How good was the water dance?

[James Arryn]

You're talking generalizations, and real-world historical references. I'm giving book-specific examples.

In Bronn's fight, it is noted by Catelyn that he is wearing the Knight down by playing for time. I believe it's the same fight, and many others, where the smaller, quicker fighter abuses the weak spots around the joints of the armour to defeat their opponent.

I'm not arguing about mistakes or anything. I'm simply saying that to say the Knight wins 100% of the time is silly, that's obviously not the case.

I can also back up your point about mistakes with Jorah's fight against the Dothraki Bloodrider (?) at the end of book one, where he takes one or two nasty hits through the weak points in his armour but the Dothraki makes the mistake and gets owned. But again that has nothing to do with the point I'm making, that to say the Knight wins every time is absurd.

You're talking generalizations, and real-world historical references. I'm giving book-specific examples.

In Bronn's fight, it is noted by Catelyn that he is wearing the Knight down by playing for time. I believe it's the same fight, and many others, where the smaller, quicker fighter abuses the weak spots around the joints of the armour to defeat their opponent.

I'm not arguing about mistakes or anything. I'm simply saying that to say the Knight wins 100% of the time is silly, that's obviously not the case.

I can also back up your point about mistakes with Jorah's fight against the Dothraki Bloodrider (?) at the end of book one, where he takes one or two nasty hits through the weak points in his armour but the Dothraki makes the mistake and gets owned. But again that has nothing to do with the point I'm making, that to say the Knight wins every time is absurd.

Ok, in book, Bronn uses his sword and, I think, shield? to deflect a lot of blows that would otherwise end the fight. If you try that very often smallsword vs. long sword, and both you and the smallsword will break.

[Sir Lee knot]

Seeing as Water Dancing is based off of the renaissance Rapier style of fighting and Westerosi Knights use Longsword/Arming sword. The Water Dancers are actually using a more evolved form of combat.

Rapier fighting got popular in the 16th century because it was a common era for 1v1 unarmored duels. If the Knight and the Water Dancer are unarmored then the Water Dancer absolutely has the advantage. The Rapier is typically as long or longer then most swords a Knight would use and is much lighter. You could poke your Knightly opponent full of holes far easier then he can cut or stab you.

If armor is involved then the Knight probably has the advantage. His sword would just be thicker so it doesn't bend as much, thus its better against armor. However Rapiers weren't just used against unarmored foes. Conquistadors and other such warriors from the renaissance used them quite frequently against armored opponents. So don't go on thinking that a Rapier would snap in half if used against someone in full plate.

If a Braavosi Water Dancer was ready for battle I imagine he'd be wearing something much like what a conquistador would wear.

All that being said. I don't think the Knight has much if any advantage. It's basically a fully armored guy with a thick sword vs a slightly less armored guy with a thin sword.

Ok, in book, Bronn uses his sword and, I think, shield? to deflect a lot of blows that would otherwise end the fight. If you try that very often smallsword vs. long sword, and both you and the smallsword will break.

Only if you tie the Rapier to a post and have a guy hammer it with his sword. In a real battle a Rapier would be used in such a way to deflect/redirect blows.

[Dimples]

I'd say that would only strengthen the argument for the water dancer. As you said these guys were not water dancers yet they used the water dancers desired attributes to defeat their opponents, so one could argue a fully trained water dancer would have done even better.

Saying a Knight would win 100% is a ridiculous assertion. Even heavy plate has weak points, and these smallswords are effective in finding the chinks in the armour so to speak.

Also, the longer the water dancer evades, the more the odds swing in their favour due to the fatigue of trying to fight an extended duel in heavy plate.

You're forgetting the advantages Oberyn and Bronn had that water dancers don't have. Both had good armor (not as good as full plate, but ludicrously better than what water dancers have), which gives them a much larger margin of error. Without armor, a water dancer would have to fight absolutely perfectly, as one good blow from the knight and it's game over. Oberyn also had the advantage of reach, which meant he could safely dance around outside of Gregor's range. A water dancer would only have a small, if any, advantage over a knight with a longsword. Not enough to stay outside the knight's range, which means the water dancer has an even smaller margin of error. Unless a fully trained water dancer can be perfect every fight, they won't perform nearly as well as Oberyn or Bronn.

On well made plate even the weak spots are protected by rondels, mail, and heavy padding. It's not easy to get to or punch through those awkward-to-reach spots with a thin sword.

As James Arryn mentioned, the water dancer is covering a lot more ground and expending more energy than the knight. Good plate isn't overly restrictive. Bronn beat Ser Vardis the way he did because he had more stamina than the old knight.

I do agree that the knight wouldn't win 100% of the time. More like 95%. Because probability will eventually pit bad knights against perfect water dancers.

