Heroes Prefer Swords

aka: Heroines Prefer Swords

"I'm pretty sure I'll be the main character. The people with swords usually are."

— Lance Swordfighter, Gold Coin Comics

Want to know who is The Hero and The Leader of a group? Look for the guy with the sword!

The sword is a sign of the mighty warriors and nobles. It's a central part of codes of honor like chivalry and bushido, symbolizing nobility, leadership, justice, and power. In a group of fighters, the one wielding the sword will be the leader, with his subordinates wielding axes, spears, bows — all weapons more associated with the commoners.

This trope can take two main forms:

• The leader or hero of the group carries a sword, while other characters carry other weapons.
• A character receives a sword as a symbol of their status as hero, similar to a Knighting ceremony. Inversely, losing their sword signifies the loss of that status, similar to a Sword-breaking ceremony.◊

In European settings, it will usually be an arming sword, longsword/"hand-and-a-half" sword, or an Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age. Larger two-handed swords, smaller daggers and short-swords, and curved swords like scimitars will be given to other characters (scimitars especially have an evil reputation, although some heroes do still carry them). In Japan, it will be a Katana. An especially heroic sword will likely be a named weapon.

May or may not be fully justified in-universe with tropes like Firearms Are Cowardly and Guns Are Worthless and outside; see The Analysis page for more on historical justifications in Real Life. (Short version: Historically, until the late 13th century, if you were worth training or could afford it, the sword was your primary weapon. Rank and file soldiers were generally taught to use some type of pole-arm, which are simpler to wield. In the 14th century and later, the evolution in armor started to make other weapons more effective and at that point, the sword began its transition into a secondary weapon. This was also the period of time most corresponding to the popular image of a 'knight in shining armor'. This lasted until repeating pistols showed up, but until then they were an effective, easily carried sidearm if your polearm was lost or broken.)

Sometimes The Lancer will be armed with a different weapon to differentiate him from The Hero, or just a more unusual type of sword (i.e.: if the Hero uses a broadsword, the Lancer may wield a rapier or katana). The Big Bad and The Dragon are nearly as likely to use swords as The Hero, but will also sometimes use more "evil-looking" weapons such as morning stars, battle-axes, or maces, especially with spikes.

Compare Red Is Heroic and Heroes Fight Barehanded. Sub-trope of Group-Identifying Feature.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Asterisk War: Ayato Amagiri trained in his family's kendo dojo as a child, and in the series he wields the Ser-Veresta, a sentient Laser Blade previously used by his sister. Its base form is a broadsword, but over time he learns to shape it like a katana. Other characters wield sword-type weapons as well, such as Julis, Claudia and Kirin.
• Attack on Titan: The traditional weapons of the anti-Titan soldiers are a pair of swords with blades that can be replaced if they get broken or go dull. The soldiers gradually obtain new and more advanced weapons, which coincides with the Graying Morality of the story.
• Banished from the Hero's Party: Red's weapon of choice is a standard sword. When he still went by Gideon and was part of the Hero's party, he wielded the treasured sword, Thunderwaker. As Red, he still uses a sword, but it's a cheap one made of bronze.
• Black Clover: Asta is the main character who wields large, mysterious swords that contain Anti-Magic energy. Interestingly, while Asta himself is a heroic individual his swords' powers come from a demon inside his grimoire.
• Inverted in Cowboy Bebop, where the villain Vicious insists on using a sword while other characters use high-tech weapons or ordinary guns. It marks him as particularly bloodthirsty compared to other criminals.
• Cutey Honey: The titular heroine's iconic weapon is a rapier. She's the only one of her series to wield one.
• In Day Break Illusion, a flaming rapier is the protagonist Akari's weapon of choice.
• Laios of Delicious in Dungeon is the series' heroic lead as well as being the only member of the current Team Touden to fight with a sword.
• Future Card Buddyfight: Gao Mikado favors item cards that resemble either a BFS or cestuses. Tasuku Ryuenji tends to favor sabers and, after he's come to terms with the trauma that robbed him of his childhood, laser guns. Tetsuya Kurodake doesn't use items terribly often, but on the rare occasions he does he prefers spellbooks. Zanya Kisaragi prefers to use katanas. Noboru Kodo uses lances. Gaito Kurusu uses scythes. Lastly, Kanata Ozora uses cleats that summon ball-shaped energy projectiles for him to kick at his opponents.
• Gamaran: the main characters and the Big Bad are members of the Ogame School, which teaches Kenjutsu, and thus employ sword. Most of the other Schools in the series tend to focus on different weapons, such as spears, naginata, ninja weapons, martial arts and even foreign weapons.
• Goblin Slayer
  • Though Goblin Slayer is at least reasonably proficient with most weapons so that he can make use of anything he can grab off of downed goblins, he tends to carry a short sword as his default weapon. However, rather than wielding an iconic blade, he regularly obtains and replaces cheap swords, not expecting any of them to last more than two battles max.
  • More traditionally, there's Chosen Heroine, The Ace of a world-saving adventurer who undoubtedly would be the main character of the story if not for the narrative's firm focus on Low Fantasy. Naturally, she wields a sacred sword about as large as she is.
  • Heavy Warrior goes with a BFS, and is one of the more straightforwardly powerful adventurers in the main cast.
  • Young Warrior (at most a background character in the main story, but receives a great deal more attention in Year Zero) is also a sword wielder.
  • The Warrior from Priestess's first party tries to invoke this with a longsword, but he proves himself incapable of using it in the cramped confines of the goblin caves.
  • Interestingly, Rookie Warrior starts off with a sword, but during one quest when he loses it and has too little money to pay for anything better, he takes up a simple club to retrieve it. Finding it Boring, but Practical, he continues using it even after recovering the sword, to the point of eventually being redubbed Club Fighter.
  • According to one internal monologue from Blacksmith, the vast majority of magic weapons in the setting are swords, presumably because of this trope.
• GoLion (Voltron in America) uses a huge sword as a finisher.
• Great Mazinger: Hero Protagonist Tetsuya Tsurugi uses two long, double-edged swords. He is the only character on the heroes' side that wields swords, and in fact he is is the only hero of the Mazinger Z trilogy that does so. This changes in Mazinkaiser, where the titular mecha also carries a sword. Two in the movie, which given that they emerge from different parts of the mecha's body (chest and shoulders respectively), means it carries at least three.
• The Gundam series tends to show this as well, with most mobile suits piloted by the Hero packing a Beam saber. However Beam sabers quickly started becoming the standard about halfway through the original series, and continued through subsequent series' as well. Later works would often differentiate the hero's mobile suit by giving it a more unique sword, sometimes even going back to a physical one.
  • Averted by Mikazuki Augus of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, who actually prefers maces over the katana-like sword that was made for his Gundam Barbatos. He does discover its good points when he's forced to use it in the climax of the first season. In the second season Barbatos is given a mace-sword, which is essentially just a mace shaped like a sword and possessing no cutting edge.
  • Played more straight by Setsuna F. Seiei from OO than by any other Gundam-protagonist. His Gundams generally have more swords than actually needed in a battle. Exia started with three and was upgraded to seven (in the episode titled "Seven Swords", where Exia got the Seven Swords upgrade). Gundam OO had eight swords, including the 5000km long Raiser Sword. OO Qan[t] only had 2 swords, though: GN Sword III and Quantum Sword (although it also had 6 Sword Bits). Setsuna even lampshades it in the final battle with Ribbons, saying "This is the range I excel at!" when charging in to melee range.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood, after defeating Bruford, Jonathan inherits his sword "Luck" (which Bruford renames to "Luck and Pluck" before giving it as a recognition to his valor). He goes on to use the blade (charged with Hamon no less) in his attempt to vanquish Dio.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Yuta learns to wield a katana, which is his main weapon. He's perfectly fine with fighting barehanded however, albeit it notably depends more on brute force compared to characters dedicated to hand to hand combat, like Yuji and Todo.
• La Seine No Hoshi: Ever since she was 15, Simone was tutored in fencing by Duke de Forges. She wields a rapier and often engages in sword fights.
• Itto Ogami of Lone Wolf and Cub primarily uses a dotanuki sword, a heavier, shorter version of the katana. His opponents are often armed with a wide variety of more unusual Japanese weapons.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • While not the main character, Fate gains a sword form for her Intelligent Device post-Heel–Face Turn (and several more post Time Skip), marking her as one of the most lawful characters in the series. Her equally heroic friend Signum also uses a sword, fitting her position as the leader of the Wolkenritter.
  • Nanoha herself, ironically, does not wield a sword despite specifically coming from a family of swordsmen (including her father, brother, sister, and paternal aunt). She uses a magical staff instead, which changes into a spear whenever she feels like getting into melee range.
• In Only Sense Online, swords are very popular weapons in the titular game, and are the weapons of choice for quite a few major characters, such as Myu and Taku, and it is implied that both of them are trying to invoke this trope by using swords. Even Sei, who plays as a mage, has a spell to generate a sword she can wield with her Staff Sense.
• Sayaka Miki of Puella Magi Madoka Magica subconsciously invokes this trope, believing that a Magical Girl should fight for truth and justice, and only use their powers to help others. While not the main heroine, she's the only main character to wield swords, a symbol of her idealism put to the test.
• In Record of Lodoss War, Parn, the first main character of the series, uses a sword. When the next generation of heroes takes over as the main cast in Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, their main character (Spark) uses a sword as well.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Sailor Uranus, leader of the Outers, has a sword as her weapon.
  • In the manga, Sailor Venus, leader of the Inner Senshi, sometimes carries a sword. She was also the only one who could extract the Holy Sword from its stone prison.
  • In the anime, the legendary Sailor Senshi who sealed Chaos had one. To everyone's horror, she's actually Sailor Galaxia.
  • Also in the anime, Sailor Moon wields one when fighting Galaxia as the last hero standing.
  • Having been the generals of the Golden Kingdom, the Shitennou are often armed with swords, with their leader Kunzite being the one using it most often.
• In Seraph of the End, the weapons used among the main Five-Man Band are a Sinister Scythe, a bow, a polearm, dual swords, and a single sword. The main protagonist Yuu wields the last one.
• Meliodas from The Seven Deadly Sins usually carries a sword on him, but the first one we see him holding onto is actually a piece of the Coffin of Eternal Darkness, which has a broken sword blade attached to it. He is no less dangerous with it, regardless. His mainstay weapon is his Sacred Treasure called Lostvayne, a curved short sword which allows him to bring out his full magical potential... especially his devastating Full Counter. It also allows him to make copies of himself when the occasion calls.
• Sword Art Online: Kirito's preference for swords is so strong that when he plays the VRMMO shooter Gun Gale Online, he buys a Photon Sword and uses it extensively, to the point that he can deflect bullets with it.
• Voltes V: Kenichi Go is both his team's leader and swordsman, and nearly always uses a sword attack to finish the Monster of the Week.
• Inverted in Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest, where the villain Haguro Dou still uses a sword in the present day, and turns out to be a dangerous threat even to the werewolf Akira.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: The main protagonist of Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS has a Signature Mon called "Sevens Road Magician" who wields a sword. When a more villainous character uses "Sevens Road Magician" in the following series, Yu-Gi-Oh! GO RUSH!!, she gives him an equip spell that changes his sword into a lance.

