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Date Posted: 18:55:35 11/04/02 Mon
Author: fresne
Subject: Re: "Shindig" fencing Impressions, with spoilers.
In reply to: Darby 's message, "Re: "Shindig" fencing Impressions, with spoilers." on 07:23:00 11/04/02 Mon

Oh, cool MST3K Hamlet was on again? Was it the Swedish one? I mean come on. They were cracking Shakespeare jokes. And the, “give mommie a margarita dear,” comment. Heh, good stuff.

So, yes I’m all for fencing commentary from the cheap seats. It’s good to have someone with a bit more up to date knowledge than my own. Although, that sounds odd when discussing fencing.

However, I think I may have been unclear about what I meant by talking about the choice of weapons. I’m not criticizing the choice. Although, based on comments that are ten years old in my memory, my fencing teacher would possibly disagree with you about the saber. However, he may have been prejudiced on behalf of the weapon and was somewhat old school. He was actually in a horse cavalry, Polish. Interesting guy.

What I am interested in is what the weaponry says about the culture. Swords in a duel and not guns. The rapier and not, oh, heck, hunga munga throwing knives or cattle prods or some sort of stylized version of fill in the blank. The repetition of the word honor. The glee with which Wing “accepts” Mal’s challenge. The juxtaposition of the duel with the bar brawl. Both as a social and a fighting occasion. The significance of the clothing (Sashes. Medals. Women in hoops and corsets. Clothes which require help to dress. Note: Kaylee wears a large hoop, which is difficult to walk in, but not a corset. Mal’s tight pants.) Clothing as definition. Lack of clothing as distraction. The use of live models in the windows. The types of dancing. The variously implied social strata. People who buy store bought gowns and Lords and Badger and Mr. Wing and Mal and Inara and Kaylee.

Briefly, is a shindig the one with brie, while a hootenanny is the one with a whole lot of hoot and a little bit of nanny?

I can’t say as I’ve read any dueling manuals, so you’ll have to say if this jives with your own, quite probably more to the, ahem, point, research.

However, from what I understand, the rapier was the preeminent dueling weapon from the 1600s to the 1800s, at which point firearms started to preempt it. The rapier was developed for effective city/street/personalized defense fighting, not warfare. The way people fought on the battlefield (Mal) versus how people dueled (Wing) being completely different. Speaking of Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, the big bad fight scene, historical accounts of random street violence with rapiers were much more common than formalized duels. Not that I mean that thugs used them, but young bravos like Romeo and his friends. Although, I guess it could depend on your definition of the word thug. While, Renaissance duelists would have thought first blood was a non-concept, it was fairly common by the early 1800s. By that time, you start to have some interesting social phenomenon like the whole scaring as a representation of manliness in Prussia.

Since, Firefly is set in the future, they have the entire history of fighting to fall back on. Mal first swings what looks like a cutlass around his room. Alas, poor column, I knew him well. Then he and Inara practice with another set of swords. Then we get to the fight and the duel uses a third set of weapons.

Okay, it’s not like they’re showing them fencing with sabers, a la rowdy cavalry officers of the 1880s, but they’re also not showing them fencing with tipless epees or court swords (fashionable, faster/lighter than the rapier and of a length that won’t interfere with milady’s skirt when dancing.) or something equally evolved away from “the art of personal defense.” Obviously, we can’t have Mal firing a pistol, but the rapier is an interestingly effective classic weapons choice. And it’s a choice, not just on the choreographer’s part (cause it does make the whole shoulder cut, mad swipes on Mal’s part, stab wounds possible), but as I imagine it a cultural choice. No one questions that Wing will choose a sword. Any man there can offer Mal a sword to use. Inara knows how to use a sword. Although, again, she might have been better off explaining to Mal how to best do what he was going to do anyway. Briefly, I’m reminded of the BtVS episode where Buffy holds her knife, like a stake, down and facing towards her as opposed to up and facing away.

I can imagine Persephone gentlemen wearing rapiers as street wear and getting into random fights over love, honor, shoe color. “The fact that you have worn white shoes after Labor Day insults my eyes.” Fight ensues. Wearing them for personal defense, because who knows when someone will take offense to your shoes. Carrying guns around as a matter of course.

The whole dueling thing, weapons detector, gun confiscation, etc., implies a level of violence just beneath the surface in this the pinnacle of Persephone culture. There is the very real sense that disputes are settled in trial by combat. The statement that a man who is left alive after a duel is a coward.

Now that’s just interesting.

Also, the sword breaking. I’m suddenly reminded of the tradition of breaking the sword of someone (it’s a pc age) as they are drummed out of the service. Wing’s move to break Mal’s sword isn’t just a fencing move. It’s an insult to Mal’s honor. Mal, however, is perfectly willing to take advantage of his enemy’s distraction, so the insult is literally thrown back at Wing. The fight ends with Mal finally using the sword point. And the sword basket, which I believe is what he uses to cut Wing’s face. Somehow I don’t think that that scar will be a badge of honor.

I’m also intrigued with the apparent friction between the older gentleman, who want to discuss engines and put down dandies, like Wing, and people who don’t serve a useful function, the young women, and well, the youngins, who duel and practice set dancing and spend a lot of time getting dressed.

Based on virtually no evidence, I want to imagine that the older set as the ones who worked to create the current prosperity, which the younger set now enjoy.

Hopefully, Persephone proves to be a planet that we revisit.

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