The Adventures of a Sword is a 2020 fantasy-adventure web story by Looperreallyreallyrocks. It can be read here
and here.
In the story, a group of teenagers embark on a quest to end the tyrannical rule of an evil emperor.
This story contains examples of:
- Alas, Poor Villain: Really, pretty much every one of Ginold's henchmen who were either abused and/or killed by him fall under this.
- Allegory: The entire story is a Biblical allegory:
- Kornol the Great symbolizes God, and his betrayal by Ginold corresponds to God's betrayal by Lucifer.
- Emperor Ginold is (obviously) the equivalent for Satan.
- Ginold's followers (including Balthazar and Adrianna) symbolize avid followers of the Devil.
- Jordan and his friends symbolize humans who have attempted to fight Satan but ended up failing due to temptations and lack of faith.
- The sword is an obvious equivalent to the Bible.
- O'Malley symbolizes angels.
- Morliss symbolizes the worst kind of human beings.
- Colonel Biorge symbolizes false Christians and evangelists.
- Ax-Crazy: Emperor Ginold works very hard to prove that he is anything but sane, randomly killing several of his guards and feeding his best friend to snakes in his very first scene. Balthazar, Adrianna, and Morliss fall under this too due to their violent, unhinged nature.
- Bad Boss: One of Ginold's hobbies is abusing and disposing of his own henchmen whenever they piss him off.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Ginold wins the final war and kills all of the heroes.
- Bad People Abuse Animals:
- Ginold apparently decapitates dogs for fun.
- Once of Morliss's many atrocities is ripping a dog in half in front of a young kid.
- Big Bad: Emperor Ginold.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Jordan acknowledges at some point that he is a character in a book.
- The Bully: Moe is a generic bully who mocks Jordan, Gary, and Arnie after they find the sword, and according to Jordan, he stuffed him in a trash can once and constantly insulted him.
- Crapsack World: Northeast Planet is in a dire state because of Ginold's tyrannical rule.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: So many. Here are just a few examples:
- Ginold forces his fortune teller Sever to swallow a knife and do a back flip and land on his head, breaking his own skull.
- Morliss inflicts this on people as a hobby, and has had people crushed to death with kettlebells, drowned, and eaten.
- Private Marcus is brutally beaten to death by Balthazar and his men.
- Gary and Adrianna are both given fates worse than death, with Gary being trapped in a robot with all humanity removed and Adrianna being trapped in an indestructible shed while hanging helplessly on a tree for the rest of eternity. While both of them are technically still alive, their lives, for all intents and purposes, are over.
- Arnie dies from getting a burning cabinet dropped on his back.
- Biorge was unlucky enough to die from being stabbed in the jaws. Since the knife didn't instantly reach his brain, he couldn't have died from it immediately, but the epilogue confirms his death anyway, meaning that he never had a chance to patch up his wound. This would mean that he either bled to death or, based on where he was stabbed, drowned in his own blood.
- Disappeared Dad and Missing Mom: Jordan's father disappeared before he moved to Northeast Planet, and his mother was eventually murdered. Said father turned out to be Balthazar.
- Downer Ending: The story ends with Emperor Ginold winning and disposing of all the heroes the readers spent the entire story rooting for.
- The Dragon: Balthazar is this to Ginold.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While Balthazar spends most of the story trying to kill Jordan and his friends, he ultimately decides to protect Jordan from Ginold once it is revealed that Jordan is his son.
- Fallen Hero: Ginold was once the second-in-command of the benevolent and wise ruler Kornol the Great.
- Hate Sink:
- Emperor Ginold is the feared and absolutely despised ruler of Northeast Planet. Prior to the events of the main story, he overthrew the benevolent ruler Kornol the Great and started a reign of terror, torturing and executing anyone who got in his way. Almost every other move he makes is a Kick the Dog act, and to firmly cement his despicability, he kills his henchman Balthazar at the moment he turns on him, murders Jordan and Arnie, and has Gary subjected to a Fate Worse than Death.
- Subverted with Balthazar. Throughout much of the story, he appears to be nothing more than a pain in the ass who constantly tries to hinder the heroes' plan to defeat Ginold, and is only there to invoke facepalms from readers, leaving them with no choice but to cheer every single time he fails in getting his hands on the heroes. However, it ultimately comes to light that Balthazar is actually Jordan's father who was believed to be dead, and in his final moments, he sacrifices himself to protect his son.
- Morliss, nicknamed the "Mountain Giant", is a revolting piece of scum who killed a dog and threw a baby into the creek for fun. To gain physical strength and become a wrestling champion, he began eating children and then tried to do the same to Jordan and his friends when they crossed paths. Not a single soul gives a crap when he gets bludgeoned to death by Ginold.
- Adrianna de la Santos is a violent, sadistic woman with a fanatic obsession with Emperor Ginold. She murdered her own family and either killed or participated in the murders of over sixty other people before collecting their skeletons as trophy. She then maimed and hung herself just to traumatize anyone who saw her body. In the story, she nearly brainwashes Jordan into killing everyone near him before killing himself, and she has apparently done this to eighty other people as well. At the end of the story, she erases any likability she had by personally murdering Olivia and Carl during the war against Ginold.
- Colonel Biorge is a sleazy imbecile of a man who betrayed his army and killed one of the soldiers during the final war against Ginold, invoking much contempt and horror from the other characters. He uses the deaths of his friends and family to justify his betrayal, but he uses possibly the most outrageous and ridiculous logic for doing so (specifically, he believes that by killing as many people as he can, Ginold will give up trying to wipe out people by the dozens and that will somehow bring justice to his dead family). To say his death at the hands of Jordan is cathartic would be an understatement.
- Heel–Face Turn: After Balthazar is revealed to be Jordan's father, he turns against Ginold and defends Jordan from him.
- The Hero Dies: All of them.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Morliss eats children so he can gain strength and become a wrestling champion.
- Insane Troll Logic: Yes, Biorge really does think wiping out as many innocent people as possible will discourage Ginold from killing more, and this is somehow an act of justice and heroism in his eyes.
- Karma Houdini: After all the horrible crimes he committed, Ginold doesn't get punished in any way.
- Kick the Dog: Almost any move that Ginold makes besides breathing, blinking, eating, and sleeping qualifies as this.
- Kid Hero: The main heroes of the story start as kids.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Balthazar is revealed to be Jordan's missing father during the final war against Ginold.
- Mind Rape: Adrianna manages to control Jordan using pods, and does the same to eighty other people.
- The Mole: Colonel Biorge ends up betraying his own army.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Averted with Ginold. While he is a ruler with tons of henchmen and bodyguards to back him up, and he typically sends Balthazar to hunt down the main heroes, he nonetheless commits multiple murders on his own and is a competent fighter.
- Power of Trust: The titular sword is a book that will become a weapon only if you put your trust in it.
- Redemption Equals Death: Balthazar's aforementioned Heel–Face Turn costs him his life.
- Self-Made Orphan: Adrianna killed her own family during her lifetime.
- Show Within a Show: 330 Hours makes the story one by saying it is a fantasy novel in the Looperverse.
- Would Hurt a Child: See I'm a Humanitarian.
- You Have Failed Me and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- If you are not competent to the maximum, Ginold will torture and kill you in cold blood.
- When Morliss' minion Parkskar fails to capture the protagonists, Morliss gruesomely ends him by thrusting a spear through his neck.