Comic Books

• Chevalier Ardent: In "Le Prince Noir", in the climactic duel the hero's father uses a sword; the titular Black Prince, who is a bad guy, uses a morningstar.
• Superman:
  • Subverted in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. A little girl named Ruthye seeks to hire Supergirl's services in exchange for an expensive sword, believing everybody wants a sword, but Kara insists that she has no use for them.
  • The Day the Cheering Stopped: Subverted when Superman is given an ancient sword which grants him godlike power. Superman uses the Sword to defeat the Big Bad, but in the aftermath of the battle he throws the sword away, fearing losing his humanity. Ironically, by doing so, he proved he was its rightful owner.
• White Sand: Kenton uses a sword — though that's mostly because it serves as a crutch to augment his pitiful Sand Mastery, and it's uncertain whether he can actually use it as a weapon.
• Wonder Woman:
  • In Kingdom Come, Diana uses a sword forged by the god Hephaestus which is sharp enough to shave atoms. This is more a subversion as Diana using a sword is meant to reflect her losing sight of her heroic goals.
  • Diana had used a sword on occasion but it didn't become a part of her primary arsenal until the New 52.
• Emma/Gemini is the team leader of Zodiac Starforce, and her weapon is a sword.

Fan Works

• Child of the Storm:
  • Towards the end of the story, Trelawney's second prophecy includes the words, in reference to Harry, 'a sword of fire waits for his hand'. This after an earlier tarot reading by her (with magical cards changing their faces to suit the subject of the reading) showed a sword buried in obsidian - volcanic glass.
  • In the sequel, he ends up getting a sword that, forged by Uhtred under the supervision of Tony Stark, with a few enchantments from Loki, resembles a shashka - the sabre of the Russian Cossacks. It's effectively 'reforged', by a combination of Harry being stabbed through the shoulder with it, then it being used as a lightning rod, by Dracula during their first fight. Combined with a couple of extra spells from Doctor Strange, and the result is a very dangerous weapon that Harry dubs Curtana. No one's quite sure what it does yet (Loki suspects that it might "bite" anyone other than Harry), but it cuts through most things like butter.
  • The trope is also played straight when Jason Todd is offered the Sword of Faith, becoming at least temporarily one of the Knights of the Cross in a culmination and confirmation of his Heel–Face Turn.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Sword usage is Night Blade's special talent, and his personal weapon, a gift from his brother Deep Blade, is named Determined Point. After it breaks, he gets a replacement from the Questioning Order's vault, made by the legendary swordsmith Masamane.
• Directly acknowledged in the Power Rangers fanfic series Personality Conflicts, when former White Blaster Beetleborg Josh Baldwin explicitly observes that every team leader or solo hero on this Earth- the Red Rangers, the White Morphin Ranger, VR Trooper Blue, Masked Rider, and even the Blue Stinger Beetleborg- has a sword as their primary weapon, with the exception of Chromium Gold's Lancer.
• Luso in The Tainted Grimoire is the hero of the story and he uses two swords.
• Valkron in Warriors of the World uses a longsword most of the time compared to other melee characters despite the longsword being an "unconventional" choice in-universe due to his lack of height. The other character who carries a sword is more likely to weaponise her shield instead. Everyone else who shares the same profession as he does utilises spears.
• The Chapter Master of the Crimson Crusaders, as featured in Glory Or Death, has the title of Sword-Saint thanks to his immense skill with a blade.
• Children of an Elder God: Asuka used two swords to fight.

Films — Live-Action

• Aquaman (2018): Defied. Young Arthur most definitely would prefer a sword, but Vulko tells him point-blank that the customary weapon of Atlantean royalty is the trident, so that's what he's training with.
• In Breakheart Pass, Maj. Claremont kills Big Bad Gov. Fairchild with his sabre, after slashing his face.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Xenk in the most traditionally heroic of the party in class (paladin), attitude (his stat block lists him as Lawful Good), and approach to heroism (he's a Knight in Shining Armor-esque do-gooder) and is thus the only major character to wield a knightly-looking longsword. He also has a daggersword for additional melee strategies.
• Early in The Great Race, we are shown that the hero, "The Great Leslie", is an expert fencer. This comes in handy later in the film.
• Kong: Skull Island: Two of the main heroes wield a shin-guntō and use it to cut the monsters of Skull Island open, unlike the General Ripper played by Samuel L. Jackson who exclusively relies on guns and explosives. Notably, the main user of this sword is not the leader (although the leader, James Conrad, does use the sword for a brief time): it's their resident Skull Island expert, an aged WWII-era lieutenant named Hank Marlow. The shin-guntō originally belonged to a Japanese pilot named Gunpei Ikari, who crashes on Skull Island with Marlow in the Distant Prologue, initially attempting to run Marlow through on the sword before they realize where they've ended up. Cut off from the war and stranded on an Isle of Giant Horrors together, Marlow and Ikari gradually became Fire-Forged Friends over the years, before Ikari was eventually killed by a Skullcrawler. His shin-guntō became a Weapon Tombstone, before Marlow in the present takes the sword as a symbolic way of fulfilling his and Gunpei's promise to never leave each-other behind when he attempts to get off the island with the main cast.
• In the Biopic Lafayette about the US Revolutionary War general of the same name, he rallies his troops (who, due to supply shortages, are only given six bullets per soldier) with the following short speech:
  You only have six cartridges, but I have only my sword! Follow me!
• In The Last Witch Hunter, while Kaulder isn't fussy about what to fight with, he takes his sword to both fights with the Witch Queen. Justified, as Hexenbane is a Cool Sword all around.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • Bilbo passes Sting on to Frodo before the younger Hobbit leaves on his quest. This symbolizes both the retirement of an old hero and the beginning of a new one.
  • Sword-wielding Aragorn is the designated leader of his three-man band once the Fellowship is split up, while Gimli favors an axe and Legolas uses knives and a bow.
• In Pacific Rim, Gipsy Danger's "Sword" (no fancy names, just "Sword") is remarkably effective against class 4 Kaiju compared to other complicated weaponry.
• Snow White & the Huntsman: Snow White is the only important character who wields a sword. Everyone else uses axes, bows, daggers, a cane, and so forth. The only exception is her father, the King.
• Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and other Jedi Knights wield lightsabers, in contrast to the blasters used by everyone else. Lucas noted that the nature of a lightsaber makes it a defensive weapon, meant to show that Jedi use force as a last resort.
• The War Lord: Norman warlord Chrysagon de la Cruex (Charlton Heston), who's the main protagonist, always uses his sword, while his Older Sidekick Bors prefers blunt weapons and their Frisian enemies use axes.

Gamebooks

• In the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks, the hero usually starts the game with a "broadsword of the finest steel" at his side, and if he gets another main weapon it'll usually be an enchanted sword, sometimes in the form of Sword of Plot Advancement, especially in those books penned by Keith Martin. Exceptions to the rule include Talisman of Death, Legend of the Shadow Warriors, The Keep of the Lich-Lord and Knights of Doom (You get a spear instead) or others where you get different weapons entirely such as Midnight Rogue (a stone axe), Creature of Havoc (a crystal club) or Legend of Zagor (Aside from a black sword, you can get a giant axe, a magical warhammer or an ebony wand).
• In GrailQuest, Pip's weapon is the talking sword Excalibur Jr, which is by a longshot the best weapon you can have. In spite of this, you're also given an option to find and wield other weapons, usually less effective.
• While Lone Wolf can wield a variety of weapons, the Sommerswerd is of course a sword. Several of the series' other powerful magical weapons such as Helshezag, the Ironheart Broadsword, and Skarn-Ska are also swords.

