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Have at thee, villain!
The classic swordplay of swashbuckling movies: Threaten high countered by parry high, threaten low countered by parry low, lather, rinse and repeat as you climb the spiral tower staircase, until the hero can drive his sword through the villain's heart. It looks good, and the "tink-tink-tink" of sword tips clashing has become familiar to the ear over the decades.
But it's not real swordplay. It's not even a decent simulation. Essentially, it works out to the two combatants deliberately trying to hit each others' weapons with an impressive *clang* sound, rather than each other. Like so many other things in TV and movies, it's a gross and inaccurate simplification of the real thing, which only barely resembles it. And if you try to do it in a real sword fight, you'll get spitted in seconds. Overactive defense of Flynning aside, the other primary variety of unrealistic fencing (more popular in the far east and modern works) is a preposterously overactive offense, typically consisting of spin and flips that would leave the back wide open combined with absurdly overshot slashes and swipes that would invite a quick lethal interruption. To be fair, it is used, on stage at least, to make sure no one actually gets hurt. It stems from live theatre, where special effects are nigh well impossible and actors don't have stunt doubles. Willing Suspension Of Disbelief helps; conversely, a working knowledge of any school of swordsmanship can easily ruin all enjoyment of Hollywood sword fights.
As a rule of thumb to determine flynning or not however, take note of the weapon's movements. Was the weapon going to hit the opponent when it was parried, or was it going to hit the opponent's weapon regardless? Although it must be realized that this is not an absolute rule, as striking an opponent's sword to move it so they are at a disadvantage to parry the next blow is entirely reasonable.
Named for swashbuckler film star Errol Flynn, who did nothing else in all his sword fights.
Not named after Kevin Flynn, and not to be confused with the Flynn Effect .
Contrast Single Stroke Battle, which isn't elaborate enough.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Revolutionary Girl Utena's swordheavy duels also flynned to cut down animation costs.
- The beam-sabre fights in the various Gundam shows go back and forth between using this trope and utterly averting it. Most are short and brutal, ending with severed limbs & impaled cockpits and/or reactors, but if both combatants are named characters expect a fair amount of Flynning before somebody finally bites it. The worst offender is likely Gundam Wing, although in the case of Wing Zero and Epyon this is somewhat justified; their pilots are trying to kill each other, but since the Gundams' computers are in perfect synch, they're able to parry any attack the other makes. Interestingly, whenever characters clash with real swords outside their Humongous Mecha this trope is conspicuously averted. Witness Char and Amuro's memorably bloody rapier duel in the final act of the original Mobile Suit Gundam show.
- This was used intentionally during Kira and Athrun's brief duel during Gundam Seed Destiny. Since they were friends and only wanted to convince the other to leave the battlefield and let the their respective forces deal with the problem, their battle consisted entirely of firing warning shots at each other and beam sword Flynning while telling the other to return to their ship. Eventually though Kira gets too agitated about the situation and instead of parrying dodges and slashes for real taking Athrun's Gundam's head off and forcing him to retreat much to Athrun's shock.
- Averted in One Piece, where swordsmen make it a clear point to go straight for the opponent's person. The only reason swordfights have any real length is because most fighters are Made Of Iron, a Determinator, or both.
Film
- Subverted in The Mask of Zorro, where Don Diego De La Vega asks his successor to demonstrate his swordfighting style. The student energetically swishes around his sword only to have Don Diego casually disarm him with one move with the implied lesson of not to waste energy with such useless flamboyance. Given that this is Zorro, the rest of the movie ignores it for more flynning, but points for trying.
- The Disney TV Version of Zorro in the 1950s somewhat subverted it as well, as Guy Williams, who played Zorro, was actually a champion fencer. His Zorro used a more accurate fencing style, though still stylized to avoid injury.
- Ditto with William's occasional sword fights in Lost In Space
- For all that it looks spectacular (and the dialogue cites real fencing masters and styles), the great battle between Inigo and Westley in The Princess Bride is almost entirely flynning.
- In fact, it is entirely flynning, choreographed by Patinkin and Elwes themselves. It even Lampshades it — at one point, they flynn at each other with their swords quite obviously not colliding at all.
- Not quite entirely. If you watch the My Name Is Inigo Montoya scene closely, there are three parries that Inigo makes that consist of real fencing technique. They are between the first and second time he says the line, and are accompanied by orchestra hits. He easily diverts the six-fingered man's (admittedly widely-telegraphed) thrusts to the side, while keeping the point aimed at him, showing that he is clearly in control.
- The screenplay even says that the characters are Flynning; Wesley and Inigo both being masters with nothing personal driving their fight, they want to enjoy it.
- The lightsaber battles from the original Star Wars trilogy (dubbed "budget kendo" in some circles). The new trilogy's battles are basically the same thing but faster, although both can be Handwaved that since the movies take place A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away, they would probably have developed their own swordfighting styles that depended more on using the Force.
