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Destroy Evil


Oudeis

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Vasher, thinking to himself one time, mentions that the Command he and Shashara gave Nightblood seemed perfectly reasonable and logical. But, well, it wasn't.

 

Was there actually any "evil" around that needed destroying? Was this Buffy the Vampire Slayer where soulless demons ravaged the countryside? Was it Roshar, with it's threats of Voidbringers and Desolations? Even Scadrial has some monsters, in the form of Mistwraiths (more the ones everyone believes in, rather than the real ones) and at the time of the book Elantris, Sel has an empire that has taken over most of the known world and is threatening to squash every other culture. This is the sort of thing that could possibly be seen as "evil".

 

In Nalthis, at the time Nightblood was made, Hallandren WAS the all-encompassing culture squashing other nations. There were no monsters to fight (Lifeless don't count, they're products of science and obviously not what Vasher or Shashara would consider evil). There were no mythic terrors humanity might need defense against. I guess the case could be made that in war, even when you're the giant bully, you fight by convincing yourself that the other people aren't even human, and are thus possibly "evil," but that seems like a huge justification and stretch. And frankly, the man Vasher is now prolly would not still think of that as "reasonable and logical" thinking. It's the type of thinking that makes wars happen, and Vasher doesn't currently believe wars are logical or reasonable.

 

Why on Earth would two of the five best Awakeners in existence waste a thousand Breaths and perform a totally unique action, and then design it to do something so needless and, frankly, silly?

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What else would a sword do?

There's always evil. A monster isn't the only form of evil. Look at Earth.

It is perfectly reasonable to create a sword that destroys evil. If it destroys evil, then it won't destroy good, nor serve evil.

Besides-- how old is Nightblood? There might have been more obvious evil then.

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What else would a sword do?

There's always evil. A monster isn't the only form of evil. Look at Earth.

It is perfectly reasonable to create a sword that destroys evil. If it destroys evil, then it won't destroy good, nor serve evil.

Besides-- how old is Nightblood? There might have been more obvious evil then.

 

Nightblood was made around the same time as the Manywar, 300 years ago. I still say it's preposterous. Forces of nature are not evil, and relatively few people are actually evil. There were no supernatural forces that could be at all considered evil. If you had this one chance to spend a lot of an incredibly precious resource, would you really think it was "logical" to waste it making sure that your device had an incredibly limited scope to perform an action done much better and more easily by other means? In order to attack something that is, itself, comparatively rare in the world? How often, in your random walking-through-the-day-ness, do you stop to look at something and think to yourself, "man, that thing there is evil, if only there were a way to destroy it"? Do you constantly feel a pressing need to reduce the amount of evil in the world in a violent manner as opposed to, say, holding the door for a stranger or making the conscious decision not to get upset when a car cuts you off?

 

What evil existed for Shashara and Kalad to want to destroy? They must have had something specific in mind. If their real only sense of "evil" was, "Y'know, there are some people in the world who occasionally do things we disagree with" I fail to see how that leads, logically and reasonably, to "let's craft a weapon to kill all of those people." Even if they didn't know the form Nightblood would end up taking or his potential to harm the innocent, they were still obviously making a weapon and telling it to "destroy." They didn't want it to mitigate evil, or absolve evil people, or show the evil the error of their ways. Evil requires choice, choice means people, and Kalad and Shashara used their hard-won knowledge expressly to tell a bit of metal to destroy people. I do not understand how that's logical even if you think a sword CAN understand what is evil.

 

Side-note: I wonder who made Nightblood, as in the actual sword-vessel itself. There must've been a sword for Kalad and Shashara to Awaken into Nightblood. Were the scholars themselves blacksmiths? Or did the honor go to someone else? I'd be amused if Nightblood ran into a descendant of that blacksmith and called her his niece.

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Nightblood was made around the same time as the Manywar, 300 years ago. I still say it's preposterous. Forces of nature are not evil, and relatively few people are actually evil. There were no supernatural forces that could be at all considered evil. If you had this one chance to spend a lot of an incredibly precious resource, would you really think it was "logical" to waste it making sure that your device had an incredibly limited scope to perform an action done much better and more easily by other means?

