The significance of Nazh's knife

[Weltall]

Last night at a signing I got the chance to ask Brandon if the reason Nazh's knife doesn't glow to Kelsier's eyes was because it wasn't made on Scadrial or if it was some property of the specific metal it was made from. The exact quote I was wondering about:

"He’s dying,” Kelsier said, spinning Nazh’s knife in his fingers. He’d palmed it during their altercation a moment ago, and was curious to find that though it was made of metal, it didn’t glow."

I didn't even get to finish the question before he got a grin on his face and I knew I was about to get a RAFO. That got me thinking and unfortunately I didn't ask a followup question that might have made this theory stronger ('Does he want his knife back?') but alas, this theory only occurred to me today. What theory you ask? That Nazh's knife is Awakened, a Type IV BioChromatic Entity.

This might explain why the knife doesn't glow to Kelsier, because it's already heavily Invested with something he has no Connection to and can't process. We also have Word of Brandon that Nightblood would be one of the hardest things to affect with Steelpushing owing to how heavily invested it is, so there's already confirmed 'interference' of a sort between Allomancy and Awakened metal. That however isn't the reason I think Nazh has an Awakened knife, just the reasoning I applied to my original question after the brainwave hit me. The serious evidence I think we might have for this theory is hidden in the New Ascendancy broadsheets in Bands of Mourning. One of the advertisements there reads "Do your metal tools speak to you? Your neighbors probably don't want to hear about it. But WE do! Visit 27 Ralen Place. Ask for K or N. Bring the talking metal with you."

Obviously, Khriss and Nazh think there may be Awakened metal on Scadrial at this point in time. I can't see this as being a question about hemalurgic spikes because while one of those might have been repurposed as a tool, it would only 'speak' to you if you stuck yourself with it. So, Awakened object on Scadrial. The only such thing we know about is Nightblood and while it might plausibly find its way to Scadrial (based on Era 2 Mistborn happening between Stormlight 5 and 6, so for all we know it's no longer on Roshar by that point) it could never be mistaken for a tool. It's a sword, it's really good at the stabby slashy stuff but you can't imagine building anything with it. But a knife? Now that could be mistaken for a tool. I think that Nazh wants that knife back and is hoping that somone on Scadrial has found it or can give him clues to its whereabouts.

Now, we know that the knife was left in the Cognitive Realm when Kelsier Ascended but Nazh doesn't necessarily knoiw that and we have no idea what happened to the knife later. If Nazh knows Kelsier is now running around the Physical Realm again, he might also suspect that the knife came with him, or that it was retreived from the Cognitive Realm some other way in the past three centuries and is on Scadrial waiting to be found.

So, thoughts?

[Djarskublar]

That actually makes a ton of sense. I will have to check, but did the other metal that was physically present, such as anything the Ire had, glow? The only potential issue I can see is why? Why would an awakened object not glow, or better yet, why did other metal glow, but not that piece?

It also could have just been made of some metal that doesn't glow in the CR, which is highly interesting.

Please edit the title for SH spoilers. I think that's the correct procedure here.

[Argent]

While I like the second half of your theory, I don't agree with the very first assumption you make:

17 minutes ago, Weltall said:

This might explain why the knife doesn't glow to Kelsier, because it's already heavily Invested with something he has no Connection to and can't process.

The reason metal glows in Scadrial's Cognitive Realm is because of the investiture "on the other side," in the Spiritual. As if metals were tiny holes in the fabric between the Cognitive and Spiritual. If Nazh's knife was heavily invested, I think it would glow just by virtual of all this power.

[Nashan’Elin]

The biggest problem I see is just the sheer implausibility of it. While it's an interesting theory, and fits the facts, I have to wonder how Nazh, a Threnodite, would end up with a knife that could only be created by someone of the Ninth Heightening, and unless an easier method was found, using 1000 Breaths? And why would he so easily give it to someone on a seemingly impossible mission? Additionally, the knife appears to have no special effects. There's no talking, no draining Investiture, and the knife doesn't seem to have Nightblood's triple-realm cutting effect. 

If the knife didn't talk to Kelsier, why would Nazh think it would talk to a random Scadrian during the Second Era?

