Wrecked Weapon

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Man, Leo's going to get piss-- what? You kicked his ass? Never mind.
"YOU! -- BROKE! -- MY! -- SWORD!!"
—Roy Greenhilt, The Order of the Stick

While the heroes get kicked around a lot, after a certain point we don't worry so much. But if you want to really show off how badass a new antagonist might be, not only should they beat the hero in a fight quickly, but they should hurt their pride. The easiest way to do that is smash up their signature weapon/accessory.

Although this is sometimes a cheap and inexplicable device to show off a new transformation, more often the hero is figuratively neutered, and has to deal with the emotional aftermath. Even if he has a buddy who can fix it up, that won't be as important as him coming to grips with either his reasons for fighting or just learning not to be such a clod about it. If this is a video game, it's by far the easiest way to really piss off the player along with their virtual avatar.

Naturally, this is much more emotional for the character if they also have a Empathic Weapon and even worse if it's a Equippable Ally or other Living Weapon.

May lead to Reforged Blade, Give Me a Sword or even It Was a Gift

In a mundane "real world" series without magic or swords, the easiest way for a villain to do this is to trash the hero's ride.

Contrast: Like Cannot Cut Like.

Examples of Wrecked Weapon include:

Anime and Manga

  • Nova destroying Hikaru's sword in Magic Knight Rayearth 2.
  • Mazinger Z: Mazinger-Z Rocket Punch is its most popular and most iconic weapon (Mazinger Z is both Trope Maker AND Trope Namer, and it turned Rocket Punch into all Super Robots signature weapon). Whenever Mazinger-Z fists were destroyed or shattered in one fight you knew Kouji was going to be in trouble. Maybe the first time happened when Kouji was fighting Spartan K5 and the Mechanical Beast easily ran its trident through its fist before beating the crap out of Mazinger-Z. A very memorable also happened in the Mazinger-Z versus Great General of Darkness, when General Juuma caught his flying fist before eating it.
  • Multiple instances in Bleach. The fact that the swords can heal themselves makes this trope much more repeatable in the series, since no story time needs to be spent in getting the swords repaired.
    • In fact, one of the training montages in Bleach involved, among other things, learning to not break stride when (not if) an opponent shatters your weapon.
    • Played straight at the begining of the first major arc, when Rukia's brother and best friend turn up to take her back. The former ends up destroying Ichigo's sword and his Shinigami powers, meaning he loses his sword permanently and has to get himself a new one.
    • Actually, he loses his powers because Byakuya pierced him into his "spiritual organs" (organs that produce spiritual energy), making him unable to create Reishi anymore.
  • In Inuyasha, the sword Tessaiga suppresses the main character's demon blood, so breaking it leaves nothing to prevent him from going into a mindless, feral rage whenever his life is threatened. He eventually gets the sword reforged. Then it suddenly becomes insanely heavy and he can hardly use it. Once he masters using it again, he has a new attack, the Backlash Wave.
  • Arguably averted when Louie's magic wand breaks in Rune Soldier Louie; the titular character is happier smacking enemies with a sword, or just punching them. His adventuring party forces him to fix the wand anyway.
  • Nanoha's and Fate's wands cracking each other in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. In the second season (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's), both Nanoha and Fate have their weapons heavily damaged in separate duels against the new antagonists.
    • Taken to a new level in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS when Subaru does this to herself right after her Robotic Reveal by pushing her device past the breaking point after her Berserk Button is pressed.
    • Also in StrikerS, Vita breaks Graf Eisen trying to break through the shielding on the Saint Cradle's engine. However, Eisen's tip lodges in the engine after her last attack, eventually shattering the engine.
      • Before this, Vita breaks Graf Eisen fighting against Zest.
    • And more recently in the FORCE manga Signum does this to Laevatein by trying to fight a new villain with heavy Anti-Magic powers and a body tough enough to provoke the mighty Belkan sword to crack like a cookie, obviously, things do not end well for our beloved Lady of War.
  • A Chevalier showed off just how powerful he was by destroying Saya's signature sword in Blood+, just by yelling.
