Do Blade kill the same?

[Cactuschef]

I see no reason why spren couldn't worldhop, if humans can do it, one would assume creatures indigineous to the cognitive realm could as well. and perhaps I shouldn't have specified just spren, but some kind of splinter, like a spren or seon. I just think it makes more sense that a cognitive entity was inexplicably drawn in during the process (likely BECAUSE of the huge amount of investiture involved), rather than an intelligence simply spontaneously generating out of raw power. If that were the case, I'd assume you'd see a sliding scale in objects with breath depending on how much was used; i.e. just a bit gives you the kind we see, mindless automatons capable of carrying out only one order, but if you invested more you'd get something akin to an animal intelligence, capable of rudimentary independant function, with something like nightblood at the top, but all you see is mindless automaton and sentient with no in-between.

 

 

again the part that makes this idea seem to fit the most for me is his memory issues, which we see with bond-less spren, or seons whose human is... its been too long since i read elantris but the way the plagued elantrians get that turn their seon mindless. nightblood remembers his creation when he was crammed full of an insane amount of investiture, but lacking a human bond he can't keep a working memory going forward. I imagine it as sort of the reverse equivalent of kaladin ripping that last bit of investiture through syl when he fell into the chasm, 'killing' her, this well of investiture in nightblood is what keeps him 'alive'. (and just as she wasn't completely dead by virtue of a broken/damaged bond, neither is he fully alive without one) also might even explain why nightblood feeds on breaths when in use, although that's just spitballing

Edited May 27, 2015 by Cactuschef

[WeiryWriter]

Actually Brandon has said the development of sentience is a fairly common occurrence when you have a bunch of Investiture in something.

[Cactuschef]

Actually Brandon has said the development of sentience is a fairly common occurrence when you have a bunch of Investiture in something.

can you point to where? near as I can tell everything sentient we've seen has some form of 'soul' (either it's a person or a fragment of adonalsium), with nightblood and the returned being the only 'exceptions' i can think of in that we haven't been told specifically whether a person's soul/a cognitive entity is involved. are there any examples of a definitely inanimate object gaining sentience via raw investiture?

Edited May 27, 2015 by Cactuschef

[Saal]

Well thanks to the recent changes to the end of Words of Radiance we know that a living spren blade is supposed to have some sort of healing effect on the soul when killing that a dead one does not.   Mr. Sanderson said that loosing this was the one aspect of the changes that he regretted but he would just have to find a place to put it in latter on.

 

I'm sorry if this should be obvious but what changes are you referring to? I didn't see anything mentioned in the Latest News section of the site nor on Brandon's website. Please let me know if I missed something.

[WeiryWriter]

can you point to where? near as I can tell everything sentient we've seen has some form of 'soul' (either it's a person or a fragment of adonalsium), with nightblood and the returned being the only 'exceptions' i can think of in that we haven't been told specifically whether a person's soul/a cognitive entity is involved. are there any examples of a definitely inanimate object gaining sentience via raw investiture?

 

We have this:

 

Satsuoni

Is it possible to give cats intelligence with Hemalurgy? Or transfer cat's identity to a human?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy can do some very, very odd things. And the endowment of intelligence is a common result of tinkering with shard-based magic.

 

(source)

 

We also have this which says something related:

 

Leinton (paraphrased)

If Endowment were killed, would the Returned still come?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Somebody needs to hold the magic. If no one holds the magic, the magic will start to gain sentience. Interesting and bizarre things happen then, so I would say yes, but with the caveat that with whoever picks up the power or what happens with the power could end up changing that.

 

(source)

[Arook]

I will look for it when I get home but there is WoB that yesteel knows how to make more swords like night blood and vasher implies at one point that they made other sentient metal objects.

