Why isn't a gun considered an elegant weapon?
- Thread starter ShotgunZombie
- Start date
Admittedly this is the kind of response I thought I was gonna get when I initially started this thread, I'm a little surprised it took this long for me to see one... On a related note I do believe Skill and Preparation are required of any art form, not saying gun slinging or dueling are art forms that is a discussion for another thread, though they do lend an air of Professionalism to whatever they're applied to, so yes they can be a factor for elegance.Retal19 said:
Because guns result in a lot of collateral damage. Any idiot can pick up a gun and kill something, and it won't necessarily be the thing they aimed for. In traditional, large land army warfare, the gun had nothing to do with any sort of precision (especially in the days before rifling). Sort of like a canon or a bomb, it's basic function was to point it at the enemy and hope one of them died.
Trained soldiers today may fire guns with precision, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of guns in the hands of people who don't give a shit results in a lot of collateral damage, a lot of innocent people being killed, and a lot of "spraying and praying".
Trained soldiers today may fire guns with precision, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of guns in the hands of people who don't give a shit results in a lot of collateral damage, a lot of innocent people being killed, and a lot of "spraying and praying".
I prefer swords to guns and fists to swords, I think the best showing of someone's strength is through their own body, hand-to-hand combat requires finesse, strength, flexibility, speed etc... a bout can last for quite a while with blow for blow, as both fighters gradually weigh down.
I think the real respect comes from how hard it is to use effectively and the challenge that comes with being able to use it.
A gun used against an unarmed person: very unlikely the unarmed person can win or come out alive
A sword used against an unarmed person: More likely the unarmed can win or come out alive
Unarmed person against unarmed person: Much more personal, challenge and it doesn't have to lead to death.
I think that is also why snipers are idolized, the challenge of stealth, stillness, accuracy etc... makes it hard so they are more respected.
You don't respect the person who clears a game on easy, you respect the person who does it on hard mode with no health packs.
I think the real respect comes from how hard it is to use effectively and the challenge that comes with being able to use it.
A gun used against an unarmed person: very unlikely the unarmed person can win or come out alive
A sword used against an unarmed person: More likely the unarmed can win or come out alive
Unarmed person against unarmed person: Much more personal, challenge and it doesn't have to lead to death.
I think that is also why snipers are idolized, the challenge of stealth, stillness, accuracy etc... makes it hard so they are more respected.
You don't respect the person who clears a game on easy, you respect the person who does it on hard mode with no health packs.
I may be coming to this thread when its dead, but in the case that it isn't, here this goes.
The most startling thing I noticed in this thread is that people seem to believe that combat back in the pre-gunpowder (and somewhat into the industrial age, at least those involving melee weapons) was this duel style combat, with fancy maneuvers. Hell, no. What techniques were taught during dueling and what were actually used in battle are two completely different schools. People would punch, claw, bite, shield bash, throw sand in eyes, and generally every dirty thing you could think of. They would use their weapons in ways that could hardly be considered elegant. They certainly was skill involved in these battles, because as someone pointed out earlier, professional soldiers and mercenaries tended to beat the crap of peasant rebellions rather quickly, despite being outnumbered in many occasions. But they didn't usually wield the little "elegant" fencing weapons. They used claymores, sabers, broadswords, longswords, maces, and other weapons that were not pretty, but certainly practical. A Prince who had learned to duel with a sword but not fought in any actual battles would almost certainly lose to the veteran mercenary in a fight to death. To risk sounding like a pretentious prick, I'm going to have repeat that famous FO3 quote of "War never changes". It is not, has not been, or will be, a "gentleman's" dueling space. Its gritty, harsh, and unforgiving to mistakes.
And that seems to be peoples biggest mistake. They see the old days of battle the honorable days, with the modern "dehumanizing" the whole concept of war. So that's why the sword is considered more elegant; it represents a (incorrect) interpretation of our past.
And yes, I consider guns to be inelegant too. And I like it that way. Weapons of war are meant to be practical tools of the their respective trade. There should be no confusion of their danger, uses, and how they work. One should be wary of a weapon that looks "elegant" or beautiful; they often sacrifice use for cosmetic purposes, and have no proper place on the battlefield, unless you want to die. For those of you who have watched Stargate-SG1, you will remember the episode were Jack demonstrates the difference between the staff weapon and the P-90, citing one as the weapon of intimidation(Staff Weapon), and the other a weapon of war(The P-90) to the Jaffa rebels. Any weapon that sacrifices its use for aesthetic purposes is not really a weapon.
There are firearms out there that require little to no skill to use them; the whole design philosophy behind the AK-47 was that principle. But so was the pike in its day and age. Its hardly fair to compare all firearms to the sword, and likewise all melee weapons to the firearm. Different uses means different designs. The sniper rifle requires a great deal of skill, and time in training that skill in order to properly master, as well as the necessary secondary skills to go with it. The machine gun as well, although it may not appear so, requires great skills; properly burst firing the rounds, keeping the barrel cool, and keeping the gun under control at not something that we all are skills we are born with. Even the standard issue rifles that make up the bulk of our armed forces small arms require training to fire properly. And all weapons require proper discipline while using them, and maintenance of that weapon, along with a basic working knowledge of that weapon. Sure, "anybody" could pick up a gun and shoot it, but to properly use it, it requires proper training, as does any weapon.
