Peregrinefalcon47: Hi. Peregrinefalcon47 here. Nancy Yi Fan's Swordbird is a truly amazing book, but there are several strange and funny things in the book. Here are some of those things.
Let's begin with the very staple of the book: the swords.
Observe the following scene:
It's an early morning in Stone-run Forest (that's the forest where Swordbird is set). A few cardinals are flying through the tree trunks. They land on a tree branch with their long, gleaming swords at their sides. They're waiting for a straggler, a young cardinal, who hurriedly flies toward them, panting hard. He drops on the branch, exhausted.
"Man," he says between breaths, "how do you…carry…these swords? They're so…heavy!"
An older cardinal slowly shakes his head. "You'll get used to it," he says.
Pf47: Or will he?
You see, here's an illogical aspect of Swordbird. The birds are carrying swords with them in flight, and are fighting with them. The thing about birds is that they must be extremely light in order to fly. That's why their bones are hollow, so they can reduce weight.
If you add on a dead-weight like a sword, the birds should barely be able to fly. They should be like the poor young cardinal, struggling to stay aloft with such a heavy weapon strapped to them.
Here's a comparison to something more realistic. In K. A. Applegate's Animorphs series, Rachael, the girl with the massive bald eagle morph, is the one who carries the pocket watch to help the team keep track of time. Why her? Her giant eagle morph is the only one that is large enough to carry a weight as light as a pocket watch. A pocket watch. If you're wearing a watch while reading this, take it off and weigh it in your hand. Yep, that little amount of weight is already enough to bog down a bald eagle with a six-foot wingspan.
Considering this fact, it'll be even harder for these smaller cardinals to carry something like a sword. The way I see it, one of two things could happen.
The first is that all the birds can barely fly with the heavy swords. Heck, they should barely even be able to stand with those things tied to them.
Let's turn on real life physics for the rest of the cardinal team and see what happens.
The young cardinal is still trying to catch his breath. Suddenly, all five cardinals—including the young one—drop to the branch. They're trapped, stuck down by the weight of their swords.
"Augh," says a female, "my wing! It's crushed!"
"Ow, what the—"
"Oomph!"
"Ahh! This sword…it's too heavy," says the older cardinal.
"My wing!"
The young cardinal looks up at the downed older cardinal. "You see what I mean, now?" he asks.
The older cardinal looks around in surprise at his trapped team. "It's as if gravity suddenly doubled. No, tripled."
"My wing! Owwww…" moans the female cardinal.
Pf47: Ouch. Not pretty.
The alternative to this is that the swords are nothing but toothpicks. Or, they weigh as much as toothpicks. This could be possible if the birds had access to strong, light steel.
The only problem is that this would happen.
Lord Turnatt and a group of his crows are pillaging the Bluewingle tribe's village. Turnatt is perched on a tree branch, proudly overseeing the destruction, when a brave blue-jay comes at him, sword ready.
"Go away, Turnatt! This is Bluewingle territory!" he screams, before slicing down with the sword.
The light sword rebounds of Turnatt. It's not heavy enough to do damage.
This doesn't deter the blue-jay, who slashes two more times at the hawk. On the third slash, the sword breaks in two. Without his weapon, the blue-jay looks up at his towering opponent in fear.
Turnatt shakes his head. "Pathetic."
Pf47: A sword that is too light or thin will snap or break easily. If at first it doesn't break, it will still hardly do any damage. This is similar to the broadswords of medieval Europe. The swords were huge, hulking blades. They needed to be, in order to cut through armor and hurt the enemy.
There's one other thing about the swords. Where in the world did the birds get them?
Aska: That's classified information, Peregrinefalcon47.
Pf47: Classified? Since when?
Aska: Since you came onto Fanfiction and started blabbering about our tribes. Some things need to be kept secret for our safety, you know.
Pf47: Safety? Stone-run's been peaceful ever since Turnatt was defeated. Besides, there are thousands of fans who want to know more about you guys.
(pauses with a thoughtful look)
And why are you in this room? You're Aska, from Swordbird. You aren't supposed to exist in this world.
Aska: What in Swordbird is that supposed to mean!?
(Pf47 turns away from the angered blue-jay, who continues to berate him about his previous statement)
Pf47: Anyway, back to the matter at hand. As far as I could tell, there was never any mention of a forge or blacksmith where the birds could have made their weaponry. It's as if one morning they woke up to suddenly find shiny, steel swords lying around them. What, did Swordbird send the blades from Skyland?
Without any sort of forge or blacksmith, there's no logical explanation as to how the birds obtained their blades. However, it's possible that they could have made their bows and arrows.
The bow and arrow didn't appear too often in the book, as the book portrayed swords as the main weapon of choice. Still, there were instances where the bow and arrow did appear. (There was one sketch in Swordbird of a cardinal holding a small bow and arrow.)
As long as they could find good wood and string, the birds could quite possibly have made efficient, even deadly bows and arrows. Arrowheads could be collected from the forest floor (the forest is called Stone-run, isn't it?). As for fletching, well, they could've used their own feathers for the job if nothing else.
Flame-back: Hey! Watch that mouth of yours.
Pf47: What? It could technically work, right?
Flame-back: Well, I guess…
Aska: Really, Peregrine? That is just sickening!
Pf47: Whatever, Aska.
The bows and arrows were good, but you know what would make a better ranged weapon? Chu-ko-nu crossbows. These crossbows were invented in ancient China, and were special because they were "repeating crossbows". Unlike conventional crossbows, chu-ko-nu's didn't need to be reloaded after each shot. Several bolts were placed inside it at once. When the archer fired one bolt, he only needed to pull the drawstring back before he could fire a second bolt. In a way, these crossbows were fired like guns: you pull back after each shot, and after using up a "magazine", you placed more bolts into the crossbow.
Imagine how this could have helped the Sunrise and Bluewingle tribes…
A blue-jay is perched on a high branch with a chu-ko-nu in her claws. Opposite her is a makeshift target. Another blue-jay is perched near the target.
"Okay, remember, hold it up to your chest, pull the string back, and release to fire. Got it?" asks the blue-jay near the target.
"Don't worry, I got it!" yells the female blue-jay, a bit overeager.
"Fire when ready," replies her friend.
The blue-jay levels the crossbow, pulls the drawstring, and fires. The bolt whizzes past the trees and hits the third ring of the target.
"Alright, that was—"
"Awesome! This thing is cool!" yells the blue-jay. She pulls the drawstring back repeatedly and begins firing bolts everywhere.
"Hey! Aim before you fire! You're gonna kill me," screams the other blue-jay, who ducks behind the target for protection. He barely dodges a bolt that imbeds itself five inches deep in a nearby tree.
The female blue-jay finally runs out of bolts. Breathing hard, she yells to her hidden friend, "Let's do that again!"
The other blue-jay groans from behind the target. Why did he even consider letting her use the chu-ko-nu?
Pf47: Ah, yes, it would have been much better. Oh, and guys? Remember: think twice before you let your girl friends have a go with the crossbow. Or pistol. Or shotgun. Believe me, I've seen plenty of bruised female faces from shooting the weapon wrong. I guess there's just something that girls don't get about crossbows and guns—
Aska: I heard that, Peregrine!
Flame-back: She has good ears, falcon.
Pf47: Yeah, I've noticed.