Honorable Nightblood.?

[Hoids Imaginary Friend]

Ok, before I get to my Outrageous Theory I'm going to talk about some things that got me there..

I'm going to point towards some WoB that I've read, sorry in advance as I find it difficult to cycle through all the WoB to find the exact quotes:

• WoB that suggested that there's more to the creation of Nightblood than a bucket load of breaths and a command
• WoB that suggests the five scholars were World Hoppers
• WoB that suggests Nightblood was modeled after a Shardblade

Outrageous theory in the form of a humble question:

Spoiler

Is Nightblood an Awakened dead Spren - Shardblade.?

And If so, which one.?

I'm guessing a Dustbring Spren.

p.s. I can see "A Scholar" seeing this as a fun experiment..

I may be way ahead of myself here, so I'm going to ask some questions that may point us in the right direction or void said theory:

• In relation to the Cosmere timeline - where is SA compared to Warbreaker?
  • keeping in mind that Nightblood was created at least 3 centuries ago (That was when Vasher ended the war he started wasn't it?)
• In relation to the Cosmere timeline - when was The Recreance?
• Is a Shardblade like Aluminum and immune to awakening.?
  • if so, can enough breaths (investiture) overcome this?
• Is there possibly a Connection issue? (crossing over Shardic Magic)
  • if so, can enough breaths (investiture) overcome this?

Thoughts..?

!~ HIF ~!

Edited May 27, 2017 by Hoids Imaginary Friend
Spelling; adding points

[Yata]

The Nightblood is a Shardblade further enanched with Breath is a theory Who arosed multiple times...I suggest you to search similar topics.

I Just wanted to say It's really really unlikely to the point to be quite impossible

[The One Who Connects]

The fact that Vasher feared Lifeless wielding an army of Nightblood's should put a major damper in this theory. That and he knew about Shardblades when he modeled Nightblood after one. If NB were a Shardblade, he shouldn't be so confused about why it feels stronger than it should be, because it being a Shardblade is the major difference between it and a normally awakened sword, so that should be the contributing factor to it's strangeness(as several theories on here believe to be the case)

---

That said, time to answer your other questions:

• Warbreaker takes place roughly 300 years prior to the SA books. The Manywar(where Nightblood was used) was 3 centuries prior to Warbreaker(book).
  • Thus, Nightblood was created roughly 600 years before he was given to a certain character in SA.
• The Recreance is, by my best estimates {1}, about 2,200-2,500 years before the SA Books take place.
• Shardblades are not immune to Awakening, per se. Very resistant, yes, but there's nothing saying they are immune.
  • Overcoming Investiture resistance can be done with enough power, yes. {2}
• I am not sure if Awakening deals with connection issues so much as it just deals with Investiture resists Investiture.
  • Overcoming Investiture resistance can be done with enough power, yes.

{1} My estimates.
{2} I do not believe that 1,000 Breath is enough to overcome the Investiture with in a Shardblade

[Calderis]

22 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

The fact that Vasher feared Lifeless wielding an army of Nightblood's should put a major damper in this theory. That and he knew about Shardblades when he modeled Nightblood after one.

The major flaws in that argument is that it's possible Vasher didn't know, because Shashara didn't tell him. if I am imagining it right, Vasher helped her work on the command for her, but the rest of it, including getting the sword was Shashara.

@Hoids Imaginary Friend

Arguments for the "Nightblood is a Spren Lifeless" idea

1: the Black smoke he produces would be explained due to mixing investiture from multiple shards

2: the extra investiture involved beyond 1000 breaths would be explained.

Arguments against

1: is it possible to get a Shardblade off Roshar?

2: is 1000 breaths enough to overcome the resistance from the Shardblade? 

                                                                       

I like this idea Mechanically. I like the holes it tries to fill in what we know about Nightblood.

In another thread about this, I argued that Awakening a corpse creates a robotic flesh puppet lacking its original Cognitive and Spiritual ties, and existing as a husk that moves. So it makes sense to me that if you take a Shardblade, the corpse of a Cognitive entity that is essentially it's Cognitive aspect shaped into the fixed form of a metal sword, that you get a robotic mind instead of a puppet. 

