Black Swords Are Better



A Fantasy Trope, but can show up in other genres as well. Want to show that some kind of sword is cool, powerful, deadly, etc? Make this sword black. It can be simply blued, but sometimes it is made of some fantasy metal which is naturally black. Meteoric iron is often misrepresented as a naturally black metal.

This trope often overlaps with Evil Weapon and Artifact of Death, because the color black has not only the "cool" connotation, but also "Dark Is Evil" one. Many examples of black swords are not only superior to boring gray swords, but also more dangerous for the user.

Compare Thunderbolt Iron, Technicolor Blade, and Flaming Sword. Also note that black katanas are even better, wooden black katanas are absolutely better, and flaming wooden black katanas are downright awesome.

Anime and Manga

 * Ichigo's Bankai in Bleach is an entirely black tachi with a manji-shaped hilt. The fourth movie set in Hell has the Togabito weapons (Kokuto's sword and Muragumo's glaive), which are pitch black.
 * Most Zanpaku-to in their released states are a mix of pure black and white.
 * One Piece has two black swords so far: Kokuto Yoru, the strongest sword in the world, owned by the strongest Master Swordsman Mihawk. The other one is Shusui, a long katana with an elaborate black blade currently owned by Zoro. Is listed as one of the strongest swords in the world, and Zoro even stated that it wouldn't bend even if a dinosaur stepped on it.
 * Saizo from Brave 10 has one. He calls it Maribouchou.
 * Masamune from Soul Eater is one and after Tsubaki defeats him she gains this ability as well.
 * Also Ragnarok is one as well.
 * Black Rock Shooter wields the black blade (the ★rock shooter part of her name is for her handcannon).
 * In Yaiba, the Devil King Sword is black colored with white edges.
 * In Sword Art Online, Elucidator, one of Kirito's two swords, is pitch black.

Comic Books

 * The Black Knight's Ebony Blade from Marvel Comics. Another example of Thunderbolt Iron. It can cut through anything and fire energy beams, but if it's used "in an unworthy manner," it fills the wielder with an uncontrollable bloodlust.

Literature
"The dark blade's polish appeared oily. It glinted sullen indigoes and purples when the sun hit right. Similar blades had taught half a world the meaning of fear."
 * The two swords, Anguirel and Anglachel (Gurthang), made by Eol the Dark Elf, in The Silmarillion. These swords were made of meteoric iron, which is not naturally black, so they must be blued.
 * In Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone series of novels, the two demonic runeblades, Mournblade and Stormbringer, the latter of which becomes Elric's iconic weapon, are black. This one is so iconic that it inspired three heavy rock songs - Blue Oyster Cult's "Black Blade", Deep Purple's "Stormbringer" and Hawkwind's "Chronicles of the Black Sword". If it were merely grey, would it have got this attention?
 * C'threk Goru, the sword of the Dark God Torak in the Belgariad, is explicitly black, of unnamed material, and is the counterpart to Garion's Sword of the Rivan King, which is made of Thunderbolt Iron. In the sequel series the Malloreon, the sword is wielded again by a demon lord in the final confrontation.
 * Chronicles of the Emerged World : Nihal's black sword is actually made from a Mithril-like substance called "Black Crystal", which is a ludicrously hard crystal.
 * Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles novels. The black sword Dyrnwyn is extremely powerful. It was used to kill not only all of the Cauldron Born but the Big Bad Arawn himself.
 * Nightblood of Warbreaker is a black sentient telepathic sword that suggests killing just about everybody. Also it can compel just about anybody to kill their companions and themselves, it's most common use is being thrown into groups of enemies who end up killing each other off. Ironically it was actually created to destroy evil, but a sword doesn't know what evil is so it tries to get its' owner to kill people just in case..
 * One of the three magical swords of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is black (Thorn). Another is silver and the third a dull, somewhat mottled grey.
 * Blackwand of Dragaera, which is one of the seventeen Great Weapons, soul eating Empathic Weapons which can kill even the gods. Merely unsheathing Blackwand can cause an enemy battalion to break and flee.
 * Kring from the first Discworld novel The Colour of Magic is probably a parody of Strombringer. In concept, a jet black, magically sentient blade that can talk and grant the wielder combat prowess (even when they're not looking) is very cool. In practice, Kring's habit of droning on in a tinny metallic monotone that sounds like metal grinding over stone, not to mention constantly critiquing its owner, means that most warriors tire of it quickly.
 * Glen Cook's novella "Soldier of An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat" reveals that the soldiers of the Dread Empire, Shinsan, carry a pair of black swords, long and short. (They also wear black armor, and fight with an eerie lack of speech or Battle Cry.)
 * Elof, the hero of Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World trilogy, found a black sword-blade, still sharp and unrusted after decades or perhaps centuries in a bog. "For no furnace would heat it, no file bite upon it, no hammer subdue its stubborn strength." He reforged it after it'd been damaged -- and an appendix to the book noted that Elof's analysis of the blade's inner structure suggested a resemblance to carbon fiber.

