Type 4 entities and a persons sanity

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

So in my efforts to brainstorm potential for awakened objects to replicate other magic systems it hit me that anything type 4 could just chatter in my ear.   

Say I awaken some armor, or a sword or an eyepatch (trying to get some atium action)... would all of these start talking to me constantly like nightblood does?   Would each of the type 4 objects be able to communicate with eachother?  If you had vivennas sword and nightblood both side by side how would they interact with each other?   Would they send a person holding each mad?  

I already have this feeling that I would never be able to sleep if I were carrying nightblood around.  What if I had 2 or 3 or even more awakened type 4 objects and they were always talking to me unaware of eachother... or worse I have to listen to multiple objects complain about my incompetence and plot my demise together?

[Quantus]

Vivenna's sword is more reticient than Nightblood, at the very least. It might have to do with having as "active" a Command as Destroy Evil that makes him outgoing, he wants to get to know people to see if they will give him an opportunity to Destroy what should be Destroyed (Called "Evil", but that's not a concept he actually gets). 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

18 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Vivenna's sword is more reticient than Nightblood, at the very least. It might have to do with having as "active" a Command as Destroy Evil that makes him outgoing, he wants to get to know people to see if they will give him an opportunity to Destroy what should be Destroyed (Called "Evil", but that's not a concept he actually gets). 

Any ideas what sort of commands would produce a much more boring item?  I felt the same way when thinking about bonding a spren... or hemalurgic spikes... I am not a huge fan of other things speaking directly into my mind at a whim.  I think there is soooo much cooler stuff to awaken than just what we have seen (a glass eye that gives future sight would be so cool and totally worth giving up even a working eye for).  

I also have to ask... does Nightblood become more eager the more investiture he consumes?  Could his creation have produced a much less talkative sword and as he feeds more he simply gets more excited about his next meal?  A part of me almost feels bad for Nightblood.  Having this task you need to accomplish but not having the ability to act in any way to accomplish it.  

[Quantus]

3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Any ideas what sort of commands would produce a much more boring item?  I felt the same way when thinking about bonding a spren... or hemalurgic spikes... I am not a huge fan of other things speaking directly into my mind at a whim.  I think there is soooo much cooler stuff to awaken than just what we have seen (a glass eye that gives future sight would be so cool and totally worth giving up even a working eye for).  

Off-hand: Chronicle Life could be an interesting being reminiscent of all kinds of passive Overserver cosmic beings of comic books fame.  Anything that is about recording or observation, especially if it had a non-intervention mindset to the Command, could probably fall out that way.  But even Destroy Evil could probably give you something way more laconic than Nightblood if you were imagining more of a Silent Juggernaut when you issued the "Destroy Evil" command.  The Words are the main trigger, but the mental image behind them is where the real subtly of Awakening lives.  

3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I also have to ask... does Nightblood become more eager the more investiture he consumes?  Could his creation have produced a much less talkative sword and as he feeds more he simply gets more excited about his next meal?  A part of me almost feels bad for Nightblood.  Having this task you need to accomplish but not having the ability to act in any way to accomplish it.  

Nightblood is definitely growing and evolving, though it's a slow process.  I personally think that time he was asserting that Szeth was being Cruel is an indication that he's developing his own sense of morality.  The strange thing for me has always been that he does  have an innate measure of Evil in the way he "tests" others to provoke one of two reactions.  This makes me think the issue is that Shashara only had a vague and emotional Sense of what she'd consider Evil, a "you know it when you see/feel it" mentality.  She probably would have struggled to put it into articulate words and so Nightblood doesnt have a logical/cognitive Understanding of Evil but nevertheless he can identify a more Spiritual wavelength (a Rhythm, even?) that he uses to classify people, one that I think he got from the Internal Image side of the Command she used to create him.  Awakening is governed by a lot more than the literal words, after all. 

[Returned]

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Any ideas what sort of commands would produce a much more boring item?  I felt the same way when thinking about bonding a spren... or hemalurgic spikes... I am not a huge fan of other things speaking directly into my mind at a whim.  I think there is soooo much cooler stuff to awaken than just what we have seen (a glass eye that gives future sight would be so cool and totally worth giving up even a working eye for).  

I also have to ask... does Nightblood become more eager the more investiture he consumes?  Could his creation have produced a much less talkative sword and as he feeds more he simply gets more excited about his next meal?  A part of me almost feels bad for Nightblood.  Having this task you need to accomplish but not having the ability to act in any way to accomplish it.  

We just don't have very many examples of Awakened items with sentience to judge what would make one more sedate versus more active. Vivenna may have an idea, given her sword's apparently different behavior relative to Nightblood. Awakening itself is very finnicky and we see even Vasher refining specific Commands within Warbreaker as he tries to get them just right. Possibly a longer, more complex command influencing how much the object would talk might help ([Command related to purpose] only when I ask and otherwise be silent). But we just don't know. Plus it may not be ideal to give an object power and sentience but subjugate it in such a way. Again though, we don't really know how this kind of entity thinks, feels, or exists.

I'm not sure that Nightblood becomes more eager with more consumed Investiture. Certainly right after he consumes a lot he gets sluggish. But he also shows capacity for growth, which Vasher was certain is impossible for an Awakened object; he flatly rejects the idea that Nightblood might be different in Warbreaker than when he was first Awakened. As above we don't have many examples of anything other than a natural-born person gaining more and more Investiture, so the effects of that aren't clear.

I'm not sure that Nightblood is frustrated that he can't act on his own to "destroy evil" though. He definitely wants to fulfill his Command, however it is that he's conceiving of evil, but he's also a sword and wants to be used as one. Even at his most autonomous (being partially drawn), only "evil" people are motivated to use him and they then destroy nearby "evil", as well as themselves-- it doesn't seem to be anything that he consciously does, but more a feature of what he is. I suspect we'll learn more about the cognitive aspects of Awakened objects in future books, but as long as he thinks of himself as a sword I think he's content to be a sword, with all that implies.

[cometaryorbit]

On 4/8/2022 at 0:58 PM, Quantus said:

 The strange thing for me has always been that he does  have an innate measure of Evil in the way he "tests" others to provoke one of two reactions.  This makes me think the issue is that Shashara only had a vague and emotional Sense of what she'd consider Evil, a "you know it when you see/feel it" mentality.  She probably would have struggled to put it into articulate words and so Nightblood doesnt have a logical/cognitive Understanding of Evil

Hmm, so maybe if someone like Jasnah or Taravangian or Dalinar who's spent a lot of time thinking about morality Awakened a sword to Destroy Evil they'd get a very different result (depending on their own definition of evil)?

Though I think someone like that would also use a more specific Command.