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Why Fantasy Avoids Gunpowder
- sposeray 3y ago[dead]
- r_p4rk 3y agoThe Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellan includes gunpowder as one of the magic system elements, and integrates it in a way which the author of the OP might be interested in :)
- zwirbl 3y agoAnd also Gods of Blood and Powder of the same author. Fun read
- e12e 3y agoSee also Warhammer (Fantasy, not 40k - although 40k certainly mixes magic and technology too).
- scythmic_waves 3y agoCame here to say this. I love the magic in that series.
- insickness 3y ago"First I thought: The advent of the iron age made the elongation of the male sex unavoidable, its main aim, the penetration--the knife, the sword, the spear. Second I thought: Gunpowder, firearms--the main aim shifted to ejaculation and bombs--the mystification of the orgasm. Third I think: Simulation--through screen or helmet--makes this pornography." - Einsturzende Neubauten, Three thoughts
- oliveshell 3y ago"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." -Sigmund Freud
- technothrasher 3y agoWhile the sentiment is an appropriate response to the parent post, there is, fyi, no evidence that Freud ever actually said this.
- slowmovintarget 3y agoBut he really ought to have.
- p0w3n3d 3y agoDjarhun - fantasy board game similar to Talisman - has a separate Technomancer "race" which have guns
- Gloomily3819 3y ago>Tolkien, thus, gave explosives (“blasting fire”) to his bad guys, to goblins and orcs who represent the emerging forces of industrialization Tolkien hated allegorical writing. It's doubtful goblins and orcs are supposed to represent industrialization.
- mavhc 3y ago"Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power." The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #186
- resolutebat 3y agoNevertheless, the allegory works well enough that there's a great book about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
- aldarion 3y agoHe didn't. He was in fact quite clear that Lord of the Rings was inspired in large part by his experiences in the First World War: Dead Marshes especially, but also Sauron and Saruman and their forces of industrialization.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoIt has been some years since I read LotR, but wasn’t there one very widespread edition that contained a foreword by Tolkien where he very clearly denied any allegory behind the story, and was obviously fed up by people claiming such?
- red_admiral 3y agoTolkien was against reading his works as allegory for any specific historical event, especially if that event related to the Second World War (Sauron is not an allegory for Hitler, for example). But he did mention in his letters that his writing was obviously influenced by his combat experience in the First World War.
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- rob74 3y agoI always thought that scene from the first Indiana Jones movie where Indy is confronted with an expert swordsman and solves the situation by simply shooting him was a comment on exactly what this article describes...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- drcongo 3y agoThat only happens in the film because Harrison Ford had the trots and couldn't shoot a longer scene.
- throwaway83i8 3y agoThat's true, but it actually made a huge improvement to the scene and changed how I perceived Indy as a character.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Turing_Machine 3y agoThat general issue is one reason (among many) why I have a hard time suspending my disbelief for the Star Wars movies. You're going to use a sword when someone 100 meters away can plug you in the head with a gun? Umm... good luck with that. They tried to paper over the issue by making the stormtroopers terrible marksmen, but that wasn't very successful (at least in my case).
- aszantu 3y agoJust to add, there are seemingly a few loose ends in Lord of the rings, like galadriels mirror and so on... "the last ringbearer" ties those up. Lord of the rings is portraied as a work of propaganda, in which the orcs and sauron are all evil but are just normal people. Can recommend.
- pmontra 3y agoObviously not canon but very enjoyable. I also recommend reading it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
- defrost 3y agoWith almost supernatural power, the Gonne can possess the mind of the man who uses it. It shows him the power he has in his hands, and erases all scruples by telling him what could be achieved with this power. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series Men at Arms https://wiki.lspace.org/Gonne https://wiki.lspace.org/Gonne The Gonne, like so many other recent technological devices in Discworld, was invented by Leonard of Quirm. As usual, he had the best of intentions when he devised it, but it turned out to be one of the most dangerous weapons ever conceived in the history of the Disc.
- orbital-decay 3y agoWhy one specific narrow slice of fantasy avoids gunpowder. Steampunk fantasy, gunpowder fantasy, non-eurocentric fantasy, science fantasy etc don't have any issues with gunpowder.
- aldarion 3y agoAgreed. Still, said narrow slice of fantasy is often in love with plate armor, which coexisted with gunpowder.
- checkyoursudo 3y agoPlate armor still coexists with gunpowder. It is just that the plates are armoring vehicles now rather than humans. (But I know what you mean.)
