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Ironic objects from fantasy

ZirconBlue

Sole Survivor of L-Town
ZirconBlue
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Although the thread title is something of a parody (inspired by my misreading of another thread), I'm actually hoping for a semi-serious discussion. What magical objects from fantasy fiction (or tech objects from SciFi) seem somehow ironic to you?

For example, one of Saberhagen's 12 Swords of Power is Woundhealer, a sword that heals wounds. It will operate as a sharp blade for mundane tasks (cutting twine or whatever), but will not inflict a wound on a person, rather healing them of any wounds they have.

Also, the titular Sword of Truth doesn't seem too terribly well-named, either.
 
Tenseiga of Inuyasha also does that, slash someone living with the sword and they're only briefly stunned. Slash a recently dead person, or more specifically, the spirits trying to get their soul to cross over, and they come back to life fully healed.

It's for creating black holes, not cutting.
 
The Blue Elfstones in the Shannara books are supposed to be "for the seeker", ie help the wielder find what he's looking for. But in that universe, using powerful magic reveals your location to any other magic users; the magic meant to find things ends up letting others find you as well. It's handy they also function as a defense, because every time you use them it draws enemies to you.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The Blue Elfstones in the Shannara books are supposed to be "for the seeker", ie help the wielder find what he's looking for. But in that universe, using powerful magic reveals your location to any other magic users; the magic meant to find things ends up letting others find you as well. It's handy they also function as a defense, because every time you use them it draws enemies to you.
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In D&D terms that sounds like a "cursed object" rather than a "magic object".
 
ZirconBlue said:
In D&D terms that sounds like a "cursed object" rather than a "magic object".
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Yeah, but if you know how to use them properly, you can dispose of any enemies that show up.

I would think cursed objects would be more like the magic sigils in Julian May's "Boreal Moon" trilogy: every use of their magic required the user to "pay" with severe physical pain. Even using the same sigil multiple times results in escalating pain tolls. Use too much magic, and the user can actually die from it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Yeah, but if you know how to use them properly, you can dispose of any enemies that show up.

I would think cursed objects would be more like the magic sigils in Julian May's "Boreal Moon" trilogy: every use of their magic required the user to "pay" with severe physical pain. Even using the same sigil multiple times results in escalating pain tolls. Use too much magic, and the user can actually die from it.
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In D&D terms that's "artifacts" :)
 
I submit the most famous, and incidentally iconic, fantasy object -- Sauron's Ring of Power -- as an ironic object as well.

It's a little thing, found by seeming accident, with an admittedly marvelous power -- invisibility -- that is initially used to facilitate mere acts of burglary and fraud.

Only fifty+ years later do we discover it is THE ULTIMATE OBJECT OF MALEVOLENT DOOM UPON WHICH THE FATE OF THE WORLD HANGS IN THE BALANCE.

Like I said: ironic. :eek:
 
Vortigern99 said:
I submit the most famous, and incidentally iconic, fantasy object -- Sauron's Ring of Power -- as an ironic object as well.

It's a little thing, found by seeming accident, with an admittedly marvelous power -- invisibility -- that is initially used to facilitate mere acts of burglary and fraud.

Only fifty+ years later do we discover it is THE ULTIMATE OBJECT OF MALEVOLENT DOOM UPON WHICH THE FATE OF THE WORLD HANGS IN THE BALANCE.

Like I said: ironic. :eek:
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I would say the real irony in Sauron's ring is that he made it to increase his powers, yet by doing so he was first made weaker and then ultimately destroyed because he lost the ring. Had he left well enough alone and not made a magic ring, he'd have been adequately powerful to take out his enemies by nature of his own congenital powers. Even if the more magic of the elfs could have withstood him, he could have simply out-waited them, as sooner or later they'd take a one-way trip west.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I would say the real irony in Sauron's ring is that he made it to increase his powers, yet by doing so he was first made weaker and then ultimately destroyed because he lost the ring. Had he left well enough alone and not made a magic ring, he'd have been adequately powerful to take out his enemies by nature of his own congenital powers. Even if the more magic of the elfs could have withstood him, he could have simply out-waited them, as sooner or later they'd take a one-way trip west.
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I think Sauron would have faded in power with the rest of Middle Earth if he hadn't made the ring.
 
Madalch said:
I think Sauron would have faded in power with the rest of Middle Earth if he hadn't made the ring.
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I disagree. Everybody's power wasn't fading, just some of the fancier Elves. The remnants of the old kingdoms just kept bleeding population westward because they couldn't get over their past glories. The Lorien bunch equated their national survival with the forest they lived in staying exactly the same forever, which of course is unnatural and impossible, so when the forest started to change they felt they had to leave it. But Legolas's dad's bunch in Mirkwood seemed stable enough, but they didn't put on airs and insist on wielding powerful magic. There's no suggestion they actually went west at all, except for Legolas himself. And the Dwarves may have had a disaster in Moria, causing them to abandon one city, but they had others. The Hobbits were thriving, the Orcs were doing well in the Misty Mountains, and the humans were strong and getting stronger, with a whole bunch of different cultures and states. Everybody in Middle Earth was making progress except the Elves and their human wannabes, and there's no reason to suppose Sauron would be inflicted with the same Elf-self-destructive behavior of that miserable and inferior species. He certainly didn't spend all his time sighing about the good old days, or wishing to go west.

