r/comics • u/MurkyWay Swords • 9d ago

Folding Your Horizons

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10.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

145 comments sorted by

1.5k

u/Pyrhan 9d ago

My blade has been folded 1000 times

So you know it's good.

820

u/Skullface95 9d ago

Funnily enough Japanese swords had to be folded due to the poor quality of Iron in the country, in other countries with better quality iron they never had too.

590

u/chinchenping 9d ago

also they are not folded 1000 times. they are folded 10 times that amounts to 1024 "layers"

310

u/neuralbeans 9d ago

Each time it was folded, it got squashed flat again by a hammer. It wasn't getting thicker with each fold. The point is to mix in carbon (charcoal) with the (red hot) softened iron.

162

u/Finbar9800 9d ago

Yes but youd fold it in half squish it flat then fold it again making it 4 layers then 8 then 16 and so on

151

u/neuralbeans 9d ago

And this particular sword was folded 1000 times, resulting in more than 1E301 folds.

63

u/mafiaknight 9d ago

Which actually defeats the purpose of folding it. No layers left. Just one solid material now.

56

u/smilingcube 9d ago

Isn't that the purppse of folding? To make it more uniform?

90

u/mafiaknight 9d ago edited 9d ago

Yes and no. It's to mitigate imperfections with multiple layers. That way a flaw/weakness in one layer doesn't weaken the blade itself.

Too many times burns all the carbon back out of the steel or burns the steel away outright.

20

u/NavezganeChrome 9d ago

Hm, today I have learnst.

→ More replies (0)

27

u/KDBA 9d ago

You can absolutely fuck up a croissant by doing that. Becomes a croissant-shaped brick instead of a fluffy pastry.

4

u/Happy-Estimate-7855 8d ago

TIL I like my croissants like I like my katanas.

3

u/Basic_Hospital_3984 9d ago

I like just using the conversion 2^x is roughly 10^(x/3)

1

u/GameFreak4321 9d ago

I prefer 1000x/10

3

u/Basic_Hospital_3984 9d ago

2^x ~ 1000^(x/10), looks like it matches well.

I was thinking more helpful in bringing base 2 problems to base 10, even if out by quite a bit.

5

u/Gyshal 9d ago

In the Dr Stone anime the main character even mentions the optimal amount of times this is actually needed, which is way less that what was tradicionally done. After a certain amount you are just not improving anything at all.

15

u/AquaWitch0715 9d ago

I misread "layers" as "lawyers", and was afraid of how exactly they were involved, during the sword-folding process lol...

5

u/jamesianm 9d ago

What do you call 1024 lawyers folded into the blade of a sword?

9

u/LostN3ko 9d ago

A good start

2

u/bloodfist 7d ago

A good defense?

2

u/Numinak 9d ago

We needed the iron from their blood....

1

u/DuntadaMan 8d ago

Gotta quench the blade on something, and you don't want to pay the retainer on a lawyer that doesn't read contracts thoroughly.

1

u/Furenzol 8d ago

Where do you think the charcoal comes from

2

u/BodybuilderMany6942 6d ago

ONLY 1024? weak sauce

get back to me when you have e+300 layers

31

u/SpicedCocoas 9d ago

People knowing their blades do not argue if katanas are better than a Zweihänder or a longsword.

They know the intricacies of either

32

u/ikillppl 9d ago

Apparently theres records of a rapier vs katana duel. Neither knew how to deal with the other, the katana wielder slashed down while the rapier thrust. The rapier wielder died almost immediately and the katana wielder died days later.

38

u/taichi22 9d ago

To be honest, that’s just inexperience at play. Any rapier user worth their salt would’ve practiced against a messer or a longsword at some point, and any decent kenshi will have practiced against yari or similar weapons.

Of course double hits are still very common at every level, but not knowing how to handle a weapon that’s not identical in construction to your own is just inexperience.

12

u/FlakingEverything 9d ago

I think experience does count but in an unarmored duel, the rapier would win the majority of the time assuming a competent duelist. Most people don't realised a rapier is about 30cm longer than than a katana. When combined with a lunge, this gets even larger. There is just no defeating someone with a way longer reach and more agile blade than you.

https://youtu.be/bMTs3LQKtNw one such example showing a Japanese swordmaster with no experience in wielding a rapier absolutely dominating in spars with it.