  • An interesting case in Bubblegum Crisis. Priss's motoslave armor is destroyed by Largo's Hyperboomers, one of them crushing its head underfoot, and her hardsuit absolutely trashed to the point that it literally falls apart around her. Under the original script, this would have been followed by Priss being killed due to the voice actor's contractual complications. However, Priss was saved by an 11th hour fan-led campaign to save the character. In an ironic turnabout, when her new armor and motoslave conveniently show up in time to save her, the first thing the new motoslave does is crush the head of the Hyperboomer that destroyed its predecessor.
  • Overused in Digimon Savers. Even before Burst Mode is introduced, the Geo-Grey Sword gets trashed by nearly everyone Shine Greymon tries to hit with it, making it possibly the most useless auxiliary weapon in history.
  • Battle B-daman used it to the point of frustration to replace heroes' old marble shooting chibi robots with new ones built around a new system.
    • By contrast, one of the villains earlier gets a Kick the Dog moment by destroying his own B-Daman just to show that he has a new one.
  • Fairly significant in the Violinist of Hameln, where the titular violinist appears helpless when said magical violin is destroyed; right up until the point where he crushes the foe's head with one hand in a demonic rage.
    • Of course, the manga takes the concept and runs with it, giving the other characters their chance to shine as they daydream about taking over the entire series. After all, if Hamel's violin is destroyed, what's the point of the manga being called Violinist of Hameln? Better make way for The Adventures of Flute or Tron Bone Z...
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin and Sojiro break each other's swords in a duel. However while Kenshin is effectively disabled while seeking a new and stronger sword, and dealing with the mental stress of fighting without killing; Sojiro merely has to ask Shishio for a new sword, in addition to the fact that Sojiro has no qualms about killing.
  • Tyki Mikk of D.Gray-man demonstrates how powerful he is by destroying protagonist Allen Walker's Innocence single-handedly, after we've seen that barely anything can even scratch it. This is particularly nasty because Allen's Innocence happens to be his left arm, and it's also been made very clear that (1) Allen can't be an Exorcist without an Innocence, and (2) forcing anyone to synchronize with Innocence that's not destined to be theirs is at best fatal. Of course, he gets better, and his Innocence is stronger for it.
    • The Millennium Earl's goal in early volumes is to destroy all the Innocence. It's still a secondary priority, as there were only 109 Innocences at first, they can't be replaced (although they can sometimes be repaired), and they're the only things that can hurt his Akuma.
    • Also, Kanda's and Lavi's weapons break in the Ark arc which prevents them from fighting in the lvl4 arc. Or that's what you thought.
  • Buggy the Clown puts three knives through Luffy's precious hat early on in One Piece, which leads Luffy to an angry new attack. After the battle, Nami fixes the hat.
    • Additionally, Zoro has broken at least two of his swords on diferent occassions. The first time he just bought a new one, the second time he defeated a master swordsman and took his.
    • In the Manga three, in the Anime at least four. Manga would be his two unnamed swords he had when he met Luffy, later Yubashili would be destroyed in a small panel in a big fight against the Marine. The Anime got these examples, but also includes a flashback when Zoro met those two pals of him (see Baratie part of the story). Flashback goes that Zoro returns to a swordsmith and says "Sorry, I've broken them again..." or somesuch, gets into a fight and those two hand him their swords and he strikes down the troublemaker and is astounded that the swords DIDN'T break. Oh, and he didn't buy Yubashili or the Kitetsu, they were a gift from the weapon merchant when Zoro demonstrated that his luck is stronger than the Kitetsus curse.
  • In Fate/stay night, Servants can use this as an ultra-powerful attack by overloading their Noble Phantasm with mana so that they shatter on impact (called a Broken Phantasm), doing devastating damage. Archer, the Servant who does this in-game uses it without any setback at all, since he is a 'Faker' who duplicates any Noble Phantasms rather than 'owning' one, meaning that he can endlessly re-make Phantasms and break them as long as he has the mana for it.
  • In Samurai Deeper Kyo, Sasuke's knockoff sword gets a crack in it when he meets the wielder of the real version. When he takes it to its maker to get repaired, he gets a new one.