You're not thinking like a scientist. most of the times, we make stuff just to see whether it can be done or not.

We generally worry about moral implications later. and even then, as people with a positive-oriented mind, we tend to think of the good that can be done with it and decide that the possible bad applications can be avoided with some good regulation. we tend to think that utility outwheights the risk.

 

and by the way, regardless of what they show in movies, it generally works. for example, we made huge progress on fighting virus and tumors thanks to genetic enginering, which we would have never done if the original inventors of it had decided to burn all his notes because that the toool was too dangerous as it allowed to create bioweaponsor or mutants.

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So, what would you suggest as an alternate command, assuming your objective was to create a weapon capable of destroying your enemies, without strict knowledge of what, exactly, the weapon would be capable of once created?

 

Your question pre-supposes I agree with the underlying premise of, "I want a weapon which slays my enemies." First of all, just no.

 

Second... to put myself in the shoes of Vasher and Shashara? Because "what I would do" and "what I could plausibly believe Kalad and Shashara would do" are vastly different things. Hrm. I dunno. What would their driving goal had been? Frankly, we don't know terribly well, since it was a very tumultuous time in their lives and we've got only the vaguest notion of at what point in this time they made him.

 

I guess, for the sake of a thought experiment, if we assume they made it shortly after the Manywar started (which is a HUGE assumption, outlining exactly how little we know about the scenario), in their shoes I think it would have made sense to give it a Command along the lines of, "Protect Hallandren."

 

And just to be clear, I fully understand that this Command would probably have gone just as haywire as Destroy Evil. I'm not arguing against the premise of, "A Command made with good intentions went haywire because a metal sword cannot understand human concepts". I'm arguing against the premise that "Destroy Evil" was ever a logical, reasonable Command in the first place, regardless of how it turned out.

 

You're not thinking like a scientist. most of the times, we make stuff just to see whether it can be done or not.

We generally worry about moral implications later. and even then, as people with a positive-oriented mind, we tend to think of the good that can be done with it and decide that the possible bad applications can be avoided with some good regulation. we tend to think that utility outwheights the risk.

 

and by the way, regardless of what they show in movies, it generally works. for example, we made huge progress on fighting virus and tumors thanks to genetic enginering, which we would have never done if the original inventors of it had decided to burn all his notes because that the toool was too dangerous as it allowed to create bioweaponsor or mutants.

 

First, if I may be so bold, may I ask your qualifications as you claim to speak from the personal experience of a scientist on the cutting edge of technology?

 

Second, you have misunderstood my initial point. I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear. I'm not arguing the morals of what they did. I don't personally agree with the morals but that's entirely beside the point.

 

Morals aside, the experiment was simply an objectively unsound idea. To follow your example, these two weren't engaging in genetic research that might have good or bad outcomes. They issued a Command to destroy something vague which was an entirely non-pressing threat.

 

To follow your analogy, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to explore genetic research. I'm saying it's a bad idea if a scientist submits a grant proposal because he wants to research a serum to "Destroy Evil." Does that seem like a sound scientific basis for research to you? As a scientist, how do you quantify "evil"? How many units of evil exist in the world? What physical or chemical properties does Evil have?

 

Genetic research is a sound scientific principle that will be a tool like any other, with possible positive and negative outcomes. It is both logical and reasonable under certain circumstances. "Destroy Evil" is illogical, and unreasonable. There was no clear threat which could be classified as "Evil" that the sword could be made to combat. How was it to be tested? Did they have a vat of "evil" to see how effectively the sword destroyed it? Were they prepared to see what waste materials were created once "Evil" was broken down into it's component parts?

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And everything you're describing is pretty much what went wrong with Nightblood. He can't decide what's evil, except by his weilder's estimations

 

I do not know how much clearer I can be... you are addressing a point I agree with you on, and it is absolutely ancillary to the point I am trying to make. If you think you are responding to me, then let me try to be as clear as possible. You are mistaken when you think you understand what my point is.

