SA is "The Legend of Star Wars: Skywalker Sword"

[Halyo_Alex]

Big Important Disclaimer: This is not some kind of callout post of Brandon being lazy or uncreative. I don't think many people would assume that, but just to dispel any potential arguing in the replies, that is not what this is. This is a list of some fun observed similarities/comparisons between The Legend of Zelda series, Star Wars, and Stormlight Archives.

 

Okay, big important disclaimer aside, welcome! As I said, this is just going to be a list of some of my favorite comparisons between these 3 series (seri? What is the plural of series?) and some of the commonalities they share. I'll start with my 2 favorite comparisons, and you can follow up with some of your own observations, if you'd like.

Comparison 1: Nightblood is the Master Sword and the Darksaber.

Starting off with the thing that a few people have probably already noticed and was the inspiration for this entire post, everyone's favorite sword-nimi can be easily compared to both the Master Sword from Zelda (Aka "The blade of Evil's Bane"), and Star Wars' Darksaber. All 3 are mysterious, special, powerful, one-of-a-kind swords in their respective IPs, and Nightblood has characteristics of both. The Darksaber similarities are mostly visual, though the idea of having to attune/bond to one to properly wield it does apply to both. Nightblood's consciousness/personality could additionally be compared to Fi (fee?), who is arguably the Spren of the Master Sword (and to be honest, you could compare Syl to Fi as well).

Comparison 2: Odium/Honor/Cultivation mirror the pieces of the Triforce and the 3 main colors/alignments of Lightsabers.

This one is REALLY founded on visuals, as opposed to Nightblood having some mechanical similarities to his comparisons. To be honest, this is pretty explainable as a coincidence due to simple color theory and human eye anatomy; RGB LEDs are all you need to make a human see a full range of colors, so it makes sense that for 3 distinct members of a set, you'd use those 3 colors. The nuance is where it gets interesting though. For the most part, Odium's connection to red is through corrupted investiture, which perfectly fits how red lightsabers work in modern Star Wars canon, being corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force and made to bleed, turning them red. The Zelda comparison is how Demise's Malice corrupts that which it touches, and gave rise to Ganon/Ganondorf, the holder of the Triforce of Power.

 

So what other comparisons have you guys noticed besides these (admittedly, fairly broad) similarities?

[Olmund]

The human mind is good at finding patterns. With enough time & dedication, you could compare basically any two sufficiently detailed works of literature/art and find a ridiculous number of similarities. I once wrote down a long list of similarities between the Megaman franchise and the Bible (some of them were intentional -- the vast majority were almost certainly not intentional).

That said, while your framework is almost certain to prove fruitful (drawing on ONE major long-running franchise is bound to deliver similar characters/themes/worldbuilding elements when compared to something in a similar sci-fi fantasy genre -- TWO franchises is overkill), I will note that there are much closer comparisons to make: 

To a Pratchett fan, Nightblood feels like a clear amalgamation of Gonne and Kring from the Discworld series. But someone who has read ye olde Michael Moorcock could say that the Black Sword - Stormbringer is a dead ringer for Nightblood--to the point that some could easily argue Brandon borrowed from Moorcock (either intentionally or unintentionally). That said, both the "evil/cursed weapon" and the "talking weapon" are common tropes with numerous examples throughout fiction precisely because they are cool and offer interesting possibilities for character interactions.

Still on Nightblood -- and to illustrate my earlier point about not needing two franchises -- if you want to compare Nightblood to something from Legend of Zelda, you don't need to borrow the Dark Saber from Star Wars. Just go for (Skyward Sword spoilers):

Spoiler

Ghirahim (the powerful psychotic dark sword) instead of the Master Sword/Fi (which has a lot more in common with your typical radiant shardblade with a non-psychotic spren, like Syl as you mention).

Anyhow, I shouldn't be so negative. It is fun to compare franchises, and you yourself mention in the color example that making good use of the RGB color space is just common sense (and I'll add that making Red the "evil" color is extremely common because of its associations with blood/fire/war), so I shouldn't treat you as if you're oblivious to the fact that your comparisons are perfectly explainable via chance/function alone. 

[Halyo_Alex]

15 hours ago, Olmund said:

The human mind is good at finding patterns. With enough time & dedication, you could compare basically any two sufficiently detailed works of literature/art and find a ridiculous number of similarities. I once wrote down a long list of similarities between the Megaman franchise and the Bible (some of them were intentional -- the vast majority were almost certainly not intentional).

As someone who also loves MegaMan, this is extremely amusing.

15 hours ago, Olmund said:

That said, while your framework is almost certain to prove fruitful (drawing on ONE major long-running franchise is bound to deliver similar characters/themes/worldbuilding elements when compared to something in a similar sci-fi fantasy genre -- TWO franchises is overkill), I will note that there are much closer comparisons to make: 

To a Pratchett fan, Nightblood feels like a clear amalgamation of Gonne and Kring from the Discworld series. But someone who has read ye olde Michael Moorcock could say that the Black Sword - Stormbringer is a dead ringer for Nightblood--to the point that some could easily argue Brandon borrowed from Moorcock (either intentionally or unintentionally). That said, both the "evil/cursed weapon" and the "talking weapon" are common tropes with numerous examples throughout fiction precisely because they are cool and offer interesting possibilities for character interactions.

