troperville
tools
toys
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here
SubpagesMain
Quotes
|
"This is a big veiny sword with a creepy, blinky red eye in it. The kind of thing that, when you look at it, you say 'Okay, yeah, I'm pretty sure that sword is evil, and probably cursed to boot.' It looks totally badass though, and hits like a mofo. And I think we can all agree that that's a reasonable trade-off."
Some weapons are people, complete with names and minds. And some people are evil. This is about them.
Obviously, weapons are made to hurt and kill. These weapons enjoy it too. And some will try to talk the wielder into it, with strange voices of all kinds. Some are heard with the ears, some sound in the mind.
These weapons might kill everything in their way, rather than just what they need to. Some refuse to go back into the scabbard without killing. Some just don't activate the awesome magic without the wielder killing a kitten. Some kill not the body, but the soul. Some kill their wielders as well, whether directly or indirectly, instantly if they're hungry enough or over time by draining Life Energy. Some don't. Because, you see, they wield the wielder, instead of the other way around. And they are prone to being hard to get rid of.
How did they come to be like that? Some were deliberately enchanted, or rather cursed. Some are imbued with the evil of their maker, some indeed, are the Soul Jar of an evil human, if not something even worse. With some, it's the material they were made of, and some were corrupted by deeds done with them, even worse than the usual cruelty of the battlefield. Some may be Forged by the Gods - but not by any of the nice ones. If It Was a Gift — do not trust the giver thereafter.
The "personality" of the evil weapon often varies according to the traits associated with it. A dagger is insidious, an axe encourages brutality, staffs are subtle and sophisticated in their corruption... Swords are the most common evil weapon. Most other weapons have a peaceful purpose: bows and spears for hunting, hammers for hitting nails, axes for chopping wood... The sword and mace are the only medieval weapons that cannot serve any purpose except war. Because they are so common they also vary much more in how they are evil.
Subtropes of Empathic Weapon and Artifact of Doom. Compare and contrast Unholy Holy Sword. See also Good Weapon, Evil Weapon.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime
- The swords made by the man who made Kenshin's sword were all like this, save for his last two.
- In this case the swords weren't evil in and of themselves, they were just more likely to attract bloodthirsty users due to the way they were made.
- InuYasha has Tokijin, forged from the fangs of Goshinki, the monster that broke Inuyasha's sword Tessaiga. The completed sword is infused with Goshinki's power and malice, to the point that Tokijin actually possesses its maker right after he forged it. It later tries to do the same to Sesshomaru — but Sesshomaru is so badass that he suppresses Tokijin's power completely with his own, after which it causes no more trouble.
- The third movie features Sou'unga, which is so nasty that not only does it take over its user (like Tokijin, but with more Body Horror), it eventually sprouts its own body and tries to cause The End of the World as We Know It.
- Slayers has a few examples. The anime has a cursed knife, which Lina attempts to pawn off to an unfortunate shopkeeper. The novels have Doolgofa, the Cursed Sword of Bezeld, which is actually a disguised mazoku who will fuse with any poor fool who picks it up.
- In Slayers Try the Sword of Light is revealed to be another dimension's Dark Lord equivalent — and there are four others just like it.
- The Weapons of Light — at least those in the regular Slayers universe and not the sentient starships of the Lost Universe alternate universe are a bit of a subversion, however, in that they don't seem to possess any sort of will of their own, nor do they influence their users in any way, excepting possibly giving them an opportunity to go mad with power. In fact, they were used as intergral components of the spell to destroy their creator, with no resistence or side effects on their part.
- Love Hina had an evil katana that possessed Naru, Keitaro and a monkey. Played mostly for comedy.
- Anubis in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a sword with its own Stand, which possesses whoever picks it up. Even a piece of it has this effect.
- Soul Eater has demon weapons, the evil counterpart to the Shinigami's Death Scythes. Both are good and evil in their own right. The main difference being the latter powered themselves up by eating corrupted souls and the former were more indiscriminate.
- The Nakatsukasas' fey blade seem to be one of these; corrupted, possesses the wielder and destroys their soul...but can be turned to good use with the right influences. Apparently many, many previous members of the family had missed out on the last part before Tsubaki decided to have a meister in Black Star (probably significant she was the first of the family to have a meister, given this is a series that favours Loners being Evil.
- The Anathema Scythe from Tetragrammaton Labyrinth. At one point it was described as enjoying the pain it inflicted on it's wielder; it was so evil it was able to convince an Angel, a being that by definition does not know death, that it had been murdered. The source of its power, and root of its evil is the nail from the Crucifixion that was used in its construction.
