IJBMer Updates

Super Lazuli

'k.

Nova

You know, you can always just not reply if all you have to say is a condescending or dismissive remark. (Which probably sounds hypocritical coming from me...)

Anyway, upped my longpost score. Waiting to see how long Alex's next post is so I know what to beat, and... it's nearly sunrise, should prolly be in bed soon.

Super Lazuli

'k = I have read your post but have no particular comment on it.

Sorry. I don't like to not reply at all, nor do I like to outright state that "I read your post but have no comment on it" because to me that sounds dismissive.

lrdgck

Alex, who would be real life medieval equivalent to a fantasy wizard? University scholar, a monk? Now, were they subject to institutional martial arts training? I'd also expect people of the period to be chronically underfed, or some shit like that, even if they get much exercise.

dammit, I'm arguing with Alex

why

I know it's pointless

MadassAlex

That may be true for, say, farmers, or shopkeepers. I doubt it's true in most universities, or colleges, or Guilds, or whatever the hell the particular book in question calls its institute of magic, where there are servants to do the heavy lifting, and mages spend most of their lives studying.

Even then, there's no effortless or low-effort means of transport, and scribing by parchment and ink is very taxing work. There's also the fact that under medieval social norms, intellectual or physical excellent would be considered incomplete without the other to back it up, even amongst academics. 

Given that we're talking about mages learning or not learning weapon skills in fantasy settings, I think it's entirely valid to bring up fantasy inventions and conventions, as they are what are used in fantasy settings.

Yes, but a fantasy convention is subjective or its particular works unless widespread enough to be near universal, like elves or damsels in distress. Being attacked for merely having a weapon is mostly alien to medieval society and is otherwise a part of some fantasy works and not others, which is why I considered it a point worth debating. 

I don't want to impose my views on "conceptual canon" on anyone else here, but here's my views on how this goes, and I think they're pretty reasonable:

• Anything from real medieval society can be considered an entirely appropriate fantasy "convention", despite not being one, given that the vast majority of fantasy is at least quasi-medieval. Medieval history at least provides a superficial basis for these stories.


• Anything very widespread within fantasy fiction is something I consider to have an equal standing as a narrative convention. Whereas the point above is about a narrative "foundation", this one is about what is commonly observable. The standard set of fantasy races, certain means of casting spells and so on are the kinds of things that would exist under this heading.


• With less precedence come the things you are somewhat likely to find in fantasy stories or settings, but can still be observed through multiple works in different settings by different authors. Medieval fantasy firearms are a good example of this if they're more advanced than real medieval firearms were. 


• Even less important are the conventions that do appear in multiple works, but are scarcely spread amongst authors and settings, not appearing often at all. If it weren't for historical precedence, the idea of knightly chivalry would probably fall into this category, as it's ignored by a huge amount of medieval fantasy. 


• Stuff that's in one fantasy book or setting. 


• Stuff that isn't, in fact, in fantasy. 

I'm restraining myself from making a longpost about all the settings that actually do have their magic users learn how to use weapons and how it affects their narrative.

No need to restrain yourself. Have at us. 

Alex, who would be real life medieval equivalent to a fantasy wizard? University scholar, a monk? Now, were they subject to institutional martial arts training? I'd also expect people of the period to be chronically underfed, or some shit like that, even if they get much exercise.

Even peasants were typically well-fed, ignoring incidents of significant drought or other weather conditions that could ruin the crop. 

I guess the real life equivalent to a fantasy wizard is a real life medieval swordsman? Seriously. Training with a weapon is only half of it; the rest is study of the fundamental principles and rules of weapons -- that is, theory. And the most important "stat" for a swordsman is intelligence, since geometric law defends you better than speed or strength. So you might be aging, slower and weaker than you once were... but better than ever before at the use of weapons because of your advanced understanding of how physical objects interact in a geometric sense.

Plus, if you look at the Codex Doebringer, arguably the first written example of the Liechtenauer combat tradition, you'll find instructions for alchemy, magic spells, and dental care as well as the requisite sword, spear, dagger and unarmed techniques. 

The Codex Doebringer is thought to have actually had about four authors, who were evidently dentist wizard alchemist knights. Fuck you, fantasy fiction. Beat that.

InsanityAddict

It's that time of the year again! Sinterklaas: blackface, gingernuts and passive-aggressive presents edition.

As a warm-up for all that wonderful cringe-Gangnam Style, Dutch version:

Also, apparently kiwis are wholly edible, so screw peeling them ever again.

Saigyouji

That's usually a much more subtle thing; either the magic will give the sword some sort of energy (think fire, or holy energy), or it will shoot like, waves of energy, giving the sword a ranged attack.

Outside of that, it's extremely rare.

Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of is the aforementioned FFV, where Mystic Knights enchant their swords to cast the spell they are enchanted with every time they swing them. So kinda like a staff sword, except you actually use the sharp bit too.

ClockworkUniverse

^^For a moment, I thought you meant the bird

Whale

IJBM:

 

People who use the word "atheist" when they mean "secular" or "irreligious".

MillerCross

I am a bit late on the Superman thing but because I have a degree on Supermanology and it needs to be put to good use.

In all due honesty, I don't mind pitting Superman against the law or even the notion that Superman wouldn't be liked or respected right away. When a big and blue guy comes from the sky and wrecks shit up, the government doesn't usually go and deputize him. And I actually kind of like how utterly bonkers it is, as a poster. It's a pretty attention-grabbing image.

But Zack Snyder's previous work has not been satisfying in any level besides the purely visual. And the fact of the matter is that from what we've seen of the preview, the whole focus they seem to be aiming for is the notion of having Superman be grounded. And well, everybody knows how I feel about that.