  • Inverted in Mai-Otome, with one of the good guys doing this to a villain's weapon: Miyu splits Tomoe's Valkyrie spear in half with a single swipe, just as the latter is about to kill Arika by using a Desperation Attack Pattern Delta.
  • Happens a lot in Code Geass.
    • Kallen's Radiant Wave Surger on her Guren is broken three times over the two seasons, once at the end of the first, once about a quarter into the second, and finally in the last episode. The first time, Suzaku is nearly beaten, but manages to get free and blast the arm off. The second time, the trope is played straight, showing off the power of Suzaku's new mech against Kallen. She got a replacement literally within two minutes, then gave back nearly as good as she got. Finally, the arm is lost in her final battle with Suzaku, but at that point it was meaningless.
    • Kallen then does it to Suzaku in R2 episode 18, breaking every single one of his mech's weapons, and even cutting off the mech's leg when Suzaku tries a last-ditch Hurricane Kick.
    • Bismarck has this happen to him during his mech rematch with Suzaku. He's strongest Knight in the world wielding a BFS larger than the mech he's riding on. The BFS is even named Excalibur. Cue Suzaku delivering a very clean cut of the sword from the tip to the hilt with an equally clean Diagonal Cut of the mech.
      • Then said broken weapon is reforged into two new swords, and Suzaku broke those, too.
  • Happens dramatically to Andromeda Shun in Saint Seiya. When Pisces Aphrodite destroys the Andromeda Chain, Shun is left with no other choice than to unleash the Nebula Storm. This is a serious moment given its due gravitas, as the Chain was Shun's Weapon of Choice and even a companion at times. The strange thing is that the Chain had been broken dozens upon dozens of times before, and it had merely regenerated from its fragments every time...
    • The same thing happens with the Bronze Cloths, which are wrecked if not outright disintegrated at least once per arc, causing so much annoyance and / or despair for the protagonists. They get better. (And, unlike the broken Gold Cloths, the Bronzes get much, much better in the Grand Finale.)
  • In Vinland Saga, Thors' sword promptly snaps on Askeladd's armour halfway through their duel. It at first looks like an Oh Crap moment, until Thors proceeds to win the duel anyway.
  • In the early chapters of Rave Master, a member of Demon Card hunting Shiba and the Rave stones fights against Haru and snaps his sword, "Ten Powers" (in some translations, "Ten Commandments"), the sword with ten forms, clean off at the hilt, prompting Haru to seek out a master blacksmith to reforge it better than ever. Later in the story, Haru fights Let of the Palace Guardians, and Let breaks the sword in half with a punch. Rather than be distraught over this development, Haru grabs one part in each hand and unveils the weapon's fifth form, "Blue Crimson", which actually is two swords. When he shifts the sword back to its default form, it is undamaged.
  • Happened once in Ronin Warriors. After gaining the Inferno Armor transformation, Ryo broke his swords of Wildfire through the power of the armor. After reforging them, he had to quest into a volcano to find the swords that went with the armor.
  • The classic example from Berserk is Guts breaking Griffith's sword with one blow after deciding to leave the Hawks, which starts Griffith on the downward spiral that would ultimately lead to the Eclipse.
  • Ed's prosthetic arm in Fullmetal Alchemist. Besides the fact that he tends to actually transform it into a weapon with alchemy all the time, he needs to clap his hands together to use alchemy in the first place (on a whim, anyway), making him completely helpless if it breaks or is severed (granted, you could say the same for his other, real arm, too...).
  • In Dragonball Z, Trunk's sword broke on contact with Android 18's arm.
    • Technically it only chipped slightly, but after this he decides not to use it in combat anymore because it clearly won't do the job, and he stops carrying it with him.
    • This also happened later on with the Z sword, but that turned out to be Sealed Good in a Can.
  • In Toriko, Komatsu's beloved knife is broken when he accidentally tries to cut through a Don Acorn. But by the end of the next arc he has a new one that can create gashes in mountains from SWINGING IT.
  • In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, the Demon Beast Kirisakin breaks Sword Kirby's sword, leaving him with no choice but to use Galaxia in order to defeat him.
    • Similarly, Sword Knight and Blade Knight's swords get broken upon contact with Masher 2.0's nearly-impenetrable exterior.

