Greatest warrior in Randland?

[Vertex 23]

Yesyes *agrees* Women are very evil like that! They'll pull your nails out and glue them onto their own so that men bleed more when they scratch them.

[Fenix 0]

Greatest warrior? You mean greatest blademaster, not warrior. I haven't seen a one blademaster that can kill a good bowman unless you put them face to face. With the void, the evading of the arrows would be possible but i doubt it. (In that matter TESIII Morrowind and possibly TESIV as well as BG2exp pack are the only three pc games that I've seen that finally have realised that fact and that the bow is if not 'the', then one of the deadliest weapons.)

 

I strongly disaggree with two of the statements given above.

First that the sword is the greatest weapon. As every warder knows Gaidal K/Cain (?) was beaten with a staff as well as Mat won against Galad. Actually he won (with luck) against two people as he was sick. Which autamatically means for me that one on one healthy Galad Mat would have the same result.

Second - "a sword is a far more effective weapon than a spear.".

You cannot say that. A battle spear maybe, but not short spear. The spear is much faster, mostly because of its weight. If you have ever had a sword in your hands (which I believe all of the male fans of the WoT have done, including me ) You would know. The thrusting movements with a short spear are faster than the slicing heavier swords. Now here could come the Katana in play (I actually own one), because as probably all of you know the first samurai swords were faaar better than the last european swords. I believe that the swords made with the power would have the same charasteristics as the katanas so here you could probably say that they are equal. But a normal sword of the queens guard against a spear? No chance dude. So don't easaly throw away the short spears. I am fascinated by swords and definetly don't like spears but I cannot say to the white - black.

 

Actually if we talk about hand to hand combat and combine the above two statements you would come out with Mat's weapon which I believe is one of the deadliest.

 

Now about the thread because I see that you somehow mean blademasters.

 

Rand goes out in the minute from the battle. He just has never been a true blademaster for me. He had never hit Lan. I believe that anyone can reach his state with that training and the Void. Tam would best him no doubt. Just because he has much more expirience.

 

However I have always always doubted which one is the best blademaster - Lan or Galad. I have always wanted to see a battle between them. Both have pure talent for it.

I want to believe that Lan would be better but I am not sure just because he has the most expirience ever and he was born with a sword in his hand. It has to be him but I am not sure.

 

 

P.S. About the spoilers. Please, can I ask you to write what the spoiler is about. because in the first two spoilers I didn't find anything about KoD so I thought that the third was not also KoD... but hell no.

[jan 14]

Yep, I agree with Fenix and Vertex up there. Oh, and I never thought of the crossbow - a deadly weapon. As for the sword versus spear argument, doesn't a spear have greater reach?

 

Diggressing slightly from the main subject of the warrior, while a typical male may be stronger and bigger than a typical female, he is not necessarily quicker. Going by that, a typical male should also be clumsier and heavier to his feet! However, we are talking of highly trained and disciplined practioners of their craft and not "typical" men or women. It would be unfair to assume Lan is a superior blademaster because he was born male!

 

Strength and reach and speed are useless without skill and - even more important - intelligence! Similarly, big, heavy, sharp, pointy weapon is no good unless you know which end goes into the enemy and how!

[FortyFiveAuto 1]

Well I am certainly glad that this has generated this much discussion

 

I will attempt to rebut your statements.

 

To Fenix:

 

First, I never said the sword was the greatest weapon. I just said it was superior to the spear. However, upon doing some additional research, I discovered that the Aiel as a race are patterned very closely to the Zulu tribes of yore. This includes their weaponry, particularly the asegei, or short spear.

 

I will admit that saying a sword is "far more effective" than a spear was an overstatement. Fenix is right -- the light weight and small size of the Aiel, or Zulu, spear made it extremely handy and very quick to deploy against other hand arms such as swords and pikes, which were weapons in use by the English during the Anglo-Zulu War of the late 1800's.

 

When I read the description of Rand's sword as well as Lan's sword, they reminded me very much of katanas, too. Lightweight and slightly curved with short quillons and excellent balance basically describes the sword derived from feudal Japan. This type of sword is probably the best kind of all-purpose sword, in that it is not too heavy (like a European broadsword or Japanese nodachi), but not so small (like a wakazashi or rapier) that it compromises your reach. This is the type of sword I based my conclusions upon.

