"The hate in your heart is turning you into a beast! Darkness calls to darkness until you become a monster! You're no longer fit to wield the Master Sword!"
In most fiction, a weapon that chooses its wielder is one that'll stay with them no matter what. Through thick and thin they'll travel across the land and overcome many obstacles, forming a bond similar to that of close friends and family members. An epic duo or even group of trusted partners that can overcome any foe...
Unless of course, you know, the wielder just so happens to be a Dirty Coward who is more than willing to abandon the innocent to save themselves. Or perhaps they're a Spoiled Brat who thinks they are entitled to everything in the world. Or maybe they're a completely sadistic jackass who picks on the weak for no other reason than a good laugh. Guess they can't all be winners.
You see, while it might sound like a good idea to give a powerful weapon or creature enough sentience that they are capable of choosing their user (and usually is) apparently some of them are just as a Horrible Judge of Character as humans can be, with their wielder turning out to be not as great as they thought. To be fair, however, it's possible their "Chosen One" may have initially had some promise as a hero and/or had shown that they had some redeeming qualities despite their otherwise (seemingly) vile nature. Somewhere down the line, though, their user either Took a Level in Cynic or went through a Face–Heel Turn that caused them to lose those heroic attributes. So what does the weapon do? Try to jump ship, of course.
There are usually two ways this plays out:
- "Strong-willed" weapons will (hopefully) be fully capable of resisting their user. This includes, but is not limited to, refusing to come out of their sheath, making themselves too heavy to be properly used, and abusing their Summon to Hand feature to fly or teleport into the hands of another user they deem more worthy than their current one.
- "Weak-willed" weapons are more likely to be Incapable of Disobeying their wielder, though the latter will most likely find themselves having a hard time drawing out the weapon's true power. In these cases, someone (usually The Empath, the weapon's true wielder, or both) will express that they can hear the weapon "crying" and will more often than not try to wrest control of it from their current user.
In both of the above scenarios, you can fully expect the old user to not react well to their weapon's betrayal. In better cases, this will eventually lead them to a Jerkass or Heel Realization, where they go on a path of redemption that will allow them to eventually regain their old partner's trust, if not find a better one for themselves. On the opposite end of the spectrum though, the former wielder will go through a Sanity Slippage, either obsessing that the weapon be returned to them or seeking a just as if not more powerful one that's more in control of them than the other way around.
Compare Even the Dog Is Ashamed, where even the hero's animal companion can't abide by their behavior. Overlaps with Only the Chosen May Wield, Only the Chosen May Pilot, Only the Chosen May Ride, and Only I Can Make It Go. Contrast Clingy Macguffin, where it's the wielder that doesn't want the weapon and My Master, Right or Wrong, where the weapon stays loyal regardless of its owner's change in character (or lack thereof). See also Slippery Macguffin. Related to Self-Guarding Phlebotinum. If the "weapon" in question also just so happens to be a Mons or Familiar, expect Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal and Because You Were Nice to Me to also come into play.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- The Big O: The Bigs display the message "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty" as part of the suit up sequence before every fight. While this usually plays like Stock Footage, towards the end of the series it turns out that it is the Bigs casting their own judgement:
- Big Duo finds itself piloted by the sociopath (even by this show's standards) Alan Gabriel. It instead displays the message "Cast in the name of God, ye guilty" and then the circuits and wires in the cockpit come to life and devour him.
- Big Fau is piloted by petulant Psychopathic Manchild Smug Snake Alex Rosewater and only gets as far as "Ye Not" while he declares himself the "Dominus of Megadeus" and promptly shuts down.
