Flint is one of the biggest and strongest people in the village, and Carver is a bit on the small side. They've just made love, and they're still in close proximity as Carver talks about how together they can rebel and undermine the villains. Then Flint breaks Carver's right arm, intending to permanently cripple her, and hands her over to the villains. She's switched to using her left arm in the present-day timeline several years later. How easily can Flint do this? If he's aiming to cripple, can he do it by hand, or does he need a heavy object? How should I describe the process of Flint doing this? Would it be fast, or would he need multiple motions?
I think it is dependent of whether Flint has formal training in breaking bones, or not. What kind of break: upper, lower, or shoulder? With the right amount of strength he could dislocate the wrist or shoulder. Like disjointing, and can cause damage to the surrounding tissues. Equally so in breaking the forearm. It would take more skill to break the arm at the elbow, or upper arm. He would need the proper amount of strength and leverage to do either successfully. Alternatively he could use a blunt instrument to break the bones. In short, it can be fairly simple, considering bones can handle stress on end, better than in the shaft where they are more vulnerable. The femur can withstand an immense amount of weight if it is upright, but turn it 90 degrees and it will snap under much less strain. Hope this helps, but would recommend looking into bone breaking in hand to hand combat for more realistic explanation. Good Luck.
Their tribe was fairly isolated before the villains showed up, so Flint doesn't have a background in fighting other humans. He's a hunter, so he knows animal anatomy and basic first aid, but I'm not sure how well that translates to hurting people. Flint's plan would probably be to make it harder for her to use a weapon. What I'm going for in the present timeline is that she has to use her left hand to hold her knife when carving wooden figurines. I'm not sure where the break should be to facilitate that.
Break the wrist/hand, that will hinder the use of limb. This seems the simplest considering he can stomp on the area on a hard surface and cause the breaks. Or he can use his hands to bend or crush, provided he has the strength. Just another idea.
Physics question as a reply. Despite being bigger and stronger, Flint's bones are around the same strength as Carver's, unless he has specifically been working to strengthen them. If he were to apply enough force, using only his hands, to break one of her bones, what is to prevent him from breaking one of his bones instead? Bone is a lot tougher than it looks on tv. Breaking an arm bone with your hand is just about impossible, unless you have specifically been trained to break bones with your hands.
If your world doesn't have modern medicine, breaking a few fingers would probably be enough. You could easily write it into the story that the break was set badly causing lifelong problems.
hm.. a large rock crushing the shoulder would certainly leave someone crippled without the least bit of medical attention. It's actually somewhat hard to inflict a "crippling" injury. Sure, not that hard, but so long as the person does not receive treatment and the injury is severe enough. Hell, you could just do that he snapped her arm, either upper or lower section, and that because it didn't sit back together right it healed funny. But something to keep in mind, and I can't believe I'm remembering twilight because of this, a clean break doesn't usually cripple. you want a fracture of some kind and usually extensive damage, so he can't just snap her arm like a twig.
oh and something to keep in mind, if as I said before about it healing, it could heal wrong and leave a bulg or lapsed space in her flesh
It sounds horrible. You need to consider leverage and available medical acre. A simple break in the shaft of the radius or ulna can be splinted and it should heal fine. The humorous is a very difficult bone to break because it's thick and strong. A person with a very muscular upper arm might need traction to maintain the humorous in alignment during healing because strong muscles tend to pull the bones out of alignment. That leaves joints if you want a permanent crippling injury. When a fracture involves a joint, you lose mobility in the joint unless it is surgically repaired. You can't cast a joint fracture (unless it's just a chip or something) and have it heal with normal range of motion. You should decide what kind of disability you want to give your character. Then think of what an immobile joint would result in. You need more than a finger unless you are talking about ruining a piano player or something. A wrist or shoulder would be the most debilitating. Now as to breaking that joint, you just need leverage. Putting your full body weight on a dorsally flexed wrist will rip tendons and break bones. You'd need to wrench a shoulder backward into a position it doesn't normally go, but chances are you'd dislocate it and not break anything. Look at some images of the arm bones, look for weak spots then think of the leverage you'd need to break it. To break a bone mid shaft you just need to put it diagonal to an angle like a curb, and stomp down on the middle.
Speaking as someone who's had multiple shoulder injuries: It takes a LOT of damage to impair function to the point where you can't use your hand. I've dislocated both shoulders, and separated, strained, and torn the rotator cuff in one, and my hands work fine (granted, I had a lot of physical therapy, but one injury probably wouldn't cripple her). Wrist injuries, on the other hand, can be debilitating. Again, speaking from experience: I've also injured my right wrist several times; I have tendonitis and (probably) mild carpal tunnel, so I have nerve damage in my hand - it works, but I tend to drop things, I experience numbness sometimes, and I constantly have to On the whole, though: elbows are easiest to break - a hard blow and you can snap it; twist and you can dislocate it. He'd have to yank her arm out straight, holding her hand/wrist, then smash her elbow with a knee or his other arm. The sites I checked on elbow injuries say that they can cause some or all of the following: * Pain—often severe * Tenderness, swelling, and bruising around the elbow * Numbness in fingers, hand, or forearm * Decreased range of motion * A lump or visible deformity Also, this is from another site about children's injuries: So basically, if she doesn't get it treated properly, she could lose the use of her arm/hand.
