@liquidsword I'm well aware of narrative praxis; it's just that the gratuitous repetition of a dumb cliché for cheap dramas gets pretty fucking tiresome. And you don't need to know much at all about sword fighting to work out that what is usually a wholly untrained noncombatant (ie. someone more likely than not to be simply blanking out in such circumstances) crossing often something in the ballpark of 5-10 meters in like a second to throw themselves in the way of a strike in a timely manner rather stretches the suspension of disbelief, given the speeds that would be required...
I think one particularly egregious case I read years ago had the Dramatically Significant Victim start *behind* the assailant; that scene was the point where I just gave up on that particular series.
One might also wonder why they never seem to think of simply bodily ramming the swordsman to disrupt the strike, which if anything would just be plain faster, easier and more intuitive a stunt for even a complete civilian to try in extremis.
Oh, right.
Cheap drama. And the Japanese do love them some gratuitously suicidal sacrifices.
I think one particularly egregious case I read years ago had the Dramatically Significant Victim start *behind* the assailant; that scene was the point where I just gave up on that particular series.
One might also wonder why they never seem to think of simply bodily ramming the swordsman to disrupt the strike, which if anything would just be plain faster, easier and more intuitive a stunt for even a complete civilian to try in extremis.
Oh, right.
Cheap drama. And the Japanese do love them some gratuitously suicidal sacrifices.
