Weapons Breaking Weapons

In fiction, people may attack each other with one person's weapon being destroyed with little effort on the part of the person who broke it — namely by using their own weapon and nothing else (e.g., a sword slicing through another sword). Typically this demonstrates that someone has an Absurdly Sharp Blade, a pathetically weak one (demonstrating the weapon was either a poorly-made prototype at best or completely fake at worst), or both.

Note that this trope wouldn't typically apply when a weapon is incidentally destroyed by another, very powerful weapon, such as a Planet Destroyer. The wielder must intend to destroy a specific weapon. Also, depending on the work, Implausible Fencing Powers and Improbable Aiming Skills need not apply.

Sub-trope to Wrecked Weapon. Also related to Melee Disarming and Blasting It Out of Their Hands but for disarming an enemy without breaking the weapon. Disarm, Disassemble, Destroy is similar but with the weapon made unusable after being taken apart or deformed by hand. Compare Splitting the Arrow (but with an arrow sitting in a target rather than being wielded) and Scope Snipe (where a sniper's scope gets shot out). Contrast its video game equivalent Breakable Weapons, where the main character has to keep an eye on their weapons' durability.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Berserk: During Guts and Griffith's sword fight where Guts is fighting for his freedom from Griffith, Guts comes out the winner as his massive sword very easily cuts Griffith's sword in half.
• Bleach: This occurs frequently. It's justified in that the swords are physical manifestations of their owner's power, meaning someone's blade being broken shows that they've been defeated.
• Delicious in Dungeon: The swords of the Living Armor shatter blades used to parry their blows. They can also cut deep into a stone column, but it's unclear whether it's a property of the sword or the Armor is just that strong.
• Fairy Tail: During Erza's fight with Ikaruga, the dark mage is under orders from Jellal to keep Erza alive for his plan, so Ikaruga demonstrates her prowess with the blade by making a point of destroying each one of Erza's armors and weapons as she beats her down. Finally, Erza forgoes her armor entirely and equips two swords in order to focus all her magic power into offense and speed, allowing her to finally triumph in the last Single-Stroke Battle by destroying Ikaruga's sword (albeit still destroying one of hers in turn) and taking her down.
• Lupin III: Happens regularly whenever Goemon disarms enemies with Nagareboshi/Zantetsuken, ranging from other swords to guns to tanks.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: During Subaru's Unstoppable Rage moment in episode 17, she not only breaks Nove's Gun Knuckle but also the latter's arm and weaponised roller skates. Fittingly, this is used to show that Subaru's Inherent Skill, Oscillating Breaker, is especially dangerous to cyborgs like Nove and the rest of the Numbers.
• Naruto: During Sasuke's Team Hawk vs Killer Bee fight, when the latter is about to strike the downed Sasuke with his lightning-covered sword, Suigetsu jumps in to block it with his BFS. Killer Bee's blade nearly cut Suigetsu's before Jugo uses this moment to punch Killer Bee away.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: In The Movie, Nausicaa shatters Kurotowa's sword with a swing of hers during their first encounter at her father's castle.
• One Piece has two examples involving Zoro:
  • At the climax of his first fight against Mihawk, the great swordsman manages to shatter two of Zoro's swords with his own. This makes Zoro realize he is nowhere near ready to beat Mihawk and claim the title.
  • In the Fishman Island arc, during Zoro's sword fight with Hyozou, a blue-ringed octopus fishman wielding 8 swords, he parried a powerful attack from Hyozou, and the latter's blades got split in half lengthwise. It's one of the signs that Zoro's getting stronger since the Time Skip.
  • Also, during his duel with Ryuma, the zombie-swordsman used a technique that aimed more at Zoro's blades than Zoro himself, which Zoro quickly realized was an attempt to break his weapons and- defying the trope- Zoro quickly took action to prevent it.
• Princess Tutu: During the season 1 finale, Fakir broke Mytho's magical sword to keep him from shattering the heart shard of love. Season 2 revealed that this was an incredibly bad idea since said heart shard was tainted with the Raven's blood, and the sword was the only thing that could get it out of Mytho.
• Queen Emeraldas: When Gamor is headbutted by Hiroshi, he draws a laser pistol on the boy. Emeraldas, who had been quietly watching from the sidelines, draws her Gravity Saber and casually vaporizes Gamor's pistol, calling out, "Enough." Then, to add insult to injury, she nods to Hiroshi and says that he's more of a man than Gamor is.
• Rurouni Kenshin:
  • The main protagonist Himura Kenshin has taken a vow to never kill again and commonly uses his sakabatou (a katana with the edge and blunt side reversed) to break opponents' weapons to defeat them without killing them. Examples include Sagara Sanosuke's zanbatou (a BFS supposedly meant to kill a rider and his horse), Saitou Hajime's sword (though he was trying to kill Saitou that time since his Superpowered Evil Side had emerged), and several of "Sword Hunter" Cho's swords.
  • In Kenshin and Shishio Makoto's first encounter, Shishio's dragon Seta Soujiro breaks Kenshin's sakabatou with his own sword, although Soujiro's blade is ruined as well.
  • During the final battle of the Kyoto arc, Kenshin's teacher Hiko Seijuurou smashes the giant Fuji's sword with his own.
• The Sacred Blacksmith: At least twice in the anime adaptation.
  • Luke makes his grand entrance into the series by cleaving through a claymore with his katana like it was a hot knife through butter.
  • Later in the series, Cecily demonstrates that Luke's Sacred Sword is ready by challenging Sigfried to try to cut through it. Luke's sword is planted tip down in the tabletop, but it doesn't budge when Sigfried tries to break it, though his own sword is cloven by the effort.
• X1999: The Movie ends with a Single-Stroke Battle between Kamui and Fuuma, where Kamui cleaves through Fuuma's sword with his and lops off Fuuma's head in the same stroke.

Art

• A drawing titled "Sci-Fi vs Fantasy◊" shows a knight staring in horror at the glowing stump of his sword while a Space Marine with a lightsaber^note Not a Power Sword; the marine is just a generic "space knight" character rather than a WH40K Space Marine stands there staring at him.

Comic Books

• Captain America: Captain America's shield is almost indestructible, but there have been instances where it's been broken. In one instance, Thor (who is temporarily an antagonist) strikes Cap's shield so hard with Mjölnir that the shield dents and nearly splits in two.

• Wolverine: Logan's adamantium claws can easily slice through any weapon that's not also made of adamantium or a similarly hard material. Any time he fails to be able to cut through an enemy's weapon it's always an indication that he's facing a dangerous foe.

Fan Fiction

• A Darker Path: Bastard Son's power lets him gift his minions with expertise in using unusual weapons, like pool cues, folding chairs, and encyclopedias. However, Atropos uses her bodice shears to demonstrate that those skills don't apply anymore if the item is broken in half.
  The minion on the left had clearly been trained in full-length broom use, not short-broom-plus-broken-piece-of-handle (a glaring hole in his education, in my opinion) and I used the opening to disarm him of the larger piece, then tripped him with it.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "Divine Opposition, Part 1", the Avatar wields a sword powered by divine power of protection, allowing it to easily shatter other weapons.
  "Your sword does not look as if it will take the stress much longer," the Avatar pointed out, dispassionate as if he was talking about the weather. He wasn't even breathing heavily. To Cathy's growing alarm, he was right, too. The battered, notched remains of what was once a proud blade looked as if they would break apart at any moment now. How could she- "Yargh!? The blonde's world went upside down as a flick of the Avatar's own sword — still unmarred, the cheating bastard
• Here Comes The New Boss: With her sword enhanced by Muramasa's sharpening power, Taylor is able to carve off Hookwolf's blades, disarming him and exposing his core.
• Inter Nos, a My-HiME fanfic, has a scene where Takeda gets into an argument with Shizuru about Natsuki after Takeda had made an insulting assumption about Natsuki being Shizuru's slave. Trying to retain his dignity, he draws his blade on Shizuru. Except, Natsuki has been assigned as Shizuru's bodyguard, and when she witnesses this act, she clears the distance between them and uses her weapon, called a daos, to slice through Takeda's katana, Takeda's cheek, and a heavy wooden table in the room.
• Windows of the Soul, which was written as a sequel to the original series, sees the survivors of District One stage a takeover of a courtroom to get revenge on Shizuru. In the final battle, Shizuru is given her katana and charges the head of the District One survivors. He shoots her katana, point-blank, breaking the blade and driving shards into Shizuru's body. She still has sufficient strength, though, to carve him up with the remaining stub of her sword.

Films — Animated

• TMNT: The climax of a fight between Leonardo and Raphael involves Raph breaking Leo's katana with his sai.

Films — Live-Action

• Aquaman: Arthur has to challenge his brother Orm to ritual combat. Orm uses his father's trident, while Arthur uses their mother's. At the end of the fight Orm uses his trident to break Arthur's in two. At the final battle, Arthur uses the legendary trident of King Atlan, to shatter Orm's trident to pieces.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Shu Lien fights Jen in a duel, but since Jen is wielding the legendary sword Green Destiny, she cuts through each of Shu Lien's weapons even though Shu Lien is the more skilled combatant.
• G.I. Joe: Retaliation: Storm Shadow does this to one of his swords to prove his innocence regarding a past crime he is accused of:
  Arashikage steel does not break.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: One of the Nazis' porters is sent into the traps guarding the Holy Grail. The first trap, the Breath of God, slices off his sword blade and his head almost simultaneously. Indy finds that the Breath of God is a set of high-speed circular saw blades.
• Kill Bill: In Vol. 1, The Bride easily cuts down a yakuza member's katana blade piece by piece with quick little swipes.
• Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed: The Black Knight Ghost attacks Mystery Inc armed with a sword. Fred holds it off with a polearm, but the sword is sharp enough to first slice it in half, and then to methodically begin slicing the halves into pieces. Fortunately, Velma is able to work out and exploit the Black Knight's weak point in time to prevent Fred from being sliced up as well.
• Shaw Brothers: Ultra-common in the various wuxia flicks... they love having an Absurdly Sharp Blade as magical artifacts.
  • The Devil's Mirror: The villainous Jiuxian Witch covets the Fish Intestines Sword; in her hands, the Sword can destroy all weapons effortlessly, which she uses to break apart the heroes Bai Xiaofeng, Wen Jianfeng, and Master Bai's swords all at once with a single blow. Necessitating Master Bai to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to finally defeat the witch.
  • Rape of the Sword: The Green Frost Sword is a priceless jade weapon that in the Action Prologue breaks a challenger's sword in one swoop.
  • The Sword of Swords: Fang Shih-Hsiung, a martial arts traitor, manages to steal the titular sword and attempts to hold his mentor hostage, but hero Lin Jen-shiau battles Fang in a Sword Fight and shatters the Sword of Swords in one blow — because that is a fake weapon made of normal bronze.
  • Vengeance Is a Golden Blade: The titular Golden Blade, upon being imbued with the chi of wielders, glows with a powerful golden aura as it destroys normal swords in a single blow. In the opening scene, Chief Li defeats a horde of bandits by using the Golden Blade to destroy all their swords.
• Star Wars:
  • Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones: Early in Anakin's duel with Count Dooku, he dual-wields his and Obi-wan's borrowed lightsabers. Dooku, a noted Master Swordsman, is quickly able to chop the green one Anakin started with at the hilt, destroying it (and narrowly missing Anakin's hand...that time).
  • Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi: Boba Fett sees that Luke Skywalker isn't going into the sarlacc pit as planned, rather he's dispatching Jabba's mooks with a lightsaber aboard a sand skiff. Fett rocket-packs over to the skiff to straight-up shoot Luke. Luke instead makes one deft swipe that severs Fett's blaster pistol in two. Fett doesn't fare much better after that.
• The Sword and the Sorcerer: This happens a couple of times. The hero smashes through three raised swords using his own magic triple-bladed one in one scene. Downplayed in the climactic duel where the hero and the villain have an extensive fight with their magic swords (the hero having deliberately removed his extra blades to make it fair) and eventually the villain's sword severs his after many cuts and parries.
• The Three Musketeers (1973): This happens to D'Artagnan early in the movie. When he first tries to fight Rochefort, one of Rochefort's mooks snaps off most of the blade of D'Artagnan's sword with a single blow of his own weapon.
• The Wolverine: Played with when a super-heated special blade cuts through Logan's claws.

Literature

• Blood on the Black Market: Hardboiled Detective Michael Shayne is fighting two mooks, Gene and Pat. He can't understand why Gene didn't just shoot him while Shayne was struggling with Pat, the other mook. Shayne picks up the gun that Gene dropped, sees that the trigger has been smashed, and is shocked to realize that the first shot he got off hit the trigger of Gene's gun and destroyed it.
• Book of Swords: Any weapon struck by Shieldbreaker, the Sword of Force, will instantly explode. This makes its wielders almost invincible in melee combat and is the only way to destroy the other enchanted Swords.
• Everworld: David mentions this on seeing the (steel-weapon-using) Amazons amid the (copper weapon-using) Egyptians as to why it was so easy for the Amazons to take over.
• Kormak's Saga: In Kormak's duel with Bersi, Bersi parries a strike of Kormak with his sword, and Kormak's sword Skofnung cuts off the point of Bersi's sword.
• The Lord of the Rings: During the confrontation between the two Wizards, Gandalf, holding his own staff, calmly says "Saruman, your staff is broken." Saruman's staff shatters and he screams with agony and loss.
• Ranger's Apprentice: The nation of Nihon-ja possesses a technique for folding iron rods together to form a very hard steel composite, which they use to make their distinctive curved swords. Horace discovers how effective it is when one shatters his straight Araluen sword, and he's forced to adapt to using a curved sword, despite the unfamiliarity, because any lesser steel can't compete. Eventually, for his service, he's gifted a custom-made straight sword forged with Nihon-jan steel and surprises an opponent who sees the shape and assumes he can easily break it.
• Redwall: Multiple wielders of the Sword of Martin the Warrior use it to break enemies' weapons, such as when Triss cut Kurda's sabre in half and she turned and ran and fell on her own broken blade.
• Safehold: This happens a lot when Merlin gets into swordfights, justified as he's a Ridiculously Human Robot with Super-Strength wielding an Absurdly Sharp Blade made of a hi-tech alloy against swords made with renaissance-level tech.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Valyrian swords (and Dawn, which isn't Valyrian but is made from Thunderbolt Iron), are known for this ability. In the TV series, Brienne slashes her opponent's sword in two with her Valyrian sword Oathkeeper.
  • Sandor Clegane cuts Beric Dondarrion's Flaming Sword — which is powered by divine magic courtesy of his god, the Lord of Light — in half during a Trial by Combat. This convinces Beric and his companions to let Clegane go free; they don't seem so much convinced of his innocence as their god just doesn't want him to die yet, for whatever ineffable reason.
  • Beric and Thoros' habit of using flaming swords in tournaments is lampshaded by other characters that setting a sword on fire and then smacking them into other metal objects weakens them.
• Star Wars Legends: Reference books say that red lightsabers are produced with synthetically grown crystals. The Sith prefer them because they have a slight chance of cutting through an opposing lightsaber blade.
• The Stormlight Archive: Non-magical weapons or armour don't slow a shardblade down at all. A shardbearer on the battlefield is a Mook Horror Show, cutting down hundreds of regular soldiers amid the ruins of their equipment.
• Sword of Truth: The series' titular weapon can do it to any weapon without a similar enchantment. Notably, the first time Richard uses it to kill a man, it is described in detail how it shatters the enemy's sword... and then his skull.
• Tales of the Magic Land: In The Yellow Fog, Arachna realizes she has been defeated when Tilly-Willy's sword cuts her club in two. Desperately throwing the remaining half at Carfax, Arachna throws herself off the Cliff of Doom.
• The Warlord Chronicles: At one point, Derfel (The Hero and a lieutenant of King Arthur) is forced to fight Liofa, the personal champion of King Cerdic of the Saxons. Derfel is used to fighting on the battlefield rather than one-on-one, and while he's a very capable fighter he soon realizes he's at a major disadvantage against the much quicker Liofa, who specializes in duels. Realizing that he's going to lose, Derfel switches tactics to try to attack Liofa's weapon, as it's a much thinner blade than his own big broadsword. After a couple of hits, Liofa's blade does in fact snap.

Live-Action TV

• Blackadder: Played for laughs in "Born to Be King". Edmund challenges McAngus to a Duel to the Death, drawing an anachronistic rapier and Flynning with it a bit to intimidate his opponent. McAngus, being a stereotypical Scotsman, pulls out a claymore and snaps Edmund's blade off his hilt with a single blow.
• "Forged in Fire": A gun has been used on a couple occasions to test the integrity of a contestant-forged sword by shooting at it edge-side.
• Highlander: In the episode "The Samurai", Duncan's sword, a sailor's cutlass made of cheap low-quality steel, is broken cleanly close to the hilt by a Japanese samurai wielding a very well-made katana.
• MythBusters:
  • Tested and then retested to see if this was possible. Yes, a sword can possibly snap another sword in half if the difference in the alloys is great enough and at the correct angle, but a clean cut as depicted in the movies is impossible.
  • They also tested to see if a sword could slice through a machine gun barrel. The result — after heating and cooling barrels of varying thicknesses — was either the sword breaking or the gun barrel bending.
  • Blasting It Out of Their Hands like in a western movie would result in an 1860s-era pistol shattering into lethal fragments, rather than being torn from the wielder's grip like what's depicted on screen.
• Tensou Sentai Goseiger: During the final showdown with Brajira, Alata, boosted into the air by his comrades, performs a downward slash with his sword that cuts right through Brajira's blade (and Brajira himself).
• Xena: Warrior Princess: In "A Friend in Need, Part 1", which takes place in Japan, Xena's sword gets sliced in half by a katana, prompting her to acquire one of her own.

