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Paracelsus posted:Word of RJ is that the Seanchan accent is Texan. I mean... Texas?! I could almost see a Deep South accent (i.e. the southern gentleman), but when I think of Texas I think "twangy", not "drawling". 
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Apr 21, 2012 04:18
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Tibeerius posted:I've tried to find a source for this, but have only found third-hand references. I can only assume (and hope) that Jordan was just trying to describe it, used "Texan" as an example of a drawling accent, and the fans took him way too literally. Texas' accents are varied. There's definitely both twang and drawl there. Sometimes at the same time.
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Apr 21, 2012 04:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Not even all that much more flowery. A lot of kung fu forms and stances have similarly flowery names -- "White Crane Spreads its Wings," "Parting the Wild Horses' Mane", etc. At least we don't have "Monkey Steals Peach"
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Apr 21, 2012 07:08
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All this talk of swordfighting...look at these dorks from Jordancon. http://twitpic.com/9c3ndc Damnit, I wish I was there...
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Apr 21, 2012 12:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Not even all that much more flowery. A lot of kung fu forms and stances have similarly flowery names -- "White Crane Spreads its Wings," "Parting the Wild Horses' Mane", etc. Even more practical sports like BJJ adopt phrases like 'Omoplata' and 'Butterfly Guard' and the like. And if you're Eddie Bravo you give things names like 'Crackhead Control' and 'The Wizard'. I think the only things that really annoyed me about the swordfighting in WoT are the absence of shields and the fact that remaining evidence from medieval times indicates wrestling was a big part of melee combat.
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Apr 21, 2012 13:29
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Cartoon Man posted:All this talk of swordfighting...look at these dorks from Jordancon. The Goon Rushes the Buffet!
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Apr 21, 2012 13:49
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Rand was training with Rhuarc and Lan for a long long time pretty much non-stop on his journeys, and they are both considered the best of their peoples. Considering that, and with any spill-over reflexes/muscle memory/knowledge from Lews Therin, it's not surprising Rand is one of the best blademasters in Randland.
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Apr 21, 2012 15:05
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:I'm pretty sure defeating another Blademaster is one of the legitimate ways to earn it, and he did beat Turak in a straight-up fight. Well, was it skill, or was it Ta'veren? Rand "cheats".
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Apr 21, 2012 15:34
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Neurosis posted:Even more practical sports like BJJ adopt phrases like 'Omoplata' and 'Butterfly Guard' and the like. And if you're Eddie Bravo you give things names like 'Crackhead Control' and 'The Wizard'. First of all, WoT isn't set in medieval times. It's late renaissance verging on industrial revolution, except that gunpowder remains a closely guarded secret of the illuminators' guild. Thus we see extensive use of pike formations and crossbow men ( since muskets were never invented.) The Aiel use bucklers, and I imagine shields are in use throughout the regular armies, but Lan and Rand are Blademasters... Blademasters are more like elite eastern martial artists that European swordsmen... the swords Lan and Rand use are very obviously katanas, designed to be used with both hands, and the blademaster forms correspond to Japanese fencing technique.
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Apr 21, 2012 17:20
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Yeah yeah I can (kinda) buy the language thing for the main continent/Randland and maybe even for the Seanchan. But the Aiel? Seems like 99,9% of those dudes would have very limited access to any traders coming across the mountains and they showed Arthur where he could stick his grand empire. And as far as I remember they don't chat it up with the Aes Sedai all that often either, or are in the habit of running printing presses.
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Apr 21, 2012 18:37
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Pimpmust posted:Yeah yeah I can (kinda) buy the language thing for the main continent/Randland and maybe even for the Seanchan. They have the wise ones and the clan chiefs who have a direct connection to their history via the ter'angreal in Rhuidean. Which includes the language.
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Apr 21, 2012 18:41
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They also buy every book they can get from peddlers who travel the Wastes and one of the first things Mat notices about Rhuarc after the fall of the Stone of Tear is that he's reading. A bloody black-veiled Aiel reading?
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Apr 21, 2012 18:44
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There's not exactly a lot of Clan Chiefs to go around though, and there seem to be millions of aiel. A tall order to try to keep all of those educated. The blood history thing is also limited and it seems weird that the language (from the old tongue) would develop pretty much exactly the same as to the west. If anything, they should all be speaking the old tongue... or some dialect thereof.
