THE MASTER SWORD is a MESS!! | THE LEGEND OF ZELDA | Pop-culture weapons analysed

this episode is sponsored by campfire pro a brilliant writing and world building program that gives you tons of tools to keep track of all the details of your story and world with it you can make easily accessible and referenceable detailed character sheets timelines interactive maps and it also comes with full privacy in addition to these features that comes with a standard package you can also grab the world building pack with even more tools to help build your world make new species items magic systems and develop your culture with religions philosophies and languages with this massive bundle of additional features campfire pro is a one-time purchase of 49 99 us and the world building pack is available for an additional 24.99 with campfire pro you can do away with those massive text documents where it's so hard to find the specific information you need keep everything easily and accessible so a big thank you to campfire for sponsoring this video and if you would like to learn more about campfire pro there is a link in the description below greetings i'm shad and in this episode of pop culture weapons analyze we're going to be looking at one of the more classic and iconic weapons from all of pop culture and that is the master sword from the legend of zelda series now the master swords design does change a little bit not much but a little bit between each games and so the one that we'll be using as our most direct point of reference will be the one from breath of the wild though there are a couple of small little things that i will be getting influence from in the other games specifically one other game but i'll mention that later now in pop culture weapons analyze the main thing that i do is try and analyze how functional and effective a sword or armor would be comparing it to my knowledge and understanding of real world functional weapons and armor but not only that also historical weapons and armor because that's where the real functional ones kind of come from and that point of reference applies even more so if the fantasy weapon actually has influence from historical period like medieval fantasy which zelda for most instances is in the medieval fantasy realm while the weapons and armor usually is especially the master sword and the shields that link uses that's very much medieval inspired now this episode specifically we're going to be doing a couple of things that i enjoy and i don't always do this in every pop culture weapons analyzed where in most ones i always kind of give a review on how functional effective would be how historically accurate inaccurate is if it's got this you know historical connection but then there are those times where i see an opportunity that oh okay there is some potential there this design isn't irredeemable in actual fact we could fix it and those instances i actually like to recreate them staying true to what conventional and functional sword design actually is so if we redesigned it to make it a properly functional sword if it existed in real life what would it look like and i make a full 3d model and that's what i've done here i've actually redesigned and remade the master sword in a 3d model to show you this is what it would look like if if we were trying to stay as true as possible to the design aesthetic of the master sword so when you see it you would recognize that it's definitely the master sword but it being fully functional okay you could use it as a real sword if it actually existed but there are there is another thing that i'm doing in this one specifically and that is also reviewing and analyzing its design its layout because there are odd things about the master sword not only from a functional and practical perspective but also from a design perspective you see i actually am an artist i have a bit of a background and have studied graphic design as well as comic book art and everything like that i have a deviantart page with my artwork so you can see and that has given me a good eye in you know good design especially when it comes to swords i've always really liked analyzing what makes a really cool looking fantasy or just fancy sword and when i look at the master sword there are some very odd things that just just i i don't like from a visual analysis okay just it's graphical design layout now it's not to say it's irredeemable i think we can redesign it and very much it be recognizable as a master sword and fix it but looking at its original um design there are other things all right there where the visual the things that you want to give kind of visual prominence that draws the eyes are unbalanced it's throwing your eyes into off into other areas your eyes aren't drawn to the significant elements of its design that should stand out more there are also some odd things that i think we can kind of go with where there is not a lot of visual consistency for instance the quillins okay the queens are made to look like not they're kind of wings but they're more like ridge flaring things okay and that those ridges create a very distinct visual style but it's not followed through or repeated in any other part of the blade which creates a bit of inconsistency in its design but that is kind of what makes it so you know i could have gone even further and made it fully visually consistent to certain design elements like the kind of ridged quillins that it has to add a matching pummel and maybe have the ricasso have flares and the center point but i think there are ways that we can change it but we don't change it too much and keep it very much visually identifiable as that is most definitely the master sword get rid of some of these visual inconsistencies and odd elements and give prominence to where the prominence needs to be on the sword to make the things that should stand out stand out and also make it functional as well and yes it's all going to be shown on my 3d model but i should really say 3d models because i made a couple of different variants to show i guess different stages or extremes that we could take in altering its design where the first one is very much keeping it as much as possible visually the same as the master sword but just making it functional and then we're going to step it up to try and fix some of those visual design errors or errors in my opinion so first of all what is wrong with the master swords design in terms of function just looking at the core original design as is and if you know anything about functional swords or even historical swords there are a couple of big things that stand out to you one is how thick and bulbous the cross garden hilt arrangement is where that would