Manhua

• Old Master Q has an EU-story, "The Old Village", where Master Q, Big Potato, and Mr. Chin fight three bandit leaders. Master Q expectedly fights their main boss, a Warrior Monk who wields a "treasured ancestral sword made from the best steel in the Ming Dynasty"; however, Master Q is carrying a new sword made of modern-day stainless steel, and breaks his opponent's weapon in two hits.
  Master Q: I get it, you fools are all antiques from five centuries ago!

Mythology

• Irish Mythology: During Fionn mac Cumhaill's duel against Daire Donn, The King of the World, he manages to destroy both the tyrant's sword and shield before ultimately delimbing and slaying him.
• In some versions of King Arthur, the reason he seeks out Excalibur is that in a fight with another knight, his own sword (whether or not this was the famous Sword In The Stone is unclear) is shattered due to not being as heavy as his opponent's. Realising just how close he came to death, he then sought out a sword that wouldn't shatter.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: "Sunder" attacks in some editions damage and possibly destroy equipment. In 3rd edition, attempting to sunder weapons wielded by an enemy provokes attacks of opportunity without the "Improved Sunder" feat and objects have "hardness" that reduces all damage, but adamantine weapons ignore hardness up to a certain point.
• The One Ring: A successful called shot with an axe or mattock smashes the target's shield in addition to its usual damage. If a Player Character suffers this, they're generally stuck without the shield until they can visit a settlement to have it repaired.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: A weapon used to parry a Critical Hit has a 10% chance to be broken by the blow. Downplayed with defensive weapons like shields, which are only damaged.

Theatre

• The Ring of the Nibelung: In Die Walküre, Wotan intervenes in the duel between Siegmund and Hunding by destroying Siegmund's sword Notung with his spear, allowing Hunding to kill the disarmed Siegmund. In Siegfried, the third opera of the cycle, Siegfried uses his reforged Cool Sword Notung to break Wotan's spear apart (as he attacks Wotan in revenge for his father's death), foreshadowing the doom of the gods in the following opera.

Video Games

• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Greinfar demonstrates the sharpness of the cobalt winglet the Warrior of Light forged for him in the Level 50 Blacksmith quest by propping his old, weathered sword upright before cutting it in half with his new sword.
  • In the opening trailer for Shadowbringers, the Warrior is shown to struggle against the sin eater he is battling by having all of his weapons break or shatter on impact with the sin eater's own sword and shield. It's only after he changes his class to Dark Knight that he subsequently cuts the sin eater's arm off with the Shadowbringer sword and obliterates the monster with a wave of darkness.
• Icewind Dale: The flavor text for Pale Justice says that when Edan, the priest who prayed to his god for the weapon to be enchanted, realized it already was, a visiting priest of another god laughed out loud (there was no physical change to the sword, nor any expression of the god doing the job), and held out his guard's sword, to show what an enchanted and blessed blade really looks like. In response, Edan took Pale Justice and swatted at the other blade. With only the hilt in his hand, the visitor was much less inclined to laugh.
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: When the Exile first encounters Darth Nihilus' apprentice Visas Marr, Marr attacks her. According to the post-battle cutscene, the Exile disarms her with a cut to her lightsaber's hilt, destroying it. The Exile later scavenges parts from it to construct a lightsaber of her own.
• Phoenix Point: A viable tactic is to attack the enemy's weapon rather than the enemy itself. If an enemy's weapon is destroyed, they react by running full tilt off the map.
• Vermintide II: Shield Bearing Mooks usually need to be attacked until they drop their guard, but some powerful weapons, like the two-handed hammer and glaive, can destroy their shields completely. It's a minor benefit; the mook typically only outlives their shield by a second or two.

Visual Novels

• Fate/stay night:
  • In the Fate route, Shirou attempts to attack Gilgamesh with the sword Caliburn. Gilgamesh counters with the sword Merodach, which is superior to Caliburn since it is the first sword that chooses a king. Merodach effortlessly shatters Caliburn and nearly cuts Shirou in half with one swing.
  • Assassin has a reality-warping Noble Phantasm where he can make three different sword strikes simultaneously, which is usually only avoidable by being out of the sword's range. In Saber's rematch with him in the Unlimited Blade Works route, she weakens the Noble Phantasm by striking his sword hard enough to deform it before he uses the Noble Phantasm on her. This allows her to dodge and counter-strike now that part of the blade's path has been changed.