Still on Nightblood -- and to illustrate my earlier point about not needing two franchises -- if you want to compare Nightblood to something from Legend of Zelda, you don't need to borrow the Dark Saber from Star Wars. Just go for (Skyward Sword spoilers):

  Hide contents

Ghirahim (the powerful psychotic dark sword) instead of the Master Sword/Fi (which has a lot more in common with your typical radiant shardblade with a non-psychotic spren, like Syl as you mention).

True, though I'm not as familiar with Discworld as I am with what I did make comparisons to. After all, if I was, I'd be making remarks on Discworld similarities instead! And your point about (Skyward Sword spoilers):

Spoiler

Girahim is quite valid, though the problem with that for me is that he is most certainly NOT a "destroy evil" kind of sword-nimi, whereas the Master Sword is literally called the Blade of Evil's Bane.

15 hours ago, Olmund said:

Anyhow, I shouldn't be so negative. It is fun to compare franchises, and you yourself mention in the color example that making good use of the RGB color space is just common sense (and I'll add that making Red the "evil" color is extremely common because of its associations with blood/fire/war), so I shouldn't treat you as if you're oblivious to the fact that your comparisons are perfectly explainable via chance/function alone. 

It is! Hence why I made sure to tag this whole topic with "fun" and "humor", and put that big important disclaimer up top.

I also just remembered another comparison, albeit one probably founded on a similar underlying trope of "magic crystals"; you could consider a Lightsaber to be a Fabrial, and perhaps one day we might even see a Stormsaber of our own, as an intentional nod in the space age Cosmere.

[Treamayne]

On 5/5/2022 at 4:02 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

between these 3 series (seri? What is the plural of series?)

Quote

Noun

series (plural series or (obsolete) serieses)

1. A number of things that follow on one after the other or are connected one after the other.

 

[Olmund]

Alright, I'll humor you. You make a decent point about the "Blade of Evil's Bane," but I still think

(It feels silly to keep spoiler marking for an 11 year old game but I guess we've committed to it):

Spoiler

Ghirahim's obsessive behavior is very similar to Nightblood. He does lack Nightblood's naivete, and the main aspect he's missing is that he doesn't seem to have the capacity to drain his wielder like Nightblood, which is why I mentioned closer parallels like Moorcock's Stormbringer.

Off the top of my head, some easy parallels between SA and SW are:

Knights Radiant ~ Jedi Knights

Both must adhere to strict codes in order to access their abilities normally, but can gain access to a new powerset by giving in to hatred. The primary difference between the two is that midichlorians are symbiotes that are passed down to offspring, whereas spren are cognitive splinters of investiture that can bond with someone regardless of ancestry. If we wanted to draw from LoZ to fill that gap, it seems that the awakening of sages in OoT (and maybe LBW) is a similar process to becoming a Radiant -- after Ganondorf kills most of the sages during the timeskip, new sages are chosen seemingly based on their affinity for the vacant powers rather than their ancestry (though that is not the case for the LttP maidens and (probably) the WW sages, who were explicitly chosen based on their ancestry). 

On a similar note:

The Recreance ~ Order 66

These two events were functionally similar, but were accomplished via diametrically opposed means. Both ended in the near erasure of Jedi/Radiants, but the Recreance was a voluntary measure designed to curtail the spread of the enemy, whereas Order 66 was a successful enemy gambit which killed off nearly all living Jedi. If we wanted to patch that up with something from LoZ, it's  a bit of a stretch, but the ancient champions/sheikah did willingly bury the guardians and divine beasts, and it's mildly possible that the ancients buried them because they were afraid they might be repurposed by the enemy (though it seems much more likely they just buried them because they were no longer necessary at that time, and they needed to be stored somewhere. Plus, they didn't want giant weapons just sitting around for 10,000 years until they were needed again).

Transitioning to similarities between SA and LoZ:

Recurring Desolations ~ Recurring Calamities

Both Hyrule and Roshar tend to have periods of disastrous war involving the return of deadly foes separated by periods of relative peace when the enemies are temporarily sealed away by sages/heralds. Even the "false desolation" has parallels with certain Zelda plotlines such as the Oracle games where Twinrova takes Ganon's place as the primary antagonist, similar to how Ba Ado Mishram took over for Odium. One difference between the desolations and the calamities is that the enemies seem to be spontaneously generated (or regenerated) when they return via malice (with the exception of guardians/skeletal enemies, which are manipulated by malice), whereas the fused and voidspren require hosts (the singers) to be effective. SW can sort of fill the gap in that "The Dark Side" also seems to need sentient hosts. 

I'll have to take a break, but you could continue to find parallels (practically) indefinitely if you so desired. There's just so much material to draw on.