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So at this point we pretty much know that Nightblood's connection to Ruin is that the command of "destroy evil" is an innately ruinous command. This connection to Ruin is what causes Nightblood to bleed black, Ruin's color. This is also likely what occurred with the machine in Yumi, which also had destructive tendencies with blackness oozing out of it. My question is this: How does that connect to Midnight Essence? Does it connect to it, or is it just a color coincidence? We know that Midnight Essence uses some degree of corruption of investiture, but that isn't exactly ruinous. In fact, a lot of what we see with Midnight Essence seems to be more close to Cultivation or Preservation than Ruin. They are built upon mimicry and adapting, and are not inherently destructive. Is there a connection to be made, or are they just weirdly similar?

So ... does it seem to anyone else that the Shades of Threnody, the Nightmares of Torio, and the creatures of the Midnight Essence are connected? Nightmares and Shades are both the Cognitive Shadows of people who died on that world, and remain to prey on the living. They both have visual similarities to the Midnight Essence, which strangely can be created by the Unmade Re-Shephir and (in Tress and the non-canon Aether of Night draft) by a black Aether.

So Brandon mentioned that the composition of the Nightmares is related to Midnight Essence and Nightblood's black smoke. I wonder if this also relates to the material that the Aether of Night assumedly grants the Sorceress of the Midnight Sea control over.

I haven't read through much on the reactions thread yet, so apologies if someone has thought of this already. In today's chapters, we learn a whole lot about Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother. We learn that it is what caused the Midnight Essence and that it is not entirely cognizant. Particularly interesting to me is that it had been imprisoned before, and recently loosed. This brings me to the thought that, perhaps, it arrived in Urithiru with its current inhabitants, via the strange, infamous, Black Spheres that the Sons of Honor have been known to possess. It seems entirely likely and possible to me that Amaram could have been in possession of a black sphere that (if the main theories are correct) can hold and trap and Unmade, like a gemstone with spren. Perhaps Amaram loosed it as a twisted way of trying to bring about more Radiants, or Heralds, as we've known the Sons of Honor like doing, misguided though they are. I doubt Amaram knew totally of the power that he unwittingly released (if he did) and I will laugh when it blows up in his face. Another culprit I briefly thought of was Taravangian, but he only just arrived, when we've been dealing with the copycat killer for a while now. Anyway, chapters were good today. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong if there's something I missed.