Literature

• Black Crown averts or plays this straight depending on who you define to be the 'hero'; in 'Black Crown', King Valerius fights with a sword, but his rival King Marion fights with an axe.
• Hal, protagonist and leader of the Heron brotherband in Brotherband, wields a sword, while most of the other boys fight with axes. This is actually justified in-universe, as he's smaller and more agile than many of the others, meaning that a sword fits him better. Edvin and Ulf and Wulf also fight with swords, for the same reason. Thorn, as a Master of All, seems to be more or less equally proficient with a sword, axe, or his club-hand. Gilan, as always, uses either his bow or his sword as the situation demands. This trope is subverted as well with the villainous characters, as the Shurmel and Zavac both use swords.
• In The Braided Path Tsata uses special blades adapted for close combat called "kntha".
• Conan the Barbarian almost always uses a sword, although never the same one since they tend to break on him or get lost. Occasionally, however, he also uses spears, hammers, and axes.
• Not surprisingly, given the setting, this comes up in the Deryni works:
  • While the heroic characters can and do use other weapons (Morgan's stiletto is practically an extension of his arm, and he, Kelson, and Dhugal are among those shown shooting bows), the heroic characters are shown to use swords often. Even Duncan McLain keeps in practice, despite having taken holy orders.
  • In the short story "Trial", Morgan uses his powers to find the real culprits in a rape/murder case, freeing a foreign swordsmith who was falsely accused of the crime. In gratitude, the smith offers to make Morgan a custom sword and asks to join his service.
• Orson Gregory in The Dreamside Road is well known for his sword of fire. By his own admission, he is mediocre, at best, with ranged weapons.
• The Dresden Files:
  • This is played straight with the three Knights of the Cross, who are Paladins and wield a Holy Sword with one of the Nails from the Crucifixion in its hilt. While some might use other weapons to aide them, their primary weapon is their Sword.
  • This is invoked with Wardens of the White Council. They are the police officers of Wizards and their frontline soldiers too. Captain Anastasia Luccio creates for each one in her ranks an anti-magic sword that will cut through enchantments. When fighting Warlocks, human wizards gone evil, they will generally use their swords to kill the person because if they kill using magic, it taints their soul and pushes them to the dark side and becoming warlocks themselves.
  • This is averted with Harry Dresden. While he is a had basic training in fencing, using his long reach to his advantage with his sword cane early in the series, the author has stated clearly he won't ever use either of the above blades.
    Jim Butcher: What's he gonna do with a sword? He'll cut himself. Honestly, if he had a sword he'd fall on it, you know he would. Somebody would take it away from him and hit him with it. That's the kind of thing that happens.
• The Empirium Trilogy: Audric is the most powerful sunspinner to be seen in decades, if not centuries, and his main casting- Illumenor- is a sword. In Lightbringer, he uses Illumenor in order to drive off a Gate-induced storm from destroying Quelbani, the capital of Mazabat.
• In Fengshen Yanyi: nearly all the good Immortals helping Zhou can use jian (the standard, straight Chinese arming sword), including the hero Jiang Ziya, who wields the precious Three-Ringed Sword when not using his situational God-Beating Whip, contrasting normal warriors and generals who usually employ spears or polearms. Tellingly, both traitorous princes Yin Hong and Yin Jiao are given magic swords by their masters but, upon betraying Zhou, switch to using halberds instead. Downplayed in that the jian seems to be the weapon of choice of all taoists, even the evil ones such as the Ten Heavenly Lords of Jinao Island.
• Used several times in The Heirs of Alexandria, in various ways, even though gunpowder weapons are starting to dominate the battlefields.
  • When Benito and Marco gets introduced into the Venetian upper circles, they have to wear swords and are trained with them. However, they never use them in anger.
  • Duke Dell'Este signals his alliance with House Dorma of Venice by sending one of his honour-blades to Petro Dorma.
  • Justified in the case of the Knights of the Holy Trinity, since Cold Steel is effective against supernatural forces, and swords can be used as a cross in a pinch.
• Inheritance Cycle:
  • Funnily deconstructed and reconstructed. The dragon riders have swords made of Thunderbolt Iron. They are far superior to any other weapons, so it makes sense to always use them. But one of the smiths makes a long lecture lampshading how stupid it is, always using the same sword. Even if you may have a favorite weapon, using the same regardless of the kind of battle is far from optimal.
  • In addition, Eragon seems to be at least subconsciously aware of this trope as one of his main through-lines in the book Brisingr (which is what he eventually names his sword) is trying to get himself a proper Riders' sword, as he feels he can't be a real Rider (read: hero) without one.
• Lampshaded and deconstructed in The Last Hero, when Carrot faces down Cohen the Barbarian and the Silver Horde. "One simple sword in the hands of a truly brave man would cut through a magical sword like suet." Elsewhere in the series, the narrative discusses Carrot's Ancestral Weapon — nothing magical, just a simple steel sword so utterly mundane that it has a kind of power all its own. It's somehow more real than everything around it.
• In The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn goes from being a ranger among others and someone fighting a losing fight to the man who will be King of Gondor and a member of the party that will win the war. This transfer coincides with the re-forging of Narsil and him claiming it as Andúril.
  • For that matter, in The Hobbit, the first step in Bilbo's transformation from helpless Everyman to brave adventurer is when he receives the blade Sting from a troll hoard. By the time he uses it to kill a Great Spider, he's accepted by the Dwarves traveling with him as a hero.
• In The Lost Redeemer, many of the Aeons fight with swords even as the humans develop more modern weapons like firearms.
• The Camp Halfblood Series:
  • In the Percy Jackson and the Olympians novel(la) series, the titular character Percy Jackson is unskilled at nearly everything, minus sword-play and canoeing.
  • In the sequel series The Heroes of Olympus, this is embodied in the chosen seven who are supposed to save the world: The two main heroes/leaders of the group are Big Three demigods Jason and Percy, who use swords. The only other main character who uses a sword is Hazel, and its unwieldly unless she's on her horse.
• Prophecy Approved Companion: Swords are the perfered weapon of the warrior-type of The Chosen Many, as his stated weapon in the first chapter.
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, swords are by far the favorite weapon of the protagonist, Daylen Namaran. Given that Tellos is a World of Badass, almost everyone trains with swords at one point or another, in preparation for the coming apocalypse.
• In The Silent War, Serdra insists that swords are the best weapons for Redcloaks. They draw less attention that carrying a polearm around, and demons are hard to kill with anything other than slashing damage.
• Nearly all of the important, heroic characters in A Song of Ice and Fire use swords, and many of them are named. Axes, maces and polearms are generally relegated to mooks and characters who don't fit the heroic mold. Tyrion uses an axe, as do many of his highland bandit henchmen.
  • An exception is King Robert Baratheon, who in his heyday was famous for his skill with his warhammer, and used it to kill crown prince Rhaegar Targaryen during his rebellion. This fits his Boisterous Bruiser personality, but is also a symptom of the series' fondness for Combat Pragmatists — a warhammer is a rather better choice of weapon for a strong fighter facing an opponent in plate armour.
  • Brienne of Tarth also prefers a mace for this reason, but she's very much aware of this trope when given a Cool Sword and sent on The Quest to find Sansa Stark. She finds it effective enough against the lightly-armored outlaws she's confronted with.
• In The Stormlight Archive, the ruling lighteyes caste of the Alethi use swords (most mundane swords, a handful the famed magical shardblades), and certainly consider both themselves and the weapons heroic. However, it's made plain that the majority of the lighteyes have fallen far from their ideals, while The Hero is Kaladin, a lowborn darkeyes who uses the weapon of his caste, the spear, and is very good with it.
  • On the other hand, back in the time of the Desolations, all of the Knights Radiant carried Shardblades, immensely potent magical weapons which are the only practical way to fight some of the monsters they faced.
  • Averted once Syl turns into a Shardblade for Kaladin, and then adapts to optimally fit his personal fighting style by morphing into a shard-spear!
• The Sword of Truth. In universe, the Seeker of Truth is this, leading to a Mass "Oh, Crap!" when everyone figures out that Richard has control of the magic of the titular sword even without having the sword itself.
  "You don't even have your weapon."
  Richard: I am the weapon.
• Deconstructed in Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. The nobles of the city take lessons in swordsmanship and carry swords, but they are never expected to use them themselves. Instead they hire professional swordsmen to fight duels and entertain for them. These swordsmen are usually common-born, and treated like disposable celebrities.
• In Trail of Lightning the legendary monster hunter Neizghání uses his signature lightning sword in combat. His apprentice Maggie prefers her long Böker hunting knife. Everyone else is using either firearms or simple melee weapons.
• Trapped on Draconica: Daniar carries Truthbringer, a Ancestral Weapon that belonged to her father, the king. She leads Team Good. Everyone else uses a lance or their bare hands.
• Villains by Necessity: Played straight in a weird way. Sam has a short sword that he carries with him, but prefers daggers, as he's a villain. None of the other members of the party use swords save Blackmail (who, as it turns out, is actually a fallen hero). Prince Finwick, the hero pursuing our villains, uses a holy sword of truth.
• Zig-zagged in Wars of the Realm: swords are the weapon of choice for both angels and demons.
  • An interesting instance of this trope comes when human protagonist Drew Carter gets to use a sword himself. To slay demons, no less.
• In The Wheel of Time, all three members of the Power Trio are proficient archers, but The Hero Rand al'Thor receives a sword as he leaves home. When this sword is melted in his fight with Ba'alzamon at the end of the second book, he uses a blade made of fire until he gets his signature weapon ''Callandor'' from the Stone of Tear. Of the other two, The Trickster Mat Cauthon uses a knife, a staff, and a spear, while The Blacksmith Perrin Aybara has either an axe or hammer.

Live-Action TV

• Inverted in Arrow, where Oliver Queen uses a bow but many of the main villains, such as Slade Wilson, Ra's al-Ghul, and Prometheus use swords. Thea Queen has a sword as a backup weapon to her bow, but that's due to having been trained by her natural father, supervillain Malcolm Merlyn.
• According to Word of God the Liberator guns used in Blake's 7 were meant to evoke this trope (though they look more like curling tongs). Apparently a sonic lance, they are worn in a cross-draw holster on the hip.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • In Season 2, Buffy's given a sword blessed by the virtuous knight who first slayed the demon Acathla. She has to use it to stop him from awakening a second time, by killing Angelus, her former-lover-turned-evil. However Angelus also happens to have a sword, so this trope is just an excuse to set up a cool Sword Fight between the two.
  • In "Selfless" Buffy has to kill Anya against the objections of her friends. She selects a sword as her weapon, after making a reference to the above incident, where her duty as the Slayer meant she also had to kill one of their own.
  • Throughout the series Buffy is given a number of different weapons to use, including stakes, axes, daggers, and a axe-like weapon called a "Scythe" for some unknown reason. In Angel, they also fluctuate between swords, axes, and other weapons, but Angel himself tends to favor swords, presumably because much is made of his role as The Champion who will save the world (or maybe destroy it).
• Several characters in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance:
  • Rian, one of the three primary protagonists, is a swordsman, and favorable picks up a new sword over any other weapon if he ever loses his. He's also ultimately the wielder of the legendary Gelfling sword, the Dual Glaive.
  • Princess Tavra, the warrior of the three daughters of the All-Maudra, carries a sword as her favored weapon.
  • Played with by Hup, who wields a spoon. While about as far away from being a sword as you can get, the manner in which he treats and wields his spoon nonetheless fits the imagery associated with this trope. Deet directly associates the spoon with a sword on their first meeting.
• Doctor Who. Even though the Doctor Does Not Like Guns, swords seem to be a different matter. In "The Masque of Mandragora", on seeing Duke Guiliano beset by the City Guards the Doctor quite eagerly joins in with a sword that he accepted earlier (without objection) from Guiliano. Afterwards he claims to have been taught by a captain in Cleopatra's bodyguard. Other occasions include "The Sea Devils", "The Androids of Tara", "The King's Demons", and in New Who "The Christmas Invasion". It's possible a sword enables the Doctor to "pull his punches" in a way he can't do with a firearm, or maybe the swashbuckling nature of a Sword Fight appeals to his Large Ham, but it's likely just this trope.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Most combatant characters wield swords whether they are heroic or not, but heroes Ned, Jon, Arya, and Brienne all play it straight with their swords Ice, Longclaw, Needle, and Oathkeeper. Ned sports Ice a lot in his promos. Meanwhile, Joffrey invokes this trope as propaganda by wearing elaborate swords even though he constantly runs from combat.
  • Queen Visenya Targaryen's sword, Dark Sister, is probably actually more famous than she is, due to the marginalization of her martial attributes in the histories.
• The Hexer: Not only swords are trademark weapon of Witchers, such as the protagonist, Geralt, but it's outright stated in the first episode they consider it an ultimate weapon.
• Super Sentai / Power Rangers:
  • Usually played straight. If a given group has personalised weapons, odds are good that the Red Ranger's will be a sword. This can even apply in series where everyone gets a short sword or dagger as a sidearm.
  • Lampshaded in Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger vs Super Sentai. Yuusuke lectures Gaku on the sword-wielding heroes in the series, and most are the Red or Sixth Ranger. (Gaku is a rare case in that he has a sword while being neither; he's GaoYellow.) Afterwards, Yuusuke tests Gaku in a sword fight.
• While Showa Kamen Rider heroes were for the most part bare-handed fighters (with a few notable exceptions like Kamen Rider X and Kamen Rider BLACK RX), most Heisei Riders have had swords in one way or another, be it a late-game upgrade (Perfect Zecter, Prism Bicker, Barizun Sword), weapon of choice for one specific form (Titan Sword, Flame Saber, Garulu Saber), one of the many forms of a Swiss-Army Weapon (DenGasher, DJ Gun, GanGanSaber), or just an early-introduced normal use weapon (Medajalibur, Daidaimaru and Musou Saber, Handle Sword). Hell, one of the main Riders is called Kamen Rider Blade, who has two different swords he uses depending on his form. Kamen Rider BLACK also kinda inverts this, with melee focused hero Black fighting against sword-wielding foes like Birugenia and the Shadow Moon. And then there's all of the heroes in Kamen Rider Saber; they're part of an organization of swordsmen, so expect them to appear with their swords at the ready.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Galadriel fights using Finrod's dagger.
• King Arthur from Merlin (2008). His sword, including Excalibur, is Arthur's weapon of choice.
• In Once Upon a Time, it's all over the map. Emma would rather whip out her revolver, even when facing a dragon. This being a world populated by fairy-tale folk, it doesn't usually work. Her father, Prince Charming, prefers a broadsword. And young Henry insisted on learning to be a hero, which means sword lessons from Grandpa Charming.
  • Alice in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is an Action Girl who wields a cutlass-like sword, while the antagonists are magic-users and Alice's ally Will is a Thief-type who doesn't use swords much either.

