: Re: YA Literature - Violence I'm working on a trilogy of YA novels that revolve around a group of teenagers (aged 15, though in the made-up world, 16 is adulthood) who set off to rescue someone

@Welton431

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I suggest you search for "knock outs". I've done some research on martial arts, and there are several hot spots on the head that, if struck, can knock somebody out cold, so bad they can fall and fracture their skull on the concrete, perhaps fatally. These knock out points exist on the back of the head, behind the ear, on the jaw, on the chin, on the temple, at the join of neck to head, etc. They also almost invariably cause concussions (the brain impacting against the inside skull) and that usually involves a small amount of brain damage.

There are also a few choke-holds that render somebody unconscious, and for smaller opponents against larger ones, some of these can be accomplished with the legs, which can be far stronger than the larger opponents arms trying to get them off.

Despite the real danger of actually killing somebody with a knockout punch, or causing brain damage, or killing somebody or causing brain damage with a choke hold, most people (and a larger proportion of the less educated young adults) severely underestimate that danger, and consider a knock out or choke out relatively harmless. They are routinely presented as such on TV, as if it were just falling asleep and waking up with a headache, or not even that.

Presuming your teens have access to this kind of information (on the Internet or with a coach teaching self defense), they could practice this kind of battle, and prevail that way. No killing, and to most people not trained in martial arts, no serious injury either.

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