- JoelMcCracken 3y agoCf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Arms_Protective_Insert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Arms_Protective_Insert
- AstralStorm 3y agoBreastplates are currently known as ballistic plates. They're just thicker, heavier and made of composites - because they have to take on high powered rifle bullets. The modern fibre combat armor is better than gambeson and probably also many forms of plate. It's lighter and can take blades and even polearms better. Chainmail is in use to protect against industrial equipment.
- checkyoursudo 3y agoGood points!
- ysavir 3y agoI wouldn't call it narrow. I think the fantasy + gunpowder settings are the less common.
- thayne 3y ago> And unlike muskets, bows and crossbows never were a primary weapon. What about the English longbow? Or Mongolian horse bows?
- vraid 3y agoNot to mention the early samurai, who were primarily horse archers aswell.
- z3phyr 3y agoEnglish longbow and most of the archery is more akin to MANPADs, useful and game changers in many scenarios, but not the "Primary" weapons. Mongolian complex bows though are an exception, all horse nomads were expected to wield them out of hunting and warring needs. If all of your main force is expected to wield it, it becomes a primary weapon.
- thayne 3y ago> If all of your main force is expected to wield it, it becomes a primary weapon. There was a period of time when all Englishmen were required to train with a longbow. I guess also it depends on what you mean by "primary" if it means the primary weapon of an individual soldier, it's obviously false, because archers primarily used their bows, in many armies. But if it means the main weapon used by the builk of the soldiers, then in most cases it probably wasn't a bow. But that isn't because of the ineffectiveness of the weapon. It's really just part of the "egalitarian" point. Shooting a bow effectively requires considerably more skill than say using spear, or even hacking with a sword.
- z3phyr 3y ago> There was a period of time when all Englishmen were required to train with a longbow I was under the impression that English Archery was a very specialized discipline, given its very skill intensive. The English did use the Longbowmen, but as a specialized unit in specialized situations.
- h2odragon 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Flame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Flame Makes the introduction of gunpowder into a fantasy / magic based world a central part of the plot. I love the "magician's gunpowder"; live steam + stasis spells. They come up with it to compete with the twinks using (and teaching others to make) real gunpowder and weapons.
- bigbillheck 3y agoI think the author needs to read a little more widely before making such sweeping statements. Just off the top of my head I can think of several series that either involve gunpowder as a major plot point (Glen Cook's "Instrumentalities of the Night" series, and the "Sword of Knowledge" trilogy by C.J.Cherryh and coauthors), and more that have it as just part of the background ("Point of Hopes" and sequels by Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett).
- astrange 3y agoNothing says fantasy like being called "Something of Something". (For YA series it's "The Something Something".)
- bigbillheck 3y agoYes, how can we forget such exemplars of the genre such as "Heart of Darkness", "Anne of Greene Gables", and "Remembrance of Things Past".
- astrange 3y agoTo be specific, the first word has to be a noun, preferably a physical object. Heart of Darkness would work if it was a real heart.
- slowmovintarget 3y agoRoger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles had the gamut of modern technology, and why gunpowder didn't work when you got to Shadows closer to Amber (the physics was different). There were guns, and tanks, and in one surprise battle, the protagonist devises gunpowder that does work in Amber and lands rifleman atop sword-and-sandals fighters to cause a huge upset. If author hasn't read Zelazney, then he doesn't know fantasy.
- tetromino_ 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanum:_Of_Steamworks_and_Magick_Obscura https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanum:_Of_Steamworks_and_Mag... has an interesting solution to the magic vs. gunpowder problem: the use of magic makes nearby guns fail, and vice versa. Either can work, but your character must choose to specialize in one or the other.
- dale_glass 3y agoAlso guns are boring for character progression. Sword users can learn new techniques. Wizards can learn new spells. Characters can become visibly stronger, or to learn to wield stronger arcane forces. But a guy with a gun can... what? Get a bigger gun? You take somebody like Magneto and you can have lots of creative applications of the powers, interesting matchups and development. Or you can have Rob Liefeld hero #6, who charges in with big guns. And either the bad guy dies, or the bullets bounce off and there's little ground in between. There's a whole comic book era of big dudes with guns and they're pretty much all pointless because there's nothing much interesting they can do.
- artemonster 3y agobad argument, imho. you can use you imagination and invent lots of new "skills" for guns the same way you can do for swords and bows: shrapnel shot, crippling shot, blinding shot, rapid fire, etc. Item wise I see absolutely no "logical" difference between guns and "sword A with 10 DMG" and "sword B with 250 DMG and ice damage". This is fantasy worlds we are talking about, cmon.