Music

• Gloryhammer: Subverted. The only named character in the Gloryhammer-verse who carries a sword is Proletius, and that is only mentioned in passing. The McFife kings carry the titular Gloryhammer. The Hootsman carries the scarred battle-axe that won him the throne of California, and the king of the Astral Dwarves wields the Crystal Laser Battle Axe. Ralathor is primarily The Strategist, and uses magic or artifacts of various stripes when he is forced to get close and personal. The Goblin King of the Darkstorm Galaxy uses a magic crystal as his primary weapon, and the dark sorcerer Zargothrax wields the Knife of Evil. The exact armaments used by the Questlords of Inverness are not elaborated on.
• Angus McSix's "Master of the Universe" portrays him discarding the hammer that lost its glory (a snide reference to vocalist Thomas Winkler's former band) and taking up a Cool Sword instead.

Myths & Religion

• King Arthur received a sword twice. When he pulled the sword from the stone he proved he was the King, and then he received Excalibur after his first sword was broken.

Tabletop Games

• It's not unusual at all for tabletop RPGs to err on the side of making swords the de facto best melee weapons available, period, which then kind of naturally leads to this trope among player characters. For example:
  • In GURPS, swords and knives are the main class of melee weapons that can actually be used to both attack and defend every turn. Something like an axe will likely have to be used in conjunction with a shield because it is "unbalanced" and requires a Ready action after each use before it can be used to either attack or parry again, while a sword can freely do both at once turn after turn.
  • In Dungeons & Dragons, across all editions, swords tend to be among the weapons with the best stats for the most situations. Depending on the edition, they do more damage to large opponents, have more favorable critical hit rules, use preferable damage types, or simply weigh less than comparable weapons. Being common in the world is also a bonus unto itself, as sword-wielding characters are more likely to find magical weapons that fit their abilities. Some of the most powerful magical items, such as the Holy Avenger, are swords.
  • At least in early editions of The Dark Eye, swords — and specifically one-handed ones at that — were essentially the only type of weapon that didn't come with an inherent penalty to attack, parry, or both.
• Of the many equipment cards in Magic: The Gathering, seven of the nine most powerful and expensive equipment are the swords of opposing concepts, such as Sword of Feast and Famine.
• Stanton, a self-styled neo-knight in the fluff of Nuclear Rennaissance, is fascinated by modern technology (rides a charger of iron) but when he fights, he sees anything but a sword as for "lesser men" and guns as dishonourable. Wearing scrap-metal armour, he seeks out the lost technologies of the past, marvelling at ingenuity and invention, but no matter how he covets technology, he refuses to fight in any other way other than up-close-and-personal with a sword.
• In Warhammer, dwarves defy this trope. They believe that all melee weapons should double as tools, which means axes and hammers are seen as the superior weapon. Swords, which are purely weapons of war with no other use, are considered "Umgak": bad craftsmanship. Other races don't hold the same beliefs. Of course, no Dwarf smith worth his hammer doesn't know how to make one, and Dwarf forged swords are far and away the best of their kind. The absolute top end would be Alaric the Mad's Runefangs, wielded by the Electors of the Empire.
  • Elves prefer swords. The best sword of Elf make is probably Tyrion's Sunfang which while being a pale shadow of its former glory is still one of the deadliest mortal made weapons.
  • The sole exception to the no sword rule for the Dwarfs is the priesthood of Gazul, God of the Dead, who all wield swords in imitation of their Ancestor God Gazul, who was the only Ancestor God to wield a sword.
  • The army books note that this trope holds true for humans in-universe; Empire swordsmen regiments are "often romanticised by Imperial poets as tall, dashing figures, often bravely engaging the best enemy regiments with only their bravery and combat skill." The spearmen and halberdiers who make up the bulk of the front line are far less romanticised, and ditto the handgunners and artillery crews who usually end up doing the bulk of the killing. This is enforced on an official level as the Empire's most elite soldiers are the Greatswords, so named because of their very hard to master weapons (in real life, soldiers with greatswords were either elite bodyguards or shock troopers who would support halberdiers, which were generally about as effective with less training). They're recruited from the best and most proven men, put through rigorous training with their Zweihanders, and assigned as shock troops and noble bodyguards. The Bretonnians take this to the next level, as not only does the nobility prize the sword (and lance) as the most chivalrous of weapons, but they'll flat-out refuse to touch polearms (don't even ask about guns or bows).

Theater

• In the Revolutionary War drama Horn In The West, Dr. Geoffrey Stuart (the protagonist) carries a sword at the end when he leads the American settlers against the British in the Battle of Kings Mountain. He is the only one carrying a sword; all the others have guns or clubs.