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Apr 21, 2012 19:01
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The Lord Bude posted:First of all, WoT isn't set in medieval times. It's late renaissance verging on industrial revolution, except that gunpowder remains a closely guarded secret of the illuminators' guild. You're correct that a lot of the general technology is closer to the Renaissance - particularly once Rand's academies get underway - but in terms of warfare I don't think it's wrong to compare WoT to the medieval period. The presence of pike and crossbowmen doesn't really mean the tech is post-Middle Ages. They were commonly used in the 14th and 15th century. Further, the one warfare based technological improvement I can remember aside from gunpowder as occurring during the series - an improved loader for a crossbow - was actually around from the 12th century. The absence of gunpowder - around since the early 14th century in the real world - is also distinctive. Of course, Jordan's timeline of tech brings together different things from different eras into a hodepodge. I think the most distinctive thing from Renaissance warfare in WoT is the presence of professional armies, which were associated in Europe with a period after the Peace of Westphalia. As to the swords - we see more swordsmen than just Rand and Lan, and shields are notably absent. I actually find the presence of katana-like blades a little odd given that plate armour seems fairly common, and katanas would snap even on softer armour than that. That might not apply to Rand and Lan's swords, obviously, since they are power-forged, but a thrusting end would have helped dealing with heavily armoured foes.
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Apr 21, 2012 21:48
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Neurosis posted:I think the only things that really annoyed me about the swordfighting in WoT are the absence of shields and the fact that remaining evidence from medieval times indicates wrestling was a big part of melee combat. In a lot of ways WoT is still kind of an action fantasy series. And no one wants to read about realistic hand to hand fighting and swordduels when there are wizards and poo poo. If every single fistfight ended with the two fighters going all UFC manhandling on the floor and wrestling the swords out of each other's hand's I'd probably be even more bored than I am from Jordan spending 12 pages describing the particular type of thread used in Elayne's left sleeve. The shields thing I can accept, though since the blades are all katanas I think he's going for a classic samurai duelling thing here and bucklers and whatnot don't really play into it.
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Apr 22, 2012 01:37
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Prison Warden posted:In a lot of ways WoT is still kind of an action fantasy series. And no one wants to read about realistic hand to hand fighting and swordduels when there are wizards and poo poo. If every single fistfight ended with the two fighters going all UFC manhandling on the floor and wrestling the swords out of each other's hand's I'd probably be even more bored than I am from Jordan spending 12 pages describing the particular type of thread used in Elayne's left sleeve. You're no doubt right. I just obsess over verisimilitude. It is cool because the magic battles own a lot. I've always actually wondered how those medieval duels really played out. I'm reminded of an account of a duel in Germany in the 16th century which took nearly an hour with neither opponent, fully decked out in knight-style armour, was able to hurt the other. It ended with one of them knocking the other off the horse and it being them rolling over each other with daggers in hand until someone managed to finally get their knife into the other's armpit. Not quite the Hollywood image. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 10:05
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Prison Warden posted:In a lot of ways WoT is still kind of an action fantasy series. And no one wants to read about realistic hand to hand fighting and swordduels when there are wizards and poo poo. If every single fistfight ended with the two fighters going all UFC manhandling on the floor and wrestling the swords out of each other's hand's I'd probably be even more bored than I am from Jordan spending 12 pages describing the particular type of thread used in Elayne's left sleeve. I don't see how you could find that boring  Rand al'Touchdown, finding his meagre sword training not enough, discovers that supplexing the poo poo out of all the Katana-wielding-Glorious-Nippon-Master-Race-Forsaken is the go-to method for victory  "This is how we Ease the Badger back where I come from, yeeehaw!" Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 10:18
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Pimpmust posted:I don't see how you could find that boring You appear to have UFC confused with pro wrestling. If WoT were like UFC we would have 25 minutes of Rand hugging Bel'al to his chest while delivering minimal offence.
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Apr 22, 2012 10:26
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Lots of heavy smoothing of skirts if you know what I mean. Actually my former roommate once showed me some clips from a UFC match from years ago (like before it was so popular and this one took place in Japan) and it was really intense. Just a stadium full of quiet Japanese people watching two mostly naked men try to choke each other to unconsciousness, it was eery as hell. When I read the series I picture it in my head as a TV show or movie, seeing the scenes play out and thinking about interesting camera angles and such and I've always pictured the duels happening like that. Quite all around, just two people flowing between stances as it unfolds.
