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Will Nightblood attempt to absorb the Investiture of any Shard, or only of those his bearer percieves as evil?

Hello everyone, first Topic Post from me, As I reread Warbreaker, I came across the few pages where Vasher explains to Vivenna how little they knew about Awakening and the Commands that exist. A thought then occured to me and I haven't been able to find much about it. Could there be a Command that exists that transfers a Returned's breath to someone else like a regular breath, and we simply don't know what exactly it is? I did read a WoB saying that when a Returned gives up their breath, it turns to "Kenetic Investment", so it physically and mentally heals the recipient, but is that because that's the command that's being used? Or is it because that's just how Returned Breaths can only be used? I also read a WoB that said that it is mostly based off of what you're visualizing in your mind, so I'm not sure if it means that the Returned can only visualize healing the subject as they say the command since it typically is why they came back. I might have over thought this one, but I'd like to know if it's already been answered.

Okay, I really should be doing my homework, but I just finished Dawnshard, boi oh boi, was it a good time. Anyway, I am a physics student, and have been thinking quite a bit about what Nikli said during the deal with Rysn. He said, "The most powerful forms of Surgebinding transcend traditional mortal understanding... All their greatest applications require Intent and Command. Demands on a level no person could ever manage alone. To make such Commands, one must have the reasoning--the breadth of understanding-- of a deity. And so, the Dawnshards. The four primal Commands that created all things" (pg189,190). He goes on to say that the Commands were used to undo Adonalsium, but what I am interested in is his what he said about the four primal commands. I've seen a lot already of people talking about how these relate to the Intents of the shards, but I have not yet seen how anyone has talked about how these may relate to the four fundamental interactions we know and love as the Strong nuclear force Holds together atomic nuclei Weak nuclear force Is responsible for radioactive decay Gravity The curvature of spacetime due to mass/energy Electromagnetism Responsible for much more than you might think, like light and chemistry The reason I connect these to the four commands is because Nikli implies that the Dawnshards allow one to surgebind at the most primal level. We already understand that surgebinding is the ability to manipulate one of the ten surges or what Rosharans perceive as the ten fundamental forces of physics. Basically, the reason there are ten surges is because everyone kind of agrees that it looks like there are ten, though there are actually only four interactions. These four fundamental interactions govern how literally everything in the universe is structured, behaves, etc. Thus, the dawnshards are the ultimate surgebinding tool that allow one to plug their will (Intent) directly into one of the four fundamental interactions (Commands) of the universe. There probably is some sort of relation to the Shards and their Intents, but I think the Dawnshards are primarily a god tier tool that allow people to directly influence the world without going through a Shard. What are your thoughts?

So, I've been reading up on Intent and commands and have been trying to make sense of what they are, and what exactly the difference is between then. and I've come up with a bit of a theory. basically, commands are molds for investiture, and intents are more subtle ways of affecting of investiture interacts with the world, after it has been molded by a command. my basic premise is that for investiture to do anything it must be first molded by a command. investiture, on it's own (without a command) cannot do anything. I don't mean just for awakenings, but for ALL forms of magic, from allomancy to surgebinding. the intent can then modify how that investiture is used exactly. in a very loose analogy, you could think of commands as being a sort of hardware, and that intents are sort of software. where the software is far easier to modify than the hardware, and the software helps dictate how the hardware works. I also believe that commands do not require a sapience/sentience/intelligence, but intents do. i feel like this is best illustrated with a few examples. ROSHAR consider soulcasting. (according to my theory) all soulcasting involves a single command. but the various types of soulcasting are just manifestations of different intents. so soulcasting a material to metal or smoke both involve the same command, but with different intents. now consider soulcaster fabrials, all soulcaster fabrials have the same command, and the reason different gemstones perform different kinds of soulcasting is due to the intents of the spren inside the gemstone. that's why soulcasters that use fabrials cannot soulcast things into whatever material they require, because the humans wielding the soulcasters do not directly manipulate investiture, so they cannot will their intent into the investiture. or consider lashings, I would say that windrunners (and all other orders) each have 2 commands at their disposal, one related to each power they have. so windrunners have a command for gravitation and one for adhesion. so when Kaladin lashes himself, the lashing itself is a command, but the direction he lashes to is dependent on his intent. SCADRIAL allomancy is quite interesting, because I believe that none of it uses intent in any form consider iron, when ingested allows people to pull metal towards them. and that's it. because no misting is ever directly manipulating investiture, they are not able to control it according to their intents, so they can only use the commands associated with a metal, giving them far less flexibility. in hemalurgy, there is some aspect of intent in terms of actually taking the powers. you dont really choose what powers you get, that's all based on the hemalurgic command associated with the metal. so intent only affects whether or not you are actually taking a power or just stabbing someone. whereas the command is what effects what power/attribute is stolen. NALTHIS the way commands work in Nalthis is that to simply create a command requires visualization. and the more complex the command the more complicated the visualization. now i think there is a visualization involved in both the command and the intent. and the same command given with different intents will do different things, but the command is far more important than the intent. like say the command "fetch keys", depending on the intent given it will fetch keys it will perhaps fetch keys in different ways, but to an extent. if you say, want to awaken an object to get on a ship to a different continent, infiltrate a bank, get the keys to their vault and then swim all the way back to you, that's gonna take a lot more than just intent