Toys

• On most Toa teams in BIONICLE, the leader will have a sword. Usually a big, flaming one.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: Ann's primary weapon is a single bladed energy sword. With it, she can perform an assortment of attacks after performing certain moves to damage enemies. She later gains usage of both a BFS and a Double Weapon to boost her skill-set affinities.
• Arc Rise Fantasia: The protagonist of the game, L'Arc, uses broadswords, while his friend Alf uses more traditional one-handed swords. Later, Alf leaves and starts leading his own group of Well Intentioned Extremists. You even get his party under control at one point, and he, naturally, leads it. You later get another party member who can use Alf's swords, but he Dual Wields them with his own short blade in the other hand.
• Atelier Series: Generally averted. When swords do appear as a weapon, it's usually in men's hands. And most protagonists in the series are girls, who use Magic Staves instead.
  • Averted in Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, where Klein the alchemist (and hero) wields canes and maces, as well as being a powerful magic-user and healer. The most "hero-like" sword-user is Arlin, who turns out to be more of a taciturn Ineffectual Loner.
  • Also averted in Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis: Vayne does use a bladed weapon, but it's a Blade Below the Shoulder, and not an actual sword.
  • Played straight in Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny, Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm, and Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy. Felt uses a normal, if ornate, sword, Edge fights with an absurdly large BFS with some mechanical functions, and Raze starts with a long dagger and eventually upgrades to a full sword seen in his official artwork.
  • Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World: Nelke is one of the few female protagonists in the series to play the trope straight and wield a sword. However, that's because she's not an alchemist, unlike all previous protagonists. Her blade is mostly a symbol of her noble status, like a Royal Rapier.
• Protagonists of both Baten Kaitos games use swords. Kalas Dual Wields it alongside a dagger, while Sagi has a nodachi. Neither of them are clear-cut heroes (Kalas is a major Jerkass, Sagi starts out as an agent of The Empire), which is shown by unusual shapes of their swords.
• Borderlands usually averts this with its melee loadouts, with the sword-wielding characters being Mordecai (a Friendly Sniper but not really the most motivated person) and Zer0 (a cold, calculating assassin who wields a katana); the most heroic ones are Roland (combat knife) and Maya (power-enhanced punches). In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, though, sword-wielding Athena is the most heroic of Jack's Vault Hunters — the other reasonably nice characters (Claptrap and "Jack") both use bare hands, as does haughty and cruel aristocrat Aurelia, Wilhelm just pistol-whips people, and Nisha favours a whip.
• Bound by Blades have The Bound, a trio of warrior animals, the feline main character Teo who wields a sword. Meanwhile his rabbit and bull companions uses bows and bladed shields (in that order).
• Black Sigil: The main character, Kairu, uses swords, and his unique Sword of Averay allows him, usually an Un-Sorcerer, to use some magic.
• Breath of Fire: The Ryu of every installment always equips swords as the main weapon. The only standout is BoF1 Ryu, who can also equip Battle Boomerangs, although there are only three of them in the entire game, and none can be bought in shops.
• The Brief and Meaningless Adventure of Hero Man: Hero Man wields a sword in the art and weapons are represented by a sword icon. However, his Starter Equipment is a Wooden Pole, though all of his weapon upgrades afterwards are swords.
• Chantelise: Elise, the girl you play as, wields a sword.
• Chrono Trigger does this twofold. Crono, the player character, uses Katanas, which fits this trope and Katanas Are Just Better. However, Frog, the hero of Guardia in 600 A.D., and the only one able to equip the Hero Badge, which is tied to a prophecy of a hero wearing it coming and saving Guardia in a time of strife, uses Broadswords.
  • Chrono Cross averts this, however, as the main character, Serge, uses Swallows, which look like a shorter, double-bladed polearm.
• Conqueror's Blade invokes this trope with its very name...then proceeds to subvert it subtly. There are several sword hero classes (Shortsword and Shield, Longsword and Shield, Nodachi, and Chain Dart and Scimitar), but the majority of hero weapons actually count as polearms rather than swords.
  • The very playerbase subverts this trope: while many newcomers choose the Nodachi class or end up on the Scimitar class, the most popular weapon by far is the Maul, or war hammer.
• Cris Tales: Crisbell's journey starts properly when she retrieves the Sword of Time, an ancient weapon that enhances her Time Master powers (and apparently gives her Adrenaline Makeover). It becomes her main weapon in battles, but, unusually, her combat role is closer to a White Mage.
• Crystal Story: Across multiple games:
  • The first game has the protagonist Tristam use a sword.
  • Crystal Story II: The first playable character, D, is shown in the menus wielding a sword.
• Dante of Devil May Cry uses his father's sword Force Edge in the first game and gets a sword of his own named Rebellion in the other games. Nero, his nephew and successor as series protagonist in the fourth game also makes use of a fiery blade named Red Queen as well as Yamato which belonged to his father Vergil.
• Dept. Heaven loves this trope, as all of Ein, Yggdra and Guilio have swords as their primary weapon type. This even extends to Gloria Union, as its main character Ishut wields a sword too. The only aversions to this are Garlot in Blaze Union and Meria/Maria in Knights in the Nightmare- the former wields a spear and in the A route, later a scythe as Gulcasa, and the latter two are capable of wielding every weapon type equally well.
• In Dicey Dungeons, the Warrior's artwork always shows him with a sword, even when he doesn't necessary start with it, showing how heroic he is when fighting his way through the dungeons.
• The main characters of Disgaea games always start out with either a sword or fists, although most of them have equal weapon proficiency with other weapons.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest II: The Prince of Midenhall is the hero and leader of the group, and swords are his primary weapon.
  • Heroes always wield swords, which is given a twist in Dragon Quest V. There, the protagonist is always depicted as wielding a staff. Yet the Zenithian hero's equipment you spend much of the game looking for includes a sword, and it's said that the legendary hero will wield one. This is your first clue that the protagonist is not the Hero in question, that's his son.
• Taiga in Duel Savior Destiny gets a shortsword (though it can change shape) while his allies get a staff, tonfa, a book, nothing, a magic glove and a bow respectively. Of course, it turns out the girl who had nothing also has a sword, but then she seems to have been the leader of her group originally as well.
• Dynasty Warriors has pretty much every important leader using a sword/swords. Sun Ce is the only leader of the three kingdoms who doesn't (Tonfas) and Meng Huo is the only important leader outside of it to have not used a sword at some point in the series (Zhang Jiao used a sword in his first appearance,Dong Zhuo used a sword up to 5, and if Sima Yi is counted, he used a sword in his first appearance).
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Depictions of Talos, the Aedric Divine God of War and Good Governance (and the ascended god form of Emperor Tiber Septim, possibly along with some others), depict him wielding a sword. His Nordic depictions make it a BFS to boot. Additionally, his shrines are in the shape of a sword hilt. Talos is considered a "god-hero to mankind" and a Greater-Scope Paragon within Mundus, the mortal realm.
    • Tiber Septim, even before becoming Talos, was associated with swords. According to the heretical tales of his life, he studied with "the sword masters of Alcaire", the supposed place of his birth in High Rock.
  • Trinimac was a prominent deity among the early Aldmer and served as the champion of Auri-El, the Aldmeri aspect of Akatosh. Trinimac was a warrior spirit, said to be the strongest of the et'Ada ("original spirits"), and in some places was even more popular than Auri-El. According to Aldmeri religious tradition, it was Trinimac who led the Aldmeri armies against Lorkhan's supporters, the races of Men. Trinimac slew Lorkhan and removed Lorkhan's heart from his body. At least the races of Mer, this was a very heroic act. Trinimac is associated with "the blade". The end of the Almderi veneration to Trinimac reads:
    "By the blade of Trinimac I swear, and call for his aid."
  • The Blades have long served the emperors of Tamriel as bodyguards and spies, and are almost always found using swords, particularly their namesake katanas. In Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, the Blades contribute directly to the defeat of the game's Big Bad, confirming their heroism. (Though Skyrim introduces some significant Gray-and-Grey Morality between them and the Greybeards...)
• Epic Battle Fantasy series: One of the two primary protagonists, Matt, is a sword user who owns many of them (most, if not all, stolen).
• Eternal Senia: Senia, the protagonist, uses only swords as her actual weapon, performing Grievous Harm with a Body only occasionally:
  • Eternal Senia: Her first sword gets wrecked, then she picks up another one from a dead adventurer.
  • Eternal Senia: Hydrangea After The Rain: Goes from non-elemental, to elemental swords.
• Eternal Sonata: Allegretto, the on-screen avatar Standardized Leader and Jazz, the leader of Andantino, wields a massive broadsword.
• Fairune: In the first, Flash, game, the protagonist is shown with a sword when she starts her adventure to find the four fairies.
• Fate/stay night could very well be called a story about swords. Saber wields a sword, and Shirou has his entire existence revolving around swords. And of course, we could never forget—
  "I am the bone of my sword..."
  • Exploited in-universe. Class of Sabers (swordsmen) is considered the strongest class of the seven, so some of participants specifically aim for getting a hero precisely of this class. Since Servants are summoned from different mythologies, and sword-wielding individuals often happen to be Heroes and Aces of their respective stories, this is completely Justified.
  • The two Archer class Servants to feature in the story (one known as "the King of Heroes" and the other Shirou's future self) both use swords as their primary weapons, just in unconventional ways.
• The Final Fantasy series uses this trope a lot:
  • In the first game the strongest weapons, Excalibur and Masamune, are both swords. Unlike most swords, Masamune can be wielded by all twelve classes. The representative of FF1 who appears in Dissidia, the "Warrior of Light", is also a swordsman.
  • While any party member can use any weapon type, Firion of Final Fantasy II starts with a sword, is typically depicted wielding one, and his exclusive Infinity +1 Sword in the PSP remake is the Ragnarok sword. The other sword-wielding party member, conversely, ends up becoming The Dragon.
  • Final Fantasy IV: Cecil, as captain of the Red Wings, uses swords, which don't exactly seem suited for aerial combat. Interestingly, after his job switches to Paladin, he can equip a larger array of weapons such as staffs and bows, but his best weapons are still swords, including the Sword of Plot Advancement.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Despite how technologically advanced and futuristic the setting is, the heroic characters always prefer a sword. A specific sword, in fact.
    • In the original game, Cloud can only equip swords, while his initial weapon, the Buster Sword, is a Tragic Keepsake from his deceased friend, Zack.
    • Crisis Core has Zack starting the game with a sword, which seems the preferred weapon of 1st class SOLDIER members. His dream is to become a hero. At some point, he inherits the Buster Sword from his mentor, Angeal. In this context, the Buster Sword seems to symbolize dreams and honor passed down from one man to the next.
  • Final Fantasy VIII: Squall's gunblade is a Vibro Weapon looking like the combination of a gun and a sword, a weapon only usable by the elite SEED members. Along with his perpetual lion motif, it symbolizes his status as a heroic and proud figure. Squall's gunblade is actually an in-universe example of this: Gunblades are Difficult, but Awesome^note Pulling the trigger on the gun sends a shockwave through the blade, adding a lot more punch to the user's attacks. However, and like real life guns it also produces recoil, making it extremely difficult to control and so not used very often; however, it's also said that one day a hero will save the world wielding one. Most gunblade users chose the weapon in hopes of being this hero, though with Seifer, it's a bit more complicated.
  • Even Final Fantasy IX, which stars a thief as the leading man and thus has Zidane initially specialize in daggers, manages to squeeze in this trope by giving Zidane thief swords, which are two daggers merged together into a double-bladed staff. Said swords eventually overpower the daggers, making them the weapon of choice.
  • Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII wields gunblades, though unlike FFVIII they're weapons that transform between blade and gun modes. Serah follows her sister in Final Fantasy XIII-2 with her bowswords (as does her partner Noel with two swords that combine into a javelin), and the majority of Lightning's weapons in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII are traditional swords.
  • Final Fantasy XIV plays with this trope, to some extent. The main promotional character has been depicted using an axe, lance, and fists. In practice, tanks are typically at the front of the group, giving the appearance of a leader, and three of the four tanks use swords (Paladin uses one-handed swords; Dark Knight uses two-handed greatswords, and Gunbreakers use Gunblades). However, several leading antagonists do use swords, including Gaius van Baelsar and the surprise antagonist of Heavensward, King Thordan. Raubahn Aldynn, leader of the Immortal Flames and probably the most capable NPC fighter in the Eorzean alliance, uses two swords. Meanwhile, the members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn tend to forgo swords; Minfilia and Alphinaude are non-combatants, Thancred uses daggers (before Shadowbringers, in which he switches for a Gunblade), Yda uses fists, Urianger uses a grimoire, and Y'shtola and Papalymo use magic wands and rods.
  • Noctis of Final Fantasy XV doesn't carry a sword around, but instead has the ability to summon and dismiss swords instantly from his hand.
  • Ramza in Final Fantasy Tactics gains the ability to wield Knight Swords in his unique Squire class in Chapter Four. All of the noble knights who join Ramza's squad, as well as the Knight Job itself, wield standard swords and Knight Swords (and typically can't use their Game-Breaker abilities without them).
    • Both protagonists from the Advance games are depicted with massive swords in their artwork, but what they'll actually use is up to the player.