- In Mai-HiME, Mikoto's sword Miroku is an aspect of a very malevolent demonic entity, and it rarely ever leaves her sight because Mikoto's family had trained her to use it ever since she was little, and it and the pendant she wears possess mind-controlling powers.
- In One Piece Zoro gets a cursed katana. It encourages the owner to seek conflict and kill, but Zoro was able to overpower it. Occasionally it delivers a serious blow when Zoro tries to hold back, like on Whiskey Peak. It is not sentient, nor does it ever "communicate" in any way- we only have Zoro's reactions and sense to go on.
- It's also the youngest, and thus weakest, of three swords of the same class by it's forger. The oldest is also said to be in the strongest category of swords, and is likely to be much more evil.
- Sacrifar, the ninth form of the Rave Master's Ten Commandments sword, is actually a subversion. When Haru used it, it increased his bloodlust and tried to forcefully merge with his body, causing Musica to wonder why his grandfather had created the sword with such a form. The answer: He hadn't. What the elder Musica had done was create a sword for the specific use of Haru's predecessor which, in its more powerful forms, would not work properly, if at all, when Haru himself tried to use them.
- The Decologue, Lucia's sword, is a more straight example. As a Dark Bring, it constantly tries to corrupt its wielder, and since Lucia's other Dark Bring turned out to be sentient, it's not too great a leap of faith to think that the sword might be as well.
- Cards that can corrupt, brainwash, possess, harm, or kill their wielder are a common occurrence in the Yu-Gi-Oh!-verse, such as:
- The Seal of Orichalcos during the Doma Arc
- Hell Kaiser's Dark Cyber Deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Though Shou gets a good grip on it later.
- Super Fusion (also in GX), which causes Judai to panic about using fusion at all for awhile. To an extent. It wasn't Super Fusion itself, but remembering what he did to create it in the first place.
- Recently in Durarara!!, the truth of the cause of the Slasher attacks was caused by a group of mind-controlled crazies around town, courtesy of a sword called Saika, which wants to love, but cannot do so properly, therefore attacks people to "love." The true sword of Saika is revealed to be inside Anri Sonohara.
- In a Bleach anime filler arc only appearance there are the Bakkōtō swords that - unlike Zanpakutō who are borne of their users souls - are more akin to parasites that will become increasingly powerful with their wielder, but also devour their user eventually. They're outlawed for that very reason.
Comic Books
- In The Warlord, Machiste found an ancient cursed axe containing a demonic entity which took possession of his mind. The demon's will prevented Machiste from letting go of the axe. Seeing that the axe's influence was making Machiste more and more tyrannical as well as violent, Travis was forced to remove his friend's right hand, thus severing the axe's spell.
- The Ebony Blade, sword of The Avengers member the Black Knight, was afflicted with a blood curse due to all the blood the original Black Knight had spilled. Dane Whitman eventually purged the Blade of its curse at Doctor Strange's behest by plunging it into the Brazier of Truth while Strange bathed them both in magic fire. The curse returned, however, when the Sub-Mariner used it to kill his wife Marrina. The curse seems to affect different people in different ways. It turned Dane into a statue, it amplified Proctor's gann'josin-based powers, and it granted Sean Dolan great physical powers as Bloodwraith.
- Carvin' Marvin from Knights of the Dinner Table.
- In an early Transformers comic. Megatron is damaged and becomes stuck in gun mode with no free will. A petty criminal picks up the super-powerful gun and uses it to become a highly successful criminal, but the experience ends up pretty much ruining his life anyway. To cap it all off, after screwing up the crook's life beyond repair, the gun wakes up, turns into a giant robot, insults him, and leaves.
Fan Works
- Blackfire in With Strings Attached. It's a bit of a Stormbringer Expy. The four hate it when the Hunter first displays it, and realize it's evil when they see the very similar Heart of Evil. In fact, it's so obviously evil that they're a bit startled when the Hunter claims it's not. When he asks to accompany them back to C'hou so he can give up his adventurous life, they point out that the natives (at least the skahs) have no concept of good or evil, and if he brings Blackfire with him they'll learn what evil is. (Though John mutters that the skahs “might not mind.”)
Film
- In the movie Asoka, Asoka's grandfather tells him to put his sword away because it's a demon that desires bloodshed.