In fact, I'd say it was his making the ring that made it even possible for his power to dwindle, because he poured some of his immortal spirit into an object that was exclusively limited to existing terrestrially. As soon as he made it, he tied himself even more firmly to Middle Earth than he had when he first entered it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I disagree. Everybody's power wasn't fading, just some of the fancier Elves. The remnants of the old kingdoms just kept bleeding population westward because they couldn't get over their past glories. The Lorien bunch equated their national survival with the forest they lived in staying exactly the same forever, which of course is unnatural and impossible, so when the forest started to change they felt they had to leave it. But Legolas's dad's bunch in Mirkwood seemed stable enough, but they didn't put on airs and insist on wielding powerful magic. There's no suggestion they actually went west at all, except for Legolas himself. And the Dwarves may have had a disaster in Moria, causing them to abandon one city, but they had others. The Hobbits were thriving, the Orcs were doing well in the Misty Mountains, and the humans were strong and getting stronger, with a whole bunch of different cultures and states. Everybody in Middle Earth was making progress except the Elves and their human wannabes, and there's no reason to suppose Sauron would be inflicted with the same Elf-self-destructive behavior of that miserable and inferior species. He certainly didn't spend all his time sighing about the good old days, or wishing to go west.

In fact, I'd say it was his making the ring that made it even possible for his power to dwindle, because he poured some of his immortal spirit into an object that was exclusively limited to existing terrestrially. As soon as he made it, he tied himself even more firmly to Middle Earth than he had when he first entered it.
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It's been a while since I read the Silmarillion and related books, but it seems to me that the elves, Istari and related folk were very powerful in the early ages, but much weaker in the later ages. Sure, the humans and orcs were thriving, but they weren't individually powerful.
 
Madalch said:
It's been a while since I read the Silmarillion and related books, but it seems to me that the elves, Istari and related folk were very powerful in the early ages, but much weaker in the later ages.
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The Elves, yes. The ones who had been west, then come back, because they derived all their power from what they learned from their gods there. Then by first betraying them, then being in exile cut off from their influence and advice, they dwindled. Every generation of the fanciest Elves was lesser than the one before. But that didn't apply to the non-fancy Elves like the Mirkwood bunch because they never took up fancy western ways to begin with.

The wizards weren't even present in the First Age, they only showed up in Middle Earth to fight Sauron later. But there's no reason to suppose their power was any less than it was at the beginning of the world--although they did deliberately limit themselves by taking on human form, probably so as not to disturb the natural rise of nonmagical civilization. They didn't want to start the humans and the others off like the fancy Elves, as dependent satellites of greater magical beings.

Sure, the humans and orcs were thriving, but they weren't individually powerful.
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They didn't need to be. The new age of the world was supposed to be nonmagical, without being influenced by the gods or their agents. Sauron was the fly in that ointment precisely because he was magical, and wouldn't dwindle away without outside help. But too much overt help would cause the same problem of filling Middle Earth with magic and creating dependencies on it. Hence the wizards as agitators in a cold war, getting the locals to fight Sauron rather than landing armies from the west like they did before.

Which is the ultimate root of Saruman's treachery-- the wizards' job was supposed to end, and they were supposed to go back west afterward. He didn't want that, he'd rather rule in Middle Earth than serve in Valinor. If he'd been successful in his plots, Saruman would have replaced Sauron as the sole real magical power in Middle Earth, with the others either dead or permanently emigrated west.
 
Arthur C Clarke's "The Star" nNovella. A team of astrophysicists return from deep space after investigating artifiacts from a civilization that was wiped out by a super nova. Turns out the exploding star was the Star of Bethlehem.
 
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herrdocjdm said:
Arthur C Clarke's "The Star" nNovella. A team of astrophysicists return from deep space after investigating artifiacts from a civilization that was wiped out by a super nova. Turns out the exploding star was the Star of Bethlehem.
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Novella? I recall that was a short story- three or four pages, perhaps.

PS- welcome to the forum.
 
herrdocjdm said:
Arthur C Clarke's "The Star" nNovella. A team of astrophysicists return from deep space after investigating artifiacts from a civilization that was wiped out by a super nova. Turns out the exploding star was the Star of Bethlehem.
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Remnds me of a story where people on a spaceship fall into a black hole. The inside is an old spaceship graveyard of similar misfortune.

They are hassled by ghosts of the other ship people, whose spirits can't get out to Heaven because it's a black hole and nothing can get out, not even souls after death.
 
I'd think it's probably hard to list them all, as just about every story trying to give a broken Aesop that wanting power or wealth or just to improve one's station or make a difference is bad, does it by irony (having opposite results from the reasonable expectations), and every other of them involves an object.

E.g., every single genie lamp EVER. It's become such a dead horse trope, that it's mainly used in slapstick jokes nowadays. ("You don't think I asked the genie for a 12 inch PIANIST, do you?";))

E.g., in the Mummy, the Book Of Death has no effect on Imhotep, who is dead anyway, but a spell from the Book Of Life makes him alive enough to be killed. In the Mummy 2 they apparently decide that even that's too complicated for the audience, and the books just have opposite effects from what it says on the tin. E.g., to resurrect someone, you need the Book Of Death. (Though this one actually manages to not be as a part of giving a broken Aesop.)

E.g., in Hellraiser: Hellseeker (hey, nobody said it had to be cult fiction or good fiction:p), the protagonist tries to get rid of his wife by making her open the puzzle-box (the "Lament Configuration") that basically resulted in some pretty nasty and generally fatal encounters with demons. Not only does the box not work as planned, but he ends up dead and in a personal hell himself, while the wife gets away.
 
But then, in the last Hellraiser, he forces the woman to open the box and summon the Cenobytes, and they take her too. So much for "we don't answer to hands, we answer to desire"...
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
But then, in the last Hellraiser, he forces the woman to open the box and summon the Cenobytes, and they take her too. So much for "we don't answer to hands, we answer to desire"...
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When you're a Cenobite, you can pretty much do as you please without being held accountable. It's one of the job perks. That, and being able to decorate your face with colorful kitchen magnets.
 
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