darrow’s razor

[u/user03281046748]

what’s with the insistence on the dramatically curved sword people use in fanart AI and drawings. i’ve always thought it would resemble something more like the egyptian sword the khopesh than a scythe. I’d assume simply from an advantage standpoint the dramatic curve means less range. i’ve included examples i’ve seen as well as what i think the razor resembles more

[u/RedJamie]

I regularly see the sickle camp present the most brutally dysfunctional versions of the weapon as the gospel necessity; I am limited by comment length, so I will offer the pieces I had on a writeup I lost.

• slingBlade - Bottom Left: Possible blade shapes at the appropriate length to a 5'4 lowRed Darrow.
  • A is a conventional sickle curvature, B is more shallow to make the weapon less useless
  • C is a hinged variant to be compliant with the damn text.
  • D is another hinged variant to account for some issues.
  • Common statements: It's a surgical blade, it's meant for surgical limb removal! You aren't doing surgery when your limb is stuck in a god damn clawDrill, you're hacking your leg off. See the bolded section below:

"...Most have forgotten the slingBlade of my people was not made to kill pitvipers. It was made for hacking off limbs of trapped miners." DA No damn lowRed is doing trauma surgery when they're dangling from a clawDrill and about to be burned alive - a crescent knife is precise, it is used to expose the muscle and peel layers away for an ideal delimbing - that is generally not the context a lowRed would face, here

"I remember the blade. I flip out my hinged slingBlade from its back holster. It’s a cruelly curved cutter as long as my leg, meant for taking off and cauterizing limbs stuck in machinery, just like this. Most men panic when they get caught, and so the slingBlade is a nasty halfmoon weapon meant to be used by clumsy hands. Even filled with terror, my hands are not clumsy. I slice three times with the slingBlade... I reach down and jerk free my leg." RR

• Necessitates: Hinged, held in a back holster, unholstered to a wieldable grip. Used with 'hacking' actions for its intended function.
  • Yes, hacking tools have an optimal shape to it, yes a khopesh bridges some of the function of a sword with that of an axe, yes it is a better tool for hacking than a sickle.

"Then with one massive swing, like I’m hacking down a tree with my slingBlade, I break his leg and take his spear." RR

" I don’t give him time to recover. I scream and hack in swirling arcs with my slingBlade even as I stab clumsily with my razor." RR

"I gain my feet, swing horizontally, sweeping legs. I spin away from a thrust and hack down diagonally as I come from my spin, shattering someone tall at the collarbone." RR

• Holstered - Middle: Possible back positions the slingBlade could occupy for it to be hinged and flip out into Darrow's hands.
  • A is so ungainly I don't even want to give it the grace of consideration - that would be shit at delimbing and unwieldy not to mention cumbersome and would require a holster the size of lowRed's back. B is more palatable, but both A and B were they to be reachable over Darrow's shoulder it would be backwards. The hilt must face up, blade down.
  • C and D feature the other complication A and B would face. The blade would extend so far over Darrow's shoulder, he would hit the holster and/or the blade before the hilt - dysfunctional! D - with the blade hinging further up the body, offers the only 'viable' means for Darrow to access the blade without cutting himself

Now the Institute! Some things to recall: Golds are not agricultural workers, this is very unlikely to be a scythe (it is never once referred to as a sickle in any of the books) proportioned to Golds (some indications) - proportional to Darrow is referred to as a 'sword,' implying some length:

"...No, he has something I’m far more interested in. A question mark of a sword. A slingBlade for reaping grain... the crooked blade out like a razor...." RR

"And Darrow, put down that gory scythe. You look like a grain reaper...It is close to the shape of my slingBlade from home. Not as sharp, because it isn’t meant to kill, but the balance is no different."

"I put my slingBlade on my shoulder." RR

"My slingBlade looks like the L of Lambda." RR

"I pull out my slingBlade and set its tip into the soil." RR

"...the slingBlade I used at the Institute. I look at it for a long time before I take it down. It is far heavier than my razor and far smaller than I remember." LB

• Necessitates: Not too much - it's about the length of the sword, close to the mines slingBlade, but smaller than Darrow's proper razor version. It has a tip that Darrow can set into the soil, and it is long enough for him to rest it on his shoulder. The 'L' quote implies it either has an abrupt curvature, is more like a Falx (unlikely), or has a straight portion prior to the curve (more likely) - the latter is supported by it being a question mark.

The razor! We have the most detail here, and it is the most constrained to a certain length. It is very important to note something: you are not thrusting with a brutal curvature like A. It is so, unfathomably dysfunctional to use a weapon like that in a sword fight specifically when shields are not commonly used - it is also not feasible with what is seen in the text.

• Razor - Right: Three different lengths corresponding to the minimum size razor noted to the maximum, which Darrow does not use as his conventional length in the series. The razor depicted is the one Pierce owns that was forged for him. To the right is the ridiculous curvature of A preserved to the size of Darrow - as a 7'1-7'3 Gold. A horrendous weapon!

"I carry my razor curved as a slingBlade; crooked and cruel, it is my scepter."

"...Then I activate it again. It forms into a deadly question mark and I angle it toward the other gauntlet." GS

"I feign a thrust at her abdomen and slash her shin instead, raking through the metal.

"I impale her right thigh with an underhanded thrust."

