Bittercon: Let's all Fight, Portraying Hand to Hand Combat in Fantasy and Science Fiction Settings

[attackfish]

You are lying in bed with a book.  You’re exhausted, and you’re settling down for a relaxing evening, when suddenly you have a sword in your hands, and you’re right in the middle of a bunch of people hacking each other to bits.

Fantasy stories are frequently the stories of combat, of duels and wars, and tavern brawls, and sword cuts and bloody noses.  Even in Contemporary Urban Fantasy settings, hand to hand combat shows up almost as often as it does in Historical and Secondary World Fantasy.

Bizarrely, for a lot of people with an in depth knowledge of anatomy or fighting end up snickering their way through the scenes which are often choreographed with no accounting for realism.  Then there are writers who research painstakingly and build as accurate a battle scene as can be constructed.

To give some examples (in television and movies, because film makes it all more obvious)  Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s combat scenes are all kinds of fun to watch, but absolutely ridiculous.  This isn’t uncommon at all.  The beloved fencing scene in The Princess Bride is actually the same set of sword moves done twice and filmed at different angles.  On the other end of the spectrum is Avatar: the Last Airbender with its very accurate fighting, that is also all kinds of fun to watch, and includes fire, water, flying, and chucking boulders at people.

Is either one the right way?  Is there a right way?  Is there a wrong way, other than boring?  That’s the other thing.  Fight scenes, as action packed as they are by nature are difficult to write and keep interesting because they lack dialogue.  Do fight scenes more dialogue?  Creating a certain mood in a fight scene is another way to make it less boring, but that’s hard to do too.  Writing the combat becomes a matter less of reporting faithfully where each blow lands and more about conveying the internal dynamics of the characters involved.  And mapping the whole thing out in one’s head is fiendishly difficult as well.  What do we as readers and writers of fantasy get out of or want to see fight scenes, and what would you put into them?

Written for bittercon the online convention for those of us who can't make it to any other kind.

Comments

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

True, and all the more fun for the writer! (-: But would a landed punch in low grav have the same physical impact on the punch-ee as at 1G? Or would it take a super-pummeling to take down your opponent?

(btwthx! (-:)

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Depends on if one is braced or not.

Hitting something is a transfer of energy and momentum. When the attacker is braced (say, in a proper fighting stance in a gravity environment), they're able to direct more energy into the punch.

(Note: very simplified physics follows. Usual caveats about friction, sponginess of materials, etc.)

Momentum is conserved in any collision (including a punch). Momentum = mass x velocity, and you have to add up all the moving parts in the scenario.

The puncher, if properly braced, will avoid absorbing much of the momentum (by keeping their personal velocity near zero). Their opponent would absorb the bulk of it, and therefore be shoved. (If both are braced, then you get into absorption of energy in the materials, e.g., flesh and bone.)

It's not so much that weightless, or a lower gravity, would make the punch less. It's that lack of gravity makes it harder to brace oneself and apply the maximum of force.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Also, if your opponent isn't braced, more of the force can be transferred into making them fly across the room than into injuring them. Of course if they then hit a wall...

[marycatelli]

The collorary is the unbraced opponent would be pushed away not so much hurt.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Only if they didn't smash into a conveniently placed wall...

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure. Are we forgetting the energy transfer when a blow lands? And these aren't rigid systems. The sort of blow to the jaw which knocks out your enemy is a sudden acceleration of the skull, with a lot of rotation because it's anchored by the neck, which rattles the brains about as the momentum in transferred. Concussion, in other words, and that's going to happen even in zero-g.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

yes, but blows to softer areas wouldn't hurt nearly so bad. We would probably develop a very different style of fighting if we were to fight in 0-G that would focus more on head and face blows, which are a pain for the puncher.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Punch somebody in the gut, and it's something like compressing a spring attached to a fair bit of inertial mass. That spring is still going to get compressed in zero-G.

Maybe we should submit a proposal to NASA...

It'd give a whole new meaning to the term "vomit comet".

Hmm, maybe Kirk isn't trained in zero-G personal combat, so he goes for the knock-out punch, while Spock...

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Yes, but a lot of the force would still be turned into backwards momentum, wouldn't it? It would be harder to compress that spring.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling there will be a lot more grab-punch combinations.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Judo and other martial arts that focus on throws would be very useful. Why bruise your knuckles when you can toss your opponents into the walls and let the walls do the hard part for you?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Whereas sweeps would go out of fashion reallly quick.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

If you're well braced and the person being punched is well braced (which you might both be if your in small quarters, yes. There would also be a lot of injuries in larger spaces from impacts with walls.

[little-mage.livejournal.com]

There's a good zero gravity fight scene in Ender's Game.