- Bleach: The anime's Zanpakutō Rebellion filler arc has the rogue Zanpakutō Spirit Muramasa use his powers to brainwash the Soul Reapers' Zanpakutō Spirits into manifesting and turning against them, depriving them of the powers the majority of them rely on to fight. Old Man Zangetsu specifically turns on Ichigo to test his resolve to fight... only to get thrashed when Ichigo's Inner Hollow takes the opportunity to seize the wheel and gleefully deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
- In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2005), Agahnim turns Ghanti into the hydra Trinexx and sets her on Link. When Link gives Trinexx a near-mortal wound with the Master Sword and realizes too late what it really is, he gives into his hate for Agahnim, something that causes the sword to reject him until Zelda breaks free from her Crystal Prison and gives him a Cooldown Hug.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), the Master Sword rejects Link when he becomes a Blood Knight and allows Dark Link to manifest from the Triforce. Although Link gets through the encounter, the Master Sword weighs itself down so that he cannot use it until he has a change of heart.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: The origins of the artificially intelligent magical staff Raising Heart are shrouded in mystery, but it is known to be picky about its wielders, having refused to let its original finder, Yuuno Scrya, use all but the most basic of its functions. It is only when it is given to Nanoha Takamachi that Raising Heart judges its wielder sufficiently worthy and reveals its true form. Later on, Yuuno observes that Raising Heart's database contains no records of previous non-guest users, implying that it has rejected everyone prior to meeting Nanoha.
- Naruto: Kisame's sword Samehada can be more accurately described as "an Eldritch Abomination on a hilt". Among other things, the sword has animal-level instinct and is attracted to anyone with lots of chakra — which Kisame happens to be. However, in Kisame's battle against Killer B, the host of the Eight-tailed Beast, Samehada got to absorb a lot of the beast's chakra that it starts resisting Kisame when he was about to finish Killer B when the latter was down. The annoyed Kisame just kicks it away and tries killing B with the latter's own sword, but after he was thwarted and killed by B's brother, Samehada would later end up in B's hands.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: In the anime-only Doma arc, the Pharaoh attempted to defeat Weevil by fusing The Eye of Timaeus with Celtic Guardian (which was turned into a Poison Butterfly by Weevil). Timaeus doesn't cooperate because of what happened in the Pharaoh's duel with Rafael: he used the Seal of Orichalcos, only to lose Yugi's soul. note It took until a visit to the valley of lost spirits for Timaeus to trust him again.
Comic Books
- King in Black: In the Black Knight tie-in, Lin Lie's callousness regarding the symbiote invasion leads to the Sword of Fu Xi rejecting him for Dane Whitman... at least until Dane lapses into a berserker rage while hacking up a symbiote dragon.
- The Mighty Thor: Mjolnir has deemed Thor unworthy to wield it multiple times, most famously in his first MCU film, where it forms the core of his character arc. One of the most significant moments in the comics was during the Original Sin event which deemed Thor unable to move Mjolnir for a while which lead to a story arc where Jane Foster became the new wielder of the hammer.
- Spider-Man: In Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #6-8, the Venom symbiote was purchased by a mobster for his loser of a son to use. They go on to kill an innocent guy wearing a Spider-Man costume, until finally the symbiote became so fed up with the failure's whining and general incompetence that it ejects him mid-Building Swing.
- Thor: God of Thunder: All-Black the Necrosword forsakes Gorr to bond to Thor, speaking through Thor to mock Gorr for thinking a mere mortal like himself could wield its full potential.
Fan Works
- The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan: Zig-zagged. Celestia and Luna first use the Elements of Harmony to curse a mare they believed was guilty of murder, when the purpose of the Elements is to guide and defend, not chastise and punish. The Consciousness within the elements lays into them about this violation but gives them exactly what they wanted. Later on, when Celestia is forced to use the Elements to banish Nightmare Moon, she enlists the help of Comet Novus and Nova Shine, two unworthy ponies, to take up some of the Elements in Luna's stead. The Consciousness returns once more to inform Celestia that she will allow it just this once because of the dire need of the moment, but ever after, her connection to the Elements will be severed as a result.
- The Life and Times of a Winning Pony: Cloud Kicker tries to find and wield the armor of Shadow Kicker, one of her clan's matriarchs and a legendary warrior, to help fight the changeling invasion. However, even in this moment of dire need, the armor rejects her as a wielder because, despite her reasons for wielding the armor in this moment being selfless, there is still a large part of herself that is using the moment as self-validation that she isn't a failure to her clan.
- Post Nuptials: Discussed by Rainbow Dash when she tells Soarin about the battle with the Changeling Queen. She admits that, while the Mane Six were running for the Elements of Harmony, she feared that they wouldn't work because of how they let Twilight down and thought she'd lost so much faith in them.
- What Have You Done: When the Mane Five (sans Twilight) attempt to use their Elements of Harmony to ward off the changeling invasion, the Elements reject them, as their treatment of Twilight means they are no longer worthy as bearers. The Element of Loyalty rejects Rainbow Dash for leaving Twilight alone in despair along with everypony else, choosing the fame that would come with participating in a royal wedding over her friend.