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Apr 22, 2012 13:12
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Minor detail, but the heron-mark swords aren't quite katanas, though they're close. If we go by the marketed "heron mark swords", which we probably can because Jordan approved the designs: http://www.designtoscano.com/product/wall+decor/armor+and+swords/heron+mark+blade+master+sword-+unsharpened+-+mr500058.do?sortby=bestSellers They look about halfway between a katana and sa european greatsword (compare with something like a kriegsmesser). So they have a slight curve for cutting, but also a point (if not a straight point) and possibly enough mass for chopping. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 13:15
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One day, when I am very drunk and have more money than I need, I will buy one of those swords and it will hang on my wall and I will never know a woman's touch but god drat that's a sweet sword.
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Apr 22, 2012 13:17
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Neurosis posted:You appear to have UFC confused with pro wrestling. If WoT were like UFC we would have 25 minutes of Rand hugging Bel'al to his chest while delivering minimal offence. Rand would just be the Jon Jones of the Wheel of TIme and deliver those sick elbows to the forsakens face. A savant if you will.
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Apr 22, 2012 17:51
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Ramadu posted:Rand would just be the Jon Jones of the Wheel of TIme and deliver those sick elbows to the forsakens face. A savant if you will. Sorry, but you are obviously wrong about which Wrestler the Dragon would be. Just remove the "y" in the first name...
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Apr 22, 2012 18:05
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Do note some other factors influencing swordsmanship here: -They were first developed by channelers. A sword of Fire would basically ignore shields and armor alike, you'd be better off avoiding it entire or deflecting it, as the sword forms imply. -Power Wrought swords as blademasters use would also be able to be used for hacking, and there does seem to be a wide variety of thrusting maneuvers in use. -People fight Trollocs and Fades, both of which favor light to no armor. Granted, pike or bow would be more effective against the Trolloc hordes, but for Fades you want to be able to nail it with a few decisive cuts and avoid the thing from going under your reach. As such, shields would be of limited value, Trollocs hit hard enough to crack your arm even on a deflection, and Fades would just blitz around them. Besides, swords seem to be more a thing for commander-types, most of the mooks favor a wide variety of weapons.
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Apr 23, 2012 07:13
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veekie posted:Do note some other factors influencing swordsmanship here: I disagree with your justification. Jordan was a military history buff from what I remember and he had good reasons things were as they were in battle in Randland. To counter your points: 1. Channelers would never use close combat melee swords of fire unless as a last resort, or like Rand has in a 1 on 1 unique scenario versus a forsaken or an assassin. 2. Power wrought swords are extremely rare in modern Randland times. 3. Trollocs are heavily armoured and swords are rarely used in large battles. Also, everyone not of the North in modern Randland never developed armies to counter Trollocs so that doesn't factor in apart from the borderland armies. It's made clear that mostly pikes, spears etc. are used in armies. This is the reason shields aren't used often, because most combat are groups of pikemen or heavy battle-horses that run people down and this is really how big battler are won. Swords are mostly used for one on one combat, honour, status, and for competition in the upper classes. I also think people like Lan who are sword masters are rare in Randland because the time and training required to be a master at combat with the sword in real battles like Lan is isn't worth it in large armies, whereas pikemen are easier to train and arm etc.
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Apr 23, 2012 11:09
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This week, The Fires of Heaven chapters 13-28
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Apr 23, 2012 14:05
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One other interesting thing is that there's actually relatively little conflict between the nations of Randland. The big wars are against external threats -- trolloc hordes, the Aiel War. There are a few exceptions, but not many -- the only one I can think of offhand is the Whitecloak War. There's so much empty land that territorial conflicts seem pretty rare, and the White Tower defuses a lot of potential conflicts before they get severe. So it does sortof make sense that training would be leaning towards the sword despite the existence of heavy armor, because use of heavy armor is probably pretty rare. The average Randland soldier seems more likely to be fighting on a small scale, doing something like defending a merchant's caravan or, at most, getting involved in a palace coup or something like what we see in the War of Andoran Succession. One thing to keep in mind is that the pikemen/archer formation is specifically mentioned in the Big Book of Bad Art as something that Mat's bringing back in the Band of the Red Hand -- it was apparently the standard under Hawkwing and the Trolloc Wars, but isn't that commonly used at the "start" of Eye any more, basically because military training standards have declined (like everything else). It's the "way to fight trollocs" but it's not the way that, say, Cairhien fought the Aiel, or Illian fought Tear.
