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alt title(s): Big Fancy Sword
It was the largest sword I have ever seen. It was as long as my own body and the blade was flat and broad as the palms of two men's hands set side by side. — Ahmad ibn-Fadlan, Eaters Of The Dead
Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough... that thing is too big to be called a sword... it was more like a large hunk of iron. — Berserk, when Guts unsheathes the Dragon Slayer for the first time in the manga
Big Fuckin' Sword (a.k.a. Giant Ass Sword, or GAS, a.k.a. "Holy shit why is he swinging the Titanic around"). A common trope to both video games and anime, a BFS is an unrealistically large sword most often owned by The Hero, The Chosen One, or whatever type the lead happens to be. The BFS is often nearly as long as its owner is tall, and may or may not have other special abilities besides being humongous. If a BFS does possess other strange qualities, one of them almost assuredly prevents it from being used by other people, whether that be weight, a magical barrier, a direct link to its owner, or other means.
Usually, no other character in a game or series is the possessor of a sword that is anywhere close to as huge as the BFS. Sometimes, even when unusual swords and weapons are an everyday occurrence, characters are still surprised by the size of the lead's BFS, as it is a physical manifestation of its owner's potential power.
The Rival or a villain will sometimes own a BFS, representing a significant hurdle and challenge for the protagonist to overcome. It is rarer for a secondary character, such as The Lancer or The Big Guy, to own a BFS, but if the lead character does not possess one, one of the others in the Five Man Band likely will.
One dubiously historical example of a BFS is the zanbato, an anti-cavalry sword big enough to kill a rider and his horse in one shot (bringing new meaning to a certain phrase that ends, "... and the horse you rode in on!"). Such may have been made more as a test of swordsmithing than for actual combat. The zanbato itself is based on a shorter Chinese sword, the zhanmadao, roughly the length of a Scottish claymore, also designed to cut through rider and horse at the same time. Likewise, the Germans employed a type of sword called the Zweihänder (literally, "two-hander"), which could be up to seven feet in length, and were said to allow the wielder to decapitate multiple foes with a single blow, though this only become possible once steel was available to make large but light weapons, and even then, might have been an exaggeration on the part of boastful warriors. The documented rationale for the unsual lenght of the Zweihänder was to cut off speartips from a safe distance.
This trope includes any type of improbably large ("anime-sized") melee weapon. After the aforementioned big-ass sword, gigantic lances tend to be the most common. However, humongous hammers and titanic axes also appear from time to time, most commonly in the hands of The Big Guy (or, just for the absurdity of it all, a little girl).
Arguably an ancient trope. Oversized, unrealistic swords aren't unheard of in medieval or earlier fiction, poetry, and artwork. To make matters more confusing, most societies employing swords also made huge ceremonial swords for display, which laymen of later periods may mistake for actual war tools. Swords employed in combat or duelling were lighter than even the typical, non-BFS fantasy sword — which makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. Even the really big swords that were the real deal - not the ceremonial types - were far lighter than we are lead to believe by various sources. Remember of course, that what feels clunky and unbalanced to an old professor can be light and agile in the hands of an experienced swordsman.
The name is a play off of BFG.
Compare Dual Wielding. See also Heroes Prefer Swords. May involve Hammerspace physics for storage.
Quite possibly a product of Freud was Right on the part of the creators, maybe.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- Ichigo from Bleach is a recent and well-known BFS wielder; however, the sheer size of his zanpakuto is a sign that he has great spirit power, but lacks control of it; it can be easily broken by stronger shinigami with better spirit control. He eventually gets over this problem and upgrades his sword into its Shikai form, which, while rather large, is not as huge as his original sword. Zanpakuto have another upgraded form, Bankai; for most shinigami, this changes their sword into an extremely large and powerful weapon, but in a further subversion, Ichigo's Bankai is the size of a normal sword and simply increases his speed.
- His bankai is a daito, which is still longer than most swords, although actually used.
- Well, as a series stuffed with magical swords, Bleach has some unusual BFSes. Ichimaru has a sword which, while normally wide, can grow to over 100 feet long (used to snipe enemies), and Komamura has a BFS with a BFS (the second S is for samurai).
- Not to mention Ikkaku's bankai which turns his three section staff into two BFS with a giant ax blade connecting them.
- Don't forget both Renji's Shikai and Bankai forms which both grow to absurd proportions.
- Well, to be exact Renji's Bankai isn't really a sword but more of a very interesting flail.
- Barragan Luisenbarn has a Big Effing Axe.
- Kazuki from Busou Renkin has an alternate weapon type — a BFL (Big Fraggin' Lance).
- Guts and his Dragon Slayer from Berserk are a classic example, although it's justified in that he has to go through vigorous training in order to wield it. Also, the giant swords he wields are relatively realistic in terms of being metallurgically problematic, with the Dragon Slayer stated to be forged from solid iron rather than carbon steel, and the art goes to great lengths to portray the weapon realistically with a lot of momentum and almost no real cutting edge. Many other characters of note have large versions of non-sword weapons as well, such as an atlatl-style spear thrower that generates cannon-like force or, in a semi-subversion, an Indian-style flexible sword that is of normal length but far more blades than normal. Ironically, despite a painstaking attempt at verisimilitude for the weapon's effects, Berserk's creator, Kentaro Miura, has admitted in interviews that he only hit upon the idea of the huge sword as a gimmick to attract readers.
- This extends to the video game of the series, as it's nigh-impossible to swing the Dragon Slayer in tight corridors without it bouncing off the wall to little effect.
- In The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Ryoko Asakura turns her arms into twin BF Ss.
- Tetsusaiga, the fang Inu Yasha carries, is a BFS that shrinks down so he can carry it normally. Another BFS wielder in this series is Bankotsu, leader of the Shichinintai. In a possible subversion, Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha's brother and chief rival, has carried several swords of relatively normal size. One broke (it was really evil), and the other one was later absorbed into Inu Yasha's sword because apparently it was their father's plan for Sesshomaru to power it up, since it was actually an unwanted part of Tessaiga (he was not pleased to hear that). Sess eventually gets his very own sword, which is still relatively normal-sized.
- Sango uses a Big Effin' Boomerang called Hiraikotsu, with the same effect as a BFS.
- Jakotsu of the Shichinentai uses a Long Effin' Sword that's actually about twelve blades attached together. Notably, it's the only weapon in the series that isn't magical or gets a magical power-up.
- Mikoto from Mai-HiME fits the main trope when she becomes a Dark Magical Girl later in the series.
- This troper thinks it's averted in this case since as huge as her sword is and as skinny as she is she usually drags the sword along the ground and has to build up momentum before she can actually swing it.
- Arika from Mai-Otome is the proud wielder of both a BFL◊ and a BFS◊.
- Zabuza, the first major villain that Team 7 faces in Naruto, has a rather nasty BFS. A later villain named Kisame has another BFS which, yes, only he can use and it also has no blade but it more or less a sword-shaped bundle of
spikes hooks.
- Not to mention both belonged to a group called "the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist", so presumably there's 5 more like them...
- The young bodyguard of the mizukage is one of the seven swordsman as well. He wield a giant fish shaped swords, that can turn into a giant chakra hammer. (He uses it to blast Sasuke through a wall.)
- Expanding on Zabuza, Kishimoto said Zabuza's early character designs had his sword about the size of a skycraper, or at least a small building.
- Also, Gamabunta's tanto was used by Tsunade as an insanely giant sword. Though, it is somewhat logical for a Toad of Gamabunta's size to have such a knife.
- Did you just say something about a five-hundred-foot knife-wielding Toad being logical?
- Outside of that group, the Raikage's bodyguard Darui has a sword that is basically a giant cleaver/ax with no point.
- Temari of the Sand wields a giant war fan in Naruto; when folded, it is "only" as tall as she is (making it about five feet tall).
- Hidan also has a BFS, though in this case the S stands for "scythe" rather than "sword."
- Sabu has a giant axe (unlike Darui's it's more of a hatchet), which is quite a big bigger than he is. Like Zabuza, he can stick it in a tree and stand on it.
- Sagara Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin starts out with a BFS (a zanbato, in fact) and a rotten attitude. Soon after Kenshin destroys the sword, Sano becomes The Lancer.
- This may even count as a bit of a subversion, as during the fight kenshin points out how impractical a BFS really is, and proceeds to easily outmaneuver the sword, which is bound by the laws of physics (especially momentum) to be a clumsy weapon.
- Not to mention that, being longer than its owner, the sword can only be swung in sideways or overhead strikes, making its movements easy to predict.
- That doesn't stop Sano from breaking it out one more time in the Jinchuu arc and showing it can be used for other things... like playing baseball with cannon shells.
