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Swords historically have a ricasso. That’s the base part of the blade, and it generally isn’t sharpened, specifically to be able to use half-swording (having one hand on the grip and one on the blade). The hand on the blade is often at like 1/3 of the blade tho. It was used to stab into weak points of an armor with precision (since swords were pretty bad against armored foes). But also, half-swording is done by "pinching" the flat of the blade betweend the palm and the fingertips, in a way that prevents touching the sharpened thread. It isn’t shown on this (very historically accurate, if i may say so) image