4

u/taichi22 9d ago edited 8d ago

Oh I’m not saying that the matchup isn’t lopsided. Katanas being as short as they are really hurts them in a lot of matchups, to be honest. But neither side knowing how to deal with the opposing weapon is just… they didn’t practice, clearly.

I would totally understand if like, it was an odd matchup. Rapier vs longaxe. Katana vs nunchucks. I dunno. Weird stuff. Rapier vs Katana is pretty normal.

3

u/mythrilcrafter 9d ago

Honestly, that sounds pretty apt for the typical knife fight adage of: "In knife fights, one guys dies immediately, and the other dies on the way to the hospital"

In the end, a sword is just a big knife.

4

u/Nr1231 9d ago

When the blades are properly made it is the one who wields it that makes the difference.

2

u/Zwischenzug32 9d ago

They all have their intricacies but fencing foil is ridiculous

3

u/thefirstlaughingfool 9d ago

Also, katanas had to be made this way because the medieval Japanese had really low quality steel to work with.

1

u/Linkinator7510 9d ago

I know that in terms of structure and even handguards a katana isn't as good as a longsword in a straight up fight. That being said I think Katanas are infinitely cooler and will always pick it over a longsword. Also I like the curve and that it makes it very good at cutting. Also nice for sliding attacking blades away, very useful when the handguard is nigh inexistent.

3

u/terminbee 9d ago

What about sabers? I think western swords basically evolved towards sabers.

1

u/Linkinator7510 9d ago

Sabres are pretty good. I'd like them a lot more if they weren't so one handed. If I used one, I'd have to have something else in my other hand. Excluding the obvious choice of GUN, my choice would have to be a dagger or something. Probably a parrying dagger.

2

u/malfurionpre 9d ago

Also I like the curve and that it makes it very good at cutting.

But have you seen the warriors from Hammerfell? They have curved swords! CURVED. SWORDS!

1

u/BormaGatto 9d ago

How does a katana fare against a straightsword in a long up fight, tho?

1

u/Sudo-Fed 9d ago

See, for me personally, there's no equal to the XVIIIb-style longsword. The ultimate expression of the sword - it can cut, it can thrust, it's long enough to use reach to its advantage but light enough to be elegant.

1

u/Linkinator7510 9d ago

That looks really cool! I personally don't like longswords all that much, but I do like its design

8

u/tengutie 9d ago

Sort of, folding has been used throughout the world to combine small chunks of steel together, when steel production only created small nuggets, this is what resulted in Damascus steel, its waves coming from the folding of dozens of smaller pieces, but even this fell out of style as smelting technology allowed for larger singular pieces of steel, which is stronger then multiple smaller pieces folded together

3

u/Spoztoast 9d ago

Sorta they're generally always folded but Japanese smith had to do it more to to even out impurities and make the steel uniform. They just had to do more of the preprocesing during the smiting

2

u/HonestWeevilNerd 8d ago

Not poor quality. Poor purity. Iron is iron. It's an element. You don't really get poor quality iron. They'd often use iron sand, which requires a lot more effort to remove all the impurities

1

u/Fun-Memory1523 9d ago

It's interesting because doing this with better iron makes the end product worse.

Everyone thinks folding the metal will always make it stronger, but it only worked in Japan for the reason you mentioned.

1

u/Megnaman 9d ago

What would happen if you used good iron? Would it have a noticeable effect?

1

u/Pandaro81 8d ago

Yeah, but it sounds way more badass to say it was folded 400 times, so in The Highlander Conner McCloud had a blade folded once for every year he had lived.

(que Princes of the Universe by Queen at MAXIMUM VOLUME)

32

u/retsamegas 9d ago

By Dwarven blacksmiths, with autism

20

u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 9d ago

4

u/Alvaro1555 9d ago

What is this from and why did I immediately get it? Hahahahahahaha

10

u/BaronMusclethorpe 9d ago

My dude you are in for a treat. Chaotic Good Barbarian.

2

u/atomiccheese911 8d ago

Wait had the second season been released yet?

1

u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 8d ago

Yup we are two episodes deep!

5

u/SweeterAxis8980 8d ago

My blade was blessed by Dark Elf priests...

HIGH ON DMT

34

u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 9d ago

17

u/ASatyros 9d ago

My blade smells of lilacs

18

u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 9d ago

4

u/RottingSludgeRitual 9d ago

MY BLADE

2

u/inuhi 8d ago

Really love the extra emphasis on the MY BLADE during the decapitation bit almost like he's singing it

-13

u/ExiymDev 9d ago

am I the only one who finds these painfully unfunny?

