Blade Enthusiast

"Damn, all of this and not one razor?!"

"A pristine Corehound Tooth, a custom-forged Perdition's Blade, and of course a sharpened Shard of Azzinoth. My dagger collection is quite extensive. That's because I'm a fan of knives."

— Maiev Shadowsong, Heroes of the Storm

There is just something about bladed weapons that naturally draws people to them. Maybe it's the brilliant shine a well-polished blade gives or maybe it's the hundreds upon hundreds of intricately designed swords, knives, and other blades that exist around the world. Whatever the reason, this character has a keen interest in blades. They can tell the difference between every weapon in their collection no matter how small. They love knives so much they can't but gush about them to anyone who would hear. Blade enthusiasts love the danger and morbidity associated with knives so quite a few of them double as Nightmare Fetishists or Psycho Knife Nuts.

Some collectors only collect knives and other blades for show and never intend to use them as weapons, while others carry hundreds of knives on their person at all times.

The blade enthusiast's collection might be mounted on a Wall of Weapons.

Subtrope of Otaku. See also Gun Nut, which is for gun enthusiasts. For characters who primarily use knives or other bladed weapons that reflect their personality, see Weapon-Based Characterization.

For characters who collect unorthodox items, see Collector of the Strange.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The live-action advertisements for Merge Mansion depicts the protagonist's wealthy grandmother as being an implied Serial Killer with so many knives she's shown raking them like leaves in one scene.

Anime & Manga

• Shenhua of Black Lagoon is a deadly assassin who utilizes twin kukris and kunai for distance throwing, and believes knives to be superior to guns.
• Alka in Blade & Soul specializes in short blades, and is quite deadly with them, much more than the typical goons with a gun she faces off against.
• Comet Lucifer: Puck really likes his knives and is often seen holding or using one. He later pulls a mecha-sized knife to kill Sogo, combined with a very scary expression on his face.
• Kino's Journey: Kino always has a large number of knives on her person. In fact, it is noted that in nearly every country they stop in, she'll add at least one knife to her collection because she thinks they're beautiful.
• Anie Lupin III Dead Or Alive: General Headhunter has a collection of massive, vicious knives, and is an avid knife fighter, Dual Wielding them and even having trick blades hidden in his sleeves and shoes.
• Ken Kaido in Mazinkaiser SKL, who favors all sort of blades, including SKL's Cool Sword.
• Moriarty the Patriot: Old Soldier Jack has a set of very fancy combat knives he keeps in William's care, who in turn keeps them in a safe deposit box and retrieves them for Jack's use when Jack asks him for help reclaiming his name of Jack the Ripper. They seem to be his primary and favored weapon.
• Naruto:
  • Tenten carries thousands of knives and knife variants in her scroll which she summons and throws at high speed from midair.
  • Suigetsu is an Ax-Crazy rogue ninja who sees it as his goal in life to collect all seven blades of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen.
• Tashigi from One Piece could be classified as a sword Otaku, among other things. She keeps an encyclopedia of the most rare and prized swords on her person at all times and her Goal in Life is to steal all of these weapons away from pirates and criminals who would use such works of art for evil.
• The titular Bean Bandit of Riding Bean is shown to be very proficient with knives, but his debut in Gunsmith Cats would reveal that he has a large arsenal full of blades.
• Yona of the Dawn: Jaeha's weapon of choice are kunai, which he prefers to rain down on his opponents from above while using his power to jump superhumanly high. However, when Yona goes to him while asking around for a weapon to practice sword techniques with, he opens his robe to reveal dozens of knives and daggers lining the inside.

Comic Books

• The fittingly named "Master of Knives" in Alone. He wears dozens of them on his coat and is very good at fighting with them or at throwing them.
• Batman foe David Rennington, a.k.a. Dagger, is skilled with blades of all kind, and especially adept with throwing knives.
• Doctor Doom: Victor von Doom attributes his interest in swordplay to the works of Alexandre Dumas and claims to have over 50,000 swords on display in his sword hall. A flashback shows him using one of his swords to kill Katarina Karkov.
• Captain America foe Cutthtroat is an expert with bladed weapons, and usually caries a sword and and a huge number of knives.
• Largo Winch keeps a pair of throwing knives on his heels, and has plenty of opportunity to use them. He is often shown idly fiddling with a knife during business meetings.
• The Widower in Red Robin, who impaled Tim and gleefully thanks his victims for the opportunity of getting to stab them, carries multiple knives and swords.