- There's a book that elaborates on lightsaber fencing that's so bad it isn't even funny. See Wookiepedia.
- Partially justified in The Empire Strikes Back in that Luke was still a novice and Vader wasn't actively trying to kill him.
- The Star Wars: Clone Wars miniseries is even worse with its Flynning. Anakin and Asajj Ventress spend their entire fight spastically swinging wide in each other's general direction.
- Flynning is remotely justifiable in lightsaber combat, since lightsabers do not have crossguards (or indeed any protective measures), despite a much bigger need for them. Traditional fencing techniques would quickly result in the dismemberment of both combatants. (It is, however, difficult to justify the fact that in the lightsaber's 10,000-year history, nobody has figured out how to make a crossguard.)
- Exception: Unlike modern performers, many actors from the Golden Age Of Hollywood, such as Basil Rathbone and Tyrone Power, were actually champion swordsmen in Real Life. Combined with a very active fencing scene in Hollywood at the time, this led to superb fights in films where all of the male leads knew what they were doing.
- Rathbone, who played the villain opposite Flynn in Captain Blood and The Adventures Of Robin Hood, actually used his fencing skill to make it look plausible that Flynn won the fight!
- Let's not forget Rathbone vs. Danny Kaye in The Court Jester. Either a brilliant example of this trope or a brilliant parody of it.
- Both. Danny Kaye, though not a skilled fencer, was fast enough and agile enough to keep up with Rathbone in a choreographed fight, thus giving him a rare chance to show off his skill to the fullest. Naturally, he took the opportunity and ran with it.
- Rathbone was approached by Warner Brothers to play opposite Flynn in his third great swashbuckler, The Sea Hawk, but Rathbone, who had a horror of type-casting, turned down the part. It therefore went to Henry Daniell — an excellent actor, but too incompetent with a blade even to flynn convincingly. In the end he had to be doubled extensively by fencing master Fred Cavens.
- This is probably a necessity to some extent, since this editor will attest that having fencing reflexes makes stage fighting a major pain in the ass; you tend to end up attacking the open target instead of the blade.
- Conversely, this is the very reason this troper, who is quite good at stage fighting, refuses to learn fencing despite desperately wanting to - she'd be skewered in seconds.
- The 1952 movie Scaramouche is Crowned with not just a Moment but several straight Minutes of Awesome as Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer methodically Flynn their way through an entire theater, starting the balcony boxes, working down to the lobby, through the main seats, backstage and ending on the stage itself.
- The fight between Sparrow, Turner and Norrington in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. However other swordfights in this trilogy are portrayed far more realistically.
- To be fair, that was probably deliberate, since Jack, Will and Norrington weren't really trying to hurt each other.
- Anything involving ship-to-ship combat is Flynning, since none of the main characters are allowed to die at the hands of a mere boarding party. As a result, Conservation Of Ninjitsu is invoked.
- Averted with a vengeance in the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers: Not only was the swordplay highly realistic (with moves like grabbing the opponent's blade, and hitting them with one's cloak), but all the stars were trained swordsmen. Christopher Lee admitted in an interview that he had to remind Oliver Reed during one of their fights that he wasn't really trying to kill him. It didn't help that the swords they used weren't foils.
- In Broadway Melody of 1940, the dance to "Please Don't Monkey With Broadway" has Fred Astaire and George Murphy Flynning with canes.
- In their introductory scene of The Road To Eldorado, Miguel and Tulio begin a "fight" upon being caught gambling with loaded dice by several guards. It consists mostly of Flynning and banter. Of course, they're not really out to hurt one another and, being a couple of con artists who don't draw a weapon on anyone else in the film, probably don't really know what they're doing anyway.
- 1995's Rob Roy with Liam Neeson climaxes with a duel containing some of the most realistic swordfighting in modern cinema. Though some Flynning occurs, you really get a sense that these two men want to do each other serious bodily harm. Especially with how it ends — Roy grabs his opponant's blade firmly enough for it to lodge into the bones of his hand, then — whack.
- The brief stickfight between Adams and Dickinson in 1776 is rather unconvincing flynning when it's not just the two men grappling.
Literature
- The villain of the Discworld book Maskerade complains about the unrealistic swordplay in operas (the book takes place in the Ankh-Morpork opera house). Ironically, he engages in an overly-clangy swordfight with another character, and dies when his opponent sticks the sword between his arm and his torso. Cue the super-long death speech.
- Including lampshading in the form of one of the parts of the speech is about how someone is able to make a long speech or sing an aria after having been stabbed to death. Then he 'dies' again. Then comes back to life to continue the speech...
- Also lampshaded in Moving Pictures, where an inexperienced human has to fight a veteran troll actor, and doesn't fully realize it's fake. The troll explains that all he has to do is parry dramatically.
