Welfare Armour
Entry posted by Merch Gwyar
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I keep coming across this thing called 'welfare armour'. At first, I wasn't quite sure what that was. It turned up in the context of, 'Ooh! You don't need *insert item of choice* to kill Nomad! I did it in welfare armour!' To which I'd frown at the forum post and think, "That's all very well and good, dear, but I haven't even found the DHSS office in Gielinor yet." Naturally it gave me something to think about, whilst standing in deep queues in job centres IRL, waiting to get to the job points. What kind of forms precisely would you fill in to get 'welfare armour'? I mean, could I walk up to some grim-faced woman, who's already secretly suspecting that I mixed and sold some potions or killed a cow during the last two weeks, and say to her, "I have a menagerie full of dependents! My God birds are on their last bit of food mix and they're going to starve! Give me Bandos!" Mind you, if this was real life, she'd then give me a form so thick that you could batter someone to death with it. You'd reach the end only to find that you don't qualify because you're human, alive and on Planet Earth, and anyway, this benefit was only open for about thirty seconds, a week last Tuesday, and you need to have had 300 years work experience to have enough NI points to claim it. Ok. How about Armadyl armour then?
But back to the plot. 'Welfare armour'. The more that I hear it, the more I realise that it tends to hover, yellow, above the heads of those prone to spiky armour and combat levels in red. In the hues, you can almost discern the tone of snobbery and disdain. Welfare armour, we are to believe, is therefore BAD and EVIL and Thou Shalt Not Wear Or Else Thou Ist A NOOOOOOOB! 'kay. So what is it?
Here's where it gets a bit cloudy. Here's where you realise that those saying, 'welfare armour' haven't actually ever looked the word 'welfare' up in a dictionary. They seem to think that it's something to do with the poor and there all understanding stops. Let me help out here. The word welfare can mean a couple of things, though one, once you strip away the sneers, does relate to the other. My dictionary says this:
Welfare: (n) Well-being; organised efforts to ensure people's well-being.
So Zach is off killing cows and gets into difficulties. His cries of sorrow are heard throughout Canting. Kayla immediately rushes to escort him back to Lumbridge to get him out of harm's reach. Meanwhile, Full of Pie has hurried to the river to fish him some salmon. Dr Leviathan is there beside ready to grab the raw fish and to teleport himself with it back to me. I'm poised beside a range. The fish is cooked. I hand it back and Lev teleports back to Lumbridge and presses it into Zach's hands. He eats. He's saved. And meanwhile Kitt is in the field finishing off the cow, so it doesn't menace him again. Canting took care of Zach's welfare. See how it happened. That organised effort to ensure that he didn't die? Welfare.
Then you get the more colloquial... hold on, if these people are struggling with the word 'welfare', then I'm never going to get away with colloquial... the more slang meaning of the word 'welfare'. This refers to, usually state operated, assistance with basic needs. Your welfare money might allow you to eat, pay the rent, pay the bills, stay warm. If you jump through enough hoops, you might even get a suit for job interviews or training for more qualifications. It pays for hearing aids for deaf children; guide dogs for the blind; operations to keep us alive; emergency housing for the homeless etc. Obviously I'm talking about Britain here. In conversation with a Texan friend last night, it appears that they haven't got round to human rights in her 'hood yet. But anyway, you get the idea? It's help from the governing body to stop you slipping too far below the poverty line and to, in theory, get you back onto your feet.
So back to the tragic scene playing out in Lumbridge cow field. Same situation, but Kayla didn't get to there in time! Zach falls screaming under the hooves of a rabid bull and there's the loud clank-clunk of his gravestone forming on the turf. Kayla rushes in to bless it, but oh no! She's just come from collecting mort myre fungi and hasn't got a single prayer point left! Canting scrambles, looking to our banks for Lumbridge teleports, but the situation is going from bad to worse! Would you believe that everyone is on Lunar Magicks, without so much as a home teletab between us. As Zach runs and Kayla sobs, the gravestone crumbles to bits on the floor. Zach is destitute. But as he stands there, looking at the patch of field where his grave should have been, his friends slowly arrive. They form a little semi-circle and each trade him in turn. King Canting hands over a harpoon and net; Simple hands over a pickaxe; Rafftank has a hatchet for him; Teacuptime gives him a pile of freshly cooked sharks; Cossack has a tinderbox; Joshua Mack gives him a sword; Nezantra has a shield; ODST Isaac has a chestplate; Ashn Verdict has some platelegs; Bass Daddy has a helm; and Kitra has some really funky boots. This is welfare in the common sense. Hand outs. Naturally, also being very realistic welfare, he can't have any of it because the trade restrictions kicked in after the harpoon. But at least he knows that it was there. Somewhere. Behind the bureaucracy.
'Welfare armour' in Runescape appears to refer to the cheapest armour. There's no cut off. Welfare armour is whatever is the next stage (and below) cheaper than the snob speaking can afford. To someone wearing Armadyl or Void Range, then black dhide is 'welfare'. To someone wearing Bandos or dragon, then rune is 'welfare'. But where I hear it most of all is directed at those wearing bronze, iron, steel or mithril. Let me pose an alternative view here:
Bandos armour: Received as a drop by a monster. A hand out. Welfare.
Bronze armour: Received by a player mining copper and tin, then smelting it together for bronze. Taking that bronze to a smithy and hitting it into shape with a hammer. In short, hard work and skilled labour.
I hope that's clarified matters for the snobbish illiterate out there.
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