Line #18 ComicBook/Crecy


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/943603.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Pun}} Pluck yew]].]]
3
4	->''This is a story about the English and the French and why the English hate the French. Which is because they eat frogs, they smell bad, and they're twenty five miles away.''
5	-->-- '''William of Stonham'''
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7	Crécy; "The Death Of Chivalry", "How Nightmarishly AnnoyingArrows ''Really'' Are", or "How Badass English Archers Made French [[CountryMatters Cunts]] Stop Invading England". [[invoked]]
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9	A short black & white comic written by Creator/WarrenEllis & illustrated by Raulo Cacares published in 2007 about the historical [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crécy Battle of Crécy.]]
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11	----
12	!!Tropes:
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14	* AnnoyingArrows: ''Crécy'' is all about how ''truly'' annoying arrows really are, as in how widespread archery put an end to medieval warfare. A ''lot'' of work was put into making arrows into incredibly lethal weapons. They discouraged crossbows as longbows could be quickly strung or unstrung - this meant drawstrings could be removed during rainstorms to keep them dry. Archers were trained to use them as {{Swiss Army Weapon}}s; they carried [[TrickArrow three types of arrowheads]] - normal arrowheads, bodkins for piercing coats of mail, swallowheads for killing horses. They sometimes applied the heads to the arrows with candlewax, but they usually just spit on the ends of the shaft to secure them - this ensured that trying to yank out the arrow would cause the head to detach, meaning that one would have to aggravate the wound in the process of removing it. Finally, they stuck the arrows in the dirt prior to firing them - this ensured that contaminants would be carried into the wound. English archers were thus able to take better care of their weapons than French crossbowmen, and those weapons were both more versatile and inherently more lethal.
15	** The narrator points out the Genoese mercenary crossbowmen hired by the French were brutally lethal as well: they had the training and equipment to shoot an arrow a hundred and fifty yards every ''seven and a half seconds'', and the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavise pavise]]'' they crouch behind renders them invulnerable save the ''exact moment they shoot.'' The catch is that the damned things weigh around ''twenty pounds each'', meaning they're too heavy for a crossbowman to carry as part of his ruck while marching - they had to be brought to the battlefield by baggage train. And most archers could shoot a TrickArrow ''twice as far'' every ''five'' seconds - and good ones even '''faster.''' Crossbowmen were meant to slaughter infantry, not exchange arrows with people who can actually shoot ''back.''
16	--->''These things may look primitive to you, but you have to remember that we're not stupid. We have the same intelligence as you, we simply don't have the same cumulative knowledge you do. So we apply our intelligence to what we have.''
17	* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: It is speculated by the main character that the French at the time were the BadassArmy and the English were this trope (He uses the term parsnip eating surrender monkeys). This comic is about The Heavily Outnumbered English Army giving France one of the most one-sided {{Curb Stomp Battle}}s in History (guess who lost). With AnnoyingArrows (annoying as they kill the fuck out of so many [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail silly French kaniggits]] that they eliminate the ''concept'' of knighthood).
18	-->''But these French, the ones running the country and riding after us, are not the cheese-eating surrender monkeys you know. These are the real French, vicious bastards with an inbred sense of entitlement to whatever they see. They've been a frightening, dangerous presence in Europe for hundreds of years. I mean, there's a reason why so many English towns have French names.''
19	* CombatPragmatist: The English have no qualms whatsoever with using any dirty trick under their disposal (such as smearing their arrowheads in dirt and dung to maximize damage) against their enemies.
20	* CountryMatters: It features this gem:
21	-->''In England, the word "cunt" is punctuation.''
22	* CurbStompBattle: One of the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} in ''recorded history''. The English were barely scratched - anywhere from a few hundred losses to just ''forty.'' The French lost over '''thirty thousand.''' Eleven of them were princes, which seriously fucked up the lines of succession in France. They lost '''''1,200''''' knights - enough to ''completely eliminate'' the very ''concept'' of knighthood.