- Explored in CLAMP's debut manga, RG Veda, in which a major character carries one, and remarks that it wouldn't ever be able to cut anything, had the sword not been magical.
- Which is sort of strange, because in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Syaoran and Kurogane are often drawn carrying swords as tall as they are (and in Syaoran's case, taller than he is).
- The Empathic Weapon belonging to Fuu of Magic Knight Rayearth. It's bigger than she is (most pictures of her with it cuts off) and literally weighs a ton in anyone else's hands — only her wind magic allows her to carry it.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, Asuna's Paper Fan Of Doom can upgrade into a BFS. How this works depends on whether it's in the manga or the Alternate Continuity anime series Negima?! In any case, the fan is mainly for comedy (or sparring), while the sword is the business version.
- Meanwhile, Jack Rakan, a comrade of Negi's father, is known as "Rakan of the Thousand Swords"... Apparently, it seems, including one the size of a skyscraper [1].
- Asuna's classmate Kaede is a semi-closeted Ninja whose signature weapon is a four-pointed Big Fuuma Shuriken *
lit. Wind Demon Shuriken which is considerably wider from tip to tip than she is tall. Also, she sometimes seems to pull it out of nowhere.
- And she's almost six feet tall...
- Don't forget about Setsuna. That nodachi of hers is taller than she is (necessary for the demon-slaying work of her sword school).
- But in weapon-to-wielder ratio, nothing beats the sword that Evangeline's puppet Chachazero uses, mostly in Negima?!. Not an unrealistically large sword, but not one that would be easy to wield one-handed. Chachazero does it just fine, though... and she's less than a foot tall, making the sword seem absolutely gigantic.
- The Heavy Blade class in the .hack// series all wield these as a rule. For some reason, another rule for this class is skimpy armour for females, but that's another story entirely.
- (Most of) The male Heavy Blades also use skimpy armor, but you don't get many of those on your team.
- After breaking four ordinary swords in a fight, Karura from Utawarerumono upgrades to a BFS that only she is able to lift; however, because she demanded it be unbendable, unbreakable, and never need sharpening, the edge is not as sharp as a regular sword, so people she hits with it tend to... splatter. She tests it out by splitting a giant boulder. Several strong men had difficulty even carrying it.
- And then she breaks that one too, which is never mentioned again because it's back for her next fight.
- The Ten Commandments sword, used by Haru Glory in Rave Master, is nearly as large as its wielder. Luckily, this only applies to its base form, Eisonmeteor; its other 9 forms are much more reasonably sized, with the exception of Gravity Core, which is even larger.
- All BFS wielders in the series (and probably all BFS wielders in history) bow before the might of Uta the Eternal, who wields a sword 100 feet long and over 10 feet wide, even though he's only human sized (at least initially. It's seriously insane.
- Aya and Maya from Tenjou Tenge share a long, long katana that could not be wielded by either of them, y'know, in the real world.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has Fate Testarossa and her intelligent device, Bardiche. Not only does its Zamber Form start out larger than she is, but it can grow to such immense length that Fate could cleave through Humongous Mecha at a distance.
- D's Masamune from the two Vampire Hunter D movies definitely fits this trope — if it wasn't for the curve of the blade, it would drag the ground whenever he wields it. As it is, it's a miracle he can unsheath it, let alone wield it with the superhuman speed he does. Well, he is a dhampir, I guess...
- Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has one of these. The series even subtly lampshades it when he first fights Viral: by the time you think he's finished drawing the sword from its scabbard, he still has that much further to go.
- Claymore: Look at the title!
- After using the Goldion Hammer (not a BFS, so much as a Big Friggen Hammer) during the original series run, GaoGaiGar gets to use the Goldion Crusher — a hammer of light made out of battleships — during the OVA.
- And yet, when the main villain of the OVA Pulls out a regal-looking mech-sized blade, GaoGaiGar counters with a green crystal version of Gai's "Will Knife", just scaled up to Gao Gai Gar size.
- In Shakugan No Shana, Sorath has one he calls Blutsauger. Both Tanaka and Satou later make several attempts to lift it, but neither of them succeeds to get it off of the ground completely. In Season 2, Yuji takes a level in badass and wields it with ease, at one point throwing it one-handed as a finishing move.
- The Kaiser Blades from the Mazinger Z OVA series Mazinkaiser. The movie sequel has two smaller blades that are deployed from the shoulders, but the original/Final Kaiser Blade was pulled out of Kaiser's chest, was three times the length of Kaiser, and able to cut through damn near anything.
- Silent Mobius features the magical shape-shifting sword Grospoliner, a sentient weapon of ridiculous size in its sword form. However, Katsumi rarely (or never) uses the blade of the sword to cut enemies, instead mainly using the weapon as a magic-focusing tool.
- The Galahad Knightmare Frame from Code Geass, personal ride of Knight of One Bismarck Waldstein, possesses a sword so huge that the sheath needs its own propulsion system. Bismarck himself also wields a human-scaled replica, which is still pretty over-sized.
- Of course Gundam also has its very own example, the Shining Finger Sword in G Gundam. (It's wielded by a Humongous Mecha but it's fragging big anyway.) Gundam Wing's Gundam Epyon has a similarly large beam sword (powered by a cable hooked up to a nuclear reactor), which on one occasion was used to slice a large space station in half.
- Gundam SEED introduced anti-ship swords, which are basically sword-shaped cheese slicers with energy blades, using the extra weight for impact. Beyond this, the spinoff manga Gundam SEED Astray has two more examples: Blue Frame's Tactical Arms, and Red Frame's Gerbera Straight II, a hundred-and-fifty-meter katana that requires special equipment just to use it.
- Actually the Series that introduced the first known anti-ship sword or beam saber would be from Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, where the GP 03 Dendrobium, which is a Mobile Weapon in a Mobile Armor, has an battle ship sized beamsaber, which hilt is longer then the gundam itself. Considering the other weapons it has though, such as 16 weapons containers which can hold micro-missile pods or anti-ship missiles, a battleship class mega-particle cannon, and a energy shield that deflects energy beams, the sword was only seen once slicing the bridge of a battleship. Still, its function was more realistic compared to the antics of Gundam Seed and 00.
- The title mecha of Gundam 00 normally wields a pair of average-sized swords, but can get into BFS range when the built-in beam sabers are activated. And then when combined with the 0 Raiser support fighter to form the 00 Raiser, in Trans-Am mode it can form two gaint beam swords that rival even the Shining Finger Sword in size.
- The spinoff Gundam 00V supplemental material includes the 00 Gundam Seven Sword variant, with one of the seven swords being a physical blade (the GN Buster Sword II) that's taller than the mecha itself and weighs about 10 tons.
- Episode 17 of the second season of Gundam 00 contained one of the largest examples of this trope in Fiction. 00 Raiser in Trans-Am mode was able to create a truly MASSIVE Beam Sabre capable of reaching up to orbit to slice in half the Momento Mori while the 00 Raiser is at the edge of the Atmosphere. According to the background material the Momento Mori is on an orbital ring 10,000 Kilometers above the Earth's surface.
- Gundam SEED Astray goes for broke with the Astray Blue Frame's Tactical Arms flight pack can form it's wings into a giant sword (with a Gatling gun built in for good measure), while our hero, Lowe Guele, arms his Red Frame with a Mobile Suit-sized Katana, and eventually forges a 150-meter-long version of it that he first has to build a Power Loader for his Red Frame (that's right, a Humongous Mecha riding a Humongous Mecha) so he can use it. One of the first things he does with it is cut a wrecked space colony in half. In another battle, he throws the swords and impales a battleship with it. Note that Lowe is normally a Technical Pacifist, but the captain of said ship really pissed him off. He later upgrades Red Frame with oversized arms with built-in batteries to wield the giant katana without the Power Loader (as the Loader was destroyed in battle), though this doesn't last long either since it's a running theme that Red Frame upgrades are always temporary.
- From the main Gundam SEED series itself, there are ship-killing swords the length of the Humongous Mecha that use them. Portrayed fairly realistically — as far as "realistic" can be said when Humongous Mecha are around — as being unwieldy, slow and rather easily dodgeable. Given that they were designed for use against large spaceships, this shouldn't be much of a problem... except that there's only three occasions (twice in the main series and once an Astray OVA) where the anti-ship swords are used against actual ships.
- Gundam F91 spinoff manga Crossbone Gundam has the Crossbone Gundam X-3, whose signature "Muramasa Blaster" is a fairly large sword to begin with but gets much bigger when the fourteen beam sabers built into it are activated. (It also has a beam rifle built in.)
- How have we talked about gundam this long without mentioning Zeta's Hyper Beam Saber attack?
