Swords

a Jian is a very elegant weapon! I could see it -or at last a shorter variant of the jian- as a model for a light elvish sidearm. Could work for Idril...
Glorfindel should be a masterful fighter with any elvish weapon there is, so I guess he could instruct his niece with the Jian!
 
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I apologize at first: i am not physically abke to draw straight lines by hand :)

So my sketches don't look very nice... i am not the most talented illustrator after all.

First blades of angband, orcs and demons might have used...

Jrtt describes them as bent swords, curved swords, scimitars, sickle scimitars, sawtoothed blades...

In the lotr one of the isengard orcs has a blade which hilt and pommel is described as an ugly grimass... i guess maybe carved in wood or formed in some way pouring metal into form? I used some historical designs and altered them to that purpose... i think of some eastern asian or indus examples.
 
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Elven blades...

There is one single mention of a leaf shaped blade throughout the entire HoME series... and thats a dunadan or eriadorian bronze sword - a description of the barrow blades which did not make it into the finished book.

However maybe the dunadan blades were influenced by elfish smithing and leafshaped blades were an elfish thing too? At last it is a historical thing... even if historical leaf shaped blades do not look at all like those in the pj movies...

I played around with them a bit, that's what came out of it...

I think leaf shapes and patterns could work for doriathrim and green elves... maybe more diamond shape patterns and forms for the noldor? Wave shapes or fish shapes for the falmari and falathrim? Just ideas...

Apologies for the typos... i am using a small tablet and my fingers are too clumsy :)
 
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Wow, I've finally read this whole huge thread.

My thoughts on various topics covered:


I imagine Galadriel's sword is, initially, a rather early sword and perhaps a khopesh. I also love the suggestion that a lot of the earliest Noldorin swords are unreasonably blinged out with ornaments and gewgaws that turn out to be counter-productive. They kept right on blinging out their armor, at least for the elites in Gondolin's army, so perhaps they simply moved the bling from the weapons to the armor when they realized how much it got in the way on a sword.

I love the idea of Idril getting some training (in super-secret!) after she starts foreboding danger to Gondolin. I was thinking that during the battle she takes up her husband's sword from Vinyamar (after all, he never uses it) but if she was secretly trained she might have one of her own hidden somewhere. One not made for her, if it can't be made secretly enough to satisfy her growing fears. Earendil is 7 at the time, so I doubt very much he'd have more than a tiny, tiny knife, at most.

If it isn't too late to weigh in on Feanor's sword, I prefer the name Rúþë because it shows off his shibboleth, even if only the most diehard Silmarillion fans would get the Easter egg.


The "bent" swords of the Orcs make me think about how the falchion is described in that You Tube video posted earlier. For hacking up peasants? Well that's what the Orcs like to do. They want to hack up unarmored and lightly-armored people (like Green-elves, who surely have no metal, let alone armor or swords) and peasants and civilians. When they encounter Elves with good armor, they supplement their curved swords with spears, bows, etc. I do wonder what the continued use of curved slashing swords is for with them. Are there a significant number of Elven, Dwarven, and/or Mortal soldiers who can't afford mail armor?

The Noldor, meanwhile, start with armor before they make swords, and ... well, Feanor at least expects to use his sword on his brother, so he'll make it pointy and armor-piercing, as best he can with no actual battle experience. And he does threaten Fingolfin with the pointy tip. So the Elves are starting with some idea of swords being pointy, and everybody except Feanorians probably agrees that they should be used against soldiers, not random unarmored civilians encountered in, say, a fishing dock. So they probably would evolve fairly quickly into something designed for use against enemies in scale armor, and later for use against mail. Very sharp and pointy.

Sindar will start with whatever sort of swords Dwarves use... I don't know what those would be.

The Halethrim "sharpened their axes" (quoted from memory) in preparation for the Union of Maedhros. Whether those are civilian wood hatchets, or dedicated battle-axes, I can't guess.

First Age Easterlings, and Men in general, I think would be entirely stone age peoples, with leaders occasionally supplied via trade with Dwarves. I can't imagine they'd have swords of any kind until they team up with the Noldor. For the Third Age Easterlings and Haradrim, my thought is that they're largely stone-age or early bronze-age people (since the Third Age, ending 6000 years ago, is followed by the historical bronze age in the Levant). Sauron supplies them with Orc-style weapons and armor made of high-quality steel in Mordor, which they don't know how to make for themselves -- making them militarily dependent on Mordor, and making Sauron's allies/servants in the east and South better armed than anyone there who decides not to cooperate with the Dark Lord.
 
I wanted to add that I don't have any opinion about Galadriel having a jiann later, just that I think the folk of Fingolfin won't have swords that advanced at the time of Season 3 or the first episode of Season 4.
 
I wanted to add that I don't have any opinion about Galadriel having a jiann later, just that I think the folk of Fingolfin won't have swords that advanced at the time of Season 3 or the first episode of Season 4.
What do you think they should have, then?
 
I think the spatha could be a good model for the evish lango or makil, the xiphos for the ecet. I have already expressed my critical point towards the khopesh, but to be fair, with the circa they DO have kind of a sickle-weapon.

However still think that they already at this point should have a cleaver or falchion-like weapon too.




A or D or B i would like

And E

However i would like the noldrian xiphos and spatha to have a broader guard, the elves are fencers we know...

C the "ectha" i would also like..
 
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They should have at least one 60 cm and one 100 cm type, i think a spatha with enlarged guard could be a good model for the Makil.

But the shorter Ectha and Ecet types would be good sidearms! And i believe their main weapon should be lance and javelin and great reverse-teardrop shield.
 
As for choreography... I'd like to base Noldor on greek hoplites, Orcs on nepalese or chinese soldiers using dao or kora -like weapons with a broad Quiang and rattan-like shield.

That should look interesting!

This i do like:

 
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Are they fighting with main gauche?

I could think of that sort of fencing in connection with the lhang, the cutlass or backsword-like elven blade type.
 
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Are they fighting with main gauche?

I could think of that sort of fighting in connection with the lhang, the cutlass or backsword-like elven blade type.
Briefly. In the past, I’ve pushed for someone using a backsword-like blade at some point, similar to a 1796 Heavy Cavalry Sword.
 
I could think that a sigil or cri type shortblade could be used much like a main gauche, i'll give them larger guards for that though!

I actually did devise a sort of buckler-type shield for the high-elves, the "Alkarinya".

Alkarinya-bu kler in combination with makil or lango type long or broad sword could work like that.
 
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