Note:  This part would not have been made possible without the suggestion of fellow Watt Pad user zainmain , who mentioned potentially doing this part from a comment back during my analysis on the cliché of endless ammo.  They are quite creative themselves, and are currently in the works of making a five book fantasy series that I believe is going to be a huge hit in the future.  They even draw their characters from each story digitally, something that as an artist myself I find quite impressive, considering I still haven't exactly mastered digital artwork yet.  Please check them out once you finish reading this part.  If a simple book calling out fantasy clichés can get recognition, I have no doubt their work will too...

  If there is a cliché I think is debatably worse than having endless arrows or bullets to fire at threatening creatures without a plausible explanation, I feel it belongs to unbreakable weapons.  In almost every single fantasy novel involving some type of medieval theme, the cast fights using a slew of weapons, usually your average swords or bows.  These particular weapons are used in every battle the main cast is forced into for the sake of creating some sort of a climatic situation, without any wear or tear afterwards.  All swords used never dull out over time, and all bows never need their strings, usually made from rope, replaced after it wears down from multiple usages.  This applies even to non-traditional weapons in fantasy settings, such as mallets, bats, brass knuckles, and really anything under the sun.  This trope has been a repetitive theme in multiple story lines, and is not safe even in the best of novels such as The Hobbit or The Dark Tower series. 

  Most of you reading this are probably wondering why I am complaining about this trope so much.  It seems like a small problem to have an issue with, especially when there are more drastic problems out there to worry about such as including too much romance or dragging the plot out with exposition.  The true reason I have a problem with unbreakable weapons is because of the potential tension it completely wastes for the story.  If the protagonist's main weapon were to always remain scratch free, the audience is wasted strong stakes the character could face during the battle.  Breaking the weapon in the midst of a fight creates tension in the scene, as without the weapon protecting them, the character becomes vulnerable.  Anything could happen to the protagonist without their only line of defense, with fear, injury, and even death now being potential outcomes for the character.  The audience in return feels a sense of fear and suspense, intrigued on what the plot will present them with next.  This grabs audiences into the story longer, allowing for a higher chance of success for the author when word of mouth helps the book become popular.  Simple little elements such as having weapons with an expiration date are details that need to be included not only to draw in an audience, but to create a more thrilling story overall.  A story without stakes almost always will never catch on.

  This is why in a lot of fantasy genre video games, almost all weapons the player can select have a limit to how much they can be used.  In titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, any weapon the player selects can only survive a certain amount of hits before becoming useless.  This is also to create a state of suspense for the player, who must select another weapon quickly or risk dying in an important fight.  Additionally, it serves as a learning curve for the player, who must come up with a strategy to combat this issue in order to beat the game.  The same can be said for fantasy characters in novels.  Presenting a similar problem to the protagonist serves them with a challenge they must overcome like any other type of conflict  through intense training.  They learn from these instances and become more reliable in future battles, where the stakes become much higher.  Surprisingly, a simple video game such as Minecraft actually realizes the strong purpose behind breakable weapons better than most fantasy novels and that is saying something.

  Thankfully, more authors are starting to catch on to the potential strength of making any type of weapon vulnerable in the story.  In many books and movies in recent years, this trait has started to become much more widespread.  In the 2017 superhero film Thor: Ragnarok, a huge plot point that actually helps the main character Thor become the leader Asgard needs is the destruction of his hammer Mjolnir by the hands of the demonic Hela.  Although the destruction of such an iconic hammer could have created massive public backlash, it instead served to make the film much more memorable as Thor throughout the film realizes just how powerful of a foe Hela is and he must search for another solution to defeat her.  In all the Harry Potter books and movies, wands are shown to be quite breakable and because of this, special types of spells or techniques had to be created in order to combat this.  This has even presented itself as a plot point from time to time when the main characters are presented with certain dire situations that a wand would have easily got them out of, forcing them to fight the crisis with a clever untraditional method.  These two examples show just how much a single weapon can impact an entire story line and why unbreakable weapons need to be a thing of the past.

  The only exception to the unbreakable weapon cliché is whenever there is a reason the object does not get affected by the elements.  There could be a charm on the specific weapon that prevents it from wearing down over time, such as is the case usually with King Arthur's sword Excalibur.  Another potential excuse is for the weapon to be a special fusion of magic and a human soul, such as is the case with all demon weapons from the Soul Eater manga series.  Finally, the weapon could only be sired at certain moments, like in the heat of the battle, and have to created by the essence of one particular character.  All of The Crystal Gems from Steven Universe can be said to be an example of this instance, as their weapons only appear when they want them and are created by their particular gem, based on their personality. Even in this situation the weapons are not completely a get out of jail free card, as they can still lose the fight if the foe ends up overpowering them, such as was the case when Garnet tried to fight Jasper for the first time in the series and instead had her gems temporarily destabilized.  Not including all these well thought out excuses, breakable weapons are much better in the long run.