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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6195814" data-attributes="member: 4937">The origin of the skills is not really important to the point.&nbsp;&nbsp; The point is that if fighting bare handed really is as effective as fighting with weapons, then Heironeous and Hextor have taught their followers and inherently inferior form of warfare.&nbsp; The armies that oppose their followers can be more cheaply equipped, more easily maintained, move more rapidly in the field, will suffer less from the effects of climate, and can never be disarmed.&nbsp; You would expect over time the practitioners of the weapon techniques to lose to the practitioners of the unarmed techniques.For me, it comes down to the fact that even if you imagine the monk, it doesn't really work for me cinematically.&nbsp; Every sword vs. open hand kata I've ever seen just looks dumb and is so clearly impractical.&nbsp;&nbsp; Watching them advantage of a sword is pretty clear - it makes a merely ordinary athlete or warrior every bit the equal or superior to a kung fu master.&nbsp; The notion is illogical on every level, even down to its verisimilitude to the story material.&nbsp;&nbsp; In Kung Fu movies, typically either no one uses swords (weapons) or everyone does as a convention of the story.&nbsp; There is nothing in the conventions of Wuxia that says that the contest is equal if two equal skilled practitioners meet and one is armed and one isn't.&nbsp; Instead, a 'low level' swordsman is defeated by a 'higher level' unarmed martial artist.&nbsp;&nbsp; Li Mu Bai is a swordsman, and CTHT is a swords movie, and no one in it is a monk.&nbsp; The Shaolin where warrior monks who did not willing meet armed foes unarmed.&nbsp;&nbsp; The practice of unarmed martial arts in the east shouldn't be taken as some mystical narrative driven equivalency between weapons and no weapons (because it doesn't exist), but as the result of the particular sociopolitical history of the region that forced ordinary non-aristocratic people to learn how to defend themselves unarmed or with&nbsp; simple or improvised weapons.&nbsp; Ultimately, the mystical equivalency between no weapons and weapons comes down to the need to not portray graphic violence in a 1970's American TV show.&nbsp;&nbsp; You might as well have a gaming system that when PC's and NPC's fight, big animated text boxes that say, &quot;Splat!' and &quot;Kapow!&quot; appear in the game universe.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6195814, member: 4937"] The origin of the skills is not really important to the point. The point is that if fighting bare handed really is as effective as fighting with weapons, then Heironeous and Hextor have taught their followers and inherently inferior form of warfare. The armies that oppose their followers can be more cheaply equipped, more easily maintained, move more rapidly in the field, will suffer less from the effects of climate, and can never be disarmed. You would expect over time the practitioners of the weapon techniques to lose to the practitioners of the unarmed techniques. For me, it comes down to the fact that even if you imagine the monk, it doesn't really work for me cinematically. Every sword vs. open hand kata I've ever seen just looks dumb and is so clearly impractical. Watching them advantage of a sword is pretty clear - it makes a merely ordinary athlete or warrior every bit the equal or superior to a kung fu master. The notion is illogical on every level, even down to its verisimilitude to the story material. In Kung Fu movies, typically either no one uses swords (weapons) or everyone does as a convention of the story. There is nothing in the conventions of Wuxia that says that the contest is equal if two equal skilled practitioners meet and one is armed and one isn't. Instead, a 'low level' swordsman is defeated by a 'higher level' unarmed martial artist. Li Mu Bai is a swordsman, and CTHT is a swords movie, and no one in it is a monk. The Shaolin where warrior monks who did not willing meet armed foes unarmed. The practice of unarmed martial arts in the east shouldn't be taken as some mystical narrative driven equivalency between weapons and no weapons (because it doesn't exist), but as the result of the particular sociopolitical history of the region that forced ordinary non-aristocratic people to learn how to defend themselves unarmed or with simple or improvised weapons. Ultimately, the mystical equivalency between no weapons and weapons comes down to the need to not portray graphic violence in a 1970's American TV show. You might as well have a gaming system that when PC's and NPC's fight, big animated text boxes that say, "Splat!' and "Kapow!" appear in the game universe. [/QUOTE]

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