Sinister Scimitar - Television Tropes & Idioms

Yup, That can't be good...

"Have you seen those warriors from Hammerfell? They have curved swords. Curved. Swords."

—Random Guards, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim

Whenever an army of evil creatures like Orcs and such is introduced, be sure that most of the time they will be armed with scimitars, falchions, sabers and other curved weapons. Alternatively, a particular evil character or warrior is armed with such a weapon to underline his bad guy status. Seen more often if the "good guys" or the "good army" wields straight swords.

Probably born from the European view of the Crusades, where the righteous Christians were fighting the scimitar-wielding Arabs and Turks (even though Arabs preferred the spear and straight sword as weapons). Another possible influence could be cutlass-wielding pirates.

In Chinese wuxia novels and movies, straight double edged swords (jian

, usually the taiji type which is thinner) are also preferred over large single edged swords (daidao

), probably it looks way cooler to beat someone with a bigger sword, and adding to the realism, they don't use designer weapons they make up, but Real Life weapons that are roughly the correct size. Some older novels prefer heroes use pole weapons though.

Of course, this trope has one primary exception, if the hero comes from a place where scimitars and sabers are used as a "default", though in these case it's more like because everyone use them. See also Weapon of Choice and Good Weapon, Evil Weapon. Expect to see it often in Qurac-like settings. Compare and Contrast Katanas Are Just Better, which is the Eastern equivalent to this trope.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

D's crescent sword.
Many high-level enemies in Yaiba are armed with large scimitars, namely the Mushroom Soldier, Gold and Gozuma.
Tao Pai Pai and Dabura from Dragon Ball. Also Yamcha during his bandit career◊. This was carried over in the◊ live action adaptation Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins.
- Lord Yao in the DragonBall GT Movie
In Ranma � during her first appearence Shampoo wielded a large Da Dao sword.
In Bleach we have Lilynette Gingerback, armed with an far too curved blade
The pirate Porchemy in One Piece carries a huge scimitar around, and has a penchant for scalping his victims alive.
- Cutlasses are often found for Mooks on both Pirates and Marines, although higher-ranking marines usually tend to go for Katanas. With the exception of a General Ripper by the name of Onigumo who wields eight of them when using his powers.
Jakotsu from Inu Yasha. His blade is also a Whip Sword to boot.
The Apostle Nosferatu Zodd from Berserk has a wicked-looking falchion sword. And in an even better example, Griffith wielded a curved saber, contrasting Guts' humongous straigth sword.
Not exactly a sword, but Kabuto's kunai in Naruto is curved, unlike those of other ninjas. And unlike other ninjas, he's evil.
- Its also the preferred weapon of Zabuza Mamochi when he doesn't have his Kubikiribocho.
In Rave Master the Sacrifar sword is the second most powerful form of Ten Commandments but is also the darkest and most dangerous to both wielder and enemy.
An Elite Mook from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple wields one.
Some scimitars pop out as outstanding weapons in Gamaran: in one case (a very long sword with a massive, curved tip) is noted that the heavy tip can deliver massive damage. The other one (a more arabian-like shamshir or an indian Tulwar) is only saw but not elaborated upon much as the wielder is killed by Muraku..

Literature

The Orcs in The Lord of the Rings
- Played with in the movies where elves too use curved Japanese-like weapons, but also Haradrim and Easterlings are shown wielding scimitars along with countless orcs.
Mallorean soldiers in the Belgariad are described as using large and clumsy curved broadswords.
Many evil guys in Conan the Barbarian are equipped with curved blades, expecially King Yezdigerd. Of course, Conan used them too, as well as anything else he could lay his hands on.
Nerakian warriors use scimitars. In one of the books a Solamnian Knight even calls them "Nerakian Rippers".*
Note that even if some scimitars had a double edge they were usually used as sabers for slashing.
The Calormens in The Chronicles of Narnia.
- Played even straighter when Eustace isn't even allowed to carry a scimitar even though he knows how to fight with it, but has to relearn how to fight with a Narnian longsword from scratch.
In the fantasy novel Shadow Keep The Dragon pulls a large scimitar from his throne in order to take on the main characters.

Film

The huge swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark has a Big Fucking Scimitar and the Thugs in the sequel brandish curved swords too.

Tabletop Games

Orcs and Goblins in Warhammer Fantasy indulge in scimitars. Also the Tomb Kings armies, which at least have a Egyptian-like setting.

Video Games

Orcs in Battle for Wesnoth, and the Elves too. Also the Naga.
Marcellus in Onimusha. Also Nobunaga's One-Winged Angel form from the third game.
Count Borghen in Final Fantasy II.
In Legend of Dragoon when Zieg takes back the Dragoon Spirit from Dart his sword becomes a sort of flaming scimitar.
The Darkspawn in Dragon Age II after their redesign (though the Darkspawn Longsword in the original game did look a lot like a Ram Dao).
In the Drakensang series, wicked scimitar users include Dark Amazons, certain types of skeletons and orcs. Also Tharkath and the other High Elves he turned against you during the final act of the Expansion.
Played straight with Kratos who's still an Anti-Hero/Villain Protagonist and uses the curved (and multi-jagged) Blade of Chaos/Athena/Exile and, in the first game, Artemis' Sword. It's even shown in the comics that he used one when before meeting Ares. Also the Persian King and tons of scimitar-swinging mooks.
Skeleton Mooks in Warcraft III are automatically armed with scimitars, no matter what. Also the Anti-Hero Illidan Stormrage dual wields a contorted case of double scimitar.
In Dynasty Warriors there are several scimitar users, both heroic and villainous. In the latter case, there would be Xiahou Dun (debatable) and the much less debatable Dong Zhuo who combines this with Serrated Blade of Pain.
In Metal Slug 2 and 4 there are arab-looking enemies, berserkers and pirates all armed with scimitars. They can even toss it at you.
The "Bandit" type Heartless found in Agrabah in Kingdom Hearts. Though, given that Guest Star Party Member Aladdin also uses a Scimitar, it's likely simply the default sword for that world.
Wan Fu from the first Samurai Shodown game. Averted of course if you play as him.
In Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 the monsters haunting the Hammer Hall dungeons combine this with Flaming Sword.
The fearsome Devil King of The Sixth Heaven Oda Nobunaga in Sengoku Basara combines this one with Sword and Gun, thought is more like a Falchion.
Throughout most of the Final Fantasy series, Odin's instant-kill swords are often curved blades, often wicked into a rough lightning-like shape.
In Dead Rising 2 one of the magicians, Roger, dual wields scimitars.
The Necromancer from Castle Crashers.
Clive Barkers Undying has the Trsanti militants attacking you with very large scimitars.
Kemsyt from Age Of Mythology.
In The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, the Alik'r all wield scimitars, though they aren't evil, just somewhat suspicious in the eyes of the more close-minded Nords of Skyrim. Nazir, who's a member of the Dark Brotherhood fits this to a tee however.
In Donkey Kong Country 2, there's an enemy croc named Kutlass. Three guesses for what he wields.