TL;dr -Screw you. You can either read it all, or not at all. I put some time into this response, so you at the very least can read it.
The most startling thing I noticed in this thread is that people seem to believe that combat back in the pre-gunpowder (and somewhat into the industrial age, at least those involving melee weapons) was this duel style combat, with fancy maneuvers. Hell, no. What techniques were taught during dueling and what were actually used in battle are two completely different schools. People would punch, claw, bite, shield bash, throw sand in eyes, and generally every dirty thing you could think of. They would use their weapons in ways that could hardly be considered elegant. They certainly was skill involved in these battles, because as someone pointed out earlier, professional soldiers and mercenaries tended to beat the crap of peasant rebellions rather quickly, despite being outnumbered in many occasions. But they didn't usually wield the little "elegant" fencing weapons. They used claymores, sabers, broadswords, longswords, maces, and other weapons that were not pretty, but certainly practical. A Prince who had learned to duel with a sword but not fought in any actual battles would almost certainly lose to the veteran mercenary in a fight to death. To risk sounding like a pretentious prick, I'm going to have repeat that famous FO3 quote of "War never changes". It is not, has not been, or will be, a "gentleman's" dueling space. Its gritty, harsh, and unforgiving to mistakes.
And that seems to be peoples biggest mistake. They see the old days of battle the honorable days, with the modern "dehumanizing" the whole concept of war. So that's why the sword is considered more elegant; it represents a (incorrect) interpretation of our past.
And yes, I consider guns to be inelegant too. And I like it that way. Weapons of war are meant to be practical tools of the their respective trade. There should be no confusion of their danger, uses, and how they work. One should be wary of a weapon that looks "elegant" or beautiful; they often sacrifice use for cosmetic purposes, and have no proper place on the battlefield, unless you want to die. For those of you who have watched Stargate-SG1, you will remember the episode were Jack demonstrates the difference between the staff weapon and the P-90, citing one as the weapon of intimidation(Staff Weapon), and the other a weapon of war(The P-90) to the Jaffa rebels. Any weapon that sacrifices its use for aesthetic purposes is not really a weapon.
There are firearms out there that require little to no skill to use them; the whole design philosophy behind the AK-47 was that principle. But so was the pike in its day and age. Its hardly fair to compare all firearms to the sword, and likewise all melee weapons to the firearm. Different uses means different designs. The sniper rifle requires a great deal of skill, and time in training that skill in order to properly master, as well as the necessary secondary skills to go with it. The machine gun as well, although it may not appear so, requires great skills; properly burst firing the rounds, keeping the barrel cool, and keeping the gun under control at not something that we all are skills we are born with. Even the standard issue rifles that make up the bulk of our armed forces small arms require training to fire properly. And all weapons require proper discipline while using them, and maintenance of that weapon, along with a basic working knowledge of that weapon. Sure, "anybody" could pick up a gun and shoot it, but to properly use it, it requires proper training, as does any weapon.
TL;dr -Screw you. You can either read it all, or not at all. I put some time into this response, so you at the very least can read it.
Actually isn't the definition of elegance that it is unusually effective and simple? So guns are pretty much the definition of elegance. Although it's probably that when you look at a "master" of any type of sword while their using it and see something very pretty and disciplined, you can look at a novice of the same style and see an uncoordinated drooling howler monkey with a stick, and look at a "master" marksman versus a novice marksman and see less of an immediate visual difference. That and people are stupid and opinionated.(By the way: I take no sides.)
If we're talking about 'elegance' by a mutually agreeable measure then one good indicator of elegance, style and 'taste' in weapons might be how they have fared at auction. After some very lazy browsing I came up with Napoleon Bonaparte's sabre [//www.the-most-expensive.info/weapons/most-expensive-sword.html] (valued at $1.6 million, sold for $6.4 million) and this Swiss rifle made for a Shiekh [//most-expensive.net/rifles] (valued at $825,000).
Admittedly, this may seem a skew way of doing things but it might be the closest to a mutually consensual method. There are some weapons, such as the JFK assassination rifle, that while priceless because of their historical significance cannot truly be considered intrinsically 'elegant'.
Admittedly, this may seem a skew way of doing things but it might be the closest to a mutually consensual method. There are some weapons, such as the JFK assassination rifle, that while priceless because of their historical significance cannot truly be considered intrinsically 'elegant'.
Harsh ? I suppose it might be a little harsh to imply that someone who would prefer to use a melee weapon over a gun to kill is a psychopath, maybe. Maybe dying slowly is more humane, I suppose it depends on who you are killing why you are using a "stick" and their preference for how they wish to die. Sadistic yes, I was implying that romanticizing about implements of death should take into consideration their effectiveness, I mean by that to say how quickly a living thing dies once the weapon is used. Murder ? No I was trying to illustrate the "effectiveness" (see 2nd sentence back) a melee weapon often had back when they were the primary weapons used to kill, as compared with my own experience of using firearms. I may not be the one who should explain this to you but as far as the "world" goes it's a big place, and while you may consider homicide of any sort murder, the people who are going to use these implements probably see it more as... Pragmatism.ShotgunZombie said:
Sorry if I disturbed you with that rather nasty bit at the end (of my previous post), I simply thought it was more effective at getting to the point than something with less contrast, i.e. pain and how long it lasts until the inflicted dies. And yes I realize that where you use the weapon is very important, just that a gun is quicker if used on those same places such as the head and the brain inside of it.
