Diana, Fighting Styles, and Martial Arts

[kjn]

Over in the controversial opinions thread, there has been an interesting discussion that I think deserve a better showcase.

Something unique, and exotic, distinct to the Amazons, rather than a known method. There's a tendency to fixate on the disciplines from East Asia, when many cultures, even Europeans, developed effective hand to hand techniques. Pre-British-encounter Hawaiians, for example, developed a particularly nasty method that centered on breaking bones.

Point is, illustrators shouldn't try to mold WW's movements around a known discipline, but make her a master of a system the Amazons developed.

The Amazons should at least have more than one fighting style given how diverse they should be.

Pankration should be enough for them.

I think they could also develop their own fighting styles besides Pankration.

I like the idea of using one based on Pankration. But modified to fit the requirements of the Amazons. Pankration is, well, meant for killing your enemy.

I have to agree on not focusing on eastern techniques. Technically British style boxing counts as a martial art. It's actually quite a powerful striking discipline. Just ask anyone who ever got beat down by Mohammed Ali or Mike Tyson. A novice at Judo, Karate or Kung-fu will lose to an experienced boxer.

I've personally only studied MACP and MCC. They focus on a mix of disarming and incapacitating opponents, but with a sub-focus on having options for doing so without creating permanent harm.

Well, it could kill, but it had a lot of grappling moves as well. And given that grappling techniques are considered very useful in all sorts of fighting with weapons (especially in armour), it could be a good basis.

The main thing about pankration is that we don't know a lot about how it was done (apart from some descriptions from matches and some pictures on pottery). The movie I think did a rather interesting synthesis of various styles, but I'd like to see some more punching and definitely more grappling with throws and holds for submission.

There is a very interesting analysis of Wonder Woman's movie fighting styles over on Yotube. Well worth a look, if you haven't seen it.



If we are to look at pankration images, it seems that the hand strikes are more boxing-style than karate-style, so taking some boxing techniques might make sense. On the other hand, the use of karate (or tae kwon do) style hand strikes doesn't really bother me, because the Amazons might have their own techniques that only partially overlap with historical pankration, and also since they might have developed it on their own for a very long time.

But you see lots of holds and chokes, so freestyle wrestling should be a natural style to be inspired by when designing how Diana fights. It is also close in and brutal.

In a way, I'd like Diana (and the rest of the Amazons) to more or less be able to at will switch between three combat styles, both when fighting armed and unarmed. One similar to capoeira or gatka, with lots of rotations, flashiness, and dance-like movements. One a grappling and wrestling style, drawing from pankration and its modern "descendants" like greco-roman and freestyle wrestling. Last one inspired by pankration, muay thai, or the Hawiian style that DrNewGod mentioned: direct, close-in, and brutal.

All three should be really usable and practical, but in different contexts. The "dance" should be used for multiple opponents, or when the focus is more on protecting yourself than hurting your opponent. The "grappling" to subdue a single opponent. And last the "direct" to kill or maim.