Quick question about a weapon that’s been visible in a couple of episodes but never to my knowledge used. It’s most visible during Giles’ song in the training room in “Once More With Feeling.” It’s two crossed pieces of wood (looks like bamboo) with a sharpened stake on the right arm of the cross and a curved sythe-lik blade on the top arm. Is this a real weapon, or based on a real weapon, or is it made up by the show?
Is it like a crossbow, or a modified crossbow? You don’t have a link to a picture, do you? I’m having trouble visualizing it here at work.
I can’t really get a good visualization of the instrument. Can you describe it further?
It sounds like you’re describing some form of shortened pike with an additional weapon to allow ‘punching’ attacks. Is this a remotely accurate characterisation?
Is this it? Link
If it’s what I’m thinking of, it’s two separate weapons that are displayed crossed over one another. Both are wooden-handled, with a hooked blade on one and a semi-straight wooden stake on the other. They can be used independently or together.
They resemble a pair of weapons my black belt ex had… I’ll tool around on the net and see if I can come up with a pic.
I think Otto is describing a one-handed scythe with an exaggerated hilt.
I’m inclined to think it’s made up, but that’s just a WAG.
I suspect the curved-bladed one is a type of kama. There are pics here http://www.seito.co.uk/kobudo/kama.html
I have seen some that are much fancier, with holes in the blades, tassels, carved handles, etc.
Venturing outside my area of ANY competence, I believe these are used in Japanese/Okinawan martial arts. They are based on traditional farming implements. When certain such arts/styles were developed, the masses were forbidden from owning weapons or training fighting. So they adapted their tools.
I do not recall a special episode where Buff used kama, (and I HATE the dreaded musical debacle so I won’t be looking back at it for you!).
If Giles was holding what you describe, it is possible he was holding a kama in one hand and a “pointy stick” in the other, and was simply holding them in a crossed pattern. Some weapons arts present the weapons like that at various times. it was a fave of the late great Edgar Sulite.
Many martial arts involve very funky appearing blades. It is common to see plaques with various curved filipino blades in MA schools.
Buffy usually does not have very good weapons action. My fave is in the ep where she ran away and is waitressing, and dives thru the pool of merury to where the demons are working young people away. What was that - the beginning of season 3 or so?
Oh yeah - and the rocket launcher!
Dinsdale’s link is close but the handle is shorter and the blade is more question-mark shaped. Giles isn’t holding the weapon(s); it’s mounted on a board with a number of other weapons.
The episode where Buffy helps the runaways is the first in season 3.
Is this the item in question?
http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season6/vidcaps/omwf/omwf091.shtml
If so, I sure can’t tell you what it is. Looks like something a prop guy came up with, not an actual weapon, but who knows. I’d like to see it in action. It seems Buffy never gets to play with anything other than stakes, swords, and the occasional axe. Although that hammer of the gods used to dispatch Glory was a nice change.
That’s the one where she frees all the oppressed child laborers by whaling on demons with a hammer and sickle, right? Gotta love that subtlety!
Well, it looks like a modified kama, and I think I’ve seen a similar weapon somewhere before. Of course that one was likely to have been a fantasy source too (a video game or something)…
Not to unduly hijack the thread, but I have a Buffy weapon question too. In the opening montage, there is a scene where Xander is thrusting a relatively ornate hilted sword downward - does anybody know what episode this comes from?
The opening montage from which season? They change it every year.
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Originally posted by KKBattousai
In the opening montage, there is a scene where Xander is thrusting a relatively ornate hilted sword downward
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Assuming you are talking about the part where he is thrusting into a vampire and it is dusting, that ornate weapon you are speaking of would be none other than a piece of broken wooden alter in a funeral home.
Alexander Harris: Putting the fun back in funeral.
That could be just a sickle. Its a short sickle, so maybe Kama/Sickle, but that’s what it looks like. I suppose it would fit on Buffy, with all the druids and wizards and Vampires and Demons runnign about.
It’s from the Glory season. Xander is stabbing the guy with the tongue
who survives to pitch Spike from the tower in the final ep, then slices open Dawn, then gets pitched from the tower by Buffy.
That’s it exactly. I’d like to see it in action too, although I think it would work better with the stake on the long end and the blade on the shorter arm. That way the stake could be thrust forward and the blade can be swung through an arc. So the concensus is that the thing’s made up?
Reminds me of something I heard Dan Inosanto say. After demonstrating a series of tricky disarms, and explaining the various ways different masters might do them, he said something along the lines of, “Of course, you’d better get a few good shots in to his head before trying any of these.”
Maybe the oldtime Okinawans had reasons to train and fight with their farming implements, but I don’t see too many people strolling down the street these days inconspicuously carrying sickles, rice flails, or turtle shells.
Stick, knife, gun. Or anything at hand you can pick up to hit or throw - rocks, chains, ash trays, pool cues. Pretty much covers it. Depending on your needs, supplemented by Mr. Pointy and various delivery systems.
In my experience, subtlety, exotic weoponry, (and prettiness) has very little to do with actual fighting! Of course, to quote a game platform ad, “She kicks high!” 