Unrealism In Books

[terioncalling]

As to the butter knife, Jim Butcher should totally have Harry in a fight with that. He's laying in a ruined diner, smoke drifting in the air, with tables and chairs overturned everywhere. His opponent stands over him and kicks his blasting rod away with a laugh. Harry snarls a curse and rolls, searching for anything to use to fight back. His hand closes on something, and he hauls himself to his feet, lifting his weapon. His eyes widen with surprise as he realizes that he held a butter knife. It would have to do.

Omigod, YES.  I am drawing Chibi!Harry now with a butter knife and a WTF look.     It must be done.

[Velkyn_Faer]

As to the butter knife, Jim Butcher should totally have Harry in a fight with that. He's laying in a ruined diner, smoke drifting in the air, with tables and chairs overturned everywhere. His opponent stands over him and kicks his blasting rod away with a laugh. Harry snarls a curse and rolls, searching for anything to use to fight back. His hand closes on something, and he hauls himself to his feet, lifting his weapon. His eyes widen with surprise as he realizes that he held a butter knife. It would have to do.

Omigod, YES.  I am drawing Chibi!Harry now with a butter knife and a WTF look.     It must be done.

Woohoo! Can't you see Jim making that happen, though? Of course, Harry would have a cool, smart-ass remark about it, or a bad pun, but you get the point.

Velkyn

[blgarver]

Hello everyone.  I've been away for a bit.  Nice to come back to some interesting topics.

The first thing I thought of when I read this, at least concerning the oversized weapons, is Final Fantasy, and Devil May Cry...both manga-ish video games.  I'm not a FF fan, so I'm not sure about the lore of that guy's giant sword, but I know it looks damn cool in the artwork.  And in Devil May Cry, the main character Dante is half human, half demon, and the sword he eventually gets is part demon too.  So the big sword works here, because it compliments his superhuman abilities.  And it looks cool...lol.

As far as the animal-human demons...I think they're a bit cliche for fantasy stuff, but I tolerate them.  I try not to write them in because they don't feel like a new idea.  I'm not a good enough writer to be cut-and-pasting existing concepts.  I at least need to come up with some fresh stuff.  In the book I'm writing now, there are demon-like beings, but they take the form of a cat or human, but no crossing the two.  And then there's the third type of demon called the Aphantor that is your basic scary shadow creature; think a doppleganger from D&D that's always shrouded in a cloud of darkness.

I think a human with anamilitic personality traits is scarier than a human with physical animal traits.  Or, animals that act human.  I use a lot of this in my current project.  The animals are very alert and human-acting.  The ones that are part of the main cast, anyway.  Not all the animals are...special.  And then the main bad guy is just an Englishman, suave and collected until someone pushes his buttons...then he turns vicious.  He pounces and moves like a predatory animal, snarls, slobbers, and such.  I don't think it's necessary to cross the physical attributes.  Plus it keeps the reader thinking (I hope) about what the thing actually is, because it's not acting like a human normall acts. 

That's my two cents.

BLG 

[Simon Hogwood]

Of course, Harry would have a cool, smart-ass remark about it, or a bad pun, but you get the point.

"Taste Excalibutter, jerk."

[Machaut]

He'd know better than to bring a butterknife to a buttergun fight 

[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]

Of course, Harry would have a cool, smart-ass remark about it, or a bad pun, but you get the point.

"Taste Excalibutter, jerk."

"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]

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.

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]]

just a quick note on point #2.

Would you want to bring about the apocalypse with a butter knife...?

...

Thought not.

Sharon.

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.

[Dread Pirate Sayessa]

As to the butter knife, Jim Butcher should totally have Harry in a fight with that. He's laying in a ruined diner, smoke drifting in the air, with tables and chairs overturned everywhere. His opponent stands over him and kicks his blasting rod away with a laugh. Harry snarls a curse and rolls, searching for anything to use to fight back. His hand closes on something, and he hauls himself to his feet, lifting his weapon. His eyes widen with surprise as he realizes that he held a butter knife. It would have to do.

Omigod, YES.  I am drawing Chibi!Harry now with a butter knife and a WTF look.     It must be done.

...so where's the linky?  We must see Chibi!Harry with butterknife...  NOW!  LOL

[SoulCatcher78]

My life blows.

No, really, it does.

Here I am, bleeding and covered in grime that’s made of stuff I don’t even want to think about, and standing in front of one of the scariest things mankind has ever seen – a god walking on earth.  Don’t ask what god; nobody knows or really cares to find out anymore.

But, yeah, here I stand with a crazy, gun-toting Amazon woman to my right and a half-reformed Black Mage to my left while everyone else runs in terror.  And what do I have?  A frickin’ butter knife.

See?  My life really does blow.

I almost snarfled all over the keyboard from that, lol.  Great quickie job.