This theory is interesting, but ultimately, I find too many holes in it. 

[Jazzy Kandra]

It could always be an aluminum knife, of course, that could explain the fact that it doesn't glow...

Or maybe, seeing as Nazh is a Threnodite, it's made of silver from Threnody (which would make sense, but as Argent says, a heavily Invested metal should glow...though we don't know if that silver is that highly invested or invested at all...). Who really knows. If it's made of said silver, it's far more interesting that nothing bad happened to Kelsier while holding it, given that he's just a cognitive shadow...:P

Edited December 1, 2016 by Kandra-in-disguise

[Djarskublar]

Our MC's have a tendency to lose important objects given them by Worldhoppers... Knives, flutes, you name it!

I revise my opinion. Ookla brings up excellent points. There still must be something special about it, but it likely isn't awakened.

[Weltall]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

4 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

That actually makes a ton of sense. I will have to check, but did the other metal that was physically present, such as anything the Ire had, glow? The only potential issue I can see is why? Why would an awakened object not glow, or better yet, why did other metal glow, but not that piece?

Please edit the title for SH spoilers. I think that's the correct procedure here.

Is it? I wasn't sure if that applies in Cosmere Theories.

I don't have a solid explanation on why it wouldn't glow that can't also be used to argue for other theories (like 'metal with special properties') but it's the only thing that Kelsier calls attention to. The bolt from the camp stool that he tries to swallow and burn for example isn't remarked upon so I assume it was glowing, or Kelsier might have wondered about that too.

4 hours ago, Argent said:

While I like the second half of your theory, I don't agree with the very first assumption you make:

The reason metal glows in Scadrial's Cognitive Realm is because of the investiture "on the other side," in the Spiritual. As if metals were tiny holes in the fabric between the Cognitive and Spiritual. If Nazh's knife was heavily invested, I think it would glow just by virtual of all this power.

My best explanation at this one would be that maybe an Awakened object like Nightblood 'sees' itself exactly as it looks in the Physical and so doesn't look any different Cognitively since it doesn't glow in the Physical. Kind of like Stick, but sharp and pointy.

Edgedancer spoiler with some additional thoughts:

Spoiler

While we probably shouldn't read too much into what Lift sees because we're not sure how much she's actually 'seeing' Cognitively, she does see Nightblood partially unsheathed and doesn't remark on any glowing, though every time she sees Szeth the afterimage he produces is commented upon so if she is seeing something of the Cognitive Realm, either she's not seeing anything of it in Nightblood or Nightblood doesn't glow there. Its Investiture seems fixed in place so where it's located in the Physical Realm shouldn't make a difference, I think.

4 hours ago, Ookla the Voidish said:

The biggest problem I see is just the sheer implausibility of it. While it's an interesting theory, and fits the facts, I have to wonder how Nazh, a Threnodite, would end up with a knife that could only be created by someone of the Ninth Heightening, and unless an easier method was found, using 1000 Breaths? And why would he so easily give it to someone on a seemingly impossible mission? Additionally, the knife appears to have no special effects. There's no talking, no draining Investiture, and the knife doesn't seem to have Nightblood's triple-realm cutting effect. 

If the knife didn't talk to Kelsier, why would Nazh think it would talk to a random Scadrian during the Second Era?

Maybe it didn't think Kelsier would make an interesting conversationalist? 

I don't know, but I do know that Khriss and Nazh seem to think there is an Awakened object on Scadrial during Era 2 that could be mistaken for a tool, unless there's some other way of getting metal to talk back to you that we haven't learned about yet. This seems like the kind of subtle tie-in that Brandon enjoys, especially since Bands of Mourning and Secret History were released side by side.

Now, I'll readily grant that the existence of another Type IV entity defies what we know so far (but see above, they appear to think one exists) and nothing we see the knife do screams 'it's Awakened' but we only have the one example. For all we know, one could create an Awakened knife with a less obvious property than Nightblood has. Or possibly it can't talk to Kelsier because he doesn't have a Physical presence for some reason. Just tossing possibilities out there.

