When a small or shrunken-down character is in need of a weapon, they often resort to using a sewing needle as a sword or spear. It's the perfect size, readily available in any house setting, sharp and pointy, has a nice long reach, and the little hole in the top where the thread is supposed to go makes a perfect grip. Depending on how much sewing the homeowner does, there may also be many other needles in a nearby pincushion or sewing box to replace it, should it break in the heat of battle. Other objects that can be used by small characters as makeshift swords or spears include sewing pins, sharpened pencils, toothpicks, razors, etc.
Common wielders of the Sewing Needle Sword include shrunken-down characters, Lilliputians, Living Toys (especially ragdolls), insects, and most frequently, mice. They have little hands perfect for gripping things, inhabit houses where one would find sewing needles, and when a creator needs a small animal to be the hero of their story, the mouse is the most obvious choice.
Subtrope of Improvised Weapon and Giant's Knife; Human's Greatsword, and related to The Pen Is Mightier.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Arrietty from the film of the same name finds a pin on her first "borrowing" and keeps it for self-defense.
- Bleach: Senjumaru Shutara of the Royal Guard is capable of using both an oversized needle as a weapon and normal needles for weaponized sewing.
- The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa): In the adaptation of The Minish Cap, Librari used to use a needle as a spear.
- Naruto: One of the blades of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, Nuibari (lit. "sewing needle"), references this. It is shaped like a giant sewing needle, long and thin with a wire attached to it like a thread, and capable of stitching together those it strikes.
- One Piece: One of the Tontatta Dwarves, Leo, uses a needle as a sword, which he mainly uses in conjunction with his Devil Fruit, the Nui Nui no Mi (Sew-Sew Fruit), a Paramecia Devil Fruit that allows him to stitch things together without the need of a physical thread.
Fairy Tales
- Tom Thumb (or Thumbling): In some variants, the titular character is knighted by a king during his adventures or sets off on his own. He chooses a small needle to function as his sword.
Fan Works
- Danganronpa Despair Avenue: Inverted. Instead of being a small character using a regular-sized sewing needle, a regular-sized character uses a huge sewing needle. In Curse III, Lada Turgenev's Ultimate Weapon is the Ultimate Sewing Needle. It is described as being the size of a small sword, large enough to impale someone.
Films — Animated
- 9 has a few variations; 1 carries a large darning needle around as his Staff of Authority, while looking closely at 7's glaive reveals it's actually a scalpel blade attached to a clock hand. An honorary mention should also go to the Seamstress, who literally fights using sewing needles, but they're physically part of her arms.
- The Tale of Despereaux: As with his book counterpart, Despereaux uses a needle as a sword, and is seen wielding it on every poster.
Films — Live-Action
- Alice in Wonderland (2010): A variation. The Dormouse Took a Level in Badass and arms herself with a sewing pin as her weapon to defend the White Queen against the Queen of Hearts' forces. She uses it to take the Bandersnatch's eye out.
- The Incredible Shrinking Man: The shrunken Scott Carey uses a sewing needle as a weapon against a spider that wants to catch and eat him.
Literature
- Batrachomyomachia: The Ur-Example. The mice arm themselves with needles for spears (the frogs are using sharp stalks).
- Beware of Chicken: Ri Zu (Rizzo) the rat typically fights with a needle. By itself, it doesn't do much damage, but she's also a Master Poisoner and can use her qi to control the spread of a substance once it's inside someone's body. Anyone stabbed with her tiny silver weapon has probably lost the fight already.
- Gulliver's Travels: Gulliver fashions a sidearm out of a needle during his stay in Brobdingnag and uses it to defend himself against a Brobdingnagian mouse. The catch is that he is human-sized in a land of giants, instead of tiny in a land of human-sized.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Invoked by Arya, a small girl whose weapon is a small, slender sword suited to Braavosi water dancers, rather than a big, heavy longsword typical of Westerosi knights. She names it "Needle," both for its small size and as a reference to her hatred of actual needlework.
- The Tale of Despereaux: Despereaux is a mouse tiny even by mouse standards who dreams of being a brave knight and protecting the Princess Pea. After she is taken down to the dungeon, Hovis gives Despereaux a spool of red thread to tie around his waist so he won't get lost in it while searching for her, and the needle as a sword to protect himself from the dungeon rats.
Music
- The Israeli song In the Kingdom of the Dwarves
describes an army commander wielding a sharp pin as a weapon.
Mythology & Religion
- In the Japanese tale Issun-boshi, the protagonist is but a diminutive boy, one sun tall (i.e. about 3cm or 1.12 inches tall), born after a wish from his human parents. One day, he leaves home and ventures into the world, and decides to go to the capital to become a warrior. His weapon of choice? A needle as a sword.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: In 4th edition Heroes of the Feywild, the artwork for the grig, a fairy with a grasshopper-like lower body, is holding a sewing pin.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: The card game has Stinging Swordsman (or Needle Swordsman in Japanese) who is a miniature warrior who uses a tiny needle to attack. It also has the ability to return all face-up spells and traps to the opponent's hand if it inflicts battle damage.
Video Games
- Disney Mirrorverse: A more human-sized version. The game's version of Sally Finklestein fights with a sewing needle as large as a normal sword in each hand, appropriately for a living ragdoll.
- Elden Ring: The Godskin Noble belongs to a cult that, as its name indicates, slays gods and demigods and skins them to make clothing. He wields what appears to be a large ornate rapier, but when he drops it for you to use, you'll see that it's called the Godskin Stitcher, making it clear what it's actually supposed to be used for.
- Hollow Knight: Depending on whether the setting is a World of Funny Animals or a Mouse World inhabited by normal-sized insects, the nails wielded by the player and other bugs may count. It's more literal with Hornet's weapon, which is closely modeled after a sewing needle in appearance, and she uses a thread to keep it on her person.
- League of Legends: Champion Gwen uses a huge stylized Sewing Needle as her weapon of choice. Her epithet? The Hallowed Seamstress.
- Small Saga is set in a literal Mouse World with rodents of various genii as characters, and every member of the cast has some kind of small-scale armament in line with this trope. Blademaster Leo uses an actual sewing needle, and the Scissor Sisters get their name from them each wielding half of a pair of scissor, for example.
- Touhou Project: Sukuna Shinmyoumaru, a descendant of the Japanese folk hero Issun-boushinote , fights using a large sewing needle known as the Shining Needle Sword. Notably, Shinmyoumaru is actually human-sized (albeit very short) in most of her appearances thanks to the power of the Miracle Mallet, and her needle scales up to match.
- Yo-kai Watch 3: Isshun Boy/Minimoto is a Yokai based on the Japanese folktale character Issun-boushi. Like his inspiration, he also wields a sewing needle as a weapon.
Web Original
- Rats SMP: The swords which the rats use are retextured as sewing needles and safety pins to emphasize their small size in relation to their surroundings.
Western Animation
- Johnny Test: Montague, an anarchy-obsessed mouse who can speak as a result of Susan and Mary's experiments, has been shown wielding a kebab skewer as a weapon.
- Thru the Mirror: When a shrunken-down Mickey is threatened by the King of Cards for dancing with his Queen, he notices a sewing needle stuck in a nearby spool of thread and uses it to defend himself against the King's swords.