Syrio identified and attacked the weak points in his opponents armour with spectacular accuracy and intuitive speed,

Syrio is exceptionally observant, and finding weak spots in a crappy guard's armor isn't a great challenge.

Given that we know sword dancing emphasises speed and movement, which is exactly what you emphasise if you need to compete with someone more heavily armoured than yourself,

You also want something that can, you know, hurt somebody or pierce through that armor. Do we see that with water dancing? No.

I think it's pretty solid speculation that water dancing quite specifically is - or originated in - defeating heavily armoured knights when you're lightly armoured.

Why?

If a Braavosi Water Dancer was ready for battle I imagine he'd be wearing something much like what a conquistador would wear.

Pure speculation. We never see any remotely armored water dancers in the books.

[James Arryn]

Seeing as Water Dancing is based off of the renaissance Rapier style of fighting and Westerosi Knights use Longsword/Arming sword. The Water Dancers are actually using a more evolved form of combat.

To whoever I raised this point earlier, see what I mean? This was the common misconception that happens a lot.

Okay, SLK; No. :)

But it's true. Smallsword are not more evolved, they are the bi-product of evolution. Namely, gunpowder.

Gunpowder made plate mail useless and, in fact, made treatment much more difficult. So armor becomes more just something like a cuirass and helmet. Maybe some greaves. Kinda modern version of the old Spartan gear. And, eventually, just a helmet.

Rapiers et al only become prominent after armor isn't, really. That's the point. A man without armor can be killed almost as easily with a rapier as with a broadsword, and a rapier is a hell of a lot easier to carry around, and a longsword's not particularly meant to be used by unarmored fighters.

But the actual sword or craft needed to make a rapier isn't more advanced, nor is the method of combat more evolved. Case in point, the katana. Designed to fight armoured opponents, and therefore much more 'knight' like...by most definitions a samurai and a knight are almost indistinguishable...and yet by no means lesser technology than a rapier.

Or put it this way: If we take away gunpowder, we'll eventually go back to long swords. Because the wealthier will get armour, and the armour makes small swords pretty useless, and so we're back where we were before gunpowder rules the battlefield.

[Dimples]

...

[Dimples]

To whoever I raised this point earlier, see what I mean? This was the common misconception that happens a lot.

Okay, SLK; No. :)

But it's true. Smallsword are not more evolved, they are the bi-product of evolution. Namely, gunpowder.

Gunpowder made plate mail useless and, in fact, made treatment much more difficult. So armor becomes more just something like a cuirass and helmet. Maybe some greaves. Kinda modern version of the old Spartan gear. And, eventually, just a helmet.

Rapiers et al only become prominent after armor isn't, really. That's the point. A man without armor can be killed almost as easily with a rapier as with a broadsword, and a rapier is a hell of a lot easier to carry around, and a longsword's not particularly meant to be used by unarmored fighters.

But the actual sword or craft needed to make a rapier isn't more advanced, nor is the method of combat more evolved. Case in point, the katana. Designed to fight armoured opponents, and therefore much more 'knight' like...by most definitions a samurai and a knight are almost indistinguishable...and yet by no means lesser technology than a rapier.

Or put it this way: If we take away gunpowder, we'll eventually go back to long swords. Because the wealthier will get armour, and the armour makes small swords pretty useless, and so we're back where we were before gunpowder rules the battlefield.

:agree:

[Sir Lee knot]

To whoever I raised this point earlier, see what I mean? This was the common misconception that happens a lot.

Okay, SLK; No. :)

But it's true. Smallsword are not more evolved, they are the bi-product of evolution. Namely, gunpowder.

Gunpowder made plate mail useless and, in fact, made treatment much more difficult. So armor becomes more just something like a cuirass and helmet. Maybe some greaves. Kinda modern version of the old Spartan gear. And, eventually, just a helmet.

Rapiers et al only become prominent after armor isn't, really. That's the point. A man without armor can be killed almost as easily with a rapier as with a broadsword, and a rapier is a hell of a lot easier to carry around, and a longsword's not particularly meant to be used by unarmored fighters.

But the actual sword or craft needed to make a rapier isn't more advanced, nor is the method of combat more evolved. Case in point, the katana. Designed to fight armoured opponents, and therefore much more 'knight' like...by most definitions a samurai and a knight are almost indistinguishable...and yet by no means lesser technology than a rapier.

Or put it this way: If we take away gunpowder, we'll eventually go back to long swords. Because the wealthier will get armour, and the armour makes small swords pretty useless, and so we're back where we were before gunpowder rules the battlefield.

Did you read my entire post? Because you basically took one sentence out of it and started criticizing stuff that I had elaborated on in later sentences.

