I just have this sense that Jemisin's essay and the commenters aren't on the same page. Most of the commenters are saying magic needs limitations. Otherwise the author can just say "a wizard did it" for any dramatic conflict, and if they don't, the readers will ask "well why doesn't a wizard just do it?" Whereas I…

You have that backwards. If anything, science was seen as an extension of magic. Or more accurately, in earlier eras, the lines between religion, magic, philosophy and science were extremely blurry.

Writing two books does not make you an authority on what fantasy "is"

For some reason I'm more tolerant of this kind of overconfident badassery in swashbucklers than any other kind of fiction. Maybe because swashbucklers tend to have witty repartée, and I'm more inclined to take them less seriously.

Maybe it was the dearth of good pirate/swashbuckling films at the time, but I remember loving this movie in high school. But I watched it again recently and it's truly horrible.

The way other enemies don't intervene as Ezio goes through a 3-second kill animation to dispatch their comrade in the showiest way possible doesn't seem particularly realistic to me. It sure looks cool though.

I think the people at ARMA know this already.

No, he said most people's understanding of European swordfighting is partly and erroneously taken from Asian martial arts, before going on to explain European historical sources and never mentioning Asia again because he's discussing European swordfighting and no one else's.

I read this somewhere years ago and have no idea how true it was, but supposedly there is a dojo just outside Tokyo that does teach authentic 17th-18th century kenjutsu. No sport fencing/kendo, no fight choreography for chanbara films, but actual samurai swordfighting.

You've swayed me. I third Momoa.

Well, the advantage of the Street is you can treat it as just a big MMO-style virtual world, without worrying about code or systems. And I don't remember it being as prominent as the IRL action anyway.

No way.

The history of human civilization is built on cooperation first and foremost. The fact that we're even capable of large-scale warfare is a testament to that.

+1

So they just applied Aristotle's Unmoved Mover argument for physics to biology?

It's kind of depressing that the Japanese are more willing to use obscure European secret societies in their fiction—and in a manga/anime aimed at kids, no less—than North Americans, who keep trotting out the Templars and Illuminati ad infinitum. (sigh)

You're not alone.

He also fiddled during the Doom of Valyria.

Probably from the aborted "Point Break 2".

I loved the original, though I don't hold it up as an untouchable classic or anything.