And as for why Nazh would give such a thing to Kelsier? Well, the poor guy gets sent on so many seemingly impossible jobs by Khriss that maybe he felt extra sympathetic to Kelsier and his seemingly impossible cause.

[Djarskublar]

Maybe It wasn't a metal knife in the first place. It could just be an exceptionally hard, metallic looking wood. Then it wouldn't need to glow regardless of if it is awakened or not. If it was awakened, then perhaps it was just to make it so the wielder is more skilled. 'it's a plus one dagger'

[Yata]

I am always thought that the knife didn't glow because it's actually in the Cognitive Realm (in the same way Khriss, Nazh and Hoid were). And you see the radiance/glow from metal/soul because you actually "see" the power/investiture who travel between the realms (in the beatuful metaphor of Realms as Sun, Sunray and Shadow)...It's the same principle you see someone burning atium spawn connections.

As other point, did any other Khriss, Nazh or Hoid's item glow ?

[Subvisual Haze]

Thanks to the Arcanum Unbound opening we now know a couple new things about Threnody (which is likely pertinent since Nazh is from there).  I think the most important though is that the shard Ambition was heavily damaged by Odium there and left a lot of its investiture behind, likely causing the messed up magic that currently is at home on Threnody: silver weapons, angry ghosts, mysterious force of destruction.  Splintering off chunks of shards seems to do chaotic things to a local magic system, I think the closest parallel we have is the Dor on Sel.  After Dominion and Devotion got splintered, their magical essences blurred together and now reside almost entirely on the cognitive, but not spiritual realm (I think Brandon said something to this regard in a recent interview).

So I'm guessing something about Threnody's weird magical nature has resulted in invested silver objects being cognitive in nature, but not spiritual?  I think that would jive with the "spiritual things glow in the cognitive realm" effect.  Maybe Threnody silver knives are like partial shardblades: they impact the cognitive+physical (enough to harm a ghost), but don't affect the spiritual+cognitive+physical like a full shardblade does?

[Spoolofwhool]

3 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

think the most important though is that the shard Ambition was heavily damaged by Odium there and left a lot of its investiture behind, likely causing the messed up magic that currently is at home on Threnody: silver weapons, angry ghosts, mysterious force of destruction.

The ambient magic on Threnody is not a result of a shard's power. Also, as the essay says, Ambition splintered elsewhere, implying that it didn't leave any power on Threnody, but broke completely somewhere else.

 

 

[Praying Allomantis]

Is Threnodite silver investiture-neutral, like Scadrial aluminum? If so, no power (light) would be leaking through it from the spiritual realm.

Insofar as talking tools go, is it possible for a bonded spren to get separated from its Radiant and stuck in metal form? [Edgedancer Spoiler] We've seen spren manifest not only as swords and spears, but as metal bars or forks. What if a Rosharan worldhopper ordered his spren into tool form and then lost it?

[Subvisual Haze]

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

The ambient magic on Threnody is not a result of a shard's power. Also, as the essay says, Ambition splintered elsewhere, implying that it didn't leave any power on Threnody, but broke completely somewhere else.

 

 

It was heavily wounded though.  Like a partial shard lobotomy.

A shard in my mind is like a big perpetual cycle of magical energy.  The longer a shard stays in a given place, the more of its magic-energy "leaks" into the surrounding environment.  As long as the shard remains there, it won't lose said energy (the magic just keeps cycling around the area and energy is conserved), but if the shard bearer tries to move itself it will leave a lot of its "invested" power behind.  This is why Ruin couldn't leave Scadrial and go on a death and destruction galactic tour, he was completely invested in the planet (although this was a very extreme example, and Ruin+Preservation created the planet instead of just moving into a pre-existing planet) and thus was stuck there until the planet could be destroyed.  This is also why Odium never stayed in one place for too long in past when he was on his shard murder-spree, and it's why he's "trapped" currently in Roshar, somehow the Honor Pact sandbagged him on Braize long enough that he can't leave without being greatly weakened (and being weak would terrify Odium).  Even the name "investiture" kind of matches this concept, like the difference between an investment and liquidity in finance.

