No armor for both opponents. Arya has needle and Sandor has his usual bastard sword. Fight is to the death, both combatants show no mercy. Fight in an arena. Who wins?
He was slower due to sickness and fatigue when he fought Brienne, and they were dead even. Take him out of full armor, he'll likely be even faster and more ferocious. On top of that, OP stated Arya only has Needle here. That little sneak attack she got on Brienne with the dagger after she was disarmed wont work here. Needle isn't made for hacking either, so the only real way Arya would be able to injure him is with stabs and lunges. That's not near enough to net her a win here.
No, I mean he should only really have to look for those kind of attacks, which kind of restricts her and should make her easier to be defensive against. Needle isn't meant for this type of fight.
Err... smallswords and rapiers were specifically meant for this kind of fight, meaning a duel. Bastard swords were more all-arounders with a bit more emphasis on battlefield use.
This isn't that kind of duel. There are no rules or etiquette here. Duels with rapiers were typically fought for touch points (like Aryas sparing session with Brienne) or first blood and against a matching weapon. There have been reports of people getting stabbed 9-10 times and continuing the fight (I cant really imagine this happening with a blow from a longsword). That meant that getting the win depended highly on being skilled enough to repeatedly parry and block the opponents attacks. Arya attempting to block a swing from Sandors longsword would at best get her disarmed and at worst fatally maimed. That means she'd have to dodge or redirect every single swing from an opponent stronger and faster than Brienne. She has no room for error like against Brienne and a single misstep would get her murdered. Rapiers are ill matched in a sword fight with any other sword than a rapier (just look at how easily Arya was disarmed of Needle; this would be fatal here). They were largely replaced by small swords for a reason.
One could try to argue that rapiers have a reach advantage if you factor in arm length but the Hound wields his longsword one handed too, and his arm and sword are both significantly longer than Aryas. Plus, Needle isn't any normal rapier. It was made smaller and lighter to fit Arya's tiny build. It offers no real advantage here other than being super light, and Arya's little sparring session with Brienne is a far cry from winning a fight to the death against a prime Hound. She hasn't shown that kind of capability yet.
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Last edited by Arachnid1 on Oct 8th, 2017 at 07:55 AM
No, duels were either to first blood or to the death. At least earlier on, and yes this was with both rapier and smallsword. There was a whole book by a guy named George Silver where he was saying that rapiers were too deadly in a duel and they should start going back to using sideswords and broadswords.
You're right about thrusts not having the same stopping power as a cut, as cuts will have more impact and thus will be immediately felt. That doesn't mean that a stab to the heart or some other vital organ can be simply ignored. Even just getting stabbed in the forearm is debilitating enough to make you drop a sword. There are also multiple instances where people kept fighting despite taking a direct cut to the head. So it can go both ways.
It's also possible to block a longsword with a rapier, as long as you know what you're doing. If the rapier was disadvantaged against other swords, then it would not have become the primary dueling weapon in Europe during the 18th century.
You do it with the forte of your blade, catch their foible/debole so that they don't have the same leverage as you do. Even better to simply catch their blade on your crossguard. I've done it multiple times in sparring sessions. Not easy, mind you, but doable. As long as your sword is stiff and tough enough not to break with the force.
That said, I don't think Arya's style is to do hard blocks anyway. When she fought Brienne she mostly used parries and deflections.
The first tournament I ever went to I was eliminated by a 55 yr old, 5 foot woman.
Don't get me wrong, size and strength definitely has advantages. But leverage and physics will still trump size and strength, as long as you're able to do it properly.
In an unarmoured duel the rapier is the best sword due to its very long reach for a one handed sword and how quickly and easily one can re-position the blade.
With that said, Needle is not a particularly long sword. It's quite short actually. Her weapon would afford her no advantage on Sandor Clegane's longsword.
She'd still probably win though, because GoT's writing is terrible.
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Oct 7th, 2017 06:32 PM
