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one of the pitfalls of hobbies like historical reenactment is precisely this. Nobody does armour or most material goods correctly in visual media, and once that

one of the pitfalls of hobbies like historical reenactment is precisely this. Nobody does armour or most material goods correctly in visual media, and once that’s a salient fact for you it really kind of breaks the spell.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Not to mention the actual combat. It's hard to take a swordfight seriously when both parties seem preoccupied with swinging at their opponents sword.
- ever1337 3y ago
  As a former fencer, this is what a lot of HEMA bouts look like to me
  - greedo 3y ago
    Also as a former fencer, I've realized that fencing has so little to do with most "blade" warfare, whether in real life or in the movies. Epee might be the closest to reality for parts of Europe with duels etc, but I think all three forms diverged pretty quickly since the death of an opponent kind of kills the sport.
    - hprotagonist 3y ago
      olympic/sport fencing has very little to do with killing people with sharp metal. the same goes for kendo, of course …
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  That's what I always felt, like lightsaber fights are apparently about striking each other's blades in the middle with zero risk of hitting each other. They got (even) more visually interesting later on though. That said, the more I learn about things like that, the less a sword seems practical in actual combat. Spears and (spiked) hammers are where it's at, with knives/dirks as backup worst case.
- hef19898 3y ago
  That's what historical stage combat always looked like so, I can live with it. To an extend, that is. What really gets me so, is large battles. For some reason, it is cool to just break formation and charge a tightly packed enemy some 200 meters away. While screaming as loud as possible. Or the helmets in the last duel, hell, collored cloths over armor and insignias have exactly been developed in medival Europe to identify famous nobles and knights without seeing their faces... Plenty of occassions to show some famous actors in other scenes. All of that is toped by the really bad writing we have in last cpuple of years. I mean TV took off with things like Breaking Bad. And the we got season 8 of Game of Thrones, to pick just one famous example...

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

Not to mention the actual combat. It's hard to take a swordfight seriously when both parties seem preoccupied with swinging at their opponents sword.

ever1337 3y ago
As a former fencer, this is what a lot of HEMA bouts look like to me
- greedo 3y ago
  Also as a former fencer, I've realized that fencing has so little to do with most "blade" warfare, whether in real life or in the movies. Epee might be the closest to reality for parts of Europe with duels etc, but I think all three forms diverged pretty quickly since the death of an opponent kind of kills the sport.
  - hprotagonist 3y ago
    olympic/sport fencing has very little to do with killing people with sharp metal. the same goes for kendo, of course …
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
That's what I always felt, like lightsaber fights are apparently about striking each other's blades in the middle with zero risk of hitting each other. They got (even) more visually interesting later on though. That said, the more I learn about things like that, the less a sword seems practical in actual combat. Spears and (spiked) hammers are where it's at, with knives/dirks as backup worst case.
hef19898 3y ago
That's what historical stage combat always looked like so, I can live with it. To an extend, that is. What really gets me so, is large battles. For some reason, it is cool to just break formation and charge a tightly packed enemy some 200 meters away. While screaming as loud as possible. Or the helmets in the last duel, hell, collored cloths over armor and insignias have exactly been developed in medival Europe to identify famous nobles and knights without seeing their faces... Plenty of occassions to show some famous actors in other scenes. All of that is toped by the really bad writing we have in last cpuple of years. I mean TV took off with things like Breaking Bad. And the we got season 8 of Game of Thrones, to pick just one famous example...