# Why swords are the "noble" weapon. Why its always a sword



## Idealect (Feb 20, 2016)

1. Most importantly: they can block, parry, and turn blows aside. They are weapons of defense as much as attack, not just in the sense of a deterrent, -as knives, guns, or axes, are not.

2. (not in order of importance now): Easy to pick up, impossible to master.

3. Swords, in weight, most resemble sticks, which are the easiest and safest (pseudo?)weapons, for young people to find, and play, and fight, with.

4. Association with dueling.

5. Knights in shining armor generally have swords. -Inertia. Association with "nobility" via history, in shared-word equivocation and codes of honour, and via myths and legends and tales, in the "virtue" sense of "nobility."

6. They're shiny. Perhaps sleek. A sense of balance in their control, that's not so obvious in axes or polearms.

7. Centrality and spread of characteristics leads to greater possibilities of different styles and forms of expression.

8. The original pure, focused, weapon. They are "arms", as guns are. The appeal of the right to self-defense as thought of in relation to the right to "bear arms".

9. to expand on "easy to pick up" They don't require someone to get really up close and personal like knives, nor rely on pure body-quality/suitability WRT cmbat, in the way that unarmed combat does. Don't require vicious bursts of strength as axes can. Don't require something of a hornet's dedication, as spears can. -a weapon most can pick up and use, with little to no mental adjustment, other than any necessary for violence of all kinds.

10. Purity of martial association. Specifically as in- If one wishes for good folk to be strong, one perhaps should have some appreciation for the potential goodness of martial things. All virtues can be expressed in terms of goodness and strength, but goodness without strength can be vulnerable, as strength without goodness can be evil. -The two should be associated. This is an intuitive fact, especially to children, so symbols of strength can and should become symbols of goodness, lest they become symbols of evil.

11. -following on: to swing a sword is good and enjoyable, it's more or less inherently (minus literal, fundamental, ontological ground)- rewarding. Better that doing so be associated with defense and virtue, than taking what one wants, and making others helpless. --So that those who take up swords of any kind may be drawn towards good, and so those who take up good of any kind may be drawn towards strength, -defence-, the beauty of flashing blades. (Better heroes, than mercenaries, than tyrants.)


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## thomas sweetman (Feb 21, 2016)

I like to believe the wielding of a sword a life long endeavour and a discipline. An up close an personal way of dealing with ones enemies. Guns and WMDs In my mind require in my opinion little or no skill and taking somebodies life should never be easy


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## Idealect (Feb 21, 2016)

Yeah it is pretty up close and personal. Imo that is the main problem with guns, apart from how hard they are to defend against, -they're too tempting to use. It's just point and click. Imo weapons killing shouldn't be too hard either though, or brutal people get a comparitive, as is imo the case with Knives. You could say that a sword requires a specific intent to kill in one's heart, a gun requires nothing -just a pulling of a trigger, the most fleeting and light moment of malice can do it, but a knife tends to require murder in one's soul. (murder as opposed to killing). That's a bit overpoetical, but then again that was kind of the point so I don't know why I'm pointing it out lol.


Imo the fact that so much of gun training is about viewing guns as sacred things not to be taken or used lightly, somewhat proves the point that there is so little of a natural barrier to death with them.


edit: imo there are situations where taking a life should be easy: 1. self defense, 2. defense of others, 3. in a just war (e.g. against the Nazis, assuming I haven't been grossly misled).

Here is a C.S. Lewis quote on his time in the trenches in WW1:

"I have often thought to myself how it would have been if, when I served in the first world war, I and some young German had killed each other simultaneously and found ourselves together a moment after death. I cannot imagine that either of us would have felt any resentment or even any embarrassment. I think we might have laughed over it."


Imo sometimes that's how it has to be, because evil people or people infected with insane ideologies (like Nazism, or the inquisition against "witches", or garden variety "evil always wins" type stuff) can certainly get a kick out of killing. They can certainly be very motivated on the front of inflicting damage.


Imo when you come down to it though, good has a fundamental bedrock advantage on this front, because a good person can accept the possibility of death more easily than an evil person, -it's not a religion to them to put themselves first, and, relative to a crazy and/or grossly mentally irresponsible person (who also might not fear death), can be more scrupulous, and controlled or focused, and thus more deadly.

-a psychopath (using the word loosely) has to find a "win-win" workaround of some sort to accept the possibility of death, -to be an "enlightened psycopath", while a good person can accept it outright, as a potential cost/risk, and focusing on finding win-win focuses elsewhere.