- Ideon from Space Runaway Ideon. One of its weapon, the Ideon Sword, a beam of pure light emitted from each of Ideon's hands. While the beam's destructive power is immense (even cleaving an entire planet in half at one point), its most peculiar quality is its length. While adjustable, the maximum length of the sword is depicted as being quite possibly infinite.
- Balgus from Vision of Escaflowne gets one in the second episode, when facing off against the Zaibach cloaked Melefs. Considering these things managed to incapacitate with ease several other melefs (for reference, melef=15 foot tall mecha), the fact that Balgus proved harder to kill when on foot and armed only with his 8-foot long sword makes him even more awesome.
- The Di-Swords from Chaos;Head are giant swords wielded by the six main girls of the show. In addition to being very large, they also glow, feed off emotions, and are invisible to everyone except Takumi.
- Eat-Man has a few of these, though The Boer Sword deserves a special mention. Despite the fact that it's only ever used in one hand the thing's easily twice the size of anyone who uses it, dangles a mass of apparently self-motivating cables, and commands the allegiance of an army of monsters.
- At one point, couple of mooks in Hokuto No Ken team up swing a giant sword. Of course, being Hokuto No Ken mooks, the mookiest mooks in mookdom, they die bloodily a panel later.
- Allen Walker and the Earl of Millennium from D Gray Man have matching (yin-yang) swords that resemble cricket bats. Lavi's weapon is a hammer that can become huge.
- Kuroki, one of the operatives in Blazer Drive wields a sword that looks suspicously like Allan's.
- Satan in 666 Satan/O-Parts Hunter eventually carries a Big Effin' Boomerang/Ninja Star whose size and amount of damage it can inflict is proportional to the fear and hate a person has. Thus to a fearful mook the thing fills the entire sky while to a pure-hearted angel it's a useless ring of metal (unfortunately the angel works for the bad guys).
- The Medicine Seller from Mononoke has a sword that gets pretty huge under the right circumstances.
- One of the combatants in the tournament arc of Battle Angel Alita: Last Order wields a "sword" that's big enough to need its own propulsion system and features its own energy weapon, making this a Big Fuckin' Gunsword. The combatant himself also counts — his legs have been replaced with blades and he attacks by launching himself like a shruiken. It's justified when he mentions his preferred opponents are warships.
- Father Remington from Chrono Crusade carries a crucifix-laser-broadsword that is taller than him. he gets over maneuverability issues by simply letting the sword tip slice through the ground during a sword swing.
- Black Star from Soul Eater has a katana called the Fey Blade. For some reason, after fighting his last fight with Mifune, his sword increases in length to up to twice, if not three times, the original length.
- Some of the Humongous Mecha/Samurai in Samurai 7 use swords so large that they are actually independently pilotable vehicles. In the last few episodes the titular heroes use one as transportation. And Kikuchiyo actually wields one during his Heroic Sacrifice scene.
- Shidou "Sid" Misako from Hayate X Blade has a sword that is notably bigger than most of the other girls'.
- For a show with a shitload of characters, many of them swordsmen, One Piece is surprisingly lacking in the BFS department. There's "Hawk-Eyes" Mihawk, who has a long black sword with a huge handle that he wears strapped across his back like a cross.
- The Shining Trapezohedron of Demonbane looks unweildy but it has the ability to cut through dimensions and seal away powerful gods.
- Gretel in Otogi Jushi Akazukin has the Missing Grave, a giant Sword with flowers growing on it. It can only be used because she wears a pair of Oven Mitts that give her strength like an Ogre. The sword is taller than most of the cast.
- Housen in Gintama fights with an umbrella, like all Yato. Since Housen is also The Night King, it's a freakin' huge umbrella.
- Tessai in Ninja Scroll has one, and it plays a big part in his own death.
- Surprisingly enough, its a Super Robot known as Ganbarugar that had one of these and played it pretty realistically in its use. The sword is huge of course, but because of that its really hard to accurately swing it at a moving opponent, so the mecha has to paralyse the enemy first.
- Although not technically a sword (or even necessarily a melee weapon) and not generally large, I think Bappo qualifies for this trope, he is first used as a ball on a chain, then the hammer enlarges. When he starts to use it correctly, it first becomes a hammer as his hand, and can also change to a dagger. The other uses of it are missile or summons though. Ginta is one of two shown to be able to use it (the other is the big bad) and the first person to meet him is unable to carry the weight. Bappo is also intelligent and prefers Ginta to use his strength... eventually.
- Mewtwo from Pokemon Special has a Big Friggin' Spoon, formed from his energy. No matter how stupid it may sound, it serves as an extremely effective close-range melee weapon, not to mention it can stretch, curve, and turn into a fork to spear things with. And he once used it to deliever a Diagonal Cut on the Trainer Tower, slicing the building in two.
- Lapis from Kaze no Stigma carries a BFS which can nullify jutsu/magic.
- While it's not particularly huge, Trom Bone from The Violinist Of Hameln wields his father's sword, which is a bit large for a boy his size. Hamel, on the other hand, wields a BFV—a Big Fraggin... Violin.
- Alice L. Malvin from Pumpkin Scissors has Mahne, a double-bladed sword meant to be used by cavalrymen. She uses it on foot, and wears a pair of sabatons in conjunction with them.
Card Games
- Steve Jackson's card game Munchkins (illustrated by John Kovalic) features characters wielding weapons (including swords) of improbably size.
- Especially noteworthy is the Three-Handed Sword, which is Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- Also the Big Honking Sword of Character Whupping. No, you can't take it for yourself, nice try.
- Also, the Sledgehammer of Smackdown, with a head significantly larger than the person holding it.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Surely there are other example, but the one that springs to mind is Elemental Hero Wildheart, who wields a sword that would measure from the top of his head to his shins, were it held vertically. By fusing him with Elemental Hero Bladedge, however, you get Elemental Hero Wildedge. Just the visible part of his sword looks to be almost as tall as he is, but it's cut off by the card frame. It looks to be quite a bit longer, though. The kicker? The hilt is clearly too small for him to wield it with two hands.
Comics
- In Marvel's Thor, the concept is taken to its logical extreme with the Odinsword◊, which is many times the size of anybody, human or Asgardian. Thor has successfully thrown it, but he could never wield it... not least because drawing it from its sheath causes the end of the universe.
- Unfortunately it was badly depowered in Roy Thomas' Celestial/Ring Cycle storyline, in which we learn its origin and that drawing it, rather than destroying the universe, will merely(?) bring on the day of Ragnarok. We also find out why it's that big: it's meant to be wielded by a giant-size Destroyer, powered by Odin and all the other Asgardians except Thor, when he defends Earth from the even larger Celestials.
- Shinryuken in Gold Digger whose Colossal Blade, Size-mitar, is one big reference to Sanger Zonvolt, listed above.
- Korvus' Phoenix Blade from X-Men.
- The Hackmaster +12 from Knights of the Dinner Table.
Films — Live Action
- The Kurgan in the original Highlander carries a large claymore. It's large enough that the Kurgan can't get away with pulling the sword from the Hammerspace in his trenchcoat like other immortals. Instead, he assembles it from pieces stored in a briefcase, with each piece clicking into place like a Snap-Tite model.
- William Wallace (also see Real Life examples below) wields one of these in Braveheart, and does the usual things of chopping horses' legs off and then the heads of their riders with it.
- The title sword in The Sword and the Sorcerer wasn't just big lengthwise, but sported THREE ginormous parallel blades, and these two side blades could be shot as MISSILES, so it was both a BFS and a BFG combined!
- The eponymously named sword in the Japanese film Sword of Alexander.
- Komodo has and uses one during all his fights in WarriorsOfVirtue
- The Adaptation Decay version of Deadpool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine has swords that extend from each of his wrists in a slit between his knuckles like Wolverine's claws. Taking logic into account, the swords are so big that he would be unable to bend his elbows with them fully concealed.
- Optimus Prime, Megatron and Sideswipe all have retractable wrist-blades in the live-action Transformers Film Series. Prime and Sideswipe have two on each arm.
Close Films — Live Action
Literature
- Literary example, and a western one at that: Belgarion, the main character of David Eddings' The Belgariad, inherits a BFS halfway through the story. A basic gigantic greatsword forged from meteoric iron, it's got a Mac Guffin (the Orb of Aldur) attached to the hilt, effectively turning it into an Empathic Weapon that will kill (almost) anyone else that touches it (putting it into the "only he can use it" category). Among other things, the Orb reduces the weight of the sword to enable Belgarion to easily wield it; in an amusing scene early in the sequel series, The Malloreon, Belgarion removes the Orb from the hilt with the sword still strapped across his back — and promptly gets crushed under the immense weight of the weapon. He barely manages to struggle out from underneath it, and throughout the rest of the series, he takes the sword off before removing the Orb.