be ridiculously heavy if you remade this sword in the real world with these same dimensions and thicknesses it would be so impractically heavy so the first thing of course we're going to need to do is fix that part but there are also some other kind of just poor design elements in terms of its functional look at it for instance the handle is clearly round like like completely round now that is a problem because it means you can't index the blade what does that mean by having an oval or flattened somewhat handle just by holding it you can tell which way the blade is pointing and that helps with the edge alignment when you're cutting because if your edge alignment is off which means the angle the blade is not matching the direction the blade is traveling in a cut well it can actually bounce off and cause a really bad cut even if the blade is really sharp and so edge alignment very important and therefore having a flattened or oval handle helps very much in that regard now there are some exceptions to this rule where there are round handles on historical swords but they're the exception and it's still a poor design philosophy the large majority of all historical swords understood this design element and the handles were flattened so you can index the blade so that needs to be fixed the next thing and this is really the kind of biggest bizarre what the in terms of looking at the design look what's there just underneath the hilt okay and i guess it depends on which way the sword is facing if it's facing down it'll be above the hilt but if it's facing up it'll be under the hill but anyway do you see that thing it's like this weird globular bobus discard because discards usually flat this one isn't flat it's it's fat it's a fat kind of discard directly underneath the hilt what on earth is that doing there it's ugly and so this is a big problem i have with this visual design but also functionally there are you know many examples where you want sideways protection on a sword now a sword especially with the cross guard has forward and back protection forward in the same direction that the forward blade is facing and if it's double blade or back so forward and back right so sideways protection can be found on european swords with ring guards okay side rings and also on many other swords asian style swords that have a discard on japanese katanas they're called a tsuba so you could have sideways protection on the master sword but the this weird globular discard thing is pretty darn small granted there are some discards that are small but if you already have a cross guard having a small discard yeah on top of that or small side protection isn't going to add too much our examples are small little ring guards but it doesn't really add too much protective value and it contrasts visually with the overall design and also adds a like a tremendous amount of useless weight to it so that that is a horrible design choice it needs to be taken out completely and yes you could add side rings to try and give a nod to what this weird discard is on the original design but that would contrast too much with the center piece of the sword which should be the cross guard okay and having side rings blocking the visual display of the cross guard is not good so just take them out completely no sideways protection and honestly it's not needed especially with a good strong cross guard like the master sword is going to have so the other things that we'll fix will make the handle flattened it has a kite this is this is visually contrasting the grip of the sword has kind of like a diamond crosswork like little strips wrapped around it but it's displayed as a part of the you know same material that the whole hilt is made out of and look that is a type of grip that can be added to swords i'm not um criticizing that it does contrast and seem a little out of place to for the overall visual style but because it's a very distinct thing in the master sword i will keep it in but if i was wanting to have visual consistency in its overall design i'll probably have ridges not not all across the whole thing but have like um actually i got a good example this is a reproduction of the witcher sword is made by cali missile really good quality okay not sponsored but yeah they make some of the best lap soils anyway they didn't design this this is actually a reproduction of the witcher design so credit goes to city project red for this design but as you see here there are risers that separate parts of the grip on the handle and so if i was remaking the master sword with the intent of being fully visually consistent i'd have these risers kind of in the same ridge that it wouldn't be too sharp but they would kind of be triangular ridges okay separating the blade in the same look as the quillins and that would create more of visual consistency and then i'd do a similar kind of thing with the pummel so that's if i was being fully but i'm going to keep the kind of diamond patterned thing that the master sword has just because of that's what the master it has to be trying to be more faithful to its original design even though personally i would do something different if i was going further the original design of the master sword barely has any puddle at all and that's just not cricket it's not like that let's have a good prominent pummel there good for visual balance also good for counter balance in a functional way as well and and so we could actually keep very much the similar design as the original one just increasing its size now let's look at the cross guard specifically and we come to a very common era that so many fantasy swords do and they just make them way too fat and big when the reality is you can actually capture the same visual look that so many fantasy swords have but keep them in the realm of functionality and you don't need a you know it's not too difficult only go too far i kind of mentioned this in the video where i fixed the classic excalibur sword where often times in fantasy swords they want more surface area on the cross guard to display design fancy whatever runes pictures and things like that and you can do that on a smaller crosstalk i mean you're going to have a look at this they've got design patterns on a much thinner and more functional cross guard but if you actually want a more surface area where it's a bit wider to do more designs and things like that well the way to do that is keep it thin along that plane keep that thin and then you can increase the width right there and we actually see this design philosophy matched on historical real swords when they want some more surface areas so have a look at the cross guards on the gallo glass style swords why see that