- capableweb 3y ago> Sword users can learn new techniques. Wizards can learn new spells. Characters can become visibly stronger, or to learn to wield stronger arcane forces. But a guy with a gun can... what? Get a bigger gun? You can imagine wizards but you can't imagine more creative guns and guns-usage? For being into fantasy, you seemingly drop the ball on the whole "made up" stuff. What's to say there aren't different techniques to using guns where one user is better than another? Or since we're in fantasy, that some characters can learn how to avoid getting shot better than others.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoIn fantasy the abilities of wizards and sword fighters are plausible within the constraints & difference with the real world. Eg magic isn't real and people don't fight with swords, so we're in an unknown territory where a large range of techniques are plausibly effective. You don't know a wizard so you can't really tell me this spell wouldn't work in this conflict, you know? But people do fight with guns, and the abilities and techniques of guns and what advantages they offer are well understood, pressure tested in real conflict, and easy to find out about. The area of unknown is small, and so mostly the plausible techniques are the real ones. You can tweak the plausibility by fuzzing off from real world uses with things like laser guns or muzzle-loading black powder, though that's still much better understood than wizard magic. You see a similar thing with fantasy melee too. Fencing is well understood even in the modern world, but how many fantasy sword fighters are recognizably fencers?
- Cogito 3y agoEveryone's suggestions of works that use gunpowder in interesting ways (thank you!) reminded me of David Weber's "Safehold" series[0]. It's not really fantasy, though it does hold to a few tropes, but it explores what happens when you speed-run the introduction of gunpowder (and other technological advancements) in a world that has severe technological restrictions placed upon it. I really enjoyed it, but I'm someone who enjoys reading in depth about how improvements in cannons changes the shape of naval battles (for example). [0] https://www.goodreads.com/series/58713-safehold https://www.goodreads.com/series/58713-safehold
- JodieBenitez 3y ago> guns are egalitarian AKA “God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal.”
- wnkrshm 3y agoThere are some in-universe laws or facts that fictional genres cannot give up (Edit:typo) easily - one in scifi is the small crewed spaceship or even space fighter. Even if guns exist, there is an arguable thrill to reading about a character infiltrating a castle with a saber and two pistols that cannot be reloaded easily. Long ago, those were pirate or naval pulp fiction. Imo any setting can produce great stories, it's in how they're told not in how the world works. Established genres of fantasy are just attractive to some people, since analogues of the laws and structure of the world are already partially known - and it's possible to subvert expectations while not alienating people.
- AstralStorm 3y agoSurprisingly the "fighter" may be much more powerful than expected, since space is wast and weapons delivered up close and personal have a good chance to land, as opposed to being dodged or intercepted like missiles. Though I'd expect one of those to be more like a tank, with 4 people inside. Bigger though. It's the same reason carriers tend to be more effective than battleships, even ones loaded with cruise missiles. Even light takes a bunch of time to reach places at astronomical distances. It would look nothing like dogfighting, much closer to modern airborne missile exchanges. Any non-moving object would be extremely vulnerable, if even to a thrown rock at orbital speeds.
- wnkrshm 3y agoIt entirely depends on where you see the role of a "fighter" but I think we both already agree that it won't be anything like naval battle on Earth. Maybe you're familiar with Atomic Rockets, the collection of engineering and science discussions about hard scifi? If not, I may have got a rabbit hole for you that will eat an entire week, easily: [0] (Edit: while the page starts off dismissing fighters for many reasons, there are discussions of many concepts with their merits and possible defenses of the concept) [0] https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- clarionbell 3y agoWarhammer Fantasy has plenty of firearms, after all, what makes the Empire great? Faith, steel and gunpowder. And let's not forget about skaven, those have sniper rifles and gatling guns.
- thsksbd 3y agoFantasy avoids gunpowder because there is no character develipment. This is the same reason why guns are the great equalizer: Just about anyone can semi-competently wield a gun after a ten hour course. What this means is that guns brought down the warrior casts of Europe, Japan, etc. Guns are the great democratizing force since taw raw numbers become the most important metric of battlefield success. With a stub nose revolver in her purse, any 110 lb woman can walk at night and have a fighting chance against a 250 lb 6ft 5 monster. Makes for boring fantasy for sure. Makes for a fair society though.
