The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Something That Has Always Bugged Me
Mira:
--- Quote ---also, he must use some power to strengthen the wood.... the torque could be tremendous, especially in a longer staff. Wood isn't that strong laterally - Pete Alonso popped out today, and on the way back to the dugout broke his bat on his knee. I don't THINK he had cracked it on the popup.
--- End quote ---
I think he must of cracked it on the popup. What you need to do is go back and listen to the sound when the bat hit the ball. I bet you can hear the crack even if the bat didn't come apart at that moment. Notice announcers usually know the minute the bat strikes the ball if it is broken from the sound it makes.
Conspiracy Theorist:
The staff is a general focus, the first wizards use, I think they subconsciously strengthen the blows from it and absorb blows on it with magic but because this is purely mental there are limits to avoid them puréing their brains.Hence Dresden built his kinetic energy punch into it to go further safely.
Harry’s first use of magic was the win the long jump, a similar mental effort, bolstering his physical prowess.
g33k:
I'm gonna be a bit contrarian here.
Sometimes he DOES just use it as a "big stick" to whack things, no magic included... and it is a big stick.
Two hands helps with a staff, for sure... BUT ... (and I'm just sayin, here) a "nightstick" (tonfa) is a similar-diameter stick, explicitly used 1-handed.
KurtinStGeorge:
--- Quote from: Fcrate on June 24, 2022, 10:02:15 PM ---A swing has more chance of hitting a target, but unless you're goading a mule you won't get any significant results.
--- End quote ---
Yes, swinging a staff has a much better chance of scoring a hit and most of the time it won't be very damaging but I've seen a person knocked out with a blow to the neck; vagus nerve hit, and I've seen someone get their collarbone broken, both in street fights. (In both cases, these injuries came from hand blows, so not entirely analogous, but not entirely dissimilar either.) So, a staff being swung by someone who knew where to aim wouldn't be entirely harmless.
--- Quote from: Fcrate on June 24, 2022, 10:02:15 PM ---Without magic even a one handed jab with a 6 foot staff is little more than a love tap, and a poorly aimed one.
--- End quote ---
No, you could crack a rib with a really good jab. You wouldn't hold the staff at the very end where you would have poor control.
Arctos:
It's mentioned a few times that even when he isn't actively projecting energy with the staff, the energy held at the ready makes it... metaphysically more than just a piece of wood, I guess? It definitely came up in Dead Beat where the energy he's holding ready in the staff lets him bludgeon corpsetaker's specters with melee strikes. In Proven Guilty he also crushes the skull of one of the fetches with the staff, and describes the blow as "powered by muscle and magic alike".
The understanding I had was that even when he's 'just' using his staff as a beatstick, it's an instrument of his Will and reinforced by his Will, and the physical strikes are empowered by that. edit: it's also why he can regularly use it as a prybar without snapping the wood.
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