History Main / TheSonsAndTheSpears

* The bed of nails works as a sort of inverted version. If you lay upon a single nail, it will pierce you. But if you lay on a bunch of tightly packed nails, the more distributed weight will keep you safe.

* Try the metaphor for yourself. A group of sticks working together is indeed far harder to break than a single one of the same type, not because of ThePowerOfFriendship, but that each stick only bears a mere fraction of the breaking force. (This is often demonstrated in science class by putting a board on top of a sufficiently large number of eggs as to hold the weight of a student standing on them--find enough eggs and they can hold up a ''car''.)

* Literature/TheBible: [[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes Ecclesiastes 4:12]] - Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

* Try the metaphor for yourself. A group of sticks working together is indeed far harder to break than a single one of the same type, not because of ThePowerOfFriendship, but that each stick only bears a mere fraction of the breaking force. (This is often demonstrated in science class by putting a board on top of a sufficiently large number of eggs as to hold the weight of a student standing on them--find enough eggs and they can hold up an entire ''car''.)

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E8TheHawHawedCouple The Haw-Hawed Couple]]" Martin Prince gives a speach to this effect.

-->-- '''Martin Prince''', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "The Haw-Hawed Couple"

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' in "The Haw-Hawed Couple".

* When {{Tintin}} first meets Chang, the latter cites this as a Chinese proverb.
* Adam Susan in ''Comicbook/VForVendetta'' makes reference to the Roman version of this trope (see Real Life below) during an internal monologue to justify the Fascist dictatorship he has forced upon the British - as one arrow will snap easily but a bundle will not, the survival of Britain as a whole must always come before the rights and freedoms of individual citizens.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Great Fairy Wars]]'': The Three Mischevious Fairies [[ComicallyMissingThePoint completely miss the point]]:

-->-- '''Martin Prince''', ''TheSimpsons'', "The Haw-Hawed Couple"

* The Bulgars have a cautionary variant: The sons *didn't* listen and the great Bulgarian empire of Kubrat broke up.

* ''ComicBook/TheUltimates2015'' has the [[TheCape BlueMarvel]] offer a rebuttal to the trope's origins in Rome. He says a bundle of sticks is ultimately dead and brittle, and that true strength comes from trees together as a forest, living and deeply rooted.

->''"Individually we are weak, like a single twig, but as a bundle we form [[HaveAGayOldTime a mighty faggot]]."''

* There is a Slavic version concerning the three (although in reality he only had two) sons of Prince Svatopluk I of Great Moravia, the story can be found in a Byzantine chronicle.

[[folder:Folk Lore]]

* In ''VisualNovel/DanganRonpa'', during the fifth trial, Touko Fukawa references this proverb when the group discusses how the titanium arrows could have been bound together and made into a bludgeoning weapon.

Compare ThickerThanWater.

* In ''Manga/ASilentVoice'', the teacher explains with chop sticks how the whole class is stronger if they hold together and include the deaf-mute NewTransferStudent Shouko.

* In ''Manga/ASilentVoice'', the teacher explains with chop sticks how the whole class is stronger if they hold together and include the newly arrived deaf-mute TransferStudent Shouko.

* In ''[[HandOfThrawn Vision of the Future]]'', the batlike alien Qom Jha quote a proverb at Luke and Mara to the tune of many vines woven together being far stronger than the same number of vines used separately.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' episode "The Smurfs' Time Capsule", Papa Smurf has Hefty gather a bundle of sticks due to the riddle in the time capsule saying "A stick by itself is too weak; it's sticks in a bundle you seek". With the sticks, Papa Smurf has Hefty break one of the sticks, then try to break the whole bundle at once. When Hefty finds out that he can't, Papa Smurf discovers the meaning behind the riddle, that in the unity of the Smurfs there is strength to resist.