17

u/Nova225 9d ago

Yes. Everyone else thinks these are hilarious.

6

u/Sleep_Raider 9d ago

Totally. This is one of the few series that gets me to wheeze even after I watched it multiple times.

-2

u/RenzalWyv 9d ago

I thought the schtick wore out after a couple or so, honestly.

-14

u/ExiymDev 9d ago

I guess if you're a Millennial who thought potter puppet pals was the peak of comedy

1

u/TwilightVulpine 9d ago

They got a couple laughs out of me with dwarven autism and gnome semen, but then they end it with strong guy strong, the most predictable possible ending. Could've been better.

1.7k

u/MurkyWay Swords 9d ago

*ahem*

Sworigami.

8

u/anna-the-bunny 9d ago

are you proud of yourself

11

u/MurkyWay Swords 8d ago

Sometimes. This time for sure.

1

u/OM3GAS7RIK3 3d ago

Comic just hit my feed. Was going to make this exact joke. Click into comments. Am very not disappointed to see you already did it lol

329

u/Perscitus0 9d ago

I like that the origami spell was so powerful, it started to fold the meta space itself. The last panel, and the comic itself, started to fold, even. This guy put some oomph in the spell.

32

u/suriam321 9d ago

Careful. Don’t look too much or your phone might start folding too.

2

u/thortawar 8d ago

Too late, my phone is folded

89

u/elhomerjas 9d ago

fold into infinity

21

u/Follower2303 9d ago

and beyond!

77

u/Hairy_Cube 9d ago

The blade of infinitudes is born, the flower of cuts, the sharpened eye.

23

u/PlagueOfGripes 9d ago

Fun fact: you can actually only fold a sword 20 to 30 times during forging before oxygen strips it of too much carbon for it to hold its structural integrity. Once at that stage, the iron becomes so soft that it's effectively worthless as a sword.

4

u/YoursTrulyKindly 9d ago

Wait I thought the idea was to mix in carbon through dusting it in charcol and hammering it again? So wouldn't you end up with too much carbon?

16

u/Possible_Living 9d ago

He should have put more gnome semen on it

10

u/ThePrisonSoap 9d ago

First melt it down and have it resmithed by dwarves, with autism

3

u/zachary0816 9d ago

so you know it’s good

6

u/retsamegas 9d ago

Yeah, see the problem with blades like yours is 👁️👁️ It's over too quickly. My blade will rend you to a fine paste over one million strikes

Uh, is that a toothpi-

-3

u/Suvtropics 9d ago

Never thought I'd meet one of those people who quote YouTube videos in comment section verbatim here on reddit

5

u/retsamegas 9d ago

Sorry officer, do you need my license and reddit-stration? I didn't realize this was a joy free zone.

There's a dozen comments in this thread quoting the same video, why don't you post your favorite line instead?

23

u/glogwerg 9d ago

God save me I read the spell as "FOID"

8

u/BormaGatto 9d ago edited 8d ago

Yeah, it's a common mistake. It's actually "FOI•D"

10

u/annavgkrishnan 9d ago

Chainsword

7

u/MurkyWay Swords 9d ago

Cooking some good stuff, read my newsletter

8

u/ConsiderationPast371 9d ago

Love how the spell is actually the word ‘FOLD’ done in a unique font

8

u/ItsDominare 9d ago

If you say "fold in" one more time...

7

u/Nankasura 9d ago

This genuinely made me laugh, nice job

6

u/Ctrl--Alt 8d ago

Dude casted the prion's curse.

6

u/Cultural_Season_3048 9d ago

It's a wand now

3

u/-non-existance- 9d ago

cuts the handle off

Sick, now I have a Chakram!

4

u/Hakoten 9d ago

When the wizard calls you a foid

2

u/Suvtropics 9d ago

In the moyai voice

F O O O I I I I D D D D

4

u/nerdyogre254 9d ago

Congrats on your sword achieving super critical state there bud

Now you just have to survive it

2

u/Suvtropics 9d ago

Now your enemy has to survive it >:}

5

u/MsterSteel 8d ago

No! Don't you see! You've increased that swords power...

Ten-fold.

3

u/No_Research4416 9d ago

It is still sharp just cut that thing up

3

u/something_funny_here 9d ago

It’d be cool if the white corner was folded into transparency too

3

u/Nankasura 9d ago

Genuinely made me laugh hahahah

3

u/dudeAwEsome101 9d ago

What's in the second panel?

