Technicolor Blade



There are ways and ways of making a sword interesting, and adapt it to the user's personality. You can make it large to emphasize strength, you can make it japanese to imply mastery and mystery, make it curved to point out that the character is evil, and so on.

If you're not satisfied yet and wants to further underline your choice, you can always give the blade a weird color.

In Real Life steel tends to be, well, steel-colored. However in fiction there's nothing that stops you from showing colored swords or similar things. Usually, A Wizard Did It. Villains tend to have black or red colored weapon, while the good guys opt for white and other good colors as seen in Good Colors, Evil Colors. A golden weapon that actually works as a steel weapon may count, as in real life gold isn't suited for making weapon blades and such.

If the weapon has elemental powers, then the blade will have the color usually associated with said element. For example a sword with fire powers will be red, while one with ice powers will be blue or white. Poisoned Weapons tend to be green or purple, depending on the setting.

Note: this trope is only for metallic blades, as Energy Weapons are naturally justified for having bright colors. Black weapons are already covered by Black Swords Are Better, so please do not add examples of black blades here.

See also Color Coded for Your Convenience.

Anime and Manga

 * Rave Master has the aptly named Blue Crimson swords.
 * Rukia's sword in Bleach is a completely white katana with ice powers. Also Hollow Ichigo's Bankai is completely white, as opposed to Ichigo's black sword. Both are unusual as they're not the kind of white you'd expect from metal.
 * Duskmon from Digimon Frontier has a pair of red swords, which he uses when utilizing his Lunar Plasma attack.
 * In Fairy Tail Erza wields a crinsom colored sword while using the Entei Armor, and a green one when the Sea King Armor is worn.

Comic Books

 * In the comic Warriors of the Storm there's a red sword.
 * Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (comics, game, and movie). The Power of Love is pink, and The Power of Understanding/Self-Respect is blue.

Film

 * Lightsabers in Star Wars are all manner of colors, including, but not limited to: blue, red, green, yellow, silver, and purple. Lightsabers require a set of crystals for the beam to pass through, at least one of which gives the blade its color. If the jedi or sith making the lightsaber made the crystals themselves using the force, they could create a uniquely colored blade.
 * In Hook, the sword belonging to Peter Pan (though used through most of the film by Rufio) appears to be made of brass.

Literature

 * In the Inheritance Cycle, Dragon Riders have magical elvish swords with colored blades, usually of the same color as their Dragon. To be specific:
 * Morzan's sword Zar'roc is red.
 * Oromis' blade is golden.
 * Eragon's new sword Brisingr is blue.
 * In the last book,  is revealed to wield a white sword.
 * Additionally, in the third book, a large claymore with a green blade makes a brief appearance,  and the Dragon-killing spear from the last book is greenish in color.
 * In the The Realms Trilogy from Angus Wells, the Big Bad and God of Evil Ashar whips out a giant sword with a red blade in the last book
 * In Michael Moorcock's Runestaff series, the Sword of the Dawn is introduced, which has a lustrous rose-pink glow to it and which is used to summon and lead the Legion of the Dawn.
 * There are a few of these in A Song of Ice and Fire. Most are regularly colored steel, though a few are unique. For one, the swords that in the third book Lord Tywin makes for Jaime and Joffrey are a deep, mottled red. Also of note is Lightbringer, which glows in a myriad of beautiful colors.

Tabletop Games

 * Magic: The Gathering has several examples, some of which are shown above.

Video Games

 * The Master Sword from Zelda is bluish colored. The degree depends on the visual style of the particular game.
 * Link's Great Fairy Sword in The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask, featured in Soul Calibur II, is a pink sword with a green core. Also from Majora's Mask is the Gilded Sword, featuring a gold and black checkerboard pattern.
 * Fierce Deity Link's sword in the same game is a double-helix of blue and green.
 * In Sengoku Basara this is common. For examples, many of Keiji's high-level BFSs include a blue sword, a purple sword and a red and golden sword.
 * Many blades in Dragon Quest VIII. For example, the Dream Sword is greenish, the Zombie Killer and Zombie Buster are blueish-golden, the powered up dragon slayer is red and the Miracle Sword is greenish-gold in color.
 * One of Doel's swords in The Legend of Dragoon is of a weird, pale green color.
 * All the Infinity Plus One Swords in the first Drakensang game are golden colored.
 * The most powerful weapon from Chrono Trigger, the aptly named Rainbow.
 * In the first Final Fantasy I, there are the Fire Sword (red), Ice Brand (azure), Toxic Blade (green) and the Light Axe (blue).
 * In Final Fantasy II there are lots of colored weapons, including Red (Blood Sword, Fire Sword, Fire Lance, Fire Bow, Ogre Killer, Orichal Dagger), Azure (Ice Sword, Ice Bow, Ice Lance), Yellow (Runic Axe, Thunder Spear, Terra Sword) and Green (Venom Axe).
 * The Onimusha series always relies on elemental weapons with distincted colors, including Buraitou and Raizan (purple-bluish), Chigo (red) and Shippu (green). In Dawn of Dreams, Soki's main weapons are a blue colored sword and a red colored one.
 * The Wizard's Dragon Sword from Castle Crashers has weird colors.
 * Ike's Ragnell in Fire Emblem has a gold blade.
 * Dungeons of Dredmor has several oddly-colored weapons, such as the Golden Axe.
 * Golden Sun has a few examples. The Storm Brand is blue, the Sword of Dusk and Gaia Blade are both brown, the Assassin Blade is violet, the Vulcan Axe is red and orange, the Sol Blade and Phaeton's Blade is yellow. And there's more.
 * Fable I The Solus Greatsword has a red/gold blade. The Cutlass Bluetane, for some reason, has a green one.
 * In Dragon Age Origins, Sten has a sword you can give him from the Feastday Pranks DLC that flickers in different colors and has butterflies following it around. He is...less than appreciative.
 * The Elder Scrolls:
 * Among standard weapons, Dwarven weapons are gold, while glass weapons are bright green.
 * Goldbrand from Morrowind and Oblivion is (as one would expect) gold.
 * Dawnfang/Duskfang from Shivering Isles changes from gold to blue depending on whether it's day or night.

Real Life

 * Many sport fencing equipment companies offer colored blades for all three weapons, in colors like gold, blue, and even rainbow!