by Nathanial Ramos
If Hollywood has taught the world anything about war, it’s that the good guys win single-handedly, and they often do so with some serious cinematic flair. But it turns out that when depicting war, there’s more to it than meets the eye. In my effort to be as fair as possible, here’s a list of what Fox: Season IV got right and wrong about war. Drum roll, please!
What Fox Got Right
The hero of the story didn’t win the war, the soldiers did
Photo: Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Although we don’t see wide shots of Xoatian soldiers battling hordes of Dream Demons, we know they’re there and have seen many fighting (and even perishing) in close-ups on the battlefield. However, as much as the show focused on Fox and the Brotherhood, they did not win the war, the soldiers did.
Photo: Monroe Hayden, Sheana Turner, and Hunter Tabiendo in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Major blockbuster films love to focus on war stories where the fate of the war depends on one or two characters, but in real life, the fate of war depends on millions of people. Even though many iconic people distinguished themselves with their singular bravery, battles never depended on the doings of a single person.
The soldiers have matching uniforms
Photo: Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
With the exception of the captains and archers, the soldiers on the field had matching uniforms. Characters in films wear their uniforms differently so that audiences can distinguish who is who, but in real life, all soldiers must follow a code. This is why it is hard to distinguish who is who on an actual battlefield. It would be very difficult to find any particular person in a war zone. The only people who have different uniforms are the Brotherhood but they aren’t soldiers, they’re a group of vigilantes.
Almost everyone was young and had their whole lives ahead of them
Photo: Hunter Tabiendo and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
In major blockbuster films, older actors add gravitas to a role; so too does the knowledge that the majority of those who fight and die in war still have their whole lives ahead of them. The older characters in Fox ended up being too weak to keep up with the younger generation fighting against them or had to find those who were their equal.
Photo: Steven Acedo and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
The perfect example is the final showdown between Fox and Rath. Prior to the final episodes, the series depicted the main villain as aging and having trouble walking due to an infected leg injury.
Photo: Bryon Allen, Sheana Turner, and Janelle Garcia in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Or with Sylvan and Eve; since they are the same age, they are each other's equal to face off, but once you add Deja to the mix, the fight ends pretty quickly. Even with the numbers against him, Sylvan was able to fight Xoatian soldiers two at a time, but Deja’s youthful energy and skills outmatch the tall, handsome traitor, most likely due to his age.
In real life (let’s use WWII as an example), the average soldier was much younger than the average age of the actors who portray them on film. Even combat officers tended to be young, averaging around 26 years old. In Fox, all the older characters like Rath, Eve, and Sylvan met their end on the battlefield. The older you are, the less likely it is you will actually fight in a war zone, due to the fact that you either have useful knowledge that is too important or you’re too old to fight and will end up dying.
Arrows ran out
Photo: Monroe Hayden and Jade Vourkari in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Supply chains are an ever-underrated and pivotal aspect of warfare, and the limitations thereof have always ensured that real-life soldiers were a lot more conservative with their arrows than their blockbuster counterparts. Daisy is an excellent example of one who ran out of ammunition frequently, as she is often seen collecting arrows off the ground to reuse them. Even if the sharp arrowhead was left in a body, the end of the stem of an arrow could still do some major damage to the poor soul on the other end. In addition, the last time we see or even hear arrows are when Daisy and Fox are in the trenches, indicating that both sides had run out of arrows, hence why the Xoatian trenches were empty. After running out, troops most likely moved onto the battlefield.
The Great Battle took place on unlevel terrain and in varying weather conditions
Photo: Monroe Hayden, Janelle Garcia, and Christian Reed in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Of course, real wars are fought in every type of weather imaginable, and on diverse terrain. In fact, weather played such an important role in the war in Germany that the Germans initially suffered from their lack of prognostication ability, until they made a point of invading two prime weather-watching nations in Denmark and Norway in 1940.
In Fox, the weather and terrain change frequently throughout the last two episodes, and although it's mostly for dramatic effect, it still holds true for actual wars that were fought.
Photo: Bryon Allen and Janelle Garcia in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Many actors appear to be shorter than usual or struggling to run throughout the final episodes due to the harsh environment and rugged ground below them. Backdrops are also uneven as hills and dips create unlevel trees. However, with Hollywood blockbusters, it’s convenient that so many battles happen to take place during the sort of weather and terrain that are particularly conducive to easy filming.
