Lost Chapters
Mightier than the Sword: Cobalt Item
The famous wording comes from the 1839 play Richelieu; or, The Conspiracy by the English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The line is spoken by the play's Cardinal Richelieu, who holds up a pen and says it is mightier than the sword, and it has been used as a proverb about the power of words and ideas ever since.
- Cost
- 2 crystals
- Type
- Item · Weapon
- Color
- Cobalt (Thinkers & Dreamers)
- Rarity
- Common
- Set
- Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)
Equip: +2/+1.
Age-old adage recognizing that words and ideas can topple regimes and alter history without drawing blood.
The real history
The saying was written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a popular English novelist and playwright of the 1800s. His play Richelieu was first acted at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in London on March 7, 1839, with the famous actor William Macready in the title role. The play is a drama about Cardinal Richelieu, the French churchman who served King Louis XIII, and it includes the king and a group of nobles who plot against the cardinal.
The line comes in a scene where the cardinal has been warned that men are coming to seize him. His young page, Francois, brings him a heavy two-handed sword from the Middle Ages that he once used in battle, but Richelieu is no longer strong enough to wield it. Instead he sits down and takes up a pen. In his speech he says that under great rulers the pen is mightier than the sword, calls the pen a magician's wand, and says states can be saved without the sword.
So the original has a context that is often forgotten. It is a character speaking, and he is making a point about how a wise ruler governs, not a general law that words always beat weapons.
The idea that words can do more than force is much older than 1839. What Bulwer-Lytton gave the world was a short, memorable way to say it. The line escaped the play and became the writer's most famous phrase, one of the best known in English. Today people use it to talk about writers, journalists, reformers and anyone who tries to change the world with ideas.
Sources
- Richelieu; or, The Conspiracy, a play in five acts (1839 edition, digitized), Internet Archive
- Edward Bulwer Lytton, Literary Worlds, Brigham Young University Library
How the card plays
Mightier than the Sword costs 2 crystals and is a Cobalt Item (Weapon). Its card text is Equip: +2/+1, so the character carrying it gets +2 power and +1 health.
For 2 crystals it is one of the cheapest ways to make a character a real threat, and the extra health helps it survive trades. Put it on a character that is hard to remove or already has a defensive keyword. Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne has Guard and draws a card when he survives damage, so the extra health pays off right away. Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass gives your Thinkers +1/+1 when he is played. Writers Convention Writers Convention gives your Thinkers +2/+2 and draws you a card each turn you control one, so a Thinker holding the pen becomes a big, steady engine.
- Playable in decks led by Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Cobalt.
- In the Dr. King starter deck (1 copy). Deck code:
LC2-BAABAQICAQMBBAEFAQYBBwEIAQkCCgILAQwBDQIOAg8BEAIRARICEwIUAhUBFgEXARgBGQEaARsBHAEdAR4B3v4 - In the Armstrong starter deck (1 copy). Deck code:
LC2-AQABAQECAQMBBAEFAQYBBwEIAgkCCgILAQwBDQIOAQ8BEAERARICEwIUARUBFgEXARgBGQEaARsBHAIdAR4BfQK1eQ - A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.
Questions about Mightier than the Sword
Who said the pen is mightier than the sword?
The words were written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton for his 1839 play Richelieu, where the character Cardinal Richelieu says them. The idea itself is older, but this is the famous wording.
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