I think the elsewhere that Ambition fled to was just the place where the final deathblow was struck.  Where it died is also probably a mess of uncontrolled magic, but lots of it's magic juice was left behind on Threnody when it was wounded and tried to flee, and now that the magic has no higher conscious to guide it the magic is acting in chaotic and dangerous.  We had a partial example of this in Mistborn.  When Leras partially lobotomized himself to imprison Ruin, the mists started behaving in erratic and dangerous manners, blocking out the sunlight or accidentally killing humans when trying to snap them.  Threnody is like that but worse, as it has no higher mind at all to guide the flow of magic down controlled paths.

[Spoolofwhool]

5 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

It was heavily wounded though.  Like a partial shard lobotomy.

A shard in my mind is like a big perpetual cycle of magical energy.  The longer a shard stays in a given place, the more of its magic-energy "leaks" into the surrounding environment.  As long as the shard remains there, it won't lose said energy (the magic just keeps cycling around the area and energy is conserved), but if the shard bearer tries to move itself it will leave a lot of its "invested" power behind.  This is why Ruin couldn't leave Scadrial and go on a death and destruction galactic tour, he was completely invested in the planet (although this was a very extreme example, and Ruin+Preservation created the planet instead of just moving into a pre-existing planet) and thus was stuck there until the planet could be destroyed.  This is also why Odium never stayed in one place for too long in past when he was on his shard murder-spree, and it's why he's "trapped" currently in Roshar, somehow the Honor Pact sandbagged him on Braize long enough that he can't leave without being greatly weakened (and being weak would terrify Odium).  Even the name "investiture" kind of matches this concept, like the difference between an investment and liquidity in finance.

I think the elsewhere that Ambition fled to was just the place where the final deathblow was struck.  Where it died is also probably a mess of uncontrolled magic, but lots of it's magic juice was left behind on Threnody when it was wounded and tried to flee, and now that the magic has no higher conscious to guide it the magic is acting in chaotic and dangerous.  We had a partial example of this in Mistborn.  When Leras partially lobotomized himself to imprison Ruin, the mists started behaving in erratic and dangerous manners, blocking out the sunlight or accidentally killing humans when trying to snap them.  Threnody is like that but worse, as it has no higher mind at all to guide the flow of magic down controlled paths.

Yes, but no Shard's power was responsible for the Shades on Threnody, intentionally, or unintentionally as a result of uncontrolled power left behind. They result from investiture from Adonalsium directly, left behind at some point pre-Shard. This has been confirmed by a WoB.

Also, I disagree with the idea that simply being in an area will cause a shard to become invested in it. Investiture isn't that unstable when under a guiding mind. I believe that a shard chooses whether to invest or not, and can take back the power when they want as well, though that will usually have unfortunate consequences for whatever was existing on the investiture before. I do agree though that the reason why shards cannot easily leave an invested world is because doing so would leave an amount of their power behind.

Your example about the mists is incorrect. The mists killing people was not the result of Leras loosing control of the mists, but rather Ati deliberately strengthening their snapping effect so that people would be afraid of them. People afraid of the mists would mean less mistings, which is what he wanted.

[emailanimal]

I sort of automatically assumed that Nazh's knife is made of silver, because of the obvious: Nazh is from Threnody, silver knives are a thing on Threnody, if he were to carry a knife, what kind of knife would it be?

Silver is allomantically weird, so who knows whether it is even supposed to glow.

Looking at the other side of things. I agree that K & N are certainly looking for Awakened objects on Scadrial. Given how the ad is constructed ("do your tools talk to you?"), and with a talking hammer being the illustration, I very much doubt that they are looking for Nightblood. (Recall the timeline - this is  after Stormlight Archive 5. In Stormlight archive 3 Nightblood should be safe and sound in the hands of Szeth. Now, it is possible that a twist of plot sends it to Scadrial, but it does not look like a very likely occurrence to me).

I do think that K&N have good reasons to believe that there are Awakened objects (or, at least, heavily Invested objects) on Scadrial, but I think they are of local origin.  We know the Scadrial mechanism for making Invested objects "talk" to people: it involves Identity "management". Perhaps K&N know that there were some test runs before Bands of Mourning, and perhaps they suspect that those test runs were scrapped, but still are Invested. I have absolutely no grounds for these speculations, but our reasons to believe that Nightblood is on Scadrial at the moment are about as strong as our reasons to believe that it is in any other corner of Cosmere not called Roshar.

