So I got a question about the sparing and padding post that you recently made. I like to read Assassin's Creed fanfictions that shows Altair (the main character) in his early years, which often includes his training to be an assassin. In most of these fics they focus more on the sword and knife fighting but some does include the hand to hand fighting too (without protection). So realistically what kind of injuries would someone training without any kind of protection should expect?
Death.
I’m only sort of kidding, because I know the kinds of fanfics you’re talking about and like every writer trying to be edgy, they have them spar without protections and with live weapons. There’s a reason why we use practice weapons during training and in sparring matches, where rules are in play.
Now, the Assassin’s Creed variant of the Hashashin live for that super edgy, very stupid state of supposed badass where one must constantly prove their worth so I totally believe they’d do it. I’d also believe this would lead to an incredibly high turnover with their recruits, which is not sustainable in the real world.
I’m going to point out here that the “Asassins” or Hashashin were real. That’s the etymology for the word. The suicide jumping is also real and, instead of landing on bales of hay, they jumped to their deaths. There are a couple of stories about that piece of the order. The real Assassins were religious fanatics. These stories are not so much a testament to the quality of their training so much as their fanaticism.
For what it’s worth, the Knights Templar were also real and a prominent militant order up until they were excommunicated by the Pope.
The history of both groups is actually far more interesting than the Assassin’s Creed franchise. This is a persistent problem with the games, they invariably include historical figures who are far, far, far more interesting, competent, and badass than we’re presented with. If you encounter a historical personage in an Assassin’s Creed game, remind yourself of this simple fact: the real one is about 200x more awesome. It’s this weird inverse where the reality consistently surpasses the fiction. (Black Flag, I have my eye on you. Honestly, how do you mess up Stede Bonnet, The Gentleman Pirate? And that’s the least of your sins!)
The more serious answer is that unless you’re training with weapons or making an active effort to hit each other, in the real world we don’t train using pads on the regular. The pads are so you can essentially go full out against another person under controlled circumstances and then come back for training tomorrow. If your students are constantly getting injured that hampers their ability to train, then they fall behind and you turn out fewer fighters. Injuries on the training floor should not be a common occurrence.
Barring accidents and mishaps, if you’re simply practicing your techniques on your own or against a wooden dummy then all you should expect afterwards is standard muscle pain (maybe some bruising). The same should be true for practice with human opponents (which is not sparring) and sparring itself.
Anything else is a waste of time, energy, and resources.
Remember, injuries take time to heal and if you’re prepping someone to go out and murder that’s time you don’t have.
In the land of “edgy training”, try to remember that you want evil as opposed to incompetence.
The vast majority of training, like the kinds you listed, are edgy incompetence. They don’t serve a purpose other than sadism and your students don’t learn anything. Unfortunately, cruelty on its own doesn’t teach much (the Spartans were abusive jerks, but their methods worked). The beat up, abuse them, cruelty methodology simply doesn’t work unless you understand the kinds that work and, from a storytelling perspective, it also isn’t interesting.
The kind of “edgy training” you see in most stories is a round of Kinder’s First. People mimicking what Hollywood has taught them or what they’ve seen in fiction elsewhere. The assumption in this line of thinking is that the more brutal the training then the more dangerous the fighter. This isn’t true. More importantly, there are much better ways to sadistically mess with your students’ (and audience’s) heads.
1) Depending on your teaching style, you may murder a student on occasion to motivate the others. However, the control over who lives or dies remains with the instructor because the instructor is god. If a student gets a bright idea to kill another student without your approval, kill them.
2) Live weapons should never be used by students on each other except as a graduation gift. The graduation gift being only one of them will be accepted into the Order, so prove your worth. (In the real world, you’ll probably need them both but in fantasy land… why not?)
3) Use the threat of death to keep your students from getting comfortable, make good on this promise every so often. Bring in an established warrior to kill off your best student in demonstration to the others. (Why? It reminds them at no point are they safe.)
4) Encourage your students to break the rules, punish them severely if caught. (Playing favorites? Punish them more, push them harder.)
5) Limit their resources. Make them fight each other for their food. Survival isn’t a given. It’s earned.
6) In the early days, force them into physical exhaustion. Keep them up late. Wake them early. Limit their sleep to the minimum of hours they need to stay functional. Tired minds are easier to manipulate.
7) Force them into direct conflict with each other. There’s never a solid baseline they can achieve, and they’re always watching over their shoulder. Furthermore they never become loyal to each other. They are only loyal to you. Appeasing their teacher is their only means of survival.
8) Got a problem child who won’t play along? Don’t make an example of them. No, no, make them your new favorite. That’ll turn the others on them, and they’ll solve the problem for you.
9) Change the goalposts regularly, so they never know what to expect.
10) You’ve got someone who doesn’t want to participate? Say okay. When others move to join them, punish those students viciously instead. Do it in front of the class and for everyone to see. (This is called: creating heroes and wrecking them.)
11) Have your students inform on each other.
If this is starting to sound like abuse, well.. you’re right. It is. It also very successful in terms of achieving its goal. The goal is attacking the student’s perceptions, beliefs, and their understanding of the world while reshaping them into who you want them to be.
Real cruelty is clever and inventive. It is also patient. Like a good interrogator, this teacher will leave their students so they’re never sure of exactly what the teacher wants or how to please them. They give them hope, then snatch it away. Someone who excels at social manipulation will use this position of power to maneuver their students feelings and their expectations, indirectly point them at certain targets by stoking negative feeling such as jealousy, paranoia, anger, or fear. In the other hand, those rare moments of kindness offered will ensure gratitude. When a good teacher wants their uncooperative students to band together, they make themselves the target the students need to fight against. The abusive teacher does the opposite. They ensure they are the only boat in the storm and turn their charges on each other. They make sure their students never know what to expect. This includes going hot and cold. They change up to batter expectations, handle some problems themselves and let the students handle others.
An experienced teacher will have seen plenty of student characters, all the versions you can imagine. A good one will break the problem kids to bridle without them ever realizing it happened, and they exit the experience more hardcore than the ones who invested themselves honestly. The purpose of “brutal training” isn’t to churn out a better warrior. It’s to break the individual down so you can reshape their mind and ensure the weapon you’ve created is loyal to you. That level of conditioning is very difficult to break. You’ve re-oriented their entire training into status positions they’ve fought for and earned. This training becomes a foundation for their identity, and you’re not going to get it out of them.
So, before invoking the trope, choose wisely and understand the purpose for what it is. Actively abusive training is done with the express intent to recondition and brainwash. More than that, in competent hands, it’ll snap the “rebellious teenage hero” contingent like twigs.
As a member of a fanatical cult, Altair is a direct example of this sort of training writ large.
-Michi
