"Why do you hate the shape of breasts in plate armor so much?"
Since people often ask âAlright, well this is fantasy! Why canât we have boob shapes in plate armor?!â I decided to make a post about it. My frustration has nothing to do with historical inaccuracy and Iâm all for imagination and freedomâ but Iâd like to (very quickly) illustrate this for you:
I purposely over-emphasized the shape of the two spheres in the armor so you can really think about this.Â
Look at the shape of the blue cups and the green line, think about the form of that on some beautiful ornate plate armor. A female warrior is charging into battle. In the midst of this, she trips! Or is pushed over, or takes a blow to the chest! So long as the force is on the front of her torso it really doesnât matter for the conclusion:
She feels a sharp pain in her chest and hears the cracking of bone! Oh no, whatâs gone wrong? Well she doesnât have time to think about that, because she is now dead.
Her sternum just fractured, take another look at that green line, thatâs where all of the pressure from any front impact is going to go because of the shape of the two blue cups made for her breasts. The rest of the armor slides around your body, but because of the two cups for breasts that are often made in fantasy female armors, the pressure point is directly on the sternum. The breasts are not going to stop the force of you falling onto them, and because of that the metal is going to push in and bash you in the sternum.
What does a fractured sternum do? Why it goes right into your heart and lungs of course.
(that was the sound of all of my followers inhaling a sharp breath between closed teeth at once)
Here are three great solutions to the problem:
GREAT EXAMPLE OF FANTASY TORSO ARMOR THAT IS FEMININE BUT FUNCTIONAL:
It is usually possible to bind the breasts when fighting if they really are far too large to fit into regular looking armor (thereâs padding anyway), but most women can actually fit into a similarly sized male counterpartâs armor quite easily. Even if thatâs the case, the armor can be made to have a curve to it without putting all of the pressure in one area, which was actually a style of armor for quite some time as shown here:
And donât even get me started on the dreaded âCleavage Windowâ
The âCleavage Windowâ defeats the purpose of having any armor on your torso because it means youâre just going to be leaving open the vital organs the rest of the armor is trying to protect.
If people are going to protect themselves and not have much torso protection, invest in some blocking lessons, because the best defense is to not get hit at all. There are also advantages to not having plate armor, and plate armor was often really expensive anyway.
supaslim replied to your post: âWhy do you hate the shape of breasts in plate armor so much?â
Iâd also like to add that boob bulges direct blows straight to the sternum as well, rather than making them glance to either side. Good post.