The Last Kingdom and general points about historical accuracy

[Don Kanaille]

You may know the book and now television series The Last Kingdom. You may have also come across various threads in this forum regarding "historical accuracy". You may be aware of many tropes which run through medieval-inspired entertainment media. You may have heard about Lindybeige.

If any of this caught your interest, I highly recommend watching this video:

The creator, Lindybeige, has made some videos regarding accuracy and plain logic in television, but this is his best one so far. Enjoy



PS: I really hope Exanimas outide areas get the leafs right.

 

[The Witcher]

actually back scabbards where real they pushed the sword from the butt of the scabbard and drawed it from the top but still a rare sight

 

[Don Kanaille]

Im not going to discuss back scabbards again

 

[NewsMuffin]

Sheathing your sword on your back was (or at least could have been) done by soldiers on the march. It's a lot easier to carry your large sword on your back than it is on your waist or hip. However, it was also a lot easier than either to toss it on the back of the cart your buddy drove and be done with it.

 

[The Witcher]

they had their swords at their hands most of the time there is even a video on youtube showing how to have a sword on your back and draw it fast and you can search for geralt from the witcher 3 doing the same animation when drawing his swords pushes the scabbard from the bottom and draws the sword

 

[Don Kanaille]

Fine... here we go again


Wearing a sword on your back is disadvantageous because

- it´s slower to draw
- drawing it completely exposes your arm and armpit
- they´re awkward to re-sheathe, basically fumbling blindly on your back trying to fit the point in the opening of the scabbard
- it serverly limits the size of the swords you can draw; you can comfortably carry and draw even a longsword from the hip, while the backscabbard limits drawable sword length to that of your arm, unless you make the scabard purposely flappy and use a very vulnerable "both hands behind the back, one pushing down and one pulling up"-motion (or use an illogical half-scabbard).



While you can carry a sword on your back for convenience, this style is extremely overrepresented in fiction and historical based depictions, and most of the time in a completely nonsensical context (most notably, going into battle this way). It´s an overused trope with hardly any basis in history or even plain and simple logic.

 

[The Witcher]

Yes of course i agree with everything you say but for marching it probably worked

 

[Tony]

Yes of course i agree with everything you say but for marching it probably worked

I don't think we'll be doing much long distance marching in Exanima. Most of the situations where a back holster would make sense are not applicable to the gameplay.

 

[The Witcher]

yes of course the only place i find the back scabbard usefull is when you march away from Sir and by marching i mean panicly closing doors