I also had to laugh at the statement about Arwen's sword. Y'all DO know that in the books, she NEVER USES A SWORD, right? Or if you don't.... well, how about reading the books - just to, y'know, see how different they are from the movies?

Now, I'm not at all dissing the movies. I LOVE them. But they aren't "canon". At all. They're very much entertaining, very well done, and I'm having a REALLY hard time waiting for The Hobbit. However, much license was taken with the tale as told by Tolkien....

[In fact, Arwen didn't ride out of Rivendell to look for Frodo and Aragorn at all. It was Glorfindel I believe....)

[[I have a friend IRL who's an "old time smith" - he made Arwen's sword for himself, and it turned out pretty darn nice.... He thinks it's a bit "fem" for him to use at the renfest stuff he does, but it makes a nice "wall-hanging" apparently.]]

According to my 12 disc box set, there's no direct Japanese influence and I don't think Weta would be ashamed in admitting if there was. -shrugs-

Arwen's sword in particular is a Russian cavalry sabre. A shasqua, according to my searches. Which is this type of thing: http://therionarms.com/sold/com003d.jpg


Yeah. The writers on the movies thought that Arwen was too inactive a character to gain sympathy from fans and that without more of a presence, she would reflect weakly on Aragorn. I do see their point.

I feel proud to say i've read all the books, read the hobbit, read the Children of Hurin and read The Similarion. Though we were never discussing the books, we were discussing the movie.

I'm aware the discussion was about the sword (which appears as "itself" only in the movie) from the movie.... But the thing is that it might as well be a sword from wherethehellever, because the sword in the books (canon, in the Skyrim parlance) belonged to Elrond, and I don't recall that it was ever stated what it looked like. Now I'm going to have to reread them to see.... I JUST finished the entire bunch of them over the holidays but wasn't reading for specifics of course....

Im pretty sure it mentions in a book the general appearance of elven weaponry...could be mistaken ofc

Ancient japanese katana were graded/rated by the number of bodies they can cut through in 1 swing..there are lost techniques to make 6 body katana.
For their size, weight and sharp cutting ability, they are hands down the best man made swords in history...and they can also stab; a rapier is only good for a fancy dancy gentleman duel, not battle

Well, it very possibly could. Generally I don't pay a lot of attention to descriptions of weaponry. That's just one of the things that don't mean much to me in books - if a sword kills the antagonist, why do I care what it looks like? There's one particular scene in a book and the sword from it which DOES give me chills - Misty Lackey's description of Tarma finding her "perfect sword" (in the middle of mayhem, murder and magic - in Oathbound) - and THAT sword is similar in description to katanas. So in Skyrim, as I said earlier, I "channel" Tarma - and a katana-style 1-hand sword is a good weapon for that reason.

[Um. I need to go read all her books again now. Game will still be here in a week....]

Yup! Glorfindel 'twas!

Actually... I more was chuckling at this:
Just the placement of 'real world' and 'fantasy' side-by-side. Still... I guess that's completely what Skyrim does.

Oh. And you're completely incorrect on your assertion of 'quality'.

How? it was well known that the iron lodes and deposits in Feudal japan was a very poor and brittle quality.

Which made the craftmanship of these weapons even more impressive. Yes Spain had better steel.. But a much worse design. You also have to remember that Aragorn didn't have a sword for 2 and a half books. Just a broken blade.

Here's the quote from Oathbound by Mercedes Lackey (as I was discussing earlier):


*shrug* I likes me my curved. swords.

Fascinating how ignorant some people are about how swords work.