Josiah Bills Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 I think that the ability of Half Shards and Shardplate to block Shardblades is accidental. After all, why would the Knights Radiant needed the ability to block Shardblades? They could not have expected to need to fight one another. How do Half Shards block Shardblades? Supposedly, the fabrial strengthens the metal of the shield. How is stronger metal supposed to stop something that can cut through anything? My theory is that these two items block Shardblades not because of the strengthening, but because of the investment made by the fabrials. The same thing applies to Plate, only more so because of its increased complexity and power. Expanding on this, I think that shardblades are meant to destroy investment. What a shardblade does when it cuts a human is burn away his innate investment. When a Shardblade cuts an object that is strongly invested though, it only manages to do a bit of damage. The fuzzing of a Shardblade when it passes through humans is beacause it is burning away a weak investment. This could mean that Kaladin is immune to soul-burning when he is infused with stormlight. Instead the blade would cut him like an ordinary sword. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nepene Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 (edited) Counter. Shardarmor is made to resist the magic from voidbringers. It being able to resist magic is an entirely wanted and designed property. How half shards block shardblades. It could be both hardening and investment. The two things are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps they have a surge increasing the strength of atomic bonding, making it harder. This incidentally increases the strength of spiritual bonding, allowing it to resist magic. Edited November 30, 2012 by Nepene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 I think that the ability of Half Shards and Shardplate to block Shardblades is accidental. After all, why would the Knights Radiant needed the ability to block Shardblades? If a guy is swinging a shardbalde nbext to you, it don't matter if he's on your side, you still would like some protection against accidental friendly fire. But I agree with everything else. Shardblades cut investiture - and pass through everything lacking it, so shardplates block it because they are invested. That's the basic of it, even if there's more to it. But I wonder now about the implications. If kaladin or szeth draw enough stormlight, will he become resistant to shardblades? can other fabrials block blades too? I doubt anyone tested them that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nejaa Posted December 5, 2012 Report Share Posted December 5, 2012 Shardblades cut investiture - and pass through everything lacking it, so shardplates block it because they are invested. That's the basic of it, even if there's more to it. But I wonder now about the implications. If kaladin or szeth draw enough stormlight, will he become resistant to shardblades? can other fabrials block blades too? I doubt anyone tested them that way. I'll have to look it up, but I think somewhere in the Prologue or Szeth chapters it mentions stormlight wouldn't block a Shardblade. You may be right about it being an amount of stormlight, though I doubt Kaladin or Szeth would want to test that theory. I'd love this to work - it'd give the Kholins a fighting chance when Taravangian's assassin comes to call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirShemmington VI Posted December 6, 2012 Report Share Posted December 6, 2012 If shardblades cut investiture, would a metal mind from scadrial be able to block them? Assuming it was filled enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thought Posted December 7, 2012 Report Share Posted December 7, 2012 Allow me to be crazy for a moment: Perhaps halfshard is alive but lacks a soul? We know that shardblade does not cut the physical form of a living thing. We also know that shardblade does cut inanimate objects (with the exception of other shardblades and shardplate). However, we do know that halfshard is different than shardblades and shardplate (for one, when its destroyed, its destroyed). Thus we can eliminate those options. Since a shardblade doesn't cut halfshard, it would then seem to indicate that shardplate is alive. This, of course, begs the question of why doesn't a shardblade cut a halfshard's soul. The solution there being that it lacks one. Halfshard may thus be like commandless Nightbloods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haradion Drogon Posted December 7, 2012 Report Share Posted December 7, 2012 I agree with your points, especialy because I suspect that Nightblood could block a shardblade easily... For no other reason than that Nightblood is awesome, and there is no way Sanderson would make it weak to a shardblade... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted December 7, 2012 Report Share Posted December 7, 2012 Perhaps it is part of the process of bringing back how to make complete plate and blades. Weapons and armor evolve over time, but they KNOW that shardplate and blades are possible, they just have to relearn how to make them. This seems to be a necessary step in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nepene Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 If shardblades cut investiture, would a metal mind from scadrial be able to block them? Assuming it was filled enough. Scadrial magics are fairly low powered compared to Roshar as Brandon said, and a metal mind is not that heavily invested. For example, Marsh is able to push Sazed's metalminds at the end of Mistborn book 2. A metal mind probably wouldn't be able to resist damage, even fully charged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thought Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Scadrial magics are fairly low powered compared to Roshar as Brandon said, and a metal mind is not that heavily invested. For example, Marsh is able to push Sazed's metalminds at the end of Mistborn book 2. A metal mind probably wouldn't be able to resist damage, even fully charged. Unless the metalmind is full of investiture, perhaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 I think it's important that the investiture be used to reinforce the object against damage. Otherwise all fabrials would resist Shardblades. That doesn't necessarily mean the actual structural strength of the Shardplate/Half-Shard is what stops the Shardblade, though. Plate isn't impervious to being whacked with hammers, but can stand up to repeated Shardblade strikes even though they shear through stone and mundane armor like air. I think being designed to resist damage makes the investiture capable of interfering with Shardblade strikes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nepene Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 I think it's important that the investiture be used to reinforce the object against damage. Otherwise all fabrials would resist Shardblades. That doesn't necessarily mean the actual structural strength of the Shardplate/Half-Shard is what stops the Shardblade, though. Plate isn't impervious to being whacked with hammers, but can stand up to repeated Shardblade strikes even though they shear through stone and mundane armor like air. I think being designed to resist damage makes the investiture capable of interfering with Shardblade strikes. If I was to guess, being made to resist damage increases the efficiency of resisting Shardblade strikes. More bang for your buck. Even a soul is capable of resisting pushing by allomancy, despite it not being designed to resist allomancy. A shard might well be able to ignore shardblades. Shardblades are seriously powerful so it takes a lot of metaphorical bucks to resist them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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