[Yata]

8 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Silver is allomantically weird, so who knows whether it is even supposed to glow.

The Silver isn't nothing special in relation to the metallic arts. It's simply a mundane metal not part of the 16 (like Platinum for example)

[emailanimal]

6 minutes ago, Yata said:

The Silver isn't nothing special in relation to the metallic arts. It's simply a mundane metal not part of the 16 (like Platinum for example)

So, it is reasonable to assume that it wouldn't glow.

[Yata]

Just now, emailanimal said:

So, it is reasonable to assume that it wouldn't glow.

actually no. Not only the Metallic-Arts compatible metals glow in the Cognitive...all the metals glow there. Kelsier never mentioned of other not-glowing metal object there and I really doubt that all the metal in a city is Allomantical-good (much more for the alloys and their percentage)

[natc]

5 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

So, it is reasonable to assume that it wouldn't glow.

Uh, not at all really. There's nothing suggesting that allomantically unviable metal doesn't glow. I mean the vast majority of metal isn't allomantically viable. The strictness of composition is so high that I doubt anything but gold could possibly work straight out of the ground. Yet entire mines can glow.

Edited December 6, 2016 by natc

[Argent]

14 hours ago, Praying Allomantis said:

Is Threnodite silver investiture-neutral, like Scadrial aluminum? If so, no power (light) would be leaking through it from the spiritual realm.

The term you are looking for here is that aluminum is magically inert. It's not just that it has dampening/negating effects in Allomancy, it's properties span all magic of the Cosmere (to an extent, I imagine - aluminum matalminds are a thing, after all). So no, silver is not like aluminum in this regard. Silver's anti-Shade effects on Threnody seem very much a Threnodite thing.

On the topic of glowing metal, I think we may need to review the kinds of metal Kelsier notes are glowing. I think it's very much possible that only Allomantic metals glow in the Cognitive, but because so many of the metals we (or at least Scadrians) encounter are Allomantically active (iron and steel being very dominant here), Kelsier might just not notice when a non-Allomantic piece of metal doesn't glow. 

[YungDankBlast]

When I initially read that ad in the newspaper, I assumed that K and N were kind of checking in on Harmony.  They most likely know that He is currently trying to keep Odium at bay, but they know that Odium knows how to splinter Shards.  I thought that they were checking for splinters, similar to spren on Roshar, which could become shardblades and talk to those they were bonded to.  No doubt they are probably worried because Sazed holds two shards, so if He can't hold of Odium, who can?

[Chiberty]

So, necro here, but there is relevant information in Oathbringer. Azure's blade seems to be awakened, but doesn't seem to have Nightblood's properties. Is it possible that Nazh's knife is similar to her Blade?

[Karger]

7 hours ago, ChickenLiberty said:

So, necro here, but there is relevant information in Oathbringer. Azure's blade seems to be awakened, but doesn't seem to have Nightblood's properties. Is it possible that Nazh's knife is similar to her Blade?

Wouldn't Nazh care a lot more about his knife being stolen if it had any magical properties let alone 1000 breaths in it?

[Chiberty]

2 hours ago, Karger said:

Wouldn't Nazh care a lot more about his knife being stolen if it had any magical properties let alone 1000 breaths in it?

We don't know how many breaths Azure's Blade took, which is part of why I mentioned it, but it's still just speculation.

We do now have confirmation that he wants it back, although that doesn't necessarily mean it has magical properties. 

Quote

Weltall

So, in Bands of Mourning there was an advertisement in the broadsheet from "K and N" asking about talking metal. Does that have anything to do with a certain knife that Nazh lent Kelsier?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna RAFO that, mostly cause I'm gonna make you ask Isaac and Ben, cause they came to me with pitches for things to put in those and they wrote a lot of the broadsheet stuff themselves.

Weltall

Okay. But, does Nazh want that knife back?

Brandon Sanderson

The knife? Yes, he would like that knife back.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)