Realms of the Blacktide Pirate Figures

Damien said:
This is something I was thinking about but didn't want to get too deep in the weeds. What ARE these?

Because cutlasses aren't.. really.. a pirate thing. Cutlasses were developed -after- the Golden Age of Piracy. BUT, they're very commonly associated with pirates thanks to movies and TV. So if you're making kind of a 'pop culture Pirates' line with pirates as regular people might expect to see them.... you gotta have cutlasses and braces of pistols and shit.
And if you're making a historically-minded line (even a fantasy one), then you'd do no cutlasses, but you also wouldn't do whatever the fuck is going on here.

So what... ARE.. these?
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I don't really know much about pirates outside of pop culture....not a historical era or subject I'm that interested in. What would be a historically accurate sword for a pirate? I'm fairly certain it wouldn't be these Liefeld-esque monstrosities we see here.
 
I'm not sure where Damien is getting his info, but the cutlass is a 17th C. invention and was widely used during the Golden Age of Sail. We have contemporary illustrations of pirates pictured with cutlasses. Pirates and other corsairs would've also used hangers, messers, and any other relatively short swords with broad, slashing/chopping edges.
 
I was gonna say- didn't they mention cutlasses many times in the POTC movies (not that I expect historical accuracy in Disney movies like this, but still). I remember being really into pirates around that time, and reading a lot of historical books, and I could've sworn I read about cutlasses.

Speaking of POTC, hot damn do I wish NECA would revisit that license. As nice as some of those old figures still are, Ultimates would be SO sexy. It'll never happen, but a guy can dream.
 
Damien said:
I'm furious that people are making stuff like this, yet no one seems to be able to put together a Pirates of Dark Water revival line.
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I still have my childhood Niddler toy.

Can you imagine him in twelfth scale with present day articulation!?

😲
 
I want to love these but they suffer a bit from over designed stuff that the 4H sometimes fall into. Like the squid guy would be my jam if there was just a little less sculpted deco all over the place. And the massive sword is stupid.

I mean I think a pirates line is sorely needed but if these hewed a little closer to the aesthetic of like FMF's stuff I would be head over heels.
 
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RunestoneCowboy said:
I'm not sure where Damien is getting his info, but the cutlass is a 17th C. invention and was widely used during the Golden Age of Sail. We have contemporary illustrations of pirates pictured with cutlasses. Pirates and other corsairs would've also used hangers, messers, and any other relatively short swords with broad, slashing/chopping edges.
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The Golden Age of Piracy was roughly from 1650-1730. They definitely used a weapon that many of them called 'cutlass' - or some word essentially translating to something akin to 'cutlass.' But that, in itself, is not particularly helpful here. We have a similar problem with all kinds of sword names and how they were used or evolved over time versus the common pop culture understanding. For example, I would say MOST people think of a 'longsword' as a single-hand knightly sword. Even though that's not how we use the word... academically, if we can use that term.

What people tend to think of as a cutlass, and therefore what gets associated with early 18th century pirates in media, is absolutely a cutlass. But it's a 19th century design. What an 18th century person would have called a cutlass almost certainly is not what people here in this thread would think of if you said 'cutlass.' 18th century cutlasses were essentially hangers, maybe what some people here would recognize as a form of 'saber.' Or dussack, if you're nasty. And they would have had very different blade types and hilt furniture from the later 19th century cutlass we tend to associate with pirates.

So when I say that pirates didn't use cutlasses, I mean the cutlasses most people see in their minds when they hear/see that word, rather than saying pirates didn't use the word 'cutlass.'

Also, it's not true that pirates would have used short swords with broad, cutting blades. Not exclusively at least.



TheGillMan said:
What would be a historically accurate sword for a pirate?
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For a pirate of the 'Golden Age of Piracy' -- the easiest and also most complicated answer is 'whatever was around.' That is to say, whatever swords were commonly available to that particular person. As I said above, what you probably see in your head at the word 'cutlass' is from the 19th century. So.. somewhere around 100 years after Blackbeard eats it. But if you look up the types and styles of sword available around the world between the mid-1600s to the mid-1700s... that is the answer. All of them. Things we might call rapiers, sideswords, dussacks, hangers, broadswords and backswords. And, of course, katana, dao, jian, nimcha, and various types of swords most people here might recognize as near-Eastern "scimitar"-type swords.
It likely depends a lot more on the individual pirate's ethnic background, wealth and status, and personal preferences. What they didn't have was time travel. So a 19th century cutlass is about as likely to be in an 18th century pirate's hands as a Colt 45.
 
Not even joking, these informational posts make me miss the History Channel when it had like, history stuff on it. I used to love learning about pirates, knights, ancient martial arts, the old west...pretty much everything they put out, I soaked up like a sponge. RIP educational TV programming. Thanks for the pirate info, @RunestoneCowboy and @Damien
 
Damien said:
That's the nicest way anyone has ever said 'Damien never shuts up about swords.'
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Having never met you, of course- I was, for some reason, immediately struck with the image of the Merchant from RE4, but with a coat full of shiny swords, and instead of selling them, you just tell us fun facts about each one. Now I kinda wanna see it.
 
joshsquash729 said:
Having never met you, of course- I was, for some reason, immediately struck with the image of the Merchant from RE4, but with a coat full of shiny swords, and instead of selling them, you just tell us fun facts about each one. Now I kinda wanna see it.
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Basically. Like, I'm not going to GIVE you my swords. Those are mine. But I will tell yo all about them. I had a thread on Fwoosh where I gushed about a kind of ugly sword that I absolutely love and why and what the historical significance was. I think maybe 2 people pretended to care. Haha.
 
Agreed that the thing most people picture Errol Flynn waving around is closer to a cavalry saber than a true cutlass. And pirates, thieves that they were, would've used any sword they could get their hands on. However, because of the very cramped quarters found in nearly all sailing ships, the ideal sailor's sword would be short and have a broad edge for slicing and chopping ropes when you need to bring a sail down quickly in a storm or free someone who's gotten tangled in the rigging.

And yeah, our modern terminology to differentiate swords was almost never used by the people who actually lived and died by those swords, but damn do I still love Oakeshott's sword typology.
 
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RunestoneCowboy said:
Agreed that the thing most people picture Errol Flynn waving around is closer to a cavalry saber than a true cutlass. And pirates, thieves that they were, would've used any sword they could get their hands on. However, because of the very cramped quarters found in nearly all sailing ships, the ideal sailor's sword would be short and have a broad edge for slicing and chopping ropes when you need to bring a sail down quickly in a storm or free someone who's gotten tangled in the rigging.
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I think this is a hard one. I feel like there's a lot of things that we, as modern people, would say is an 'ideal' whatever. But you look back at history and it kind of starts to look like no one gave a shit about whatever it is that you think was important. It's so hard to go back and get into that mindset and say 'what would they have preferred?' All we can do is look at what evidence exists and while we know what kind of swords were used at the time, we don't actually have enough evidence to say what was the most or least common. Frustratingly.


RunestoneCowboy said:
And yeah, our modern terminology to differentiate swords was almost never used by the people who actually lived and died by those swords, but damn do I still love Oakeshott's sword typology.
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Oakeshott gets first among equals status forever and always. His work was so important. But it can also be limiting in ways you don't expect, and a lot less precise than you would (than I did) originally suppose. Peterson's typology is similar. There's a lot of stuff that just isn't on there, or if it is it isn't represented well enough to be clear. I think we need a new typology for clarity, but also no one (and I don't blame them) is willing to do it and step on those giant toes.
 
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