Here's the parts I don't agree with though. My initial thoughts on trying to get a Shardblade off Roshar seems like the blade in the physical should overcome the Cognitive pull a spren would feel back to Roshar, but to get the blade to Nalthis you'd have to travel via the Cognitive Realm and that seems like it should negate the benefit. Though, now that I think of it, if Shashara bonded the blade, that might bypass the problem. The ability to loan a blade and instantly summon it back despite distance implies that when a Shardblade is mist it is stored in the spiritual realm. So if it were bonded and stored, then summoned after arriving on Nalthis that may bypass the problem.

Finally, and the biggest reason I can't just be like "yeah, Nightblood was a Shardblade" is supposing Shashara got a Shardblade back to Nalthis and Vasher helped her work on the command. Vasher was present when Nightblood was made, and helped develop that process. Even if Shashara kept the nature of the Shardblade to herself, how did Vasher not notice something about the blade? Even if he was working below the eighth heightening and couldn't just sense that the blade was already invested, the weight and it's ability to cut through anything effortlessly should have been a give away.

So yeah... I like the idea mechanically. I can't reconcile the holes I see in it logistically though. 

[Yata]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

The major flaws in that argument is that it's possible Vasher didn't know, because Shashara didn't tell him. if I am imagining it right, Vasher helped her work on the command for her, but the rest of it, including getting the sword was Shashara.

Nightblood is an attempt to replicate a Shardblade with Awakening. If you use a Shardblade as base the whole point would fall.

Anyway a Shardblade could not really be confused with a common weapon. And Vasher saw both Nightblood (with his original name) before and during the Awakening.

We have also a WoB (but now I have not the time to search on theoryland) on the fact Vasher didn't need to actually see a real Shardblade to design Nightblood, instead only stories about the Blade would be enough.

About the mixing Investiture, you have right. It's for now not easy to understand. It's possible Nightblood as simple sword was not a standard sword at all. But there are a lot of possibilities for Invested Metal. It could be a Metalmind, a Spike, a Soulcasted Steel, Therenody's Silver, simple Scadrial metal, ecc...(I am quite sure to forgot something but I can't  think to other way to Invest Metal)

Edited May 27, 2017 by Yata

[Calderis]

10 minutes ago, Yata said:

Anyway a Shardblade could not really be confused with a common weapon. And Vasher saw both Nightblood (with his original name) before and during the Awakening

I addressed this in my post as the primary reason I can't subscribe to the idea. 

11 minutes ago, Yata said:

Nightblood is an attempt to replicate a Shardblade with Awakening. If you use a Shardblade as base the whole point would fall.

In Vasher's mind yes, but it was primarily Shashara's project, and we know that the Scholars were not above tricks to gain an edge above the others. 

[Darkness]

what's interesting to me is that the only shardblades Nightblood was likely patterned after were dead ones. They can only communicate when surgebinders touch them, and then they just scream. I wonder if a dead shardblade could think and communicate like Nightblood (meaning intelligibly) if it overcame the pain of being dead. I think the reason Nightblood can communicate with anyone (on Nalthis + at least Szeth) is because breaths are so universally accessible. Nightblood uses a medium that anyone can access, whereas only surgebinders can use stormlight (probably a squire could also hear dead shardblades). And yet Nightblood still ended up with a rudimentary personality/identity beyond "destroy evil". Case in point, Nightblood regards himself as male. In general, its just interesting that Nightblood became sentient even when he was patterned after something most people considered inert. Vasher will probably be much less surprised by living shardblades and their respective personalities than your average Rosharan.

[Yata]

Well Darkness.

The Awakening at all works crafting pseudo Cognitive Entities. So when a lot of Investiture is Involved and the Awakener is skilled enough with the Mental Images...the feat is (relative) "Easy".

I don't know if the reason of Nightblood's comunication is Breath related (It's possible). It seems to me that Nightblood has not special privilege or senses other than a Cognitive Entity has (a Spren for comparison).

On a last note, regard the Deadblade's comunication. I really doubt their capacity could ho beyond what we already saw. In their Death they are struck in a painloop pulled extremely in the physical but without the Mental abilities. To make them "think clearly" you will Need to resurrect them...this would be they are no more Death Spren.

[Yata]

8 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

 

Sword Forged into a high quality, sword made through the use of aons....

I skipped the Selish one as the Dor can't reach Nalthis.