Comic Books

  • Subverted in the Champions comic book when Flare teams up with the Galloping Galooper, a non-powered hero who "fights with his great-grandfather's cavalry sword". His blade is broken in the fight, but when Flare consoles him over the loss of the heirloom he explains that his great-grandfather made swords, and he has dozens more at home.
    • The "figuratively neutered" part of the trope comes in from a different angle, when she clobbers him in response to his ham-handed attempt to talk her into another sort of "consolation".
  • The Punisher has traditionally had a nasty habit of breaking all of his coolest toys. Much like the T-car, the Battle Van is wrecked in almost all of its appearances.
  • In one storyline in the City of Heroes comic, Statesman suspends Manticore from the Freedom Phalanx and then breaks his bow for no reason other than to be a dick. The subversion is that while Manticore looks crushed, he goes home and gets another bow from an entire wall of them.
  • Happened to The Mighty Thor's hammer many times. What's interesting, mostly Mjolnir was broken because of magic, but last time it happened[when?] it was because Thor punched something too hard and powerful even for this weapon -- his grandfather
    • Thor's foe the Crusader is powered by faith. If his faith wavers, then his powers falter. Frequently this results in his sword being shattered, usually just before his defeat. He always reforges his sword when he regains his faith.

Fan Works

  • This appears to be Saionji's fate in Undocumented Features. First, when Kaitlyn Hutchins attacks him with the Hyakken no Arashi, his blade breaks. Then after becoming her apprentice, he fights Lafarga, performs the Hyakken no Arashi himself, and his blade breaks after he's done. A while after that, he fights Sith Lord Psi Cop Roger Tremayne, and gets his sword cut in half by his lightsaber. Is it any wonder after this record that he claimed Tremayne's lightsaber for himself?

Films -- Live Action

  • Excalibur is broken in the film of the same title when Arthur uses it for an unjust purpose — namely, killing Lancelot to satisfy his ego. When he realises the depth of his error, the knight is revived and his sword returned to him in one piece by the Lady of the Lake. This sequence was added so that Arthur could receive Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake as well as pull it from the stone earlier in the film.
  • Star Wars
  • In The Scorpion King, Balthazar and Mathayus' first sword clash shatters both their weapons. They just resort to fisticuffs.

Literature

  • The "Oh shit!" factor is quite high in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Harry's wand, the special powers of which had saved him twice over in battles against Voldemort, is blown in half and (almost) irreparably damaged during a fight.
    • Earlier, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick was shredded by an extremely vicious tree.
  • The Lost Hero: Jason's Imperial Gold javelin explodes during his fight with Enceladus while trying to save Piper's dad.
  • Subverted in Malleus, the second book of the Warhammer 40,000: Eisenhorn trilogy. Hero Gregor Eisenhorn's sword Barbarister shatters during his duel with Big Bad Quixos. Rather than being played for emasculation imagery, this actually allows him to win, as the sword shatters while Quixos was blocking a thrust, allowing the half remaining in Eisenhorn's hand to impale Quixos through the heart—had the blade not shattered, the blow would have been deflected and the duel continued.
    • Played straight earlier in the novel, when Eisenhorn loses his two previous weapons of choice during an encounter with recurring nemesis Cherubael. His power-sword explodes when he attempts to impale the aforementioned daemon with it, and he loses his bolt-pistol during a fall from a hover-bike shortly afterwards.
  • JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Possibly subverted when Narsil cut the Ring from Sauron's hand after he fell on it and broke it in two. Three thousand years later, it was reforged into the even-more-badass Anduril, the Flame of the West.
    • A bit more straight playing is when Gandalf meets Saruman after Orthanc is ruined. "Saruman, your staff is broken." Boom.
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Necropolis, Gaunt's sword is ruined by chemicals in a thing he fights with it. Even as he fights, he laments this; his mentor had given it to him, he carried it for years, in many battles, and its destruction was like losing history.
  • In The Amber Spyglass Will's subtle knife breaks because he thinks of his mother while he's using it, while at the same time it's assumed to be somehow Mrs. Coulter's fault (she certainly takes credit for breaking it) because he was distracted by her hotness even as she reminded him of his mother. The whole scene has slightly creepy Oedipal overtones.
  • A variation occurs in A Song of Ice and Fire. Eddard Stark's signature greatsword Ice isn't broken in combat—you can't break Valyrian Steel—but the Lannisters use it to behead its owner, then melt it down and use the metal to make two new weapons.
  • In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim, when Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus fight, Ferrus Manus breaks the sword he had given Fulgrim. This is when Fulgrim realizes that the break is irrevocable; he takes the warhammer he had given Ferrus Manus, leaves, and orders his Legion to open fire on the Iron Fists.
  • Annihilation (the 5th book of War of the Spider Queen) has a scene with Ryld Argith's magical greatsword Splitter cut in half by Jeggred wielding a random human logger's axe, although where the axe ended up after that was a lot more disappointing. Which annoys some fans, in part because in D&D, armor and weapon bonuses from enchantment count directly toward resilience back from first AD&D when the notion of item damage was introduced, and this thing not only presumably was chosen by its last wielder over other strongly enchanted weapons, but obviously stood to some enchanted adamantine by that time.
  • In C.S. Goto's Blood Ravens trilogy, Rhamah's Vairocanum. Made from part of a Wrecked Weapon that had been Forged by the Gods, and then broken again in the course of the trilogy. Blood Ravens perform funeral rites with the part that was all they had left of him. Later reformed.
  • In the Redwall novel Mossflower, the sword of Martin the Warrior, used by the protagonists of most of the books, is broken early on. Since this is a prequel, however, the sword is reforged using Thunderbolt Iron into the iconic weapon.
  • In Brisingr, the falchion that Eragon uses after Murtagh takes Zar'roc, and before he forges Brisingr breaks after he accidentally swings it into a rock wall in the middle of a fight.
  • At the end of The Dark Tower, Susannah, having crossed over into another dimesion to live out a normal life, discovers that one of Roland's revolvers has become completely unusable as a result. Roland abandons the other pistol in order to gain entry to the titular tower.
  • The Eastern Emperor in the Heralds of Valdemar series sits on a throne made from the personal weapons of every monarch the Empire has conquered.
  • In Robert E. Howard's "The Phoenix on the Sword", Conan the Barbarian's sword is broken. He uses it anyway.
  • The Broken Sword from the Father Brown story of the same name turns out to have a sordid tale behind it.
  • From the 13th century Volsunga Saga: In battle with King Lyngvi, the old hero Sigmund's sword breaks on Odin's spear, causing his death.
  • Defied in Rudyard Kipling's poem The Quest, as the knight is quite cheerful despite his injuries and the breaking of his sword, because he knows he put up a good fight and damaged the enemy:

Ye see my broken sword--
But never the blades she broke;
...
Surely he fights again, again;
But when ye prove his line,
There shall come to your aid my broken blade
In the last, lost fight of mine!

Live-Action TV

  • On Heroes, Hiro confronts Sylar and tells him that he must kill him. Sylar responds by daring Hiro to do it, then, when Hiro can't bring himself to do it, he cracks Hiro's sword in half using cold-based powers.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's final season, the Dominion got a major power-up when the Breen joined their forces -- a point driven home when they destroyed the Defiant, which had been the good guys' own power-up a few seasons earlier. Sisko was particularly attached to it, having had a hand in its construction.
  • Highlander the Series: Immortals occasionally have their swords broken during a fight. Normally this happens when they're losing badly, and they get killed immediately afterwards. In one episode, it happened to Richie when running away, and he later had to figure out how to get a replacement.
    • This was used to show Katanas Are Always Better in the flashback episode where Duncan get's his katana. Having just washed up on shore in old Japan, Duncan draws his european blade on a older samurai who simply breaks Duncan's sword off just short of the hilt. The dumbfounded look Duncan gives the now 2 inch long blade is hilarious.
  • The Doctor in Doctor Who has had his sonic screwdriver (not a weapon, but still an Iconic Item) trashed several times.
    • The Fifth Doctor's sonic screwdriver was destroyed by a Terileptil in "The Visitation", the Doctor doesn't get another till his Seventh incarnation (and his doesn't show up till his final appearance, in the TV Movie).

The Fifth Doctor: I feel as though you've just killed an old friend.

    • The Tenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver is destroyed in "Smith and Jones" when he uses on an X-Ray machine which fries it. The Doctor is distraught... for a few seconds, he then tosses it aside and by the end of the episode he's built himself a new (identical, so not a merchandising move) one.

Martha: But it was that woman, Miss Finnigan. It was working for her, just like a servant.
The Doctor: (dejected) My sonic screwdriver...
Martha: She was one of the patients, but...
The Doctor: ... no, no, my sonic screwdriver!
Martha: She had this straw, like some sort of vampire!
The Doctor: I love my sonic screwdriver!
Martha: (chastising tone) Doctor!
(he throws the sonic screwdriver over his shoulder)
The Doctor: Sorry.