 

HAVING SAID ALL THAT, I still believe a katana in trained hands could be used to greater effect than a Zulu spear. I suppose it is hard to compare them objectively, as both have seen bloody conflicts and both have been effective against numerically superior opponents. Since I am convinced this is true, I am lead to the conclusion that a blademaster (equipped similarly to Lan) could and would pwn an Aielman or Maiden in single combat.

 

And about quarterstaffs -- RJ seems to like the quarterstaff and the ashandarei (which I believe is borrowed from the Japanese naginata). I have a hard time believing that a quarterstaff is a better weapon than a sword, but if RJ said that Jearom the Greatest Blademaster of All Time was pwned by a farmer with a quarterstaff, and Mat beat TWO trained swordsmen while sick with only a stick, then I have severely neglected the possibility that Mat Cauthon is the greatest warrior in Randland. He did, after all, slice and dice a horde of Aielman, beheading Couladin in the process. I can't imagine that would be easy in any circumstance. I tend to discount him because of his luck, however, which he has in sickness or in health.

 

As for the spoilers, I was just making sure I covered up details. I wasn't sure if EVERYONE had read all the way to CoT, so it was just a precautionary thing.

 

To Jan/Fenix:

 

One thing I did not include was the use of ranged weapons, such as the bow and crossbow. I will attempt to address this in the following:

 

Where to start. When I posed the initial question, I guess I assumed that battle between warriors would begin at conversation distance, or no more than 7 paces. But you are right -- if battle began at, say, 100 paces or more, the greatest swordsman would stand no chance against a moderately trained archer. Plain and simple, cut and dried, without the help of good cover, tachypsychia, or the One Power, the swordsman would be cut down with a vengeance.

 

A crossbow is best for long range engagement and close-in anti-armor work. The drawback is that it takes quite some time to reload, unlike the bow. A stout bow with a heavy draw coupled with dense spear-point arrows could accomplish anti-armor capabilities, and a decent archer can get off perhaps 10-15 well-aimed shots in a minute. If the greatest warrior in Randland works with ranged weapons, I'd have to say he or she is an archer, rather than a crossbow operator. Although Birgitte Silverbow is perhaps the greatest shot in all the world, Tam al'Thor has mastered the use of the Two Rivers longbow, and can hit within a wreath at 300 paces (that's 300 yards, give or take), which is an INSANE bowshot. Hell it's an impressive rifle shot. Birgitte has shown no evidence of skill in close-quarters battle. Because of his bow AND sword competence, my vote goes back to Tam.

 

And to Moiraine/Vertex:

 

The question was who is the greatest warrior. I will admit that very capable persons in Randland have certain compunctions about engaging females, and that certain persons raise their body counts with less-than-orthodox means. Slitting a thousand sleeping throats doesn't make you a great warrior. It makes you a rather cunning assassin, and deadly to boot, but I digress.

[Marie 73]

A warrior can either be someone engaged in the actual fighting OR someone waging war, engaged aggressively in a conflict. Warrior does have two meanings:

 

1. One who is engaged in or experienced in battle.

2. One who is engaged aggressively or energetically in an activity, cause, or conflict

 

So by that definition (which is the dictionary definition) anyone who physically helps win the war can be classified as a warrior. Not just those who get all the glory by getting bloody.

 

I think the problem here is that we (as in the forum) don't agree on what makes someone a great warrior.

 

Tam, I think, was once a good soldier. But out of the last 20 years how much has he practiced his sword forms? He's good with the bow, and thanks to hunting has stayed good, but he's out of shape when it comes to the hand-to-hand stuff. Not compared to the other Two Rivers folk, but compared to Lan? Yes. Any Aiel would gut him. He might hurt them in the process, but he'd go down.

[FortyFiveAuto 1]

Perhaps you are right. Perhaps some of the people I am trying to compare against one another are essentially apples and oranges.

