Dagger’s Dawn @daggersdawn - Tumblr Blog

dungeonlust

Art by • Russ Nicholson

atomic-chronoscaph

The Black Cauldron (1985)

viagginterstellari

The baths - Alcazar, Sevilla, 2024

nephranexus

mawmenny

kriemhildsrevenge

Frank Dicksee Study of armour for the painting ‘The Two Crowns’ in the Tate, London (RA 1900; NO1839); turned to front, with reins in left hand Brush drawing in grey wash, touched with white, over graphite, on grey paper

tragbarerpanzrabwehrkomplexfagot

Albrecht Dürer – Knight on Horseback, 1507

daggersdawn

oh so Dürer was a Chaos player

discardingimages

demonic pigs attack

Vincent of Beauvais, Le Mirouer historial (French translation of Speculum historiale), Paris 1463

BnF, Français 50, fol. 256v

#yeah that's the face I'd make

swornsword

taraxippos

Wild how the spear is the only weapon generally argued as a human cultural universal and was the default primary weapon for Most infantry and cavalry for Most of human military history (with swords usually being secondary weapons) (with some exceptions), and yet it is SOOOO underrepresented in fantasy media in comparison to the sword, which is a deeply unsexy weapon to be real,

taraxippos

@grubloved

This is me making a massive vibes-based layman-educated guesses and a lot of generalizations, but I think it at least Partially comes down to swords more often being aristocratic weapons, even in cases where warrior aristocrats are still mostly just using spears. Swords are more costly and difficult to produce and more expensive to obtain, and the peasantry that made up the bulk of most pre-modern infantry levies in most settled agrarian societies would be FAR more likely to own a spear than a sword (if not just using repurposed farming equipment). A sword is a status symbol to some extent, something that naturally becomes associated with lordship in the warrior culture of most socially stratified societies, and therefore has more presence in most stories wherein most heroes are aristocrats.

I also VERY much think racism plays a part in the relative dearth of spears. There's a definite trend in fantasy for spear usage to be relegated to racist caricatures of indigenous peoples or otherwise people being cast as 'barbaric', whereas all your Lordly Noble white/white-coded people are swordsmen (unless it's MAYBE a white Proud Warrior Race, wherein they're still being conveyed as at least a little 'barbaric'). In the western imagination, spears are more associated with the military and subsistence of colonized peoples than their vast history for the exact same purposes in pre-firearm Europe, a spear is often used as a shorthand for a '''primitive''' society. It's not that it's Never not but there's certainly at least a trend there.

This is even more vibes-based so take this with a grain of salt. but when the spear is depicted as anything but a Savage Barbarian Weapon it's very often in the context of military formations, your phalanx or lance wall or such . Battle formations de-emphasize the individual, good as a device for showing group cohesion and discipline but bad for highlighting a singular Hero. Of course, in real life infantry swordsmen Also fought in formation, but fantasy LOVES to depict battles as uncontrolled melee where individuals duel at random. Swords certainly have more of a history as a Dueling weapon than spears do, and dueling type combat allows a hero to be highlighted for their individual prowess, so I think this could be a contributing factor as well. And also sword combat is just a lot closer and more 'personal' than fighting with spears so there's at least a dash of pure storytelling utilitarianism there, at least with visual mediums.

#Spears are hunting and military primaries #Swords are sidearms #it’s the same reason handguns are used more in movies than rifles