A holy...''evil'' weapon?!

Hi fellow writers of fantasy out there (and non-fantasy writers are welcome too, don't want to exclude anybody). This is the first of several questions I have regarding a story idea, but I wanted to ask this one the most.

One of the important aspects of the story is a weapon known as the Golden Sword. It is a long-sword with a bright golden blade and it is imbued with the power of the setting's good deity, the High God.

The world has come under continual assaults by the High God's Evil Counterpart, the Omnicidal Maniac Deep God and its legions of evil. The one who wields the Golden Sword has always beaten back these forces by using the Golden Sword but there's a catch:

The chosen wielder must plunge the Sword into his heart. Once this is done, the wielder becomes a powerful entity with no memory of his former life, identity or personality. His only drive to destroy anything having to do with the Deep God, and he now has the power to do so. After the wielder has destroyed the Deep God's forces and driven them back underground, he dies due to the sword's energy leaving his body.

The Golden Sword then vanishes from the world of men, until it is needed again. It seems to have picked a certain family to be its keepers, since it appears in their vault when the Deep God's forces have grown out of control, and eight of this family's members have become "heroes" and made the ultimate sacrifice.

Anyway, my question is this: is this an "evil weapon?" The Golden Sword is a symbol of hope for the people of this world, but it is also meant to be sinister and certainly something that isn't purely good. So...input, I guess? Please?

edited 26th Apr '15 7:32:52 PM by Swordofknowledge

I don't think it's "evil" but it is Good Is Not Nice, because turning yourself into a inhuman implacable beast to destroy evil is a very cruel fate, even if necessary.

I'd say it's not "evil," exactly. But it's definitely on the "morally grey" side of things.

Although you'll really have to think about why someone would use this weapon. Like, they'd willingly give up their memories? Their personality? Their former life? Just for a power boost? And they wouldn't even get to control how they act? And they could only use it for a specific purpose? And then they die when it runs out? That sounds more like possession (demonic or holy or whatever), and I'm convinced that a rational person wouldn't take the deal.

The only person I could see doing this would be, like, a Knight Templar who had already committed their whole life to obliterating the Deep God before they found the sword. So I don't see much "story potential" except as a subplot. The end of a side-character's arc.

But hey — if you can make it work, that's more power to you.

I think it works for a protagonist as well. As a sort of Godzilla Threshold weapon, when the Deep God is on the brink o annihilating everything, The Hero realizes there is no other way to stop him, and plunges the sword in his heart to stop him.

It'd be a pretty good Bittersweet Ending, the protagonist sacricing his sense of self and personality to save the world.

Any idiot can use a sword, even a holy sword. It doesn't require you to be much in the morality department, it doesn't demand too much of you necessarily either.

This one, on the other hand, demands a lot of you.

It's not evil.

It doesn't require killing others, or spreading suffering, or any rubbish like that.

It simply has a very high cost to use it. Maybe justifiably so, maybe not: that depends on you as the writer.

Wow, so many responses and different opinions! Thanks everyone for all the feedback, it's really helpful.

@ Aw Sam Weston and Gaon: You both make very good points that I wasn't going to go into because it would just add text, but that's sort of what's going on in the story. One of the objectives that starts around the middle is trying to Take a Third Option and defeat the Deep God's forces without resorting to using the Golden Sword. One of the main protagonists is a boy adopted by the only surviving member of the Sword's "keeper family" and has been groomed by his adopted mother to become the next hero who will wield the weapon, and a large part of his character arc is defying her and learning to stand on his own.

Aw Sam Weston's point about a Knight Templar doing this is spot on: one of the Big Bad Ensemble, the adopted mother of the soon-to-be wielder winds up using the Golden Sword on herself in desperation after he not only rejects it but destroys the weapon (it is extremely fragile until it gains a host). She plunges a shard of it into her chest and this results in...a whole other set of problems to deal with.

edited 26th Apr '15 10:28:01 PM by Swordofknowledge

Kazeto's point about the high cost possibly being justified is a great one. The Good side could demand a self-sacrifice in the same way that the bad side demands the slaughter of others and only one willing to lay down his/her own life for the good of everyone else is worthy enough to wield the sword.

After all, the sword confers a fuckton of power, only one who is willing to give up everything should have that much power and only one who is rendered bereft of personal desires/personality/emotion can be trusted to use it without using it for their own ends.

It would ensure that only someone whose motive is the greater good would dare take it up. Good Is Not Dumb - it wouldn't want to put that sort of power in the hands of someone who might decide to redress a few personal scores along the way...

That's actually a very good point. It's, in a way, the most neutral weapon there is; it can't be used for good or evil. It has exactly one purpose: to defeat the Deep God. That he and his minions are evil is just fortuitous.

edited 26th Apr '15 11:54:32 PM by Elfhunter

Very obvious parallels to Jesus Christ, re in terms of martyrdom. Make of that what you will.

What are the origins of the Deep God and the Golden Sword?

@ nekomoon14: The origins are shrouded in mystery. According to legends, the Deep God and the High God are twin brothers, and the Deep God grew jealous when the High God created the world and devoted all his time to his new creations. So the angry twin burrowed deep into the new world's skin and sent forth abominations to terrorize and kill the mortal inhabitants on the surface, thus becoming "The Deep God".

The Golden Sword was supposedly given to the first Hero by the High God himself when things were at their worst and there was no real way to fight off The Legions of Hell that were sent by the Deep God. Since then it's been passed down through the Landry Family who act as its keepers until a new incursion of Deep God minions arises. The legends may or may not be true; the High and Deep gods exist in some form, and they are certainly brothers locked in a battle, but they are not gods, merely powerful beings of yet unknown origins who have devastated the human race with their conflict.

edited 15th May '15 10:37:52 AM by Swordofknowledge

Where is the High God? What is the extent of his power? Why doesn't he involve himself directly?

I like the idea of this holy sword getting ever-so-slightly corrupted in the fight against evil. After eons of fighting, the sword's defenses have been weakened enough that it has internalized some of the darkness it is fighting. Not enough to turn it truly evil, but enough to give it a sinister, zealous angle. If it were my story, I would have it possessed by an extradimensional biological monstrosity that wears the holy looking exterior like a hermit crab. Basically, it would be Migi in sword format, but you can go in whatever direction you want.

edited 15th May '15 9:48:52 PM by MaxwellDaring

You'll want the Unholy Holy Sword trope. There's a lot of weapons there that have hidden dark sides.