- Also-also lampshaded in Wyrd Sisters, where Tomjon gets trapped in every live actor's nightmare: everyone else in the cast has forgotten their lines, gotten distracted, or developed stage fright. The poor guy foresees a fight scene in which he will have to "parry his own wild thrusts and stab himself to death."
- Defied in the Honor Harrington series. Honor is required to fight a duel to the death with an opponent who is an expert at an elaborate Flynn-like fencing style. He starts his fancy moves, she doesn't bother to block, but instead steps in and cuts him in half. Explained later as being a case of what works in fencing doesn't work in combat.
- A rather obnoxious bit of strawman-powered Author Tract, though, isn't it? Like that bit in Snow Crash where Hiro smugly points out why he's better than all those froofy kendo types.
- Not quite as obnoxious as you might think, as it was intended to highlight the difference between tournament fencing, which is designed to demonstrate who has the greater skill (Honor's enemy more than likely), and actual combat, where the goal is to kill your opponent (in which Honor was undoubtably more skilled).
- The two duels that we see in Flag In Exile were patterned on a pair of duels in The Seven Samurai (a movie with no Flynning) from which the Graysons developed their fencing style. The first duel, in the fencing salle is patterned on the duel with sticks between the swordmaster, with a random samurai mook who thinks he's hot stuff. The second duel is the one that followed after the mook argued about who really won the first fight, and insisted on a do-over with real swords. The scene is echoed in The Magnificent Seven in the knife vs. gun fighter scene.
- Given the number of mentions that "In the salle, a touch is just a touch," I always thought it would have been better resolved by having the bad guy cut Honor first, then Honor retaliates by running him through. She was certainly Badass enough to do so.
- Subverted and Lampshaded in The Saga Of Darren Shan. When Darren witnesses a knife fight between Mr. Crepsley and the mad vampaneze Murlough, he expects a drawn out battle with lots of clashing blades. He notes in retrospect that the two were trying to kill one another, not entertain an audience. The fight itself takes all of three seconds, and ends with Murlough brutally cut open.
- An early scene in Exile's Valor features two of Alberich's students deciding to flynn during a class practice bout to show off. Since they aren't nearly as good as they think they are, all they do is embarrass themselves (and get stuck with a hideous bill for salle damage).
- Lampshaded and subverted in The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, when swordsmaster Don Tomsa Maramzalla explains the difference between the lessons he gives to his high-born clientele and those he’ll be giving “Gentleman Bastard” Jean Tannen:
“Those prancing little pants-wetters come here to learn the colorful and gentlemanly art of fencing, with its many sporting limitations and its proscriptions against dishonorable engagements.
“You, on the other hand...you are going to learn how to kill men with a sword.”
Live Action TV
- Any Robin Hood series, except the British Robin Of Sherwood, from the late 1980s/early 1990s. Robin Hood Men In Tights had the characters make shadow puppets!
- Men in Tights also mocks this with the staff fight between Robin and Little John. Their weapons repeatedly break in half throughout the scene, and each time they simply throw half away and continue to attempt flynning, long after the point where any sensible combatants would have simply given up and begun fisticuffs.
- Played with in 'How I Met Your Mother'': when Ted and Marshall got into a heavy argument while holding swords (long story), they start Flynning, but as their sword play gets more elaborate as they try fancy and ridiculous moves, the argument dissolves into "Dude, how awesome is this?"
- Mal's duel with Atherton in the Firefly episode "Shindig" is mostly Flynning. In a subversion, this is because Atherton is clearly toying with Mal, which everyone around realizes... except Mal, who thinks he's doing well.
- In an episode of Slings And Arrows, Geoffrey Tenant burst into a party wielding swords demanding a duel with his rival. Both being classically-trained Shakespearean actors, they naturally Flynn.
- The most horribly botched Flynning this troper has ever seen was Hugh Beringar fighting in the the TV series Cadfael
- Used on several occasions in Doctor Who during the Pertwee/Baker era. This Troper is particularly fond of a fencing scene in The Sea Devils; after the Master disarms the Doctor, and has him pinned in a corner ready to deliver the killing blow, the Doctor escapes by kicking the Master in the balls.
- Played with in Androids of Tara. The fourth Doctor ends up in a duel with "electro-swords". At first he seems incompetent with the blade, merely parrying blows. However, it quickly becomes clear that this is a ruse, as he unleashes more and more skill until finally besting his opponent with ease.
- Justified in the finale of the Evil Green Ranger series of episodes Green With Evil on the original Power Rangers. Jason has to destroy Tommy's sword in order to break Rita's spell and consequently spends much of their duel attacking Tommy's sword. Tommy's Flynning, however, is completely unjustified.