- Fredric in The Castle of Otranto comes into possession of a sword so large a hundred men grow close to fainting under its immense weight.
- One of the oldest examples in Fantasy literature (popular in the 1970s and 1980s, although Stealer of Souls was published in 1961): bad-ass Anti Hero Elric of Melniboné and his evil sentient soulsucking black rune-sword Stormbringer, one of two demonic runeblades (the other being Mournblade). Alhough Stormbringer was not as ridiculously big as many anime swords, it was still on the large side, and could only be touched safely by Elric... or occasionally by his side-kick. Elric himself, being of a sickly constitution, could only lift the sword when he was filled by the blade's stolen soul energies; powered-up he could swing it with ease for hours, slaughtering whole armies, but without the stolen strength, he would collapse and be unable to even lift the heavy blade, let alone fight with it.
- Robert Baratheon in A Song of Ice and Fire, a big eating, boisterously bruising big guy deconstruction owns a massive warhammer that his friend Ned claims many men would have hard time even lifting. Gregor Clegane, "The Mountain that Rides", inverts this trope. Being a huge man, he dwarfs his standard greatsword and wields it in one hand, like a longsword.
- Two of the main heroes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, were said to wield polearms that were over 40 lbs in weight and over 10 feet in length, respectively.
- Dragaera's Aliera e'Kieron wields her ancestor Kieron's greatsword for several books. It's literally taller than she is. But then, she's an elf by any other name, and her mother is a goddess, so at least there's a reason she can lift it.
- In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong takes an impressively large BFS from an enemy and ends up demanding a better weapon from a dragon. He inspects and rejects a series of larger and larger weapons until he notices Ruyi Jingu Bang, an 8-tons pillar originally used as a measuring stick to test the water's depth during the worst flood of Chinese history. Of course, it changes size at will, so it's only as ridiculously large as the Monkey King wants it to be. Due to its weight, the novel describes it as gibbing some of the people it hits.
- Discworld seems surprisingly lacking in these, but the Klatchian enforcer 71-Hours Ahmed in Jingo has a very large scimitar.
- Quoth Vimes: "He's practically a concealed owner!"
- Dragonlance: The character Kaz wields a BF Axe in Kaz, The Minotaur. It's said in the text that it was forged by a Dwarf for a human knight and that it took two hands to wield the massive weapon (I remember it being implied that it was never wielded very well) but Kaz wields it easily with one hand performing manoeuvres which should have removed his arm from his shoulder with ease. Granted, the axe was mildly enchanted (its mirror finish would only show the reflection of people with honor) but it didn't alter the weight in any way. It's not quite as huge as many of the blades mentioned here but it's always stuck with me.
- In Keys to the Kingdom, Sir Thursday wielded a massive, dual-handed longsword with one hand. Justified in that he's a nearly immortal, demi-god-like being. This is later subverted when the blade transforms into a slender rapier for Arthur. Don't think that made it any less badass: the blade's signature power was that it killed any living creature with even the slightest touch.
- In Nick Perumov's Guardian of Swords cycle, Dark Magical Girl Sylvia gets to wield a Flammberg (see below) which, however, has a magic that in Sylvia's (and other "rightful" hands) gives it a properties of a Laser Blade, including near-zero wielding weight (but not for the ones hit).
- In Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, torturer Severian is given a huge and ancient executioner's sword by his guild-master when he is exiled, named Terminus Est. The quillons are terminated by male and female heads, designating one edge for executing men and the other for women; the sword is blunt-tipped and only a cutting weapon, and sharp enough for Severian to shave with it. A channel down the blade is hollow, and contains mercury; it runs toward the hilt when the sword is held up, and flows toward the tip when swung, increasing the force of the blow.
- The Inheritance Cycle: Eragon, in the first edition, had a five-foot-long sword. It was retconned to three-and-a-half in its later edition.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe features lightsabers designed to be inordinately long. They disappeared more or less immediately when it was considered swinging one inside a ship would cause explosive decompression.
- Are you saying Corran's got a raging Horn?
- In Sienkiewicz's Trilogy Longinus's hereditary sword made a Running Gag: most people he acquaints starts with asking him why he carries an "executioner's sword" and then are shocked when he shows he can fence with it. Their family legend — backed up by coat of arms — says one of his forebears beheaded 3 enemies with one swing and Longinus woved to repeat this feat. Also, see below (claymore).
- Duke Venalitor from the Warhammer 40000 Grey Knights novel Hammer of Daemons is introduced with a blade as long as he is tall.
Live Action TV
Mythology
- One the Oldest Ones In The Book: Former adversary and later vassal of King Arthur, Osla Big Knife, carried Bronllavyn Short Broad, a sword whose dimensions are never completely specified. However, it is stated that it was large enough to be used as a bridge and that Osla himself died when the sword fell out of its sheath, allowing the sheath to fill up with so much water that he was dragged under and drowned. Osla appears twice in the Welsh Mabinogion, with the earliest text he appears in dating back to 1160 or thereabouts. Even without pinning down the date, this easily qualifies as one of the oldest ones in the book, and, interestingly, constitutes one its few non-Asian and non-Asian-influenced appearances.
- Beowulf wielded a giant sword when he fought Grendel's mom. Justified in that it was in fact made by giants.
- In the Bible, after killing the giant Goliath, David cuts off his head with the giant's own sword. Considering that Goliath was about 9.5 ft tall, his sword must have been rather large compared to David.
Tabletop Games
- One of the big feature of Exalted are BFS called Daiklaves. Weapons can be made from one of the five magical metals of the setting (Orichalcum, Moonsilver, Starmetal, Jade and Soulsteel) and then attuned to by the right sort of person. In general the weapon is called an artifact. When the weapon is a sword, it's called a Daiklave.
- Then there are Grand Daiklaves, which are BFS versions of regular Daiklaves. Yes, BFS versions of a BFS.
- And the Chainklave, which fuses BFS with Chainsaw Good For Massive Awesome.
- The Warstrider version is BFS for a Humongous Mecha.
- Some Priests and the Sisters Repentia (sic) in the Witch Hunters Codex in Warhammer 40000 carry Eviscerators, which are chainsaw-bladed BFSes. They are said to be able to cut through tank plating.
- Justified in the case of the Eldar Avatar, because the thing holding the Big Freakin' Sword is a Big Freakin' God Incarnate Who's Really Really Pissed Off.
- The Wraithlord powered pay an Eldar Soul can get a Wraithsword that also has a Eldar soul in it. When you really need to slice a tank in two
- there's also the black sword that was weilded by the emperors champion special character, said sword was about 9-10 feet long (2 feet longer than the marine carrying it) and was capable cleaving through the side of a land raider, justified in that a) the user is a space marine (considered the best of the chapter) in custom built powered armour that was probably designed to help make using the sword easier and b) while it can spilt tanks open, doing so requires it to be held in two hands, making the character strike last.
- There are a lot of weapons in Warhammer Fantasy that fit into this trope as well. The Empire, for example, have an infantry unit called Greatswords. Ogre Ironguts have a Blade On A Stick large enough that a normal human could conceivably ram it up a Giant's nose while lying down, and the Kroxigor's weapons were described on the Warhammer page as being "trees with blades on the end."
- Some fans believe that Japanese adoration of big swords stems from Japanese fantasy fans seeing western D&D miniatures. The miniatures had out-of-scale swords, which weren't a specific statement so much as a way to make the swords easier to see on the models as well as easier to paint. Reportedly, this was interpreted to mean that such a weapon was standard in western-style fantasies.
- On the other hand, edition after edition of Dungeons & Dragons featured the Hammer of Thunderbolts, a warhammer so large that you needed two separate magic items to even have the strength to wield it. Once you did have said items and knew the hammer was the said Hammer of Thunderbolts, much asskicking against giants followed.
- The hammer was based on the myths of Thor's hammer, Mjollnir, which was so heavy (even though its handle was too short) that he needed both magic gloves and magic belt to increase his strength enough to wield it. (The Giants were the enemies of the Aesir in Norse mythology.)
- Later editions added the fullblade, a BFS which was larger and more powerful than the regular greatsword, but required an exotic/superior weapon feat to use. Similar big fragging weapons were also included in other categories, such as the Mordenkrad/Greathammer, a gigantic hammer favored by a race called goliaths.
- Goliaths, half-giants and users of the Monkey Grip feat can wield weapons made for creatures a size category larger than they are. This might lead to a character wielding a nine-foot bastard sword, one handed. There are also magic items that let you do the same thing. Thank Heaven they don't stack...
- Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 also features bloodlines, one of which is named "Titan Bloodline". By literal reading, it eventually grants anyone with major bloodline the ability to wield a Gargantuan Warhammer (Gargantuan creatures are a category larger than the largest Giants - vertical reach about 64'). This leads to hilarity with a 3' tall Halfling wielding a Warhammer around 10 times his size without penalties.
