The Oathbreaker: Difference between revisions
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[[File:asoiaf-kingslayer-smaller 8631.jpg|link=A Song of Ice and Fire|frame|[[A Song of Ice and Fire|Jaime Lannister:]] [[Bodyguard Betrayal|There’s a reason he’s called Kingslayer.]]]]
{{quote|''"I'm the bloody Kingslayer, remember? When I say you have honour, that's like a whore vouchsafing your maidenhood."''
|'''Jaime Lannister''', ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''}}
In fiction, oaths are powerful things. They bind demons. They bind honour. They create pacts that grant great power. They are things to be respect, feared, and fulfilled.
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* In ''[[The Sandman|Sandman]]'' by Neil Gaiman: "As this blood is shed, so spills your blood, Ruthven Sykes, adept of the 33rd, whose secret name is Ararita... Traitor and Oath-Breaker." Cue skull implosion.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Jaime Lannister from ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''; the broken oath and consequences thereof define large chunks of his character, as well as earning him the nickname "The [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Kingslayer]]". He killed Aerys II Targaryen after swearing to protect him, and even though Aerys had a nickname of his own ("The [[The Caligula|Mad]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|King]]") he is treated like the lowest of the low by most of the nobility, even in a [[Crapsack World]] where people like [[Complete Monster|Gregor Clegane]], [[Torture Technician|Qyburn]], [[Ax Crazy|Joffrey Baratheon]], and [[Psycho for Hire|the Bolton family]] exist.
** Those that leave the Night's Watch are condemned to death for breaking their vows and deserting The Wall. Ned Stark tells his son that there's nothing more dangerous than an oath breaker whose life is now forfeit. They will do anything to survive.
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* In typical fashion, the ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'' has an example of this, but it's not that simple. Ekaterin's husband {{spoiler|was killed in a accident}} immediately after she told him she was leaving him. Because she never went through with the divorce her honor remains intact in everyone else's eyes; but ''she'' knows she's an oathbreaker, and suffers the shame of it.
** Miles himself qualifies, for the events in the first part of ''Memory''. He also provides a more balanced perspective: sooner or later, "death before dishonor" means everybody is either dead or forsworn.
* The Dead from ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Isildur cursed them when they swore to help him fight and then refused; three thousand years later, they break the curse by helping Aragorn—the Heir of Isildur—instead.
* The novel ''Oathbreakers'', from the ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series, is about the heroic duo, Tarma and Kethry, avenging the murder of the leader of their mercenary company at the hands of her brother, the king of Rethwellan. When they find out what he did, they invoke the Oathbreaker's Curse on him and enact some spectacularly karmic revenge.
* In ''[[The Dresden Files]],'' Harry has a ''literal'' [[Fairy Godmother]]. But... [[Oh Crap|this is The Dresden Files]]. It's not what you think. {{spoiler|He made a deal with her a long time ago that says that she can now do with him as she pleases - and it turns out that that is to transform him into one of her hunting dogs.}} He's had to dodge her attempts to collect on his debt. However, it turns out that {{spoiler|she really ''does'' want to him safe since she made a deal with his mother, and part of her reason for wanting to transform him is to keep him safe at her side.}}
* Nick Seafort from the ''[[Seafort Saga]]'' broke an oath to save his ship from a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]. Although other people see nothing wrong in his actions, he considers himself damned to hell for it.
* In the ''Discworld'' novel ''[[
* The man who's name is not Jack Bannister apparently got quite rich by being one of these, according to Fisk in the ''[[Knight and Rogue Series]]''.
* In the ''[[Chronicles of Prydain]]'', breaking oaths is one of [[Big Bad|Arawn]]'s most infamous habits. If this guy makes a deal, he WILL break it. [[Chaotic Evil|No matter how little it might cost him to keep it]]. [[Stupid Evil|Or how much more dangerous NOT keeping it could be]]. And SOMEHOW, there are always more idiots willing to make [[Deal with the Devil|deals]] with him.
