The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

This also applies to vertical surfaces, with the blade almost always at a perfect 90 degree angle to the wall or cliff. Also when a dagger ([[Throwing Your Sword Always Works|or sword]]) is thrown into a person it will stick out at a perfect 90 degree angle.

Throwing knives with enlarged pommels take this one step further, as the center of mass - and thus the center of a good spin - is extremely close to one end, making it a near-certainty that a spinning blade will strike edge- or point-first. Whether or not it'll actually plunge the point in is, of course, another matter, and it won't be a [[Double Entendre|neat, perpendicular insertion]] - unless by chance it happens to run out of momentum in that position after cutting through the surface. If the knife is thrown as a dart instead of spining in mid-flight, [[Captain Obvious|it likely will land pointy end in]]. Note also that knife-throwing still takes a bunch of practice to do correctly.

 

 

* It happened sometimes in ''[[Mazinger Z]]'', but it was more frequent in ''[[Great Mazinger]]'', since Great Mazinger was the first [[Humongous Mecha]] sword-wielder. ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer]]'', [[Sinister Scythe]] also followed this trope every so often.

* It happened every so often in ''[[Daimos]]''. If a sword-wielder was defeated, often his sword landed tip-first. It happened even to [[The Lancer|Kyoshiro]].

* Taken to a ridiculous extreme in ''[[Gundam Wing]]'', episode 31: in a fencing match against Dorothy Catalonia, her sword ends up like this. The ridiculous part? They were practice fencing swords, with a round point! How did he manage that? We will never know.

* In ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'', all weapons land on the pointy end. Always! It happens about two or three times each episode.

* In ''[[Soul Eater]]'', Mifune uses a [[Storm of Blades]] to create a [[Field of Blades]], using this principle. Every single sword he threw [read: launched 20 of them simultaneously into the air without seeming to even aim] landed [[Pointy End In]], and stuck with enough firmness that he could [[Stepping Stone Sword|run across their hilts at one point]]. A bunch landed this way even one time he launched them directly out of his big case, where they started with ''handle'' facing the target, by '''kicking the end of the box a bunch of times.''

* During the final battle of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] StrikerS'', Deed's sword lands in this manner when she's taken out {{spoiler|[[Friendly Sniper|by a head shot from Vice]]}}.

* Used in [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]], mostly so that [[Determinator|Sayaka]] can pull it back out of the ground like a boss.

 

* Happens in ''[[Enchanted]]'' at the end. Giselle apparently has enough strength to make a thrown sword pierce a metal decoration, with enough strength to support a grown man's weight...

* [[Inverted]] by the second ''[[Crocodile Dundee]]'' film. Mick Dundee wants to knock out a guard with his knife. Because the pointy end always lands first when he throws it holding the blade, he flips it around and throws it by the handle, causing the ''handle'' to hit the guard in the head and render him unconscious instead of drawing blood.

* In ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', one thrown knife can be seen to [[You Fail Physics Forever|stop spinning in mid-air]] so that it hits a [[Mook]] at a right angle.

* Averted at the end of ''[[Big Trouble in Little China]]'' when Jack Burton throws his dagger at [[Big Bad|Lo Pan]] {{spoiler|''and misses'' - the dagger bounces off the wall and clatters harmlessly to the floor. Lo Pan picks it up, amused, and flicks it back at Jack, who [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|snatches it out of the air and throws it back again]], this time nailing the sucker right between the eyes!}} "It's all in the reflexes."

* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' Will throws the swords that he made himself with enough strength that Captain Jack Sparrow can't get it out of the wall. And again at the end of the movie where Sparrow can use it to stand on.

 

== Literature ==

* Averted in Steven Brust's ''[[Taltos]]'' books. The protagonist spends weeks practicing and states that he has a 2 in 3 chance of getting a thrown dagger in point first if his target will stand perfectly still, exactly 15 feet away. He then asserts that the real point of throwing a knife is for the target to flinch, giving him a few seconds to do something useful.

* Played straight and then subverted in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. At one point, Arya and Sandor Clegane get into a fight, where one of their opponents throws a knife, which, while misses the intended target, lands in the wall perfectly pointy end first. Arya tries the same on said opponent, failing.

 

* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', Teyla throws a knife into the ground and manages to get it to stick. She was arguably doing it on purpose, but she manages to do this to a ''metal floor''.

* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'': The original Megazord's sword is summoned from the skies, and is either caught in the Megazord's hand or lands point-first in the ground. They actually take advantage of this once, to cut the Megazord free of Octoplant's [[Combat Tentacles|vines]]. Additionally, Goldar's sword lands point-first after Tommy kicks it out of his hand in "Green No More".

* In the TV show ''Top Shot'', which revolves around various tests of marksmanship with various weapons, a knife-throwing challenge came up. The entire challenge showed just how unrealistic the trope is, with most thrown knives simply bouncing off the wooden targets.

* Anything thrown by Buffy of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' invariably ends up pointy-end first in the heart of her target, but Oz tried it with a stake once and it just bounced off harmlessly.

 

== [[Toys]] ==

* Used in a non-canon ''[[Bionicle]]'' promo animation featuring Kopaka Nuva. As he somersaults, he lets go of his sword, hand still attached, which then sinks into the mountain snow with its tip. Re-attaching his arm to it with a loud click, it causes the whole mountainside to collapse, taking the three Bohrok standing on it with it.

 

== Video Games ==

* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series is fond of this:

** In the opening cutscene of ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', Squall's gunblade comes spinning out of the air and lands point down in the ground.

* The intro to ''[[Soul Calibur]]''.

* Done in the DS title ''[[Children of Mana]]'''s opening sequence.

* Inverted in ''[[Icewind Dale]]'': the heroes can find a throwing axe that was badly botched by the craftsman and then enchanted. Though the spell turned it into a [[Precision-Guided Boomerang]], it remained badly unbalanced. As the result, it deals bludgeoning damage, as it always hits the target hilt-first.

* ''[[Devil May Cry]]'' has this happening '''''so''''' very much... Granted, the swords are alive.

* Whenever Travis Touchdown suplexes someone in ''[[No More Heroes]]'', he throws his sword in the air. It then lands point-first in their chests.

* In ''[[Modern Warfare|Modern Warfare 2]]'', the throwing knife is like this, no matter what it hits. It's also an instant kill.

* Whenever a weapon flies out of someone's hand in ''[[Samurai Shodown]]'' games, it ends up this way. Exceptions are rare and generally weapons where they're physically incapable of sticking out of the ground upright. Sometimes.

* The "Knife" sub-weapon in the ''[[Castlevania]]'' games is one of the "thrown as a dart" types, though the "axe" weapon never deals less dzamage from hitting on the handle or top.

 

== Web Animation ==

 

== Web Comics ==

 

== Western Animation ==

* Happens with the [[Hammerspace|sleevespace]] blades that Six uses in ''[[Generator Rex]]''.

* Happens frequently to Ulrich's Katana in ''[[Code Lyoko]]'', whether he throws it or drops it.

 

== Real Life ==

 

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