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## svalbard (Feb 21, 2016)

I imagine it has something to do with that they were expensive to produce. Only the upper echelons of society could afford them, spears and axes were much more prevalent amongst the poor and less wealthy societies. 

I would also suggest that there is nothing noble about swords or their weilders.

Good question and should lead to an interesting thread.


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## thomas sweetman (Feb 21, 2016)

What is Imo? ... And I disagree a good person can not justify death, nor accept it. Regardless of motive.... Also a knife to me is a sneaky weapon. Whereas a sword is a duelling weapon.


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## thomas sweetman (Feb 21, 2016)

What then. In your opinion is a noble weapon?


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## svalbard (Feb 21, 2016)

There is no such thing. Weapons are creations to destroy. There is nothing noble about that.


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## thomas sweetman (Feb 21, 2016)

In my opinion. I apologise for my lack of intelligence ha. I love this debate by the way


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## svalbard (Feb 21, 2016)

Welcome to the Chrons.


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## Idealect (Feb 21, 2016)

svalbard said:


> I imagine it has something to do with that they were expensive to produce. Only the upper echelons of society could afford them, spears and axes were much more prevalent amongst the poor and less wealthy societies.
> 
> I would also suggest that there is nothing noble about swords or their weilders.
> 
> Good question and should lead to an interesting thread.




Yes of course! This point is distinctly missing from my list. They're preeeciiiiouus things, little artifacts one can hoard themselves around like scrooge or gollum. Or something more benevolent and/or nice of course, but they're quite evocative.

I don't mean to ignore your suggestion but I mainly wanted to acknowledge that point about expense and don't have an immediate response to it, so I hope you won't consider it a pointed leaving-of-it.

@thomas sweetman, imo stands for "in my opinion", though I don't think think it has precisely the same meaning, -as P.S. doesn't quite just mean "post scriptum" -after text, but has an element of "btw" (by the way) to it as well (imo) (lol).

edit: crossposted with your realisation.


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## thomas sweetman (Feb 21, 2016)

Sometimes. People need to be destroyed. I know what you mean. I just like the idea of a life long skill being undertaken and wielded for justice. But like anything I suppose it can be misused..


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## Foxbat (Feb 21, 2016)

Another piece of interesting information (at least I thought so): the reason we drive on the left in the UK is a remnant of the time where a man on horseback needed to have his sword hand free to deal with brigands and the like. Most people are right handed, therefore we drive on the left.

Why do some countries drive on the left and others on the right? - World Standards


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## galanx (Feb 22, 2016)

svalbard said:


> I imagine it has something to do with that they were expensive to produce. Only the upper echelons of society could afford them, spears and axes were much more prevalent amongst the poor and less wealthy societies.
> .



Yes. Also they were good all-round weapons for an individual, but mostly they were expensive, plus took a lot of training, so were weapons for the elite. Since the hangers-on of the elite wrote the books, they made their sword-wielding patrons the heroes.

With a few exceptions- Robin Hood and his longbow; William Tell and his crossbow; the Swiss pikemen.

I did love the scene at the end of The Last Samurai, when, with only six months of training, the Japanese peasants used their bayonets to stand up to those asshole samurai cold steel to cold steel.


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## pambaddeley (Feb 22, 2016)

There's a lot of mythology around sword smithing because originally it was a real art requiring long apprenticeship and experience, in the case of e.g. Samurai swords or blades used in the Celt or Saxon cultures (not mass produced swords such as the Roman short sword). But some blades were named and handed down through the family or from one ruler to another.  Therefore there is a mystique around swords which other weapons did not acquire and it has lingered despite the increasing mass production, e.g. All Japanese soldiers in WWII being issued with a low quality sword, or the standard cavalry blades in the 19th century.


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## J Riff (Feb 22, 2016)

They are great for cleaning rooftop gutters, as well.


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 22, 2016)

pambaddeley said:


> There's a lot of mythology around sword smithing



Absolutely, and this is something a lot of writers miss. In the Saxon period at least, the making of swords was seen as a magical process - the smiths were not simply creating a weapon, but bring forth a magical blade that had its own spirit. The best quality ones were given names to reflect the major quality of this spirit. 

The myth of the magic sword comes from exceptionally well-crafted ones - which the Vikings/Saxons just happened to excel in, and would not be matched again for another 700-800 years.

We discussed something of that before: Ulfberht swords


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## Ray McCarthy (Feb 24, 2016)

A bow or spear can be for hunting or battle. A pike or javelin etc, is specialised spear. Spear throwers were for hunting
An Axe can be a tool or a weapon.
A Net or Sling can be for hunting or battle
A knife is a tool or a weapon.

