My friend who wrote a popular mega-dungeon is continually mystified at the Facebook groupies who comb through his work asking things like "how much would this golden statue weigh?" as though they expect him to know, or care. The game of GOTCHA is alive and well on the Internet.
As much as I love the LOTR movies, the filmmakers do disregard a lot of basic medieval military tactics. For instance, after the Uruks blow the hole in the wall at Helm's Deep, instead of immediately plugging it with the elves held in reserve, they just sorta let the Uruks mosey on in. Then Aragorn has them fire just a single volley before charging and impaling themselves into the enveloping Uruk line instead of, I don't know, letting the Uruks charge at them while riddling them with arrows.
Also, I know Faramir is supposed to be performing a suicide attack to regain Osgiliath in RotK, but why the hell are they attacking a whole ass city with a cavalry charge of like 200 guys?
Oh yeah LOTR for sure departs from realism in a lot of places, Helms Deep and Saruman’s army most of all I think. No argument there. But my point is that it’s done mostly in service of character drama rather than gimmicks, or else it falls into the same traps as just about every depiction of medieval combat (e.g. everyone breaking out into a chaotic series of individual duels spread out across the whole battlefield). Maybe I’ll give LOTR a bigger treatment in the future… 🤔
At any rate, you're not wrong about Battle of the Five Armies. I actually fell asleep watching it in theaters because the overload of digital excrement being thrown with reckless abandon was just so exhausting.
That was me with the second one. I barely wanted to see it but a friend talked me into it. I passed out halfway through and woke up to the credits. I wasn’t mad about that.
I wouldn’t know a weird battle scene/description or weird tactics with weapons if it ahem….hit me over the head! This was interesting and I’m sure in my games my tactics suck and I use my weapons wrong, but I have fun!!! 😊
Great article, as always! I was offended by the Hobbit movie just reading your description, so I'm glad I've never bothered to watch past the first one. I'm trying to think of any weird or unrealistic battles I've read in fantasy books, but I can't really think of any. I mean, there's the battles in the Dark Lord of Derkholm, but that book is specifically satire and not to be taken terribly seriously. :-)
Okay, so seeing your thoughts about some of these weapons, I’m curious to see your thoughts about buster swords like Cloud Strife’s in Final Fantasy or Sephiroth’s sword in the same game. While both are cool, they tend to be a little goofy to me at times.
I may write a longer Note about this, and if I do, I'll tag you. But here's the short answer: I struggle to take those giant swords seriously, even a little bit. There was a place in pre-modern warfare (c. 1400 - 1650) for massive, two-handed swords, but they were smaller than those, double-bladed, heavy-hilted, sharply-pointed, and extremely FAST. They were also used within a particular "meta" like I spoke about in Part 1. So swords that are kinda, sorta, a little bit like those CAN be useful in the right context.
However, I don't think any of that matters for many settings like shonen anime or Final Fantasy. Unbelievable spectacle is often the point. It's a feature, not a bug, and it resonates with its audience.
I ... am not in that audience. So I put those giant swords solidly in the category of "Not for me but no judgement here!" That might clash with the snark of this post, but if you notice every example I cited above is from media that wanted to be taken seriously.
Very cool, great essay as always. I especially appreciate you calling out the battle of five armies.
I expect this is something you’ll cover at some point, but I was curious on your thoughts about incorporating magical and supernatural elements into a story’s warfare. In my current WIP novel magic is pretty heavily integrated into the military and the battlefield is starting to look a lot more like something you’d find in the modern day.
That’s a concept I’d love to cover, but of course I’d have to have tangible examples that lots of people know about or which can be easily explained. My line of thinking is that it’s vital to follow the developments (magic or tech or whatever) to their logical conclusions. Like if fireballs are common, then the “dense infantry formations” of most premodern warfare would disappear from the battle field (much like they did with the advent of high explosive artillery). Basically if more things enter “the meta,” the more that meta with shift into a totally new paradigm of warfare. If you have highly dangerous magic and few options for individuals to defend themselves, then yes I think you’re correct in thinking it would develop into a more “modern” battlefield.
My thinking on this has always gone “yeah, ok, if I mostly stick to realism, then I can occasionally get away with something incredibly unrealistic as a treat.”
