Why don’t Shardblades do this?

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

My question is pretty simple: if Shardblades were meant to fight Thunderclasts, why aren’t they shaped more like this:

[Karger he/him]

Nale's blade is actually shaped a lot like that.

[Lunamor she/her]

Cause Link is too cool for them. And also couldn’t/can’t they change shape?

Edited August 6, 2019 by Lunamor

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

11 hours ago, Karger said:

Nale's blade is actually shaped a lot like that.

I guess some Shardblades do that, but I would expect a lot more of them to do that.

11 hours ago, Lunamor said:

Cause Link is too cool for them. And also couldn’t/can’t they change shape?

I mean dead blades. Why don’t those have two slicing edges?

[Karger he/him]

26 minutes ago, Ethan_Sedai said:

I mean dead blades. Why don’t those have two slicing edges?

I thought you were just referring to the split.  This makes sense for a practically unbreakable blade as it saves on mass while doing equal damage making it easier to move.  I personally would have my shardblade as thin as possible.

[+Q10fanatic]

14 minutes ago, Karger said:

I thought you were just referring to the split.  This makes sense for a practically unbreakable blade as it saves on mass while doing equal damage making it easier to move.  I personally would have my shardblade as thin as possible.

So, in the real world, thin blades were absolutely a tactical improvement on older massive blades due to the fact that they were faster/lighter. Think Three Musketeers vs Arthurian style blades. The reason was that people in real-life suits of armor (on foot) would often tire out or overheat and a lightly armored person could evade them until they collapsed. In a fight of two lightly armored people, if one had a massive two-handed sword and the other had a thinner blade more suited for fencing, then the fencer could dance in and out of range, score a hit or two and wait for their opponent to bleed out.

This logic doesn't make sense on Roshar because the armor magically enhances the wearer, you can't tire them out as easily. Since you need to try to damage the suits of armor, you need as much mass as possible. This is why hammers and massive blades are common.

Radiants, as we've seen them so far, throw these tactics out of whack because they are mobile enough to evade people in the suits and strong enough to do damage with lighter (seeming?) weapons. Once we see Radiants with Shardplate and Shardblade, we should see basically super soldiers. More mobile, better protected, and harder-hitting than anything else on the field.

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

The main advantage I saw in it is that slicing a Thunderclast would only take one swing, instead of two.

[Impact he/him]

On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 0:27 PM, Ethan_Sedai said:

The main advantage I saw in it is that slicing a Thunderclast would only take one swing, instead of two.

The split blade or the double edge?  Because I don't see how either would lower the necessary number of hit.

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

1 hour ago, Impact said:

The split blade or the double edge?  Because I don't see how either would lower the necessary number of hit.

I mean, if the Shardblade has the normal cutting edge that hits the thunderclast, and then another cutting edge just behind it, allowing it to cut twice. The split allows it to do that, and so you only need to cut once, instead of twice.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Ethan_Sedai

[Impact he/him]

8 minutes ago, Ethan_Sedai said:

I mean, if the Shardblade has the normal cutting edge that hits the thunderclast, and then another cutting edge just behind it, allowing it to cut twice. The split allows it to do that, and so you only need to cut once, instead of twice.

Would that count as a second cut, though?  Seems like because its the same total blade, it would not be two separate attacks.  Spiritual mumbo jumbo and all that

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

4 minutes ago, Impact said:

Would that count as a second cut, though?  Seems like because its the same total blade, it would not be two separate attacks.  Spiritual mumbo jumbo and all that

That’s what I meant when I created this thread: would it work?

[Impact he/him]

3 minutes ago, Ethan_Sedai said:

That’s what I meant when I created this thread: would it work?

Fair enough.  In that case, I don't think it would

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

Ok.

[Impact he/him]

5 minutes ago, Ethan_Sedai said:

Ok.

I guess I should have explained why.  Basically, the blade doesn't cut physically on the first swipe (at something organic). It cuts the *spirit*.  To do that, the spirit of the blade or spren is cutting the spirit of the target.  Because a split shardblade would be one item with one spren, it would only cut once, even if it was split.  I could maybe see it working if it was a double ended sword (think Darth Maul's lightsaber), but that would still be two separate cuts, not one.  