I agree that the Rapier is optimized for unarmored combat and not necessarily all combat in general but that's pretty much where I stop agreeing. There are several key points about the Rapier you got wrong or missed because you either don't know or ignored them.

1. Rapier vs longsword. In unarmored combat the Rapier wins. It just does. They are both equally deadly but the Rapier is just faster so the killing comes quicker.

2. Rapiers were used against full plate. This simple helmet and Cuirass combo you talk about wasn't the extent of it. In the 16th century both the Rapier and full plate were coming into contact. The reason being, because guns weren't good enough at that point to negate the need for melee combat.

[Lord Reaver]

1. Rapier vs longsword. In unarmored combat the Rapier wins. It just does. They are both equally deadly but the Rapier is just faster so the killing comes quicker.

2. Rapiers were used against full plate. This simple helmet and Cuirass combo you talk about wasn't the extent of it. In the 16th century both the Rapier and full plate were coming into contact. The reason being, because guns weren't good enough at that point to negate the need for melee combat.

1, Nobody has argued otherwise.

2. No, rapiers and "full plate" were never matched. The rapier was considered a dueling sword, by the people who used and made them. Other types of cutting/thrusting swords which looked much more like earlier arming swords were used for battle, the most popular type being the basket-hilted sword of some variation.

[Sir Lee knot]

1, Nobody has argued otherwise.

2. No, rapiers and "full plate" were never matched. The rapier was considered a dueling sword, by the people who used and made them. Other types of cutting/thrusting swords which looked much more like earlier arming swords were used for battle, the most popular type being the basket-hilted sword of some variation.

1. The poster I was replying to implied it.

2. Rapiers were used in war although maybe as common as other swords.

Anyways the original question is a Water Dancer vs Knight and the OP doesn't specify if they have armor.

Without armor I'd go with the water dancer.

With armor I'd bet on the Knight.

[James Arryn]

Did you read my entire post? Because you basically took one sentence out of it and started criticizing stuff that I had elaborated on in later sentences.

I agree that the Rapier is optimized for unarmored combat and not necessarily all combat in general but that's pretty much where I stop agreeing. There are several key points about the Rapier you got wrong or missed because you either don't know or ignored them.

1. Rapier vs longsword. In unarmored combat the Rapier wins. It just does. They are both equally deadly but the Rapier is just faster so the killing comes quicker.

2. Rapiers were used against full plate. This simple helmet and Cuirass combo you talk about wasn't the extent of it. In the 16th century both the Rapier and full plate were coming into contact. The reason being, because guns weren't good enough at that point to negate the need for melee combat.

1) Already stipulated. The longsword was designed as part of a weapons system that includes armor. That's the point.

2) I don't know where you think this is true, at least not by design. The Bolognese schools are the earliest we know to teach the usage, and they stressed horses for courses, and advocatesd the rapier for duels, personal protection, etc. and specifically stressed it's battlefield limitations and redundancy. The Spanish and Italian schools both went in different directions about side-swords or alternatives in battle, and Silver's English (as well as the Spanish) stress on nautical warfare arrived at the cutlass as a compromise, but nowhere do we see rapier usage being advocated against mailed knights as choice to make. Marozzo stated that Rapiers were unreliable when asked to penetrate iron, and that the stress points on the sectioning was not what the weapon was designed to bear.

[Lord Reaver]

1. The poster I was replying to implied it.

2. Rapiers were used in war although maybe as common as other swords.

Anyways the original question is a Water Dancer vs Knight and the OP doesn't specify if they have armor.

Without armor I'd go with the water dancer.

With armor I'd bet on the Knight.

1. Not that I could see. I think that might just be on you.

2. Source ? Because everything I've ever read, including the fencing manuals I've looked at for that sort of fighting (briefly, mind you, it's not what I'm focused on), show or talk about the rapier being used solely for unarmored, duel-type fighting. Here's the ARMA's take on it, for instance: http://www.thearma.org/Youth/rapieroutline.htm#.VAlbqGPFM-o

Edit: Ah, :ninja: by J.A.

[Septa Mordane]

Different fighting styles work for different people. Arya is small and skinny, making her a difficult target, and she's quick and light on her feet, so water dancing was clearly the best style for her. The knights who learn to fight in the Westerosi style are prized for their size and strength, but they would be terrible water dancers.

[Lord Reaver]

IRL fencing is divided into epee, which approximates dueling, sabre, which approximates the battlefield, and foil, which approximates a street fight.

A person trying to use sabre-fencing techniques on a medieval battlefield would be very dead, very quickly. It's a stylized form, derived from 17th century-onwards fencing.