- A Dungeons & Dragons variant, Iron Heroes, allows you to select "Mighty Build" as one of your two Traits for a starting character. This allows you to wield weapons that are one size category larger than you, meaning that your character can wield his or her very own BFS (or whatever other weapon he or she specializes in).
- Another Dungeons & Dragons variant, Pathfinder, has an iconic barbarian as an NPC called Amiri. She wields a BFS which, although of "normal" greatsword length, is extremely broad.
- Spycraft 2.0 has a sword weighing 30 lb that ostensibly represents a zweihander, which in reality weighed less than a quarter of that — an actual sword this heavy would resemble Cloud's Buster Sword more than any real weapon and be completely impractical in any setting pretending to be at all realistic.
- A scene in the Great Pendragon Campaign has a BFS which isn't actually used in battle but is a bridge, similar to the example in the Arthurian mythology on which the game is based, above.
Video Games
- Sheriff's blade in Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines.
- Princess Waltz seems to want to go for Beyond The Impossible, because when Princess Iris uses her Eldhi Arc's ultimate sword evolution, the damn thing grows large enough to smite A CASTLE SIZED MAGIC GOLEM! To be fair, said golem was wielding a massive BFS of it's own.
- Angela has a Big Fraggin Spear and Liesel a Big Fraggin Hammer.
- Common in the later Final Fantasy games. The most well-known video game example is Cloud's Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII. Sephiroth, the Big Bad, also carries one, a superlong no-dachi called Masamune. In fact, Sephiroth's blade actually dwarfs Cloud's, no mean feat. It's interesting to note that, in both cases, the BFS is of sufficient size that nobody could reasonably carry it.
- The story actually references this, though, saying that Sephiroth is the only man skilled enough to wield his sword. Cloud's, though, passes through no fewer than three users, all of whom use it with ease.
- It should be noted that Cloud's sword is not actually that long; real life two handed swords were of similar (sometimes longer) lengths. It's just wide... and he often wields it with one hand....
- There's also the part about Cloud and Sephiroth both being genetically modified super-soldiers who have extraordinary strength. It makes perfect sense that the two are able to wield their weapons. Angeal was also a pretty special guy... let's try and figure out how Zack managed it.
- Same way the others could; he was a member of the exact same organization.
- Technically, Cloud wasn't a member of SOLDIER. He was psychologically unfit to go through the modifications, which he was later put through, anyway. Still, he was never a formal part of the organization. It is shown that Zack was as strong as, if not stronger than Cloud.
- As for Sephiroth's Masamune, this sword from Japan shows that it is indeed possible to make such a long weapon and at least handle it if not wield it with ease. Given the fact that in FF 7: 1. It's set on another planet with VERY advanced technology, 2. Sephiroth is, for the most part the strongest individual alive, and 3. The materials used to make the sword are likely very light, well balanced, and strong enough to withstand abuse while being unknown to us on a scientific level, this BFS doesnt seem all THAT ridiculous anymore, though it still has a lot of fridge logic remaining.
- By Advent Children, Cloud has ditched the Buster Sword and left it on Zack's grave. He replaces it with the equally huge First Tsurugi. Which is really six swords. In one. However, Cloud never separates it into more than two swords until the end of the movie, when he uses all six blades in his final Omnislash against the resurrected Sephiroth. You gotta wonder why Cloud has such great resources: if there is a BFS to be found, he'll get it.
- Actually, he STARTS with it separated into all six sections. At the start he only uses the 'core' of it, which has a folding mechanism built into the center of it. It allows the blades to either extend to almost the same width as the buster sword, or collapse down to a much more compact form(which forms the core of the full sword). Looking at it, it's obviously MUCH lighter than the buster sword, as it's not solid. He then starts using various of the other pieces as an offhand weapon, progressively locking more and more onto the main sword as he goes. The second piece he uses forms the main blade, 3 and 4 are the back edge, 5 and 6 are smaller and lock onto the sides at the bottom(mostly for looks, probably). The completed sword looks very much like the buster sword, and likely weighs as much or more. It's pretty strongly implied that doing it this way was to show Cloud regaining his old strength as he progresses, as he and all the other characters have lost much of their strength after two years of not fighting.
- Auron, the guardian from Final Fantasy X, has several swords that fit in this category, including his Ultima Weapon.
- Partially subverted with Tidus, however, who uses a more reasonable weapon size throughout the game.
- Braska's Final Aeon ( Jecht) wields an enormous, anchor-shaped sword that could double as a surfboard. In fact, after he rips it out of his chest during his One Winged Angel transformation, the sword itself becomes the platform on which the Final Battle takes place.
- Averted in Final Fantasy IX, where the weapons are all realistically proportioned, perhaps because the characters are not. This is the odd one out among 3D FF games, and in this facet, as in several others, it connects with the traditional 2D series in a way that the other 3D titles don't. It is also averted in FFXII whose more realistic design theme overall, leads to generally reasonable weapons.
- Of course, in FFXII, the swords weilded by Behemoth-type monsters are friggin' huge. In the weapon shops in the game, one of these can be seen on the wall behind the counter.
- Then again, it's taken to the utmost extremes with Odin's Sword, which stands enshrined (and chained) in the Inverted Castle. It's several stories tall, crackles with electricity, and performing the small quest to release its power allows the Odin summon to do Wind-based damage with his sword in case the enemies are immune to instant-kills.
- Final Fantasy VI (FFIII in its original English release) had numerous swords which, due to the nature of the sprites, were rather large. However it had two swords which, even given the artistic style, looked too large to be allowed. The first was the Scimitar (in Japanese, named Zantetsuken (iron-cutting sword), a name normally reserved in the series for Odin's One Hit Kill weapon), about three to four times the height of most characters which had the fitting ability where it had a chance to instantly kill (cut in half) on each blow. The other weapon was the Atma Weapon, a Soul-reflecting sword that grew longer the more hitpoints you had. Equip it in the right person's hands at the end of the game and you were wielding a sword that was easily 10-12 times your height!
- Most of the endgame swords were like this. Lightbringer and Terra's unique sword, Apocalypse, were around the size of the Ultima Weapon. Ragnarok, Excalibur, and Celes' Save the Queen were also like this, but to a lesser extent.
- Both Final Fantasy Tactics Advance protagonists hold a BFS called Judge Sword in their artwork (which make look the Buster Sword tame in comparison), but the only place they're ever seen in the games is a brief appearance during the Bishop's Judge spell in the first game.
- Garland in Dissidia Final Fantasy brandishes the BFS to end all BFSes. It is larger than the entire bodies of most of the other characters in the game, and is larger relative to Garland (who is at least ten feet tall) than the Buster Sword is to Cloud.
- No. The end-all [BFSes] are the blades found in the Edge of Madness stage. Each one is easily three stories tall at least. And for Chaos's ultimate attack, he gets big enough to use one. Wait, did I say "one"? I meant four.
- Um, Garland is not 10 feet tall. He's about the same height as the majority of other villains.
- Touhou has Youmu Konpaku with her Roukanken, which is said to be able to kill ten spirits in one stroke. Though you can't really kill something dead. Appropriately, she looks like Sephiroth's bastard child.
- Extra boss Flandre Scarlet has a spell which summons an energy sword. Given that this is a 2D shoot 'em up, that doesn't sound too dangerous... until you realize that it's 10 times her height — nearly as long as the screen.
- You forgot to mention this sword is not only made from fire, it also leaves dozens of firebolts in its wake. It's Laevatein, the sword of Loki, God of Destruction himself — in the hands of a 495-year-old (very young, for a vampire) little girl. Oh, and it's pretty much one of her weakest, if not her weakest spell altogether.
- In the doujin Advent Cirno which takes place in a Touhou-flavored Final Fantasy VII universe, Cirno, who takes the role Cloud took in the game, uses a watermelon version of Cloud's First Tsurugi from Advent Children.
- Disgaea has many many examples but the Yoshitsuna tops them all. The sprite for the sword is so big in proportion to the characters that it will go partly into the ground when held pointing down from neck height.
- Both Siegfried and Nightmare from the Soul Series use a BFS. Further, in Soul Calibur 3, there is an entire style based off of the BFS. The German sword style it was based on actually existed, but both characters use it in ways that a normal human could never accomplish with a two-handed sword of that size.
- This Troper feels compelled to point out that "Zweihander" is not a type of sword, but a blanket term for European two-handed swords invented to justify lumping them all together. Siegfried and Nightmares (and the "Great Sword" style from SC 3) weapons have no real world counterpart of similar size, though the names of some real European sword styles are used.
