Public Domain Artifact: Difference between revisions

Thus goes the apparent thought process of using the [['''Public Domain Artifact]] -- a'''—a famous, usually completely mythical, conveniently uncopyrighted, yet instantaneously recognizable item from the realms of history, literature, or legend (if not all three).

This is not to say that such items can't be included in a perfectly entertaining and even unique plot, but its variations certainly do crop up frequently, in almost every genre -- comedygenre—comedy, drama, science fiction, fantasy -- andfantasy—and pretty much every culture from East to West. Some cultures have favorite items to use (Holy Grail for the West, for instance, the Ame-No-Murakumo for Japan, etc.), however with increasing globalization and influence of international works on the domestic and vice versa, this has been somewhat diluted in recent years, with shows like say, ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' featuring the Lance of Longinus.

It can be a weapon, a [[MacGuffin]], or hell, maybe both if it's a [[Artifact of Doom|mystical doomsday device]]. Sometimes the trope crops up as [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]] (seen often, for example, in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''), sometimes it's a mystical object, and occasionally it's [[Magitek|both]]. Sometimes startling revelations are to be had about the object, sometimes it's straight out of the legends, heck, maybe it's even reconstructed from the original's spare parts. Regardless of its distinguishing features in the story, though, what makes a [['''Public Domain Artifact]]''' worthy of the name is its basis on stories of the past -- thepast—the collective myths of man, with all their familiar symbols.

[[Genie in a Bottle|The Magic Lamp/Bottle]] -- sure—sure to contain a djinni that will grant wishes to the holder, usually with a [[Literal Genie|weird]] or [[Jackass Genie|sadistic]] twist, inspired by of course, Aladdin's lamp. Ironically, the original point of this trope was that the magician who trapped the djinni (who are really good at magic) would have had to have been ''extremely'' powerful to do so, and the djinni would be so happy to be freed they would use their magic to reward the holder.

** It's shown quite early in the story that Servant Lancer uses the cursed spear Gae Bolg, immediately revealing his true identity -- theidentity—the Irish hero Cuchulainn. Many other Servants have ways to keep their Noble Phantasms hidden (Saber's wind barrier around her sword which renders it invisible, for one) in order to hide their true identities.

* ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' series is set [[After the End]] of a parallel Earth, where "Arthur Eld" is the semi-mythical forebearer of a caste of knightly gunslingers, and who wielded a sword named Excalibur that he retrieved from a pyramid. Roland wields a pair of antique six-shooters said to have been forged from the shattered remnants of Excalibur -- theExcalibur—the barrels from the blade, the handles from its hilt.

* ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|Filmations Ghostbusters]]'' features Excalibur, conflating it yet again with the Sword in the Stone. Here, it's used to set up a [[Stable Time Loop]] in the stone age--theyage—they get it stuck in the stone that Arthur will pull it from.

Durandal -- SwordDurandal—Sword of the Hero Roland, knight of Charlemagne, as well as Hector of Troy. Supposedly he threw it into a "poisoned stream" in order to protect it from the Saracens; this seems to have occasionally given it a "Darkness" element in fiction and games. It could also be associated with evil or [[Marathon Trilogy|insanity]]. [[Bungie|One game studio]] has not only used it, but also the inscription on Ogier the Dane's sword Curtana, which read My name is [[Halo (series)|Cortana]], of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and [[Marathon Trilogy|Durendal]]. In ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' Durandal ''is'' Excalibur, having been stolen by Orlando/Roland and renamed to not arouse suspicion (because even he knows it was kind of a dick thing to do).

Less frequently, you will see other legendary Western swords such as Cortana (which actually exists as part of the Regalia of Great Britain), or Joyeuse. They do show up in ''[[Castlevania]]: Symphony Of The Night'' and all the portable 2D Castlevanias that follow it. You can find a huge amount of named armor, swords and artifacts -- fromartifacts—from Joyeuse to the Masamune to Death's Scythe. The most powerful sword in ''[[Castlevania: Chronicles of Sorrow|Aria/Dawn of Sorrow,]]'' the Claimh Solais, apparently comes from Irish mythology... odd for a Japanese game about vampires.

* ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' does this to ridiculous extremes, what with [[All Myths Are True|all myths being true]], so not only were there Excalibur, Caliburn, Durandal, and Gram (and plausibly, everything else), there's also that minor event known as the Holy Grail War -- itWar—it's not the ''actual'' Holy Grail though. Almost as soon as it's mentioned, it becomes [[Moral Event Horizon|glaringly obvious]] that it's not the real Holy Grail, and it only gets worse from there...

** Taking it even further than that is the character [[The Epic of Gilgamesh|Gilgamesh]], whose ability is basically that he owns the originals of [[Superpower Lottery|every]] [[Public Domain Artifact]] ever.

Stonehenge is a real place (and it's not the only such circle in Britain, either), but it gets ascribed all sorts of mystic powers in fiction.<ref>Of the many theories of its purpose, on of the most widely believed is that it was used to tell what time of year it is. That's right, it's a ''calendar''! To be honest, keeping track of the seasons was incredibly important in the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones.</ref>. Nor is it the only one in the world. There's one, also of unknown origin, in Michigan. [[wikipedia:Stone circle#Distribution|Stone circles]] seem to have been popular with [http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/carahunge.htm everybody's] ancestors. This isn't just a British/Irish trope.

* ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire|Atlantis the Lost Empire]]'' accidentally subverted this trope. The heroes are able to find [[Atlantis]] because they got their hands on both the Shepherd's Journal (a road map to the place) and a linguist who was able to actually read it. In the DVD voice-overs, the creators mentioned several responses from viewers congratulating them for actually using the Shepherd's Journal for extra authenticity. Ironically, the legend of the Shepherd's Journal begins and ends with Disney's ''Atlantis'' -- there—there was no such artifact, legendary or otherwise.

* In ''[[Percy Jackson & the Olympians|The Last Olympian]]'', Prometheus gives Percy the urn of Pandora and tells him that if he opens it, he will free Hope and so surrender. It turns out to be a [[Clingy MacGuffin]] -- it—it keeps showing up after being locked in a safe. Percy finally hands it to Hestia, who can keep it safe.

* Pandora's Box also showed up in a last season episode of ''[[Charmed]]'', with a superpowered Guardian ([[Viewers are Morons|named "Hope"]]) who was to protect it so that demons (or anyone really) would not be able to open it and release the ills within. Naturally said Guardian knew nothing about all this and had to go through a (relatively short) [[How Do I Shot Web?]] bit before she could save the world. Interestingly, since the Box had already been opened long ago to originally release its contents, doing so now merely intensified the bad traits of humanity--whichhumanity—which, aside from the obvious negative consequences, helped to tilt the balance of power toward evil.

[[fileFile:三神器.png|thumb|350px|Artist's impression of the The Treasures of Amaterasu, AKA the Japanese Imperial Regalia.]]

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', all three treasures became the primary weapons of Sailor Uranus ("Space Sword", based on the Kusanagi), Sailor Neptune (the Mirror), and Sailor Pluto (the necklace, or the jewel from it at any rate, which became the Garnet Orb on her staff). The items are so powerful in combination thatthat—bizarrely -- bizarrely enough -- theyenough—they can call into existence ''another'' [[Public Domain Artifact]] on this page: the Holy Grail. Which is, of course, really just another excuse to add another transformation sequence/fancy outfit/power-up for Sailor Moon, who is (appropriately enough) both the [[Messianic Archetype]] and [[The Messiah]] of the series.

* The Regalia are especially popular in Japanese video games, also forming the second set of [[Plot Coupon|Plot Coupons]]s in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean'', and also show up in ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'' and ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]''.