So a Forged Sword carried on Nalthis would be a normal sword

[Djarskublar]

Well, something I just realized is that there were two goals with making Nightblood. They wanted to see if they could create a sentient object to prove the existence of Type IV entities, and they wanted to see if they could replicate a Shardblade. Those are two very different things, and I guess they just decided to try both at once. That makes me pretty curious about what would happen if you were only trying one or the other. Could you maybe replicate the effects of a Blade without adding sentience to the mix? I'm gonna put that in the questions thread.

I am solidly in the camp of NB not being made from a spren. Spren are already basically pure Investiture, and they are 'full' so to speak, so I can't see them being modified like that, even with a lot of breath.

[cometaryorbit]

On 5/27/2017 at 0:07 PM, Calderis said:

The major flaws in that argument is that it's possible Vasher didn't know, because Shashara didn't tell him. if I am imagining it right, Vasher helped her work on the command for her, but the rest of it, including getting the sword was Shashara.

The Chapter 55 Warbreaker annotation confirms that it's a real threat, though:

Quote

If this war were allowed to progress, Idris would be able to draw allies from across the mountains (as I mentioned earlier), and Yesteel’s ability to create swords like Nightblood would end with T’Telir falling and then the entire world being cast into chaos and destruction.

https://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-warbreaker-chapter-fifty-five/

For it to expand worldwide, a significant number of Nightblood-type swords would have to be created, so I don't think it can be dependent on off-world materials.

There may be less to the issue than we're thinking. Sure, Nightblood is way more Invested than 1,000 Breaths could account for - but he eats Investiture, and he's been around for 300 years (at the time of Warbreaker, more like 600 by the time he shows up in Stormlight Archive). He might not have been one of the most Invested non-Shard things in the Cosmere at the time he was made.

[Calderis]

@cometaryorbit The logistics and nature of Shardblades make me doubt that their what's happening here, but the black smoke means there is mixed/corrupted investiture here, which means there is something involved from outside Nalthis. (my opinion) 

That annotation, in my opinion, is still describing Vashers thought process concerning Nightblood. 

Shashara is the one who made him and I'm sure there's some form of trickery here that Vasher, and everyone other than Shashara, wasn't aware of. 

Yes Nightblood consumes investiture, but there's no evidence showing he retains it. If he did, I'm sure Vasher would have noticed something about him change between his creation and Warbreaker. We know he was used at least once on a large scale. 

[cometaryorbit]

On 5/31/2017 at 10:00 PM, Calderis said:

@cometaryorbit The logistics and nature of Shardblades make me doubt that their what's happening here, but the black smoke means there is mixed/corrupted investiture here, which means there is something involved from outside Nalthis. (my opinion)

I don't think Nightblood actually has mixed Investiture.

Quote

Blightsong: How does corrupted investiture work, like Nightblood.

Brandon: Oh, Nightblood. Again, this is a definition of what somebody feels is a corruption. For instance, there are spren people would feel are corrupted. But that is corruption where the mixing of different shards has changed things, and I think a lot of times when people say corruption, people are meaning the mixing of shards powers.
 
Blightsong: So is there a mixing of shards power with Nightblood?
 
Brandon: *smirks* RAFO. That's the natural question, I'm glad you asked it

That WOB doesn't actually say that Nightblood has any mixed Investiture, just that 'corrupted' Investiture is a question of definition and that 'corrupted' spren (presumably Odiumspren) are that way because of the mixing of Shards' powers.

IMO Nightblood is 'corrupted' because he's an Investiture-eater made with Endowment's magic system - he's somewhat of a twisting of Awakening's nature.

 

On 5/31/2017 at 10:00 PM, Calderis said:

Yes Nightblood consumes investiture, but there's no evidence showing he retains it. If he did, I'm sure Vasher would have noticed something about him change between his creation and Warbreaker. We know he was used at least once on a large scale. 

Well, I'd argue that the fact that he's now more Invested than 1000 Breaths is itself evidence, given that we know he consumes Investiture - at least it very much seems the simplest model.

Vasher might very well have noticed a change; that doesn't mean he would have consciously thought about it during his POVs, or mentioned it in the book. Nightblood's creation was a long time ago - if he noticed his power increasing 300 years ago, he'd have no particular reason to think about it during the events of the book.

[Calderis]

2 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think Nightblood actually has mixed Investiture.