Film — Animation

• The Sea Beast: First mate Sarah Sharpe lives up to her last name, owning a large collection of blades. She has to remove each and every one from her top bunk when Maisie is shacked up in her cabin.

Film — Live-Action

• The Bride: Bela, the chief enforcer to the Repulsive Ringmaster of Circus Magar, is constantly playing with a clasp knife in a threatening manner. He eventually uses it to cut the safety line on Rinaldo's safety line.
• Camp Slaughter: Michelle, one of the campers, is obsessed with crafted her own weaponry, including spears, crossbows, and broadhead hunting arrows, and has her own workshop at the camp. It turns out that she's one of the killers.
• Drive (2011): Bernie only uses knives and razors to kill and even has a collection of knives.
• Gangs of New York: Bill "The Butcher" Cutting uses many butcher's knives, befitting his profession. He's adept at throwing them, and when fighting hand-to-hand he prefers Dual Wielding a long knife and a monstrous cleaver.
• Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels: Soap reveals that he has a collection of large knives ("big fuck-off shiny ones"), and delivers a speech about how they're more practical than guns because they're quiet, concluding, "Guns for show, knives for a pro." The rest of the gang is creeped out. As the sole member of the group with an honest trade, this is both ironic and fitting. His job as a cook would presumably make him comfortable with knives and butchering.
• Today We Kill... Tomorrow We Die!: Professional Gambler Francis 'Colt' Moran is an expert gunslinger, but is also an expert with a knife and actually kills more people with his knives than with his gun over the course of the movie.
• The Crow (1994): In spite of being an urban ganglord, Top Dollar is a real nut for swords and knives and has a large cabinet full of them. He kills a minion with a rapier, and Eric steals one of his swords while fighting his other minions. In the end, Eric and Top Dollar have a sword fight, with Eric using a weathervane against Top Dollar's katana.

Literature

• Naturally, the Discworld Assassins' Guild. Pteppic in Pyramids, a qualified Assassin, was chosen as the page quote for Extended Disarming for a reason. Despite his Guild-school proficiency with and love of weapons, however, Pteppic turns out to be a Badass Pacifist and doesn't kill anyone...or at least any conventionally-alive mortals.
• Hannibal: Doctor Lecter knows his knives. He engages a knife dealer at a fair, where they discuss blades before he settles for a serrated Spyderco, used for gutting a deer.
• InCryptid:
  • Alexander Healy is famed within the Covenant for his knife-fighting skills, to the extent that Thomas doubts being able to take him even in his relative retirement.
  • His daughter-in-law Frances Healy used to live with a traveling circus, and had her own Knife-Throwing Act. She takes them with her when she leaves the circus.
  • Fran's great-granddaughter Antimony also trained at a circus/carnival (the very same one, in fact), and throwing knives are her weapon of choice.
• Chisel of Illegal Aliens, who carries hundreds of knives at any given point in time. He survives being stomped by a giant robot due to the sheer number of knives providing impromptu armor.
• Cavanaugh in the novel The Protector gushes at length about the construction and abilities of the Emerson CQC-7 folding knife, at one point using it to tear through a car door. This is fitting, as the author, David Morrell, is most famous for creating another well-known knife nut.
• There's about one every other Redwall book.
  • Ferahgo in Salamandastron is notorious for his knife collection and skill with using them. He even has different knives assigned to different tasks, such as "the killer" and "the skinner". It varies in which order he uses them.
  • Rasconza in Pearls of Lutra is never seen without at least ten knives on his person.
• In River of Teeth, Adelia spends most of the time she is with the gang polishing and sharpening her knives, of which she is extremely fond and which she uses exclusively when fighting, despite having access to guns. Justified, since she is a known contract killer, so nobody is particularly surprised.
• Six of Crows: Inej uses knives as her weapon of choice, but she has also named each one in her ever-expanding collection after saints and relies on them for protection and strength. She is comforted by their presence and not just as a weapon.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: Chosovi shows up at an evil Wizarding School with a couple of magical knives and spends her introductory scene alternately sharpening them and threatening to stab an annoying fellow rookie with them. Furthermore, because none of the rookies have their luggage with them at this point, it seems like Chosovi cared so much for her knives that she kept them on her (instead of packing them in her luggage) while transiting to the school.

