CRYSTALGATE'S PROFILE

What weapon someone will use depends not only on who that person is, but also on time and situation. If we look at early medieval, only those with notable better economy than average could afford a sword. However, at late medieval, everyone who wasn't a beggar could afford one. If you wonder how a lowly peasant could afford a sword, they afforded it the same way as someone today with poor economy can afford a car, they buy it used. As time went on, there would be more and more swords in circulation since the mass production improved and as someone who could afford it got a new sword, the old one would go to someone less wealthy.

The same thing happened with armor. Early medieval, only the rich could afford mail. Late medieval, every peasant could afford mail and/or brigandine.

Now, in warfare, swords were rarely the primary weapon for infantry. If you were a close range fighter, you would usually use a spear or other polearm. What you see in Hollywood movies where two sides run towards each other with a sword and shield and then starts fighting pretty much never happened. Sometimes one side would choose a sword as primary weapon, the Romans did it for some time and knight would sometimes do it if they were fighting unarmored opponents like peasants (not during late medieval period of course). However, in over 90% of the cases, a polearm would be the primary weapon for close range and a sword would only be a secondary weapon (it could be an axe or mace or something else as well though).

Knights would usually use lances when they were heavy cavalry. Later, when knights became infantry rather than cavalry, they would often use pollaxes as their main weapon. The samurai would usually use either a bow or a polearm as their primary weapon, use the other of those two as the secondary weapon and their katana was their tertiary weapon. Really, a swordsman wasn't that much of a thing as fiction depicts it.

The sword was however a great secondary/backup weapon. It's flexible, as has been mentioned, and it can easily be carried in a scabbard and (less easily in a stressful situation) drawn when needed. If you have a spear and a sword, you have to carry the spear in your hand and keep the sword in you scabbard. If needed or desired, you can drop the spear and draw the sword. You cannot do the opposite. A spear cannot be kept in a scabbard and keeping it on your back is too awkward to be practical, you can only carry it in your hands.

The sword was also very popular outside of war. You're not going to lump around a spear when going to a bar, but you can easily carry a sword in your scabbard. Also, people were generally not wearing armor unless going to war, and that made the sword extra effective since one of the main weaknesses of a sword is armor. If you could afford a sword, that was your primary weapon for peace time (unless the law forbade it and you decided to respect it).

I got a bit sword heavy here. Still, what weapon someone will use depends on a lot of factors. What is the current technology (early vs late medieval has a huge technological difference), who is it and is the person expecting battle or just carrying a weapon for self defense in case she/he gets attacked?

Here's a good video about sword weights:


A note though to avoid confusion when going into that video, what aD&D and most video games call longsword should actually be called an arming sword. A longsword is a sword that, while it can be used one-handed somewhat decently, is intended for two-handed use.

author=kentona
E:
I guess to ask: don't bows vary greatly in draw strength?

They do, but bows with low draw weight are of very low use in war. A bow that everyone (within reason) can use comfortable will not penetrate even cloth armor. 70 pound bows, which were probably commonly used as war bows, are not sufficient against mail. If the enemy is wearing plate armor, such as brigandine, you will need a bow with much more draw weight than that. Then there's the full plate armor that is even harder to penetrate, although that kind of top tier armor was only available for a small percentage of soldiers.

You can use a bow with low draw weight, but bows are probably the medieval weapons where strength plays the biggest factor. I don't think there is any other medieval weapon where strength provide as much of an advantage as with bows (strength provides some advantage with pretty much all medieval weapons though).

I've played to the stopping point. While flawed in obvious ways, this game has endearing characters and was rather fun.

I prefer the books, but the series also have their merits.

A major problem with both the books and the series are the multiple plotlines. Martin did a lot of world building in his books and worldbuilding is generally considered something good. However, if you do lot of world building, sooner or later, you reach a point where you need to focus more on moving the story forward and can't keep building as much.

I my opinion, SoIaF hit that point, but Martin continued world building to the detriment of the books. Even if he starts moving forward at a fast phase now, every plot thread moves one at a time, meaning things will move slowly anyway. There's also the question if Martin even can resolve all threads in a satisfying way at all.

The series omit introducing a lot of the plot threads and are also tying a lot of them together or flat out closing them, thus allowing the story to move forward faster. The problem is that this is not done very skillfully. Typically, what happens in the books are at least believable consequences of peoples desires, actions and circumstances. In the series, not so much. Rather, what happens feels like it happens because the director decided it has to happen.

There's also the risk that both the books and the series have a good chance of crashing and burning.

It's not too unlikely that Martin will never finish the books and they have to be finished by someone else, like the Wheel of Time series. This is not necessarily a disaster, but the books are already taking a lot of time as it is. It's also likely that Martin will not be able to resolve the dangling threads in a satisfying way at all.

The series is kind of losing itself as it goes further and further away from the railing of the books. What is supposed to be multiple faction conspiring with and against each other is turning into what more and more resembles the hero(es) vs the antagonists. What we may get is something that technically has the characters and world from the books, but otherwise is something entirely else.

It's a pity, because when SoIaF is good, it's really good.