Today’s Top 5 list is Swords used in literature or movies! There are ton of weapons out there used in hand to hand combat, especially in the fantasy world, and some even have names. Today, we honor those weapons that our heroes or villains use to uphold justice or destroy lives with. If you have a favorite character from any fantasy series (Aragorn, Gandolf, Eddard Stark, Eragon, Rand, Cloud Strife) chances are they have a weapon that also has a name. There are real life examples of swords becoming famous as well. William Wallace’s sword can still be seen in Scotland. There is a sword called The Sword of Mercy that is symbolically broken (Link here) that British Monarchs are still coronated with. United States Marine Corps officers are still given a sword:
“The oldest weapons still in service in the United States Armed Forces belong to Marines. Today, the swords Marines carry represent the Marine Corps’ rich heritage as America’s original defenders. Officers carry the Mameluke Sword, which was originally given to Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon in 1805 by a Mameluke chieftain in North Africa. Lt O’Bannon and his Marines marched across 600 miles of North African desert to rid the “shores of Tripoli” of pirates and rescue the kidnapped crew of the USS Philadelphia. By 1825, all Marine Officers carried the Mameluke sword in recognition of this historic battle—the Marine Corps’ first on foreign soil.”
So anyway, Swords are used for many things in fantasy. They are used to cleave peoples limbs and heads off, they are used for defense, they are used for symbolism. What are you favorite swords?
Here is my top 5 list of swords:
5. Hattori Hanzo sword – Uma Thurman kicked some MAJOR ASS in the two Kill Bill movies. She did it with the help of a man who swore to never make a sword again though, Hattori Hanzo. She convinced him that she would kill Bill with it, and he made her one all her own. After the Bride received the sword, there was nothing left in her wake but blood, guts and about 88 of the Crazy 88’s lying dead. The sword got her all the way to Bill, but she doesn’t actually even use it to Kill Bill. Doesn’t even matter, it is a bad ass sword.
4. Sting – A dagger to the “tall folk”, Sting was the sword found and used by Bilbo and later given to Frodo to use in his quest. It was an Elven sword that Bilbo found with 2 others, Glamdring (The sword used by Gandolf) and Orcrist (Sword used by Thorin Oakenshield). Sting was enchanted to glow blue when Orcs were around, which is super helpful when Orcs are out to kill you. Bilbo named the sword after fighting off some spiders in Mirkwood after the spiders called it “Bilbo’s Sting”. The sword survived two rather large quests and protected two rather curious creatures while doing so. For that reason, it makes the list.
3. Longclaw – Oh Jon Snow. Long Claw belongs to Lord Jon Snow and was given to him by Lord Jeor Mormont. It was passed down from Mormont to Mormont (symbolism) but Jorah clearly wasn’t worthy since, well, he sold slaves. So the Old Bear decided Jon was as much of a son as he will ever have and passed down the Valyrian steel blade to Jon. Since the pommel burnt in the fire that Jon caused saving Jeor’s life, he had it remade in the form of a white dire wolf. Jon then said wolves have claws just like bears, and kept the name of the sword to honor the Old Bear.
2. Anduril – Really brief history: The sword was called Narsil when it was used by Elendil and then it broke. His son, Isildur used it to cut the One Ring from the hand of the evil lord Sauran (and seriously, how did that even happen!?). The shards were returned to Rivendell after Isildur’s death. There, they waited until they could be reforged for Aragorn into Anduril, which means Flame of the West, and used throughout as a symbol of hope against the evil powers. Aragorn uses the sword to establish his credentials, as well as slay many Orcs and protect his little hobbit friends. A sword with so much history that ultimately helps end Sauran’s rule twice is a sword worthy of making anyone’s list!
1. Darth Vader’s Lightsaber – Ok, it doesn’t have a cool name, but the sword itself is steeped in history and symbolism. It certainly isn’t as a clumsy or as random as a blaster, but instead is graceful and elegant. The fact that it’s wielded by one of the most terrifying and oppressive figures in the galaxy makes it even cooler. And, oh yea, the color is blood red! We see a ton of green, blue and even purple light sabers in the Star Wars saga, but only bad guys (at least in the movies) carry red sabers, and Vader is the baddest of them all. Or is he? Isn’t he redeemed at the end? Doesn’t he choose to help Luke after Luke cuts his hand off, the one holding his evil colored lightsaber? Maybe the sword makes the person, not the other way around, just saying…
Honorable mention: Cloud’s Buster sword, Ice, William Wallace’s sword, Excalibur.
