Basic Trope: An actual weapon is used in a manner it shouldn't normally.
- Straight: Bob is a(n alleged) fencer who slices his opponents with his rapier (which are designed for thrusting).
- Exaggerated: Bob doesn't even use the rapier for actual fighting, only parrying and blocking blows. The actual damages comes in with his shield, which he bashes people into oblivion with.
- Downplayed: Bob hacks with a halberd against a charging horseman. It is a legitimate use of the weapon but wrong for the context.
- Justified:
- Neither of them have any formal training in how to use them, they just did what seemed natural to them when they found their weapons and honed it to the point where it works.
- Alternatively, Bob is trained to use many different swords, prefers to slash and just happens to own a rapier, as opposed to a sword with a broader blade.
- Inverted: Bob cannot afford an actual rapier despite his training, but skewers his enemies with pointy sticks.
- Subverted: When he meets another swordsman he quickly corrects his technique.
- Double Subverted: ...but still breaks out his own style to catch opponents off guard.
- Parodied:
- He can perform Diagonal Cuts with his rapier.
- Bob cuts Alice's hair with a folding chair
- Zig Zagged: He slashed with the rapier. Then a fencer corrects him and teaches him to thrust. Then he still slashes sometimes. Then he has to thrust to get through chinks in the Tin Tyrant's armour. Then it turns out he's become strong enough to slice through a suit of full plate...
- Averted: Bob is a fully trained classical fencer who thrusts with his rapier as he should.
- Enforced: "People expect to see swords being swung! Give them what they want!"
- Lampshaded: "Aren't rapiers thrusting weapons?"
- Invoked: Bob trains to slash with his rapier to catch enemies off guard.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob is shown learning to use a rapier. His instructor explains that he should use it to thrust first and foremost.
- Discussed: "Can rapiers actually slice like that? I thought the edge was just to stop people grabbing it."
- Conversed: "Doesn't anyone on TV know how to actually fight with a rapier?"
- Implied: Bob is never shown using anything but a rapier and his opponents all seem to have been hacked up, but he's never shown in an actual fight.
- Deconstructed: A duelling rapiernote , designed for well-to-do renaissance civilians to defend themselves against random crooks or duel each other with, proves useless against a properly trained swordsman with a claymore. The rapier isn't even heavy enough to properly block or parry a swing from it...
- Bob's weapon isn't designed for the strain he puts it on, and it breaks.
- Reconstructed: ...or it would if it weren't for the fact that he was able to swing it fast enough to nick his opponent's neck before they got a swing in and get away while they tried to stop the bleeding.
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