 

I know the Command went wrong, and why, and I agree that this whole mechanism is a good plot point for the story. The point I am addressing is exactly this: Even without hindsight, at the time, "Destroy Evil" was an inherently silly Command to ever give. There was simply no way for it to ever go right. The fact that other, better Commands would also have gone wrong is entirely irrelevant.

 

Basically you're saying, if a man sets my house on fire, and a few minutes later a plane crashes into it, that the plane crashing into it wasn't the man's fault. I agree, and that much is obvious. But the point I'm making is, regardless of the plane, it was still a bad idea for someone to set my house on fire.

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I don't know, I can see someone creating a robot and programming it to "Destroy Evil". Isn't it basically the same thing??

 

That would be exactly the same thing, and again, it's unreasonable and illogical. Before it even happens, how do you see it working? What pressing threat of "Evil" exists in the world that needs to be destroyed? Crime? So, you expect the robot to... kill all criminals? As Marasi said, economic investment is a far more effective means of removing from men the impulse to commit crimes in the first place. Is institutionalized racism a crime? So the robot would somehow eliminate all white CEOs? How about the exploitation of women in comic books? How do you see a robot going about that? You don't need to wait for Nightblood to go wrong to know beforehand that this is simply a terrible idea.

 

The Command was too vague from the get-go, which is a problem with your robot just like it was a problem when they forged the sword. What "evil" existed in the world? Seriously. At the time of the Manywar, please give me a clear, concise defintion of what Kalad and Shashara would have considered "evil" at the time, and why making a sword was a reasonable way to achieve the goal of ending it, and what precisely they thought the sword would do once the immediate threat was eliminated.

 

And lastly... yeah. In the scenario where, in the real world, a research scientist in robotics programming writes in a scientific journal about his plans to write a program telling his robot to "Destroy Evil" and then asks a grants committee for money to make it happen... you truthfully believe that the general consensus of the scientific community would be, "Sure, that sounds quite reasonable, here's money to continue with your very logical plan."?

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First, if I may be so bold, may I ask your qualifications as you claim to speak from the personal experience of a scientist on the cutting edge of technology?

 

Second, you have misunderstood my initial point. I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear. I'm not arguing the morals of what they did. I don't personally agree with the morals but that's entirely beside the point.

 

Morals aside, the experiment was simply an objectively unsound idea. To follow your example, these two weren't engaging in genetic research that might have good or bad outcomes. They issued a Command to destroy something vague which was an entirely non-pressing threat.

 

To follow your analogy, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to explore genetic research. I'm saying it's a bad idea if a scientist submits a grant proposal because he wants to research a serum to "Destroy Evil." Does that seem like a sound scientific basis for research to you? As a scientist, how do you quantify "evil"? How many units of evil exist in the world? What physical or chemical properties does Evil have?

 

Genetic research is a sound scientific principle that will be a tool like any other, with possible positive and negative outcomes. It is both logical and reasonable under certain circumstances. "Destroy Evil" is illogical, and unreasonable. There was no clear threat which could be classified as "Evil" that the sword could be made to combat. How was it to be tested? Did they have a vat of "evil" to see how effectively the sword destroyed it? Were they prepared to see what waste materials were created once "Evil" was broken down into it's component parts?

first, i'm just a university researcher. nothing particularly fancy, but i understand the mindset, and i have it myself. you don't start a project thinking it's useful or important, you do it mostly because you want to see what happens. and sometimes it turns oout to be useful or important, but that's just an added bonus. by talking with others, i'd say this is the mindset of over half university researchers, at least in projects without obvious potential applications. i guess those that cares more about applications go to applied rather than pure research.

 

so, if vasher was acting on this mindset, he never did consider "why am  i trying to awaken this sword?". no, he wondered "can a sword be awakened?" and once he managed it, he thought "oh, cool, i can do it. i wonder what kind of command i should give it?" and took what seemed a safe choice.

yeah, he could have chosen to awaken something that was ot a weapon, but he didn't. maybe he just picked a sword because it was simpler to awaken for some reason. there are plenty of analogous examples in academic research.