Element of Loyalty: When you chose your homeland over your friends, you threw me away, saying you weren't worthy, because you'd chosen one precious loyalty over another. I fault not my bearer for loving, for being loyal to many. But you cast me aside for that petty little thing. But now, you come to me? After choosing a stranger over your friend? Fame and praise over loyalty? How dare you. I reject you as my bearer.
- Robb Returns: Later chapters in the story go into more detail about the battle between Ned Stark and Ser Arthur Dayne at the Tower of Joy, and we find out that Arthur's sword, Dawn, was actively fighting against its bearer all the time he and Ned dueled, actually burning Arthur Dayne's hand, and even his hip, morally disgusted by Arthur helping the rest of Rhaegar Targaryen's personal guards hold Lyanna Stark down so he could rape her. Despite his personal guilt for such actions, being outnumbered 7-3, and his own weapon actively fighting against him, Arthur still continued holding his own against Ned, up until he finally injured him, at which point Dawn escaped its former bearer's hands and left him to be killed by Ned.
- Vengeance of Dawn: Breaking Dawn believes herself and her friends to be the rightful bearers of the Elements of Harmony, rather than Twilight and her friends. At the climax of her Evil Plan, she manages to steal them, and hears their voices calling out to her, "Save us, redeem us." But when she actually puts on the Element of Magic and tries to use it to defeat a balrog threatening Canterlot, it backfires and starts transforming her into a demon pony because of the numerous crimes she has committed in an attempt to regain Celestia's favor.
Element of Magic: One such as you, who creeps and crawls and strikes from the shadows, will never be fit to embody Harmony.
Breaking Dawn: But, you called out to me, I heard you singing...
Element of Magic: A siren song, to lure those who would seek me out of the desire for power or fame. My true bearer hears nothing from me, for I am nothing to her but a means to protect that which is truly precious.
Films — Animated
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: A Downplayed Trope throughout the series. Attempting to use sources of raw magical power, such as the Element of Magic (Sunset Shimmer in the first film), the Everfree geodes (Gloriosa Daisy in Legend of Everfree), or collected magical essences (human Twilight Sparkle in Friendship Games) does give unworthy users immense magical power — but does so by corrupting them into unhinged, demonic beings, with their original personalities grotesquely exaggerated or subsumed entirely. In Sunset and Twilight's cases, the experiences left severe emotional scars. Worthy users, by contrast, can use these same sources while maintaining self-control and only undergoing milder, magical girl-style transformations, as seen with the Rainbooms with the geodes and (the redeemed) Sunset Shimmer with the magical essences.
Twilight Sparkle: Magic turned you into something beautiful. The last time I tried to use it, it turned me into a monster. I'm just so afraid it's gonna happen again...Sunset Shimmer: Yes, last time I turned into something amazing. But I've let magic turn me into a monster, too.
Films — Live-Action
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Played with. When Simon tries to attune to the Helm of Disjunction he is confronted by a vision of his ancestor Elminster, who berates him for being such an Inept Mage and calls him a shame to his lineage and sends Simon flying away from the Helm. Several failed attempts later, Simon eventually tells the vision that he doesn't care what he thinks and successfully attunes.
- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always: After three seasons of unquestioned loyalty, Minh, Trini's daughter and (kind of) inheritor of the Yellow Ranger morpher, is the first person to show that the morphers themselves can and will reject the unworthy. This behavior retroactively explains two of Zordon's three rules (never use the morphers for personal gain and never escalate a battle unless forced to, both of which were strictly adhered to in the original series); in either scenario, the Power Morpher, being made for the defense of others, would reject such selfish and belligerent behavior and potentially leave the wielder vulnerable. Minh's main motivation is to exact revenge on the Robo-Rita, who had killed her mother the previous year. It isn't until Minh dives in front of a deadly blast in defense of Billy that the morpher unlocks, allowing her to become the new Yellow Ranger.