Live-Action TV

• Dexter: Dexter Morgan has an aversion for guns so his evidence-free routine involves a knife, but he sometimes chooses a more exotic weapon — axe, chainsaw, hammer…
• Dollhouse: Alpha. Steak knives are his specialty.
• Firefly: Jayne Cobb has a number of large, heavy, nasty-looking hunting knives in addition to his collection of guns.
• Harrow: In "Finis Vitae Sed Non Amoris" ("The End of Life, but not of Love"), a former soldier suffering from PTSD has a huge collection of knives, which makes him the primary suspect when a body is discovered in his backyard.
• Though her weapon of choice was usually a bo-staff, Sara Lance in Legends of Tomorrow is incredibly proficient with using knives, especially throwing them, thanks to her background as an assassin. In the early seasons, she usually had several knives hidden on her person at all times.
• Lost: Locke boarded the plane for a survivalist adventure in spite of his handicap and brought a bag filled to bursting with various knives. When Locke shows off his collection, the other survivors are creeped out, which goes along with the way the first few episodes tease Locke as some sort of psycho-killer. He later proves adept at hunting and butchering wild boar with only his knives.
• NCIS: The team follows Gibbs' Rule No. 9: "Never go anywhere without a knife." Ziva David is especially enthusiastic, with an extensive collection. In one episode she holds a knife-throwing class for the team, naturally hitting the target over the heart in her demonstration. Tony hits the stomach, McGee doesn't even get the knife to the target, and Lee lets the knife slip out of her hand, almost hitting Gibbs in the face.
• Veterinarian Jan Pol of The Incredible Dr Pol collects knives, as seen in several episodes.
• Thunderbolt Fantasy: Near the end of the first season, Shang Bu Huan is revealed to have a Sorcerous Sword Index scroll in his possession, and that he's been Walking the Earth capturing various magical swords he considers too dangerous to leave in anyone's hands, with various villains proving that he's Properly Paranoid. Downplayed that he isn't an enthusiast, but a self-proclaimed guardian. By the time of the series, he already has 36 swords on his person.
• Victorious: Nightmare Fetishist Jade is obsessed with scissors, often carrying multiple pairs hidden in her clothing. Cat's Secret Santa present for her was even a pair used in a horror movie.

Multiple Media

• G.I. Joe:
  • Many members of the titular team (as well as Cobra) are skilled with knives, but Snake-Eyes has collections of them. His spike-knuckled trench knives get mentioned more than a few times during the Marvel Comics run alone, and his third costume (assembled from parts taken from his Cobra interrogators) has a pair of knives mounted right on his chest.
  • Beach Head is known to be Married to the Job with little to no interest in anything that is not relevant to the military. The only thing that he has that could be considered a hobby is collecting trench knives. His collection rivals that of Snake Eyes, and it's mentioned that occasionally the two will compare collections.

Podcasts

• Robert Evans, the host of Behind the Bastards, is a big knife and machete fan and would frequently bring machetes into the recording studio, often to the bemusement of the guest of the week. Eventually the show settled into having its own 'recording machete', a particularly big and prominent example. Evans has also donated knives and machetes to his producer and several recurring guests, and invented the sport of machete bagel tennis as a way to finish off liveshows.

Tabletop Games

• Merisiel, the iconic Rogue character from Pathfinder is wearing at least six knives in her character art, and her bio says she carries at least a dozen and "has not met a problem that cannot, in one way or another, be solved with daggers."

