History Main / TheManMakesTheWeapon

Contrast CherryTapping, where the purpose of picking a weak weapon would be to humiliate their opponent. This is usually why WoodenKatanasAreEvenBetter; the weapon isn't better, but the user of the weak weapon is usually stronger. Also contrast ImprobableWeaponUser, someone who regularly arms themselves with wacky weapons, and OnceKilledAManWithANoodleImplement, where a character brags about or is rumored to have fought someone with an improbable weapon. See also ImprovisedWeapon. If the [[InvertedTrope weapon makes the man]], then that's PowersViaWeapon.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "Robot of Sherwood", the Doctor fights RobinHood for the [=TARDIS=] with a spoon, in what worked as both a parody of the usual first meeting between Robin and Little John in the legends, and an ActorAllusion given that Creator/PeterCapaldi had also played Cardinal Richelieu in ''Series/TheMusketeers'', which gave us the previous example.

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Taken to its logical conclusion; the greatest swordsmen don't depend on having a blade in their hand, because they can cut through entire armies with nothing but their will alone. Auntie Maya, the greatest swordswoman the multiverse has ever seen, typically slices apart armies and parries bullets ''by casually thinking about them already being cut''. When she gets serious, she does take out her personal sword... a broken pig iron hilt, which she first used to amplify her will and cut ''an entire floating city in half''.

* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack's'' title character once had to indulge a FakeUltimateHero [[JiveTurkey "Sa-mu-rai"]] in a duel. Not wanting to actually hurt the idiot, he insisted on a duel with bamboo stalks first, and managed to [[DefeatByModesty strip him naked]] with zero effort. He then dealt with an ''actual'' threat (a hundred robot assassins [[DualWield with scimitar-arms]]), [[NerfArm still using the stick]].

* A variation occurs in most games with RPGElements that focus on weapon specialization. A specialist can use his or her signature weapon type to pull off devastating moves that are many times more powerful than the weapon's stats should justify while non-specialists would be stuck with the same weapon's typically meager auto-attack if they're allowed to wield it at all.

* Used and lampshaded in ''Anime/{{Naruto}}'' Sasuke is able to break Itachi's Genjutsu despite Itachi having the superior Sharingan. Zetsu states that this shouldn't have been the case. His other half tells him that the effectiveness of a weapon depends on how it is used.

* Subverted in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': Mat defeats a pair of very skilled swordsmen with a quarterstaff in two on one combat. While the swordsman think it is this trope, their master points out that the greatest swordsman in history was defeated only once, by a farmer with a quarterstaff. This is TruthInTelevision: staff-based weapons are the most effective personal weapon in general, which is why most historical armies primarily used [[BladeOnAStick spears or halberds]] rather than swords.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':

* In ''LightNovel/FateZero'', [[BlackKnight Berserker]] has the explicit power to treat anything he holds as an InfinityPlusOneSword which can damage magical beings, and to [[InstantExpert wield it as if he had trained with it all his life]]. He can do this with anything from telephone poles to other {{Infinity Plus One Sword}}s (gaining control of them in the process) to ''jet fighters''.
** Technically, the concept of "Reinforcement" within the {{Franchise/Nasuverse}} (especially as employed in the sequel story to ''LightNovel/FateZero'', ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'') allows any mage to do this: as long as you know the fundamentals of 1) deploying magic through any part of your body and 2) the basic structure of every single matter, you can make even [[ImprobableWeaponUser a rolled-up poster as hard as a staff or a sword]]--as protagonist Shirou Emiya does in the beginning. [[spoiler: This, together with his innate capacity for Projection, becomes the basis of his Reality Marble, ''[[FieldOfBlades Unlimited]] [[StormOfBlades Blade Works]].'']]

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Taken to its logical conclusion; the greatest swordsmen don't depend on having a blade in their hand, because they can cut through entire armies with nothing but their will alone. Auntie Maya, the greatest swordswoman the multiverse has ever seen, only uses physical swords against the deadliest enemies in the multiverse[note]to fight an angel, which is described as a living nuclear explosion trained in millennia-old martial arts, or against her nemesis and sword-mastering rival Incubus[/note] - everyone else gets her psychic blade, meaning she can slice apart armies and parry bullets ''by casually thinking about them already being cut''. Her personal 'sword' is a combination of a broken apprentice blacksmith's pig iron hilt and a tuning fork, which was all she needed to amplify her will to cut ''an entire floating city in half''.

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Taken to its logical conclusion. The greatest swordsmen don't need swords at all. They can cut through entire armies with nothing but their will alone. Auntie Maya, the greatest swordswoman the multiverse has ever seen, only drew a sword once over the course of the comic--to fight an angel, which is described as a living nuclear explosion trained in millennia-old martial arts. The sword she drew was a broken hilt with maybe an inch of blade left. She used the edge it didn’t have to cut the angel in half with a single stroke, which continued on to cut through everything behind the angel, and everything behind that...

* ''LightNovel/ICouldntBecomeAHeroSoIReluctantlyDecidedToGetAJob'': Late in the series, Raul grabs a 1-ft ruler in self defense and treats it like a shortblade. He manages to [[{{Pun}} school]] two adventurers.

* ''ComicBook/{{Nextvave}}'': MonsterHunter Elsa Bloodstone kills a squad of [[ZombiePirateNinjaRobot samurai robots]] with a shovel, after pointing out that by RuleOfCool [[GenreSavvy samurai robots beat guns and thus have to be defeated in a way even cooler than they are]].