- Thor: Love and Thunder: Thor's old hammer Mjolnir, which was smashed to pieces in Thor: Ragnarok, rebuilds itself due to Thor's prior enchantment on it to protect Jane, which causes her to become its new wielder. Thor, who didn't realize this would be the effect of the spell, is confused to see Mjolnir resist his grasp and instead fly to Jane's side. What's more, this puts him at odds with his current weapon the axe Stormbreaker, who grows jealous of Mjolnir and becomes prone to lurking menacingly around Thor whenever he tries to cozy up to the hammer.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark: Happens in the climax. Rene Belloq and the Nazis have prepared to use the Ark to make their armies invincible and smite the Allied forces. However, as the audience has seen, the Ark has already rejected them (as it burned off a swastika from a transportation crate containing it earlier in the movie), which is made even more explicit when spirits, holy energy, and fire erupt from inside when they open it, gruesomely killing Belloq, Toht, and the rest of the Nazis. The trope is subverted when Indy, realizing the true power of the Ark in awed panic, orders Marion to close her eyes, which Indy does as well; this causes the manifestations of the Ark to ignore them entirely, and mysteriously, after the Ark closes, the pair's binding ropes have been burned through in one spot, freeing them.
Literature
- The Asterisk War: The Orga Lux Lei-Glems, a sword wielded by St. Gallardsworth Student Council President Ernest Fairclough at the start of the series, requires any wielder to abstain from their own desires and obey an Obstructive Code of Conduct. When Ernest drops the sword at the climax of the Gryps Festa and pulls his sidearm in hopes of a climactic duel with protagonist Ayato, Lei-Glems refuses to let him wield it ever again and is passed on to underclassman Elliot Forster.
- The Belgariad: Exaggerated in ancient history. When the Mad God Torak abused the Orb of Aldur's power to rip a continent apart, it burned away his eye and hand, leaving wounds that remained fresh for the rest of his existence. He never dared to touch the Orb again; over the millennia, the story grew that Only the Pure of Heart can do so without dying.
- The Colour of Magic: Kring, the magic talking sword, is picked up not by the mighty hero he expects but by Lovable Coward Rincewind. The sword realizes it has to make the best of the situation, but is passive-aggressive and snarky the entire time until Rincewind is finally able to hand it off to Hrun the Barbarian, to their mutual relief.
- The Chronicles of Prydain: The magical sword Dyrnwyn can only be safely drawn from its scabbard by someone of noble worth. In the first book of the series, The Book of Three, Taran is not yet of noble worth and is struck down by the sword when he attempts to draw it. By the last book, The High King, Taran has learned wisdom and become worthy, allowing him to draw the sword and slay the Cauldron-Born and Arawn Death-Lord.
- Desolate Era: absolutely all weapons past a certain level of power become sentient and can be choosy about wielders. However most of them aren't super picky as long as they get to be actually used, and even resistant ones can be forced to obey by wielders of equal power. At the very peak of power stand the Universe Treasures, and given that they were created and nourished by their original wielder over billions of years, and then adventured with them for even longer, they get extremely attached. In a rare case that they do actually lose their owner they will only ever accept someone who is exactly a perfect match, and are otherwise content to spend their eternal existence alone. Daolord Ninedust, user of a staff and water type Dao, encounters a universal treasure water-aligned staff and passes the trial set by the previous owner in order to inherit his Dao, but the staff itself rejects him for his temperament being just a bit too ruthless for its tastes. The fact that another Daolord, Winesage, manages to successfully acquire a Universal Treasure puts him leagues ahead of all other Daolorods, and even protagonist Ji Ning's incredible skills only barely manage to allow him to survive and escape a confrontation with him.
- The Dresden Files: Fidelacchius, the Sword of Faith gets destroyed after Karrin Murphy, due to Nicodemus Archleone's Batman Gambit, tries to strike Nicodemus down when he's given up, causing the sword to break and depower itself in rejection of Karrin's acts.
- Harry Potter: Wands are described as having loyalties to the wielder, and typically do not swap allegiances unless the current owner defeated the previous one in combat. A wand that lacks loyalty may feel "off" to the wielder, and their spells may be weak or even malfunction:
- Ron Weasley underperforms with spells in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in part because his wand is a hand-me-down from one of his older brothers, due to his family being Impoverished Patricians. The wand is ultimately destroyed in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and in the next book, his family wins a lottery and buys him a new one tailored to him, so he has no further problems.
- Neville Longbottom also turns out to have the same problem due to his grandmother forcing him to use his father's wand out of sentimentality. When the wand is destroyed by accident in the climax of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, he too gets a new one and stops being the comic relief Inept Mage.