23	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The book is a warts-and-all depiction of the famous Battle of Crécy in 1346. The narrator acknowledges the dissonance, describing himself as "[[PoliticallyIncorrectHero a complete bloody xenophobe who comes from a time when it was acceptable to treat people from the next village like they were subhumans]]" and admitting that by modern standards his side have been "acting like evil pricks", but reminds the reader that the other side are even worse.
24	* InformedFlaw: The French are presented as such bloodthirsty monsters that the English are forced to engage in literal war crimes in order to combat them. However, in spite of the narrator's point of view, the English themselves come off as even worse, since, if anything, the story's context presents the ''English'' as the actual aggressors given that Edward III is pursuing his own stake to the French crown and is putting villages to the torch, while the French are merely defending themselves. Of course this is [[{{invoked}} intentional]] on Stonham's part.
25	* KnightInShiningArmor: This comic has the English archers completely and utterly demolish the very ''concept'' of this trope. Stonham claims that it has no place in warfare, because politeness doesn't win wars and as such the English engage in [[DirtyBusiness scorched earth tactics to intimidate their enemies]]. Furthermore, the image of noble knights originated from France is stained by the fact they are actually a privileged warrior class to whom the proles must obey.
26	* NoFourthWall: The Narrator, William of Stonham, explains his story directly to the reader.
27	* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: William of Stonham outright admits that he's "a complete bloody xenophobe," and he proves it by badmouthing the Welsh, the Scots, and especially the French.
28	* RainOfArrows: The comic explains how it's done in real life. Basically, you teach all your soldiers to shoot at the same range, then everyone loses arrows at once and ''something'''s bound to get hit.
29	* RapePillageAndBurn: The English, as the narrator has gleefully admitted, has been busy burning several villages on their progress from Caen to Crécy. This tactic was a favorite of Edward the Black Prince and intended to terrorize the population into believing that the French won't protect them and the English would. The narrator still insists, despite murdering French peasants, that they are the real underdogs against the French aristocratic army.
30	* ShoutOut: The scene where the French taunt the English from the top of a castle wall seems [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail very familiar]]. Except [[{{Dissimile}} this time]] the English have a lot of longbows.
31	* SlobsVersusSnobs: The whole point of the comic, repeatedly stated by Ellis; ''this'' was the birth of the modern world - when slobs got their act together and showed the snobs that they weren't going to take being bullied anymore.
32	-->''We're not meek little peasants anymore. And we are not fucking animals. And we have a lot of longbows.''\
33	''There's people from all over England here. English villagers. The common people standing up and saying, "No more. Stay the hell out of our country."''\
34	''Peasants aren't supposed to kill knights, are we, Froggy? Peasants should stand and do as we're told by the likes of "him", a man of quality and all that bollocks.''\
35	''You know what you lot say about us, after this? After we cut out the heart of French aristocracy? "It is a shame that so many French noblemen fell to men of no value." That's me and my mates you're talking about. That's the ordinary English who have been putting up with your shit for hundreds of years.''
36	** Of course this is severely complicated by the fact that the same slobs murdered helpless French peasants and gleefully commit other war crimes on defenseless people. Not to mention that said slobs are serving the English Kings, who (at the time) were the French-speaking and French-descended UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfPlantagenet, and fighting to claim the throne of France; though the narrator brushes this aside by saying that they are 'English' now.
37	* UnreliableNarrator: William reminds the reader that he is a commoner in medieval England at the beginning of narrative; he notes how this [[MisanthropeSupreme colors his worldview]] and thus establishes that the reader will be hearing only his side of the story, with all of the bias and hyperbole that entails.
38	* VSign: The main character is an archer who does this at the end of the book. This refers to the urban legend that the offensive V-sign came from the idea that the French could cut off the fingers of captured English longbowmen.

Context ComicBook / Crecy