Literature
- The crystal sword Alanna gets after Lightning breaks in The Woman who Rides Like a Man actively tries to kill whoever uses it. Alanna eventually masters it, but it refuses to obey her once in the vicinity of its maker, Duke Roger
- Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer (from the Elric stories and others) actually steals people's souls in order to give its wielder strength - including those of many of Elric's friends as well as his enemies. And Elric's. Turns out the sword is actually a demon.
- The Hand of Kryll and Eye of Rhynn from Moorcock's "Swords" trilogy are also...morally questionable. The eye allows you to see into a Limbo-like world of pain and shadows. The hand allows you to summon the creatures of this realm who kill everything in their path. These victims then take their place in the purgatorial world until they are summoned, or else spend eternity in torment. Fairly evil. The fact that even creatures who were fearful pacifists in life are motivated to become remorseless (and effectively invincible) killing machines by this realm should be a hint that it's not Disneyland in there. Differing timescales with the 'real' world, a la Narnia, are implied.
- Another is The Cold Sword, a blade which "personifies" Evil Is Deathly Cold. It's implied to be an alternate universe Incarnation of Stormbringer. While it doesn't consume souls, as far as we know, it's still far from a friendly sword. Though it does save the world on it's own accord at the end of the story.
- The Gonne in in Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms, which wasn't just a powerful weapon, but a weapon that could possess the mind of those who hold it, tempting it with the power it has and what the holder could do with it.
- The three titular swords of Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn are Empathic Weapons with a twist: they can control their wielders against their will. However, the most fitting example of this trope is Sorrow, forged and wielded by the Storm King prior to his death. Merely touching it can freeze you or destroy your soul.
- The other two swords, Minneyar and Thorn, aren't exactly evil (though they are unnerving if you're not used to them), but the fact that they want to come together and be used alongside Sorrow makes it possible for the Storm King to use them as his tools anyway.
- In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim, Fulgrim's Chaos-tainted sword. It lures him into treachery and murder and when he fights his own brother, Ferrus Manus, convinced him that he must kill him to save his life. Then it plays on his guilt and lets him realize the full extent of it, and uses that to persuade him to let it possess him.
- Morganti weapons in Dragaera destroy/devour the souls of their victims, and Vlad could sense the hunger in one he was attacked with, and felt one he used to threaten a villain trying to turn in his hand and kill. This semi-sentience is downplayed later on, as Vlad isn't up close and personal with them that often. The Great Weapons are Morganti as well, but are more versatile and don't have to destroy souls (once even being used to store Aliera's, allowing her to play possum by actually being fatally wounded.)
- While a lot of the Great Weapons are shown as loving and protective toward their owners, a story set in the universe titled "The Desecrator" shows this trope to be totally straight with Telnan's Great Weapon, Nightslayer. Nightslayer is basically a Captain Ersatz of Stormbringer and is described being pure evil and wanting to slaughter everyone and everything. Telnan seems to have more luck than Elric in controlling such a weapon, convincing it that if it travels with him, it will have plenty of killing opportunities.
- The Infernal Devices were three super-kick-ass blades from Simon R. Green's Blue Moon Rising. Subverted a bit, in that these ultra-powerful, ultra-Eeeevil weapons nevertheless fail to get the job done.
- The Speaking Gun from the Nightside novels, made out of meat, and capable of unmaking anything by speaking its name in reverse. Created to kill angels, but hateful and eager to kill anything.
- Khazid'hea was picked up by Drizzt Do'Urden and used by Catti-Brie, the sword could slice through rock with relative ease and spoke to the mind of the wielder to increase their blood lust.
- Subverted with the sentient sword Nightblood from Warbreaker. Though very powerful and incredibly dangerous to anyone in the vicinty, it was actually created for the purpose of destroying evil. Problem was, the Awakener who created it didn't realize that a sword has no conception of human morality, so Nightblood continually goads its wielder into trying to kill everyone in sight, just to be on the safe side.
- The "thirsty sword" in The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is quite possibly Axe Crazy as well as evil. It can talk, but all it ever says is "More drink," by which it apparently means blood. Prolonged use turns a rebel leader into a Complete Monster.
- The sword Excalibur in Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming. After the eponymous prince takes it off a Black Knight, he finds that the sword is utterly paranoid and Ax Crazy, and tries to convince him to kill everyone he meets. After he leaves it in the forest, it tries to get revenge on him by siccing a group of demons on him.
- The four elemental swords The Secrets Of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel. They absorb the memories of anything they cut, actively corrupt an unprotected user, eventually absorbing their souls, and so far in the series nothing has been introduced that they can't kill. Clarent (fire), the most evil of all of them, is the one the protagonists end up with for a while. Even the Eldritch Abominations are afraid of them.