- It should be noted that Soul Calibur takes whatever form the user wants, so its likely that it has the required secondary power of changing its mass. On the other hand, I now wonder why no one just turns it into a easily-used cannon or gun for simple curbstomping.
- By Soul Calibur 4, both swords are of the BFS variety, and are portrayed that way in every character's ending. In the three Custom Character endings, lifts and wields one of the swords with one hand. If you faced Algol as the final boss, you dual wield Soul Calibur and Soul Edge, in BFS form. You also levitate.
- Emelius in Grandia 3 carries a massive, jagged sword.
- The browser-based MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing spoofs this with the "Ridiculously Huge Sword", which is a three-handed weapon and drops from an enemy called "Protaganist" in the "Penultimate Fantasy Airship."
- Kliff in Guilty Gear carries a sword that's larger than he is tall — but then, Kliff's a Miniature Senior Citizen. But then again, some of his special moves de-age him, and the sword's still as large as he is tall....
- In later games, little girl Amy combines this with Improbable Weapon User by weilding a functional anchor, minus most of the chain.
- Do you perhaps mean May? She's in the very first game.
- Let's not forget Dr Baldhead/Faust, with his scalpel as big as he is (which makes it some 8 or 9 feet long).
- Sanger Zonvolt of the Super Robot Wars metaseries is the king of this trope. He pilots one of the biggest Humongous Mecha in the game, and his BFS Zankatou, roughly "Ship-cutting sword"/Colossal Blade is usually even longer than that!
- In the PS 2 remake, his Alternate Universe Evil Twin gets a new move called "Blade of the Cosmos". For comparison, both of their ultimate attacks can be seen here. (WARNING: Video contains spoilers and 200% of your daily recommended dose of awesome.)
- Nanbu Kaguya of Mugen no Frontier has a katana not quite as relatively large, but fitted with curved crescent blades in the reverse edge which she can release and command to slice up the enemy. During her limit break, she goes so far as to steal some of Sanger's lines: Waga zankantou ni tatenu mono wa
nashi arimasen!/Waga na wa Nanbu Kaguya! Aku wo tatsu tsurugi ni naru desu!
- In SRW J, if you use the right rub pilots enough, Granteed Dracodeus and Laftcranz can use this in the form of a massive green crystal blade. While Granteed's is about on par with what Zengar brings to the field, Laftcranz's is the same size, but it is a medium sized mech, rather than an large, things just got crazy up'n here.
- Averted in Silent Hill 2 with Pyramid Head. Yes, he has a fragging huge sword/knife/thing, but he is also shown to be physically incapable of lifting it, and instead drags it everywhere he goes, illustrating his tortured mentality. And when James has the chance to wield it, he also must drag it around, and swinging it takes him several seconds as well. The film version, however, has him swinging it around all willy nilly, probably because he gets a role transplant from a manifestation of guilt to a manifestation of protection and vengeance.
- And even if he swings it with ease in the film, he still has some trouble carrying it around. Whether this is a result of him being a representation of Alessa's pain and equal vengeance or simply the directors not caring is still a mystery.
- Maybe because the image of him dragging the giant thing is so damn creepy? And then there's the sound....
- Or maybe Pyramid Head represents James' libido and the sword is his rusty, unused phallus which he can't even get up anymore but this might all be just a lot of Wild Mass Guessing.
- Ninja Gaiden's Xbox remake features a sword known as the Dabilahro, which starts as a golden version of Cloud's Buster Sword. Upgrading it cuts holes out of its girth but doesn't reduce its length. It is explicitly stated in the menu's description to be 100 pounds in weight. Then there are the Fiend Nightmares, which wield Shikai Zangetsu-esque cleavers. And as also stated in One Winged Angel's page, Spirit Doku wields a nodachi Sephiroth would be proud of.
- In Okami, Amaterasu can equip swords called "glaives" as her primary weapon. Swords longer than she is, for the most part. Also, the second brush god, Tachigami, is a rat who pulls a BFS out of a scabbard much too small to contain it.
- From the very beginning, the original Monster Hunter had an entire class of weapons called Great Swords. These weapons were often as big if not bigger than the user, and though extremely damaging were slow and often clumsy. In Monster Hunter 2 another variation of BFS, the long yet thin Tachi or Long Sword, was added. While unable to block, the tachi was a compensated with speed and the ability to raise the user's fighting spirit (essentially a conditional built-in attack buff)
- Somewhat averted in the Monster Hunter series, however. While the large weapons are indeed quite a bit larger than could realistically be wielded, they do not whip around like weapons half their size, as is common in the vast majority of this trope. Particularly with the great swords, the character takes a lengthy amount of time winding up his/her swings and recovering from them thereafter, making these powerful weapons require a great deal of experience and timing to be even remotely effective.
- Monster Hunter also features big freakin' hammers, lances, hunting horns (also used for bashing monsters upside the head), &c.
- The character Arngrim from Valkyrie Profile wields one of the largest swords ever seen in a console RPG. It is about twice as long as Arngrim is tall, and as wide as a regular Claymore. Considering Arngrim's size, this makes it roughly 12 feet long from point to pommel, with a 9-foot long blade. There is little significance to the fact that he wields such a ghastly-sized weapon, except as a hallmark to the ridiculous one-up-manship that tends to pervade RPG weaponry.
- Kashell also has a BFS. It may only be half the size of Arngrim's, but it's still longer than the character is tall.
- Note that neither character's sprite is consistent with his artwork in this regard. The art depicts their swords as being closer to historical Zweihanders in size.
- Arngrim returns in Valkyrie Profile 2, but is one-upped by Dylan, whose sword is as long as Arngrim's but, almost twice as wide, looking like a curved (and dented) version of Cloud's Buster Sword.
- Considering Arngrim is an Expy of Guts to begin with, his choice of weaponry is hardly surprising.
- The MMORPG World of Warcraft is well known for the Big Fragging Swords, as well as Big Fragging Shoulder Armor. Case in point for both◊.
- And Big Fragging Guns and Big Fragging Axes and... you get the idea.
- Shown case-in-point is actually on the average side for the game. The more epic items can fairly easily dwarf the character who carries them◊.
- Also, Gnomes. Gnome Melee Classes (such as the Warrior and Death Knight) can wield two-handed swords. Often these swords are longer than the character is tall, causing them to clip through the ground when carried on the character's back. Especially ludicrous in the case of Death Knights, where the starter swords are more than one-third of the width of the character's back!
- Armageddon is so big that NO character is tall enough for it to not reach INTO THE GROUND. It's really the only weapon in the game that rivals Thunderfury. Now that thing isn't "unique", so it can even be DUAL-WIELDED by warriors...
- THIS◊ is what can happen in some of the more outragous examples... now let's see what they mind fuck us with next patch.
- The most well-known BFS in World of Warcraft is probably the legendary Ashbringer◊.
- An instance of Gameplay And Story Segregation in Drakengard. The sword that Caim wields in the cutscenes is larger by far than the sword he carries around in-game. This is taken up a notch in the sequel, when Caim's Sword is ridiculously huge when the protagonist of that game acquires it. There's also a literal BFS in Hymir's Finger, a sword that is said to weigh 50 kg (roughly 100 lbs.) and is long enough to qualify as a jousting lance. Also in Drakengard 2? A sword that's been broken in half — and is still SO huge (due to so many repeated forgings to add everything from a giant's leg-bone to the SOUL OF A CHILD, which is what finally snapped the blade) that it can only be wielded as an immense, overly-huge, ridiculously heavy AXE.
- If you look closely, it even appears that said axe is part of Hymir's Finger, which makes sense since the blade was forged from the pretty much scrap of everything the guy who forged it ever killed.
- And, of course, Frostmourne.
- The Biggoron Sword from The Legend of Zelda series. Then there were the Darknut swords from the Wind Waker. Those things were so huge that they were only good for throwing and for breaking pillars. But they were VERY good as thrown/demolition weapons.
- Surprisingly, despite taking a second or two to bring over your head so you could swing them, you could chuck Darknuts' weapons across the room with ease.
- Don't forget the Helix Blade from Majora's Mask — that thing was longer than Link was tall!
- And Link was at least 8 feet tall in that form.
- Where are people getting these measurements?
- Though not as big as the Helix sword the great fairy sword is twice as high as child-Link, who is weilding it. That's a BFS!
- The last fight in Rogue Galaxy is the main character Jaster vs. a giant monster ship-sized evil... thing. Lucky for you, Jaster just got a blade the size of a school bus!
- It starts off the size of a school bus, but is extended to ridiculous proportions during said fight. We're talking 10x Sephy's Masamune.