Hey guys, first post and first topic here. I was reading all of the awesome theories here, combined with a Stormlight Archive re-read, and had an interesting thought. Tell me what you guys think. Just a heads up, I didn't exactly do my due diligence with the WoB quotes. I'm quoting mostly from memory, but if you guys think there is potential to this theory then I'll come back and flesh this out with links quotes and such. Okay, so we have WoB that, on Roshar, Nightblood behaves very similarly to Shardblades. I think there is more to it than that. I think Nightblood behaves similarly to an Honorblade. (This may already be the prevailing theory, but I don't know if there is actual WoB to that effect.) For one, Honorblades have more in common with Nightblood than they do with Shardblades. Honorblades are actual physical objects that are heavily invested; same as Nightblood. Shardblades, however, are Spren, which are mostly cognitive entities, that are mimicing the effects of Honorblades. Between Honorblades, Shardblades, and Nightblood, Shardblades are the odd ones out. There is also the obvious similarity in their destructive potential. Honorblades and Nightblood are all very powerful tools. This is the superficial similarity that everyone makes and takes for granted. After that conclusion is reached, it's easy to stop thinking about it. But what if the Honorblades made the Heralds instead of the Heralds simply being matched with the Honorblade that best suited them? In The Way of Kings CHAPTER 18: HIGHPRINCE OF WAR, there is an interesting piece of information. That sword of retribution line really caught my eye. I guess it's a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" dilemma, but what if Nalan, who's Divine Attributes are Just / Confident which could easily lead to Retribution, became that way by holding the Sword of Retribution rather than the nameless Honorblade that Nalan wields having become known as the sword of retribution simply because it was Nalan wielding it? I propose that the Honorblades are so heavily invested that they have a sort of Intent of their own, much like Shards of Adonalsium, that shapes the personality of their bearers. For example, if Jezrien and Nalan had initially been given each other's Honorblades, then perhaps Jezrien would be Just / Confident and Nalan would be Protecting / Leading. This is where Nightblood comes in. Nightblood, like Honorblades, consumes Investiture in order to fuel the powers it uses to perform its Command. I'm proposing that, on Nalthis, Honorblades would have their own Commands. In this case, "Command" is what Nalthians call "Intent." In fact, I believe Vasher explicitly describes the process of giving a Command as visualizing the intent behind the Command. In other words, endowing something with an Intent. So if, on Roshar, Nightblood is using Investiture to perform its intent, that would mean that "Destroy Evil" would translate into an unknown Primary and Secondary Divine Attribute. This is a rough draft of a theory, but I hope with some input from the community it can be fleshed out and formalized into a working theory to describe the relationship between invested objects, Intent, and Commands.