Web Comics

In Looking for Group the enemy soldiers attacking Kethenecia in the past are armed with scimitars.
In The Order of the Stick we have Zz'dtri who, being a clone of Drizzt, wields two scimitars and the Death Knight assaulting Azure City wields one and also the Beetle-men bandits. Crystal's sword/dagger may count too.

Western Animation

In Aladdin the guards chasing the titular hero wield scimitars.
- Well, yeah, but ... it's set in the Middle East (what do you want they should wield, katanas?), and the guards aren't evil, and Aladdin at that point isn't exactly a "hero", he's just drawn cuter than they are and you're supposed to sympathize with him (the fact the movie's named after him doesn't hurt).
Hassan, the huge arab guard who appears in some shorts and wields a massive scimitar.
"Hassan CHOP!!!"
The wicked Jack-In-the-Box in Fantasia2000 wields a scimitar against the Tin Soldier. Ironically, because of the curved blade itself he ends up slipping and falling into a hot stove head-first.

Aversions

Anime and Manga

Bleach has Shunsui Kyoraku's Shikai, which takes the form of two large scimitars.
- Also in the filler episode 287, which has a Arabian Nights Days setting features scimitar-looking Zanpakuto for everyone.
Agon◊ from Hunter � Hunter. Though he's more neutral than fully evil/good.
In Naruto, Izumo and Kotetsu both used curved blades.
One of the other forms of Ten Commandments is MillionSun which is definetively positive.
in Inu Yasha the Tessaiga blade is fang-shaped, hence looking a bit like a massive scimitar.
In Sailor Moon, Sailor Uranus uses the Space Sword, which is a curved sword that looks a lot like a jeweled scimitar. In this case, the fact that she has it is proof of her pure heart, since it's one of the three talismans and came out of her pure heart crystal.

Literature

Conan the Barbarian has also used several curved swords himself, including scimitars, sabers and tulwars (which are wrongly described as long knives). He however often stated that he was at his best with a western longsword.
Averted and played straight in The Dark Elf Trilogy and the rest of The Legend Of Drizzt. Drizzt Do'Urden (a dark elf but one of the most morally upright characters in whole series) wields twin scimitars, but so do some of the other drow. Note however that in contrast to the typical drow, Zaknafein used straight blades.
In the Discworld novel Moving Pictures, Victor uses a scimitar in the click Sons of the Dessert. He's not impressed.
Victor: I thought swords had to be straight.
Mrs Cosmopolite: Perhaps they start out straight and get bendy with use. A lot of things do.

Film

Thong in Cave Dwellers.
The Farmer from In The Name Of The King defends his farm from the evil Kurgs with a large, machete-like curved blade.
Gai Xing from Red Cliff is seen using a dadao in battle, and is one of the good guys. Most of the other characters (both good and bad) use straight swords and pole weapons instead.

Tabletop Games

Mielikki, the good-aligned goddess of the woods in the Dungeons&Dragons' Forgotten Realms setting, uses a pair of scimitars. It's also the favoured weapon of her followers.
In the Path Finder RPG's main setting, Golarion, the Goddess of Healing, Redemption, and the Sun uses the scimitar, along with her clergy. Played straight with the Mother of Monsters Lamashtu, whose worshippers use both curve-bladed falchions and kukris.

Video Games

Arcanum has several kinds of scimitars and falchions as free-to-buy weapons (including those which shoot fireballs). Moreover, one of them is a full-blown Infinity+1 Sword and a backup Sword of Plot Advancement.
Both Alta�r and Ezio from Assassin's Creed have used curved blades. Also justified in the first game, which is taking place in the Holy Land after all.
Kaleh, Kalenz and Li'Sarr from Battle for Wesnoth, along with the good-aligned elves and orcs.
One of the first characters you play as in Eternal Darkness is an almost stereotypical Persian warrior, and naturally enough, wields a scimitar, and later a huge Ram Dao.
The Prince in the Prince of Persia games tends to favor curved blades.
In Runescape, scimitars are a popular weapon type, especially on free-to-play servers.
Sengoku Basara: Some of Keiji Maeda's weapons are scimitaresque, but he's the nicest guy around.
Blue Dragon from Swords Of Destiny is a Da Dao sword used by our hero.
Now, good scimitar users from Drakensang include good amazons, Tulamnid playable characters, Djinns and Tie'Shianna's palace guards. Nothing stops your playable character (whataver class he choses) to learn how to fight with a scimitar/saber (though larger one are considered as "Two Handed Swords" instead).