    • It gets fried for a third time in the Eleventh Doctor's first episode, when he tries to signal the Atraxi ship. He is not pleased. The TARDIS makes him a new one.
    • And then again in the subsequent Christmas Special, where it gets eaten by a flying shark.
  • Played for laughs in the pilot of Kamen Rider Ryuki. Shinji goes into battle before gaining a contract monster, and the flimsy-looking sword he gets as a default weapon breaks from an Offhand Backhand (technically a swipe from a Giant Spider's foreleg).
  • At the end of the first major arc of Mahou Sentai Magiranger, Kai breaks Wolzard's sword in a one-on-one fight before he and the rest of the team defeat Branken, the Disc One Final Boss. Wolzard takes the fallen Disc One Final Boss Branken's sword and spends a few episodes re-forging it into a suitable replacement (which is perfectly identical to the first, so it's not for merchandising purposes.)
    • In Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, the sword that is actually made from the souls of his family gets damaged, so Juzo has to make do with one of the swords used by the Mooks for several episodes.
  • In Power Rangers Wild Force, Cole has his Cool Bike ruined protecting a child who turns out to be the human form of Animus, Lord of the Wild Zords. After the heroes learn that and pass a Secret Test of Character, Cole is rewarded with a new bike based on a different Wild Zord. It flies. It is definitely merchandising-based, but nobody much cares.

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons had the notion of weapon breaking from AD&D1 and on, though it became somewhat regular accident only from AD&D2 The Complete Fighter's Handbook. Unless you count rust monsters and area attack spells.
    • Taken into account in the swordmage class 4th edition. A bound sword can be reformed from a single fragment with an hour of meditation.

Toys

  • In Bionicle, after Lewa tries to intimidate the Piraka Reidak with a tale of how the Toa had defeated the dreaded Rahkshi; Rediak grabs one of Lewa's Air Katana and snaps it over his knee. "Rahkshi? I pick my teeth with Rahkshi." The defeated Toa were then stripped of their weapons and imprisoned, further humiliated by being made slaves. After being rescued, a villager offered to make a new Air Katana.