- In the 7th Fire Emblem game, Durandal can only be wielded by Eliwood when he's riding a horse, and appears to be longer than the horse he's riding. Somehow the horse can jump while carrying both Eliwood and the sword. On the other hand, Eliwood's battle speed is dramatically slowed due to its weight, making it much more feasible to use lighter weapons instead.
- Ike in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn wields a two handed sword with one hand(though it's quite shrimpy compared to the other swords on this page...)! Naturally, he's the most powerful swordsman in Super Smash Bros Brawl.
- Based on a CG in Radiant Dawn, there existed a woman who wielded Ike's Ragnell and its identical twin Alondite in a case of Dual Wielding BFSs. She was considered a hero, and became the first Empress of Begnion.
- The version of the Yamato nodachi wielded by Nero's Devil Trigger spirit in Devil May Cry 4 is long. For reference, one of Nero's Action Commands involves leaping inside a frog demon boss by the mouth and attacking it from within. The spirit, which stays outside, attacks with slashes the size of the monster.
- Not to mention Dante's zweihänder-long, Claymore-wide Rebellion which he swings faster than a rapier.
- And Vergil/Nelo Angelo's BFS, and Dante's Sparda sword in the first game.
- To be fair, They ARE half-demon.
- The standard Broadsword and Katana models in City of Heroes is already pretty big, but the unlockable Rularuu models are often bigger than the player character wielding it.
- The Rikti Sword models are also pretty huge (and not exactly conventional).
- The entire point of the Flash game Ginormo Sword. If you can't hit the entire screen with your sword, you haven't done enough Level Grinding.
- Probably the last character you'd expect getting a BFS is getting a BFS: Sonic. Also, it can talk, and it's trying to make Sonic more chivalrous and knight-like.
- Subverted considering Sonic and friends are about 3 feet tall.
- Nyx Avatar, last boss of Persona 3, stands about 18 feet tall and wields a massive zweihander roughly twice that size. In one hand. It's large enough that you're never quite able to see the sword in its entirety during the fight. Then again, if anyone deserves to wield a BFS, it would be the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death.
- The Main Character of Persona 4.
- Several characters in Dynasty Warriors/Sangoku Musou, Samurai Warriors/Sengoku Musou, their crossover Warriors Orochi/Orochi Musou, or the me-too series Sengoku Basara/Devil Kings, have ridiculously large weapon wielders alongside characters with normal weapons. Examples include a jolly fat man with a mace whose head is the size of his entire body, two vanilla BFS wielders, a BF axe, a BF boomerang, a few BF spears, BF gauntlets-shaped-like-animal-heads, BF claws...
- A couple of borderline BF Ses appear in Dead Rising, but they are explicitly decorative items (the game takes place in a mall). There is a secret unlockable laser sword that grows in length if you do the spinning lariat while holding it, though.
- Duke, Balga, Gaia and Tau each wield a BFS in Battle Arena Toshinden. Gaia even uses his one handed.
- A form of Sora's Keyblade, Metal Chocobo, qualifies for this. As you could quess, he got the corresponding keychain from Cloud Strife himself.
- He also gets Fenrir (also from Cloud), Lionheart/Sleeping Lion (from Squall), Oblivion, Guardian Soul (from Auron), and two Ultima Weapons, among others.
- Fenrir was a reward from Tifa after Cloud and Seph have their duel of ultimate destiny a la Advent Children.
- To be technical, it is actually a BFK (Big Fricking Key).
- Saïx's weapon, Lunatic, is called a "claymore" in game text but can really only be described as a Big Spiky Sword-thing.
- The aptly-named Huge Sword from Golden Sun: The Lost Age and its unleash, "Heavy Divide". Also, Felix and Isaac's Ragnarok/Odyssey Psyenergy. And the multi-elemental summon Catastrophe. And the Excalibur's "Legend" unleash, as well as the Gaia Blade's Titan Blade and the Darksword's Acheron's Grief. So Yeah...
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night brings us the Runesword, an oversized sword that you don't swing, but rather have fly out in front of you and come back to you. And then there's Aria of Sorrow's Claimh Solais, which swings in an approximately 135-degree arc in front of you and is the best sword in the game.
- And have we forgotten Aria of Sorrow's Excalibur? While not big, it is heavy: it comes with the rock it's embedded in!
- Wanna make Cloud shit his pants? Just combine two Secare glyphs and you get yourself one of the biggest woman-wielded BF Ses in history.
- In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, one of the Glyph Unions is a massive sword. As a matter of fact, another one is a massive Laser Blade.
- There are a few of these in Curse of Darkness. One of the standouts is the Dragon Killer, which is almost as thick as Hector's body and in name seems to be a Shout Out to the one from Berserk. It isn't as slow as one might first think, though.
- Fiona Mayfield from Arcana Heart is a cute little eleven-year-old (sorta) in a wholesomely frilly maid's outfit... complete with gauntlets, steel boots, and a Zweihander at least as large as she is.
- Sarevok, the Big Bad in the first Baldurs Gate game, wields a massive sword suitable for his own great size. Even without his unholy power strengthening it, in the sequel it's one of the best big weapons in the early game.
- The Moiety daggers in the Myst series may count. Although they're never wielded by anyone, these giant metal kunai-like knives appear in several places in Riven, and show up occasionally as a Shout Out in later games. The knives here are merely symbolic, being scaled-up versions of normal-sized knives used by the Moiety.
- In La Tale, some of the two-handed swords are quite literally larger than the characters weilding them. This is especially incongrous when the weilder is wearing a delicate dress.
- Kratos from God of War is a regular BFS magnet. Weapons handled include Artemis Blade, Spear of Destiny, the humongous Barbarian Hammer, Zeus' Fist and the theoretically most powerful so far, Blade of Olympus. Unfortunately most of the Olympian power is Cutscene Power To The Max.
- Not to mention when he grows to Godly size, after a long battle his weapons are destroyed by Ares. He then spots, and uses, and wins with - a sword-shaped bridge between two islands.
- While they are not anywhere near as big as some of the other examples on the page. In The Witcher, Geralt has two large swords (one is silver designed for taking out monsters). NPCs will often comment on this, such as one random NPC suggesting one could double as an oar, and a prostitute asking if he is compensating for anything. Geralt is a Witcher however, meaning he is inhumanly strong, makeing such a weapon more practical, and swords not made for Witchers are small enough to be hung on the waist.
- It's not his strength that's superhuman, it's his reflexes. He doesn't have any problem wielding a huge sword because being made of meteorite iron it's lighter than any regular blade.
- The swords wielded by the Great Brothers most certainly qualify for this trope every bit as much as any blade on this page.
- The ultimate example is probably The Valeria Heart from The Last Remnant, which is the size of a tower and leaves a whole in the ground about fifteen feet across, of course it's not actually wielded by anyone in that state. The game also has greatswords which are long but narrow bladed(except the Yama swords, but the Yama are around ten feet tall).
- In Bunny Must Die, the little girl main character can obtain and swing a sword three times her height. Justified in that it's a Laser Blade.
- Nariko, the red-headed fantasy caucasian Norse-analog with an Asian father and a Japanese name (WTF?), is the protagonist of Heavenly Sword, a rare of example of the BFS being right there in the title of the game. As Zero Punctuation pointed out, much of the time this stupidly gigantic magicaly sword is split into two smaller swords, though in power stance it's one huge chunk of metal about the same size as the slim young woman who wields it.
- No More Heroes Death Metal, your first assassin to face off with wields an impressive transforming Orange MK-II. Plus, Travis gains one LaserBlade comprised of five beams at Buster Sword length.
- Trevor in Exit Fate.
Daniel: And what's with that ridiculous sword anyway? It's like a huge slab of iron! Sick: He's compensating.
- Shadow of the Colossus: Even accounting for size of Colossi, the Third Colossus wields a sword that is very nearly as long as he is tall. Compared to the protagonist, said sword is as big as a highway, and so thick and heavy it acts more as a bludgeon than a blade.
- The Queen's Sword in Ico is almost as large as a grown man, and when Ico wields it, he has trouble standing upright or even bringing it to bear.
- Exor in Super Mario RPG is a gigantic, living sword longer than Bowser's Castle is tall. The plot of the game begins when it crashes through the Star Road, shattering it, and stabs right into the castle to become a portal for Smithy's invading forces.
- The Holy Daedalus Blade, the Dark Cloud, the Chronicle Sword, and the Island King in Dark Cloud 2. The latter, in particular, is actually a surfboard-sized Tiki-mask with a pinwheel on one end and a hilt on the other.
- Sigma uses one in Mega Man X 8, made out of scrap metal (not making this up); Sigma himself is nothing more than scrap held together by The Virus, in what is believed to be his final appearance. Oh, and Zero can use it as his own on a New Game Plus, effectively an Infinity Plus One Sword.