I’m a sucker for a cool but unrealistic weapon or piece of armor or whatever just because I think they’re fun. I also tend to use magic to make it “make sense”. But if anime taught me one thing it was that you wanted those things as seasoning, not the entire dish.
That’s a good way to look at it. There’s a million ways to make an “unrealistic” thing seem believable within a fantasy setting; my thinking is that those stretches just need to be within the frame of reference for your existing setting. And the more solid your setting is generally, the more “credit” you’ll have to do more unrealistic, Rule of Cool sort of things in those moments that need the extra zest and ‘seasoning.’
I haven't seen them. I see I made the right decision. I'm actually angered by this because The Hobbit was my introduction to the world of Tolkien and I *LOVED* the Battle of the Five Armies, and it upsets me that they mucked it up so badly.
Great essay, Eric! I had no idea about the metal-edged shields but it makes total sense!
I tend to prefer reading and writing ‘realism’ in fantasy, but I enjoy the rule-of-cool stuff as well. Neither is more important or valid. I think it just comes down to reader expectations.
The Hobbit adaptations broke reader expectations, which—to me—is its failing. There are plenty of well-loved movies that abandon realism. These ones just happened to tie themselves to an IP that had previously set the expectation of realism.
I agree wholeheartedly. Lack of realism can be loads of fun and can often even elevate some stories, but that irrealism (so evident in the Hobbit movies) clashes with the more grounded, realistic approach that viewers and fans had come to expect from Middle-Earth and the '01-'03 movies in particular. The LOTR movies depart from realism quite often themselves, but mostly in what I could call "forgivable" ways, or in ways that do not threaten the integrity of the story.
Thanks for reading, Keyon! Always a pleasure to see you pop up in my comments
This gave me a lot of insight, thank you for sharing! By the way, do you have any posts about medieval fantasy battle tactics? I know almost nothing about those, but I would love to learn! (Especially since I'm writing medieval fantasy.)
Glad it helped! I don't have anything specific on that yet besides the above post and it's Part 1 counterpart (linked below). However, this is something I am likely to keep returning to. I've already had a request to do a fuller treatment on the Battle of the Five Armies in the book vs. the movie, so that might come down the line. If you want something else in the meantime, I recommend "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" (https://acoup.blog/) from historian Brett Devereaux.
Include a dragon dentist...you know they need 'em. Munching on armored bodies of wannabe heroes cannot be good for your teeth and gums. Besides that, sooo many bad fantasy art depictions show their teeth as long and thin and just the sort to break while biting.
Medieval medical fantasy is quite a niche we just discovered. Medieval medicine is quite interesting…not quite the general popular notion. Chirurgeons were able to do a great deal of good. Bit of trivia: they were trained to diagnose some ailments by examining urine…color, taste, smell. Yeah, they tasted sick people’s pee.
Always an option! Although its less of an option for storytellers like me who want the big epic set-pieces and put fighting into the core of the stories they want to tell 😅
I had to look this up. Do you mean the giant flail with retractable blades? That sort of thing has.... *some* precedent, but in different contexts (namely against highly armored opponents) and would basically require significant armor on the part of the wielder, since it has zero defensive capabilities and leaves the user completely vulnerable after a failed strike. They'd also have much larger handles and much smaller chains: more like a sledgehammer with a 7-8 inches of chain than a hand-hammer with a few yards of chain... Sheesh.
Yes, it’s an iconic scene in the movie. The lead-up to the fight was filmed by Quentin Tarantino in one uninterrupted shot with a very flexible camera. It’s the type of weapon that only works in the anime, because it requires all parties involved in the fight to be cooperating fully.
I've no doubt it's heart-pumping action. Things can be unrealistic and exciting at the same time. But if using a weapon requires your opponent to cooperate with your attempts to kill them, then it's a bad weapon!😆
My friend who wrote a popular mega-dungeon is continually mystified at the Facebook groupies who comb through his work asking things like "how much would this golden statue weigh?" as though they expect him to know, or care. The game of GOTCHA is alive and well on the Internet.
I don't know a lot about early fandom, but there's also this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoboo
As much as I love the LOTR movies, the filmmakers do disregard a lot of basic medieval military tactics. For instance, after the Uruks blow the hole in the wall at Helm's Deep, instead of immediately plugging it with the elves held in reserve, they just sorta let the Uruks mosey on in. Then Aragorn has them fire just a single volley before charging and impaling themselves into the enveloping Uruk line instead of, I don't know, letting the Uruks charge at them while riddling them with arrows.
