Matthew Hunter writes:
>My question, then, is this:
>
>Vlad continually refers to the advantages of Eastern-style fencing
>over the Dragaeran hack-and-slash style, with very heavy, broad
>blades (that, in fact, he is nearly unable to lift on one
>occasion). In contrast, the Paarfi novels clearly are written as
>Dumas pastiches, and as such, the appropriate sword form is the
>rapier; this is borne out by the cover art of both 500YA and tPG,
>as well as the descriptions of swordfights within, at least in
>some cases. (Tazendra uses either a broadsword or a
>hand-and-a-half sword; Khaavren and the others appear to carry
>and fight with rapiers).
>
>So, what's up with that?
I've got my own explaination for that, which relates to my own problem
with swords in the books.
[um. I'm a historical and classical fencer with a fair amount of
training. I'll try to explain and/or footnote any terminlogy I use,
but I may miss some. ]
The initial problem is that, as far as modern terminology is
concerned. Vlad doesn't fight with a rapier [1]. He's constantly talking
about parry-ripostes, stop cuts, and a bunch of things you can't, or
shouldn't do with a rapier -- instead, he appears to be fencing (with
a somewhat cut-oriented style) with a smallsword [2] or dueling sabre,
which he's calling a rapier (which makes sense for the smallsword,
since the transition from rapier to smallsword was a largely smooth --
people didn't suddenly start calling their weapons smallswords so much
as that we look at two -very- different styles of weapons and several
languages, and point to one set of weapons and call them all a
rapiers, and another and call them all smallswords).
By this logic, the civilian Draegeran weapon is probably some
form of rapier (well, some of them are, anyways) -- very well trained
Dragerans probably use it stesso-tempo with occasional cuts; Dragons
generally probably prefer battle-swords (longswords) with similar
theory but very different handling characteristics, and there are
probably a few other weapons on use.
[1] In modern parlance, a rapier is a 36-45" (aprox) long weapon which
could both cut and thrust but preferred the thrust, in civilian
use from about the 1400's to the early 1700s. All known masters,
of this weapon, AFAIK, advised avoiding/blocking an attack at the
same time as the counterattack (ie Stesso tempo -- "at the same time")
rather than stopping/parrying the attack, and -then- responding
(duo-tempi -- two times).
[2] A smallsword was a 30" long weapon, almost exclusively
cut-centered (though it was usually sharped at least a third of
its length, and often all the way up), extremely light, and one of
the first weapons light and fast enough to perform the
parry-riposte effectively. It was, in fact, exteremly deadly,
though its adaption seemed to be as much fashion (and the fact
that it can be worn for long periods much more comfortably than a
rapier-lenght weapon) and metalurgy as armnament -- it's also a
civilian weapon, of course. French smallswords generally used
abreiviated guards, with a handguard but no functional quillions,
and were held in the style of a modern french weapon (mostly);
Italian smallswords were basically very small rapiers, with a
smaller guard but functional quillions and hand-guard. I have no
idea what Hungarian smallswords looked like. :)
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
--^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;'
/\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\
/-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-'