* As you would expect for a game starring Amaterasu, ''[[Ōkami|Okami]]'' features the three relics as your three weapon options-- aoptions—a mirror, a sword, and a 'rosary' of beads worn around the neck.

* The first ''[[Highlander]]'' film. Ramirez's katana -- andkatana—and subsequently, Connor's katana -- waskatana—was made by Masamune, making them one of the only works to get the whole swordsmith/sword name thing right. Although the entirety of the exposition that reveals this also seems to indicate the writers [[Did Not Do the Research|did not fully do their research]]:

In [[wikipedia:The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter|Kaguya-Hime, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter]] the title character is approached by princely suitors and she provides them with five [[Impossible Task|Impossible Tasks]]s, the recovery of certain mystical treasures. The five artifacts were the stone begging bowl of Buddha of India, a jeweled branch from the island of Hourai, the pelt of the fire-rat from China, a colored jewel from a dragon's neck, and a [[wikipedia:Cowrie|cowrie]] which was born from swallows. Though some of the more clever suitors attempt to pass-off normal items as the fantastic ones in question, all of the suitors are rebuffed.

** In one of [[The Movie|The Movies]]s, villains are regathering the five treasures and [[Inuyasha]] gets involved when they try to steal his robe.

* Inverted in the second ''[[Nightside]]'' book by [[Simon R. Green]] with the [[MacGuffin]] being the ''Unholy'' Grail -- theGrail—the cup Judas drank from. [[Fridge Logic|Which... was the same cup.]]

Fragments of the True Cross -- thatCross—that is, the one on which Christ was crucified. This one pops up pretty often in real life as well as in fiction -- manyfiction—many congregations around the world possess fragments, usually no more than a single splinter, of an artifact discovered in the 4th century said to be the relic. The miniature chapel of the fairy-tale castle at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, a priceless dollhouse filled with precious and historic furnishings, contains a reliquary with an alleged True Cross fragment. There's a common joke that there are enough fragments of the True Cross to rebuild Noah's Ark, but Rohault de Fleury, a 19thC French scholar, measured the total volume of all claimed fragments of the True Cross and found they added up to 0.004 cubic meters; his estimate was that the whole cross would have been 0.178 cubic meters. (This was published in ''Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion'', 1870.).

* Variation on the nails legend: in Piers Anthony's [[Incarnations of Immortality]] series, reference is made to how the nails were fashioned. When the time came for Jesus to be crucified, the Roman soldiers needed to have nails made, but no one would make them once they found out who was to be crucified with them. After several fruitless attempts, [[Idiot Ball|the Roman soldiers finally wised up]] and didn't tell the next forger who the nails were for--untilfor—until he had made three nails and was working on the fourth. Once he found out, he then refused to finish the last nail. The soldiers took the completed three, thus [[Did Not Do the Research|supposedly explaining why Jesus had his feet nailed together instead of separately]]--while—while the blacksmith and his family were forced to flee from terrible, nightmare visions of the unfinished nail following them everywhere they went. The forger was Roma...thus explaining [[Common Knowledge|why their people wander to this day]]. Considering the author got everything right about the origin of "Gypsy" and their being native to India, and that their depiction was both sympathetic and working hard to overturn a lot of stereotypes, these little lapses can be forgiven. Besides, it was a pretty good (albeit entirely fictional?) legend.

The Shroud of Turin, unsurprisingly, has also appeared at least a time or two in fiction of recent years, usually with the implication that it has enormous mystical power. Test results that date it to the late [[Middle Ages]] are [[Rule of Cool|generally ignored]]. Similarly, there's Veronica's Veil -- aVeil—a cloth that the eponymous Veronica wiped Jesus' brow with as he was marched to Golgotha, and which was imprinted with his image. Some scholars believe the Veil may have been the Shroud of Turin, just folded so only the image of the face appeared. There's been recent evidence to suggest that the original results from 1988 were either the results of bias or poor data sampling. [[wikipedia:Shroud of Turin|See the "chemical properties of the sample site" under the "Analysis of the Shroud"]]

