Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age: Difference between revisions

A weapon or type of weapon, [[Good Old Ways|once common]], that is only used by a small group of people (or just one person) who are just better than you. Don't expect the weapon to actually be [[Awesome but Impractical|practical]]. There are times when it's [[Justified Trope|justified]], because it requires [[A Wizard Did It|magic to use]].

Usually used as a metaphor on how combat has become impersonal over the ages. Can be used as a concrete form of [[Good Is Old-Fashioned]] or [[Good Old Ways]].

== Anime & Manga ==

* The [[Magitek|Caster Gun]] from ''[[Outlaw Star]]'' qualifies. It's not unique, just very old, and very rare. It's just barely common enough for its ammunition to be available, albeit in extremely short supply, in various knick-nack shops and from merchants.

* Belkan-style Devices in the second season of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', optimized for close combat in a variety of forms. They get more common in the third season, but the majority of mages still wield staff-type ranged weapons.

* Actually inverted in ''[[The Five Star Stories]]''. Personal combat has come back into fashion once more because people realized what a waste nuking things from orbit was, the goal of most warfare in the series being to conquer territory while doing as little damage to said territory as possible (after all, who wants to rule over a radioactive crater?). The trope is also somewhat deconstructed here, as the dominance of showy, impractical weapons like [[Laser Blade|Laser Blades]] and [[Bling Bling Bang|ridiculously elaborate]], sword-fighting [[Humongous Mecha]] are seen as a sign that war has become some kind of sick game to the rulers of the galaxy.

* The Glaive of ''[[Krull]]'', a returning bladed disc.

* In ''[[The Last Samurai]]'', the samurai rebellion is caused because the Emperor wants to modernize and Westernize Japan. They fight the Imperial army with old-fashioned bows, spears and swords and do surprisingly well before getting cut down in a hail of machinegun fire. The real rebels upon which the film is based actually used equally modern weapons. They died in a last-ditch charge when their ammo ran out.

** Actually a sword might be a nice thing to have around in some [[The City Narrows|rough parts of town]]. It is long, sharp and intimidating and precise enough to do exactly as much damage as the wielder wishes. For instance by using the flat or a slash cut to the ribcage with a downward inclination(because the bones overlap in that direction and prevent entering the vitals the way they would in an upward blow) someone can make an assailant uncomfortable without killing.

** He also has his [[Mary Sue]] (Lazarus Long) talk about learning how to best use a bayonet in the ''twenty-fifth'' century.

** Hiro also uses his... "Redneck Katana", which is a piece of rebar a meter long with tape wrapped around the end to make a handle. Whether or not this is an "elegant" weapon is left as an exercise for the reader.

*** The "redneck katana" was used by Hiro as a training weapon in his apartment (storage building), specifically to increase strength and muscle tone.

== Live Action TV ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* The world of ''[[Exalted]]'' is a [[Magitek]] [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]], with flamethrowers, beam cannons, and [[Wave Motion Gun|Wave Motion Guns]] all available in somewhere in the setting. However, even at the technological heights of the First Age, the traditional weapon of the titular Exalted is the daiklave, a [[BFS]] that is so massive that it needs to be enchanted [[Required Secondary Powers|just so the wielder can use it without difficulty.]]

** Eldar Phoenix Lords wear armor and wield weapons forged probably more than 20,000 years ago, all of which are at least as good as their modern counterparts.

** A lot of the Imperium works like this as well: Artificer Armor and Master Crafted Weapons tend to be centuries, if not millennia, old. The reason they're still in use isn't just because of sentimentality; it's because they ''still work better'' than a lot of newer things, and in fact repairs and modifications may make them ''better''. This also plays into the fact that, prior to the formation of the Imperium, humanity lost vast swathes of technological knowledge during the Age of Strife, afterwards leaving the newly-formed Imperium to scramble to secure whatever was left over. It's rather a Big Thing whenever a new [[Lost Technology|Standard Template Construct]] is discovered.

** Aslan: they prefer to fight duels with claws. As humans have no claws, a human fighting Aslan fashion would wear an Ayloi, or artificial claw. Ayloi could count as this.

** Another example with Aslan is their taste for ornate decoration for weapons of all kinds including more modern ones.

* Inverted by the Howling Voice Guild of the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series, who are the only people in the world to wield guns. As Cathari explains in ''[[Suikoden V]]'', they're louder than bows, so worse for stealth, less accurate, and less reliable (Though not in [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|actual combat]], where one shot from Cathari can do more damage than most fighters can pull of in three, she also has a high hit rate). In a civilized age, they're the only ones using these uncivilized weapons. The only thing that makes them useful is as an intimidation tactic.

* Parodied meta-wise in ''[[Halo]]''. Luke Smith says that the Spartan Laser is not an overpowered weapon, but an elegant weapon from a more civilized age. Said [[In Name Only|"Elegant Weapon"]] is a [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|Goddamn]] [[Frickin' Laser Beams|Laser]] [[BFG|Cannon]] that kills nearly everything that goes into the path of the laser. And that thing costs more than four fully-armed warthogs and is worth only five shots per battery! ([[Video Game Cruelty Potential|Not that it isn't fun to use]])

* The various beam katanas from ''[[No More Heroes]]'' are quite common, but the people who actually know how to skilfully use them, like Travis and Henry, aren't the ones who are getting their heads cut off.

* In ''[[Arcanum]] Of Steamwork & Magick Obscura'', the kingdom of Dernholm is in terminal decline due to their refusal to embrace technology. In the last war, their much-celebrated Dragon Knights were slaughtered en masse by rifle-wielding infantry. In the good ending, {{spoiler|The true king returns and usher in an era of prosperity by uniting the new ways with the old.}}

'''Torg''' ''(running away)'': Clumsy and random's got my name all over it! }}

** Double Subverted when the sword actually ''does'' prove decisive, in that battle and in others down the road. It saved the characters more than once, in situations where other weapons would obviously fail (soul trading demons in the spirit world for example).