cometaryorbit Posted April 17, 2023 Posted April 17, 2023 I think it's not rule of cool exactly, but close: Brandon momentarily slipping into the common assumption that RL longswords / two handed swords are exceptionally heavy, so something 2x or 3x would be really hard to carry. Brandon didn't have his team when WoA was written. 1 hour ago, alder24 said: In which scene did the size of the sword matched Vin? Because during the entire series she held many different swords. In HoA ch 3, she briefly held a sword of her size, but in WoA, in the scene depicted on the image (and in the WoB below), ch 54 talking with Penrod, at the end of that scene, she picked up a sword a few inches taller than her (Vin is barely 5 ft / 152 cm tall, HoA ch 3). I went through many WoA and HoA scenes with Koloss (searching for the word sword), and I haven't found many mentions of sword's sizes. All that did mentioned it were something like "a sword as tall as her". Reveal hidden contents Herowannabe In his chapter annotations, Brandon specifically pointed out the scene in Well of Ascension where Vin and the Koloss walk out of the mists, and said that- well, let me just find the quote... Ah, here it is. "The scene where Vin walks away with the koloss in the mists, sword over her shoulder, all of them making silhouettes. . .well, that’s one I wish someone would do an artistic rendering of sometime." As far as I can tell, nobody has ever done a rendering of that scene (though you have done one that was similar, with just Vin in the mists- that image now adorns my mousepad. thanks!)- have you ever thought about doing it? I'd love it if you did. Brandon Sanderson The illustration of Vin you mention was, in fact, an aborted start to illustrating that very scene. One day I might get back to it. Ben McSweeney AMA (Oct. 6, 2015) The description of an sword matching Vin's height isn't necessarily valid, as Vin held many different swords of many different sizes. Most of them very briefly during a fight. Very few of them were 13 ft, one in HoA ch 3. Option 1 is not supported by the book, as it was told that larger koloss required larger swords and they were fighting for them. Option 2 is the only valid option - huge blunt swords are cool (not in my opinion)! Edit: @therunner One of the heaviest swords were almost 6 kg (link by @cometaryorbit), so a Mistborn flaring pewter, who is 3x as strong as a human, would be able to wield that 18 kg koloss blade. Yeah, the art may actually overstate the size of koloss swords. I agree they vary with the size of the koloss, but maybe not linearly... if a 5' koloss uses a 4'-5' sword that doesn't mean a 12' koloss uses a 9'-12' sword. I think those near 6 kg swords might be ceremonial/parade, not actual combat. Also, 3x strength isn't all it takes to use a sword that big - inertia/weight distribution matters. I know pewter helps greatly with balance and grace, but still... I mean, the strongest people in the modern world are probably at least 3x stronger than the average medieval soldier, but I don't think anyone in the modern world - even one of the World's Strongest Man contestants- could use a 18 kg sword. 2
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