Saturday, April 19, 2008

An Incomplete Pictorial History of Totally Rad Throwing Blade Thingies

Keel, a warrior of Capella IV, with his deadly kligat at his side.
(Star Trek, "Friday's Child")


The Beastmaster's caber, a hinged throwing weapon.
(The Beastmaster)


Prince Colwyn wields the Glaive,
enchanted weapon and the symbol of his kingdom.
(Krull, which I could easily write a whole post about.)


Polaris Spanner about to wreck a robot with his shek.
(Spanner's Galaxy)


Xena brandishes her chakram,
based upon a real 'throwing disc'-type weapon from India.
(Xena: Warrior Princess)


Later in the series Xena got a new chakram,
which could break apart into two melee weapons.
That's slightly less historically accurate.


Dark elves of Eberron.
The drow on the left carries the deadly Xen'drik boomerang.


The vampire hunter Blade's throwing weapon,
referred to as a glaive but hinged like a caber.
(Blade, etc.)


The new video game Darksector seems to feature a dude
with a cyborg arm and a glaive/Xen'drik boomerang.

17 comments:

  1. I demand to see this Krull post!

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  2. Dude, three words:

    African Throwing Knives.

    http://images.google.com/images?q=african+throwing+knives

    I like this picture in particular... http://therionarms.com/armor/tknives.jpg

    May I just point out that Tunnels and Trolls 5th edition made these available in its standard equipment list for PCs? Wicked vicious too, like 4 dice or something.

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  3. I'd also like to put a word in for The Australian from Delicatessen and anything thrown in House of Flying Daggers.

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  4. I'd have to vote for the Batarang, and the bladed throwing thing from the Predator movies.

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  5. No list like this is complete without the flying guillotine.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_guillotine_(weapon)

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  6. Wow, the Glaive. I actually wrote a post about Krull not too long ago. Believe me, you remember it being better than it was.

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  7. I second the popular motion, make with the Krull post!

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  8. Image searching "throwing blades" brings up some cool weapons, and this picture, which hell of cracked me up: http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5690835,00.jpg

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  9. Anonymous10:57 AM

    I prefere real gaged's :-)

    Wii Boxing

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  10. First, I can only assume Shuriken aren't in there because they are so obviously rad that they need not be included?

    (I loves me my Revenge of the Ninja DVD)

    And consider this another vote for Krull. A couple of weeks ago I had a blog post about the problem of "historical adventure" movies that really should be fantasy films, the problem being that completely original fantasy films (not based on books, or fairy tales, or computer games, etc.) are extremely rare - movies like Legend and Krull being a couple of examples, but alas Krull gets such bad press (and yeah, it's not a great movie, but c'mon, cut it a little slack).

    I watched it a couple of weekends ago, and while not amazing, it's got some fairly neat ideas in it - I really like the Slayers, in particular.

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  11. I don't have a link handy, but early on in the Glen Larson "Buck Rogers" series there was an assasin with a bladed, envenomed boomerang thingy that I doted on as a youngster.

    What was cool about it wasn't just that it was an oversized boomerang that whizzed around at super-speed and hummed. What was cool about it was that it came in a custom carrying-case that included a built-in pocket for the bottle of poison. That's classy, high-end assasin styling, right there.

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  12. I can only assume Shuriken aren't in there because they are so obviously rad that they need not be included?

    Yeah. Anybody who needs to be told that ninja throwing stars are awesome is probably reading this blog by mistake.

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  13. Anonymous3:17 AM

    Kai from Lexx and his brace
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_%28Lexx%29

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  14. would Oddjob and his razor hat be included in the list as well?

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  15. Man I love your emergent Gygaxian taxonomy of gnarly bits of throwing metal: "referred to as a glaive but hinged like a caber" and "glaive/Xen'drik" made me snort coffee, but "slightly less historically accurate"...

    That's it. I am broken for the day.

    Also I've never heard of this Kai character but I see on the link that he was "finally brought back to life by Prince."

    Yayisss. Now I know what I'm doing right after Carcosa Wacky Races. Or is there room for a foppish pansexual threat tribe in Mormons and Morlocks?

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  16. I figured Xena's second set of chakrams were meant to be wind & fire wheels, since the two get confused sometimes.

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