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Shaun wrote:What about silver plating, it wouldn't work for the cutting edge, but it would on the rest of the weapon.

You could make the cutting edge silver, you'd just ruin the edge pretty quickly, though with my vision of how it inflicts damage (cleaving flesh away as if it wasn't there) that doesn't matter as the blade cuts through easily enough that the blade doesn't blunt too fast, and even when blunted would be a formiable weapon. *shrug*

Like a silver lightsaber!

Shaun wrote:Like a silver lightsaber!

uhh...

Something tells me I've just made a fool of myself

Shaun wrote:Something tells me I've just made a fool of myself

Next time...put the hat on. --->

Shaun wrote:Something tells me I've just made a fool of myself

It wouldn't have been as funny if you hadn't called attention to it.

True.
I'm just going to not make any comments for a while

naw its ok, we should thank for giving us a good laugh in this topic.

ok, let me clear up your 'vision' that silver cleaves werewolf flesh, Aki, with a simple question for you to answer.

WHY and HOW does silver cleave werewolf flesh so easily?

and give a defendable answer. not something as simple as "it's magic" or "werewolves are weak against silver". at the very least your answer will clear up my confusion.

A quote from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen:

"Why, why, why! Because it's all logic and reason now. Science,
progress, laws of hydraulics, laws of social dynamics, laws of this, that, ..."

Hey, we are talking about a pretty mythical creature here, so why not something not scientific in nature regarding silver as well?

The way I see it...IF silver is a problem for werewolves (which in my view, it wouldn't be)...the change in DNA caused by the virus also introduces an allergy to silver.

After all, allergies are genetic.

I can't possibly explain for the life of my WHY that would happen...BUT, I also can't explain why being a CARRIER of sickle cell anemia gives the body a natural immunity to malaria. All I know is that it happens.

That's how I see it with the silver allergy. The immunity to malaria thing is, as far as I know, a lucky genetic accident. We didn't evolve in such a way so that the carriers of this disorder would be immune to malaria. It just kinda happened, and the immunity thing is a side effect. That's how I see the silver allergy for a werewolf (except it's more of an unlucky accident instead).

Honestly, though, a silver weakness for werewolves never really made since to me, from a scientific perspective. Which is why I favor magic and supernatural stuff, because then, hey, it's magic.

Excelsia wrote:I can't possibly explain for the life of my WHY that would happen...BUT, I also can't explain why being a CARRIER of sickle cell anemia gives the body a natural immunity to malaria. All I know is that it happens.

The gene(s) involved in sickle-cell anemia produces a variant on the hemoglobin molecule found in red blood cells. The malaria parasite has a couple of problems interacting with red blood cells with this type of hemoglobin and so carriers of sickle-cell anemia have an increased resistance to malaria

Lupin wrote:

Excelsia wrote:I can't possibly explain for the life of my WHY that would happen...BUT, I also can't explain why being a CARRIER of sickle cell anemia gives the body a natural immunity to malaria. All I know is that it happens.

The gene(s) involved in sickle-cell anemia produces a variant on the hemoglobin molecule found in red blood cells. The malaria parasite has a couple of problems interacting with red blood cells with this type of hemoglobin and so carriers of sickle-cell anemia have an increased resistance to malaria

Cool! IMO, some biological reaction of the same level of strangeness and obscurity should occur to result in an allergy to silver upon contraction of the werewolf virus.

Lupin wrote:

Excelsia wrote:I can't possibly explain for the life of my WHY that would happen...BUT, I also can't explain why being a CARRIER of sickle cell anemia gives the body a natural immunity to malaria. All I know is that it happens.

The gene(s) involved in sickle-cell anemia produces a variant on the hemoglobin molecule found in red blood cells. The malaria parasite has a couple of problems interacting with red blood cells with this type of hemoglobin and so carriers of sickle-cell anemia have an increased resistance to malaria

The problem arises in that the now-defective hemoglobin causes the red blood cell to burst when subjected to stress, and or that the red blood cells would now get stuck in small blood vessels, and cut off the blood supply to those areas.
Carriers of sickle cell anemia have a normal copy of the hemoglobin, as well as the faulty, sickle-cell version, so that they can make a healthy amount of red blood cells with normal hemoglobin to offset the amount of defective hemoglobin and sickle-cell red blood cells.
The malarial parasite, genus Plasmodium, attacks people by entering into red blood cells, and gobbling up the hemoglobin while replicating, until the cell bursts open, and the new parasites wander off to repeat the process.
The benefit of sickle cell anemia is that the parasite enters into the sickle cell, and the cell bursts and dies, killing the parasite. Essentially, the benefit is that the sickle-cell carrier has one less kind of cell the malarial parasite can infect (most can infect red blood cells and liver cells).

