Cool and weapons

[beccaelizabeth]

I follow a bunch of tumblrs that post really pretty weapons
and sometimes I just stop and think
because humans put all their science and all their art into creating beautiful, elegant, decorative pieces of metal
for killing people.

I mean, someone looked at a sharp piece of steel and decided
this needs more flowers
and possibly some birds on it.

Someone got a handful of arrows and decided the arrowheads really needed
cut out hearts, or flowers, or entire sculpted dragons.

Presumably because if you're going to kill someone
you might as well make it classy
and be clear it's with love...

*facepalm*

... okay so the heart arrows are vaguely disturbing in ways the flower arrows are not, but, still...

I get the big pointy things on sticks whose primary purpose was being held by royal guards.
You're not planning to use them, they're going to be on display all day every day, might as well make them look like sunbursts and moons and engrave a bunch of birds and plants and things on them.

I do not entirely get how common this impulse seems to be.

But then I know with the smallswords there were times they were worn as an item of men's jewelery, primarily, and a pointy stabby instrument of death kind of on the side.
... but they were very pointy stabby even so.

And I really love throwing knives turned weird rainbow colors. It clearly does nothing to help their function, but you can stab someone from a distance with a rainbow.

... so there's a bunch of humans like me.

... which is not entirely reassuring.



I titled this post cool weapons though, and I don't think that rainbow heart flowers make them cool, per se. The style might not be in fashion.

... but it is stylish.



Basically there's a whole lot of items around if you value killing people with an aesthetic
and that's just very human
in a worrying way.

Comments

[the_rck]

You could come up with something handwavy about a heart on an arrowhead as magic intended to make it lethal by telling it its target. Flowers and rainbows are harder to explain that way.

[ex_peasant441]

War and fighting is hellish enough, anything people can do to make it less hellish - such as by making weapons beautiful - is surely a good thing. :)

[ceruleancat]

Craftspeople are creative people. Design choices they make are not 100% functional. That's true whether they wrought iron to make a trellis or a knife, or Iron Man's suit for that matter. They can take pleasure in the decorative and at the same time appeal to a wider customer base.

[baronjanus]

I think at least historically a lot of the "birds and flowers on a sword" were just a big sign saying "look I have more money than that dude with the plain sword, and definitely more than the dude with no sword at all"

..It's the same thing about investing a specialist's time and effort into your toy