- Wands' preference for particular masters becomes a major plot point in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Through a series of disarmaments, Harry ends up the master of the most powerful wand in the world, the Elder Wand, which only allows itself to be used by whoever defeated its previous master. This saves him at the critical moment when Voldemort tries to kill him with it, but instead the wand backfires the spell on Voldemort instead because he misread the chain of succession, twice: He thought that since Dumbledore was the master in Half-Blood Prince and therefore when Snape killed Dumbledore, Voldemort would inherit control since Snape (he thought) did it on his orders. When the Elder Wand underperforms, Voldemort kills Snape to be sure. In fact, Draco Malfoy had disarmed Dumbledore before Snape got there and the Elder Wand had counted that as defeating him, then Harry disarmed Malfoy and therefore Snape was never the wand's master to begin with.
- The Lord of the Rings: The One Ring notoriously accepts no other master than Sauron since he literally made it from part of himself, and only entices mortals to take it up so that they may be its Unwitting Pawns in its efforts to return to him. After Isildur, Prince of Gondor, took it as war booty from Sauron, it betrayed him to his death in hopes his attackers would find it and take it back, but instead was lost in the mud, and found centuries later by the hobbit Smeagol. It later abandoned Smeagol/Gollum after he seemed content to live in a cave under the Misty Mountains forever, and was found by Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.
- The Legend of Drizzt:
- The Icewind Dale Trilogy: At the end of The Crystal Shard, Akar Kessell attempts to use the titular artifact while standing on deep snow and falls through once the energy makes it melt. He attempts to grip and use the artifact as he falls, but after all the failures, the Shard pushes away such an unworthy wielder.
- Legacy of the Drow Series: In Starless Night, Drizzt and Catti-brie capture a sentient sword named Khazid'hea after killing Master Swordsman Dantrag Baenre. Khazid'hea wants to be wielded by Drizzt and shapeshifts its pommel into the shape of a panther in imitation of his animal companion Guenhwyvar, but Drizzt prefers scimitars and gives the sword to Catti-brie. In Siege of Darkness, the sword possesses Catti-brie and tries to make her seduce Drizzt in a misguided attempt to make its opinion known. After this incident, Catti-brie fights a mental battle with the sword and forces it to submit to her.
- The Hunter's Blades Trilogy: In The Two Swords Khazid'hea has enough of Catti-brie after she's wounded fighting Obould's orcs and possesses her sister-in-law Delly, making her wander out into the battlefield and get killed by orcs. Eventually Drizzt finds the sword in the hands of a possessed orc and takes it, grudgingly using it to fight Obould because it can penetrate his armor but leaving it lodged in his breastplate. After the battle, the drow warrior Tos'un Armgo finds Khazid'hea, who approves of his ruthlessness.
- The Misfit of Demon King Academy: The Master Swordsman Lay Grandsley faces off against Heine Kanon Iorg during an interschool training trip. Once Lay notices Heine's swords "weeping", the former quickly calls Heine unworthy of them, takes them away from the latter, and uses them to strike Heine down in under a minute.
- "Weak" version in The Neverending Story: When Bastian tries to draw his sword Sikánda against Atreju, it refuses, so he violently forces it and thereby permanently destroys its magic.
- Redwall. Averted, as although the spirit of Martin the Warrior lives on in his sword, the heroes chosen to wield the blade are advised to be responsible with it as the sword can be used for good or evil. Once, the sword ended up in the hands of the villainous Dethbrush, and Martin's ghost urged Samkin to reclaim the sword before it could be used for cruelty.
- Star Wars Expanded Universe: Star Wars: Ahsoka introduces the concept of "bleeding" a lightsaber's kyber crystal (the practice is first demonstrated in Star Wars: Darth Vader), a practice necessary because kyber crystals are naturally attuned to the true Force, the "light side", rather than The Corruption of the "dark side", and will therefore perform suboptimally for users of the dark side. "Bleeding" the crystal essentially consists of brainwashing it with negative emotions to bend it to the user's will, and also invariably turns the blade red, explaining the franchise's use of Good Colors, Evil Colors. A lightsider such as Ahsoka can cleanse a previously bled crystal and restore it to the light side, which usually results in a white lightsaber blade.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: The Moment, a weapon so powerful it was known as "The Galaxy Eater", also had an AI that developed a conscience. The Time Lords locked it away, fearing to use a weapon that could pass judgment for daring to use it. Only during The Time War did The Doctor become so desperate to end the conflict that he turned to it, and even then, The Moment actually maneuvered him into a path where he wouldn't need to.