That WOB doesn't actually say that Nightblood has any mixed Investiture, just that 'corrupted' Investiture is a question of definition and that 'corrupted' spren (presumably Odiumspren) are that way because of the mixing of Shards' powers.

IMO Nightblood is 'corrupted' because he's an Investiture-eater made with Endowment's magic system - he's somewhat of a twisting of Awakening's nature.

 

Well, I'd argue that the fact that he's now more Invested than 1000 Breaths is itself evidence, given that we know he consumes Investiture - at least it very much seems the simplest model.

Vasher might very well have noticed a change; that doesn't mean he would have consciously thought about it during his POVs, or mentioned it in the book. Nightblood's creation was a long time ago - if he noticed his power increasing 300 years ago, he'd have no particular reason to think about it during the events of the book.

Everything I have seen implies that Nightblood's investiture level exceeded what it should have for the thousand Breaths used from the moment of its creation, and has not increased since. 

I could be completely wrong. But as I understand it, there is something off about the way he was made, and the black smoke implies another Shard's investiture is the simplest explanation that fulfills the criteria for both occurances. 

[cometaryorbit]

7 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Everything I have seen implies that Nightblood's investiture level exceeded what it should have for the thousand Breaths used from the moment of its creation

It is entirely possible. Certainly way back at the Battle of Twilight Falls he was so horrific that Vasher killed Shashara to prevent the knowledge spreading.

I think that might be more to do with the way his Investiture-Vampirism twists Awakening against itself, though, and that his power is potentially pretty much limitless. I don't think his actual effectiveness even at the power-level he currently has is sufficient to be a wide-scale threat, as he doesn't really have any long-range effects (the 'make people crazy' aura he has when 'unheld' seems pretty short-range) and doesn't give his wielder any great mobility powers.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nightblood's decisiveness in the Battle of Twilight Falls had more to do with the other side panicking when they faced him rather than the wielder really being able to defeat an army by themselves (Nightblood doesn't seem to grant any defense against arrows or such).

[Calderis]

@cometaryorbit I'm failing to find the WoB I was looking for, but I know I've seen one about the painting in Warbreaker.

Basically it implies that the painting Lightsong views in Warbreaker is letting him see a historical event.

So when drawn and feeding Nightblood can devastate an army in the hands of a single person able to feed it enough investiture.

I don't have an answer about arrows. But as I've said before, Nightblood is scary. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Calderis

[+Extesian]

It was one of the annotations @Calderis, @Andy92 posted it here. I'd never seen it so it was good to read. 

Quote

This is our first major clue (though a subtle one at the same time) that there might be something to the religion of the Iridescent Tones. Lightsong does see something in this painting that an ordinary person wouldn’t be able to. A well-crafted piece of art, made by a person channeling the Tones and connected to them via Breath, can speak to a Returned. Now, in this case, it doesn’t work quite like Llarimar says it does—Lightsong doesn’t actually prophesy about the black sword in the way the priest thinks. In other words, Lightsong isn’t prophesying that he’ll see the Black Sword (Nightblood) in the day’s activities.

Instead, Lightsong is seeing an image of a previous war, which is prophetic in that another Manywar is brewing—and in both cases, Nightblood will be important to the outcome of the battle.

 

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Extesian said:

It was one of the annotations @Calderis, @Andy92 posted it here. I'd never seen it so it was good to read. 

 

Thanks as always. I searched every term I could think of from Nightblood, Lightsong, Manywar, paintings, artist... 

Never even thought of the annotations. 

[+Extesian]

29 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Thanks as always. I searched every term I could think of from Nightblood, Lightsong, Manywar, paintings, artist... 

Never even thought of the annotations. 

Yeah the annotations are a weak spot in my canon knowledge and I've never found a good way to search them. I think my task will be to read and flag the annotations of every book, something I haven't done properly.

[Djarskublar]

19 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

That WOB doesn't actually say that Nightblood has any mixed Investiture, just that 'corrupted' Investiture is a question of definition and that 'corrupted' spren (presumably Odiumspren) are that way because of the mixing of Shards' powers.

I would like to note that it is probably not Odiumspren he is referring to there. It would be more likely the Radiant spren that are not purely Honor or Cultivation spren. They are a mix, and therefor a corruption by that definition. This definition is specifically not talking about evil, and I don't think Odium corrupted existing spren, he made new ones. He doesn't want his Investiture mixing with other Intents, even if it isn't directly attached to him any more.

[Calderis]

27 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

I would like to note that it is probably not Odiumspren he is referring to there. It would be more likely the Radiant spren that are not purely Honor or Cultivation spren. They are a mix, and therefor a corruption by that definition. This definition is specifically not talking about evil, and I don't think Odium corrupted existing spren, he made new ones. He doesn't want his Investiture mixing with other Intents, even if it isn't directly attached to him any more.

In Dalinar's purelake vision they talk about Sja-anat and talk about it, (presumably an unmade) corrupting a spren. I don't disagree with anything else about your post, but I think Odium is willing to corrupt existing spren. 

[+hwiles]

First, Nightblood is heavy where shardblades are lightweight, notably shorter than dead spren-blades, and colored and shaped wildly differently than any other dead spren-blade we've seen.

Regarding the corrupted Investiture thing...Since Nightblood's Breath can't be drawn back out by an awakener and he (it?) doesn't really follow the normal rules of awakening, I've always subscribed to the belief that, very shortly after his creation, he technically ceased to be an awakened object in the traditional sense and instead became a highly Invested being with his own magical rules independent of Endowment.  IE: the Investiture that composes his spiritual aspect was created by corrupting Breath by disassociating it from Endowment.  (speculation)

He turns brick walls into clouds of smoke...Admittedly, we don't know that much about Endowment's magic system, but that seems pretty outrageously different from any other awakening we've seen...

[Calderis]

47 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Regarding the corrupted Investiture thing...Since Nightblood's Breath can't be drawn back out by an awakener and he (it?) doesn't really follow the normal rules of awakening, I've always subscribed to the belief that, very shortly after his creation, he technically ceased to be an awakened object in the traditional sense and instead became a highly Invested being with his own magical rules independent of Endowment.  IE: the Investiture that composes his spiritual aspect was created by corrupting Breath by disassociating it from Endowment.  (speculation)

He turns brick walls into clouds of smoke...Admittedly, we don't know that much about Endowment's magic system, but that seems pretty outrageously different from any other awakening we've seen...

That's precisely why I believe there's some other Shards investiture involved. If Nightblood were made solely through the power of Awakening, he should be constrained within the bounds of Awakening. Granted, we don't know what the limits of Awakening are. We've seen just enough to know that we've barely scratched the surface. 

If you were to add another Shards investiture into the mix though the effects would be unpredictable. 

Would it be able to function borrowing guidelines from both systems? Or would it use each intent to corrupt the other and be able to act outside of both investitures limiting factors? Or would they mingle to create their own intent and function within its own guidelines, separate of both the systems that composed it? 

Edited June 5, 2017 by Calderis

[+hwiles]

@Calderis I was trying to suggest that Nightblood essentially "escaped" the awakening magic system; sort of like his creation was a hack of the physics underlying awakening.  In essence, by focusing so much assembled Investiture into an object, in this case a sword, Nightblood's cognitive manifestation, which probably resembled that of Shallan's Stick in terms of complexity, was able to make the leap to fully functioning sentient being, thereby "reforging" the 1,000 individual pieces of Endowment's Investiture into what could be considered a single indivisible soul.

Nightblood's "soul" may be made out of Investiture that originally belonged to Endowment, but the way he consumes Investiture from his user and attacks his targets across all three realms just doesn't seem consistent with how awakening normally operates.

You argue that this implies that he has mixed Endowment's Investiture with another Shard's Investiture, which would be another possible explanation, however, I personally feel that that explanation is needlessly complicated.  I'm unconvinced that Vasher would've murdered his wife if creating additional Nightbloods would've required securing pieces of another Shard's Investiture.

[Calderis]

@hwiles what I've said multiple times is that the extra investiture entered through something Shashara did that Vasher was unaware of, as it was her project and not his.

If a Magic system is able to break its own rules without involving another system, even if that second system involves the same Shard as with the compounding we know, it undermines everything we know about magic in the Cosmere.

Either Nightblood functions the way he does functioning within a set of Awakening rules we are not familiar with, or There is something outside of Awakening (even if it is a heretofore unseen magic system on Nalthis) that has manipulated the way Nightblood was made. 

A system cannot hack itself. Once that happens, Realmatics fail. It would ruin the hard rules of magic Brandon has set as the cornerstone of his magic systems.