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Showing results for tags 'corrupted investiture'.
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So, I've noticed a lot of Nghtblood-centric threads on this forum (as there well should be, given that Nightblood is the singular most Invested object in the Cosmere and one of the most unique), and it got me thinking about how it works and what it really is. After leafing through some other theories and looking through the Arcanum, I think I have an idea. So, a quick refresher on how Nightblood was created: So, Nightblood is an Awakened Steel sword with the Command "Destroy Evil" Now, take a look at this WoB: Nightblood, a regular Steel sword that was mined, smelted, alloyed, and forged on Nalthis, and then imbued with Breaths, which is Endowment Investiture, has Ruin's Investiture in it. Why? Well, my theory is as follows: The Breaths in Nightblood were given a Command, which became the sword's Intent: "Destroy Evil". And what happened when this Command was given to Nightblood? Does that ring a bell? The Command breaks down into two basic concepts. "Destroy," and "Evil". I think that, upon receiving the Command, the Breaths were corrupted with Ruin's Intent, that of Destruction, which essentially makes the Breaths part of Ruin's Investiture. All of those Corrupted Breaths, now being forced into a single sword, oversaturated it with Investiture, and so it started leaking it, letting those Corrupted Breaths dissipate. However, here's the problem: Investiture can't be destroyed. The closest it can come to being destroyed is when it's exposed to Anti-Investiture, where the Investiture simply becomes energy, which can presumably be turned back into Investiture. So, how can the Breaths follow their new Intent? The closest it can come to 'destroying' Investiture is Corrupting it and keeping it stuck in the sword, forcing it to stay out of the Investiture systems for as long as possible. Nightblood is, functionally, a prime manifestation of Ruin's Intent, doing its best to destroy Investiture by Corrupting it and trying to keep it compressed within the sword. This is why Nightblood has grown in power over the centuries; it absorbs the Investiture from everything and everyone that it possibly can. The "Destroy" half of the Command essentially dictates the method by which the sword works. All this is separate from the "Evil" part of the Command. That part forms the basis of Nightblood's 'test'. If you want to use the sword for personal gain, extortion, killing your enemies, etc, you will be drawn to kill others with the sword, and then yourself. If not, you feel nauseous. Use the sword and you become Bonded to it, and you become immune to the test. "Evil" determines the test by which the sword decides whether someone is evil or not, and the "Destroy" part ordains how it will kill someone who is decided to be evil. The fact that Nightblood-inflicted wounds cause blackness to form on the corpses through its Aluminum sheath just goes to show how powerful it is. It suggests that Ruin's magic system could have been far, far darker than Hemalurgy. Had Ruin settled on a planet other than Scadrial, alone, it could have resulted in a magic system more like a twisted, nightmarish version of Breaths and Awakening: A world where you can kill other people and suck their Investiture out as they die, with more Investiture gained the more the agony the victim is in as they pass. Collect enough Dying Breaths and you can create creatures or constructs out of Midnight Essence. Infect someone with Dying Breaths and you can possess them through an Entropy Bond, controlling them like a puppeteer, their eyes leaking black smoke all the while. Each use of Dying Breaths expends Breaths in a way that they can never be recovered, always driving people to kill more to gain more power. The more Dying Breaths you have at any given moment, the more sadistic and masochistic you become, reveling in pain. Luckily for the denizens of the Cosmere, Ruin never gets a chance to truly express his Intent, beyond wanting to destroy Scadrial. Nothing we see him do is unique to him; Any other Shard could recreate those effects, Intent notwithstanding. Nightblood is a tiny window into the truly destructive power Ruinous magic systems can have. Thoughts?
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First of all, I put this post in the general Cosmere discussion because Nightblood is from Nalthis, this theory involves Scadrial, and Nightblood is now on Roshar, so I didn't feel like I could put this in only one book series. I was recently listening to the Mistborn Era 1 audiobooks, and Ruin's Intent made me think of Nightblood. Ruin likes to destroy things, guess who else loves to destroy. This made me think that Nightblood's creation could possibly have been influenced by Ruin. Nightblood's investiture is corrupted, which usually means the mixing of multiple shards' investitures. What if Ruin put some of his ruinous investiture into the sword, along with cultivation's investiture? Nightblood's black smoke is reminiscent of Ruin's mist. Second, I think the timeline works out. 1-5 of the SA take place around 330 PC. In my head I think of Warbreaker taking place around 30 years before the Stormlight Archive, and Nightblood's creation happened 300 years before Warbreaker. That would place the Manywar and the creation of Nightblood right around the time that Vin released Ruin from the Well of Ascension. Sorry if this is confusing. It made a lot more sense in my head, but I would love to know your guys' thoughts.
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