- The short sword with the wavy black blade in Aaron Allston's Galatea In 2 D. Kevin designed it to be the sort of sword a devil would use, and it's capable of killing The Cape.
- In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero in Hell, the Wounding Wand. Caurus thinks he's too tired, because he hears it; Miranda warns him to not listen.
- The Dresden Files has the Blackstaff, a possibly living stave that massively amplifies the power of any act of black magic it's used in. In an inversion, however, the stave is used to prevent the wielder from getting corrupted; when Ebenezar McCoy uses it to kill hundreds of mercenaries in one go, the staff seems to absorb the darkness of the act rather than letting its corrupting influence affect the wizard.
- In Time Scout, whenever anyone brings a modern weapon downtime, its presentation is rather... dark in comparison to the works of art that art downtime weapons.
Live Action TV
- One episode of the Super Sentai series Mahou Sentai Magiranger featured the evil samurai Shichijuro, a Monster of the Week with a sword that could cut anything (including non-physical concepts like the bonds between the team.) Eventually, he's taken down, but the sword remains. When Magi Green picks it up, the armor of the monster appears around him and he attacks the others, revealing that the real Shichijuro was the sword, posessing its wielder. (Which, in hindsight, means the "monster" who just got Humongous Mecha-ed to death was probably a perfectly innocent whatever-he-was before touching the sword...)
- VR Troopers had the Millennium Saber. Fortunately, it only activates once every thousand years, hence the name. The rest of the time, it's old and rusty.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers has the Sword of Darkness, which Rita used to sustain her control over the Green Ranger. The name says it all. And it looked so awesome, too. Of course, the weapon on Power Rangers you most want to stay away from is the Dino Thunder White Ranger power gem, which drove its user mad.
- To be fair, that was after Mesagog had it soaking in evil energy for a long while. Once that was gone, the White Ranger was an okay guy.
- Discussed in NCIS with a certain handgun that has apparently been used in several unrelated crimes.
- The Lance of Longinus (a.k.a. "Spear of Destiny") in the short-lived TV series Roar.
Music
Mythology
- Kullervo from The Kalevala had a rather nasty sword that talked to him before his suicide. It also inspired Michael Moorcock and Tolkien.
- There is also an attempt by Ilmarinen to forge the Sampo, where a failed attempt results in:
From the fire arose a cross-bow,
With the brightness of the moonbeams,
Golden bow with tips of silver;
On the shaft was shining copper,
And the bow was strong and wondrous,
But alas! it was ill-natured,
Asking for a hero daily,
Two the heads it asked on feast-days.
- The swords made by the Real Life swordsmith Muramasa are sometimes portrayed like this. Anecdotes tell of him competing against his master Masamune to see who was the better swordsmith. They placed their swords in a river, to see if they could cut the passing leaves and fish without effort. Muramasa's swords cut everything indiscriminately, while Masamune's did not. A mark of their sharpness, yes, but also their complete lack of restraint or recognition of innocence.
- Norse Mythology features swords that can not be sheathed again without killing someone.
- The Ba'al Verzi daggers in the Ravenloft setting have borrowed that idea, or at least are rumored to.
- In Irish Mythology, Lugh's spear, variously called Luisne and Brionac, had the advantage of being able to fight on its own. The bad news: it wouldn't stop, not even when the battle was over. Solution: Immerse the spear's head in poppy juice, keeping it in Snoozeville until it was needed again.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: there are every variety of magic swords that can be thought of, including swords that cause greater injuries if used against those of certain Character Alignment.
- Bonus points to the magic axe "Lifedrinker", which drains Life Energy from anything it hits, and half as much from the wielder at the same time, and to intelligent magic items in general, which come with an Ego score that scales with their power. If their Ego is substantially stronger than your Will save, they take over your body. Using a magic item with a similar alignment and goals can be an interesting choice, but often comes back to bite you. Using an intelligent evil weapon? Not so good...
- Several cursed katanas in Legend of the Five Rings RPG, including the blades such as Ambition (which does Exactly What It Says on the Tin and also is more deadly against those of higher position than the user.)
- Several in Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. For starters, every single daemon weapon ever. Notable one's include Kingslayer, the sword of Archaeon, the Lord of End Times (Warhammer Fantasy), Gorechild, the chain-axe belonging to Kharn the Betrayer (40k), and Drach'nyen, the sword of Abaddon the Despoiler (40k). The Primarch Fulgrim in 40k got corrupted by a powerful daemon weapon. The weapon slowly caused him to turn to Chaos, and in the end, when he refused to obey it, it possessed his body, turning him into a daemon.