actually, i was asking aki about something else. this thread has already discussed the allergy idea, and i agree with it for the most part. but what i actually ASKED was why and how, in Aki's theory, silver cuts through werewolf flesh so easily, NOT why it affects werewolves. i see no logical reasoning behind it aside from saying that 'magic' causes it.
i want something rational and 'provable'. i mean provable if werewolves actually existed. it could be proven that an allergic reaction makes silver deadly to werewolves, but an allergy cannot explain how silver could cut through a werewolf's flesh like a hot knife through butter. i find that part of Aki's theory impossable to describe.

Apokryltaros wrote:The benefit of sickle cell anemia is that the parasite enters into the sickle cell, and the cell bursts and dies, killing the parasite. Essentially, the benefit is that the sickle-cell carrier has one less kind of cell the malarial parasite can infect (most can infect red blood cells and liver cells).

The sickle hemoglobin also provides another benifit: Evidently the parasites have a problem metabolizing the hemoglobin present in indivduals with the trait. They believe that it's due to the polymerization that the hemoglobin undergoes.

Actually, it's even better; when the malaria parasite attacks a cell with sickling hemoglobin, the cell forms a sickle around the parasite, physically squeezing around the organism, in essence strangulating it. It's a strange evolutionary adaptation in which something that is both a weakness (anemia and vascular problems from sickle cell crisis) and a strength (resistance to malaria) has come about. And, because it's one gene, the people who are best off in malaria-infected regions are heterozygotes--that is, they have one normal and one sickling gene. The normal gene keeps the cells from sickling too easily, whereas the sickling gene does its trick after any untimely encounter with a tsetse fly.

I've never gone for the 'allergic to silver' thing. I see it more as silver inhibiting the 'healing factor' that lets werewolves regenerate from near-fatal injuries. Realistically silver shouldn't hurt a werewolf any more that it hurts anyone else. Imagine the shocked dentist that applies a silver/mercury amalgam to his patient's tooth, which then causes the werewolf's mouth to catch fire, or drops straight throug to the cair as though the werewolf wasn't even there.

Kavik wrote:Imagine the shocked dentist that applies a silver/mercury amalgam to his patient's tooth, which then causes the werewolf's mouth to catch fire, or drops straight throug to the cair as though the werewolf wasn't even there.

Aha! That's the real reason that people are saying densists shouldn't use silver amalgam for fillings ;)

Scott Gardener wrote:Actually, it's even better; when the malaria parasite attacks a cell with sickling hemoglobin, the cell forms a sickle around the parasite, physically squeezing around the organism, in essence strangulating it. It's a strange evolutionary adaptation in which something that is both a weakness (anemia and vascular problems from sickle cell crisis) and a strength (resistance to malaria) has come about. And, because it's one gene, the people who are best off in malaria-infected regions are heterozygotes--that is, they have one normal and one sickling gene. The normal gene keeps the cells from sickling too easily, whereas the sickling gene does its trick after any untimely encounter with a tsetse fly.

Just to be nitpicky, what with being the resident buglord here, but, tse-tse flies transmit the infectious agent of sleeping sickness, Trypanosoma brucei, and that sickle-cell anemia has no advantage against sleeping sickness, given as how T. brucei does not reside in the red blood cell like Plasmodium.

celtwolf wrote:ok, let me clear up your 'vision' that silver cleaves werewolf flesh, Aki, with a simple question for you to answer.

WHY and HOW does silver cleave werewolf flesh so easily?

and give a defendable answer. not something as simple as "it's magic" or "werewolves are weak against silver". at the very least your answer will clear up my confusion.

I only use that for Werewolves affected by Silver, IE ones that are at least in part, magical. So why? Well, in this case there is no answer but magic. Its a built in weakness. Just in my vision, the weakness manifests as cutting through flesh like paper, rather than searing it, or disabling shifting. Or anything else.

For most-to-entirely-non-magic Weres I see them as unaffected by silver. Well, as unaffected as a human is. Meaniong both will die from a silver blade through the skull, but neither will be terribly affected by being nicked with some silver.

ah, ok then. thanks Aki.

I'd write a huge speach on this topic about the silver weakness, and its affects on werewolves but I think the reply would only restate the obvious in this post.

Just to be nitpicky, what with being the resident buglord here, but, tse-tse flies transmit the infectious agent of sleeping sickness, Trypanosoma brucei

Oops; my bad.