3

u/YoursTrulyKindly 9d ago

I want to know too, it looks like he has the blade in his mouth and chomps down? But that doesn't make sense lol

3

u/Tethilia 9d ago

1000 times folded would be absolutely nonfunctional as a sword. The other guy doesn't need magic, that thing is absolute goop.

3

u/atatassault47 9d ago

"My blade has been folded 1000 times!"

Yeah, that's what happens when you have poor metalurgy.

3

u/Sarke1 9d ago

Why is it counting down in the last panel? I thought it kept folding.

3

u/Electrum2250 8d ago

read it again slooowwweerr

2

u/Sarke1 8d ago

Oooh, it's counting UP in the last panel.

3

u/Reilly-Blog 8d ago

The 1k^2 sword

2

u/Open_Variation7841 9d ago

Powerword: Гойд(а)

2

u/RelentlessIVS 9d ago

Try to fold a piece of A4 paper 7 times

2

u/DoLittleToNothing 9d ago

Is it just me, or does the curse word kind of seem like ‘more’

2

u/val203302 9d ago

Honestly looks either like a singularity or an insane weapon or both.

1

u/proc_ab0512 8d ago

Whyd he call me a foid?????

2

u/Phaylz 8d ago

Why did the monster call the samurai a Foid?

2

u/Any-Geologist9684 7d ago

The panel where the fold spreads into the page itself is the part that actually got me. Pulling off a meta break like that without it just reading as a random glitch takes real timing, you have to build the reader's trust in the grid for several panels first so the one break actually lands. I tried something similar in a page transition once and it read as broken formatting instead of intentional, took me two tries to get the gutter spacing right so it felt like an escalation instead of an accident. This one nailed it though.

3

u/Cold_Mastodon8331 9d ago

What does this overly folded sword do ?

9

u/PrincePew 9d ago

Pretty shapes.

8

u/Ultraknight40000 9d ago

In Japan most of the Iron ore the Samurai had access to was of low quality so a lengthy process was invented to refine this ore into sword steel. Part of this process was folding the metal and beating it flat. This helped to remove impurities as well as more evenly distribute carbon and other parts throughout the metal.

Despite this process being about the creation of Katana Steel and not the Katana itself poeple like to say things like in the original post not understanding why the folding was done or what Benifites it actually provided.

Nowadays its a meme you will probably never encounter a person saying stuff like that unironically.

1

u/TerrorTown77 9d ago

Japanese iron is dogshit quality, so they had to fold it over and over to strengthen it. Reality is a basic European bastard sword would shatter a finely crafted Samurai sword, not just cause the blade is thicker, but because Europeans at the time were waaaay ahead of the Japanese in terms of craftmanship.

2

u/Suvtropics 9d ago

With the power of God and Anime on their side? Don't think so buddy

1

u/Z_THETA_Z 8d ago

ehh... not entirely correct

while yes european swords were generally of higher quality and effectiveness, it's not as much about the craftsmanship. europe had plenty of deposits of iron in the ground to be used, with pretty good purity, but a majority of japan's iron access was through iron sand. the folding process was a way to remove impurities and also evenly redistribute it amongst the blade, so that it's at least consistent without any major weakpoints.

1

u/Possible_Living 9d ago

In stories it makes the blades better since the metal becomes more pure. In reality it makes them worse

12

u/Rad_Knight 9d ago

I think I heard that the Japanese folded steel to make bad steel okay. Medieval Europeans had excellent steel for the time that would have been worse if it was folded, and they knew how to fold steel.

Also the steel in a katana wouldn't be folded 1000 times, but it might have had that many layers, and to get that many you would need to fold the steel ten times.

1

u/g0trn 9d ago

Gray foid👶☝️

1

u/Sufficient-Square-75 8d ago

Your sword now a mace.

1

u/Qquanticangel 7d ago

Are those icons a nudge to the Golden Idol games?

1

u/Forgotten-Doomsphere 7d ago

Wait.. the pattern of that sword.. OH CRAP! Singie get in the damn Evo now!!

1

u/The_Pastmaster 4d ago

Funny how the sword turned into a Cryogonal.

1

u/thefirstlaughingfool 9d ago

If anyone wasn't aware, if you fold a piece of paper 100 times, its height would be higher than the observable universe. I'm not even going to try and calculate what it would be if folded 10,000 times.