The idea that a sword is only a tool of violence doesn’t sit well with me. Now it is a weapon and one of the few weapons that has not had another purpose as a tool before becoming a weapon. There is a verse in the bible that talks about “beating swords into plowshares”, and I take this to mean that a sword will not fit the purpose of agricultural cultivation. A sword is only a weapon, unlike a knife which is sometimes a tool and sometimes a deadly instrument of close-quarters violence. Dismissing swords as tools of violence to be spurned in favor of rhetoric or diplomacy (the pen is mightier than the sword) seems simplistic.

We often equate killing with violence, even though this is not always the case. There are many forms of violence, and I don’t need to go into listing them. However, I don’t know that I can say that all killing has the same stigma that we often automatically associate with the concept of violence.

I try to differentiate between violence and the use of force. Force that would likely result in death. Some problems require force. Violence is imposing on another’s free will. Coercion. Killing to take someone’s possessions is easily classified as violence, but a policeman or soldier killing in defense of a citizen is different. I would argue that the examples of the soldier and the policeman prove that even though a lethal weapon may only have one function, there is an inherent difference between using it for protection or using it for violence.

I was also thinking about Alexander and the Gordian Knot. The sword was a simple solution to a complex problem. Sometimes you just need to choose to make something complex simple.

For my final thought, I remember a scene in C.S.Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawntreader. The brave mouse Reepicheep, puts down his sword before departing into Aslan’s country saying, “I won’t be needing this.” The sword as a tool and a concept has a lifecycle of sorts. The hero takes up the sword out of necessity and then works and fights until he can put it down again. For heroes, the sword (or the willingness to fight) enables them to act and address a problem. I can’t yet envision a place where we don’t need swords and heroes, so I know they still have a place in genre fiction.