Was blowing up the Death Star really possible for Luke to do? Isn’t it far more feasible that Luke was just a pawn in someone else’s game? How is it that a farm boy with no training what so ever is one of the only people to survive the attack on the greatest military station of all time?
If you call yourself a Star Wars fan, check out a new narrative of the old story, and please forgive the terrible pronunciation of “Alderaan”.
Space is an unforgiving medium. Out there, in the tractless depths, the slightest mistake can be fatal for everybody. And that goes a hundredfold for mistakes by commanding officers. A single mistake can mean the death of hundreds, if not millions, of people. And there are plenty of commanders and captains who’ve failed, dramatically, when they tried to sit in the Big Chair.
Here are 10 of the most tragically incompetent space captains in science fiction.
I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for Commander Salamar. Maybe it’s the way he sputters when the Doctor tells him, “Salamar, you’re wrong again,” when he makes the 1000th stupid decision in a row. In any case, Salamar is completely out of his depth throughout the story, even by the standards of authority figures in 1970sDoctor Who stories. He’s a young hot-head who got promoted too fast, and feels insecure about the fact that his second in command is more experienced and less of a lunkhead than he is — so he reacts by making dumb, kneejerk decisions, sending his people to certain death against the anti-matter creature and later on trying to use a superweapon against it, which winds up only making it bigger. He’s the rare person who never starts listening to the Doctor, ever.
9. Captain Crais, Farscape
In the first season of Farscape, Crais makes tons of questionable decisions, seeking to avenge his brother’s death — notably chasing Moya all over space and ignoring orders. To quote from one forum post at Speculative Friction, “can we imagine a U.S. Aircraft carrier or Battleship commander witnessing his brother’s death, then ordering his ship to race off across the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, in pursuit of revenge against the killer? Of course not. It is stupid.” Adds Madeline Ashby, “His pursuit of his brother’s killer ends in both career and personal suicide.”
8. Captain E.O.
True, Captain E.O. is saddled with the worst crew in space — especially Hooter — but he doesn’t really do much to improve the situation. As Captain E.O. says, in pretty much his first line of dialogue, “The Command considers us a bunch of losers. But we’re going to do it right this time, because we’re the best. If we don’t, we’ll be drummed out of the Corps.” And that’s E.O.’s first mistake — his crew are not the best. They are not even in the middle of the bottom twentieth percentile. They prove this, shortly afterwards, by crashing on a planet while Captain E.O. tries vainly to keep it together. And later, his diplomatic mission to teach dance moves to Anjelica Huston goes completely tits up, partly due to his crew’s lack of discipline and partly due to Captain E.O.’s own fecklessness. It’s only when he reveals the hitherto unseen power of turning evil minions into his own backup dancers that he pulls this fiasco out of the fire.
7. Captain Michael Jankowski,Babylon 5
He was sent on a mission to survey the Minbari forces but not to engage them. But when he saw a Minbari ship approaching with its gunports open, he lost his shit and decided to launch an all-out attack. The resulting devastation caused the Earth-Minbari war, leading to countless casualties. He’s sort of synonymous with lethal levels of stupid.
6. Ozzel and Needa, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Does Vader have to force-choke a bitch? Yes. Yes, he does. The catalogue of Ozzel and Needa’s mistakes in Empire Strikes Back is fairly legendary — among other things, the Imperial Fleet drops out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, alerting the Rebels to the Imperial attack too soon and losing the element of surprise. Later, Needa lets Han Solo lead him a merry chase, and falls prey to a slew of old smuggler’s tricks, most of which rely on Needa to miss the obvious.
His name basically says it all. He’s a feckless young guy who doesn’t really have any particular ambitions, military or otherwise. He joins the United Planets Space Force because he thinks it’ll provide a cushy existence, maybe with a nice desk job somewhere. But then when war breaks out and he accidentally helps to save some hostages, he gets given the command of his own ship, the Soyokaze. But he’s not interested in keeping order or discipline on his own ship — much like Captain E.O. — and he basically just survives due to pure dumb luck.
