Talking Swords of History: The Good, The Bad, and The Bored

“We do not want any stories that feature a talking sword”.

These are the words that inspired my friend Lindsay Schopfer to write the short story Sharp Sword, Dull Sword, which appears in his anthology Magic, Mystery and Mirth. In the book Lindsay describes looking over a publishing house’s submission guidelines which featured the most extensive and specific list of things they didn’t want to see he had ever come across. Naturally this made him wonder how many awful stories with a talking sword that publisher had to have seen in order to specifically ban that type of story. Was it a flood of them, or just one really, really bad one? Challenge accepted, he set out to write a good one and Sharp Sword, Dull Sword was born.

Personally I haven’t run across very many talking sword stories in my time. I think its an idea that gets talked about far more than it gets written. I’ve been lucky in that the talking sword stories I have run across are mostly pretty good. So, for those of you interested in meeting a talking sword for yourself, here is a list of talking swords from books and video games you can give a try.

1. Enserric the Sword

You’re an adventurer, exploring a wizard’s fabled labyrinth for treasure, when you come across an awesome looking sword held by some dead king. Since he clearly doesn’t need it anymore you decide you might as well take it for yourself…only to wake the dead guy up and be brutally slain by the weapon you were about to claim. Crap. As you feel the dark blade begin to absorb your soul to make itself more powerful you decide you’re not so much down with that plan and try to redirect your soul back into your body. Unfortunately, that only partially works and you end up a fully aware consciousness bound to the blade and fated to wait a really, really long time with nothing to do but stare at your own dead human body…which gets old pretty damn fast once the rats are done eating it.

Such is the backstory of Enserric the Sword, a weapon you can find and recruit into your party in Neverwinter Nights:  Hordes of the Underdark. This amazing second expansion to Neverwinter Nights has many hidden gems to discover, and while not every player comes across Enserric those that do are in for a treat. He appears in the first act of the campaign when the adventurer is exploring Undermountain, the fabled labyrinth of the mad wizard Halaster that exists underneath the city of Waterdeep. An invasion of Drow and other creatures of the Underdark is spilling out from the labyrinth, and so the Waterdavian lords have put out a call for adventurers to descend into the trap filled labyrinth, find the path the invaders are using to get from the Underdark into Undermountain, and seal it to end the invasion. If the player happens to make their way into the room called the Hall of Sleeping Kings in their exploration of Undermountain they’ll run across Enserric.

Bored out of its mind, the sword begs the hero to take it with them, not even caring if the adventurer chooses to just sell the sword rather than use it themselves so long as it can get out of the hands of the dead king. Leaving the sword to its monotonous fate brings an enraged but harmless shriek from the trapped soul, while liberating it requires the player to win a moderately difficult battle with the dead king. Once in the hero’s possession Enserric can be spoken with and the player can learn a small bit about the person it once was. Enserric, as it turns out, was a curmudgeonly wizard in its human life who hired himself out to a party of adventurers to help them explore Undermountain for treasure. You can learn a bit about Enserric’s past, but it is cloudy as his memory has been slowly decaying.

While Enserric’s presence isn’t crucial to the plot it does add a welcome bit of color and flare to the experience of the game, as well as some occasional comic relief. For example, if you ask Enserric’s advice on what you should be doing the sword’s response is, “My advice? Don’t ask a sword for advice.”

You can still find Neverwinter Nights:  Hordes of the Underdark over at gog.com if you’re interested in experiencing Enserric’s story for yourself.

2. Nightblood

A character in Brandon Sanderson’s amazing stand-alone novel Warbreaker, Nightblood takes the concept of a talking sword to a whole different level and is probably my favorite blade on this list (sorry Vin).

For those who haven’t read Warbreaker; go read Warbreaker immediately! Seriously. Why are you still reading this blog when you haven’t read Warbreaker? Go! Read it! What’s wrong with you?! Also, you should be aware that the magic system in the book is rather unique. Basically, every person is born with a Breath which they can give up to another person if they choose. Magic users in this world collect Breaths that they can combine with color from an object to create certain effects. The more Breaths they have, the more things they can do.  Among these is the ability to animate objects to the caster’s will. Mostly this involves moving stuff around and using pieces of cloth like extremely useful extra limbs.

However, at one point in history a pair of curious magic users decided to see how far they could push this power and collected enough Breaths that they discovered the secret to imbuing metal with life and sentience. The resulting entity was Nightblood, a living, learning weapon with a mind of its own. Upon his creation Nightblood was given a singular purpose; destroy evil. However, being a young mind he really didn’t know what evil was and so was given a rather vague definition that he tries his best to work under.