A mace is derived I suppose from a hammer, (tool or weapon).

A sword is only any use for battle. It's rubbish as a tool. Hence the idea of if there was everlasting peace, beating the sword into a ploughshare.

I certainly think that smiths may occasionally have made steel by accident.
There is the myths of the Hunter and the myths of the (iron or black) Smith.  The sword was "special" long before 18th C, 19th or 20th C. Fantasy.


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## J-Sun (Feb 25, 2016)

12. It's not as clumsy or random as a blaster.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 29, 2016)

Because a sword conveys nobility and menace at the same time .


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## Cathbad (Feb 29, 2016)

And it can be used as a poker/slicer AND a club!


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 2, 2016)

Cathbad said:


> it can be used as a poker/slicer AND a club


Have you tried cutting bread, cheese or bacon? Even cutting off ropes is tricky! 

Leave in fire too long and tempering damaged

Cuts your hands holding blade and clubbing with handle 

There is a good reason they all carried smaller knives.


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## Caledfwlch (Mar 5, 2016)

I imagine Cost and the difficulty/skill of forging a decent Sword would be a big part of a Sword's Mythos.

To please their personal God/ask for a favour, perhaps before a Battle, Ancient Britons/Celts would throw their most valuable and important possession, their personal Sword into lakes/rivers, and in those days, only a King, Chieftain or Warlord would even be able to afford a Sword, with most Warriors having to make do with Spears.

It is probably why the "Lady in the Lake" entered Arthurian mythology when the Normans & the Church began hijacking the Welsh Legends for propaganda purposes in medieval times - a part remembered Briton tradition of throwing Swords into a body of water, every river, lake etc would have had a personal God or Goddess attached to it, so it makes sense that such an activity is behind the Lady.

Equally, the Sword in the Stone origin of Caledfwlch/Caliburn/Excalibur may relate to how Swords were forged in ancient Britain, using a stone mold. I have read an intriguing second possibility a Historian came up with for Arthur's Sword in the Stone though - Modern Welsh, Old Welsh/late Brythonic have a good few Latin words - Welsh words like Caer (fortified place), Ffenestri (Window) and Dydd Llun (Monday) are all Latin based words that entered the language.

A lot of people think that Arthur was definately a real figure, he just was not a King, as the Welsh/British Royal genealogies of the dark age kingdoms are well recorded, and there is no King Arthur at the right time, but the name does suddenly gain some popularity, as if little Princes were being named for a great Hero. The chap pointed out that Latin for Stone in some uses was "Saxum" which of course sounds similar to Saxon, the Welsh Arthurian Myths were generally recorded by Scholars in Latin - and it is entirely possible that what the Stories are partially but incorrectly recording/remembering is not that Arthur pulled a Sword from a Stone, thus proving his right to a Throne, but that Arthur perhaps during a battle, had a personal Combat with a mighty Saxon King or Chieftain, and defeated him, thus taking the Saxon's Sword as the spoils of war, possibly even taking the sword from the Saxon, and finishing him off with it - thus what he actually did was "take the Sword from the Saxon" but an inattentive scholar got Saxon and Saxum mixed up.

In the Dark Ages too, Swords and Armour dating back to the Roman, and pretty much irreplaceable, with the knowledge of how to forge such things having died out, along with the knowledge and skills to build and maintain the Roads, Palaces, Villas and towns the Romans built, things like weapons and armour would have been jealously hoarded, and passed down from Father to Son, so another fetishisation of warrior items, helping the Sword become a noble weapon.


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## Danny McG (Mar 26, 2017)

J-Sun said:


> 12. It's not as clumsy or random as a blaster.



There's no 'clumsy' when your goal is to kill the other person before he kills or injures you.

Take someone trained from he was a toddler in swordsmanship, give him a sword that took a master smith three months to make.

Put him up against me with a blaster and then you'll see clumsy as I blow his legs off from twenty yards away, then casually stroll (with a bit of grace if you like) up to his twitching carcass and blast his head off.


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## J-Sun (Mar 26, 2017)

Oookay. Try some decaf!  

And I say, I say, that was a joke, son! And a quote!






But, yes, absolutely - to reference a different film:


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## BigBadBob141 (Mar 30, 2017)

I do not think there is such a thing as a noble weapon except maybe in films.
I would imagine most sword fighting in the past would have been bloody & brutal.
And the majority shear unskilled brute force in the middle of a battle field.
Maybe it looks noble when it's a duel between two trained nobles.
But I bet it doesn't feel noble when you get run through.
I think Indiana Jones had the right idea!


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