[recentcoin]

1. Cat/fox/monkey/cow/anything else -demons. Uh-uh. I don't see why so many people were/are fascinated with a dude that has a tail growing out of his rear. While some people will certainly think differently, I don't see the huge deal about it. Why cross a human with a fox, what's the point?

It depends on what you're doing and how.  Free reign to anything that's well written.  Where would manga and anime be without those kooky hybrids? 

2. Insanely big weapons. Why do people think swords that are taller than them are cool? And, how come almost all the people I talk to about this are willing to defend it vehemently, saying it's just really big, and we could use them in real life if we had them?

Having fought with these kinds of weapons myself a few times, I can tell you that the idea of pixies wielding flaming greatswords wouldn't fly in world that has physical laws that even vaguely resemble our own.  Most of what gets passed of a greatswords in video games and such also wouldn't work in the real world.  Myself, I prefer a mace or war hammer, shield, and heavy armor.  I'm strong enough to bull rush you and have taken several people off their feet, winning my bout in the first few second of contact. 

Even if I don't, I have a shield to block your blows, particularly from the fancy-schmancy 2 handed weapons while I continue to pound on you with considerable force using my blunt solid object.  It doesn't take me long to begin to put dents in things.  Now, since we fight for fun and bragging rights, we tend to avoid blows to the head and such.  The moral of the story here is that while you can't really hit me, thanks to my shield.  I can shove you all over the tournament field and wail on you basically at will. There's a good reason that in the old tapestries you don't see gigantic fancy swords.  When you live and die by your weaponry and your ability to use it, you don't have time to dink around with showboat pieces.  You use what works and what keeps you alive until the next battle. 

Secondly, steel weighs .283 pounds per cubic inch and steel plate weighs in 1/4" thick = 10.2 pounds per square foot.  Steel is *heavy*.  To give you a real world example, we'll look at the Scottish claymore, one of the larger swords that was ever in common usage.  The "William Wallace" claymore is a whopping 54" long from sword tip to pommel.  14" of that is the hilt and the other 40" (for you math impaired) are blade and it weighs in at a whopping 6 pounds.  Now, six pounds doesn't sound like a lot until you try to start swinging it around for hours on end.  That's the real world example. 

The "fantasy" example I'll use is a rather misguided in-duh-vidual I know who owns an "Excalibur Replica".  This thing is a full 6 feet (72") long and weighs in about 20 pounds.  I'm strong and know what I'm doing and I can't barely get the tip of that monster off the table top.  Making the dangerous assumption that you could wield it, it's far too long for me to manage effectively and I'm not exactly a runt.  It's far to long to manage effectively in anything approaching a confined space - like a room where it would get stuck in the ceiling while you're trying to slash and jab.  It's completely retarded and created for people who know nothing about weapons and think that, like the male member, swords that are bigger are some how better. 

My question to you is, do you use these items/characters in your stories? And, please try to persuade me with better reasons than 'it is cool'. I'd love to be persuaded, really. I just don't see the point behind it all.

I have one character that carries a gigantic sword around, but she almost never uses it for anything at all.  It's ceremonial and something of a penance for her to have to carry it with her everywhere she goes. 

2 cents,

RecentCoin

[Matrix Refugee (formerly Morraeon)]

Human/animal hybrids I have no problem with: there's a long-standing tradition in a lot of mythologies with animals morphing into people (ie. kitsune in Japan) or gods/demigods being partly humanoid and partly animal (ie, fauns/satyrs and centaurs in Graeco-Roman myth). There's even a small, almost forgotten touch of this in Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Byzantine Rite Catholicism: there's a little known but very ancient icon of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, that depicts the saint as a kind of dog-human chimaera with the head, tail and legs of a dog and the arms and torso of a human. The legends about him describe him as "a giant", but this didn't always mean a big-huge humanoid creature that would make Michael Clarke Duncan look like a midget; the original Greek word which our "giant" is derived from meant anything very strange-looking and rather vaguely humanoid.

Human-demon hybrids, I don't touch that since I'm really not too comfortable around demon-characters. Just my devout Catholic upbringing, nothing more. I've got the same position about demons as Michael does. :: laughs a little::

Big-ol' weapons. In a fantasy situation, I can suspend my disbelief, but I'll still be scratching my head for a moment or two. Case in point, Seras and the big-ass anti-tank gun in "Hellsing". I remember laughing at the image of this wee girl with a gun longer than her entire body, and then thinking, "How the hell is she going to use that big wonking thing?!" And then having to remind myself she's a vampire now, she's not limited by the limits of mere human strength.

[Cyclone Jack]

The answer to both questions is that people are lazy and tend to rip things off that they think are cool.

Avoid cliche. The first rule. Both hybrids and giant weaponry are now ridiculously over-used cliches.