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A Nightmare of a Nightblood Theory


Dawnshard

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So we know Nightblood is full of Investiture. It is so full it bleeds black smoke. It is more invested than an Honorblade, can kill vessels of Shards, and was made by Awakening. Nightblood was based on shardblade design maybe even from the Honorblades. It seems to me that the 5 scholars at the height of awakening scholarship traveled to Roshar. Maybe to learn more about other worlds or other magics. They were impressed with shardblades. The sleepless were tasked with guarding the Dawnshards. One way to protect a dawnshard from Odium is to make it harder to reach.

They gave it to Shashara, who created Nightblood along with Vasher. She was given the Dawnshard Destroy. They decided the best way to safely use it was if it was commanded to only destroy evil. They figured it would make the Dawnshard safer to wield. Rsyan was told not to bind a spren because using the Dawnshard in conjunction with Investiture is dangerous. Ie. Creating Nightblood with Awakening. 

A Shardblade so powerful because the dawnshard (similar to having the 5th heightening, or perhaps more) was used as the force to awaken it, maybe with additional breaths. What do you think an awakened soldier with the Destroy Dawnshard could do?

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Nightblood does not leak black smoke because it's full of Investiture. Nightblood is so empty/in need of Investiture that it literally sucks it in. When it sucked in Rayse, it was full for a period of time. When it sucks in Investiture, the Investiture is changed. Since Nightblood is made of steel, it can't hold this altered Investiture in so the Investiture leaks out as black smoke.

I don't believe a Dawnshard was used to create Nightblood. I also can't see the reason that the Sleepless are afraid of a Dawnshard being able to use Investiture is because Nightblood exists. They're afraid of much much worse things that a Dawnshard with Investiture could do (think "Thanos and The Snap" type of things). Nightblood is simply the result of people with way too many Breaths trying to recreate powerful things that they didn't fully understand. "Destroy evil" was a pretty lame Command to use, as well.

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1 minute ago, Leuthie said:

Nightblood does not leak black smoke because it's full of Investiture. Nightblood is so empty/in need of Investiture that it literally sucks it in. When it sucked in Rayse, it was full for a period of time. When it sucks in Investiture, the Investiture is changed. Since Nightblood is made of steel, it can't hold this altered Investiture in so the Investiture leaks out as black smoke.

Nightblood is in fact over-saturated with investiture and it leaks out as smoke

Spoiler

lucagreene18

If Szeth were to have drawn Nightblood immediately after he had consumed Rayse, would he still have drained Szeth's Stormlight? As it said he seemed like he had eaten as much as he could.

Brandon Sanderson

At that point, Nightblood had entered into essentially a food coma... Well, no, the food coma one came when he was drawing from the perpendicularity. I don't think he was in food coma mode at that point. I think that he could still have drawn more at that point, I'd have to go look at exactly what I wrote, if I'd put him into food coma mode or not. It is possible.

This is one of the things I wanted to answer with the book. A lot of people have been theorizing, could Nightblood eat an entire Shard? And indeed, Nightblood could not eat an entire Shard. That is not within his capability. In fact, one of the reasons that he leaks Investiture is: he's too stuffed full of it. There is more Investiture in the sword Nightblood than it can actually hold, it's supersaturated. And it leaks Investiture (that it's done some weird things to). But it is constantly hungry for more and constantly leaks it, but it definitely can get full for a time, and it could not eat an entire Shard.

I did see questions about that from people floating around, and it's something I'd been meaning to get to eventually. Nightblood is definitely relevant to things that are happening in the Cosmere, but it is not as simple as grabbing the sword, sticking it into a Shard, and defeating the Shard, unfortunately. Though, as you see in this book, there are reasons for a Shard to still be afraid of Nightblood. It didn't destroy Odium, but Rayse still really had a bad time.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

Brandon Sanderson

Anyway, Nightblood is named for the smoke he leaks, and he originally had a different name when he was created. Vasher himself dubbed the sword Nightblood after he had used it to kill the woman he loved. The blackness that leaks out is actually corrupted and consumed Breaths, the ones that Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him.

Warbreaker Annotations (April 25, 2011)

 

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So as the person above pointed out. Nightblood is saturated with Investiture and leaks it as smoke. Also the command used to awaken him was destroy evil, which is what Vasher chose. It was in Warbreaker. I'm pretty sure it was to limit the amount of damage, it could do but that is speculation. Also Nightblood was more Invested than an Honorblade, and no explanation has fully convinced me as to why Nightblood has sooooo much Investiture. Way more than it would seem from awakening steel.

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23 hours ago, Dawnshard said:

So as the person above pointed out. Nightblood is saturated with Investiture and leaks it as smoke. Also the command used to awaken him was destroy evil, which is what Vasher chose. It was in Warbreaker. I'm pretty sure it was to limit the amount of damage, it could do but that is speculation. Also Nightblood was more Invested than an Honorblade, and no explanation has fully convinced me as to why Nightblood has sooooo much Investiture. Way more than it would seem from awakening steel.

Nightblood wasn't originally as powerful as it is now, it grew in power over time by absorbing the Investiture of those it destroyed.

Quote

Mason Wheeler

Nightblood is the most ridiculously over-invested thing in the Cosmere, second only to the Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Mason Wheeler

Was this true from the moment of his creation, or did it grow in power over time.

Brandon Sanderson

Grew in power over time. Kind of answers a question that people have been wondering. But, yes.

 

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On 09/07/2022 at 10:18 AM, Arsteel said:

If it's a dawnshard, it already has infinite Investiture, and so it wouldn't be constantly trying to absorb more.

Sorry, correction. I didn't know what a dawnshard was at this point, i thought it was synonymous to Shard. I've looked it up now. I apologise.

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I'm skeptical that Dawnshards actually have infinite Investiture. A ton, yeah, but Rysn's body doesn't disappear/vaporize the way actual Vessels of Shards do. So I think it's significantly less than a full Shard.

I think a Dawnshard is more analogous to a huge amount of Breath: Heightening type effects but no body vaporization.

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