- Star Wars Expanded Universe: The Darksaber, originally introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars but most relevant to The Mandalorian, is a unique lightsaber that is reputed to have a will of its own, preferring an owner with the motive to rule Mandalore (Dave Filoni's Word of God about the storyline supports this interpretation, and it seems to fit with Disney-era canon's lore regarding the kyber crystals that act as the cores of lightsabers). Less ambitious wielders like Sabine Wren and Din Djarin find the weapon heavy in their hands, while those who seek to rule like Maul and Bo-Katan Kryze swing the Darksaber as easily as their own limbs. Additionally, the Darksaber may curse the wielder if the weapon was not earned through combat: in "Return of the Mandalorian, the Armorer blames Bo-Katan being given the Darksaber by Sabine, rather than winning it from her in a fight, for the genocide of the Mandalorians by the Empire. This is, however, subject to interpretation: it's not like the Empire has ever had any problems with enacting Disproportionate Retribution for resistance before (and it ultimately turns out in season 3 of The Mandalorian that Moff Gideon wanted Mandalore's beskar reserves for the Empire's sole use and would have wiped out the Mandalorians regardless of possession of the Darksaber).
- Ultraman Z: The Beliarok is a sentient weapon with a Blood Knight mindset, who only allows himself to be wielded if its user can satisfy Beliarok's desire to fight. More than once in the series when Ultraman Z starts holding back, Beliarok instead bails on Z; and in the later series Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroad, the Beliarok leaves Z for Geed due to sensing a similar scent and was then stolen by villainous Ultraman Belial (though it goes back to Z by the last episode).
- Witchblade: Kenneth Irons is obsessed with the Witchblade, and it's a sore point for him that he's disqualified from being the wielder (it only chooses heroic women, and Irons is neither of those things). He once tried to ram it onto his wrist through brute force, and it ended up burning him so badly that he still has visible scarring from it.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: In most editions intelligent magic items have agendas and if the user goes against those agendas they can refuse to use their magic or even attempt to seize control of their wielders.
- 4th Edition: Artifacts have a relationship meter, granting additional powers the more the wielder supports their goals. If it bottoms out, it actively hampers the wielder and will eventually vanish — potentially at the worst possible moment.
- In the 5th Edition module Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, one Sidequest has you investigate a warrior who's Not Himself and seems to be struggling with his intelligent axe. The axe refuses to grant its magic to the Puppeteer Parasite that ate his brain.
- In Warhammer, all Phoenix Kings of the High Elves must step into the Flame of Asuryan, a magical fire that judges if they are worthy to lead the elves. Those who pass judgement are granted supernatural vitality and their body is saturated with magical energy. However, when Malekith claimed the right to lead elf-kind and attempted to pass through the Flame, it rejected him and his body was instead horrifically burnt, leaving him on the verge of death. In the End-Times campaign, this was ultimately revealed to be a subversion - Malekith was actually intended to be the Phoenix King and had he endured the flames for just a few moments longer, it would have accepted him and healed his injuries.
Video Games
- BlazBlue: The series has an interesting heroic example. After Jin Kisaragi receives a bit of "treatment" from Valkenhayn, the former finds that he is unable to draw his sword, Yukianesa. However, as turns out, this is because Yukianesa was actually an Evil Weapon that was influencing Jin, and his "treatment" was to help awaken his Power of Order, which made it harder if not impossible for the sword to control him. Eventually Jin manages to use his newfound power to actually "tame" Yukianesa and, sure enough, the next time he draws it, it's Jin who is using the sword and not the other way around.
- The Elder Scrolls: The legendary artifacts of the series' Daedric Princes are often said to have a mind of their own, if they're not outright pieces of their respective deities themselves, and are handed out by the Princes to worthy mortal champions. They've been known to "abandon" their mortal wielders if they are no longer worthy or become too dependent upon them. Examples include Mehrunes Razor, artifact of Mehrunes Dagon, which turned rusty and brittle in the hands of an unworthy thief (there's a quest in Morrowind for the Nerevarine to retrieve and reforge it), as well as the Ring of the Khajiit, artifact of Mephala, which was stolen from her by the legendary thief Rajhin, but abandoned him after making use of its power too freely, leaving him exposed to his enemies and killed.