 

ok, probably that wasn't his motivation. it don't fit much with his character, and don't fit much with what sanderson has written so far. more likely it was supposed to be a weapon in the manywar, and the command was just to ensure it would be used to fight for the right side, because vasher wasn't a bad man. however, the right and wrong are highly subjective.

Still, i like more the idea that he made nightblood without many grand plans, mostly as an experiment that went horribly right. i just find it less likely in brandon's writing style.

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I guess, for the sake of a thought experiment, if we assume they made it shortly after the Manywar started (which is a HUGE assumption, outlining exactly how little we know about the scenario), in their shoes I think it would have made sense to give it a Command along the lines of, "Protect Hallandren."

"Protect Hallandren" would be a terrible command. What if Hallandren is taken over by an evil tyrant who wants to conquer the world? What if Hallandren becomes the threat to the world? What happens to Nightblood if Hallandren changes its name? What if Hallandren ceases to exist? Linking a command to a specific entity would be possibly the worst thing to do with such a powerful weapon. If you tell it to defeat x threat, what happens when that threat is over? At least "Destroy evil" stays applicable under almost all circumstances.

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I'm siding with King of Nowhere on this one. Yes, in hindsight, "destroy evil" has its faults. and I understand Outis' argument for why it didn't make much sense as a Command in the first place. 

 

Here's the thing - Vasher and Shashara were experimenting with things that they knew were dangerous. They'd never done this before, and they didn't know how broadly an object would interpret it's Command. At the same time, they wanted to press the boundaries and go beyond routine Awakening that used temporary, specific Commands. So, they needed a Command that would provide a continual purpose to the object, but were careful to not use one that could easily turn bad. Also, the object in question was a sword, which is inherently an instrument of destruction. So, in light of all this, "destroy evil" is a pretty reasonable choice.

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Actually, from my understand, Nightblood was made near the end of the Manywar; not the beginning. He was only used in the last battle of the war when Shashara decided to tell the secret of Nightblood's creation to all of Nalthis. This means that it's more probable that Nightblood was made closer to the beginning...So, by that point, I think that Vasher had a "clearer" idea of what evil might be after seeing that the terrors that war can create (like rape, pillaging, poverty, famine, thievery, citizen deaths caused by total warfare, Lifeless rampaging, Awakening weapons, etc). While evil is less concrete in this sense (you don't see it incarnate in the form of a monster/empire), it doesn't mean that he didn't have a good sense of what he thought evil was by this period. I think your major issue is that why would a scientist think he could directly define evil if his definition of evil should be (based on his circumstances) less concrete...

 

Also, while Vasher is a scientist in a matter of speaking, the science he's studying is by nature less concrete. It's not like physics or chemistry, and arguably, BioChromatics was a very new field at that point. They really didn't understand (as well) how vague that Command would be, but I think that they did have a clear idea of what they believed evil was, even though evil would still be a vague concept to Vasher and Shashara, the war helped to define evil to them. Really though, I think that when Nightblood is release, we might have a better idea of what was going on at this time and why they thought a sword was a "good" choice to combat evil. Though, I think that their vague idea of what evil is really does explain why Nightblood needs someone to define evil for it.

Edited by Nymp
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Actually, from my understand, Nightblood was made near the end of the Manywar; not the beginning. He was only used in the last battle of the war when Shashara decided to tell the secret of Nightblood's creation to all of Nalthis. This means that it's more probable that Nightblood was made closer to the beginning...So, by that point, I think that Vasher had a "clearer" idea of what evil might be after seeing that the terrors that war can create (like rape, pillaging, poverty, famine, thievery, citizen deaths caused by total warfare, Lifeless rampaging, Awakening weapons, etc).

You gave me an idea:

maybe the creation of nightblood took several years, as many scientific experiment do when they're new stuff and the people doing it are still stumbling on their way.

So maybe vasher first choose to make a sword because he wanted to use it in the war.

