Why are cursed swords such a popular type of villain?

Stormbringer is real and has agency in the stories. Soul Edge as well.

>Those are all plot devices rather than actual antagonists.
*blocks your path*

>Frostmourne
>Kullervo's Sword
>Tyrfing
>Umbra
>Lilarcor

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Legbiter.
Widowmaker.
Skofnung.
Blackrazor.
Soul Reaver.

>Areadbhair

that's a spear

That evil vampire kitchen knife from Durarara

Honestly stopped watching the series after that, gave me a real 'jumped the shark' feel

Straight up were there any evil swords before Moorcock? Swords have been magical for a long time eg. the tales of Sigmund, Sigurd and King Arthur but how many have been explicitly and evil and sentient

Because a unique sword is like a cool car for the fantasy world - a bit of personal flair for a character. A fantasy dude's caliber can be measured by his caliburn.

Therefore, an evil sentient unique sword has inherent pop. It's like you're fighting evil fantasy mojo itself.

It also has instant tragic villain points. If the dude wielding the evil sword is just a regular guy who got taken over, that's a least resistance path to tragedy.

Kullervo's sword from the Kalevela breaks into song about how it will shed more and more blood for whatever cause ti pleases and encourages its owner to kill himself, which he promptly does.

Durara jumps the shark in the first episode and keeps finding sharkier sharks to jump over. It knows what it's doing, so if you can stand the sharks, you might enjoy the jumps. It ain't for everyone though.

You're joking, right?

Now THIS is an evil sentient weapon.

Using Katanagatari is probably cheating, but fuck it.

Zetto Kana
Zanto Namakura
Sento Tsurugi
Hakuto Hari
Zokuto Yoroi
Soto Kanazuchi
Akuto Bita
Bito Kanzashi
Oto Nokogiri
Seito Hakari
Dokuto Mekki
Ento Ju

I'll definitely have to give that a look, thanks for teaching me something new bud

I like your description. Keep up the good work.

That scene is actually what inspired Moorcock, so it truly is the original sentient evil sword.

>I am a idiot, please rape my face
That's what you said there.

Sure, why not? Now does sword man from mega man 8 count?

more importantly why are cursed swords really "swords that bring a curse on the weilder" rather than "swords that are cursed"

a cursed person will have misfortune fall upon them, a cursed sword instead will cause misfortune to somebody else.

A cursed sword should be more something along the lines of
>You foiled my plans one last time Sword! I curse you to only be wielded by greasy fat virgins who must have touched their dick after not washing for a week before they can touch you

or something like that

Definitely cheating.

Because that's what they are, curses shaped like swords.

No. The swords are genuinely cursed, just in a way that makes them hurt other people. "I curse this sword so that it cannot be sheathed before drawing blood," "I curse this sword to bring about three great tragedies," "I curse this sword to bring great misfortune to those who wield it!," etc. Think of them like portable curse vessels, a method for an evil wizard to spread curses to various people instead of a limited number.

The reaver is more of a symbol of inevitability than a just a cursed blade.

A lot of these things are metaphors.

Here's a question: which sword has the meanest curse?

Personally I'm thinking Widowmaker. Cursed not only Aenarion, but his entire bloodline and extended family to inevitable violence, madness and tragedy.

yeah, but as you said they are just vessels for a cursee, not the victim of the curse.
For normal swords it may make sense, but for magical swords who have some degree of sentience it seems lame. They should be the ones to suffer from the curse.
>you can only be wielded by complete amateurs at using a sword
>your owner will not take proper care of you, will not oil you will leave your scabbard rot and will leave you caked in blood
>you will be used to inefficiently shovel up manure, equivalent to how many people you killed

You're very fixated on swords being dirtied or mishandled for some reason.

I mean you could have a curse where blade was forced into a human form until it did some duty or make a holy blade actively kill those with a pure heart against its will, but instead you went straight to shit stabbing.

Sounds like you're unfamiliar with the source material.

I'm not fixated.
I just think it's weird that cursed sword are not really cursed swords.
They should be called curse carrying sword instead, or curse sword for shortness.

I just have an issue with the name really.

Because it can be argued that the sword is the source of the problem and not the hand that wields it. It can create a sympathetic view of the villain as a victim of circumstance or fate or what have you.

>I just have an issue with the name really.
Not our problem you have crippling autism.

Tyrfing comes to mind.

But that's not how cursed objects have ever worked. Almost as a rule cursed objects exist to pass their curse onto others. Dolls, tombs, corpses, swords, apples, etc are vectors for a curse and that's been how it goes for ages.

You're being willfully obtuse user.

well there should be objects who are the victims of a curse rather than the carrier.
I don't have autism.

You clearly have autism

that's not how autis works.

It's Veeky Forums's definition of autism, in this case an inane focus on something that doesn't fucking matter, and ignoring the cultural norms because it doesn't fit your personal logic

Because reasons.

I was a thousand times more evil than thou

Most of those aren't really evil though other then Dokuto Mekki.

What are some subversions sword curses I can do?

>Sword that lowers your Strength / Con but makes you a generally more likable guy to the point you wither away but everyone loves you like their grandfather.

The proper term is "long handled sword"

>can be pacified by headpats
aww yisss

a nice subversion could be that instead of the sword carrying a urse its the sword itself to be the vicitim of the curse.
A literal cursed sword.

Depends. A popular use of it is to add a little tragedy to the entire affair.

>autism continues

Best cursed sword of all time?

I thought it was a big thing that no monsters were men in that setting. How can that sword turn anyone it chops up into a monster?

Because they're edgy.

