Why are we obsessed with swords in fantasy and real life? Here's what they miss
What makes swords so irresistible? It’s not just violence—swords are icons of power, discipline, and spiritual mastery. It's a primal, mythic allure that’s fascinated us forever. Swords are forever.
Why are we so obsessed with swords? Let’s talk about what makes swords so much more than just tools of violence, uncovering their powerful symbolism and spiritual resonance. From King Arthur’s Excalibur to the sacred sword guarding Eden, these legendary weapons represent discipline, mastery, and the ability to create and maintain order.
Unlike modern tools like guns, swords demand more from us—they call us to step into a role of balance, creativity, and authority. Swords connect the physical and metaphysical worlds, embodying a primal, almost mystical power that fascinates us on a deeper level.
Whether you see swords as brothers to wands or symbols of leadership, this is about more than just wielding a blade—it’s about becoming the sword itself, an icon of order and honor in a chaotic world.
Summary: Tale Foundry asks if swords have grown out of their violent past to become symbols of power, and self expression. From the fantastical swords of Zelda and anime to the romance of Excalibur and so on. Tale Foundry challenges our perceptions of these iconic weapons. He says the sword's appeal in fantasy lies not in its function as a weapon but as an expression of lore and a tool for power.
Notes/Ideas:
Swords are no longer practical, and yet we hunger for them. They may have been born from a need for violence, but it became more, or it originated as more
If a sword was meant for mere violence, we would glom onto the next thing, and some of us do. But those who have a passion for swords are in love with something primeval, something primal, so primal its in fact spiritual.
This video has a robot, which is a fun thing to follow. But the problem with a robot is that it is inherently a cluster of rules and programs. The idea of a robot is something lower than human, less than human, it is a machine. We run into problems talking about things like symbolism and music and creativity when we assume humans are machines. When we put down that myth, and look at the world through the myth of the ancient minds that made these things, it's very different.
To ancient minds, we are not machines, we are persons. we are gods, children of the gods, and we wear our bodies to meet and mediate divinity to each other. Gotta be careful of the dualism here, and assuming that we're just spirits driving a meat machine. That's not true, and doesn't match our experience anyway.
The mythology of genesis has a sword guarding the gates of Eden, and the Apocalypse recorded by St John images Christ speaking with a sword from his mouth.
Some will argue that we're coopting tools from human living to clothe these beyond-physical concepts. I think it goes the other way; the idea of a sword pre-existed a sword. we incarnate and embody an idea into matter with our hands. We're dealing with the language of spirits and forms, because we draw our being and our minds from that world.
1: DISCIPLINE & MASTERY
Wielding a sword involves more of the human form - it is more human, involves more effort, more awareness, more presence. requires more discipline, speaks to a school of training and mastery.
Guns and other weapons also have brutal training regimens, so there's nothing unique about any weapon training. But the shape of of a sword, the swordness of a sword, calls to us.
Sword is bound up with order-making; maintaining boundaries and social order. For King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone is a sign of the human kingdom accepting him. Excalibur is a signal or sigil that the numinous realm accepts him, and awards him a sign, like a wedding pact. as king, he is order-maker.
2: ANCIENT SYMBOL
The cross is an ancient symbol of how heavens and earth unite, and it's usually in a form of a cross, or cruciform, shape. Earth and matter is home to rebels and danger, and sword is a tool that extends human severing beyond our presence.
3: WAND BROTHER
I don't know a lot on this, but I read a book on the tools of paganism and green witchcraft, and the sword/knife and the wand are supposed to go together. The wand extends my will to an area of focus beyond my ordinary reach. The sword severs anything from touching or reaching me.
The wand is a healing, generative thing, maybe associated with light, a partnering with trees/plants tier of creation and life
The sword is the boundary-maker, the cauterizer, associated with mineral tier of creation, elevated to a pure form, without slag or dross - a highly intentional tool
Both are a finger, an extension of ourselves, that's why it's almost instinctive to want to use our environment to extend our impact and effect