- Partially subverted in The Avengers episode "The Correct Way to Kill." While Steed and the episode's Big Bad engage in egregious Flynning, Mrs. Peel and her ally Olga use proper foil technique on the evil minions. It actually looks more spectacular than the usual fakery.
Professional Wrestling
- Crops up on occasion in Wrestling, where the wrestlers will do this, usually with steel chairs or
kendo sticks Shinai.
- Professional Wrestling in general could be considered a form of Flynning, except with amateur wrestling and martial arts instead of swords.
Video Games
- There is an episode in Final Fantasy IX, where a fighting scene is played on stage. Since the hero pretends to be an actor, a minigame is presented where you literally have to respond with parry high to threaten high etcetera. Your performance is then rated by the audience. No matter how badly you do, you're given a chance to improve your score — the audience demands an encore performance.
- The audience does not demand an encore unless you score sufficiently high. You are free, however to perform as many encores as you like, whether the audience wants them or not.
- Subverted in Devil May Cry 3, after the second battle with Vergil; the twins appear to be Flynning, until one notices the copious amounts of blood on the floor, which demonstrates that their inhuman speed is actually letting them land hits.
- Parodied brilliantly in the Monkey Island series with its famous insult swordfighting. The actual swordsmanship was automatically handled by the computer; the duels' outcomes were determined by the wittiness of the quips the player was able to choose.
- Surprisingly, utilized in the Wii game Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest game. Whereas the previous swordsmanship title (Twilight Princess) only required a small wiggle of the Wiimote to make Link fight, Pirates actually requires the player to flail like Flynn during the fight sequences.
- In Fire Emblem, this is a bit complicated: Fire Emblem 7 (Rekka No Ken) has Eliwood go through a tortuously impractical combat animation where he waits for the sword to gleam impressively, then attacks. His critical-hit animation is even worse, making him swing the rapier around three times before actually stabbing. Fire Emblem 8 (Sacred Stones), however, averts this with Eirika; her normal animation gets right to the point and stabs, and her critical involves her simply taking two steps back, aiming her rapier, and then lunging with deadly force, which really would kill her opponent instantly in a real fight. The Suspension Of Disbelief is a given with knights, dragons, and other large or heavily-armored units, as players assume that she goes for a vulnerable area instead of stabbing at the chest region all the time.
- As a simplification, though, the fact remains that most critical hit animations involve three seconds of spinning the weapon around.
- While the normal melee combat animations in World Of Warcraft tend to be pretty sensible, special attack animations tend the feature unnecessary amounts of spinning around or swinging the weapon. Some races' parry animations tend to be quite flashy, too.
- Inverted in most weapon-based Fighting Games. Instead, thanks to the magic of Hit Points (well, in most cases), characters tend to survive some grievous blows every round. Sword collisions, while generally possible, don't happen too often; in the cases they do, the things that happen vary from game to game, or even from instance to instance, though it’s never Flynning.
Western Animation
- Lampshaded in the DVD Commentary of the Avatar The Last Airbender episode "Sokka's Master", where Sifu Kisu (the show's martial art consultant) noted that "a real sword fight lasts less than 1.7 seconds", and that "it's not a pretty thing", as it would basically come down to finding a vital point and stabbing it. It was justified in that instance though, as it wasn't a real match but a Secret Test Of Character. There also aren't that many Sword Fights in Avatar though.
Web Original
- The Guild : a hand-to-hand combat version at the end of season two, Wade and Zaboo get into a fight, wade spends the entire fight showboating while doing minimal damage, Zaboo takes it like a bitch manages to strike a firm enough friendship with Wade while being pummeled that Wade thinks Codex isn't worth the fight.
Notes
- Much of what could be considered Flynning may actually be a "beat" — deliberately attempting to knock a foe's weapon "out of line" to make it harder for them to get it back in the way before you skewer them. This is especially common in Olympian fencing, where it plays a vital role in scoring hits.
- Beats are performed with the forte, the part of the blade closer to the cross-guard, even using the cross-guard as a hook in some cases. This allows to beat aside the point of the adversary's blade, while keeping yours in line with the target. You never beat an opponent's point aside with your own foible or point, which is what Flynning is all about. A beat should be part of an attack following that line, not to deliberately disengage and attack again as that robs you of the advantage of the beat to begin with.
- Well... this Troper has seen numerous occasions (particularly in epee) wherein one or both fencers have made 'beats' using the foible in order to test out their opponent's temperament, as well as a few occasions (almost wholly in sabre, but occasionally with foil) where they (Fencer A) have taken advantage of the priority rules by tapping Fencer B's blade with the foible of their own just as Fencer B declared their attack (essentially a very subtle and quick parry, allowing them to make a quick attack of their own and take the hit without giving away points). Both types are very distinct from Flynning thanks to the subtlety with which they are performed. An onlooker without fencing knowledge (or who simply isn't paying attention) might well miss it, save for the slight noise as the blades clash.
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