• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

A Historical Analysis of the Practicality of the Weapons in Zelda: Part XIII: Tetra's Cutlass and Flintlock.

TheGreatCthulhu

Composer of the Night.
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Location
United States of America
Gender
Very much a dude.
Okay, so every weapon review dealt with weapons from the Middle Ages and Renaissance so far, but, HEMA also includes cutlass and saber, and I've always been a fan of American and British officer cavalry sabers, and armament from the 17th and 18th centuries anyways. So I figure Tetra from Wind Waker gives me a great excuse to talk pirates, cutlasses, and pistols, AHOY!!!

So, two disclaimers here.

First, play these videos to get in the proper mood for this review:









Second, my usual disclaimer of this review is from a purely practical and historical perspective as someone that practices HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), and yes that encompasses 18th century martial arts as well.

Without further ado, let's get into this review.

For reference, we'll use this render of Tetra from Hyrule Warriors:

39836


Tetra's adorable, but is her armament practical?

Well, as is tradition in the series, let's compare her armament to perhaps the most famous pirate in history, Captain Blackbeard.

39837

Well, it's pretty good actually, she looks the part of a pirate. However, I feel her saber's blade is rather.... wide and large, and short. That's actually not too bad, actually, as historical cutlasses were short as far as sabers go. If you look closely at the picture of Blackbeard, you'll see that his saber is quite a bit longer, and not as curved.

I really personally dig her little flintlock pistol, and it looks bang on for a historical flintlock, if simplistic considering the game's art style.

It seems to me to be based on this flintlock pistol from the early 1700's.

39838

Though, considering her occupation, I suspect it's more of a dueling pistol, because they were water resistant.

However, flintlock pistols are single shot pistols firing smooth balls, and if you aren't experienced with firearms, flintlocks in general are a massive pain in the butt to reload. Thus, as Blackbeard demonstrates, having a bandoleer with a couple of flintlock pistols allowed you to get decent firepower before swords were drawn.

Her saber also seems absurdly curved for a hangar saber or cutlass. Historically, cutlasses were slightly curved, and were slightly longer than her sword.

I also have to question the practicality of the guard on her saber. Sabers, as a general rule, have great hand protection, as these historical sabers demonstrate:

39839

17th Century French Hangar Blade.

39840

18th Century American Cavalry Saber.

39841

18th Century Dutch East India Trading Company Cutlass. Yes, this is a real antique.


As you can see from these swords, you can easily see the substantial hand protection they have, and how shallow the curve of these sabers are. Tetra's, just compared to the historical examples looks off. The curve is way too steep, the blade is too wide, and the hand protection on her sword is too shallow.

Now, is that really a problem? Swords don't need to have substantial hand protection to be effective weapons. That much is true, but if you were to try actual saber techniques with her saber, you'd easily find your hands getting hit A LOT.

A guard you might assume in a saber fight is Tierce, with your right arm extended forward, knees slightly bent, back straight, off hand on your hip, as Alfred Hutton demonstrates from his saber fencing manual, Cold Steel:

39842


Or, point down guards in saber are also perfectly valid as he also demonstrates:

39843

As a side note, the reason the off hand is on the hip as a general rule, is because of two reasons:

  1. It removes a target from your opponent. As you can see in both examples, your dominant foot is most of the time pointed towards the opponent, effectively putting your hand behind you. Hitting the hand from that position is stupidly difficult.
  2. It keeps your off-hand out of the way when you're cutting with a one-handed sword.
So Tetra having such a small guard would work against her, and prevent her from doing all the things you'd want to do with the saber.

Like

Stabbing:

39844

Or the good ol' moulinette that I briefly discussed last episode:



A point about parrying in saber. Because of the substantial hand protection on a saber, you can do parries that you likely wouldn't be able to perform with a Medieval sword, such as parrying with the flat, and parrying with the strong of the blade. In fact, in saber fencing, you want to parry with the strong of the blade as a general rule.

So how would I fix Tetra's arsenal? First off, I see nothing wrong with her flintlock pistol, so that can actually remain as is. I would give her a bandoleer of at least two more flintlock pistols though, so she has extra firepower. Her saber though, I'd put a clam shell type guard, along with a knuckle guard to give her more hand protection, and I'd narrow the blade, make the curve less pronounced, and slightly longer.

Thus, my redesigned cutlass for her, would look more like this 18th Century Clam Shell Cutlass:

39845

I think that's a far more practical design for a swashbucklin', high seas goin', keehaulin' pirate.

If I was to give a rating based on a historical and practical basis, it's not too bad, actually. It gets an 8/10. While her saber can use improvement, you can still cut with it, and that flintlock pistol she has is bang on for a proper flintlock.

Lemme know what you guys think! :)
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 19, 2019
Gender
Feel free to use what pronouns you want. I use both sexed pronoun sets interchangeably.
I don't remember if you did it, but if not could we get an analysis of the various bows in BotW?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom