| rdfs:comment
| - Have you ever noticed that when you drop a piece of toast, it will always land buttered side down? (Wait, you haven't? But never mind.) Well, if media is to be believed, something similar happens if you drop or throw a weapon -- it will always land pointy side down. And not only that, but it will always penetrate the ground at a neat angle between 90 and 45 degrees and stay upright. Why? Because it looks cool, of course! In more ridiculous instances, this will even apply to blunt weapons like staves. Examples of The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In include:
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| abstract
| - Have you ever noticed that when you drop a piece of toast, it will always land buttered side down? (Wait, you haven't? But never mind.) Well, if media is to be believed, something similar happens if you drop or throw a weapon -- it will always land pointy side down. And not only that, but it will always penetrate the ground at a neat angle between 90 and 45 degrees and stay upright. Why? Because it looks cool, of course! This also applies to vertical surfaces, with the blade almost always at a perfect 90 degree angle to the wall or cliff. Also when a dagger (or sword) is thrown into a person it will stick out at a perfect 90 degree angle. In more ridiculous instances, this will even apply to blunt weapons like staves. Depending on the the type and quality of the special effects, this can be justified a bit; the padding that the faux blade rests in once it's hit an actor needs to keep the blade there for a bit, and a 90 degree angle does this easiest, since it gives the blade more support. Can be Truth in Television sometimes, but only if the pointy end is heavier, which is common on cleaving weapons like axes but not with certain swords, since the center of balance of a thin sword like the one in the page picture is close to the hilt. However, even in balanced swords, the pointy end is so much longer that with enough spin, it is still likely to strike blade-first, if perhaps not point-first; so long as the blade travels less distance in the course of one revolution than the difference in length between the blunt and sharp ends, the sharp bits will always hit first. Throwing knives with enlarged pommels take this one step further, as the center of mass - and thus the center of a good spin - is extremely close to one end, making it a near-certainty that a spinning blade will strike edge- or point-first. Whether or not it'll actually plunge the point in is, of course, another matter, and it won't be a neat, perpendicular insertion - unless by chance it happens to run out of momentum in that position after cutting through the surface. If the knife is thrown as a dart instead of spining in mid-flight, it likely will land pointy end in. Note also that knife-throwing still takes a bunch of practice to do correctly. When the sword is used to climb, stand, or swing off of after penetration, it's also Stepping Stone Sword. When thrown intentionally, may overlap with Throwing Your Sword Always Works. When physically driven into the earth by hand, it's a Sword Plant. Examples of The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In include:
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)