  • Benjamin of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest starts off with a sword, and his strongest weapon is the Excalibur.
  • Yuri in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is the protagonist of the game, leading even his older mentors. Although his first weapon is a hatchet, the weapon he adopts after the Time Skip is his father's sword and all weapons scrolls thereafter give him swords.
  • Although it's a job class game, the protagonist of Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, Brandt, is depicted with a sword. He also has high natural growths in Strength and HP, giving him a natural inclination to swordwielding jobs.
  • Jack of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin can wield a variety of weapons, but he starts out with a greatsword. Greatswords are also the specialty weapons of his final job Cyclic Warrior, alongside axes.
• In the Fire Emblem series:
  • While there are a few exceptions, the series as a whole tends to feature main characters who use swords. Their respective Infinity+1 Weapons will also invariably be swords.
    • Marth, Leif^note Only as the Lord of Thracia 776; after he promotes in Genealogy of the Holy War, he gets access to every non-legendary weapon in the game except Nosferatu, Aura, and dark magic, Roy, Eirika, Path of Radiance Ike, Alfonse, and Shez all exclusively wield swords.
    • Sigurd, Seliph, Eliwood, Chrom, and Lucina prefer swords but can use lances as a backup; Sigurd can uniquely do so right out of the gate since he's a pre-promoted unit, while everyone else needs to promote to do so.
    • Radiant Dawn Ike prefers swords but can use axes as a backup.
    • Alm and Lyndis prefer swords but can use bows as a backup.
    • Corrin prefers swords but can use dragonstones just as well, and can also pick up either magic or staves as a backup.
    • Rowan and Lianna prefer swords but can use staves as well.
    • Byleth prefers swords, but also has proficiency in brawling and a budding talent in faith magic. Their unique class also increases skill experience for these three weapon types, and has a sword-boosting class skill. Note, however, that Three Houses's mechanics allow any unit to use any weapon type, aside from magic.
    • Alear uses swords, and later picks up body arts (a renamed brawling) as a secondary weapon type. Engaging with as Emblem may change it, although it's true for anyone. It's also true for their Emblem form, in which they give their Engage partner two swords and a Body Art, and grant proficiency in these two weapons.
    • Itsuki wields swords, but the mechanics of his game allow him to use magic just as well; which part of his kit he specializes in is determined by which way he promotes.
    • Celica and Robin wield magic and swords, but are more associated with magic. However, mechanically they can use both equally well (Celica's games lack weapon levels, while Robin has equal weapon levels for tomes and swords), and became more directly associated with magic in later entries.
    • Hector (axes), Edelgard (axes), Dimitri (lances), and Claude (bows) all specialize in various other weapons, but gain swords upon promotion. Also note that the last three entries are from Three Houses, where, with the exception of magic, any class can use any weapon.
    • The only total aversions in the series are Ephraim (lances), Micaiah (light magic and later staves), Sharena (lances), and Anna (axes).
  • In a series-wide example, the class named "Hero", promoted from Mercenary, primarily uses swords.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the game discusses and attempts to defy it briefly: Sain insists early on that "the lance is more heroic. A knight should look heroic, don't you think?" and so refuses to use a sword against the axe-wielding bandits they're fighting. It doesn't last.
• In For Honor, sword-wielding heroes are disproportionately represented opposed to heroes who use other weapons. The Knights have their Vanguard class the Warden who wields a heavy longsword, their Assassin class, the Peacekeeper, a knight-ninja-nun who dual-wields a pairing sword and dagger, and their first DLC hero the Centurion, a Roman-inspired hero who wields a gladius and his fists. The Vikings have their Heavy, the Warlord, who like the Centurion uses a short-sword and shield for superior defense, as well as their first DLC hero the Highlander who wields a Scottish claymore to switch between offensive and defensive stances respectively. The Samurai sword-users are the Vanguard the Kensei wielding a nodachi, and their Assassin the Orochi and their katana. The Warden and the Orochi are also the heroes of the Knight and Samurai chapter as well, fitting this trope even more.
• Fortune Summoners: Arche, the girl that you start the game as, and whose story you follow, wields a sword.
• The Glory of Heracles series typically goes with this. In the third game, while anyone can learn to use swords, it's the Protagonist who begins as a sword-user. An inversion of this trope is a major clue to the Protagonist's identity.
• In the original Golden Axe, the two playable human heroes use swords, while Gilius Thunderhead uses an axe. Also, those two characters are the only characters in the game to use the typical straight-bladed, one-handed European longswords, other than the giant Knights: the skeletons wield scimitars while every other enemy wields either a mace, a club, an axe or a hammer.
• Golden Sun: Double subverted. While our main characters, Isaac, Felix, and Matthew, all start with swords, they can also equip axes, and swords are available to most other party members as well. However, the Sol Blade, the best long sword (and weapon in general) in the series, is exclusive to Venus Warrior-style Adepts... Which happens to include all three of them, and nobody else.
• Gran and Djeeta from Granblue Fantasy: Their canonical appearances, and promotional artworks are depicted using a sword and they have exclusively been using swords in the anime adaptation.
• Grandia series in general has sword-wielding protagonists, and even gives them a specific weapon, the Spirit Sword, as their best weapon.
  • Justin from the original Grandia can also use maces and axes, but he starts with a sword, and his Specials mostly require higher skill in swords.
  • Yuki from Grandia III uses swords, and his battle model always shows him with a sword, even though his starting weapon is a wrench.
• Subverted in .hack: the usual indicator of the main hero is dual shortswords (or long knives) held in a Reverse Grip, not a single larger blade (that's usually carried by The Lancer, oddly enough). Primary protagonists in the series have also wielded spears, staffs, and scythes.
• In Haiku, the Robot, Haiku fights using a sword, unusually for a robot — although technically, while it's called a sword in the game, it's actually a large metal chip with sharp edges.
• Inverted in Infernax, where Alcedor wields a mace and shield combo normally and only swaps to a longsword if he becomes evil. Played straight however if you input "Swordcedor" as your name, which gives you the longsword right away and allows you to use it on a good playthrough.
• Jitsu Squad: The character who is literally named Hero Yamagiwa fights using a katana. This also extends to his secondary weapons, which are all katanas with an elemental effect applied to it.
• While none of the three player characters of Kamiko really count as its de facto main character, the sword-wielding Yamato can be considered the game's "face," being the one who normally appears on the title screen and appearing at the forefront of the physical release's boxart.
• The heroes of Kingdom Hearts all end up wielding a specific kind of sword called a Keyblade, which allows the wielder to combat the forces of evil, seal away the hearts of worlds for their protection, and open any kind of lock. One of the main requirements to wield one is a strong heart, although at least two villains have also wound up with them (Master Xehanort and Vanitas).
• In The Legend of Dragoon only Dart and Rose use swords. Of the eighteen dragoons in the game, the only one to use a sword who isn't either the hero or lancer is the Disc-One Final Boss Doel.
• Rean Schwarzer from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is the first protagonist of the Trails Series to use a sword, specifically a tachi.
• In both Legend of Legaia and its In Name Only sequel, Duel Saga, the hero and main character of the story uses a sword as his weapon of choice.
• The protagonist of every game in The Legend of Zelda series has a sword. He's usually given one at the start of his quest, coinciding with learning he's the Chosen Hero. It's replaced with the Master Sword, his fated weapon, in time to fight the Big Bad. In some games, he gives up the sword at the end, signifying that a hero is no longer needed.
• The red-haired heroes of the Lufia series, with the Dual Blade as the games' Sword of Plot Advancement. Aside from the Hero of the first game being able to equip axes and spears, all of the main characters have been sword-wielders.
• Lunar series:
  • Lunar: The Silver Star is pretty blatant about it. The game begins with our hero, Alex, trying to pull a sword from the tombstone of Dragonmaster Dyne, a hero whom he idolizes. Late in the game it's revealed that said sword is actually the legendary Althena's Sword, and Alex gets to finally pull and use it. Naturally, it becomes his strongest weapon.
  • Lunar: Eternal Blue: Hiro (not very subtle, huh?) uses swords, and later gets his hands on the very same Althena's Sword that Alex once used.
• While swords are a common party member weapon in Lunarosse, main character Channing uses knuckle weapons. He was originally to play this straight, but the game's creator felt he was more of a face-punch kind of guy.
• In Luxaren Allure, the Chosen One, Karuna, uses a sword, while her companions use axes and knives.
• Mana Series: The series' Japanese name, Seiken Densetsu, means "The Legend of the Holy Sword", so it's to be expected. It refers to the Mana Sword, the holy blade created by the Goddess of Mana, said to be capable of destroying the great evils.
  • In Secret of Mana Randi takes the sword to cut some impassable grass. It turns out to be the Mana Sword, and the first weapon in your arsenal. There are several other weapons in the game, but the hero is always depicted with the sword.
  • While Trials of Mana has no predetermined protagonist, Duran, the swordsman, is placed front and center on the cover, and is implied to be the canon Mana Knight.
• In the Mary Skelter franchise, Alice and Otsuu, both of which are protagonists and primary Action Girls for their respective games, wield swords in their basic classes (heck, the only class in which Alice doesn't use one is Marshal). In Mary Skelter 2 specifically, Hameln, who tries to play up her whole hero shtick as much as possible, has the same class set and starting class as Alice in order to invoke this trope.
• Inverted in Mass Effect, where Villains Prefer Swords. Though melee combat has not gone away, the Player Character and his or her True Companions avoid using swords. No swords appear in the first two games. The characters will use pistol whips and smash with the stock of their guns, punch, headbutt, and in the third game, use bayonets and a technological Hard Light blade that is formed for a slashing sweep of the arm, then disappears. Only Cerberus, a villainous group, makes heavy use of swords, and only in the third game. The only named character using a sword is the villain Kai Leng, and it would take a few Mass Effect 3 multiplayer DLCS before any of the "good guys" would be seen carrying a sword.
  • The Dragon of Mass Effect was intended to carry a sword in his early concept art.
  • As of Mass Effect: Andromeda, Ryder & Friends can equip a variety of melee weapons, including an Asari sword.
• Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Yuma is the only one capable of wielding the Solution Blade within the Mystery Labyrinth to fight against the Mystery Phantoms.
• MediEvil: Although Sir Dan uses a slew of weapons gifted to him by the Heroes, his signature weapon is the sword. He starts with a small sword, which can be upgraded into a larger broadsword which has a wider swing and can be temporarily magical enchanted to do more damage, and then finally the magic sword which is like a permanently enchanted broadsword. Fittingly, Sir Dan's story is that of a Fake Ultimate Hero knight who died via arrow to the eye in the opening moments of his first real battle and has to prove his heroism in undeath by saving the kingdom of Gallowmere when his old nemesis returns.
• In Mega Man Battle Network, if there's a chip that only works at melee range, a good 95% of the time it's some variant of a sword. The Life Sword Program Advance is also probably the first one you will be able to actually use, which is itself made of three other swords.
• In Metal Gear, Raiden takes up a high-frequency blade modeled on a katana as his weapon of choice, and his cybernetics allow him to take on gunmen and robots alike.
• Neptunia: Neptune is aware that she's the protagonist, and uses two-handed swords, such as katanas or broadswords, in all incarnations. Noire, who was the first character to get an A Day in the Limelight spinoff, also uses swords, specifically one-handed short-swords and rapiers. Nepgear and Plutia, the protagonists of mk2 and Victory, respectively, also use swords, though Nepgear uses a Laser Blade (that becomes a sci-fi Bayonet in HDD) and Plutia only uses a sword when in HDD, specifically a Whip Sword (to go with her being a Dominatrix, although this feature of her sword was not explicitly shown in her first game, and was added in later games after appearing in the anime adaptation). Fittingly, Vert uses a Royal Rapier in her A Day in the Limelight spinoff, Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online, when she usually fights using a spear or lance.
• In Odin Sphere, though three of the five main characters, including the one you start with, use a spear, crossbow, and chain, the two male heroes do in fact both use swords.
• Parameters: Implied. The symbol for ATK increases is a sword.
• Defied in Planescape: Torment in its quest to subvert, invert or avert as many classic RPG tropes as possible. The game contains only two swords. One is the signature weapon of a companion and can't be taken off him because that would cause it to cease to exist. The second is Celestial Fire, the sword of a deva. You can only wield it if you're Lawful Good and he's not about to hand it to you, but if you kill him, you've very likely just ceased to be Good. If you can wield it, it changes shape and ceases to be a sword!
• Played with in Rakenzarn Tales. Swords are a common weapon, but they're more the Jack of All Stats. Since Kyros can equip many weapon types, he can play it straight or avert it, depending on your needs.
• RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore: Remi, the protagonist, starts the game off with a One-Handed Sword, "Remi's Broom". It's a broom.
• Albert from Revenant Saga plays this straight for the most part, but is one of the few heroes who uses a two-handed sword instead of one-handed.
• In Rusty Hearts, Frantz and Angela both use swords, though they get axes and scythes respectively as secondary weapons.
• The hero in each Sakura Wars game uses dual katanas. And in all but one of the games, the primary female hero uses a katana as well, including the titular Sakura.
