Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age: Difference between revisions

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' Goku's power pole.

* 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.

 

== Comic Books ==

 

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': [[Laser Blade|lightsabers]], the weapon a Jedi knight. Essentially swords for a futuristic setting, they help paint the Jedi as a futuristic version of the [[Knight Errant]] or samurai. The weapons seem to have a number of clear advantages over blasters, being able to cut through anything and deflect blaster fire. Obi-Wan is the only person to call them "more civilized," however. In ''Revenge of The Sith'', he's forced to use a blaster pistol and sniffs, "So uncivilized!"

* The Operative in ''[[Serenity]]'' uses a Chinese-style sword as an apparent throwback to the warrior traditions of old. He lectures one man about how a dishonored Romans would fall on their sword... while forcing the man to do so.

 

 

{{quote|It was an ancient tool of his people and a laughable anachronism, save that Stenwold had witnessed what he could do with it.}}

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] - [[Author Appeal|who was a competitive fencer in his Naval Academy days]] - goes to some length to point out how a sword is really great in several of his books. Never jams, never runs out of ammo, and so on.

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

* Hiro Protagonist, the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|hero protagonist]] of ''Snow Crash'', carries a [[Katanas Are Just Better|katana]] for various reasons, not least because it makes him look like a [[Badass]]. In one job he was equipped with a particularly powerful pocket-sized handgun that looked like a fashion accessory and so was somewhat inadequate for intimidation. Carrying a sword, on the other hand, gets you a little more respect.

== Tabletop Games ==

* The world of ''[[Exalted]]'' is a [[Magitek]] [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]], with flamethrowers, beam cannons, and [[Wave Motion Gun]]s 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.

 

== Video Games ==

** It's so difficult to use, in fact, that only three people in the game use them: Squall, Seifer, and Laguna (though he only uses it as an awkward sword). Seifer uses it because it matches his fantasy, and there's some in-universe speculation that Squall uses it ''because'' it's difficult to master, reflecting his stubborn nature.

* 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]])

 

== Real Life ==

* Swords, particularly some varieties thereof (the Rapier and the Jian, for instance) have often been the mark of noblemen, military officers and others in high social standing, presumably owing to the fact that they were expensive. Ironically, one of their functions was to hack at any [[Dirty Coward]] who tried to break formation and run away.

* Subverted in the Battle of Agincourt, where France clung to the weapons and tactics of chivalry, charging at the English army of longbowman, who rained arrows down on them as they slogged through mud and sharpened stakes. Bows were considered a lowly peasants weapon by the French, but the English made them the backbone of their army.

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[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]