An average-skill epee fencer is trained to be able to hit the opponent's wrist, inner elbow, or armpit with a solid stab very reliably. These are the weak points in a knight's armor. A lightly armored fighter with a thin sword has better reach than does an armored knight with a heavy sword, because the lightly armored fighter can go into deeper lunges and can make a more effective thrust at long range due to the comparative awkwardness of using a longsword as a thrusting weapon. A rapier is going to be more effective than a longsword against a heavily-armored foe, but probably not as effective as a mace. I've never trained with a mace though, so I dunno. Shields complicate things though, as do two-handed swords.

So. Many. Errors.

1. "Weak points" as you seem to understand them, don't actually exist. In an articulated plate, there are no "gaps" in which you can fit an epee's point.

2. Your use of "longsword" is...well, erroneous. The long-sword (langes schwert) was the style of fighting with two hands on the sword, and did give at least as much reach as later epee fencing does.

3. Deep lunges = death. Every single fechtbuch I've seen stresses this point. Why, you say ? Well, it's fairly simple. While you are making that deep lunge to attempt wounding me in the leg or whatever, I will simply execute a blow to your head, which will be not only faster (since the distance from my guard to your head is going to be shorter, seeing as you just presented your head to me as a target, but also much, much more deadly.

[Dimples]

Different fighting styles work for different people. Arya is small and skinny, making her a difficult target, and she's quick and light on her feet, so water dancing was clearly the best style for her. The knights who learn to fight in the Westerosi style are prized for their size and strength, but they would be terrible water dancers.

Umm...the debate is about whether knights>water dancers or not.

[Lord Reaver]

DP

[James Arryn]

A person trying to use sabre-fencing techniques on a medieval battlefield would be very dead, very quickly. It's a stylized form, derived from 17th century-onwards fencing. So. Many. Errors.1. "Weak points" as you seem to understand them, don't actually exist. In an articulated plate, there are no "gaps" in which you can fit an epee's point.2. Your use of "longsword" is...well, erroneous. The long-sword (langes schwert) was the style of fighting with two hands on the sword, and did give at least as much reach as later epee fencing does.3. Deep lunges = death. Every single fechtbuch I've seen stresses this point. Why, you say ? Well, it's fairly simple. While you are making that deep lunge to attempt wounding me in the leg or whatever, I will simply execute a blow to your head, which will be not only faster (since the distance from my guard to your head is going to be shorter, seeing as you just presented your head to me as a target, but also much, much more deadly.

3) One Half Haukse and game over.

[Ingelheim]

Rapier was never used against full plate. Never. Maybe just a few times, but nothing common.

[JoeyBanana]

It's a fighting style for civilians or for protecting civilians like the Sealord. Ned didn't want Arya to learn combat so she can go to war, it was about being able to defend herself when attacked or threathened in everyday life. I'm pretty sure if Syrio knew he was going to fight heavily armored opponents, he'd have equipped himself accordingly.

The comparison makes no sense.

[DamoDega]

Could the water dance be as good as the westerosi way of fighting

If we take an average water dancer and westerosi Knight who has the advantage?

Armor or not?

If armor is allowed (wich it should) the knight have a really huge to good advantage

Huge or good depend what kind of sword use the WD dude

We usually assume is like a rapier, but for the type of setting (middle age, still not gunpowder) an stocco/estoc look more compatible

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoc

"The estoc was a variation of the longsword designed for fighting against mail or plate armour.[2]"

"As armour improved, so did the methods of attacking the armour. It was quickly realized that cutting weapons were losing their effectiveness, so crushing weapons such as maces and axes were utilized. But thrusting weapons that could split the rings of mail, or find the joints and crevices of plate armour, were also employed"

But the impression is that Middle Age or not Bravos are counterpart of our Renassaince italian fencers, so a more "rapier style" sword is more likely

Still, in both case Knight will win it waay more than not

Maybe if the WD find an armor light enough to not fuck his style, have some more chances

If is just a pure sword-skill duel not involving armor, a rapier is probably the best weapon for a duel, roles switch and the knight is pretty much fucked

[RedShirt47]

Rapiers were not military grade battlefield weapons. They were civilian weapons primarily used for personal protection. Medieval cities lacked adequate law and order. Gentlemen of means would be prime targets for cut-purses and muggers due to their gold rings and plump purses. As such these gentlemen would need to defend themselves.

Obviously they put these weapons to other uses such as dueling and fencing. Also even some urban warfare like the Montagues and Capulets in Shakespearean Verona.

On ships fully clad plate would be rare. Cutlasses were common as the shorter curved blades allowed better movement in the confined spaces.

Not sure exactly what swords Water Dancers used but it always seemed to me that they used rapier style weapons. But it could be that they used cutlasses on ships and perhaps longswords in battle.
Have we ever seen a Water Dancer in an actual military engagement? Either naval or battlefield?