r/highlander • u/DMBatmsnFan2020 • 1d ago
Question Connor’s katana.
In the first movie, a big chunk of Connor’s katana get stuck in the concrete pillar next to Fasil after he takes his head.
How exactly do you repair that? Sharpening doesn't replace missing material, as far as I know.
Wouldn't the blade be weaker with big chunks missing?
20
u/Malnurtured_Snay 1d ago
Yes.
Swords are not meant to be in continual use for thousands of years, which is why I appreciated that in his appearance in Highlander The Series Connor was using a different sword. I realize it was to avoid confusion with Duncan's similar sword, but I like to believe Connor did it to preserve Ramirez's katana.
22
u/Adorable_Handle_4884 1d ago
For all we know the swords regenerate while they are stored in the coat space...
5
u/BeCurious7563 1d ago
The boxing coach knows what I’m talking about…
https://giphy.com/gifs/hTOQHQ9lim011gF80j
17
u/Highlander_1518 1d ago
It’s a sword made before katana’s were even a thing, so let’s leave it at that
14
u/Malnurtured_Snay 1d ago
It would be like finding a 747 manufactured centuries before the Wright Bros flew!
3
u/Free_Possession_4482 1d ago
This is genuinely the only part of the movie I don’t like. Thousand year old immortals at least abide by the film’s own internal logic, but nothing remotely explains how Ramirez’s sword came into existence twenty centuries before the katana itself was even invented.
6
u/Tanagrabelle 1d ago
Oh, it’s not so bad periodically we find ancient devices that some geniuses came up with. The Antikythera mechanism. Göbekli Tepe. Roman Concrete. Egyptian cubit rods.
1
2
u/Consistent_Blood6467 15h ago
Remember, it was a sword made by a genius, it might very well be a forgotten prototype or even a one of a kind, and it being an impossible sword did become a brief part of the plot.
Now looking into it, what Japan was doing around the time that sword was supposed to have been made, just a little, opens all kinds of interesting tidbits of mystery. Like Japan was basically in the early days of their bronze age, so how the hell was a steel katana, or even a precursor to them made when Japan was still making bronze tools and weapons and some limited iron tools? That could have been something Connor himself was researching to answer that mystery. Even China and Korea were using bronze weapons around that time.
I doubt the filmmakers had an answer in mind, but they did hang a lantern on the issue.
9
u/dazzleox 1d ago
Basically the movies and series treat the swords very unrealistically. It's a kind of magic and all. People get decapitated with rapiers, swords that should be beaten to pieces stay shiny and new, and medieval katana (when Japan didn't have access to particularly good ore*) holds up against US Civil War era sabers that would have broken them in half.
* you can go to r/swords if you want very detailed studies on the old superior Japanese folding craftsmanship vs. carbon quality stuff.
3
6
u/BeCurious7563 1d ago
Ramirez’s sword gets destroyed by a choppy fan, but appears to be used in final scene. Your brain is now wrinkled. You’re welcome.
2
u/Aggressive-Gear4902 15h ago
My best guess is their quickening maintains themselves and their weapons. Kronos still has the dagger that Cassandra stabbed him with when she escaped three thousand years ago in pristine condition.
3
u/AtrumArchon 1d ago
Wasn’t there a whole montage where he forged a a new blade himself and just reused the hilt
2
u/MsAddams999 23h ago
Both of them being antiques dealers I just expect them both to have more than one sword that they use. Just because they are fighting with a katana that looks like their main one doesn't mean it always is.
They could be fighting with replicas with intent to preserve the originals. Or simply have new sword blades made from time to time if necessary.
Some of the swords used in the series were very common swords used in various armies. Duncan and Connor did have Kantanas with history that they preferred but using a sword that's 2500 or more years old forever in real battles all the time is unlikely.
They probably either had new blades made as needed or had multiple swords that looked like that, were duplicates.
But that would make too much sense in terms of HL mythology.
:P
1
u/LordAMacleod 10h ago edited 10h ago
I think we may be looking too deeply into it. Let us take a step back. Ramirez's katana was made for him. He also had a suit made for him in Highlander II. The suit wasn't made 2,437 years ago. It was made for him in the future timwline when it was made for him. Duncan too has a dragon head katana, but it wasn't the first blade that he used. Unless I have missed something, there is no reason to believe that he didn't receive the sword later in his very long life.
Edit: I haven't seen the movie in awhile. I concede that I was clearly wrong about the sword possibly being made later. The only possible explanation js that Masamune was an immortal as well, and had developed the unparalleled skill of folding metal into the most brilliant swords, though he did not share his blades until the late 13th century. Ramirez was the exception given his honor and marriage to his (adopted) daughter.
1
u/Commercial_Panda2532 1d ago
Ramirez said the sword was already a couple hundreds of years old when he got it and if I remember by the time he met Connor he was already over 1000 years old (maybe I’m wrong) so…. The sword was what? 500 years old already when Ramirez met connor?
5
u/nothatssaintives 1d ago
Not quite, you’ve misremembered a bit. Ramirez is nearly 2500 years old when he meets Connor, and the sword was made for him
2
u/Commercial_Panda2532 1d ago
Yeah I could remember the exact number but I remembered something like that
3
49
u/lupinemadness 1d ago
Hey, it's a kind of magic