Why Fantasy is Obsessed with Swords

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The Iron Throne isn't made out of axes, probably for the same reason that people don't have a favourite lightarrow colour. What's the deal with fantasy, swords, and our own perception?

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[TheTaleFoundry]

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[phantasmagoria]

"The Master Glock", yeah someone's definitely taking that idea and running with it.

[amarvelousgeek]

I also want to point out that there's something intimate about sword fights- tests of skill between two or more people. They are one of the few weapons that don't distract from the language of hand-to-hand combat, and instead enhance it. Like the modern sports with swords show- every sword fight is a conversation where the language is skill and ingenuity. It's just a conversation with very high stakes.

[Triumvirate]

I ran a DnD campaign where the antagonist was a sentient sword. The villains mental consciousness was trapped inside, and the party stumbled upon the sword early on in the campaign. The villain spoke to them through it, and manipulated them by becoming their friend, and then lying to them to have them kill all those who stood in his way from gaining a new physical form. When the twist came and all the little inconsistencies in his stories were revealed, and the final fight was waged, my players loved seeing their favorite weapon/ally become their worst enemy in a moment. They still talk about Alfred the sword, and tell me it's the best villain I've ever made.

In short, swords are cool, and you feel cooler swinging them. (:

Edit:

Apparently, I have ripped off the game Xenoblade without ever playing/hearing of this game before LOL

[fifty]

15:08 - this line really got to me. "The weapon you need isn't always obvious." I've only made like three OC's in my entire LIFE, all from middle school. The one I remember best was actually a talking sword with a sassy, roguish personality. And in middle school, I didn't need a sword at my side. I needed... a friend.

[rami_ungar_writer]

Talebot: "People still use swords...as decorations. "

Me, looking at the Spanish swords on my office wall: "I feel seen. "

[richscott]

The master halberd is something I want to see.

[My]

Fine, I'll write a story about a broken spatula

[burghleyimeanberdly]

I mean Swords were pretty much always a sidearm, spears had better reach (an extremely good advantage), axes had more power behind them, hammers crumpled armour, flails could circumvent shields, but swords were more of a jack-of-all-trades weapon. They mostly saw use amongst nobility in duels and such.

The Japanese Katana and Tachi (Arming sword and Bastard sword equivalent) were exclusive to the Samurai (nobility equivalent) social class and rarely saw use on the battlefield. (Samurai were primarily mounter archers and commanders combat wise)

(The way I see it) Swords are the Hero's Weapon because of its ties to nobility and the Divine Right of Kings.

[redjaypictures]

Even in Stephen king’s dark tower series which features mystical wild west gunslingers, the guns they use are forged out of the steel of Excalibur, swords are inescapable

[Coldend]

12:43 - The longing for the return of violence to 'the sword', is an acknowledgement that violence is a fundamental fact of reality. Humans are mortal and absent any moral 'ought', the reality is that any conflict between two individuals can immediately be resolved (if temporarily) by one ending the life of another... and that fact scales to tribes, nations, and civilizations.

Human beings have already carried this concept to it's ultimate expression, and with modern weapons, we have the capacity to end all human life on the planet. States have the power, and seemingly from now until the end of time, will never NOT have the power to end all challenges to their authority through violence. Humanity has now escalated violence beyond the scale of human comprehension. Our capacity for violence outstrips our ability to understand it.

Longing for the return of 'the sword' is a longing for violence and war to return to a human scale, not one that kills entire communities 'by accident', not one where human lives could be ended at the press of a button while an individual sips coffee, and not one where all human civilization could cease to exist.

The reach of a sword extends about 3-5 feet... not a globe. If it is true that a human being is capable of ending the life of another, that is probably the scale / limit we would want an individual to reach with that power.

[ryandeschanel]

Trebuchets and nuclear missiles are harder to carry around.

[oboretaiwritingch.]

The sword is more romanticized over other medieval weapons for several reasons.
1) It's melee, making swordfights more personal than longer ranged fights using bows or even spears.
2) Compared to other melee weapons, it's appears to be the most "average" one. Axes and hammers are associated with being powerful but slow, and polearms are viewed as sacrificing power for the sake of reach while also being unusable in tight spaces. Note that this isn't necessarily realistic, but it gives swords the appearance of being the jack-of-all-trades.
3) Swords are romanticized over spears the same way handguns are romanticized over rifles despite both swords and handguns actually being used as backups and not main weapons IRL It's exactly that smaller size that make them appear more skill-based than their bigger counterparts. Again, not neccesarily true to realism. There's a reason spears remained viable up to WW1 in the form of bayonets.
4) Culturally, given that you need more metal to make a sword than a spear, a sword is somewhat a weapon of the upper class. Again, swords are not main weapons but rather backup, that's why you gotta be rich to be able to afford to carry one around showing it off. Swords are also used in ceremonies such as knighting, which further associate them with nobility and bravery.
5) In mythology, swords are weapons of heroes. Excalibur, Kusanagi, Balmung. Polearms are instead often the weapons of gods, Greek Big 3 all use polearms, Odin's Gungnir, Shiva's Trishula, Izanagi's Amenonuboko.
6) Sword as sports is still alive and popular like fencing and kendo. Other weapon sports tend to be more niche.