Live Action TV

 * During the season 2.5 finale of Nikita, Alex buys a combat knife with a black blade. Quite Justified: see Real Life, below.
 * In Kamen Rider Dragon Knight Wing Knight is the only Kamen Rider besides Eubulon to carry a black sword and both... kick... a lot of ass.

Music

 * In Sound Horizon's "Moira", Elefseus uses two triangular black swords. Other characters, such as Sword Boy, also use a black sword. In almost all the cases the sword(s) seems to carry some sort of significance, linking the characters.

Tabletop RPG

 * In Dungeons & Dragons the toughest "conventional" weapon material is adamantine, which is black-ish alloy of steel and exotic metal adamant (also black, but on its own too fragile for anything but etching tools).
 * Forgotten Realms has Darksteel (it's silvery on cut, but exposed surfaces have deep purple luster) - somewhat lighter than steel alloy, smelting of which is a secret (possibly lost, at that) of but one Dwarven clan; it's less mechanically resilient than mithral, but more resistant than to most other forms of damage, absorbs lightnings and retains enchantments no matter what, even if melted and re-cast - which is relatively easy, especially compared to extremes of heating required to work with adamantine. Of human alchemy, there's "Habalar's Stealth" treatment for metal items that makes them non-reflecttive, silent on impact and even non-ferromagnetic (without drastic changes in adhesion, electric conductivity and ability to produce sparks). "Blacksteel" spell that temporarily makes a weapon non-reflective, silences impacts and prevents spilling whatever blood stuck to it.
 * Also, there's Drow spell "Black Blade of Disaster", which creates a short-living blade shaped planar rift used as a remotely controlled weapon and/or to cut through magical barriers - less destructive than conjuring a Sphere of Annihilation, but allows precise control.

Video Games

 * In Ultima Underworld 2, the best type of sword is a black sword.
 * Likely a callback to The Black Sword from Ultima VII.
 * In The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, the Big Bad, Ghirahim, has a black rapier (and later, two) in the second phase of each fight against him..
 * In The Elder Scrolls series of video games, Ebony and Daedric weapons (the best nonmagical weapons) are not exactly black, but close enough to count (ebony is a dark metal, while Daedric weapons are ebony weapons with the soul of a daedra bound to them and tend to be some combination of red and black).
 * And there is also Umbra.
 * In Runescape, black swords are a weapon category, above steel and below mithril, uncraftable.
 * In Umineko no Naku Koro ni, both Willard H. Wright and Bernkastel have black blades. Given in Umineko, colour is incredibly important, the colour of these weapons is far more than just cosmetic, giving them powers to attack ideas and metaphysical concepts directly. Oh, and fitting Bernkastel's personality, her black blade takes the form of a Sinister Scythe that can reap miracles.
 * In Fable I, obsidian weapons are better than iron or steel ones, and second only to 'master' (grey metal with gold trim) among non-legendary weapons.
 * The Infinity+1 Sword in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is jet black.

Web Comic

 * In "Goblins", Min Max permanently turned a property-stealing sword black by touching it to a hole in reality. It has a few powers due to this, primarily that it appears to bypass damage resistance.
 * In Dungeons and Dragons, cold iron weapons are especially effective against demons. In Order of the Stick, they're dark gray; examples include Hinjo's awesome katana.

Web Original

 * Homestuck Features the Regisword, and various other weapons combined with it. It appears to be a ceremonial piece, though most of the characters using it are skilled enough to use it effectively anyways.

Western Animation

 * Sokka's sword, also made of meteoric iron, in the third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Ultra-Robots", the last Ultra-Robot uses a black katana.
 * A recurring villain in The Clone Wars possessed a stolen black-bladed lightsaber that he used to (unsuccessfully) duel Obi-Wan Kenobi. Apparently, just having a black "sword" doesn't make you better than someone who's been training with a Laser Blade most of his life.

Real Life

 * Many blades designed for modern military use or survival are painted black or blued so they don't give away their owner's position by reflecting light. The bluing also prevents rust.
 * The sharpest manufacturable blades (they have an entry under Absurdly Sharp Blade) are made of obsidian, which is a black glass.