# A little weapon for a little lady.



## Stormcat (Jan 4, 2018)

My main character is a 90-pound waif in a Victorian-era fantasy world. She is a spy and can use her "sweet young lady" appearance to make people think she's harmless and innocent. However, there is still the chance she could get caught in the act and needs something to defend herself with.

In order to keep up her "sweet young lady" facade, she'll need something very discreet and easy to carry. She is incapable of lifting anything more than 20 pounds, so it should also be lightweight. I'm thinking hidden weapons of some sort, but I don't know where to start. Most women's self-defense classes teach how to escape, but my MC needs to actually kill.


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## escorial (Jan 4, 2018)

flick hammer


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## Terry D (Jan 4, 2018)

A hat-pin with a lethal blade. Ladies also often carried 'lady-canes', so one of those could be rigged with a blade, or even a small gun. If you Google cane-guns you'll see what I mean.


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## Darkkin (Jan 4, 2018)

A stiletto or a garrote, the garrote in particular is not something a larger opponent would expect.  And only 33 pounds of force are required to be fatal.  A mere 4 pounds of force is enough to render unconsciousness.  And it should be noted that when one is small, you have a lower, well balanced center of gravity.  Not a lot of weight to toss around, but enough, when properly controlled.  Personal experience...95 pounds levered against 200 + pounds of books on a regular basis.  Basic physics, get an angle and exploit gravity.


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## Stormcat (Jan 4, 2018)

escorial said:


> flick hammer



I've never heard of such a thing. What is it?


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## Plasticweld (Jan 4, 2018)

I have been beaten up, knocked out, my bones broken, more stitches than I can count.  I still have part of a bullet in my head.  The time I was hurt the worst, the pain that lingered the longest, was when a 90 pound 14-year-old girl broke my 14-year-old heart.  You’re writing fantasy; while just about everyone has had their heart broken, most have no idea what it is like to kill someone.  Just a suggestion, sometimes writing what you know is more powerful than what you guess.


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## LeeC (Jan 4, 2018)

Stormcat said:


> My main character is a 90-pound waif in a Victorian-era fantasy world. She is a spy and can use her "sweet young lady" appearance to make people think she's harmless and innocent. However, there is still the chance she could get caught in the act and needs something to defend herself with.
> 
> In order to keep up her "sweet young lady" facade, she'll need something very discreet and easy to carry. She is incapable of lifting anything more than 20 pounds, so it should also be lightweight. I'm thinking hidden weapons of some sort, but I don't know where to start. Most women's self-defense classes teach how to escape, but my MC needs to actually kill.



One doesn't necessarily need anything other than themselves. My wife took a selfdefense course where one thing they taught was to go for the eyes. Beyond selfdefense, once an opponent is blinded they can easily be downed, and an article of their clothing stuffed down their throat far enough to suffocate them. Gruesome but effective.


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## Stormcat (Jan 4, 2018)

Plasticweld said:


> I have been beaten up, knocked out, my bones broken, more stitches than I can count. I still have part of a bullet in my head. The time I was hurt the worst, the pain that lingered the longest, was when a 90 pound 14-year-old girl broke my 14-year-old heart. You’re writing fantasy; while just about everyone has had their heart broken, most have no idea what it is like to kill someone. Just a suggestion, sometimes writing what you know is more powerful than what you guess.



Um... I'm *NOT* writing a love story here. It's a novel set in a theocratic dystopia where medical treatment of any kind is forbidden and women are regarded as little more than walking incubators. My MC isn't trying to have a love story, she's trying to topple an abusive regime.

Also, My MC is also a married woman. No Namby-pamby bull about trying to find her TWOO WUV here!


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## riotwyatt (Jan 4, 2018)

Maybe a small blade of some sort, like a pocketknife. It can easily be hidden in stockings or bodices.


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## Sam (Jan 5, 2018)

IIRC, you've already been given the answer to this. 

Simply put, the best weapon for a undersized, underweight person to use against bigger and stronger enemies is a garrote, for many reasons but absolutely because it uses the heavier person's body weight against them. 

Failing that, and if you're still hung up on going that way, give her a karambit. Shaped like a deadly claw, this knife fits neatly inside even the daintiest hand and becomes devastating when the person wielding it knows where to strike on the human body to cause massive blood-loss.


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## Stormcat (Jan 5, 2018)

LeeC said:


> One doesn't necessarily need anything other than themselves. My wife took a selfdefense course where one thing they taught was to go for the eyes. Beyond selfdefense, once an opponent is blinded they can easily be downed, and an article of their clothing stuffed down their throat far enough to suffocate them. Gruesome but effective.



I am well aware that she can use herself as a lethal weapon, but that would require a bit of training, And I've never written a training montage before.


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