Only the good can wield Nightblood in the traditional way. For those who can survive drawing him, he makes them more powerful even just by carrying him around. Once freed from his scabbard he begins sucking the Breath from everything around him and, if left unsheathed long enough, he will kill those nearby by drawing on their life force once their Breath is gone. Evil people cannot resist drawing Nightblood if he is left unattended, and when they do he drives them crazy, sending them on a brief killing spree of everyone in the area before he is able to force them to drive him through their own chest, destroying them.

Despite the rather gruesome realities of his existence, Nightblood is something an endearing character. His desire to learn about the world and grow his mind is almost child-like despite his age. He is naive about certain subjects, such as the idea of gender which, being a sword, is foreign to him (despite his use of male pronouns to describe himself). This makes him all the more interesting for the reader to contemplate as you try to think things through from the sword’s perspective.

While Nightblood is a supporting character in the novel, his is easily one of the best if you want to experience a talking sword tale.

3. Soul Edge

I’m sure this will surprise many, but the Soul Calibur series of fighting games does, in fact, have a story that goes along with it. While the story doesn’t really factor into the gameplay much (its a simple fighting game after all) the narrative involves a weapon in medieval Europe that was soaked in so much innocent blood in its time that it developed a dark sentience and began to possess and drive crazy every man who wielded it. Taking on the name of Soul Edge, the sword could only be wielded safely by one man, a benevolent king. His son eventually succumbed to the madness of the sword and the good king was forced to destroy him and Soul Edge. Fearing Soul Edge would someday be reborn the king sacrificed himself to create the holy blade Soul Calibur, which he hoped would be powerful enough to stop Soul Edge if it ever returned.

*Spoiler Alert*

When Soul Edge reemerges it possesses a lord and terrorizes Europe for 20 years before a group of heroes manages to slay the lord and shatter the blade. One of those heroes is corrupted in the attempt and becomes the azure warrior Nightmare. Nightmare spends the next several years collecting the scattered pieces of Soul Edge along with a slew of innocent souls to power a ritual to reform the blade. Although he succeeds he is shortly defeated when a group of heroes wielding the recently recovered Soul Calibur disrupts the ritual and once again shatters the reborn Soul Edge.

The subsequent games in the series pretty much follow a formula of “Soul Edge is destroyed; Soul Edge is reborn; Soul Edge is defeated again”, so if you’ve played one Soul Calibur game you’ve basically played them all as far as the story line goes. Still, for those looking for a simple story involving a talking sword and some action packed fun to go with it, look no further than the most recent iteration of Soul Calibur.

Some might argue that Soul Edge doesn’t really belong on this list since the sword itself never actually talks. However, since the sword operates by possessing people who then talk, I’m counting it.

4. Fi

Skyward Sword is a game in the Legend of Zelda franchise, and answered a question that had been long held by fans. I won’t say which to avoid spoilers, although fans of the series can probably guess.

Fi is an interesting blade. Her consciousness, limited as it is, is able to manifest as a floating spirit-like creature who guides the player on their path and assists them with various tasks throughout the game, aside from just the “whack that thing that’s trying to kill me” variety. Her speech mannerisms are far different from any other character in the game, or really in the series. She sounds almost like a computer, constantly citing percentages, odds for success, and generally talking more like a futuristic AI than a spirit of a sword. Her appearance adds yet another layer of depth and mystery to the ever growing world of Zelda and makes her a great candidate for experiencing a talking blade for the first time.

5. Vin, the Talking Sword of….

Of course, no list of talking swords would be complete without Vin, the hero of Sharp Sword, Dull Sword (part of the Magic, Mystery and Mirth anthology) who inspired this post. Much like Enserric, Vin has been waiting around in a dungeon for a very, very long time when we first meet. As it turns out, when you’re a sword, sitting around mounted to a wall waiting for somebody to finally figure out how to beat the trap in the room and claim you can get awful boring after a while.

Vin is unique in this list in that he is not the object of the quest or a supporting character, but the primary protagonist. The whole story is told from Vin’s point of view, and a tragic hero he is. Vin’s snarky humor is quite well done. Its only unfortunate that, as he appears in a short story, we’re never able to learn much about Vin’s origins or his powers aside from talking. I have secretly always hoped that someday Lindsay will choose to write a sequel or series of sequels elaborating on the further adventures of Vin so we can learn a little bit more about him. Vin comes as part of a great anthology by Lindsay, so he’s a good choice if you’d like to experience a talking sword story but also get some other great stories along with it.

 

Are there any other prominent blades out there chatting up their wielders whom I left off? Are talking swords an underrepresented demographic in fantasy? Discuss in the comments!