- Soulsteel weapons and armor in Exalted fit the bill—while they can technically be used for any purpose, including opposing evil, the soulsteel that composes them is exactly what it sounds like, and their bonuses work by draining the life and vigor out of their victims (in the case of weapons) and attackers (in the case of armor). Meanwhile, hell-forged weapons and armor may have still-living demons bound to them as part of their creation...
- One of the Deathlords favours a daiklave crafted from the soul of one of the few pure heroes of the Old Realm...who was driven violently insane as part of the forging process. In fact, a whole lot of Deathlords favor soulsteel weapons that work upon these principles; one soulsteel daiklaive will eat the soul of anything it slays, restoring a measure of its wielder's health.
- YuGiOh TCG: Word Of God says the equip spell Wicked-Breaking Flamberge - Baou holds the dark power of Baou, its Gaurdian spirit. When Warrior Dai Grepher later wields it, he is overcome by the dark energy and later becomes Dark Grepher.
Video Games
Webcomics
- Komiyan from Darken acquired a Morph Weapon called Blackshard, also a particularly chatty one. Before he got it he was warned to be wary of it by a Devil's consort. Currently it's possessing the body of one of his enemies, and is thrilled to have limbs. And is acting increasingly sinister. It's eventually revealed that the sword is an evil shapeshifter trapped in a gem and affixed to the sword, and was trying to drive Komi mad so it could take over his body. After fleeing it started working for Baal.
- Penny Arcade had a Genre Shift story in Japan where a man was possessed by an evil katana and forced to slaughter. When he briefly broke free of its control he drove a dagger into his eye, but it didn't let him die.
- Sluggy Freelance, of course, has Unholy Evil Death Bringer, AKA Chaz. It doesn't get more evil than "a sword powered by the blood of the innocent." Except that it is wielded by Torg, The Hero, its primary purpose is killing demons, and the sword itself claims it is only a weapon, and therefore neither good nor evil.
- It's yet another Sluggy subversion: the name, activation method and voice all indicate evil, but Chaz neither requires nor encourages evil acts, and makes no moral judgments about how its wielder uses it. Its assessment of 'innocence' is purely pragmatic, as that is the only way it can achieve maximum effectiveness as a weapon.
- Also worth pointing out that Chaz has no requirement to kill (or even injure) an innocent, only shed a sample of blood.. During a story in which the gangs souls had travelled to another dimension (long story), Zoe (under instructions from Aylee) makes a wish that causes 'innocent blood to rain in all the rooms of the house'. As soon as this is granted, Chaz gets all his powers activated.
- One of the The Order of the Stick strips from its brief run in Dragon Magazine featured a glowing black talking sword that Elan wanted Vaarsvuius to identify. When the elf told him to come back later, the sword said that it was cool, no problem, and hey, want to go kill some people while we wait?
- Keychain of Creation has Cluivnarihe, the (unpronounceable) soulsteel weapon used by Secret. To be frank, Cluivnarihe is kind of a jerk.
- The Axe of Prissan in Goblins is an inversion on this trope; it contains the soul of a powerful demon lord and emits an aura of evil. However, the axe is intended to be wielded by a good person (preferably a paladin), who must use the axe to do good deeds in order to keep the demon imprisoned.
- The Water Phoenix King has recently given us "Malice," the most powerful blade ever forged by an archangelic servant of the titular Yamra known as "The Torture Lord" to replace Our Heroine's original sword after it's broken by one of her nemeses. Genre-Savvy Anthem objects rather strenuously when discovering what her Mentor is giving her — "You're giving me an evil sword?" — but he's confident that it won't be a problem. The blade itself, which cleaves supernatural beings with ease, looks a little bit like a straightened katana with an extra hook cut from a redshifted nebula, and was made from Kawunei's agony during the time that he and Gilgam were PO Ws so essentially she's carrying around a piece of his soul; he is apparently resigned to it, but not terribly happy about this.
Web Original
- Perhaps inevitably, the Whateley Universe has one definite, and one possible:
- In Atop the Fourth Wall, it is averted. The soul trapped in Linkara's magic gun destroyed her parents when they tortured her to death in order to forge her into a weapon, but she considers Linkara a friend and protected him from Silent Hill's influence.
Western Animation
|
|