[damianrockwell]

I just got done watching Wistoria: Wand and Sword, and I think it really helps explain why it's a weapon of a hero. In the anime, a sword requires you to engage your target at close range, bringing you within striking distance of your enemy. Unlike magic or ranged weapons, it doesn’t allow you to fight from the safety of a distance. No matter how large or intimidating the foe, you have to face them head on. The sword becomes a symbol of resolve and courage, representing a character's willingness to put their own life on the line to protect others.

[PjotrFrank]

As a HEMA-head myself, I frequently pondered on this topic in the past. From a historic point of view the sword derived from tools as well, if you see shorter, more versatile blades – such as the seax – as the ancestor of the weapon of war. The obsession with swords is partly rooted in the Obi Wan Kenobi quote: an elegant weapon of a more elegant time. Especially if you compare the simple sharpened metal rods with modern killing-technology. Landmines, sniper rifles, drones, cruise missiles, … those are mere instruments of murder – applied from comfortable safety. One does not have to develop significant (melee) fighting skills, nor has to risk his own well-being in combat.
That makes swords much more sympathetic to me. Well, sword of … 😉

[Dyiad]

When I was watching this, I couldn't help but think of a comparison to the spear. Like the sword, it's also entirely a tool meant for war. You can't use it to farm crops or build a house or cut a tree. It's designed to kill. But while the sword has almost an air of nobility to it, the spear is much more humble. It is the weapon of the every man, something that was mass produced and handed out to ordinary soldiers. Where the sword takes years to properly learn, a person can get to decent skill with a spear in weeks.

And further, I find it interesting that despite these differences, spears are in a way much more practical than swords. A wall of spears can ward off a cavalry charge or force a mass of enemies to retreat or strike foes at a safe distance, all things that most swords can't do nearly as well. They're also easier to produce, requiring a relatively small amount of metal at the end of a long stick, while a sword needs a hefty amount of metal and a highly skilled smith to make.

It's a fascinating dynamic, and something I don't see nearly talked about enough.

Although the objective truth is that polearms are the best melee weapon, and I will die on that hill.

[TimMoorsom]

The origin of Abercrombie's title is extremely pertinent to this discussion. The full quote is from the Odyssey and reads "The blade itself incites men to violence". It's said near the end of the story when Odysseues asks his men to hide their weapons before a feast, fearing the very presence of weapons makes it more likely violence will break out. It positions the sword as an active force in creating violence and not only a tool to carry it out. Many will disagree, but it reminds me of the notion of deskilling, I.e that when police, intelligence agencies and other authorities are permitted to use violence against people, they lose the skills to solve conflcit without violence. Your thesis pokes a welcome hole in this idea, and implies that a weapon can be defanged until it becomes an aesthetic object. But perhaps, like in the Odyssey, that history of violence is only hidden, not gone.

N.b I waited until the end to see if you mentioned this and scrolled through the comments to check. But apologies if I missed that this was already addressed.

[davidjordan]

Probably a class element to it, for most of history only the nobility could afford swords, they were the only people who could afford bards, skalds and scholars to write romantic accounts of themselves. So when authors looked to these stories for influence and inspiration swords got grandfathered in as the symbol of someone above and beyond the ordinary.

[olianims]

I think the problem with fantastical guns is that it's hard to make using a gun look difficult. With a sword, you can show the protagonist pushing through by literally pushing harder down on a strike and overpowering the villain. With a gun, you can't really pull the trigger harder. You can't point the gun harder. You can aim faster, but that doesn't really make for an epic fight.

[fitzchevalerie]

Just a quick comment, at 12:33, the phrase "return to violence" really bugs me out, because we never quit violence, so there is no way we could return to it, the same we can't return to a place we haven't left. It is simply that modern weaponry and warfare pushes the violence of killing farther and farther, and this can be seen through the evolution of weapons, from bare fists to swords to guns, to now missiles, we didn't leave the violence, we just try to not face our own violence directly. And this might be a controversial opinion, but I think swords-violence is lesser than gun-violence or missile-violence, as with swords, if you wish to kill, you have to do it yourself, and it's both a difficult decision and a hard fight against the victim, and fewer people die, but with guns, and missiles, and ultimately whatever weapons we will invent next, you don't need to face the act of killing, you just press a trigger, and they're dead, or you push a button, and a nation vanished. Swords are less often violent, compared to guns, but when they are, they hurt both the attacked and the attacker, to actually pretty close degrees. And I think that's also part of why we prefer to have swords in our media rather than guns, because guns are impersonal, compared to swords.