and they're able to keep the weight of that cross guard down by keeping it thin on the other plane so wide there thin along there and that's exactly what we can do with the master sword because it has this like there's these flaring kind of fancy looking quillins that are ridged okay well let's flatten it and so now with those elements considered this is what the master sword would look like if it was made to be as functional as possible vella i present to you the fixed redesigned master sword but the main thing i was trying to do with this design is keep everything else as similar as possible to the original master sword look and i didn't really change anything else i even kept in those elements that i actually don't like those design elements but if we were to just say keep the master sword as similar as possible to its original design like i mentioned that is what would look like it was fully functional see the the quillins how thin they are on the side plane we have a more shaped handle that's flattened still with kind of the diamond pattern we see there larger pummel and that weird bulbous discard it's removed completely but there is kind of a nod to it in the connection between the actual cross guard and the handle there's that just rounded kind of connector point right there but it's not really the same thing it's just like you know something a bit of a nod to what it used to be there bigger but it's like it's been shrunk down a lot and i'm really happy with it that is most definitely still a master sword but it's cool and functional but i tell you there are still some design elements that just rub me the wrong way there are things that draw the eye more prominently away from the more important elements on it which i just don't like for instance the triforce the triforce on the master sword is just a slight indent on the blade that should be the centerpiece and when you want something to be the centerpiece you need it to be like a contrasting color to make it stand out and there is a contrasting color on the master sword to make something steady adds gold but the triforce isn't gold even though the actual triforce symbol is yellow okay it's just a metal kind of indent and there's like given second you know regard and the thing that really draws the eye is the golden diamond in the center of the cross guard which isn't really important it's not even as as baffling okay the next thing that irks me about the design if you zoom up and get closer to the hilt is the ricasso section there there the the blue part of the cross guard doesn't end at the actual cross guard that travels down a little bit on the sides of the ricasso to be capped off by these you know golden kind of stud cap things and ends there and that just it's visually i just i don't like it there is already a very good line on most cross guards that give a great point of separation to do a separation of colors and visual contrast things like that and it's where the cross guard ends and the blade begins okay there's the visual line right there and so to have like travel halfway down and then do some wheat that i really don't like it the next thing that i really like is how the ridge pattern connects with the central part of the cross guard and the blade now on the 3d model i made i actually match the ridge the ridge pattern actually changes between certain designs of master sword this is the same ridge pattern as you see on breath of the wild master sword with one difference um so the ridges have two kind of parts so if i was holding the sword here there is a downwards kind of curving ridge or technically there are two ridges that curve down and then there are three ridges on either side that then curve up and flare outwards and on the downwards ridge they end in spikes now that is a terrible design for a sword because i'll grab a sword and show you can have downwards kind of curving cross guards but if they end in like a a spike or a point which what many of the masters or designs do on these downloads things when the sword curves back you can actually stab yourself in the wrist now you teach yourself not to actually hit yourself like this but it can happen okay and if you just you know mistake it and get like that you spike yourself in the wrist and that's not not good you don't want that and so having downwards facing spikes is a terrible thing on sword cross cards you don't do it so on the 3d model i fix it there's no actual spikes on the downward sweep it just ends in these kind of curves that there are slight points but you're not going to actually stab yourself now so that's the first kind of fix with these ridges but the way that the ridges connect with the central cross guard if you look very closely the top part of the ridge okay actually connects with the side equivalent and that's what carries the blue line down that's uh stopped by those gold studs i don't like the way that they're doing that i find that it flows inconsistently in a visual way and so one fix that i decided to try is by increasing the size of the centerpiece of the original design which is the central diamond increasing that in size and then making the crossguard connect with the central part and blade in a way that flows better visually and this was the design right here and you know it's not bad but central diamonds or jewels do look really cool okay if they're given prominence and stuff like that but the diamond on the master sword to me should not be the centerpiece of the sword there's a far more important thing on the sword that should be given the main prominence and it's the triforce but the triforce is like i said given second regard as a rune on the blade that's in that's just a ridge it's just ridge same color doesn't stand out and so if i was really you know wanting to make the master sword uh present the important parts of its design more prominently i'll get rid of the diamond completely and i'll put the triforce as the centerpiece of the crossguard like this right here and to me this is a much much better design where everything flows more naturally where the ridges just slide in to where the triforce is without weird kind of ridge connections going up onto the ricasso of the blade it's just it's smoother it's cleaner and then the thing that gets proper prominence and presentation is the most important centerpiece the triforce as it should be this is what the masters are in my opinion should look like and so now we have the functional side covered completely it's a fully functional sword if it if you remade in the real world its weight would be in the realms of what a functional sword should be all there is one thing is actually i kept the same and you probably might have