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| - Metal or wood for personal protection -- not those fancy crackly deflecting bubble things. Historically, shields are a staple of pre-gunpowder warfare, carried in a warrior's off-hand to guard his vital organs and help protect against arrows. Knights are known for carrying large kite shields with their heraldry brightly emblazoned on them, and the Phalanx of the Greeks and Romans uses walls of shields to protect soldiers. Most fictional characters seem to find a BFS or Dual-Wielding to be cooler, deciding that Shields Are Useless, but there are more than a few who swear by a shield to guard themselves! Shields come in all shapes and sizes, and can be made out of anything from wood to Unobtainium to pure energy. Sometimes they're paired with a sword or other one-handed weapon, but oddly often they're used on their own -- the mark of a Technical Pacifist, Improbable Weapon User or someone who just got screwed by the armoury. Bashing someone with a shield is actually a historical use of shields, and in RPGs this usually serves to stun or knock back a foe. Throwing your shield is also another useful attack. Shields are also good for riding on. They can also have other designs emblazoned on them, such as faces. Not to be confused with Character Shield or Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me (although one may shout "Luckily my shield will protect me!" to invoke the latter trope). Somewhat similar to Deployable Cover. Shields in film and fiction tend to be far more durable and effective than contemporary accounts would suggest. In the Iliad, warriors are regularly described thrusting their spears right through their opponents' shields. Norse sagas generally describe warriors' round shields being battered to pieces after a few minutes of combat. The Romans, meanwhile, preferred to disable their enemies' shields by throwing pilum javelins into them, which would bend on impact and prove very hard to pull out, making the shields too cumbersome to use. But none of this is much seen in modern entertainment. Medieval shields frequently sported colorful coats of arms, and movie directors have duly taken full advantage of that fact to make their heroes' armor more spectacular. Less commonly seen in fiction has been the historical use of shields to carry people living or dead. Many ancient Germanic tribes inaugurated a new king by raising him on a shield. Spartan mothers proverbially warned their sons to come back with their shields or on them, because dead men were carried on their shields. (Coming back "with" your shield, on the other hand, supposedly proved you had faced battle bravely, because a fleeing man would always throw away his heavy shield). This is, rather surprisingly, often an anachronism even when placed into Renaissance- or Reformation-era stories. Once plate armor became common, most forms of large shield were on the outs, since they were now redundant in protecting the legs. The Renaissance-era shield, the buckler, is often derided in fantasy settings and tabletop settings as the bargain-bin shield, but it's actually the most advanced of the lot. In fact, despite rarely being depicted using those, the buckler is where the Swashbuckler gets his name from. Aversions to this trope are Shields Are Useless. Examples of Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me include:
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)