• Sands of Destruction normally averts it, as its main character, Kyrie, dual wields knives. However, after he comes back from the dead and awakens his Destruct powers, he also gains a sword and a new set of skills to go with it. This is also the point where he defies his purpose to destroy the world, and aims to recreate it with better conditions.
• Scarlet Nexus: One of the protagonists, Yuito, uses a sword that he can propel with his psychokinesis. When he's asked why he chose the sword as his weapon, he replies that he thinks that swords are cool.
• Seemingly enforced in Shade: Wrath of Angels. You play as a mercenary and has a gun, but after meeting the Angel of Faith the first time, when she transports you to the Netherworld she gives you a magic sword capable of harming the undead. You try turning her down...
  Angel of Faith: Take this weapon. I'm sure you can handle it.
  You: What for? I have a gun, I'm sure that's enough...
  Angel of Faith: Just. take. the. sword.
• Shadow of the Colossus subverts it: while Wander does carry a sword, and while the sword is the only thing that can kill Colossi, one look at how he wields it demonstrates that he has no idea what he's doing. It is heavily implied that he stole the sword, so it makes sense he has no training with it. His actual weapon of choice is his bow, which he shoots like a master.
• In Shin Megami Tensei, this trope is almost universal, though in most games the characters have the option of a gun as a side arm.
  • Downplayed in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. Unlike most protagonists, his gun is his primary weapon and his sword is his backup.
  • Played with in Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. The protagonist Maya uses dual pistols but the actual hero of the story — namely Tatsuya — uses a katana. The same goes for the Persona veterans Kei Nanjo and Eriko Kirishima, who use a broadsword and a rapier respectively, just like they did back then.
  • Also played with in Digital Devil Saga. Everyone uses a gun of some sort when in human form, but Serph's demon form has a Blade Below the Shoulder in each arm, and he primarily uses those for combat.
  • Averted in Persona 3 Portable with the female protagonist. She uses a naginata.
  • In Persona 3, other characters who use swords are Heroic Wannabe Junpei and the former leader of SEES Mitsuru.
  • Also averted in Persona 5. Gentleman Thief Joker uses a Devious Dagger, and various swords are distributed to the other party members; Morgana uses scimitars, Yusuke favors katanas, Akechi wields Laser Blades, and Kasumi has rapiers.
  • Also averted in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, where the Demi-Fiend is bare-fisted the entire game, instead gaining his powers from various Magatama.
• In Riviera: The Promised Land all Grim Angels have a special powerful weapon, known as "Diviner". Three of these weapons show up in the game, and of these three the one that is used as a sword belongs to our hero Ein, while others two (a spear and an axe) belong to Knight Templar Ledah, and Malice, who is slavishly devoted to an Obviously Evil villain.
• In Skies of Arcadia, Vyse is a Sky Pirate who favors a pair of cutlasses. His companions' weapons include a giant boomerang, a mechanical arm, a Royal Rapier, a pistol, and a shapeshifting pet.
• The Star Ocean series alludes to this in every game:
  • Star Ocean has our medieval hero Roddick use swords, even though he comes from an isolated small village. The remake elaborates on this by explaining that he learned from his late father.
  • Star Ocean: The Second Story plays with this. Rena believes in the prophecy of a hero holding a sword of light. When Claude uses his Phase Gun to vanquish a monster that attacks her, she takes it to be the prophesied sword. After his gun is broken, Claude is forced to equip swords, as he's stuck on an underdeveloped planet. The rest of the journey has him overcoming his father's shadow and becoming a real hero.
  • Star Ocean: Till the End of Time has Fayt using a sword because he is stuck in a medieval planet, and that in the battle simulator video game he always prefers a swordsman avatar.
  • Star Ocean: The Last Hope has two examples discussed in the story. Edge chooses a sword-type weapon because it was the only thing he could reach for to defend himself against a group of alien bugs. He noticed beforehand that blasters and laser guns were useless against them. Later on in the story, Edge is asked about it and says he's gotten used to using swords at that point. There's also the fact that, as a Seed of Hope, his reflexes are so good that he does very poorly with ranged weapons because he'll instinctively aim for where his target is going to be, rather than where they are. However, his reflexes work perfectly with a melee weapon.
  • Star Ocean: The Divine Force uses this for both possible protagonists. Raymond is stuck on an underdeveloped planet without equipment, and is forced to use local weaponry, while Laeticia is a princess of a kingdom on said planet, and was trained in swordsmanship to defend herself. They, however, equip different types of swords - Raymond uses BFSes, while Laeticia uses dual swords.
• Suikoden:
  • Suikoden III has all three main characters wielding swords. Hugo's is closer to a dagger/main gauche, since he's younger than the others and requires a smaller weapon, but a sword it still is. To top it off, Thomas, star of an optional secondary scenario (and who as the Tenkai Star is actually the counterpart of the main heroes of each other the other games in the series), wields a sword too.
  • Suikoden IV hero Lazlo wields two swords.
  • The heroes of the first two games, however, avert the trope. Tir McDohl wields a staff, while Riou wields tonfas.
• Played with in Summon Night Swordcraft Story 2. The hero can use any weapon with equal proficiency, including drills. However, when they need to make a special weapon to exorcize an evil spirit, the Holy Man Toumei says he will only cast the spell on a sword. When the heroes question if there is a reason for this, he states "Because I only like swords."
• This trope has an effect on the Super Smash Bros. series: With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the game's roster consists of heroes from fantasy series like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, and even Dragon Quest, among others. This has led to a number of fans complaining about the sheer number of sword-wielders in the game, especially from Fire Emblem, which has eight fighters, all of whom use swords (although one of them is primarily a spell-caster who uses a short sword as a secondary weapon, another's moveset revolves mostly around shapeshifting into a dragon, and the last one uses various weapons along their sword). In Byleth's reveal trailer, this complaint is given a knowing nudge as Byleth gets ganged up on by sword-wielding fighters and sent back to Sothis, before returning with other weapons.
  Sothis: So you return, and sooner than expected. I see. Too many swordsmen, are there?
• In Sword and Fairy series main characters always use some kind of sword (or two swords), with the only exception so far occurring in a Gaiden Game. Some other party member also use swords, often with some kind of twist, like using a flying sword (Yue Qi from 6) or a BFS (Xiu Wu from 7) instead of classic jian.
• The main character of each game in the Tales Series always uses swords, with two notable exceptions: Senel from Tales of Legendia, and Jude from Tales of Xillia, both of whom fight with their fists. In Jude's case, you can choose to pick Milla as the main character instead of him, which would play this trope straight since Milla uses swords.
  • Several main characters (Cress, Stahn, Reid, and Yuri) in fact can use weapons other than swords in their home games^note Axes for all of them; spears and halberds for Cress, Reid and Stahn; maces for Stahn; daggers and broadswords for Reid. However, in various crossovers they fight exclusively with swords, to keep in line with this trope.
  • Ludger fights with dual blades, and later picks up hammers and dual guns, as well as a double-ended spear in his Super Mode. However, even though he can switch between them right in the battle, he's still always depicted with his dual swords.
  • Tales of Berseria inverts this: none in the Anti-Hero filled playable cast uses traditional swords; the closest example is Velvet, but she uses a Blade Below the Shoulder the size of a large knife. The Knight Templar Exorcists meanwhile are more liberal in their usage of swords, and Artorius' blade wouldn't look out of place in the hands of protagonists of previous games.
  • Tales of Arise doubles down on this. Its hero, Alphen, usually fights with a normal sword. However, early into the game Shionne gives him the Blazing Sword, a condensed mass of Astral Energy of Fire, that Alphen can briefly use as a weapon thanks to his pain immunity. Using its power, Alphen liberates the realm of Calaglia, becoming a hero to its inhabitants. Fittingly, when he's defeated by Vholran and Shionne is kidnapped, the Sword vanishes from his hand, signifying his loss.
• Thief: Subverted. In the first two games, Garrett carries a sword, but the combat system is unreasonably complex and difficult, and it's likely that the player will never be as good with the sword as the basic enemy Mooks. This fits with the theme of the game: you're supposed to avoid combat at every opportunity; the sword is generally a weapon of last resort. Nevertheless, the most important weapon story-wise that Garrett gets to wield is the Sword of Constantine.
• The Treasure Hunter Man series: A sword is the first weapon available in each game.
  • Treasure Hunter Man 1: A sword is one of the first treasures you find.
    It's your sword! Every adventurer needs one. Only wimpy ones use whips instead.
  • Treasure Hunter Man 2: The starting weapon.
• Wild ARMs series in general averts this, as heroes wield titular ARMs, and swords are more often used by The Lancer. Still, there are a couple of examples that are used as Emergency Weapon.
  • Rudy from the original Wild ARMs uses a sword for his normal attacks, because his ammo is severely limited, especially at first. Wild ARMs Alter Code: F remake, however, averts it completely.
  • Jude from Wild ARMs 4 uses a gun, but when he runs out of ammo, it Morphs into a sword. He also uses this form for his strongest attack, Assault Buster.
• Geralt in The Witcher is trained from his youth to use a sword to fight man and beast. Sure, he can use other weapons, but it's the sword that he utilizes most of the time, with devastating (and flashy) efficiency.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Meta-example. In Legion, most of the artifact weapons are swords, at least for classes that can use them. When a fan asked why this was at a Q&A, Blizzard responded that swords were far and away the most popular weapon type used for transmog (at least for melee -casters tended to gravitate towards staves).
  • Humorously referenced in Shadowlands. In the expansion's preliminary quests in the Maw, Thrall states that he agrees that swords are good weapons, but he doesn't understand why the Alliance is so fascinated with them. "Too much blade, not enough haft."
• Averted in Wynncraft; none of the five classes wield swords as their weapon of choice.
• Xenoblade Chronicles series:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
    • The game is built around the Monado, a bright-red Laser Blade that's the only weapon capable of reliably destroy the Mechon. It was wielded by Dunban, the "Hero of Homs", and later falls into the hands of Shulk, the protagonist of the game. Later it's revealed that the Monado is actually an Unholy Holy Sword, and its real owner specifically chooses Shulk to become his vessel, inverting the trope in a sense.
    • Even after losing the Monado, Dunban fights with various swords (with his left arm, no less), and has a closet full of katanas at home.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2 takes it to an almost absurd degree. The Hero Rex wields the Aegis sword, the Blade weapon of… well, the Aegis. Two of the other party members' Blades provide their Drivers Morag and Zeke with a pair of Whip Swords and a BFS respectively. The former also gets a Blade who has a katana. The wannabe-Driver Science Hero of the party can modify his artificial Blade in a sidequest to wield a Laser Blade, clearly based on the Aegis sword. Finally, when Nia reveals her Blade nature, she gives Rex her Blade weapon - a Sinister Scimitar. In other words, the entire party can use some form of a sword.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country expansion gives us Addam, who fights with a sword, and Hugo, who has a shortsword and shield combo. Jin and his nodachi from the main game also return, showing him before his Start of Darkness.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3 once again has its main protagonist, Noah, wielding a red blade, called "Veiled Sword". This time around, it's not really plot-relevant, and the entire party can use it through the game's Job System. However, Noah's version of the weapon also serves as a sheath for his secret weapon: an expertly-made katana, that can slice through almost everything. He eventually gains an art that allow him to draw it for a single strong attack, and later draw it for a minute and a half as a Super Mode. This katana is important, because it's the only thing that can destroy the Flame Clocks. As such, at least several previous incarnations of Noah got their hands on similar swords.
• Meanwhile Xenoblade's predecessors Xenogears and Xenosaga seemingly go out of their way to avert this trope, with a single playable character at most (plus the Humongous Mecha they pilot) getting to wield a sword.
  • Xenogears' Fei Fong Wong is a martial artists who fights exclusively with his bare hands, while the Deuteragonist Elly fights with a pair of batons. This ends up being played straight towards the end by Citan, another Bare-Fisted Monk who originally swore against weapons before taking one up in the climax as a sign of his dedication to the heroes' cause.
  • Given that Xenosaga is a Space Opera set in the far future, most of your party sticks to guns or other futuristic weaponry. The main protagonist Shion makes use of an arm-mounted cannon, while Episode II's protagonist Jr. fights with a pair of revolvers. The only member of the main party who wields a sword is latecomer Jin Uzuki, who is noted to be particularly old-fashioned.
• Exaggerated by Adol from the Ys series. As far as the games show, every single weapon he's used in his more that 30-years long adventuring career was some type of a sword.
  • In Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim he uses three magical swords that can be upgraded over the course of the game. They actually serve as keys to the titular Ark.
  • In Ys SEVEN Adol is the only character able to change his weapon attribute. Other party members use weapons like knifes for Slasing, bows for Piercing and hammers for Striking attacks. Adol, meanwhile, equips normal swords to Slash, rapiers to Pierce and BFSes to Strike.
  • Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana puts a twist on it. Adol, naturally, returns as the sword-wielding protagonist, but titular Dana, the deuteragonist of the game and the sole playable character in the flashbacks, is the only other user of Slash attribute. She fights with dual crescent-shaped blades.