Video Games

• In Deltarune, Kris has a particular fondness for knives and can summon one to their hand to eat pies and tear fountains of darkness out from the ground, though they use swords in the Dark World instead. The start of Chapter 2 has Toriel find out they ate all of her pie not because someone ate it and left behind a knife, but because the knife is specifically said by her to be Kris', implying that this child owns their own personal knife. It's also a rather concerning reference one of the two characters from Undertale Kris resembles who is a outright Psycho Knife Nut. On a more lighthearted note, their internet search history includes videos of gimmicky handmade knives, such as one made of jelly.
• Far Cry 6: Camila Montero was trained with knives from the age of 7 by her father Carlos, and her Establishing Character Moment consists of her stabbing a captive FND soldier for information, and then throwing her knife at Dani Rojas when they walk in on her. Camila's nickname is "La Espada" (The Sword), and she later upgrades to a machete before joining Dani for the Final Battle in Esperanza; specifically, her father Carlos' machete, which she had until then used as a Weapon Tombstone.
• Gilgamesh from the Final Fantasy franchise is obsessed with finding the strongest weapons and wielding them as part of his personal collection. He has a particular desire to find Excalibur, the so-called "strongest of swords", but inevitably grabs into the worthless knockoff Excalipoor instead, dealing a piddly 1 damage when he tries to use it.
• Since quelling the rebellion of Doma in Final Fantasy XIV, Zenos yae Galvus came to admire the katanas wielded by the Doman revolutionaries and collected them as a hobby. Imperials often gift Zenos with rare and powerful katanas to enter his good graces. Yotsuyu offers him his most powerful sword, Ame-no-Habakiri, as a way to appease him after losing control of the Ruby Sea due to the Warrior of Light's efforts.
• Yanqing from Honkai: Star Rail is a master sword prodigy despite his relatively young age and has the sword obsession to prove it. His fighting techniques all involve swordplay and he has a habit buying two swords at once, one for collecting and one for combat. He apparently also blows all of his monthly allowance on said swords, which leaves him begging his mentor and guardian, Jing Yuan, every month for food and basic necessities. One official chibi illustration has him showing off another sword purchase, much to Jing Yuan's concern.
• Jagged Alliance:
  • Bill "Razor" Lamont, is crazy about knives, and talks about cutting throats or how knives "never run out of ammo" with disturbing regularity. While being able to use a knife is a useful skill, Bill makes it clear he'd much prefer to use it as his standard weapon, and resents having to use guns.
  • On the more mentally stable side, Robert James "Scully" Sullivan is a blade expert, and his dossier in every game has always emphasized his skill with knives. His starting kit has always included a knife as well.
• During an interview in F-Zero GX the alien racer Pico mentions that he collects knives as a hobby.
• Soul Series: Vercci was an Italian merchant who collected rare weapons, and there was one thing in particular he sought as a prize piece: the fabled Soul Edge. So, in a move that would end up catalyzing the plot of the entire series, he hires the pirate Cervantes de Leon to find it. Cervantes succeeds, keeping Soul Edge for himself and becoming the Big Bad of the first game. In the meantime, the majority of Vercci's collection is seized when war breaks out in Italy, ultimately driving him mad and leading him to hoard what he had left beneath a deserted island. Vercci dies before the games take place, but his servant Voldo continues to guard what remains of his old master's collection zealously, using a set of katars from it to do so and continuing to seek Soul Edge to fulfill Vercci's wish.

Visual Novels

• Min from Butterfly Soup is a fan of butterfly knives. When she is asked to hand over the rest of her knives, she takes her jacket off and several knives fall to the floor.
• Doki Doki Literature Club!: Despite her shy demeanor, Yuri has a secret fascination with exotic knives. While this is just an oddity in Act 1, in Act 2 it gets recontextualized as her being a cutter
• Archer from Fate/stay night has a particular fascination with bladed weapons, admiring their craftsmanship and the skill of both the creator and the wielder. In addition to his signature Kanshou and Bakuya short swords, he has the ability to be able to replicate a degraded version of almost any weapon he gets a good look at, "storing" them in his unique Reality Marble, Unlimited Blade Works. Invoking Unlimited Blade Works gives him access to his entire armory all at once, letting him rain a Storm of Blades upon his foes.

Web Animation

• In Hunter: The Parenting Big D has an extensive stockpile of knives, many of which are ancient, cursed, or both. He also loves his swords, of all sorts, and often carries one even during breakfast.
• RWBY: While Ruby Rose adores her custom-built mechanical scythe, she can't help but geek out at all kinds of weapons upon landing on the Beacon Academy courtyard. This is expanded onto her crossover appearance in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, where you can see her admiring the likes of Ragna and Aegis.

Web Comics

• Huckleberry's Lord Razoredge introduces himself as a "collector of sharp blades", and wears an armor made of knives and other pointy things.

Web Videos

• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series: Florence has a collection of over 20 knives, each of which he has given an affectionate name to.
  Marik: Don't you have enough knives already?
  Florence: I'm going to assume that was a trick question.

Western Animation

• Steven Universe: Pearl has a large collection of swords. While she is a skilled swordfighter, she also seems to simply collect them as a hobby, and indeed, they're not even her primary weapon in the present day.
• Velma's version of Norville is quite fond of blades. Throughout the series, he's seen collecting them, participating in the school's fencing club, and his father even attempts to make a homemade sword as a gift. In the season 1 finale, it culminates to Norville deciding to transfer to a sword themed school before coming back and saving the gang, killing the season's villain by using his blade to deflect the bullet fired at him into a stalactite, causing it to fall and crush the killer to death.
• The Venture Brothers: In "The Family that Slays Together Stays Together, Part I", family bodyguard Brock is being pursued by three different assassins. One of them, Le Tueur (based on Kraven the Hunter), prefers swords as his weapon of choice. When he goes to tell the backstory of his sword as he draws it to fight Brock, Brock lampshades it:
  Brock:"Shut up already! Why do you sword guys always gotta talk about how cool your swords are!?"

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