Also, as mentioned previously, I don't want to waste 20-40 minutes of my life watching Superman's origin when I could either just read a page from All Star Superman or watch S:TAS' opening if I want to learn Superman's origin.

nohaynicklibre

[memearrow]Peeling kiwis[/memearrow]

[memearrow]Not eating them with a spoon[/memearrow]

I came here to laugh at you

Kraken

"For one thing I was not talking about just fireballs specifically. Second of all, how spells in general work is not consistent across fiction, and obviously they don't exist in real life, making any kind of comparison to the real world art of swordsmanship moot, rather silly, and coming across as rather fanboyish."



If apples fall downwards here, they should damn well fall downwards in fiction too. Unless they don't and there's a damn good reason. But even then.

Legionnaire

So apparently alcohol means that only having two hours of sleep ceases to be a problem.

NO SHUT UP DON'T TALK TO MY ABOUT THE DISADVANTAGES AND HOW THIS WILL END LET ME ENJOY IT DAMMIT

Kraken

What kind of alcohol?

MadassAlex

If apples fall downwards here, they should damn well fall downwards in fiction too. Unless they don't and there's a damn good reason. But even then.

Yeah, this. Introducing magic and monsters is all well and good, but the essential rules and standards of general reality should still apply insofar as it doesn't interrupt those fantasy features. 

Naas_Human

That's usually a much more subtle thing; either the magic will give the sword some sort of energy (think fire, or holy energy), or it will shoot like, waves of energy, giving the sword a ranged attack.

Outside of that, it's extremely rare.

Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of is the aforementioned FFV, where Mystic Knights enchant their swords to cast the spell they are enchanted with every time they swing them. So kinda like a staff sword, except you actually use the sharp bit too.

The only one I can think of is Kamen Rider Blade, where his sword is basically a magic wand for his Rouse cards. The "gives sword energy" thing is present, but he uses the sword to activate any special attack, even his Rider kick. At least, I think that's how he uses it.

MadassAlex

Magic activated by sword techniques is a very cool potential synchronisation point between the historical fechtbucher and magic. 

vandro

Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

MadassAlex

Yes. 

vandro

I'LL BE THE ROUNDABOUT! THE WORDS WILL MAKE YOU OUT AND OUT! I'LL SPEND THE DAY YOUR WAY! CALL IT MORNING DRIVING THROUGH THE SOUND AND IN AND OUT THE VALLEY...

Nova

Even then, there's no effortless or low-effort means of transport, and scribing by parchment and ink is very taxing work.

There's actually travelling by wagon, which is low-effort, but presumably horrendously boring.

No need to restrain yourself. Have at us. 

Well. Magic being used in conjunction with swords, let's goooo

The first example I, and probably most people nowadays, can think of, is Eragon.

Here, it's kind of a weird case, in that it's both justified and not justified that the protagonist wields a sword.

Eragon is explicitly superhuman. He's faster, stronger, he thinks faster, he's more flexible than regular people. And the magic system in the story states that it takes the same amount of energy to do something with magic as it would to do it physically.

However, during the course of the second book, two things happen:

One: Eragon learns multiple "Words of Death" spells, that kill people with only miniscule amounts of energy being used.

Two: Eragon fights in the front lines of an army, and regularly charges into enemy lines to kill hundreds of people with his sword.

In this case, fighting with his sword explicitly took more time and energy than staying on the back lines, searching out spellcasters, and killing them and their soldiers with magic.

This is an example of a book wherein mages fall back on their swords to the extent that it's actually detrimental to their efforts as mages, and costs them more in the long run.

If the author had decided to not make the characters superhuman and had made them rely purely on magery (and dragons), the book honestly probably would have been better off.

A second example would be from The Wheel of Time series.

Here, there are pretty much two types of mages: Aes Sedai, female mages, and Asha'man, male mages.

The Asha'man take after their leader, Rand. Rand is a very, very powerful mage, but back before he learned to control saidin, he was taught how to wield a blade by a blademaster, Lan. Since, these skills with a blade have proved invaluable several times, as the magic in the setting is unreliable much of the time, and there are ways to null magic.

However, there are many times where Rand just sits back and lets loose with magic- in particular, one particular scene during Towers of Midnight (Forzare knows what I mean here, don'tcha man~). And in those cases, using magic is infinitely more effective than charging in with a sword. Infinitely.

Then, there is the book we have already addressed; The Dresden Files.

Here, Dresden is a wizard who primarily relies upon magic to do his fighting for him. Fireballs, wind spells, telekinetic pushes; all of those are in his repertoire. He even tackles ritual magic within combat and has it prove useful.

However, his only other weapon of choice is a handgun. When all else fails, he occasionally uses his blasting rod as a club, but not only is he not skilled with it, that also has a tendency to break it, which sucked.

He doesn't actually use a close-combat weapon at all, despite several reasons he should (Being a Warden, although no new swords have been made for a while, carrying one of the Swords, just plain occasionally needing silver weapons and shit).

707ruz

nova don't follow alex's advice

look at your post YOU'RE BECOMING HIM

Nova

I CAN LONGPOST WITH THE BEST OF THEM WHEN I'M IN THE MOOD

SHUT UP YOU DON'T OWN ME 

vandro

We do.

Nova

You do not >

vandro

Hahahahahahahahaha.

ClockworkUniverse

slavery

in ijbm

oh shit

gigantula was right

we really do hate human rights

Kraken

Humans have no rights.



Not even those we give ourselves.

vandro

It's not slavery, that implies private property. it's public service!

Bastion

slavery

in ijbm

oh shit

gigantula was right

we really do hate human rights

Guess we got owned.