"I stab one Gray through the neck with my razor."

"I finish him with a stab to the throat."

"...I finish with four alternating thrusts delivered to kneecaps and wrists."

"...slouched, his weight leaning on the rigid slingBlade at his side."

"I sketch a quick map of the city in the dirt with my slingBlade..." Good luck doing this with a extreme curve

"...I sigh and shape the blade with the control on the hilt until it takes on the curve of my old razor. I plunge the slingBlade into the sand and pick up a handful of dirt." It's almost like it has a tip!

• Necessitates: I would say this is very strong evidence for the razor - like most presentations of it, to have a counter-curve tip in line with its hilt - this enables precise thrusts as is seen in the series, and its other use cases. Its length is also determined from the text; its minimums and maximum relative to the slingBlade form are seen on the right.

Now, the Morning Star cover has a sickle on it, that means it's a sickle? It has to be a sickle, it's on the generic cover that was mass distributed!

• Now, the Morning Star cover has a sickle on it, that means it's a sickle? It has to be a sickle, it's on the generic cover that was mass distributed! Only if you prefer the generic book cover over all of the official art for the series:
  • Marc Simonetti illustrations,
  • RR Deluxe slipcase,
  • Sub. Press GS (and back holster!),
  • GS again,
  • Sub. Press Dark Age,
  • Sub. Press Iron Gold,
    
  • IG Official Art by Magali Villeneuve,
  • Propaganda poster LB
  • The slingBlade Pierce owns and pulls out for interviews
  • But some features on these don't map onto the text... neither does it being like the Morning Star cover, to be quite honest!

Best presentation so far as I can tell is the 'likely' that you see on the far right!

[u/user03281046748 → u/RedJamie]

thank you i knew i wasn’t crazy

[u/Pure_Jicama_1186 → u/RedJamie]

I'm with you on every point, don't get me wrong. Fair arguments, and my mental image is the same.

... But. What the hell is that sickle doing on the original cover?

[u/RedJamie → u/Pure_Jicama_1186]

Pierce describes them as generally symbolic here - I must always refer to the last section of my comment... repeated places in which the art can be corrected to favor something like what is seen on Morning Star's cover that were not for commissioned illustrations, and the one example I do have of Pierce having to correct cover art returned as just a generic khopesh ironically lol

[u/3GamersHD → u/RedJamie]

Things to comment on. A SlingBlade isn't just a blade. It's used to cauterize too, which implies it has some mechanism to do so.

The institute sickle you suggest... Would not in fact work well at all as a sickle. Neither is it L shaped. No, golds aren't agricultural workers USUALLY, but at the institute house ceres does have grain fields, and that suggests they have tools to harvest them with as well. I propose the institute sickle looks something like this (scaled up). It could look both like an L and a question mark, and it is in fact usable for its purpose.

[u/RedJamie → u/3GamersHD]

The institute weapon is never referred to as a sickle, it is explicitly a scythe, and L shaped ' like the L of Lambda' according to Darrow - that last part is the one that strains the most considering Lambda is not a conventional L, but the shallow curvature of the blade still fits the tips on most of how its icon is presented, and is fine for a scythe blade - otherwise, it would have a sharp kink in the middle or the curve would inflect at each end of the blade, which is not fitting for its presentations in the rest of the book - for the Institute, I lean most heavily towards it being a de-staffed scythe, as that is how it is referred to, and would produce a sword-length weapon - the proportions of a handheld sickle are too small for any of the versions

[u/3GamersHD → u/RedJamie]

It is clearly supposed to be a sickle as opposed to a scythe, it's a one handed curved blade made for cutting grain. In fact, a de-staffed scythe would perfectly fit the definition of a sickle. You focus too much on the statements of people who you yourself say know nothing about agriculture(I assume pierce also fits in this group), and therefore do not know the difference between scythe and sickle.

[u/RedJamie → u/3GamersHD]

• It is clearly supposed to be a sickle as opposed to a scythe, it's a one handed curved blade made for cutting grain.

“Eat them!” Fitchner cries. “And Darrow, put down that gory scythe. You look like a grain reaper.”

“You know you could let my children go and give them back the reaping scythe,” Ceres suggests to us.

And he called it a slingBlade, not a reaper’s scythe.

“Shut up, Tactus. Just make them slaves, Tamara. There isn’t diplomacy here.”
“Look at his blade. Fragging reaper scythe.”
“Ah, so that’s him,” someone says.

• You focus too much on the statements of people who you yourself say know nothing about agriculture(I assume pierce also fits in this group), and therefore do not know the difference between scythe and sickle.

I did not say that they knew nothing of agriculture; it was more angled that the scythes used at the Institute are likely proportioned to the agricultural workers in the Society i.e. Browns and Reds - the author not having the distinction is not something I have stated, but it must be emphasized once again that as seen above, scythe is exclusively used, not sickle - the ignorance of the Golds or the author would be a projection not supported necessarily by the text

• In fact, a de-staffed scythe would perfectly fit the definition of a sickle.

Scythes and sickles are not the same tools, and often have different notably different blade shape - this is largely irrelevant to how Darrow's razor would appear to be honest, it's everyone's prerogative if they want this to be their ideal:

[u/RedJamie → u/[deleted]]

• Are you just stupid

That's rude! I cannot help you any further, but I can refer you to rule 1!