 

For example, you are saying a spy, or a cutthroat, is a warrior, and after some rumination, I agree. Spies and assassins can be useful in their own regard, and have functions that are totally different from stand-up front line men and women of war.

 

The only one that immediately comes to mind is Padan Fain. Who are some others?

[Vertex 23]

I think the word warrior sugest that the person has to be engaged in war in someway. Simply being an assasin for your own cause should not count.

 

I'll still have to go with Birgitte Silverbow because I think aim is more important then range. Besides, I imagine she knows alot about what kind of arrows to use and what kind of bow to use if range is all that matters.

[Marie 73]

You wouldn't be an assasin for your own cause, but would be fighting in whatever war it was; the "fighting" would be behind the scenes.

[jan 14]

Anyone engaged in any kind of battle is a warrior, I thought!

[Sivart Reborn 7]

In regards to the warrior, including archery. Birgitte. Killing someone before they can touch you is by far the most deadly thing you can learn. (excluding OP, but even then) The bow is too broad a term, however, to denote deadliest weapon. Shortbows and even some warbows do not generate enough force to effectively piece plate armor. Even more so in vital areas, where such armor is thickest. Longbows can piece it, but it takes a long time to become good with any bow. And they are hard to use in closed spaces. Crossbows are deadlier in the aspect they easily penetrate the heaviest armor and are easy to learn to use. Their downside is, however, in realistic terms, a crossbow of the WoT stlyled times (Middle Ages, as such) fires 3 times a minute, under the best crossbowmen.

In close combat-Lan all the way.

 

Edit: The sword spear argument: The short spear is very good in close combat engagements against a bulky sword in many regards. The advantage of a sword to any spear however, is that the point of a spear is much smaller than a blade of a sword. Spears also have a high tendency to break, so that we see the Aiel carry multiple spears. Long spears and pikes are really anti-calvary. 20 ft long pikes don't help so much when your oppenent is 2 ft from you. Given, there is added reach, but even if it is lighter (not solid steel, but wooden mostly) it is more bulky. The typical spear is a little taller than me. Only the tip of that is the point and driving edge. Now, an inexperianced spearman would probably take a swordsman of the same training. However, with all else being equal (even if it is not, just for effect, at the moment) a sword is more versitile than a spear. Better for indoors combat too. Now going back to the short spear. I'll argue that it is better than a sword, but if it breaks in mid-combat, and Aiel to bladmaster fight suddenly swings in favor of the blademaster if they'll go about their business and not get cocky. If so the Aiel might just take them out with their bare hands.

Also, a spear can be used as a quarter-staff. We've seen Mat do it. However, in most regards, a well balanced, good longsword or kantana (prefferably the kantana, but a good enough swordsman could do with the other) will probably beat a short spear fighter of the same skill. Now if we included Aiel in this calculation, the short spear prevails most of the time in 1 vs. 1 situations.

 

*end rant*

[Vertex 23]

*agrees with Sivart* I wonder if Birgitte knows how to use a long bow as well? I imagine she must have spent some life time learning it sometime...

[Paranoid Android 0]

If we're talking straight technical abilities, Lan is the best. Rand was beaten by Toram Riatin (though to be fair, Rand was wearing his coat and gloves to hide the dragon's from him), and Lan killed Riatin. This seems to indicate Lan is better.

 

Who knows, if Rand had his coat and gloves off, it might have been different. But *KoD spoiler*

losing his hand has put that idea to rest, whatever the case.

 

 

However, there's more to being a great warrior. I nominate Mat Cauthon as the greatest. With the memories of countless other general's in his mind, Mat is among the best, if not The best, battle leaders. Add to that his ability with a quarter-staff (he beat Galad, remember - and he was sick), which should be the same with his ashandarei. Come to think of it, I can't recall a time when Mat actually has had to use his ashandarei in combat (could be wrong though, hehehe).

 

Regards, PA

[Ishmael Moridin 0]

Hey PA, he used it to kill couladin, remember ??

[Paranoid Android 0]

Hey PA, he used it to kill couladin, remember ??

D'oh *slaps forehead* ah well

[Vertex 23]

I thought we all agreed with Niklas that Birgitte silverbow is the deadliest person in battle! *huffs*