- Mega Man 8 had Swordman, a Robot Master specifically built to wield a BFS Wily ripped off. But the sword was so heavy, Swordman is composed of two halves, the upper of which tilts to counterbalance the blade. Oh, and he can channel fire through it.
- In the Tales Series, we have the spirit Undine's blade in Tales of Phantasia, Philia Philis' Clemente (heavily magic-tilted and terrible for offense, unlike most examples here) in Tales of Destiny, Ruca Milda's signature weapon type in Tales of Innocence, and Decus's sword (which he keeps stored in a man-sized iron maiden) from Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World. There are also massive axes to be found, specifically Presea Combatir's Gaia Cleaver and Innes Lorenz' Folseus (and both characters are Mighty Glacier types to boot).
- In the game Rune, the character progresses to larger and larger swords (and blunt weapons and axes). There are five levels of these, with the third being the largest you might find realistically (e.g. the level 3 sword is a conventional two-handed sword). Levels 4 and 5 are these gigantic, freakazoid swords that defy all the rules of how to make a good sword — but they are the fastest and do the most damage.
- Why has no one mentioned the Wookiee Warblade from the Knights of the Old Republic games yet? Seriously, a DOUBLE-BLADED BFS!
- Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption give us Urai Fen, who uses two gigantic swords. That can destroy a light vehicle in one hit.
- Assassin in Fate Stay Night has a nodachi with a length of 150cm, or roughly six feet. Not terribly notable except the game specifically points out this is more the length of a lance than a sword and is unrealistically large. The 'actual' Monohoshizao was a more modest 90cm. Only Assassin can wield such a long sword, apparently. And it's still only for dueling, not combat.
- Flay's sword from Mana Khemia is rather wide, and can also shoot shurikens, something that looks like a laser, and transform into a giant drill. Vayne can wield and transform into a sword six times his size. Anna wields a katana longer than she is tall. One of the bosses is a BFS. Even the generic students get their hands on some of these.
- You didn't expect Guilty Gear's Spiritual Successor BlazBlue to hold back, did you? Jin's Katana and Hakumen's Tsurugi are almost realistically sized. Ragna wields a huge, complicated sword that unfolds into a scythe for his Astral Finish, and Bang somehow manages to lug around a gigantic nail. The award for most improbably large sword, however, goes to Robot Girl v-13 who fuses with her sword Combining Mecha style and summons a sword the size of a tower for her Astral Finish.
- The Blade power from Prototype turns Alex's right forearm into a two-sided... Blade around his height.
- The Sky Fang from Skies of Arcadia. It's larger in both height and width than Vyse is.
- Kilbert's sword Fragarch in Atelier Annie is positively huge, with the size of the handle alone matching him shoulder-to-shoulder. However, its size makes it almost completely impractical for combat, and he simply keeps it around to intimidate monsters (in combat, this is a battle command that he can use to make weaker enemies flee in terror).
Web Comics
- Kenta ("Ken") Daisuke, from the webcomic No Need for Bushido, carries a zanbato which is as wide as he is, and approximately four times his length.
- Jillian Zamussels, from Erfworld, carries a BFS. Her listed strengths on the cast page include "Unrealistically Oversized Weaponry" and "Hack-slash-carve-stabbity-chopchop".
- Sir Eglamore of Gunnerkrigg Court has two swords, each nearly as tall as him: A normal metal blade, for normal threats like dragons and wolves; and a glowing blade of unknown composition, for fighting Shadow Men.
- A giftwrapped BFS in this Misfile strip.
- Roy's Weapon Of Choice as leader of The Order of the Stick (and specialist weapon, being a Fighter) is an heirloom greatsword, which while being realistic by standards of this page is still damn big.
- The intro comic to the first book parodies the "oddly effeminate male leads" of the Final Fantasy series by showing one of them with a sword larger than he is strapped to his back, rendering him unable to move as with its point stuck in the ground the bearer is suspended several feet in the air with it strapped to his back.
- Taken to extremes in Adventurers!
- Grantz from Girl Genius.
- Exiern: Dark Reflections. Ludicrously large sword, ludicrously tiny clothing.
- Bun-Bun of Sluggy Freelance fame. Little bunny, huge sword.
- Orion from Beyond Reality. It starts out about six feet long and a foot wide. After it its broken and reforged it is the same width, but only three feet long.
- In Questionable Content, Dora keeps a pretty healthy-sized broadsword behind the counter as an anti-burglary weapon. "Coffee of Doom", indeed!
- Ragara Karen wields one in Keychain of Creation.
- Dragon Tails parodies this trope in the RPG arc with an Expy of Cloud whose sword is so large it requires a cart for him to actually move it. Considering what Bluey did to poor Lady Moona, this troper reckons that they didn't let him get a chance to use it, either.
- Hakelda of Reliquary carries around a spiked club nearly as tall as she is.
Web Original
- These sometimes appear in Survival of the Fittest, where Danya sometimes puts medieval swords on the list of weapons to be assigned. Such swords include a 55-inches-long Claymore, a 6-feet-long Zweihander, and a Grosse Messer.
- Kuar in Tech Infantry is only somewhat huge, but a world with werewolves, vampires, and other supernaturally strong characters facing off against supernaturally-tough enemies who may be Immune To Bullets, big honking swords are commonplace.
Western Animation
Real Life
- During late Medieval times, a Frisian pirate and freedom fighter existed by name of "Grutte Pier". In keeping with the trope, he rose to prominence after the infamous Black Band mercenaries sacked his hometown. Reported to be a very large man, Grutte Pier wielded a similarly oversized sword: The weapon believed to be his, now kept at the Fries Museum, measures 2.25m (7 feet) in length.
- Actual effective use of such a sword would have been effectively impossible; as an intimidating showpiece it's among the best, though.
- Uh... see the multiple references to "Claymore" throughout this page.
- This mind-bogglingly enormous Japanese sword is 377 cm (over 12 feet) long, and is the largest sword of its type known to exist in Japan. Other examples, though none of quite that magnitude, can be found on the linked site.
- And this particular example was made to test a forging technique, not to be actually used in a battlefield.
- The Scottish claymore is a real-life example; it was designed with the weight and length to take the heads off several unfortunate Englishmen in one swing once you got some momentum behind the swing. Having said that its use died out mostly because it was responsible for too many friendly fire casualties. The claymore was still definitely a BFS, albeit in a different order of magnitude than most of the ridiculously-sized blades in this trope.
- William Wallace's supposed claymore was five-and-a-half feet long.
- The Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh houses a claymore — admittedly ceremonial, but still — that is at least seven feet (a bit more than two metres) long in total. See for yourself.◊
- Allegedly, Richard The Lionheart's sword was a BFS. This Troper took a unit in Medieval History at university, and his first-year lecturer described (in a strong Scottish brogue) how he'd gone to see the weapon when he was a 20-year-old road worker — i.e. pretty muscled up and at a physical peak. Said lecturer found he could barely lift the damn sword, let alone swing it with any accuracy.
- The German "Zweihänder" was up to 6 feet long, weighing up to 7 lb. (3 kg) and used in both hands, allegedly to break up pike formations.
- These swords were up to 180 cm long (the blade itself being 150 cm long) and in skilled hands could easily decapitate a horse.
- The Landsknechts (hired foot soldiers, often not of noble origin) also used a Flammberg, a 5 kg(!) two-handed sword, whose blades were made in wave pattern (thus making it (sort of) a real Flaming Sword ). It could penetrate virtually any armor and left very nasty, ripped and torn wounds, like a giant saw. The usage was the same as by Zweihänder, but also in "foot against horse" situation.
- Pepin the Short's sword was about 1,83 m (little over 6 feet) long. The most remarkable thing is that Pepin himself was 1,37 m (under 4 feet and half) tall.
- Not exactly a sword, but this basic trend is subverted in the sabre-tooth tiger. Many look at the sabre-tooth as being far more vicious than recent species of cats (such as lions and tigers). Truth be told, the evolution of cats canines to smaller size made them more deadly and effective than the sabre-tooth was. Sometimes smaller is better.
- This isn't a subversion as sabertooths lived alongside ancient lions and such that had teeth the same as modern cats. Furthermore, according to evolutionists, saber teeth evolve and re-evolved in several lines of cats (and even a south american marsupial) several times over prehistory. It's clear they were very effective at what they did, being most likely specializations for killing very large prey animals. The only flaw might have been that if those large animals died out then the saber teeth would no longer be useful and instead would get in the way. Its much the same for any animal that is specialized for a limited diet.
- See here for a man using a real-life replica of Cloud's buster sword. It turns out to be rather ineffective.
- Practitioners of Baguazhang, a Chinese internal martial art, train with oversized swords to build strength and so on. It's relatively easy to find daos almost five feet long and weighing around 5lbs.
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