Video Games

  • While not exactly wrecked, the second part of the final boss battle in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time starts with the Big Bad knocking your signature weapon past a Wall Of Flame.
    • While we're on the subject, name one person who doesn't hate Like Likes with a passion.
    • Theres also the Giant's Knife, that can only take so much blunt trauma until it breaks, leaving you with a handle and some broken metal jutting out. Still works as a weapon, but does minimal damage.
      • "So much blunt trauma" meaning 8 swings. Tops. And that's only if you've bought at least SIX of them already.
  • When the Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater doesn't want to kill someone, she just beats the crap out of them. But first she simply takes away her oponents gun and breaks it up into its parts with her bare hands, and then hand back the pieces.
  • Alicia's sword breaks dramatically in half in Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, at the climactic moment when Rufus is apparently killed, Lezard reveals himself as a villain, and kidnaps Odin. Oddly, the sword is mysteriously in one piece again in time for the next battle.
  • When Gordon Freeman's crowbar gets destroyed in Half Life 2, you know it's time to get vengeance on Breen. Luckily enough, the process that destroys your trusty hardware also gives you the perfect weapon for the job.
    • Though considering how the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator has apparently become Gordon's new Weapon of Choice, this could also possibly be considered a very rare inanimate version of Take Up My Sword.
  • In the GBA game Summon Night: Swordcraft Story and its sequel you can win boss battles either by reducing the boss' health to 0 or by destroying their weapon (this is done by blocking the boss' attacks, reducing both yours and his weapon durability). The cool thing is: when you destroy a boss weapon, you gain the ability to craft it. Those weapons are much stronger than any other weapon the hero has at that moment.
    • Also, all the boss fights in the first game (besides the final boss, since it does not have that secondary win condition), can be made much easier by equipping your forging hammer, which is unbreakable, and simply blocking through the whole fight.
  • In Chrono Trigger, the breaking and reforging of the Masamune is a major plot point.
  • In Samurai Shodown II, every character had both a weapon, and a manoeuvre to break the opponent's weapon. This typically left them without some, most, or all of their special moves (Cham Cham would obviously not be able to throw her boomerang, but still had her other moves; Wan-Fu's specials all involved his weapon swinging somehow).
    • Galford can use every move without his weapon, including his super moves (because his dog is doing most of the work in the majority of his moveset.)
  • In Dead Rising, although all weapons eventually break with use, there are two weapons that are specifically designed to increase their "mileage" by falling apart and changing forms: The mailbox and the push broom. Once they have reached their "damage limit" they will be stripped to their handles and be usable as spears. They are otherwise unremarkable weapons. Along the same lines there is also the mannequin, which falls apart after one hit but its individual limbs especially the torso last longer than most other weapons and deal better damage than the broom and mailbox.
  • A meta example in Muramasa: The Demon Blade; it becomes annoying whenever an enemy wears out your sword, and it also forces you to switch weapons, which generally results in a screen filling slash which could be construed as the characters really pissed off about losing their sword... until it heals.
  • Also in Lufia and the Fortress of Doom, when the Sinistrals destroy the Dual Blade.
  • In Fire Emblem: Geneology of the Holy War, all weapons break after fifty uses, and then need to be repaired. In a case more relevant to the trope, the holy sword Tyrfing ends up broken (presumed to be due to Lord Byron having charged across a desert, while being persued by an army) and Sigurd's father has to crawl across the battlefield to give it to him. And Sigurd then gets it... and it costs 50000G (aka the maximum amount of gold you can carry) to repair it. But it's the Infinity+1 Sword, so it's worth it.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a few different abilities spread out through the job classes that can steal, or outright destroy, enemy weapons and armor. This can be a double whammy, as not only is the unit disarmed, but if the unit is still learning a new ability, then destroying the weapon means they stop learning. This can be especially aggravating if the weapon is a relatively rare item that you only have one of that can't be purchased in shops.
    • The original Final Fantasy Tactics has a few classes whose abilities revolve around breaking your weapons or other equipment. This drastically decreases your stats, is expensive or even impossible to replace, and can be quite problematic if in a series of battles. Samurai accept the possibility that their katanas may break if they use their special skills.
  • In God of War 2, Kratos snaps Perseus' sword, but Perseus keeps attacking with his shield and sling.
    • In 3, Kratos' Blades Of Athena are eroded by the River Styx, so he replaces them with the Blades Of Exile. In the final battle, Zeus destroys all of Kratos' weapons.
    • And after he's done kicking Zeus's ass the chains that were seared to his arms - bonding his various chain blades to his body and making him a weapon - simply drop off his arms, symbolizing the end of his violent ways.
  • In Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, Sanger Zonvolt's trusty Zankantou is shattered on the mech of Shura Big Guy Magnus. Magnus expected this to win the fight for him, until Sanger revealed that the DyGenGuar's original weapons (which were non functional when it was first activated, hence the Zankantou), had been repaired. Magnus promptly eats a General Blaster to the face.
  • Zaeed of Mass Effect 2 has a broken rifle named Jessie that was the most reliable weapon he'd ever used until it finally jammed and would not fire anymore. Zaeed laments that he'd give anything for "one last mission with that shitty old rifle."
    • If he's still alive at the end of Mass Effect 3 you can learn that he's custom ordered all the part required to repair his rifle. Taking Jessie along for the last battle.
    • Shepard pulls a heroic variant on Kai Leng. If you take the Renegade interrupt after the final fight with him, Shepard will spin around and backhand his sword, then draw an omniblade and gut Leng like a fish.
  • Near the end of Eien no Aselia, Desire is broken in a confrontation. Yuuto is left unable to fight. Until he gets Wisdom, anyway.
  • In The Elder Scrolls games, weapons and armor take damage as they are used, and can become so damaged as to become unusable. While legendary weapons like Umbra and Goldbrand can take a lot of punishment, it still happens, and then they will have to be reforged. In a slight twist on that, in Morrowind's Twibunal expansion, the sword Trueflame has a lot less durability than other magical weapons despite being a heavily enchanted Dwarven weapon.
  • In Neverwinter Nights 2 much of the plot revolves around recovering shards of a silver sword used to fight the king of shadows. Said sword exploded and embedded a silver shard in the player character.The fragments must by reformed to fight the second coming of the king of shadows.
  • Any player of Mabinogi has had a weapon wear out in the middle of a dungeon at least once.
    • Also, you can get a worn-out weapon repaired, but the repair process has a chance of permanently damaging the weapon. Eventually the weapon will become unusable, usually after you've spent several times the weapon's retail value on upgrades for it.

Web Comics

  • In Order of the Stick, when Xykon destroys Roy's sword, a family heirloom, Roy goes into an Unstoppable Rage and dispatches the lich with his bare hands... at least temporarily.
    • The trope is subverted earlier in strip #17: after failing a spot check and becoming surrounded, Belkar accidentally breaks Elan's Rapier with a well-placed "Damnit!" (mentioned earlier: "I could sunder that thing by speaking too loudly!"). A broken sword has much less effect on Elan than it does on for Roy for several reasons: 1) Roy specializes in the use of his weapon, and Elan's is mostly for looking cool; 2) Elan wasn't very effective to begin with.
    • Much later, in #607, Crystal slices through Haley's bow, forcing her to resort to her other main weapon, her wits.
  • Happens to Benjamin Prester twice in A Miracle of Science. Once in a flashback, when he's a Mad Scientist with a plot to take over the moon, and honestly deserves to have it destroyed; the second time during the Challenge and Chase Scene stages of Dr. Haas' mad science infection.