- orbital-decay 3y agoMake the character an inventor/engineer and suddenly you have endless possibilities for progression and variation. Sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic. Equalization is not a very convincing argument. You can twist the rules in any way, this is fantasy. Make the firearms less advanced than a revolver, less available, less preferred, countered by magic, or simply make your work not revolving around combat.
- mpsprd 3y agoSummary: classic high fantasy avoids gunpowder
- sgt 3y agoSpeaking of fantasy and books (I assume most people on HN have read the greats like Tolkien), how will the next generation see these worlds? One can hardly find a teenager these days willing to read a single page in a book without browsing on their iPhone. We're yet to see the consequences, I am afraid.
- Ekaros 3y agoWeb novels. Cut them up to small enough chapters and have hundreds or thousands of them. Only requires slightly more attention span than social media thread.
- jvanderbot 3y agoTolkien was pretty much a niche read until it blew up from the screen adaptations, and maybe a little from the earlier hobbit adaptation. Fantasy has never had a better time than right now. So it will inevitably decline, I think, but should remain more popular than historically because of video games, etc. Look at baulders gate 3 success. We may have read more, but when our kids, neighbors, nieces, classmates, etc, say they're enjoying it, we'll have a long list of suggestions. If we the nerdiest can't keep the momentum going, that's on us. But if you want to blame anyone else, blame film industry for churning out crap instead of scouring literature for new stories worth telling.
- nobodyandproud 3y agoFun essay. I agree that guns remove the escapist aspect, but not that it foretells an impending industrial revolution. The world simply won’t have coal nor petroleum; and schools of magic are competing with and dwarfing chemistry and science, and that’s enough to kill any momentum on industry. It’s a world where industry can only be at a small scale.
- red_admiral 3y agoGood article in general, but I have some hairs to split. First, since my D&D party's skin was saved in their last adventure by a lucky critical hit from our party's arqebus, I don't agree that (high) fantasy avoids gunpowder altogether. And we're the good guys, right? But on to more serious things. > With a bow, or even a crossbow, skill and personal investment requirements are significant; by contrast, musket drill could be learned in weeks. > ... > Likewise, short bow, long bow and crossbow are tactically extremely similar. Nonononono. Longbows required extensive training (quoth one King Edward, "If you want to train a good longbowman, start with his grandfather."). Crossbows, once manufactured, could be taught to your average vassal in a day or so. This is one reason that the Catholic Church tried to ban them in 1096 [1], as an untrained peasant could take down a noble armoured knight (at least in mail rather than plate armor). While there were highly trained crossbow armies, such as Genoese mercenaries, the crossbow could greatly increase the deadliness of your average conscript - in less time than it takes to train someone on the musket. Whether you had the resources to outfit a large unit of crossbowmen was another matter, but if you could, training was not the bottleneck. The average crossbow these days shoots something in the range of 60 yards, with high-end models getting "up to 100 yards" according to one manufacturer. If we allow for past war crossbows being beefier constructs - they had windlasses to help load them, after all - then maybe we can add a bit to the maximum and say 200 yards shooting in an arc, but the Book of the Crossbow [2] suggests an effective range of medieval crossbows of around 40 yards. After all, you want your shots to kill, not just go "plink" on someone's helmet. Longbow range is generally given as something like 500-1000 feet, so 160 to 320 yards approximately - Encyclopaedia Britannica [3] gives an effective range of around 200 yards for the longbow (but this was presumably against massed targets, in the "rain arrows from the sky" style). That's more than double what you're getting from the crossbow. So tactically, longbow and crossbow are very much not the same thing. [1] https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/catholic-church-banned-crossbow-warfare/ https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/catholic-churc... (Note that I don't agree with the article's claim that crossbows had a greater _range_ than longbows. They generally had more kinetic energy on discharge (what we would today call "muzzle" energy) but _shorter_ effective range due to higher air resistance from thicker bolts. They were more handgun than sniper rifle, siege ballistas excepted. But they were very deadly at close distances.) [2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Crossbow-Military-History-Weapons/dp/0486287203 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Crossbow-Military-History-Weap... [3] https://www.britannica.com/technology/English-longbow https://www.britannica.com/technology/English-longbow
- hnbear 3y agoGiven the discussion on abilities of historic archers, ACOUP has some good discussion, with links to testing videos: Armor vs Archers: https://acoup.blog/2019/06/21/collections-punching-through-some-armor-myths/ https://acoup.blog/2019/06/21/collections-punching-through-s... Archery Distances: https://acoup.blog/2019/07/04/collections-archery-distance-and-kiting/ https://acoup.blog/2019/07/04/collections-archery-distance-a...