[Cactuschef]

 

We have this:

 

 

(source)

 

We also have this which says something related:

 

 

(source)

 

I see, although I don't think either of those really apply to what I'm talking about (raw investiture giving an inanimate object sentience). the first is about giving intelligence to something that's already alive, and the second is takling about the splinters of a shard gaining sentience which we've already seen with spren and seons.

 

although after some digging, I think nightblood likely does have a bond, although a strange one, since I stumbled across a quote saying his telepathy required a bond. perhaps there are other types of 'spren' type bonds than the nahel bond (or nightblood's could be a unique aberation).

 

Another couple quotes that make me think nightblood has to have a spren/splinter type entity involved;

 

 

Question

If Nightblood were on Roshar would he be a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are exactly the same thing. He is a Shardblade that is twisted and is a lot more powerful than normal.

 

Question

The "God Surges" you mentioned recently, are they a part of the Way of Kings frontsheet?

You've said that there are three types of Blades in the Stormlight Archive. We've seen "dead" Shardblades, Honorblades—is the third type the "living spren" Shardblades, or is there another type we haven't seen?

Do all Surgebinders breathe Stormlight in, or are there other ways? Is Lift one-of-a-kind in this regard?

Brandon Sanderson

All I said regarding this was to tell a fan that it was possible to make an analogy between the god metals on Scadrial and certain powers on Roshar. However, these are not a codified part of the magic system.

Lift is one of a kind.

Nightblood is a very unique kind of Shardblade, but IS a Shardblade.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kw=nightblood#32 and #34, i dont know how to link to them directly from a search page

 

since all the blades we know are either an honorblade, with no spren, or a shardblade, with a spren, living or dead, it seems odd that he'd say that nightblood is exactly the same thing as shardblade if no spren(or at least spren-like splinter/cognitive entity) was involved, since being spren-based is a defining characteristic of a shardblade.

 

 

Sir Jerric

Could a Seon, or a Skaze, could they turn into a, some sort of Shardblade on their own planet?

Brandon Sanderson

That is theoretically possible. It's—I mean they work under the same fundamentals, but they would need to have something to pull them more into the physical realm.

Source

 

 

so i'm sticking with the theory that when nightblood was created a spren or similar entity was inadvertently involved (drawn in by the mass amounts of investiture involved even), although likely altered significantly in the process of having a Command issued to it

Edited May 27, 2015 by Cactuschef

[DreamEternal]

Maybe all the breaths just condensed into a sentient, vaguely sprenlike, splinter locked in blade form. Seems more likely than acidentaly binding a worldhopping spren to a blade.

Edited May 28, 2015 by CognitivePulsePattern

[WeiryWriter]

I see, although I don't think either of those really apply to what I'm talking about (raw investiture giving an inanimate object sentience). the first is about giving intelligence to something that's already alive, and the second is takling about the splinters of a shard gaining sentience which we've already seen with spren and seons.

 

although after some digging, I think nightblood likely does have a bond, although a strange one, since I stumbled across a quote saying his telepathy required a bond. perhaps there are other types of 'spren' type bonds than the nahel bond (or nightblood's could be a unique aberation).

 

Another couple quotes that make me think nightblood has to have a spren/splinter type entity involved;

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kw=nightblood#32 and #34, i dont know how to link to them directly from a search page

 

since all the blades we know are either an honorblade, with no spren, or a shardblade, with a spren, living or dead, it seems odd that he'd say that nightblood is exactly the same thing as shardblade if no spren(or at least spren-like splinter/cognitive entity) was involved, since being spren-based is a defining characteristic of a shardblade.

 

 

 

so i'm sticking with the theory that when nightblood was created a spren or similar entity was inadvertently involved (drawn in by the mass amounts of investiture involved even), although likely altered significantly in the process of having a Command issued to it

 

You do realize that honorblades are also shardblades, right?

 

But you might also find this interesting:

 

[Reddit]

 

PrinceofMagnets

 

What is cosmere sentience? By this I mean what does it require and what does it entail?