Prester: You shot my gun!
Sumatera: Look, there's no need for us to be shooting at each other. I am certain there's a solution to this situation which doesn't involve any more gunfire...
Prester: WHY ARE YOU BARGAINING WITH THE MAN WHO SHOT MY GUN!!

Web Original

  • During the battle of Remonton in the Godslayer arc in The Gamers Alliance, an ice elemental shatters Ax's sword Dawn. The shattering of her magic weapon affects Ax emotionally and leads her to leave her allies for a while after the battle so that she can do some soul-searching and find a way to repair the sword.
  • Arguably, when Captain Hammer breaks his hand by holding an exploding gun in Dr. Horrible (his main weapons being his fists, though they aren't the hammer...)

Western Animation

  • In an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, assassin-for-hire Bane makes his presence in Gotham known by smashing the Batmobile with his bare hands. Another villain, Lockup, puts a boot (wheel clamp) on it.

Batman: He trashed my car, Alfred. Between a couple of guys, that's real personal.

  • In the Merchandise-Driven '80s cartoon M.A.S.K., the heroes' transforming vehicles were occasionally damaged or shot up, but never really destroyed. But in one memorable episode the Big Bad gets his hands on an experimental melting-ray and dissolves Hondo's truck, Firecracker, into a puddle of goo. He's naturally dejected at the loss, but at the end of the episode, he gets a brand new transforming '57 Chevy to replace it. By contrast, later seasons simply gave the characters a second vehicle with no real fanfare.
  • In Teen Titans, Cyborg's car is destroyed in what seems like all of its appearances.
  • In Thundercats, the Sword of Omens is first broken when it is accidentally used to attack a fellow Thundercat; repairing it is said to be nearly impossible, and indeed proves to be nearly so. It took bribing a villain to do reforge it and they still had to escape him with the sword afterward. Much later, the sword is broken again in the introduction of new villain Tug-Mug, whose life on a moon with high gravity has given him tremendous strength. This occurrence slightly twists the trope, as the sword is promptly repaired by nearly-as-new hero Ben-Gali, demonstrating his own impressive skills as a blacksmith, which means the heroes now have the means to make repairs regularly.
  • In Code Lyoko, this happens a few times to Ulrich's katana, but being a virtual weapon it is intact on his next virtualization. Most notable is in "The Pretender", where Frelions blast the sword with their lasers, higher and higher, until it disintegrates. Ulrich still manages to destroy them barehanded or with a shard of stone.
  • In the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, an extended sequence of basically everyone who serves the Shredder beating the holy hell out of Leonardo concludes with the Shredder snapping Leo's swords with his bare hands.
    • Similarly, this Troper also remembers Leo's swords getting broken again, this time by one of the Gom-Tai, in a later episode.
    • This Troper remembers Donatello's Bo Staff getting snapped in half on many occasions.
  • The poor Ecto-1 gets wrecked by a weather controlling ghost in an episode of Extreme Ghostbusters, prompting Mr. Fixit Roland to declare It's Personal, since he had spent all day cleaning and maintaining the thing.
  • Midway through Dinobot's final battle in Beast Wars, his sword and fan-bladed shield are shattered, the first hint that this won't end like any other battle so far. To add insult to injury, said weapons were formed out of his beast-mode's tail, which would make it impossible for him to transform.
  • Evangelyne from Wakfu gets it particularly hard in episode 19 when her bow (along with her forearm) is broken—not by an enemy but by her Love Interest Sadlygrove, possessed by the demon Rubilax. It is later described as the worst affront one could do to a Crâ... although ultimately Eva seems to be more worried about Sadlygrove's fate.
  • During ReBoot‍'‍s second season finale, Megabyte crushes Glitch right before stranding Bob in the Web. This makes Glitch useless during season 3 until Bob fuses with it.

Real Life

  • In the North African Campaign of World War II, that had a special connotation. Most of the time owning the battlefield at the end of the day is just bragging rights and sometimes not worth the price, but in the see-saw fighting in North Africa the side that owned the battlefield at the end of the day had salvage on all the wrecked tanks on both sides.
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