whole units at once? I know which of these fighting styles I’d want to use against a giant bone construct.
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A couple weeks ago my HEMA instructor referred to inviting someone to attack you as a "pickup line" and the first thing that came to my mind was
"Hey baby," *performs a mediaeval longsword technique, killing you instantly*
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Another one for the HEMA folks, or SCA or LARP or other collections of capital letters! It is available here if you are inclined to wear clothes or stick things on other things
If my clubmates would stop saying banger things like this I would be able to stop drawing piles of weapons and twisty banners. But for now it's a pretty fun challenge for my art so I'll allow it
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The Message by Roman Kupriianov
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Dark Crusader, by Naka_de_Slaka
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For my fellow full-force knuckledraggers, Locked Tomb is popular enough in HEMA that, "Keep fighting like Naberius Tern then," has a decent chance at shutting up a condescending lightest-touch coward, or at least making them mad in a very funny way.
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