Webcomics

• Goblins: During the duel between Minmax and Dellyn, Dellyn sunders Minmax's metal sword with a wooden one.
• No Need for Bushido:
  • When Yori, a samurai, "defends" Ina at the start of the comic, one of the thugs does this to his sword. The severed weapon is both a help and a hindrance, as well as enabling him to accidentally acquire a retractable blade when he's getting it (badly) fixed, and the retractable blade later saves his life.
  • Yori's former mentor Genchu was noted for being able to swing his sword with enough strength to do this regularly, and it was one of the things that marked him as perhaps the greatest swordsman in Japan. The most extreme example is a flashback where he fought two men and not only decapitated them both with a single swing but also cut straight through their swords as well.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • During Tarquin's Villainous Breakdown, he shears through Elan's rapier with a magic dagger to slash his face while ranting about killing everyone he cares about.
  • In strip #607 "Gherkin Her Chain", Crystal cuts Haley's bow in half with a magical knife.

Web Original

• The Fedora Chronicles: In the fourth episode, The RED, The BLU, and The Ugly, at one point, the Spy prepares to duel a Sniper robot using a Half-Zatoichi. The Sniper robot extends blades from its arms and starts spinning, cutting Spy's katana apart and forcing him to simply shoot it instead.

Western Animation

• Castlevania (2017): In "Monument", the first season finale, Trevor Belmont's short sword has its blade chopped off by Alucard, leaving him with only his iconic whip.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In "Operation: P.I.R.A.T.E.", Stickybeard and Numbah 5 get into a duel with swords made of candy canes, which ends when both blades shatter. The two take a moment to lament the waste of candy before resuming the fight.
• The Dragon Prince: In "The Dagger and the Wolf", the protagonists witness a man with a dagger defeat an opponent with a huge BFS and chop the sword to pieces in the process. Rayla explains that his dagger was forged by the Sunfire Elves, and as such the dagger is enchanted to remain the same temperature it was when it was forged for centuries after, explaining why it cuts through steel like butter.
• Ivanhoe: The King's Knight: Once an Episode, Ivanhoe gets a Heroic Second Wind thanks to his psychic link to Richard, which is usually followed by him cutting his enemies' swords with his own. In slow motion.
• Popeye:
  • "Choose Your Weppins": Popeye, after taking his spinach, duels with the villain and cuts his sword to pieces (and then some).
  • "Parlez-Vous Woo": Popeye duels a disguised Bluto for Olive's hand. Eventually, Bluto manages to split Popeye's blade with the tip of his sword, but it regains its original shape after Popeye eats his spinach.
• Samurai Jack: Jack's sword, forged by celestial forces, can cut through lesser blades if enough force is applied. Jack refers to this move as the "tremendous horsecutter" technique. He gets quite the surprise when the Scotsman proceeds to No-Sell it with his greatsword, revealing that his weapon is enchanted with magic runes and thus making it a near equal to Jack's blade.
• Space Ghost: While battling Moltar's mooks, Space Ghost uses the heat ray setting on his power bands to melt the barrels of the mooks' laser rifles.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987): In "Usagi Yojimbo", Usagi cut Leonardo's swords with his 300-year-old blades, and diced up Donatello's staff. Neither of which he's done in his home universe.
• Transformers: Prime: When the Autobots manage to recover the mighty Star Saber, a concerned Megatron goes to great lengths to forge the Dark Star Saber to counter it. The first time the two blades clash, the Star Saber is shattered into pieces (possibly because the Dark Star Saber is newly forged, while the Star Saber spent an unknown amount of time without any maintenance). Optimus Prime is able to reforge the Star Saber, and in following battles, the two swords are evenly matched.

Real Life

• The jian or Chinese swordbreaker (not to be confused with the European weapon of the same name) worked sort of like this. It's essentially a long square metal club with the corners tapered to striking edges. Blows could ruin the edges of sword blades or just snap them in half if performed right.
• The jitte/jutte of Edo-era Japan was said to be capable of snapping a sword blade, especially when force was applied to the sword blade from the side.
• The Roman Pilum could do a variation of this: when thrown at an enemy carrying a wooden shield, it would often embed itself in the shield and the wooden handle would break off. The enemy soldier would then be faced with a dilemma: ditch the shield and deprive himself of its protection, or continue using the now off-balanced and heavier shield.

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