McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Unrealism In Books
jtaylor:
Nah, he's just repeat the curse of the frozen turkies from BR and make it a butterball fight. ;)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Simon Hogwood on February 07, 2007, 09:41:06 PM ---
--- Quote from: Velkyn_Faer on February 01, 2007, 11:39:28 PM ---Of course, Harry would have a cool, smart-ass remark about it, or a bad pun, but you get the point.
--- End quote ---
"Taste Excalibutter, jerk."
--- End quote ---
"I can't believe it's not Waldo's."
hassman:
On half animal demons, I think a previous poster nailed it...most religons have demons/devils and they have animalistic features. One reason for this is an imagination limitation, we expect a body, a head, a locomotion system and arms. It is easy to describe and visualize and getter the audience scared of a mismash of animal parts than a wholly new subject. A black amorphous cloud is scary but not a bad as a goat headed bat winged human with talons, goat hooves and a barbed tail.
On the subject of really big swords, you have two other major factors involved:
Armor One reason for a big ass sword is to penetrate heavy armor. European weapons got bigger and heavier as armor did, and the Europeans had the heaviest steel armor made. Rapiers did not develop until after gunpowder made armor obsolete. England had a series of laws restricting the maximum length of a sword (starting at 4' and moving down).
Combat style: Roman style infantry with stabbing short swords defeated Celts with long swords because they work better in formation style fighting. Individual combat went to the Celts, with the bigger sword. This goes back to the cavalry/infantry comments from before.
Velkyn_Faer:
--- Quote from: hassman on February 12, 2007, 06:07:43 PM ---On half animal demons, I think a previous poster nailed it...most religons have demons/devils and they have animalistic features. One reason for this is an imagination limitation, we expect a body, a head, a locomotion system and arms. It is easy to describe and visualize and getter the audience scared of a mismash of animal parts than a wholly new subject. A black amorphous cloud is scary but not a bad as a goat headed bat winged human with talons, goat hooves and a barbed tail.
On the subject of really big swords, you have two other major factors involved:
Armor One reason for a big ass sword is to penetrate heavy armor. European weapons got bigger and heavier as armor did, and the Europeans had the heaviest steel armor made. Rapiers did not develop until after gunpowder made armor obsolete. England had a series of laws restricting the maximum length of a sword (starting at 4' and moving down).
Combat style: Roman style infantry with stabbing short swords defeated Celts with long swords because they work better in formation style fighting. Individual combat went to the Celts, with the bigger sword. This goes back to the cavalry/infantry comments from before.
--- End quote ---
That does make sense, and is probably the best answer I've heard yet for a good reason behind it. (You said someone's said it before, and I scanned recent posts but I didn't see anything.) Kinda reminds me of the Trollocs from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Creatures that all have a human body but different feet/heads/faces/arms. A goat-snouted animal with wolf paws and an eagle's feathered crest. The next will be wolf-headed and have rams horns on its head. All similar to real animals and to humans on a basic level, but all totally different. And, they're probably a hell of a lot scarrier than the cloud monster from Lost.
Thank you, I'll keep that in mind. All this new information takes the stuff I knew before and kinda throws it out the window. I'm glad I made this topic. I'm already making minor changes to my story for the sake of realism. Thanks!
(please keep the information flowing, too. Anything you know about either of these subjects, please tell us, be it big or small.)
Velkyn
[beatle mania]:
--- Quote from: Valkyrina on January 30, 2007, 12:17:06 AM ---just a quick note on point #2.
Would you want to bring about the apocalypse with a butter knife...?
...
Thought not.
Sharon.
--- End quote ---
Well. One of my characters is a synthetically-created human who fights, and wins, against people with gigantic swords.
And he fights with a switchblade. Lawl. <33
...Devil May Cry is awesome.
Big swords are mostly for aesthetic appeal. And why not? Each writer has in their ability to create their own, fantastically messed up little worlds. Why not create a world where it makes perfect sense for a normal human to swing around a huge sword? That's like calling urban fantasy unrealistic because, after all, magic doesn't really exist!!
The above belief can be applied to creepy anthros too. Which, I believe, is an Anime-fan thing on a broad standpoint.
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