The Lance of Longinus / Spear of Destiny / Holy Lance / Spear of Longinus / Spear of Christ / Holy Spear: The spear which supposedly pierced Jesus' side during the crucifixion, reputed to have all kinds of crazy powers ranging from healing to the ability to destroy the whole world in one shot. Three known items are sometimes claimed to be the Holy Lance; One resides in the Vatican, one in the Hofburg Museum in Vienna (having been moved from Nuremberg during the Napoleonic Wars) and one in Krakow, Poland. The Catholic Church has made no statements as to the authenticity of any of them -- perhapsthem—perhaps wisely as the latter two have been shown by recent research to be of a later origin. It's used everywhere from video games, to ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]]'' (although there it had no relation to the mythological lance, and was instead a powerful artifact of extraterrestrial origin) and even the first of those campy flicks from ''[[The Librarian]]'' series (where it was inexplicably in three parts, and became a set of [[Plot Coupon|Plot Coupons]]s necessitating a whole lot of traveling and avoiding of Mayan [[Death Trap|Death Traps]]s). Also appears as a plot coupon in the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' Movie, which allows the [[Big Bad]] to open a portal between the worlds. Almost any work of fiction dealing with [[Those Wacky Nazis|The Nazis']] [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|top secret paranormal experiments and super-weapons]] will mention the Spear at some point.

* ''American Desert'' by Percival Everett actually has a reason for including this specific spear--thespear—the blood on it is used to clone Christ. Not that it works very well . . .

* The Vienna lance is said to have inspired a vision of destiny in a young [[Adolf Hitler]], and when Austria was annexed he had the lance removed to Berlin -- soBerlin—so at least some of the Nazi connection is actually true.

From the Old Testament, there's the Ark of the Covenant -- thoughCovenant—though, as ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' demonstrated, it is not said to be something many people can safely use. Even if it doesn't possess any supernatural power, the design as laid out in the Bible could produce a monstrous capacitor, and in the right environment and circumstances, could build up a potentially deadly static charge. Which may be why the Bible also specifies (insulating) silk garments for the bearers of the Ark... and might explain the biblical account of the unprotected man who touched the Ark and was struck dead. Oddly enough, the one thing mentioned in [[The Bible]] to actually have supernatural power is at the bottom of this list.

* In the ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]'' prequel we see Solomon use it to summon and control thousands of demons, ''[[Cast From Lifespan|though at a price ]]''.

Any weapon ever used or made by a god -- especiallygod—especially the [[Norse Mythology|Norse-mythological]] weapons Gungnir (Odin's spear) and especially Mjollnir (Thor's hammer).

Occasionally you will see Gram -- theGram—the sword of Siegfried, used to kill the dragon Fafnir. This sword has also been referred to as Balmung and Nothung.

* Nowadays we have U.F.Os, Area 51 and [[The Greys]], which seem to qualify as the latest [[Public Domain Artifact|Public Domain Artifacts]].

* ''[[Fables]]'' seems to be extremely fond of this trope -- whichtrope—which considering it also uses [[Public Domain Character|public domain ''characters'']] as the primary basis for its main cast (even relatively obscure ones like Rose Red), should probably not surprise anyone in the least. [[Public Domain Artifact|Public Domain Artifacts]] in the series include the magic beans (from which come magic beanstalks, of course), the Vorpal Sword (as described in [[Lewis Carroll]]'s "[[Jabberwocky]]" poem... no, really genuinely ''as described'' in the poem, including an accompanying "snicker-snack!" sound effect...), the Witching Cloak, the magic barleycorns that Tom Thumb's bride was supposed to have grown from, Boy Blue's horn, a [[Genie in a Bottle|magic lamp]], several magic carpets ala Aladdin, and... really ''countless'' such objects, actually. Even Santa's "Naughty and Nice" lists make a brief appearance. Frankly, this reader is surprised they didn't throw in the Holy Grail and Fountain of Youth just for good measure...