EvilHomer - 2013-11-11
Between Oderus and Lindybeige? I think the debate would be resolved quite easily.
You see, Lloyd's argument rests primarily on the contention that wearers of spiked armor would not be using said armor as a weapon all that often. Battles were rare, so spiked armor would be bulky and impractical 99% of the time, for very little payoff during the short period in which it was used.
Oderus, however, is not a puny human warrior, the sort who fights a battle on average only once or twice a month. Oderus slays on a near-constant basis, or at least he did, prior to frozen in Antarctica as punishment for his war crimes. For a Scumdog like Oderus, the ratio of use-to-non-use would be virtually reversed; he uses his armor as a weapon 99% of the time, the other 1% he's either smoking pot, defiling Earth girls, or playing concerts (spikes can be useful in all three of these activities, as well!). I put it to you that, FOR HIM, spiked armor is a very useful tool.
As for Lloyd's contention that spiked armor would catch blows rather than deflect them, well, yes, I suppose he's right. The blows of earth-weapons, of the sort used by medieval warriors, would indeed get caught on whopping great spikes, much to the detriment of the armor's wearer. Yet Oderus, by and large, does NOT fight opponents who wield these sorts of weapons. Oderus Urungus' typical opponent will either be:
1. A primitive and/or mindless creature (such as zombies or space dinosaurs), who will be using it's own body as a weapon (spiked armor is VERY useful against a creature who can only bite or use a slam attack), or
2. A highly advanced sentient being, whose primary weaponry will be of the sort that *does not* get caught on spikes, such as plasma rifles or, perhaps, depleted uranium cannons.
I offer as evidence for these points, the fact that Oderus fights the majority of his battles in space, documentary accounts from both primary and secondary sources (comics, lyrics, fanfiction etc), and (in keeping with my opponent Lindybeige's preferred defense for armaments which most other historians believe to have been ineffectual) the behavior of Oderus himself. Oderus has used spiked armor continuously for thousands of years; surely, if it DIDN'T WORK, he'd have come up with a better design.
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