Also, I know Faramir is supposed to be performing a suicide attack to regain Osgiliath in RotK, but why the hell are they attacking a whole ass city with a cavalry charge of like 200 guys?
Oh yeah LOTR for sure departs from realism in a lot of places, Helms Deep and Saruman’s army most of all I think. No argument there. But my point is that it’s done mostly in service of character drama rather than gimmicks, or else it falls into the same traps as just about every depiction of medieval combat (e.g. everyone breaking out into a chaotic series of individual duels spread out across the whole battlefield). Maybe I’ll give LOTR a bigger treatment in the future… 🤔
At any rate, you're not wrong about Battle of the Five Armies. I actually fell asleep watching it in theaters because the overload of digital excrement being thrown with reckless abandon was just so exhausting.
That was me with the second one. I barely wanted to see it but a friend talked me into it. I passed out halfway through and woke up to the credits. I wasn’t mad about that.
These are so informative. And I appreciate how much work you put into them. Please, keep ‘em coming! This is the kind of fantasy I can get behind.
I wouldn’t know a weird battle scene/description or weird tactics with weapons if it ahem….hit me over the head! This was interesting and I’m sure in my games my tactics suck and I use my weapons wrong, but I have fun!!! 😊
Great article, as always! I was offended by the Hobbit movie just reading your description, so I'm glad I've never bothered to watch past the first one. I'm trying to think of any weird or unrealistic battles I've read in fantasy books, but I can't really think of any. I mean, there's the battles in the Dark Lord of Derkholm, but that book is specifically satire and not to be taken terribly seriously. :-)
Okay, so seeing your thoughts about some of these weapons, I’m curious to see your thoughts about buster swords like Cloud Strife’s in Final Fantasy or Sephiroth’s sword in the same game. While both are cool, they tend to be a little goofy to me at times.
I may write a longer Note about this, and if I do, I'll tag you. But here's the short answer: I struggle to take those giant swords seriously, even a little bit. There was a place in pre-modern warfare (c. 1400 - 1650) for massive, two-handed swords, but they were smaller than those, double-bladed, heavy-hilted, sharply-pointed, and extremely FAST. They were also used within a particular "meta" like I spoke about in Part 1. So swords that are kinda, sorta, a little bit like those CAN be useful in the right context.
However, I don't think any of that matters for many settings like shonen anime or Final Fantasy. Unbelievable spectacle is often the point. It's a feature, not a bug, and it resonates with its audience.
I ... am not in that audience. So I put those giant swords solidly in the category of "Not for me but no judgement here!" That might clash with the snark of this post, but if you notice every example I cited above is from media that wanted to be taken seriously.
That makes total sense! Thanks for sharing!
Very cool, great essay as always. I especially appreciate you calling out the battle of five armies.
I expect this is something you’ll cover at some point, but I was curious on your thoughts about incorporating magical and supernatural elements into a story’s warfare. In my current WIP novel magic is pretty heavily integrated into the military and the battlefield is starting to look a lot more like something you’d find in the modern day.
That’s a concept I’d love to cover, but of course I’d have to have tangible examples that lots of people know about or which can be easily explained. My line of thinking is that it’s vital to follow the developments (magic or tech or whatever) to their logical conclusions. Like if fireballs are common, then the “dense infantry formations” of most premodern warfare would disappear from the battle field (much like they did with the advent of high explosive artillery). Basically if more things enter “the meta,” the more that meta with shift into a totally new paradigm of warfare. If you have highly dangerous magic and few options for individuals to defend themselves, then yes I think you’re correct in thinking it would develop into a more “modern” battlefield.
My thinking on this has always gone “yeah, ok, if I mostly stick to realism, then I can occasionally get away with something incredibly unrealistic as a treat.”
I’m a sucker for a cool but unrealistic weapon or piece of armor or whatever just because I think they’re fun. I also tend to use magic to make it “make sense”. But if anime taught me one thing it was that you wanted those things as seasoning, not the entire dish.
That’s a good way to look at it. There’s a million ways to make an “unrealistic” thing seem believable within a fantasy setting; my thinking is that those stretches just need to be within the frame of reference for your existing setting. And the more solid your setting is generally, the more “credit” you’ll have to do more unrealistic, Rule of Cool sort of things in those moments that need the extra zest and ‘seasoning.’