Poor Garner — he’s basically an engineer who gets promoted beyond his level of ability, and winds up commanding a battlestar. When he takes over the Pegasus, he goes the opposite way from Tylor and E.O.: he tries to impose too much discipline, keeping an ultra-tight grip and terrorizing his subordinates, especially Starbuck. But his real incompetence comes when he disobeys orders and sends the Pegasus on a scouting mission instead of just sending some raptors — and when the Pegasus comes under fire, he deserts the CIC to try and fix the FTL drive himself. A runner up, though, is Lee Adama, whose angsting causes him to dither too long, so that when the Pegasus finally arrives to rescue the Galactica, it’s practically too late. Unlike Barry Garner, Lee Adama actually does succeed in destroying the Pegasus.
3. Commodore Matt Decker, Star Trek, “The Doomsday Machine”
Matt Decker nearly manages to wipe out twostarship crews. First he beams his own crew down to a planet — which turns out to be in the path of the planet-destroying weapon. Oops. Then, with his own ship a shattered wreck, he comes aboard the Enterprise and tries to take command of it, so he can lead the Enterprise crew to their own deaths in the maw of the planet-crusher. True, Decker has the right idea about how to kill that thing in the end, but he wouldn’t have gotten it to work. He would have just sacrificed the Enterprise for no reason, if Kirk hadn’t intervened.Trek is also full of other incompetent captains, notably Captain Varley of the Yamato, who goes into the Neutral Zone and gets his ship infected with a computer virus, Captain Ransom of the Equinox, who thinks torturing aliens is a spiffy idea, and the time-traveling Captain Braxton. And too many others to name.
True, Dallas is saddled with an android who wants to bring a Xenomorph specimen back for Weyland-Yutani to study and profit from. But his own decisions make things way, way worse — when Ripley keeps pointing out that they are violating quarantine procedures by bringing the facehuggered Kane aboard, Dallas ignores her. Later, he also dismisses the eminently sensible advice to put Kane into cold storage. And his ideas for dealing with the Xenomorph once it’s fully grown and on the rampage are also not the best. At every turn, Dallas is totally turning an already bad situation into an epic screw-up. By contrast, Prometheus gives us almost the opposite scenario: the captain is reasonably intelligent and competent. It’s just the entire rest of the crew that’s fatally idiotic.
1. Zapp Brannigan, Futurama
And finally, there’s the guy who embodies courage, fearless leadership and wise command decisions. Zapp Brannigan basically belongs to the “cannon fodder” school of tactics — his approach to any situation is just to throw expendable people at it until the bodies pile up so high the enemy gets confused. He’s been known to try and clog the enemy’s death cannons with the wreckage of his own ships. He’s sort of a parody of Captain Kirk, among other swaggering “ladies man” captains — but he’s actually more like the various stupid captains whose messes Kirk had to clean up.
Thanks to Madeline Ashby, Benjamin Louis Wilson, Angela Cooper, Dr. Dave Goldberg, Christina DiEdoardo, Vivid Scribe, John R. Fultz, Joe Kinkopf, Adam Whitehead, Shaun Andrews, Joris Meijer, Ken Applebaum, Gregory Taylor, Helene Wecker, Rus McLaughlin, Tom O’Daighre, Brian Ted Jones, Andrew Liptak, David D. Levine, Matthew Simpson, Chris Holly, Chris Farnell, John Scalzi, Ferrett Steinmetz, Ian ‘Cat’ Vincent, Damien Walter, Karan, E.C. Myers, Rowan Kaiser, The Divine Miss M., Charles Lee, Alan Danzis, Jaqui Dey, Simone, Richard, Jordan Hoffman, Alexis Brown, Anthony Ha, Matt Adams, Jeremiah Tolbert and everybody else who suggested stuff!
Darth Vader needed to find the plans stored within R2-D2. It stands to reason that Vader would have been desperate enough to use any means necessary, in order to secure those plans. “Any means necessary” could have included one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the Galaxy: Boba Fett. In that a bounty hunter uses any means necessary to accomplish his goals, Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru may have gotten caught in the crossfire.
10. Boba Fett Was At The Scene of the Crime
For all of the many failings of the Star Wars Special Edition that was first released in 1997, George Lucas has stood by this version as being canon. The last part of the docking bay scene clearly establishes that Boba Fett was on Tatooine during the search for the droids. Boba Fett would not have been above trying to collect multiple bounties. A bounty for the droids, as well as a bounty for Han Solo, would have made Boba Fett even more likely to be on Tatooine.