- In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the Mani Katti is said to choose who wields it, thanks to being blessed by the spirits. When the bandit Glass tries to steal it, he can't even pull the Mani Katti from its scabbard. Meanwhile, Lyn pulls it out effortlessly.
- Kingdom Hearts: The first game zigzags this a bit before playing it straight. As it turns out, Sora wasn't the one who was supposed to get the Keyblade, but rather his best friend Riku. However, after Riku's desire to see the outside world led to Destiny Islands being plunged into darkness, the Keyblade ended up choosing Sora instead. In spite of this, when Riku first meets with Sora after this incident, Riku is briefly shown to be able to take the Keyblade from Sora despite its Only the Chosen May Wield nature before playfully tossing it back to Sora and leaving. Once the two of them meet at the entrance of Hollow Bastion, Riku takes the Keyblade back in full after stating that Sora was just the "delivery boy," with Donald and Goofy abandoning Sora in order to "follow the key" like they were told. After a pep talk from the Beast, Sora goes to confront Riku once more, with the latter attacking the former for his trouble. Luckily, Goofy defends Sora and Donald joins them soon after, leading Sora to understand The Power of Friendship and making the Keyblade decide that Riku isn't worthy after all. And would you believe this is one of the less complicated storylines of this series?
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Drawing the Master Sword in this game requires the player to have at least 13 hearts in their health meter as pulling it drains your life force. If you attempt with fewer than 13 the Deku Tree will stop you from going all the way once. If you try a second time the sword can literally kill Link, causing a game over.
- Trials of Mana prominently features the Sword of Mana, a legendary blade that only the Chosen One (the first character selected for the player's party) may draw. If one of your other party members attempts to draw it from its resting place, they are instead hurled away by an unseen force. When the party is forced to hand over the sword to the villains opposed to them, the villains in question gloat for a few seconds in their victory before suddenly remarking about the sword growing too heavy for them to lift and collapsing to the ground.
- World of Warcraft: In the Legion expansion, a priest player obtains Xal'atath, a dagger connected to the Old Gods, because it betrays its former wielder as it senses the player character has more potential to grow.
Webcomics
- Delve: In the D&D webcomic, the protagonist is an elven rogue who finds a Moonblade on the corpse of another adventurer in one arc. The Moonblade thinks itself an honorable warrior's weapon and disapproves of rogue tactics, refusing to come out of its sheath after she uses it to stab an enemy in the back.
- Nodwick: Played for Laughs in a Dragon magazine write-up of the characters, which reveals that Yeagar's sword is a powerful, intelligent holy weapon with the ability to turn undead, heal disease, and several other powers. It initially was disgusted being wielded by Dumb Muscle Yeagar, but its attempt to leave ended up accidentally killing a particularly pious cleric, so now the sword is catatonic (And mostly powerless) with guilt.
Web Videos
- Atop the Fourth Wall: After a battle with The Gunslinger, Linkara's Magic Gun abruptly stops working, taking the rest of his magic with it. Linkara eventually meets the ghost haunting the gun, who reveals that he turned their connection off because Linkara was turning evil.
Western Animation
- Samurai Jack: In Season 5, Jack's sword is revealed to be an Empathic Weapon. It leaves him when he gives into his anger and throws off his balance.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015): The Dark Star Saber, as seen in the predecessor series, Transformers: Prime, is a sword fabricated by Megatron using pure Dark Energon, meant to replicate and counter the abilities of the original Star Saber. In this sequel series, the sword shows that it also possesses some form of sentience as it is able to resist Starscream using it, in which he concludes as the sword believing him unworthy of wielding it. However, he is able to use its abilities to a degree.
- Young Justice (2010): There is a variation with the Sword of Beowulf, a weapon that Only the Pure of Heart can use. Harm tries to cheat this rule by murdering his sister Greta and becoming a Card-Carrying Villain (he points out that the weapon only demands a pure heart -- a purely evil heart is fair game). When Harm unexpectedly feels guilt when he sees Greta come back as a ghost, the Sword of Beowulf takes advantage of the moment to reject him.