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Apr 23, 2012 14:36
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There are constant border skirmishes between nations. War is avoided due to the threat of the DO mostly and White Tower meddling. There have been wars during Tam's lifetime including a 'world war' (ie. the Aiel War) so armies are not exactly full of non-veterans to begin with. I think Randland is petering on that verge of having 50% veterans who are becoming too old to fight and 50% new recruits who have signed up for the money due to the tough times Randland is going through. I also don't see how that given what you said with regards to armies being inexperienced, even though that is incorrect, would lean armies towards training the sword primarily. Cavalry and archers/crossbows seem to be the primary offensive weapon in armies throughout the books, so it's a given that the armies consist mostly of pikemen, also described constantly throughout the series. The constant mention of merchant guards etc. is not on a scale that comes close to even one battle where hundreds of men use pikes to defend and archers to attack, with the oncoming cavalry to break apart ranks. I think what the books describe with regards to Mat being a great general is new strategies and formations rather than weaponry, apart from Mat's obvious new primary use of crossbow ambush's and now cannons.
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Apr 23, 2012 14:53
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We mostly see swords on nobles and Borderlanders really. Presumably they are harder to master.
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Apr 23, 2012 16:46
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Tam was a blademaster, though, and I doubt he took it up to duel with nobles.
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Apr 23, 2012 18:08
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Paracelsus posted:Tam was a blademaster, though, and I doubt he took it up to duel with nobles. He was a glorified bodyguard and officer though, so it probably came with that territory (didn't he get the sword from the King of Illian?).
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Apr 23, 2012 19:41
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Pimpmust posted:There's not exactly a lot of Clan Chiefs to go around though, and there seem to be millions of aiel. A tall order to try to keep all of those educated. You're assuming that only the Clan Chiefs can read or teach. It's more likely that the Aiel teach all their children. Randland is not fully literate, though.
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Apr 23, 2012 23:23
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Yea, we mostly see the Aiel through the lenses of Wise Ones, Clan Chiefs, and Maidens of the Spear. Throughout the books though, there is plenty to show that Aiel have an entire support society behind them with smiths, farmers, weavers, etc. There is no reason to assume there aren't teachers, and additionally there are a hell of a lot of Wise Ones (since they don't all have to be channelers) who probably fill a some teaching roles as well. We only really see the Wise Ones roles with regards to the Chiefs and various societies.
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Apr 24, 2012 00:06
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A Wise One as a teacher would make the strictest catholic school nun seem like a blessed saint. Have one that teaches and channels and I think I understand why the Aiel Warriors are so eager to embrace death all the time!
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Apr 24, 2012 14:45
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^^^ Keeping in mind that Aiel regard the real world as the dream world, one from which everyone must eventually wake.
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Apr 24, 2012 17:22
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Book 6: Holy Crap, Padan Fain brutally rapes and beats a darkfriend woman in front of her kid all the while blaming Rand Al'Thor for making him do it. 
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Apr 24, 2012 19:31
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Hobbes24 posted:A Wise One as a teacher would make the strictest catholic school nun seem like a blessed saint. Have one that teaches and channels and I think I understand why the Aiel Warriors are so eager to embrace death all the time! For what its worth they seem to be especially nasty to people who they can't order around automatically. Ordinary Aiel, especially children, are likely to have an easier time than our on-screen characters who resist their will at every turn. Sure would make everyone kinda fatalistic.
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Apr 25, 2012 06:49
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Welp, it's about time. Started rereading The Eye of the World a couple days back. It's interesting to see some things that don't get continued, like Moiraine's staff. Additionally, I noticed for the first that that when they are in the battle with the Trolloc's before going to Shadar Logoth, Mat is the only one who is unhorsed and is seen pulling off a noose and shuddering at the end of the battle.
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Apr 25, 2012 16:06
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I'm about halfway through book 5. Does Perrin show up at all? He's seriously the best character. Lini is pretty awesome too.
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Apr 27, 2012 03:33
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I really like and hate Perrin at the same time. On one hand, he's a really great example of a transformational leader, but his refusal to accept it gets really grating.
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Apr 27, 2012 05:33
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