9. Boba Fett Had Stormtrooper DNA
When the bodies of Owen and Beru were discovered, the deaths are made to look like Tusken Raiders had killed them. The Empire is a clearly established authority; their Death Star is used to blow up an entire planet. If Stormtroopers had killed Owen and Beru, then there would have been no reason to cover up their tracks.
The main argument most people have for Stormtroopers killing Owen and Beru is the following quote by Obi Wan Kenobi: “These blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.” Fine, but who were Imperial Stormtroopers? They were altered clones of Jango Fett. And who was Boba Fett? Episode II: Attack of the Clones establishes Boba Fett as an unaltered clone of Jango Fett. Jango even raised Boba as his son.
8. Darth Vader Protected Owen and Beru For Decades
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker endangered a mission given to him by the Council, in order to go back to Tatooine. In the course of avenging his mother’s death, Anakin met the entire Lars family. During the purge at the end of Episode III, the Lars family could have easily been arrested at any time for information. Yet, Obi Wan thought that Tatooine would be a safe place to go and live in anonymity. He may have suspected that Vader would attempt to protect the only perceived family that he had left.
7. Darth Vader Preferred Interrogation
The only real time that you see Darth Vader kill a member of the Rebellion is when Vader chokes Captain Antilles at the beginning of Star War Episode IV: A New Hope, during the course of an interrogation. Leia, meanwhile, is stunned and captured. Han Solo fires a shot at Vader in Empire Strikes Back, and is then disarmed and captured. The Stormtroopers had already used non-lethal methods of capture by stunning Leia. The Stormtroopers had also set up checkpoints to look for the droids. They clearly had not been on the trail of the droids enough to follow them from the Jawas, to the Lars residence. If they had, they would have been looking for Luke and the Droids at Mos Espa. The Stormtroopers were behind the game.
6. Boba Fett Had A Motive To Slaughter
Darth Vader would have known who Owen and Beru were. The Stormtroopers would not have acted without orders. The only reason to kill the Jawas, as well as the Lars’s, is so that they would not talk to anyone else. Killing them would also indicate that the killer had no place to store them for later questioning. The killer was also working on a time-frame. None of those statements are true of Imperial Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers had the means to not only interrogate, but also imprison. Stormtroopers could take over Mos Espa and set up checkpoints. Owen and Beru’s killer covered up their role in the killing, but Stormtroopers simply had no reason to do so. They act purely on Imperial Orders. A cover-up, and killing of, Owen and Beru is a waste of time unless you are trying to prevent another bounty hunter from collecting the same information.
5. Darth Vader Was Not Above Using Bounty Hunters
Lets just say that The Empire Strikes Back was not Darth Vader’s first rodeo. Bounty hunters, including Boba Fett, are assembled to listen to Vader give the parameters of the mission. The meeting in Empire is obviously not the first time that Vader has dealt with bounty hunters. It is also obvious that this is not the first time that Vader has encountered Boba Fett. Even before the mission in Empire starts, Vader shows a clear disdain for Boba Fett in particular. Every time Vader encounters Fett, he seems thoroughly disgusted by him.
4. Stormtroopers Could Not Disobey Orders
The entire reasoning for creating the Stormtroopers in the first place was to have an entire army of soldiers who would never question orders. Order 66 caused the Troopers to turn on their superiors and friends. They slaughtered without question, when there were orders. So there are two possibilities here. One, Vader would have had to order the deaths of Owen and Beru. This is possible, but highly unlikely. Anakin was still inside that suit, and Owen and Beru were still family to him. More likely, somebody acted on their own, somebody who could exactly duplicate a Stormtrooper, but also execute free will. In that case, the list of suspects is narrowed to one: Boba Fett.
3. Darth Vader Saves Chewbacca
In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader stands next to Boba Fett, before Solo is encased in carbonite. Vader feels the need to be close to Fett, in case anything goes wrong. When Chewbacca inevitably tries to stop the events from unfolding, Vader actually prevents Fett from killing Chewie. Vader does not approve of Fett’s methods, and wants to keep him on a short leash. This is a further indication that there has been a major past event, which has caused Vader to not trust Fett at all.
