Basic Trope: A character wields a bladed object sharp enough to cut through seemingly anything.
- Straight: Alice has a sword capable of slicing a tree in two.
- Exaggerated:
- The sword can cut you just by looking at it.
- Alice can cut tanks in half.
- Alice can cut mountains in half!
- The edge of the sword can split atoms and cause nuclear fission.
- The edge of the sword can cut the very fabric of space-time.
- Alice's sword can, if plunged into the Earth, break all the way through to the other side.
- Alice drops her sword, and she finds it again on the other side of the world.
- Downplayed: Alice's sword is much sharper than most other characters' swords, but does not have unrealistic cutting capabilities.
- Justified:
- Of course the sword can cut through anything. It was a gift from God himself!
- The sword has a mono-molecular blade which is made of carbon nanotubes.
- The sword is made out of some alien material that is known for making really sharp swords.
- Inverted: Alice's sword is so dull that it functions more like a club than any type of blade.
- Subverted:
- Alice's sword looks incredibly sharp, but the blade can be shattered if it swung at so much as a paper bag...
- The sword is drawn, Audible Gleam and all, and is put to use against a Shield-Bearing Mook. The blade gets stuck in the rim, barely an inch in.
- Double Subverted:
- ...But then she realizes she's been holding it wrong and is capable of cleaving through several hard objects in a row.
- Or, her blade still breaks and the blade pieces proceed to cut through everything.
- Parodied:
- Alice's sword has a blade that can cut through anything. Including its own hilt.
- Alice's katana can cut through anything... but she's a chef and only uses it to cut meat.
- Alice's blade is so sharp that merely touching it causes her to be sliced into tiny pieces.
- Alice can't find a scabbard that can hold the damn thing... It keeps slicing through them.
- The sword is so sharp, Alice cuts her finger just by looking at it.
- Nobody wants to get close to the sword because of its constant displacement of air means loud sonic booms whenever air rubs against it.
- Alice can use her butter knife to cut machine-gun bullets.
- All swords are absurdly sharp. Whenever there is a swordfight, each sword cuts the other sword in two every time they clash. After a few seconds, both swordsmen's blades are reduced to two-inch nubs.
- Alice accidentally drops the sword; it lands point-first and disappears into the ground, lost forever.
- Zig Zagged: Alice's old sword has the same properties of another sword, but then is retempered several times it so become durable and sharp enough to cleave through anything. Unfortunately, this has left it severely brittle and prone to breaking. Her solution? Reforge the sword and start over again.
- Averted: Alice's sword is just a normal sword with realistic cutting potential.
- Enforced: "Alice needs to show off how awesome her sword is by slicing tanks in half with it"
- Lampshaded:
- "I didn't know they made blades that sharp."
- "How the hell can that sword cut through a tree, anyways?"
- Invoked:
- Alice has a fascination with sharp blades, and so, uses her spare time to find durable objects and turn them into blades as sharp as possible.
- Any time that Alice doesn't spend fighting, she spends sharpening her sword.
- Exploited:
- Alice tricks the villain into taking her sword, falling off a cliff, and trying a Blade Brake with it. she chuckles as the villain falls to his death, then goes down the safe way to retrieve the blade.
- Knowing that no armour can stop the blade, Emperor Evulz sends Baron Glottis to fight Alice, who has so much Kev Lard that Alice's sword can be embedded up to it's hilt and still do no lasting damage, effectively negating it's advantage.
- Defied: Alice describes the kind of sword she wants to The Blacksmith. He tells her not to be so stupid, and that he'll make her a practical sword.
- Discussed: "I'm going to try to cut straight through this tree just like they do in movies."
- Conversed: "Why do these movie people always have swords cutting through things they shouldn't be able to cut?"
- Deconstructed:
- The sword really is that sharp, but Alice still needs to physically push the material apart to cut into it. As a result, the sword doesn't appear to function that differently from any other sword in actual combat situations.
- Alice accidentally cuts through not only what she wants but injures a good friend because her sword is so damn sharp.
- The sword is that sharp but Alice finds it impossible to maintain the edge and so rarely if she ever actually uses it or even removes it from the scabbard- and, when it does get used, it's so badly maintained that the legendary edge has been lost.
- Alice can't even keep it in a scabbard, because the sword cuts right through it.
- The sword is sharp enough to split atoms and cause nuclear fission, which kills Alice.]]
- Reconstructed:
- Alice manages to find a way to sheathe the sword without dulling it. This allows her to avoid accidentally injuring people.
- Alice invents a new combat style based around stupidly sharp swords, made to defeat foes before the blade is damaged.
- The sword is explicitly supernatural, and the properties it receives include the durability required to maintain a lethally sharp edge.
- The radiation is what gives Alice her superpowers.
- Played For Laughs:
- After every fight that Alice fights in, the scenery falls apart due to her inadvertently cutting it to shreds while in combat thanks to the sharpness of her blade.
- Alice cuts through existence itself whenever she draws the blade; causing an Apocalypse.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice's Arch-Enemy manages to best her in combat, then steals her sword and uses it against Bob, slicing him in half in front of Alice's very eyes.
- Alice never has to swing very hard to inflict a critical injury with her signature sword. she is placed in a situation where she must rely on a different weapon (in order to defeat her opponent without killing them), and her mediocre strength resulting from limited physical training is clearly and painfully demonstrated.
And to your left, you will find an Absurdly Sharp Blade. (Management is not responsible for bloodst (
"Woah, that WAS a clean cut!"
