Gothic Sword
| Origin: | Germanic |
|---|---|
| Source Name: | 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰 |
| Japanese: | ゴシックソード |
| Appears In: | Ys IX |
Origin
The Goths were a Germanic people living north of the Danube River and first recorded by Greco-Roman writers in the third century CE. By the fourth century large numbers of Goths entered Roman territory, pushed westward by the invading Huns. The Gothic peoples established kingdoms of their own and fought successful battles against Rome, including sacking the city; the entire sequence of events was a major factor in the collapse of the western Roman Empire. Consequently the adjective Gothic took on secondary connotations of barbarism and a lack of refinement, while also being used to broadly describe anything that was Germanic.
During the Renaissance, the desire to reproduce Greco-Roman architecture led to writers pejoratively calling the previously popular style 'Gothic' in contrast to the newly emerging one, though contemporaries like Christopher Wren recognized this was a misnomer. In the eighteenth century, a new genre of literature emerged which tended to feature scenes associated with this Gothic architecture, as well as a focus on sublime emotion, terror and the macabre. Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Otranto (subtitled 'A Gothic Story') is credited with starting the genre.
Appearances
- Adol's starting weapon in Ys IX is the Gothic Sword. The game as a whole includes elements characteristic of Gothic fiction, including the architectural stylings of Balduq, the emotional tone of the game, the emphasis on horror elements specifically and especially the way that Adol is trapped within the city of Balduq by supernatural forces.