Knowledge to knowledge.
Anyone wanna fact check this very clearly recent photo bomb of a clearly medieval warrior?
Explanation: Contrary to popular belief, the katana is not the traditional weapon of the warrior class of Japan. Bushi were traditionally more associated with the bow and the spear, and typically in mounted combat at that.
In the period of the Sengoku Jidai, an era of civil war in the 16th century AD, some strange Euro fellows brought a new technology to Japan - the firearm. Rather than disdaining this new weapon as dishonorable or any other such nonsense, the samurai class eagerly embraced this new weapon, both as a method of arming peasants and for gunning down enemies themselves. The famous duelist Miyamoto Musashi even regarded the gun as an unmatched weapon for the defense of castles.
The association of the samurai class with the katana is more an invention of the Edo Period of peace and isolation, around ~1600-1850 AD, wherein the only major task of samurai was reacting to meaningless slights and cutting people down on an impulse - for which a sword, as an easily carried sidearm and status symbol, was much handier than an actual weapon of war like a spear or a bow.
TIL. how cool.
Yes, I’ve played Civ IV too 🙄
Funny enough, I never spent much time in Civ IV. I played mostly Civ II and Civ V.
Funny that the two most popular “types” of warrior nobility/elite (european knights and japanese samurai) are both most strongly associated with what effectively was mostly a sidearm, backup or unarmed self defense weapon but most definitely not their main battlefield weapon, and both are actively separated from gunpowder weapons in popular culture while both were among the earliest adopters of gunpowder weapons in their respective environments.
Wonder if it might just be the romanticism of it. Stories are more gripping when your hero is forced to use their backup weapon to save the day. Whatever supports a more intimate one-on-one fight to the death.
Even within the American gun-worshipping mythos, the revolver is the iconic weapon of cowboys and lawmen of the wild west, though handguns were much less common than rifles and shotguns of the day. But a showdown in the center of town isn’t as exciting with a rifle, you gotta have the revolver and its meager six shots to raise the tension.
Probably romanticism. I remember Don Quixote calling artillery an evil of their contemporary warfare. A bit understandable because the invention of artillery basically led to more indiscriminate destruction… And I reckon that because you can basically target people from afar, you can just hit people not actively engaged in battle and take them by surprise.
Romanticism of swords, in particular, also goes back an extremely long time. They’re harder to make and more expensive to maintain than other weapons so they’ve been associated with the nobility, the only people that could consistently afford them, for thousands of years.
Murrican gun-worshippers absolutely mald on the subject of FPVs, calling this unethical weapon of cowards.
Maybe because in times of relative peace, there is more time to focus on literature. Do you end up with more surviving tales of people living in these times. During wars, the would be authors would instead by fodder.
No, that’s not it. We have tons of material, especially picture sources, about medieval warfare. Pop culture just choses to ignore it.
The romantization of sword-wielding knights started in early modern times, at the latest. Knowing about something and focusing on something in popular culture are two different things.
Maybe because:
- They would most probably be carrying the handy sidearm instead of the large battlefield weapon, when in city walls, where civilians would be seeing them most.
- Firearms of that time were shit compared to today’s ones, making then hard to portray as cool to normal people. Also, body movements are not as showy, with firearms, as compared to bows/swords/spears.
Yes, though Miyamoto was a comedy insult murder aficionado, from what I’ve heard of his dueling record.
No comment on the contents, but
In the period of the Sengoku Jidai
Ah, yes, the warring states period period.
Next you’ll tell me I can’t get a gladius sword!
Not with EC cash from the ATM machines!
I can’t believe I’m not the only person that saw this and thought that
PEW PEW mother fucker!
I thought that samurai had moved to leather armor by the time the guns arrived?
Leather lamellar armor remained in partial use, I believe, but by the period of the Sengoku Jidai, most armor was metal. The older leather-with-metal style was more common ~200-300 years before as O-Yoroi
Our men are running from the battlefield!