Web Animation

• Subverted in Bee and Puppycat, Bee can summon a sword in times of need but she evidently favors her teeth and when she does use the sword she doesn't use it properly when she fighting a monster.
  Puppycat: Aw, siiick. Use the sword!
  (Bee starts bludgeoning the monster with her sword)
  Puppycat: USE THE SWORD AS A SWORD!
  Bee: DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOO!

Web Comics

• In Agents of the Realm, Norah, the Agent who works as our protagonist, has sword and shield as her magical weapons.
• Pretty much the only actual weapon used in Coga Nito is the sword given to Eric, the protagonist.
• Kirby Card Clash has Kirby and Keeby along with Umbra, the antagonist who desires to be a hero, each with the Sword Copy Ability and Meta Knight, who also has a sword.
• The sword of the main character of Invincea and the Warriors from Hell is a gift from her best friend, and even has her name on it.
• Rosemary Ripley in The Mansion of E prefers to use a sword, since that's what she's been trained with (off and on) for much of her life.
• In The Order of the Stick, party leader Roy Greenhilt uses the Greenhilt Sword, which once belonged to his grandfather.
• As the Token Good Teammate of Roommates, James wields a sword.
• In Pacificators, one of the main characters, Muneca Powell, is a Proper Lady and an Action Fashionista, coupled with gravity powers. However, more often than not, she prefers to Fights Like a Normal with her Sword Cane.
• Schwarz Kreuz has Nick use the aproppiate weapon, even though he's a paladin in modern London.
• Twenty-Fifth Bam and the Black March from Tower of God. In contrast, his Lancers Rak and Khun wield a mighty spear and a plethora of knives.

Web Original

• In College Saga, Mark Leung, being The Hero of a Final Fantasy parody, wields the obligatory sword after obtaining it from a dorm room.
• Lightning Sentai Blitzenger: In contrast to most of his teammates' more eclectic weaponry (such as a revolver, a guitar and a Killer Yo-Yo), Rai Akasaka wields a sword. He is the Blitzengers' on-field leader, associated with the color red, and is the one to strike the killing blow against the Monster of the Week.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Finn the Human always wields a sword. However, unlike most examples, he actually uses several different swords throughout the series. Probably his most iconic sword is the golden sword. There’s even a sword that holds an alternate version of Finn inside.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): He-Man is given his Sword of Power by the Sorceress of the Castle, and uses it when leading his fellow warriors into battle. Even though Teela is seen teaching Adam how to use a sword, she often uses wrist-blasters, a ray gun, or hand-to-hand in battle. The other Masters frequently use their... natural abilities. This is actually an invocation of the trope: the original toys for He-Man and Skeletor each came with a half of the sword, which served as an Artifact of Doom. The He-Man toy also came with an axe, implied to be his normal weapon. It was the cartoon that gave him the Power Sword as his signature weapon, which carried through to all subsequent works.
• How to Train Your Dragon:
  • Hiccup, the protagonist of the franchise, uses a flaming sword as his main weapon in both the second and third movie as well as the third to eigth season of animated series Dragons: Riders of Berk. It lights itself on fire and just like his shield it has a host of utility tools befitting a Gadgeteer Genius.
  • Fittingly, Tom, the protagonist of the Contested Sequel Dragons: The Nine Realms, also uses a sword. Though since he isn't a Gadgeteer Genius like Hiccup, his is neither a flaming sword nor has any other sort of gadgetry. Rather, it's a simple, be it weirdly shaped, blade that can naturally channel and redirect lightning.
• Samurai Jack wields a magical katana, the only weapon in existence that can actually injure Aku. Notably, he loses his sword with no known way to get it back when he attacks and kills innocents with it, which is when he stops being a hero. He only gets it back, 50 years later, after cleansing his spirit of hatred and proving his worthiness to the gods that created the sword in the first place.
• Steven Universe: "Sworn to the Sword" is about Pearl teaching Connie swordfighting, the second opening has her carrying Rose's sword, and after her debut, whenever we see Connie in battle against a supernatural opponent, it's with a sword.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has Leonardo, who uses two katanas.
  Jesse Cox: He's the leader, he has swords. You know he's the leader because he has two swords. Invoked in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) when Splinter makes the turtles switch weapons around as a training exercise, Michelangelo gets Leonardo's swords and starts claiming that means he's the leader now.
• ThunderCats (1985): Lion-O receives the Sword of Omens from wise Jaga when he becomes leader of the Thundercats and ruler of the Thunderians. His companions use a whip, staff, nunchucks, slingshots and capsules, a hammer, and hand-to-hand. His allies the Warrior Women use archery and short knives.
• Thundarr the Barbarian: Thundarr uses the Sun Sword that can slice through or damage just about anything. He is usually the leader, decided where to travel and who to fight. His friend Ookla uses his massive strength, while his other friend Ariel uses her magic, learning, and brains.
• In Transformers: Prime, Optimus Prime and most other Transformers primarily use built-in weaponry (guns, blades, saws, etc.) but about half way through the series he acquires the legendary Star Saber. This is especially noteworthy, as Optimus is most often associated with axes in other series. It's so legendary it's a borderline Story-Breaker Power, and the plot conspires so that Optimus only gets to use it a couple of times.
• Played with in Zak Storm: While the titular hero Zak Storm fights with Calabrass, a talking sword, depending on the Eye of the Seven Seas he is using to access his Elemental Powers, Calabrass can transform into a different weapon.

Real Life

• Swords became a weapon of the elite during the Dark Ages/The Low Middle Ages in Europe, when knighthood and heroic legends developed after The Roman Empire fell in the West. Swords were both expensive and required a lot of training in comparison to spears, which were the primary weapon of the rank-and-file. Because they were a sidearm that easy to carry, the elite could also wear their swords all the time, which went further in solidifying them as a status symbol.
• From roughly the 15th to 17th centuries, nearly every European soldier carried a one-handed sword as a sidearm, with a firearm or polearm as their primary weapon and the sword reserved for the rare bout of hand-to-hand combat. The Spanish rodeleros were a brief experiment in trying to field troops with swords as their primary weapons, mainly conceived to sneak between enemy pikes, but were quickly withdrawn from service and replaced with halberdiers who did their job better (although they still remained in use in the conquest of America and the Pacific). However, by the end of the 17th century, the sword's place as the melee weapon of the infantry had been subsumed by the bayonet. Thus, the sword was largely only used by cavalry, grenadiers, and officers in most European armies from then on, solidifying its place as a status symbol despite being dirt cheap to actually buy.
• As cultures moved into the gunpowder era, swords were often given to officers leading troops, and officers were expected to be upper crust. This extended into the modern era, with pistols joining the sword and often replacing them as the officers' sidearm. As a result, swords came to signify an officer's honor and position. Parade dresses often include a sword, and sword-breaking ceremonies◊, when an officer is stripped of their rank, also draw on this trope.

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