The war was long
Photo: Steven Acedo and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Although the Great Battle was short, the war itself lasted 23 years (the age of Fox). War is a very long struggle that one battle won’t fix and oftentimes lasts many years.
The characters were losing the energy to keep fighting
Photo: Hunter Tabiendo in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Fighting is an incredible task that requires endurance. Being able to continue to fight one soldier after another is not impossible but it is very, very difficult. If running full speed for 15 minutes (without slowing down) is hard, then imagine having to put in that much energy into every step and move every time you fight someone. And of course, you’re going to keep going as much as you can because your life literally depends on it!
Photo: Sheana Turner in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
The characters on the show were all losing their energy to keep going towards the end. From Deja no longer having the strength to hold on to her glaive, to Oron submitting to the number of soldiers ganging up on him, to Fox being so out of breath that she couldn’t face Anu with the same amount of strength as she did Rath moments earlier. She even got so tired that she repeated the same moves against him, which Anu (who sat out the majority of the battle) was fully pumped for and mentally aware of.
Not everyone used a sword
Photo: Sheana Turner in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Sword fights are inherently cinematic. Onscreen, medieval warfare often boils down to thousands of individual sword fights. Not only does every combatant wield either a sword or a longsword, when the fighting starts, everyone pairs up with an enemy and bangs their swords together until one of them gets the advantage.
The truth is, swords are wildly over-represented in Hollywood.
Since Gan Adan shares many similarities with our medieval era, weapons are made for specific purposes. Swords are great for up-close fighting, but glaives, pikes, and spears offer much more reach. For everything else, you'd want a mace, morning star, war hammer, or another bludgeoning weapon.
Battle lines weren’t distinguished neatly
Photo: Jade Vourkari and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
You might not realize it, but in the scene where Daisy finds herself alone with a gang of Dream Demons closing in on her is due to her accidentally crossing into enemy territory, suggested in the shot before when she was collecting arrows and no one was running with her but rather towards her. This is the reason Fox runs to her rescue. After they are able to fight off the Demon soldiers, Fox quickly leads Daisy back to “safer” grounds, meaning they have to go through the trenches. Trenches are usually located in the front of a war zone, indicating that they are traveling back to familiar ground, most likely so she can defend in a larger group.
The trenches didn’t look like they were recently dug up for that purpose. They looked like they had been there for years and that could suggest that many battles were fought on that land in the past. Gan Adan culture shares a resemblance to various cultures we have here on Earth. In the case of Gan Adan, establishing armies would indicate years (possibly centuries) of warfare history. The trenches were most likely used to help troops block possible lines of advance.
Photo: Monroe Hayden and Jade Vourkari in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Most battles often match the above description; in fact, many saw soldiers fighting in all manner of terrain and without always having the benefits of nice and neat battle lines. Further evidence of that notion is given by the fatal friendly fire incidents that take place during real battles, including mistakes that leave hundreds dead at a time.
What Fox Got Wrong
Everything important in the war was done by The Brotherhood
Photo: Hunter Tabiendo in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
If there’s one thing that Hollywood serves to reinforce, it’s that the good guys win more-or-less single-handedly, with only the occasional assist from an ally for the sake of variety. Although the soldiers did win the battle, it was Daisy who blew the horn to send in the Xoatian army at the last second when they needed it most. In real life, that horn would have been lost on the field, and if it were found, depending on who discovered it, it would have most likely been blown before the last second that added dramatic effect or would be broken so it couldn’t have been blown at all.
Photo: Monroe Hayden and Christian Reed in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Additionally, most of the focused one-on-one battles were between Fox and Rath, then later Fox and Anu, when in reality the two villains would have had a hard time finding Fox to fight in the first place on a crowded battlefield. This logic can also be extended to the other characters as well. It would be highly unlikely that Deja and Oron would have been present to aid Eve and Daisy in the nick of time.
It didn’t accurately portray the carnage on a battlefield
Photo: Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
This is most likely due to the parental rating but still worthy of a mention. Films and shows of PG-13 and TV-14 ratings, respectively, can’t accurately portray the horror that goes down in war. Although all the actors are covered in mud, dirt, sweat, rainwater, and blood, it still doesn’t accurately depict the hell that is war, the kind of hell that can only be replicated by the hardest of R or MA ratings. In medieval warfare, injuries sustained by swords and arrows undoubtedly produced far more gruesome injuries than those seen on the big screen. If a film were to accurately portray the true, ceaseless carnage of war, it would sicken most viewers, as it did for many of those who had to witness it firsthand.