Bloodscythe did nothing wrong

I prefer Reverse Sword. Take a great sword and turn the wood into metal and the metal to wood. Spear.

These are usually awful for everyone involved. This somehow seems fine if you managed to shush pat the crazy away and wife it.

Why would the blade itself be the victim? A sword is just a tool. That's like cursing a shirt to be used as a towel. You could curse the shirt to be a towel, but why not just use a towel?

An evil wizard would use the sword as a vector for curses, not cursing the tool itself. If you cursed the sword to be mistreated or whatever, why wouldn't you just break the sword or melt it down or something? Surely a spell that destroys metal (rust, melt, etc) would be far easier and more efficient for the wizard?

this guy has a point unless you have a sapient magic sword there's little point in cursing it. Although if we run with that idea a sword possessed with the imprint/soul/whatever of the paladin that once owned it and cursed to make it's owners more aggressive the longer they carry it might be neat.

Just going off the top of my dome here for a possibility, but it could be some sorta culture that puts an emphasis on personal weapons and the connections to weapons. Cursing a weapon is saved for people who die super dishonorably or who get exiled. It's their cultures equivalent of an unmarked grave or having their name turned taboo. The curse would turn the weapon near useless, something like make blades to blunt or the weapon to heavy to wield effectively.

Now I kinda want to write a story of someone trying to redeem the weapon of an exiled person by going on a heroes journey with it.

Most people haven't heard of the trope thus it's new to them.

That's usually the answer for most things.

Dont forget the strongest of them all: Shichika.

If the culture puts emphasis on their own weapons, surely having their weapon destroyed/melted/whatever in front of them would be the greatest insult? Similar to how chinese people would be portrayed in movies when they're talking about their hair they've been growing since their birth or whatever gets cut off and burned in front of them is the greatest insult to their culture.

And besides, surely a weapon that was owned by someone who did something so horrible to be exiled or something would be treated poorly regardless of the curse? A weapon of a king killer would be melted down and used as a platter for the next king to eat grapes from or something, or dishonored in some way or another. It wouldn't need a curse to be reviled and hated, if their culture is as you say.

The wood one and the hilt one are blessed, the other are cursed in some way

There are male monsters, there is that one that is basically a succubus (male) and there is one that is a spider girl that turns the human she mates with into a giant tentacle spider thing

>Forgetting the black blade and it's copies in other works.

literally the first named sword in the thread, user

Plot devices and Antagonists need not be mutually exclusive.
Inanimate objects can still be the source of conflict, and plot devices can be living, breathing, animate beings.

>dullahan riding around on a motorcycle and having sexual relations with a scientist
>"totally fine"
>demon sword
>okay, this seems a bit too cuhrayzee for me"

To be fair, Nokogiri is exactly the opposite of evil. That was its focus, after all. It was the Deviant blade that cleansed the poison of the rest.

there are plenty of swords in fiction that have sentience or sapience, or can transform into a creature and have their own will and act on their own.Or it could be a living being turned into a weapon.
Imagine how humiliating it would be for a magical sword capable of independent though, to only be able to be used by unwarrirlike cowardly people.
If a honorable warrior uses it the sword will fail them in battle and they'll die. If someone the sword doesn't respect uses it then they'll have extra protection, like luck and magical barriers and have a greater chance of winning battles even against the best warriors

Because cursing an inanimate object to have calamity befall it would be fucking retarded. There's no point to it without someone being affected by it, thus most weapons that are cursed put that curse on the wielder.

>A fantasy dude's caliber can be measured by his caliburn.
Underrated.

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Why are cursed hats such a popular type of villain?

not to mention

>Man gets beaned in the temple with a metal garbage can, and gets back up with no visible damage sustained
>Other man that threw the trash can has such a strong body that lifting and throwing a vending machine is a simple matter for him

DRRR is full of some fucking bullshit when you think on it, and celty is probably the most well adjusted person there.

Y'gonna post the actual living armor entry or what?

The show had some badass moments though. The scene at the end of S2 part 1 where the Yakuza spooked the KGB assassins was hype as fucked.

Oh, the series has great badass moments. i was just saying, everyones a fucking nutjob but celty. The majority of the cast is either completely insane, some sorta monster in human skin like izaya and shizuo, Or an absolute fuck up.

And then you have celty over here who's just trying to be the good older sister while delivering possibly illegal stuff from point A to point B.

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>Mamono
Why is this the only thing that isn't translated? I mean, "魔物" doesn't really have any untranslatable fancy meanings to it.

Think of it as a "brand" for things specific to the MGE

Wait a minute. How do you fuck the armor while wearing it? Is it more like a ghost grill that comes with a free set of +5 full plate? There are questions here that need answers.

>Disregard that, I suck cocks

Ftfy

Keeping it around as a permanent monument of shame and as a warning to others has more weight, than just smelting or destroying it.

And melting it down into a platter or other useful object, gives the material purpose. In essence it has become useful again. While a sword, which is cursed to never draw blood again is an eternal testament to uselessness.

In a society which is heavily based on revering weapons passed down generations in families or clans, leaving them with a cursed weapon may be more shameful, than destroying it.

>The blade, that has been in the hands of the Clan for a hundred generations is now cursed to always fall out of its sheath, no matter how you affix it. And the patriarch of the clan needs to bring it to every official court function, so everyone can point and laugh.

HE'S GOT NOTHING YOU NEED
HE'S GONNA MAKE YOU BLEED

Well, there are no pants with this armor. The sword is the thing that's a challenge. No holes and all that.

Yes and sometimes a sword is just a sword