But then the years passed, and vasher had a change of mind. by then, nightblood was almost ready, and vasher didn't want to botch the whole project; so, he gave the sword the best command he could think of. Yes, it's  not perfect, but I don't see any better command. theorderknight made a few good points on how other commands would be worse.

 

THis is corroborated by vasher atoner attitude; he feel guilty for starting the war, so he was probably closer to a ruthless warlord at the beginning, and gradually changed attitude during the war.

Edited by king of nowhere
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  • 4 weeks later...

Vasher was at the time IIRC Returned. Which means he has a perfectly good reason for thinking he'd be fighting evil.

 

We don't know why he and the other Sages were Returned but war against Odium is at least a possibility.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

In Nalthis, at the time Nightblood was made, Hallandren WAS the all-encompassing culture squashing other nations. There were no monsters to fight (Lifeless don't count, they're products of science and obviously not what Vasher or Shashara would consider evil). There were no mythic terrors humanity might need defense against. I guess the case could be made that in war, even when you're the giant bully, you fight by convincing yourself that the other people aren't even human, and are thus possibly "evil," but that seems like a huge justification and stretch. And frankly, the man Vasher is now prolly would not still think of that as "reasonable and logical" thinking. It's the type of thinking that makes wars happen, and Vasher doesn't currently believe wars are logical or reasonable.

 

Note that Vasher apparently wasn't on the side of the Hallandren government at the time of the Manywar. He's called Kalad The Usurper, indicating he was probably involved in the revolt against the royal family. Plus, if he picked a side in the war it would be the one he thought was in the right.

 

Also, assuming it actually took as intended, the beauty of the "Destroy Evil" command is that it won't harm innocents. When giving unrevocable orders to very powerful and potentially literal-minded things, you want safe ones.

Edited by name_here
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  • 1 month later...

The intended experiment was to see if they could awaken metal. Let's not forget this. They weren't intending to create a sentient sword in the first place. Vasher notes how surprised both he and Shashara were that Nightblood acquired sentience in the way it did. Let's keep that in mind when we examine the command "Destroy Evil".

 

The commands Vasher usually gives are very general. "Hold Things," and "Grip Things," are some common examples. Simple and direct commands are favoured. Given those ideas, one would expect "Destroy Things," to be a quite reasonable command for a sword. We see a rope with the command "Hold things" go after whatever Vasher or Vivenna throws it at. In the same way we could expect an Awakened sword with the Command "Destroy Things" to stab and slice the entity it was directed against. Therefore, the "Destroy" part of the command seems perfectly valid.

 

Now we get to the specific command to destroy "Evil". We find ourselves in a bit of a moral quandry asking "what is evil?" Well our answers don't matter. Because once again let us remember that Nightblood was never intended to be sentient. The interpretation would not be for it to make itself, but rather the intention of its wielder. Telling it "Destroy Evil" rather than simply "Destroy Things" is really a safeguard for the experiment since Shashara and Vasher would likely never see themselves or their allies as "Evil" thus preventing a stray thought or mistaken command from sending Nightblood to destroy those they cared about. This wasn't the Scholars setting the purpose of an avenging god weapon. This was the equivalent of scientists using redundant radiation shielding. Just another safeguard. 

 

Taken in that light, the fact that Nightblood was never intended to be sentient, I believe that "Destroy Evil" was a perfectly viable command and rather clever scientific thinking.

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First, if I may be so bold, may I ask your qualifications as you claim to speak from the personal experience of a scientist on the cutting edge of technology?

first, i'm just a university researcher.

0wned.

 

 

Personally, I think that Kalad was trying to appear masculine for Shashara.  He didn't want to suggest that they give it the command "Pick flowers," because then she would think he was weird.  Also, it would have resulted in too many vaporized flowers.  

 

 

In all seriousness, though, I think there were demons roaming the countryside.  I think there were horrible, abominable monsters that deserved to be destroyed.  Now that the obvious evil is gone, Nightblood has to figure out what qualifies as evil among humankind.  

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No evidence at all. It just makes sense to me that there would be evil things to destroy if they wanted to destroy evil. With fantastic powers and a horrible war, I think it's very possible for there to have been monsters.

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