Suggestion: Living Weapon

First off, this trope seems to cover several things — using a living creature as a weapon, having an anthropomorphic (that word probably doesn't mean what I'm trying to use it for, sorry) weapon, etc., so I'm hoping that this suggestion fits. The current image doesn't really show that the weapon is alive — the eye seems purely decorative to me. Here's a Munchkin card that has amusement value and — if I've got the trope right — illustrates it better.

I could live with either.

I kinda prefer Soul Edge.

Soul Edge is a good example, but without actually seeing the eye move or blink, it kinda falls as Take Our Word for It. The suggested image shows the sword in a more comically animated pose.

Isn't the Singing and Dancing Sword an example of a Talking Weapon rather than a living one? By my reading, Living Weapon calls for the weapon to be alive, not simply animate; examples of the latter seem to fall under Talking- or Empathic- Weapon.

(For what it's worth, the Singing and Dancing Sword is listed as an example under Talking Weapon, I believe.)

Well in that case, it shouldn't be hard to find screenshots of the various Deathscythes from Soul Eater. One of the main themes of the series is that people can become weapons for another person to use. If the weapons become strong enough, they can manifest their weapon portions while maintaining thiet human appearance. Maka's father, for example, can walk around with his scythe blade sticking out of his arms and back.

That might be a different trope altogether though. Ahh, yes. Equippable Ally, but nothing saying they can't overlap.

edited 14th Aug '12 11:08:48 AM by DRCEQ

Indeed, I believe that the entry for Living Weapon describes Equippable Ally as a sub-trope.

It's usually best to not have overlapping examples as page images, though, since that may cause confusion between two similar tropes.

Is it bad that I look at the OP's suggestion and immediately envision it singing this?

I don't even watch Soul Eater...

edited 14th Aug '12 6:51:32 PM by ShadowHog

XD this thread seems to have been guided by fate to be involved with Soul Eater no matter what.

In the interests of full disclosure; I launched Living Weapon as a trope a while ago and had it cover both Equippable Ally and Attack Animal, then more recently I decided they're more distinct that I though and split them by launching EA and AA as new tropes and leaving what was left on LW.

The idea behind LW is that it describes a weapon which is an independant organism (or some sort of undead/magical/etc creature which may as well be alive) which serves as a weapon (Attack Animal covers creatures which act on their own and follow orders and Equippable Ally covers characters who are picked up and wielded, leaving the supertrope to cover weapons which just happen to be living things and don't have any "life" beyond being that) so it would probably be better to have a page image that looks like something organic.

Here's some options, all Tyranid weapons from Warhammer 40,000:

• Various weapons◊
• Barbed Strangler◊
• Bonesword◊
• Fleshborer◊
• Wrecking Ball◊
• Devourer◊
• Spinefist◊
• Venom Cannon◊

edited 16th Aug '12 4:16:46 PM by Willbyr

All these look less alive than the OP's suggestion.

I'm going off the second part of Bisected's post.

edited 16th Aug '12 4:18:16 PM by Willbyr

Question: Would the plant-based weapons of the Monster Minds from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors count for this?

Now that brings out memories... </Offtopic>

I'm not sure, though. Don't they sort of transform themselves into weaponised vehicles?

Yeah, the Monster Minds themselves could morph into vehicles, and their spore clones were basically blobs of protoplasm that became vehicles once they made landfall. They still kept the plant weapons, though, in addition to their mechanical weapons, which is what I was wondering about.

edited 8th Sep '12 8:16:07 AM by Willbyr

Clock is set.

Honestly, Soul Edge looks pretty alive to me ^note I don't know what it's from, I just know what it's called because someone else named it above - it's not just the eye, it also has the veins running up and down it that look like they'd be pulsating if it were a gif.

To be equally honest, however, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the obvious choice◊.

^note I'm pretty sure that the image was originally made by Keith Thompson; I'm not sure what its copyright status is, and SCP Foundation site policy is different from ours. So that's an important thing to consider.

edited 8th Oct '12 6:37:30 PM by Noaqiyeum

SCP stuff is never obvious. I still prefer Soul Edge, though.

edited 8th Oct '12 9:33:22 PM by AnotherDuck

Why not a photo of the good ol lingua foeda acheronsis, this is a DAMN famous and deadly living weapon.

Just throwin' out the Singing Sword◊ from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

edited 11th Oct '12 2:15:24 PM by helterskelter

It's hard to see it's a sword, as much as I like it.

Yeah, I can barely even tell that's a sword.

Clock's up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken based on this thread.