Editing Sword (section)

== Love and Hate ==
There are various types of sword related retards.
	
*'''Sword Wankers''': Overly romantic morons who believe that the sword is the be all end all weapon until people got good with guns and tragically ended that. Buying into all that chivalry/Bushido nonsense when it was really just a hypocritical class control measure.
	
*'''Anti-Sword Wankers''': People who respond to the sword wankers by going too far the other way. Seeing swords as worthless weapons that were only carried by overly romantic morons. Thinking that sword blades would always shatter on impact with plate armor and ten swordsmen would easily die to one guy with a spear and ignoring how basically every civilization with metalworking and some that didn't have it all used swords at some point.

*'''Nipponese Wankers''': People who claims that [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|Japanese swords are THE BEST]], magically sharp and indestructible because the metal has been folded a thousands times, able to cut through a Tank's armour and pierce steel plate. Western swords are, by comparison, unsharpened metal slabs used by hairy barbarians.

*'''Western Wankers''': On the opposite spectrum, these guys think that katanas are at best crude baseball bats that stands no chance against GLORIOUS EUROPEAN PLATE, and that by comparison European swords are the best thing around in terms of technology, sharpness, usability (such as glorious half swording and usage of mordhau tactics), and resemblance to the cross.

[[Skub|All of them are stupid]]. Swords were not the be-all end-all of medieval warfare. Other weapons did have their advantages. [[Mace]]s did concussive damage even if someone was wearing heavy armor and could break bones. [[Spear]]s had a longer reach and were better against cavalry. Halberds could deliver a devastating chop at range. This did not mean that swords were worthless. They were versatile -- short swords were excellent as a fallback weapon: when the foe was trying to get your spear out of his shield, you gutted him with your sword. Double-handed Zweihanders could be devastating. Nevertheless, morons who think in bare basic binary believe that they are either the weapon of the gods or worthless rubbish. There is a reason why any civilization that developed metalworking (and a couple that didn't) eventually came up with swords in one form or another, and there is likewise a reason why the sword was not the only weapon ever created.

In the same way, people comparing western and eastern swords should take in account that while Europe was and is a big place with lots of trade and plenty of steel, Japan was not. So European swords faced lots of tough metal armour, and there was a sort of "arms race" where swords became increasingly good against armour, that in turn became better at stopping swords and so on. This got to a point where people stopped carrying [[shield|shields]] around because armour was just that good, and swords became increasingly narrow and quick because slashing or piercing plate armour was totally ineffective and your best bet was stabbing weak points.

Japan on the contrary had a lot less metal around, so there was less armour and good quality metal was rarer and costly. There was just no point in developing pointy (AH!) uber-piercing swords, and they had to use the metal they had in a smarter way, such as the practice of 'folded steel', a smithing technique to make crappy steel more passable in quality (hence that '1,000-folded metal' bullshit that weeaboos go on about). This does NOT mean they were worse: they were perfectly good for use in the role they had in the place they were, and developing European-like swords would be pointless. This is discussed below in greater details.