A small sword lies on checked cloth between a yellow arrow near the hilt and a red arrow near the tip.

Original artwork, not a still

Lords and Ladies ‧ 1992

Terry Pratchett

It's not enough to be able to pick up a sword. You have to know which end to poke into the enemy.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Lifting a sword isn't sufficient, the speaker jokes; you also need to know which end goes toward the enemy. It's deadpan humour about the gap between owning a tool and understanding it, with the obvious made absurd by treating it as real expertise.

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