The Gaming Den

I need a little help with some inspiration...

Can you fantastically knowledgeable people give me some good examples of heavily armored fighters that are simultaneously neither stupid nor assholes?

Thanx.

I'd say Lan from wheel of time, but he married Nynaeve, and that was fairly stupid.

Others...
Tony Stark. Juan Rico. Boba Fett. (yeah, yeah, not what you meant)

Sir Gawain. Pick your favorite of the Rhorrim: Éomer, Théoden...

Really if you want heavily armored fighters it's gonna be someone built on the feudal Knight archtype, since those are the only heavily armed fighters that come to mind really. So honor, chivalry, loyalty and all that jazz.

Mebbe look to the knights of the round table (though I imagine a fair number are disqualified on the stupid/asshole caveat).

The Heavily Armored Hero shows up several times in history:

• European Knights
  
• Nippon Samurai
  
• Imperial China
  
• Greek Hoplite
  
• Middle Eastern Cataphract
  
• Roman Legionaire
  

So you could draw upon the Byzantine Digenis, or the Persian Rostam, or Holger Danske of France.

Heck, from modern sources, you could bust out the Second Son from Curse of the Golden Flower. Prince Jie is awesome, and certainly runs around in heavy armor a lot.

The heavy armor archetype does not particularly appear in African, Oceanian, or American sources.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:The heavy armor archetype does not particularly appear in African, Oceanian, or American sources.

-Username17

And they're not always slow, either. Hoplites could run like crazy. In fact that's how they defeated the Persian's archers: Run to them so fast they could only get a couple of shots off.

MrWaeseL at [unixtime wrote:1169839558[/unixtime]]

FrankTrollman wrote:The heavy armor archetype does not particularly appear in African, Oceanian, or American sources.

-Username17

And they're not always slow, either. Hoplites could run like crazy. In fact that's how they defeated the Persian's archers: Run to them so fast they could only get a couple of shots off.

So, they picked up Fleet of Foot?

That or having a high enough str or con reduces armour speed penalties.

.... say, if you're in medium or heavy armour; and you're still at a light load; well hell, you can run around no problem.

However, I'd also say that Str could be replaced with Con for this check of an armour's 'lightness'; being tough also helps with being able to run around in heavy kit.

clikml at [unixtime wrote:1169825904[/unixtime]]
Others...
Tony Stark... Boba Fett.

Click, she said NO assholes.

-Des

Well, Tony's an asshole, Boba is either an asshole or an idiot, depending on what scene you establish his character with

There were some heavily armored types in the coastal native americans - cedar armor used in defending/attacking villages. But these towns had pretty high woodworking and large buildings, and there's only one full suit of armor remaining that's not a replica...

I'd suggest English chivalry sources, for the total in politeness.

-Crissa

What about fantasy characters who were totally awesome in heavy armor? For some reason, I'm drawing blanks on this subject...

Maj at [unixtime wrote:1169954046[/unixtime]]What about fantasy characters who were totally awesome in heavy armor? For some reason, I'm drawing blanks on this subject...

Sauron was pretty badass.

Joan of Arc

Heavily armored fighters in modern fantasy who are awesome (going through my bookshelves):

Julian (from Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series)
Sturm Brightblade (from "Dragonlance")
practically anyone from John Boorman's film "Excalibur"
practically any of the knights from George Martin's "Ice and Fire" books -- Loras Tyrell, Jaime Lannister, etc., etc.
Hawkmoon and Count Brass (from Moorcock's "Hawkmoon" -- though it's not really a major character point for the former)
Corum (also from Moorcock)

Um ... yeah. I begin to see your point. And I can't help feeling like I'm overlooking some really blindingly obvious stuff.

--d.

Beowulf could swim in his armor.

To the "Song of Fire and Ice" list, I'll add Brienne of Tarth.

The Mountain That Rides.

Although The Mountain is a Grade A asshole so that probably disqualifies him.

Game On,
fbmf

He's not very smart, either.

I'm not sure exactly how much of a prat you have to be to be disqualified -- e.g., Julian isn't exactly the friendliest of people, but he does turn out to be a fairly decent guy (this isn't a spoiler even if you've never read the Amber series, and if you have you'll understand why).

For that matter, I'm not sure how dumb you have to be, either -- one could argue that a certain action of Loras Tyrell's midway through AFFC is pretty spectacularly dumb, but then again maybe it's just extreme bravery. If there's a difference. And by making that last jibe I betray one of the problems with heavily armored heroes being "smart" -- a great many of them tend to be stupid in the sense of "giving the enemy a better than even break even when it hurts you", which to cynical modern eyes tends to look not so bright.

It's aggravating, though. Even overtly military fantasy like Glen Cook's "Black Company" books tend not to focus on walking tank-type fighters.

--d.

Not from literature but...

Ajax and Achilles from the Iliad, as well as Hercules. While I can't account for exactly HOW much armor they had on, they were "big tank" types. Achilles was basically a berserker, Ajax was the biggest of bigs, and Hercules was supposedly reputed to have murdered a wife or two out of pure rage... not anger rage but passion rage.

King Richard the first (lionheart) was supposedly a tower of a man, capable of cleaving a man in two with one fell swoop (and if my readings weren't based on BS, then he in fact DID do such a thing).

Beowulf and even Siegfried, of Germanic mythos. Siegfried having slain a dragon and Beowulf... well... I don't know WHAT he slayed, I guess a Troll or Ogre? Whatever type of monster Grendel was... (Though I think Beowulf killed a dragon too... with.. uhh Vieglaf? Weeglaf? Something like that, that dude with him. They killed the mofugga)

"The Black Prince" Edward, Sala'adin, Atilla the Hun, Temujin/Ghengis Khan, etc....

...most heroic warrior types aren't really walking tanks so much as they're portrayed as mighty but, more importantly, skilled bladesmen.

I'm guessing Northern mythology has a great deal more bruiser types than the rest...

...uhh... Robocop?

Paksennarion is pretty much your archetypal Paladin, heavy armor and all (not so much with the stupid, though, which is awesome).

dbb at [unixtime wrote:1170022681[/unixtime]]It's aggravating, though. Even overtly military fantasy like Glen Cook's "Black Company" books tend not to focus on walking tank-type fighters.

Well, The Black Company didn't even focus on non-assholes anyway... Even Croaker was a jaded jerk most of the time, and he was the nice one.

If you can stomach David Eddings, hte Pandion Knights were armored paladins who were neither stuck-up nor stupid.

Of course, you have to contend with his patented Travelogue-disguised-as-plot technique...