{"id":40516,"date":"2022-09-08T06:30:14","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=40516"},"modified":"2022-09-04T20:20:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-04T08:20:03","slug":"qa-thursdays-reprised-7-jasons-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2022\/09\/08\/qa-thursdays-reprised-7-jasons-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A Thursdays Reprised #7: Jason’s Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Currently I\u2019m reprising a Daughter of Blood<\/em> <\/a>\u00a0(and by extension The Wall Of Night<\/a> ) Q&A series that first featured in 2019\u2014with some really great questions that I\u2019m enjoying getting to read and think about again.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s I\u2019m refeaturing Jason\u2019s question on weapons and the names thereof. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

\"daughter-of-blood-by-helen-lowe\"

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Jason: In The Lord of The Rings<\/em> almost all the weapons have personal names, like Sting and Glamdring and Narsil. I\u2019ve noticed you don\u2019t do that, except for Malian\u2019s helmet. Why is that?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Traditionally, in the major epics and sagas, only weapons that are really important have names, the name-giving being a reflection of their status.\u00a0 Mostly, it\u2019s the more \u201cindividualised\u201d weapons that have names, too, e.g. swords that are used as weapons of state and in single combats, or a spear like Aiglos that belongs to an Elven king. It\u2019s much rarer for a pike or crossbow to have a name. The named weapons in <\/em>The Lord of the Rings reflect these traditions.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In the case of the three weapons of Yorindesarinen, only the \u201cmoonbright helm\u201d, Nhenir, has a name as opposed to an attribute. This highlights the point that Nhenir, of all the three, is \u201cmost like a person.\u201d (<\/em>The Heir of Night.) So the others are named for their attributes alone, i.e. the Frostfire Sword and the Shield of Stars, also called the Shield of Heaven. Those attributes still denote that they\u2019re \u201cspecial\u201d in a traditional sense, especially as you\u2019re quite right, relatively few of the other weapons are named.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The other main instance is the \u201cblack blades\u201d, which includes both Kalan\u2019s spear and Asantir\u2019s swords, which she loans to Kalan. Attaching the word \u201cblack\u201d to a class of weapons in this context ascribes mystery (night, darkness, the unseen), power (again, night and darkness, but also black belts 🙂 ), innate danger (e.g. the unlit darkness of caves and black water), death (the underworld), and prohibition (blacked out, blackballed, blacklisted etc.) While not impossible, personalised names would struggle to achieve the same end, individually and collectively. So \u201cblack blades\u201d just worked better overall.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On the Wall of Night, too, weapons are a utility. So although some individuals may give their weapons nicknames, and a few will have proper names, the majority will not have either. Names also romanticize weapons\u2014and although the WALL world may not be grimdark in a fantasy sense, from the outset I\u2019ve tried not to romanticize war, its trappings (such as armor and weapons), or its effects.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Previous Thursday Q&A Refeatures:<\/h3>\n

March 31 \u2014 #1 Phoebe\u2019s Question on Book Planning<\/a><\/p>\n

April 21 \u2014 #2 Sam\u2019s Question on Deleted Scenes<\/a><\/p>\n

April 28 \u2014 #3 Sandy\u2019s Question on Characters That Take Charge<\/a><\/p>\n

May 19 \u2014 #4 Lindsay\u2019s Question on Research<\/a><\/p>\n

June 23 \u2014 #5 Chris\u2019s Question on Tirael & \u201cWhat Would Have Happened If\u2026\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

June 30 — #6 Rosie’s Question on the Web of Mayanne<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currently I\u2019m reprising a Daughter of Blood \u00a0(and by extension The Wall Of Night ) Q&A series that first featured in 2019\u2014with some really great questions that I\u2019m enjoying getting to read and think about again. Today\u2019s I\u2019m refeaturing Jason\u2019s question on weapons and the names thereof. \ud83d\ude00 Jason: In The Lord of The Rings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40516"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40520,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40516\/revisions\/40520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}