2. There Is No Punishment For Not Recovering the Droids
If Vader had blamed the Stormtroopers, or anyone really, within the Imperial chain of command for not recovering the droids, he would have force-choked them to death. Vader nearly force-chokes an officer in A New Hope for an insult. Vader force-chokes multiple officers in The Empire Strikes Back for incompetence. The lack of punishment for anyone, after the failure to recover the droids, means Vader put the failure upon himself. Assigning more than one group to the same task qualifies as an overkill that foiled the mission.
1. “No Disintegrations”
In the famous bounty hunter scene in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader says, “you are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive…no disintegrations.” The “no disintegrations” comment is directed directly at Boba Fett, who simply responds, “as you wish.” Vader not only feels the need to specifically eliminate murder from the equation, but also feels the need to direct the comment right to Fett’s face. This indicates that there was a problem in the past. The directive also indicates that, previously, disintegrations had occurred.
Merriam-Webster defines disintegrate as “to undergo a change in composition…an atomic nucleus that disintegrates because of radioactivity.” Simple blaster fire, or damage from a lightsaber, does not cause the effect of being cooked to the bone by radioactivity. The only real examples of disintegrations in the Star Wars Universe is what happens to the Jawas, and the Lars’s. Vader is specifically warning Fett, to prevent another mess-up. The mess-up, of course, being the only example of disintegrations previously in the films.
Ok, so, here is the full breakdown in a coherent timeline.
– (Canon) – Tantive 4 is fleeing. The droids R2-D2 are on board and they escape in an escape pod. For some reason, the imperials do no shoot them down. The two droids land on the planet of Tatooine. Vader realizes the plans are with the droids.
-(Not shown) – Vader, realizing he is surrounded by idiots (points made through out the movies), realizes he cannot trust his troopers to actually do anything right. He knows Boba Fett is already on the planet in question and given Fett’s reputation, Vader hires him to look for the droids.
-(Not shown) – Fett, who is a master bounty hunter and who is already planet side, beats the Stormtroopers to the crashed escape pods. Fett starts to track the droids, and is for the rest of the time, always a step ahead of the Stormtroopers. Fett finds the Jawas that took the droids. While trying to get the information on who they sold the droids to, there was an altercation and Fett slaughtered them after getting the information…Fett now knows to go to the Lars farm.
-(Canon) – The troopers, always a step behind Fett, follow them to the sandcrawler that is already destroyed. They create a bunch of tracks and search the rubble. They then leave on their way to the Lars’ place. Luke and Obi-Wan, many steps behind the troopers, come across the wreckage. There, Obi Wan tells Luke that Stormtroopers did this based on the many footprints and blaster marks.
-(Not shown) – Fett arrives a the Lars’ farm. Extracts information about the Droids and where they could be. Luke is gone with the droids. Fett finds out. Owen, knowing Luke is in trouble, has an altercation with Fett and Fett kills both Owen and Beru. Fett tells Vader the droids are in Mos Eisley. Vader asks for Fett’s sources. Fett explains his route and how he killed a farmer…Vader finds out it was the Lars’, who, we know from Episode II and III are basically Vader’s brother in law. Vader is pissed and harbors resentment from then on for Fett.
-(Canon) – Stormtroopers show up, realize it is too late, move on. They get orders to set up check points in Mos Eisley for the droids. Luke shows up, mourns aunt and uncle. Obi-Wan takes Luke to Mos Eisley where they meet Han and Chewie. Han leaves to prepare the Falcon. There, Boba Fett is waiting for him with Jabba. They leave after warning Han they need the money. Then, the troopers, always a step behind, show up at the Falcon. A quick battle ensues and the Falcon escapes.
-(Canon) – Vader still has trouble trusting the imperials with anything, killing both Ozzel and Needa in Empire Strikes Back. He hires bounty hunters again to pursue Han. Boba Fett, after getting paid handsomely by Vader the first time, shows up. This time, Vader shows extreme contempt towards Fett for seemingly no reason…He even goes as far to get in Fett’s face and point right at him and say No Disintigrations…meaning, Do NOT kill anyone.
The rest is history. Fett helps capture Han and ultimatly Luke. Fett gets money from both Vader (for the help) and Jabba for Han. Fett then gets thrown in the Sarlacc…There you have it.
thetop5five 