 

Brandon Sanderson

 

In the cosmere, most things are sentient on some level. Basically, anything with even the smallest amount of investiture. (Which is all matter, and most cognitive creations.) Sapience is something different, of course.

[Cactuschef]

 

You do realize that honorblades are also shardblades, right?

 

But you might also find this interesting:

 

it's all the years of watching star trek where they used 'sentient life' to mean 'something with a human-like capacity to think and reason'.

 

and yeah, obviously we've got objects like Stick or the boat that are by the definition of the word "sentient", but I'm referring to something you could call a 'person' like syl or a human or nightblood, capable of carrying on conversation and having opinions and pondering ideas and so forth. brandon notes the distinction with 'sapience' in the quote.

 

also I don't see how honorblades could be considered shardblades, honorblades existed first, and are fundamentally different. shardblades are the result of spren mimicing the properties of honorblades.

[WeiryWriter]

it's all the years of watching star trek where they used 'sentient life' to mean 'something with a human-like capacity to think and reason'.

 

and yeah, obviously we've got objects like Stick or the boat that are by the definition of the word "sentient", but I'm referring to something you could call a 'person' like syl or a human or nightblood, capable of carrying on conversation and having opinions and pondering ideas and so forth. brandon notes the distinction with 'sapience' in the quote.

 

also I don't see how honorblades could be considered shardblades, honorblades existed first, and are fundamentally different. shardblades are the result of spren mimicing the properties of honorblades.

 

Honorblades are shardblades because Brandon says so:

 

Lance Alvein

Can you confirm if the scene with Taln at the end of Way of Kings is entirely in Hoid's perspective? There was some discussion that it might not be, since Taln's honourblade was called a shardblade.

BRANDON SANDERSON (paraphrased)

That entire scene is in Hoid's POV, and the reason for it being called a shardblade is because honourblades are shardblades.

 

(source)

[DreamEternal]

Wait, so he basicaly comfirmed "Taln" was carrying a honorblade?

[Cactuschef]

 

Honorblades are shardblades because Brandon says so:

 

 

(source)

how bout that.

 

still, I think it makes more sense and is more consistent that a cognitive entity was involved. It seems like, if large aggregations of investiture were able to engender intelligence in inanimate objects, you'd see some kind of sliding scale, with moderate amounts of investiture creating ones that were clever or animal-like but not human-level. but so far there's just mindlessly animated automatons, and one sword capable of speech. human(oids) can be sapient, things that were some part of adonalsium can too, perhaps animals if the right form of magic was applied, but having non-living materials being capable of that level of thought just because you crammed enough energy into them just doesn't seem like something you'd get in a sanderson-type magic system.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Cactuschef

[Arook]

So Spren are concepts and ideas. What if the process for making Nightblood involved them pulling the concept/Spren of Destroy Evil  and using the breath to force it into a sword and bind it in place. That could make Nightblood very very similar to a Shardblade. I for one think all places have spren Roshar is just special.

 

 

@ cognitivepulsepattern

 

No he cleverly just said honor blades are shard blades not that taln's blade is an honor blade sadly

Edited May 28, 2015 by Arook

[WindrunnerRadiant]

Have you ever seen a sheath? We aren't just talking dull, we're talking blunt. Blunt objects don't cut, though enough force can cause the skin to split. Edged weapons are designed to make a person bleed and sever their limbs, blunt weapons are designed to break bones, cause internal bleeding, and deal large amounts of blunt force trauma, and a sheathed sword would act much more like a blunt weapon. We see Nightblood sheathed cutting and impaling people. To talk about force for impaling people, think about how much force it would take to ram a quarterstaff through a person. Much more than any normal human is capable of. Plus there is cutting involved. Not just splitting of skin, but actual cutting. There has to be investiture leaking out and making these cuts.

[Hoided]

I see rather than a sheath simply a larger metal blade that is both dull and contains a hollow for Nightblood. Does it at any point describe the sheath in detail?