== [[Oral Tradition|Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends]] ==
* As [[The Other Wiki]] says, the most commonly accepted etymology derives the word "warlock" from the Old English ''waerloga'' meaning "oathbreaker" (from ''waer'' "promise, agreement" and ''loga'' "deceiver").▼
* Ironically, Oathbreaker is one of the names of Odin,{{verify}} head of the [[Norse Mythology|Norse gods]]. Given that intangible things like vows are supposed to be impossible for gods and the like to break{{verify}} (the god wolf Fenrir was bound by a ribbon made from such ingredients as the root of a mountain and the beard of a woman), the fact that Odin can do that is rather frightening, especially when he can extract vows from everything else in the world and expect them to be kept{{verify}} (like when he{{verify}} made all the things in the world, save one, give an oath to never hurt his son Balder).▼
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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* ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'' featured Oaths quite heavily. Characters who made oaths gained sizable bonuses, but those who broke their oaths lost far more. An oathbreaker was also heavily ostracized, and an entire noble house of [[The Fair Folk]] were treated as pariahs because they had broken a forgotten oath in ages past.
** ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' also puts heavy weight on oaths, but for different reasons. Breaking an oath earns you a measure of disrespect in changeling society, likely has tertiary consequences if you swore it on something important (e.g., your faith or your fortune), is a sin against [[Sanity Meter|Clarity]]... oh, yeah, and [[The Fair Folk|your Keeper]] is perfectly aware that you did it, and may likely be hobbled by the conditions of the broken pledge.
▲* As [[The Other Wiki]] says, the most commonly accepted etymology derives the word "warlock" from the Old English ''waerloga'' meaning "oathbreaker" (from ''waer'' "promise, agreement" and ''loga'' "deceiver").
▲* Ironically, Oathbreaker is one of the names of Odin, head of the [[Norse Mythology|Norse gods]]. Given that intangible things like vows are supposed to be impossible for gods and the like to break{{verify}} (the god wolf Fenrir was bound by a ribbon made from such ingredients as the root of a mountain and the beard of a woman), the fact that Odin can do that is rather frightening, especially when he can extract vows from everything else in the world and expect them to be kept{{verify}} (like when he{{verify}} made all the things in the world, save one, give an oath to never hurt his son Balder).
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Cassiopeia of ''[[League of Legends]]'' was once a beautiful human woman who served as a spy for Noxus by seducing foreign diplomats. However, upon breaking an oath of secrecy to a certain Freljord noble, she was cursed and transformed into her current snake-like form.
* Ganondorf from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time]]'' is said to have sworn an oath of fealty to the king of Hyrule before the events of the game, but the young Princess Zelda isn't fooled and knows that he plans to betray the kingdom and seize the Triforce for himself. That ends up being exactly what happens, and over the course of seven long years, he transforms the prosperous kingdom into a monster-infested hellhole, and is implied to have murdered the king he pretended to be loyal too.
** His incarnation in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom|Tears of the Kingdom]]'' is an oath-breaker as well due to the game's backstory serving as a [[Whole Plot Reference]] to ''Ocarina of Time''. While some details differ {{spoiler|he murders the queen this time, and is after her sacred stone as opposed to the Triforce}} the overall story beats and motivations for oath-breaking are basically the same.
* ''[[Octopath Traveler]]'' has a pair of these as major antagonists in two different storylines.
** The overarching villain of Olberic's story in ''[[Octopath Traveler]]'' is Erhardt, a once-loyal Knight of Hornburg who betrayed and killed his liege lord during battle. While Olberic is deeply hurt to have been betrayed by his sworn brother, he's even angrier that Erhardt broke his oath and murdered the man he swore to protect. Things get complicated, however, when it turns out that {{spoiler|Erhardt had sympathetic reasons for betraying the king... namely, that the king allowed his homeland to fall into ruin [[Misplaced Retribution|(or at least, he genuinely thought he did)]] when invaders set out to attack it.}}
** Albus (from Primrose's route) is just as vile as his fellow "Crow Men", but instead of being a sex slaver like Rufus or a sociopathic ruiner of lives like {{spoiler|Simeon}}, he broke his oath as a member of Noblecourt's city watch and helped murder his friend Geoffrey Azelhart purely out of greed and misplaced cynicism.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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