Good stuff, Eric!
Thanks!
The Hobbit movies had...goat cavalry?
I haven't seen them. I see I made the right decision. I'm actually angered by this because The Hobbit was my introduction to the world of Tolkien and I *LOVED* the Battle of the Five Armies, and it upsets me that they mucked it up so badly.
Great essay, Eric! I had no idea about the metal-edged shields but it makes total sense!
I tend to prefer reading and writing ‘realism’ in fantasy, but I enjoy the rule-of-cool stuff as well. Neither is more important or valid. I think it just comes down to reader expectations.
The Hobbit adaptations broke reader expectations, which—to me—is its failing. There are plenty of well-loved movies that abandon realism. These ones just happened to tie themselves to an IP that had previously set the expectation of realism.
I agree wholeheartedly. Lack of realism can be loads of fun and can often even elevate some stories, but that irrealism (so evident in the Hobbit movies) clashes with the more grounded, realistic approach that viewers and fans had come to expect from Middle-Earth and the '01-'03 movies in particular. The LOTR movies depart from realism quite often themselves, but mostly in what I could call "forgivable" ways, or in ways that do not threaten the integrity of the story.
Thanks for reading, Keyon! Always a pleasure to see you pop up in my comments
This gave me a lot of insight, thank you for sharing! By the way, do you have any posts about medieval fantasy battle tactics? I know almost nothing about those, but I would love to learn! (Especially since I'm writing medieval fantasy.)
Glad it helped! I don't have anything specific on that yet besides the above post and it's Part 1 counterpart (linked below). However, this is something I am likely to keep returning to. I've already had a request to do a fuller treatment on the Battle of the Five Armies in the book vs. the movie, so that might come down the line. If you want something else in the meantime, I recommend "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" (https://acoup.blog/) from historian Brett Devereaux.
Here's my Part 1 on Weapons & Tactics: https://open.substack.com/pub/ericfalden/p/why-warriors-wield-the-weapons-they-wield
Thank you!
Include a dragon dentist...you know they need 'em. Munching on armored bodies of wannabe heroes cannot be good for your teeth and gums. Besides that, sooo many bad fantasy art depictions show their teeth as long and thin and just the sort to break while biting.
Oops, sorry, I meant medieval. But a dragon dentist is a good idea, I might use that!
Please do. Credit would be nice…in the dedication…if you want… :))
🤣 *salutes* Of course!
Medieval medical fantasy is quite a niche we just discovered. Medieval medicine is quite interesting…not quite the general popular notion. Chirurgeons were able to do a great deal of good. Bit of trivia: they were trained to diagnose some ailments by examining urine…color, taste, smell. Yeah, they tasted sick people’s pee.
Medieval doctors were underpaid…
I'm liking this idea of "medical" fantasy, and I've already kinda-sorta dabbled in that, although with a dark-fantasy, villainous vibe. Check it out: https://ericfalden.substack.com/p/a-missive-for-mankind?r=3ecd72&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For real.
Of course, you could just describe the battle off-screen in a couple of sentences...
Always an option! Although its less of an option for storytellers like me who want the big epic set-pieces and put fighting into the core of the stories they want to tell 😅
I couldn’t help but think of “Kill, Bill” and whatever that weapon was the little Yoshi wielded.
I had to look this up. Do you mean the giant flail with retractable blades? That sort of thing has.... *some* precedent, but in different contexts (namely against highly armored opponents) and would basically require significant armor on the part of the wielder, since it has zero defensive capabilities and leaves the user completely vulnerable after a failed strike. They'd also have much larger handles and much smaller chains: more like a sledgehammer with a 7-8 inches of chain than a hand-hammer with a few yards of chain... Sheesh.
Yes, it’s an iconic scene in the movie. The lead-up to the fight was filmed by Quentin Tarantino in one uninterrupted shot with a very flexible camera. It’s the type of weapon that only works in the anime, because it requires all parties involved in the fight to be cooperating fully.
I've no doubt it's heart-pumping action. Things can be unrealistic and exciting at the same time. But if using a weapon requires your opponent to cooperate with your attempts to kill them, then it's a bad weapon!😆