noticed it and this master sword has a very wide blade this is a very broad bladed sword and you know it's a fantasy sword okay so we don't know what material is really made out of how heavy it is or if magic affects its weight or anything like that or how strong lingers we actually know with lynx certain you know his gauntlets that he can get he can get insanely strong so even if it is a little bit heavier on the blade end because of a bigger blade maybe you know that could be intentional to have more cutting power while keeping everything else as functional as we can just with that little kind of concession on the broader blade so i kept the broader plate okay the first design blade was actually a little bit too small when i was just trying to stay the same but the other ones has a bigger master sword blade as we see there and this contrasts quite nicely oh and by the way i should have mentioned this the master sword is a bastard sword if we have a look at you know link using this thing the handle is large enough to fit two hands on quite easily but he uses it in one hand and the blade is is longer than an arming sword does it reach two-handed sword lengths not exactly so the swords you know that i'm showing here they're the redesigns very much basta swords in fact let's look at the kind of final design that we see there with the triforce given proper presentation next to another sword that i fixed in previous video this was the fix of excalibur and there was two versions of it a arming sword version and a bastard sword version and so the bastard version is longer but the master swords blade is wide and to get in the same kind of proportions that's the length that uh it kind of fell in and so that is just a good visual point of reference to compare arming sword and bastard sword to the redesigned master sword there is one odd thing that kind of stands out now you could keep it as kind of a visual flair of the design of the blade but it's the uh the end of the ricasso where there are casa ends and transitions to the actual blade portion that section where the triforce was sitting seems a bit bare like something it feels like something should be filled in there now the way that i would probably do it if i was keeping this design specifically i would have a runic pattern or a floral pattern that travels down the blade and fills out that section there and you could have like a triforce imagery but because it's just a indent on the blade of the same color it won't stand out and so you have the triforce giving proper respect on the cross guard and then you could have a triforce like design pattern flowing down and filling out so you could still technically have the indent triforce on the blade but i would say that would actually distract from the triforce on the cross guard so i'll probably still go away from the triforce on the blade and just have a pattern of runes or something like that going down that are not triforces but have some other kind of visual nice looking thing there as well and that would fill that out and you would have a beautiful like pristine more functional and in my opinion more visually pleasing master sword design but there is a kind of an opening a uh design that we can take advantage of from a previous design of the master sword now this was intentional okay this is a limitation in graphics but if you have a look at the master sword from ocarina of time the connection point of the blade and the ricasso is actually a little different now how do i know this is actually a mistake from graphics is because the visual art that accompanied ocarina of time showed the master sword with that same kind of you know part where the triforce was presented on the blade but they couldn't reflect that in the game and instead they had kind of the blade just like connected to the ricasso in this line and there was no gap there i was like okay what if we actually made the blade look like that this is a little bit of a tricky thing because having the blade so much wider and thicker than the ricasso is a point of failure but if we have the blade actually thin and only flare out a little bit at the point of connection with the ricasso in the same kind of angular way this almost makes a triangle kick to the ricasso we can make it we can make it look like it it's thicker but it's actually not and that's what i did in this final design right here and that's only if you didn't want to fill out that open section on their castle with runes and this is actually reflecting the design of the master sword as shown in game in ocarina of time have the blade like that and that that looks alright and it might look like the blade is real way thicker than the ricasso but it's not that's an optical illusion if we turn it on the side the blade's actually the same width it actually just flares out a little bit to give that kind of angled connection point to make it look like the blade has this thicker bigger attachment to the thing and so which one do you prefer do you prefer the design that reflects the master sword from ocarina of time or the one well actually there's three they can pick from the one that reflects ocarina of time the redesigned one that has the same blade but with the triforce in the center or do you prefer the first version that reflects more accurately the design of the original master sword but just functional functional and practical with the triforce on the blade and the weird kind of ridge connection point between the cross guard and ricasso and things like yeah which one do you prefer very interested to know share it in the description below but there we go this is a master sword fixed okay if you were to make any one of these designs in the real world it'll be a functional practical sword now and it's pretty cool it still has the distinct mastered look with the flared quillins i like it i'm very very happy with it and i hope you have enjoyed and liked this video it's been a lot of fun to make in actual fact it's been a long time coming of course if you're interested please do go check out my other videos where i have a look at pop culture weapons and see how functional and practical they are i think you will enjoy them i hope to see you there and until that time farewell [Music] you

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 521,283

Keywords: zelda, legend of zelda, link, sword, swords, master sword, breath of the wild, ocarina of time, windweaker, wind waker, review, design, medieval, fantasy, rpg, game, video, roleplaying, knight, knight's, 3d model, triforce, gannon, ganon, blade, longsword, hema, bastard sword

Id: YJa3aVpr2rs

Length: 26min 24sec (1584 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020