Edit: which is why I don't think a word with such connotations as elegant should be applied to weapons, I do see the beauty in them. Just not the elegance in their effects which is effected by the beauty inherit in their design, which would hold elegance if not for their purpose to which such tools are applied.
So I consider any weapon elegant only in it's proficiency of brutality...
I think it more to do with levels of exaggeration.
Swords in terms of levels of exaggeration, have the advantage of guns on this because with swords (as shown in games, anime, cartoons, movies and comics) people can make some weird and exaggerative dance-like style to it and make it 'awesome' or 'elegant'. This is especially the case with Asian cultures where martial arts such as Wuxia, Kung-fu and Shaolin has proven such. Even westerns sword arts like Fencing and Rapier duels have a dance-like and exaggerative feel to it if Revolutionary Girl Utena doesn't show that already. Slow movements, fast movements, slashes, and stabs, the sword has it easy to make elegant because of how easy it is to exaggerate sword movements. Heck even larger swords like that of Cloud Strife's Tsurugi and Buster Sword and Ichigo's sword have the advantage of exaggeration to make it look elegant if the need arises, even though there is no need to. Really it just has to do with the design of the sword.
Whereas guns, it's rather hard exaggerate, due to its design, purpose and portrayal. Design-wise, it is easy for small guns like pistols, revolvers and etcetera to be elegant, but it is hard to exaggerate that elegance because the elegance relies on it being still, if cowboy movies stand-offs haven't shown that. But exaggeration of gun movement can be achieved if effort is given like Hellsing (anime and manga) and the Matrix (slow-motion) have shown. But when guns get bigger it gets harder because of the weight and size of it. BFGs have this worst since characters using BFGs have to stay still to use it properly and would look rather silly if exaggerative movement were to be applied.
Also the purpose of is that anyone can use it while sword is for those who want to put the time and effort into using it. Almost everyone knows how a gun operates and as such there's no elegant finesse to using it, unless one puts in the effort. Guns require little effort to be elegant since they are machines and machines are often hard to be elegant.
It doesn't really help that it is guns are mainly portrayed as just weapons and machinery. Even the futuristic ones have little elegance because everything is instaneous whereas, swords there is delay of sorts. Guns are instant distant kills while swords are also instant but there's a sense of delay in that one can actually see how they died and are somewhat more immersive.
So really I think it has more to do with exaggerating the weapon in the grandest way possible because really weapons are weapons.
Swords in terms of levels of exaggeration, have the advantage of guns on this because with swords (as shown in games, anime, cartoons, movies and comics) people can make some weird and exaggerative dance-like style to it and make it 'awesome' or 'elegant'. This is especially the case with Asian cultures where martial arts such as Wuxia, Kung-fu and Shaolin has proven such. Even westerns sword arts like Fencing and Rapier duels have a dance-like and exaggerative feel to it if Revolutionary Girl Utena doesn't show that already. Slow movements, fast movements, slashes, and stabs, the sword has it easy to make elegant because of how easy it is to exaggerate sword movements. Heck even larger swords like that of Cloud Strife's Tsurugi and Buster Sword and Ichigo's sword have the advantage of exaggeration to make it look elegant if the need arises, even though there is no need to. Really it just has to do with the design of the sword.
Whereas guns, it's rather hard exaggerate, due to its design, purpose and portrayal. Design-wise, it is easy for small guns like pistols, revolvers and etcetera to be elegant, but it is hard to exaggerate that elegance because the elegance relies on it being still, if cowboy movies stand-offs haven't shown that. But exaggeration of gun movement can be achieved if effort is given like Hellsing (anime and manga) and the Matrix (slow-motion) have shown. But when guns get bigger it gets harder because of the weight and size of it. BFGs have this worst since characters using BFGs have to stay still to use it properly and would look rather silly if exaggerative movement were to be applied.
Also the purpose of is that anyone can use it while sword is for those who want to put the time and effort into using it. Almost everyone knows how a gun operates and as such there's no elegant finesse to using it, unless one puts in the effort. Guns require little effort to be elegant since they are machines and machines are often hard to be elegant.
It doesn't really help that it is guns are mainly portrayed as just weapons and machinery. Even the futuristic ones have little elegance because everything is instaneous whereas, swords there is delay of sorts. Guns are instant distant kills while swords are also instant but there's a sense of delay in that one can actually see how they died and are somewhat more immersive.
So really I think it has more to do with exaggerating the weapon in the grandest way possible because really weapons are weapons.
Guns were, in fact, considered the most elegant of weapons until the Jedi Order Publicity Department's highly successful anti-gun campaign.Thedayrecker said: