A word or two about monks samurais and knights

[Sir Kenyth]

Very good argument Avatar, and quite true. Their weapons, armor and technique were engineered on their individual and unique societies. The variables include everything from what the average enemy fought with, what materials were available in what quantities, and not least tradition. My original post was not meant to bring the sword saints down, but to bring the european knight up. It seems as if the knight is being portrayed as a lumbering dufus with an IQ of 35. European weapons are being portrayed as cheap iron crowbars with a hilt. The armor as weighing 150 lbs and rendering the knight all but immobile. This is simply not true. Conversely, samurai and asian martial artists are being portrayed as superhuman and undefeatable. The katana is portrayed as a veritible "light sabre", carving through anything and everything in sight. Don't think that I don't appreciate a fine katana. I once held a $1600 custom katana made by a japanese master craftsman. It belonged to a buddy of mine who owned a blade shop. Strong, light, agile, and sharp. A beautiful blade. The only reason it was so cheap is that it was relatively simple and unadorned. It was still made of tempered carbon steel. It was no more capable of cutting something than another blade of equal quality. Europe had equally fine smithies. I blame the media for these misperceptions. For years they have embellished the samurai, monk, and ninja. Made them out to be borderline superheroes. Able to run up walls and jump eight feet in the air. Historical accuracy doesn't sell movies, games and merchandise you know. People also tend to balk when someone tries to humanize their favorite fantasy hero.

[Terence The Unspecial]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: People also tend to balk when someone tries to humanize their favorite fantasy hero.

This is really the crux of the issue. And there's nothing to be done about it.

Also you'll find that we run into this problem every time someone brings the issue of "realism" to a discussion of a fantasy game that is, at its basis, almost always totally unrealistic. I mean

Realism isn't always fun, and fun isn't always realistic. Just ask a soldier who also plays military games or sims.

[Sir Kenyth]

True enough. Maybe I'm in the wrong place for a discussion like this. Beleive it or not, the historical and informational based forums have problems like this too. The sword discussion forums get all kinds of questions about stuff like, "How realistic is the final fantasy sword?", "The katanas are folded 1000 times and thats why they can cut through a regular broad sword!". I don't classify stuff like this as stupid, only ignorant, and ignorance is easily curable by research. Everyone's ignorant about things. There's no way you can know everything about everything. The danger comes when you start to take rumor, myth and legend for the truth without reading up and learning first. That's the ONLY bad thing about fantasy, when you start to think it's the truth. I'll bet I got a lot of folks a bit more interested in the historical aspect of stuff like this though. Maybe you learned something. I know I learned a couple things. I won't take them for gods truth until I check them out a bit more, but I learned something. How about all of you?

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The true secret to happiness is not having what you want, it's wanting what you have!

[This message has been edited by Sir Kenyth (edited 09-06-2001).]

[floyd]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: So what you're saying is Roy Jones Jr. can whup someone way outside his weight class? Should we ask him that? If he's already a heavyweight, then you prove my point further by acknowledging that heavyweights can be fast and smart too.

Roy Jones is light heavyweight (170 pounds I think), and came up from middleweight. I would definately bet on Roy in any fight against even 200+ lbs fighters. My point was that handspeed can power. You don't necessarily have to be very large to exert great force into a blow.

[Sir Kenyth]

That's true, but the larger you are, the more power you can potentially put into a blow than if you were smaller. The larger you are, the more beating you can take also. Size and strength aren't everything, but they are the primary factor when it comes to fighting.

I think this thread is flickering out anyhow, probably for the best.