Almark - Vol. 1 Ch. 2 - Nork Magic Academy

[MangaDex]

 

[OgretailFood]

"You're two years late"

Bro, he lived his childhood in the battlefield, at least be glad he actually showed up lmao.

 

[zokoi19]

thanks for the chapter!

poor Almark, being constantly betrayed and having to survive by himself. And now he's 2 years late, so his peers are gonna look down on him or some other bullshit.

 

[Raycu]

This is reminding me a little bit of Earthsea so far. Pleasantly surprised with how the manga has developed.

 

[TwisterJR]

Good for you lad

 

[jamesglordduhs]

I love this manga. It has good start and good characters introduction way better than vikings farming simulator 1069 AD.

 

[welcome2atlantis]

His father had educated him well.

 

[Pokari]

Okay, hang on my dude, were you just going to say "no" if he just said "yeah, after you teach me, I'm going to go back to help my dad fight?" like an honest and normal 11 year old?

Like you can't exactly just send him back... It's obvious what he was sent south to avoid being caught up in.

(There are third options here, mind. like It'd definitely be within the realm of respecting his dad's stated wishes if the headmaster just made sure there was a place he could live in the south comfortably—that's basically what was originally asked for)

 

[shadowtempestdemon]

Swords aren't heavy, they're precision weapons. A sword that heavy would be completely useless.

 

[Nitram4392]

Swords aren't heavy, they're precision weapons. A sword that heavy would be completely useless.

I wouldn't be useless, but with how thick it is, it would probably act more like a flat mace than a sword.

 

[shadowtempestdemon]

I wouldn't be useless, but with how thick it is, it would probably act more like a flat mace than a sword.

It would be useless, a sword is no use if you can't move it quickly, ask any competent fencer. It's arguably more useless as a mace; one-handed maces are about shortsword length and weigh about the same as one-handed swords, if a bit more, only with the opposite weight distribution. Whereas the center of gravity in a sword must be close to the guard, the center of gravity of a mace is closer to the head. They do so much damage because the weight is placed at the end of a long lever, whereas swords do damage with their sharpness. Because they have almost no defensive capability, maces were almost always used in armor and/or with a shield. This sword is far too heavy to be usable as a sword, and far too long to be useful as a mace. You can't even use it as a purely defensive implement because the handle isn't long enough to leverage the blade up and there's no guard.

You can't even use the argument of "who cares if nobody could use it in the real world, this is fantasy" because it doesn't hold in any context. Things don't need to be realistic in a fantasy context, that's absurd, but they do need to be believable in the context of the world and its magic system, otherwise it feels stupid and contrived. In a fantasy context, things are scaled up; characters are capable of a level of strength, speed, skill and endurance that no normal human could ever match. But even if you had the superhuman strength to freely lift something that heavy, you still wouldn't be able to use it properly unless your weight also increases significantly, because it would massively throw off your center of gravity. It would throw you around more than you can throw it around. The only possible motion would be to spin around in a circle, and the moment you stop the weight would pull you right over. Even if you could use magic bullshit to nullify that problem of leverage... why would you even bother, when you can just use a normally-weighted sword far faster?

Swords aren't big heavy smash sticks, they're sharp levers. Being physically big and strong is so little of advantage that it's basically nothing, because it's not possible for a normal human (or two fantasy magic humans in the same rough class of strength) to be strong enough to overcome the leverage difference. The force behind a cut is generated through chain-of-the-body and bio-mechanical structure, and people overestimate how much force you need behind a sharp blade to really fuck up someone's day. One good snap-cut to the hand will end the fight, or at least make it easy from there. Swords are precision weapons that require great finesse to wield effectively, the essence of swordplay is to correctly read and respond to your opponents movements before they do. Timing and distance. Perception, reflexes and skill will keep you alive, and after that is stamina.

My point is that the same superhuman physical ability and fantasy magic bullshit that would allow a character to use a massively heavy sword semi-effectively would allow them to use a well-weighted sword significantly more effectively, so the big heavy sword is still completely worthless. Even when you use fantasy to scale everything up, the same shape remains. In a fantasy world or in the real world, swords are still swords, and the fundamental reasons for why swords are used the way they are in the real world still hold for the most part in a fantasy context. You can bend the rules a bit using magic bullshit, but if you try to throw them out the window it becomes jarring and contrived. That "sword" isn't useful or believable in any capacity or context. It's trash designed by a bad writer who couldn't be bothered to do a bit of research on swords and how they work before they wrote their story about a swordsman.

 

[Nitram4392]

It would be useless, a sword is no use if you can't move it quickly, ask any competent fencer. It's arguably more useless as a mace; one-handed maces are about shortsword length and weigh about the same as one-handed swords, if a bit more, only with the opposite weight distribution. Whereas the center of gravity in a sword must be close to the guard, the center of gravity of a mace is closer to the head. They do so much damage because the weight is placed at the end of a long lever, whereas swords do damage with their sharpness. Because they have almost no defensive capability, maces were almost always used in armor and/or with a shield. This sword is far too heavy to be usable as a sword, and far too long to be useful as a mace. You can't even use it as a purely defensive implement because the handle isn't long enough to leverage the blade up and there's no guard.

You can't even use the argument of "who cares if nobody could use it in the real world, this is fantasy" because it doesn't hold in any context. Things don't need to be realistic in a fantasy context, that's absurd, but they do need to be believable in the context of the world and its magic system, otherwise it feels stupid and contrived. In a fantasy context, things are scaled up; characters are capable of a level of strength, speed, skill and endurance that no normal human could ever match. But even if you had the superhuman strength to freely lift something that heavy, you still wouldn't be able to use it properly unless your weight also increases significantly, because it would massively throw off your center of gravity. It would throw you around more than you can throw it around. The only possible motion would be to spin around in a circle, and the moment you stop the weight would pull you right over. Even if you could use magic bullshit to nullify that problem of leverage... why would you even bother, when you can just use a normally-weighted sword far faster?

Swords aren't big heavy smash sticks, they're sharp levers. Being physically big and strong is so little of advantage that it's basically nothing, because it's not possible for a normal human (or two fantasy magic humans in the same rough class of strength) to be strong enough to overcome the leverage difference. The force behind a cut is generated through chain-of-the-body and bio-mechanical structure, and people overestimate how much force you need behind a sharp blade to really fuck up someone's day. One good snap-cut to the hand will end the fight, or at least make it easy from there. Swords are precision weapons that require great finesse to wield effectively, the essence of swordplay is to correctly read and respond to your opponents movements before they do. Timing and distance. Perception, reflexes and skill will keep you alive, and after that is stamina.

My point is that the same superhuman physical ability and fantasy magic bullshit that would allow a character to use a massively heavy sword semi-effectively would allow them to use a well-weighted sword significantly more effectively, so the big heavy sword is still completely worthless. Even when you use fantasy to scale everything up, the same shape remains. In a fantasy world or in the real world, swords are still swords, and the fundamental reasons for why swords are used the way they are in the real world still hold for the most part in a fantasy context. You can bend the rules a bit using magic bullshit, but if you try to throw them out the window it becomes jarring and contrived. That "sword" isn't useful or believable in any capacity or context. It's trash designed by a bad writer who couldn't be bothered to do a bit of research on swords and how they work before they wrote their story about a swordsman.

Ok.