The Great Battle was quick!
Photo: Christian Reed and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Battles are an enormous undertaking, and it takes an appropriately immense amount of time. Without modern technology, it would take longer for people to die and for soldiers to fight due to the amount of energy required to keep going.
Characters carried on normal conversations over all the noise
Photos: Steven Acedo and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Amid the chaos of battle, two or more characters engage in pages full of dialogue. Real battles were exceedingly loud, so much so that they caused mass hearing loss; such cacophony would certainly make carrying out conversations during battle near impossible. However, you can’t make a film and have the background noises louder than the important dialogue spoken, so this mistake is understandable.
One-on-one fights were private
Photo: Monroe Hayden and Christian Reed in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Despite the excellent background noises, whenever characters fought one another, conveniently no one was around. This is probably due to a budget issue but still worthy of a mention. In a real war, it would be highly unlikely that two people would be able to separate from the rest of the battle, let alone privately host their own duels.
Arrows miss important people
Photo: Monroe Hayden and Jade Vourkari in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
The show depicts arrows flying everywhere while Fox and Daisy were in the trenches yet the only character to be hit by one was Fox. In reality, both Daisy and Fox would have sustained injuries caused by one or even multiple arrows. In fact, there would have been more arrow-inflicted injuries than the show depicted. Speaking of arrows...
You can pull an arrow out quickly with little to no consequences
Photo: Jade Vourkari and Monroe Hayden in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
In conjunction with the previous point, in the trenches, Daisy famously pulls an arrow out of Fox and uses it to shoot an opposing soldier. This may be badass but a very bad idea in real life. An arrow shot into a body could cause an even worse effect when being pulled out. Triangular arrowheads often had barbs that tore the flesh on the way out, causing more blood and injury and further risking death.
Even as late as the 19th century, military surgeons considered arrow wounds to be among the most fatal. Arrows are specifically designed to get stuck in the body and be incredibly painful and difficult to remove. In fact, they are very difficult for medical professionals to remove, and doing it yourself would have been incredibly painful. Assuming the arrow didn't break any of your bones or damage your organs, you would then be at risk of infection. While Fox is a hybrid and is recognized for healing faster than an ordinary member of both species, an arrow wound will still slow you down. However, it adds some really cool dramatic effect that gets the point across about who the characters are both individually and as a couple.
Sword fights were filled with cool tricks!
Photo: Monroe Hayden and Christian Reed in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
When two characters fight one-on-one with swords, it often resembles an elaborately choreographed dance routine. A typical movie sword fighter might use cool tricks and other kinds of fancy footwork. That type of sword fighting is really a form of 19th-century aristocratic dueling. Medieval sword fighting was a lot more brutal, and even though Fox takes place in another dimension, the culture of Gan Adan shares similar traits to our medieval era, where fighters are taught to win at all costs, even if it’s uncivilized.
In a real battle, doing a spin move would have been particularly dangerous, because it leaves your back exposed to the enemy (unless they're also doing a spin move at the same time). But it sure keeps audiences engaged and that’s the only reason Hollywood showcases so many tricks in a sword duel. The key thing to remember is that your audience has been sitting there expecting some excitement. If they wanted to watch something entirely accurate, they’d watch a documentary, not a scripted film or show.
Helmets are optional
Photo: Steven Acedo in Fox © SkySoft Entertainment
Stepping onto a battlefield without a helmet makes absolutely no sense. Yet in so many medieval battle scenes, the heroes and villains do battle bareheaded, even if everyone else around them is wearing protective headgear. The reason movies and TV shows do this is because, well, the stars' faces need to be visible. But in reality, helmets were an essential part of every soldier's kit, even the poorest ones.
All in all, it would be rather difficult to accurately depict war on the big screen without repulsing your audience, boring them with the lack of story, or even confusing them with who’s who. Taking on battle scenes is a pretty massive undertaking on its own, requiring the assistance of many people. From actors, fight choreographers, makeup artists, special effects, and sound (just to name a few), those who take on such daunting tasks deserve a nod of respect at the very least, so here’s to you all!
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