[Pathfinder]

9 minutes ago, Ethan_Sedai said:

Ok.

As @Impact said, you would be basically cutting along the same line, so there would be no additional cut. I think what you are envisioning is more like a claw weapon. I have also seen a sword where there is a blade next to another blade, meant to catch and twist an enemy's blade out of their hand though I cannot seem to locate it. That could potentially work too. 

 

edit: just saw Impact's next post. good points. 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Karger he/him]

On 8/6/2019 at 11:49 AM, Q10fanatic said:

So, in the real world, thin blades were absolutely a tactical improvement on older massive blades due to the fact that they were faster/lighter. Think Three Musketeers vs Arthurian style blades. The reason was that people in real-life suits of armor (on foot) would often tire out or overheat and a lightly armored person could evade them until they collapsed. In a fight of two lightly armored people, if one had a massive two-handed sword and the other had a thinner blade more suited for fencing, then the fencer could dance in and out of range, score a hit or two and wait for their opponent to bleed out.

This logic doesn't make sense on Roshar because the armor magically enhances the wearer, you can't tire them out as easily. Since you need to try to damage the suits of armor, you need as much mass as possible. This is why hammers and massive blades are common.

Radiants, as we've seen them so far, throw these tactics out of whack because they are mobile enough to evade people in the suits and strong enough to do damage with lighter (seeming?) weapons. Once we see Radiants with Shardplate and Shardblade, we should see basically super soldiers. More mobile, better protected, and harder-hitting than anything else on the field.

Most Opponents that you face on Roshar do not have shardplate.  Against ordinary foes a thinner shardblade makes sense for the same reason that the thinner sabers you mention are generally better then those old longswords.  As Dalinar mentions.  The best way to use a shardblade is just to keep it moving as fast as possible without wasting energy.  A thinner blade lends itself to that.  Even if you do go up against someone in plate assuming you have plate of your own a good thrust can shatter pieces of enemy plate with the enhanced strength.  If you don't have plate and are going up against someone who does then without surges you loose no matter what shape you blade is as they can win just by throwing a few tuns at you or just taking a hit and smashing you with a few punches.

[cometaryorbit]

On 8/6/2019 at 10:49 AM, Q10fanatic said:

So, in the real world, thin blades were absolutely a tactical improvement on older massive blades due to the fact that they were faster/lighter. Think Three Musketeers vs Arthurian style blades.

Well, I think less an absolute improvement, more an adaptation to different fighting conditions. Your classic swashbuckling era, Golden Age of Piracy and Three Musketeers and such is 1600s-early 1700s, after guns had made plate armor obsolete, so swords became lighter and quicker.

A couple of centuries earlier (late Middle Ages/Renaissance), plate armor was extremely effective protection - often fights came down to grappling, trying to stab through the helmet's eye gaps and such. Armor might be an impediment when fighting on foot, but the protection was very good vs same period weapons.

The longsword of this era (late medieval/Renaissance) was more of an all-round weapon. It had more mass, and was used in a variety of special anti-armor techniques ('half-sword', 'mordhau' - using the hilt as a sort of warhammer) which look very bizarre to modern eyes.

Roshar is more medieval. No gunpowder at all, and crossbows seem rather rare (they are mentioned in Kholinar and Thaylen City in OB, but never on the Shattered Plains or anywhere else in WOK/WOR, so they're either very new & haven't reached the front yet, or not used in "field" warfare much for some reason).

[+Q10fanatic]

9 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

crossbows seem rather rare (they are mentioned in Kholinar and Thaylen City in OB, but never on the Shattered Plains or anywhere else in WOK/WOR, so they're either very new & haven't reached the front yet, or not used in "field" warfare much for some reason).

Yeah, I think crossbows are rare because they have a different "heavy" bow in the Shard bows. I'm sure there are differences between their capabilities but there is an in-world alternative to crossbows that we didn't have in an analogous era.