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Is Nightblood "Alive"?


WeiryWriter

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This is a question that I never really considered, it just wasn't something that occurred to me to ask.  That is, until I had to answer this.  As I was going through the WoBs, it struck me that Brand had RAFOd what would happen if a shardblade were to strike Nightblood.  Now this was not new to me, I was already familiar with this WoB.  I had just always figured Nightblood would block the blade, after all it is "magnitudes more invested".  Now however, I'm not so sure.
 
As we know, shardblades interact differently with living targets than they do with non-living ones.  Which makes me wonder, would a shardblade consider Nightblood to be alive?  I think it is an interesting question, but one that we obviously can't definitively answer at this point.  Perhaps though, some light can be shed on it by discussing spren.
 

Brandon Sanderson

Objects with almost sentient behavior like Nightblood in Warbreaker share important links with the spren from The Way of Kings. If you understand the spren you will understand a lot about the connection between the books.

 
(source)
 

According to this sentient objects and spren share some important similarities, but what are they?  Neither spren nor Nightblood need to sleep, but what else is the same?  We know spren can die, does that mean Nightblood can too?  If he can die, that would imply he is alive...
 
So my question is thus: If a shardblade were to strike Nightblood, would it be blocked/deflected as I had always assumed, or would it sever Nightblood's soul instead?  If so how would that even work?

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I believe that Nightblood would absorb the Shardblade, destroying it and releasing a ridiculous amount of Investiture (probably resulting in a small explosion?). Nightblood's shtick is consuming Investiture, and Shardblades are heavily invested objects. It could be that Nightblood only easily absorbs Investiture from Endowment, though, and it would repel a Shardblade, thus making it a regular swordfight. We know you can use any Investiture in any system, though.

 

It's an interesting question if Nightblood is alive, though. Sentience in the Cosmere is... weird. I'd argue that Nightblood can die, but not in the same way a spren dies. A spren is based on a thought or concept given life by Investiture. Nightblood is similar, based on the phrase "destroy evil" given life by a bunch of Investiture. This annotation might be interesting:

 

When Nightblood was created, the Breaths infused in him did their best to interpret their Command. What they decided was evil was someone who would try to take the sword and use it for evil purposes, selling it, manipulating and extorting others, that sort of thing. Someone who wouldn’t want the sword for those reasons was determined to be good. If they touch the weapon, they feel sick. If others touch the weapon, their desire to kill and destroy with it is enhanced greatly.

 

The thing with spren though is that they ultimately depend on humanity for survival. I think if no one was ever angry again, all the angerspren would die. They rely on humans in that way. Nightblood, though, is special. Its Command was clearly visualized and set in stone by Shashara when she created it, and the Breath infuses it. In a way, Shashara created a miniature version of a Shard by giving it an Intent.

 

I guess you could argue that spren would similarly be 'set in stone', but I don't think they have enough Investiture for that. What humans think controls spren, as we see in the spren measuring interlude in TWoK. Not so for Nightblood, who is a Physical thing anyways. (Physical things seem to be more 'stable'.)

Edited by Moogle
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This is an interesting concept. 

 

We know that there is a connection between Nightblood and spren, there is also a connection between the Shardblades themselves and Night blood (source)

 


GREEN HOODIE MISTBORN
Is there any relation between the smoke that is emitted when a Shardblade cuts somebody and the smoke that Nightblood emits in Warbreaker?
BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, there is...

 

 

What is interesting to me is that while there is a connection between Spren and Nightblood, there is also a huge difference, intimated by Moogle above. 

 

Namely that a Spren is Cognitive-Spiritual (very small physical) and Nightblood is Cognitive-Physical (very very little spiritual). .

 

To tie this into Shardblades, those seem to be Spiritual-Physical (no cognitive that we've seen). They are all similar but all slightly different.

 

I don't believe that Nightblood has a spiritual aspect, that is why he has such trouble defining evil that he is to destroy. It is a construct of Cognition and Investiture in a physical host. To answer the OP, I wouldn't define Nightblood as alive, he is more like an A.I. missing the code to really define his tasks.

 

I do think that Nightblood would shatter or cause to dissipate a Shardblade and I think the key here is the levels of Investiture. In the same way that it is difficult for magics to affect invested object, and levels of Investiture matter, I think Nightblood's high level of it trumps the Shardblade.

 

Keep in mind that when unsheathed and attacking, Nightblood's merest touch is enough to turn Lifeless and 10' sections of wall to smoke. 

 

I am now wondering too... We know that in Shadesmar each glass bead is the cognitive aspect of something on the Physical plane. If a Shardblade severs something's spiritual aspect from the physical-cognitive, it leaves the physical portion around. Maybe the smoke appearing when Nightblood fully strikes a physical object is the Cognitive portion being severed, so that only the physical-spiritual remain. There are theories that a Shard's spiritual aspect are smoke like on the physical realm. Maybe that is true of the objects struck by Nightblood as well?  

 

EDIT: I have the worst trouble with quote blocks for some reason...

Edited by Green Hoodie Mistborn
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Alright, so we know that each Breath possessed by the humans of Nalthis is a fragment of Endowments power. Nightblood is invested with a large amount of Breaths. All of these constitute a large amount of Spiritual Power which gives Nightblood its abilities. His Cognitive aspect is a result of the Command that Shashara gave to him being interpreted by this Spiritual power. Its execution is due to interpretation but its exigency lies with Human intervention. 

 

This is extremely similar to spren as defined by the Copper mind

 

 

 

Spren are fragments of the powers of creation that have since then gained sentience due to human intervention

 

Just as Nightblood is a Spiritual power given sentience (or in the case of the more basic spren just a concept) by the actions of the cognitive presence of humans, so to are the spren. To me this seems like the most understandable way in which these two would be similar

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By the technical definition Nightblood isn't alive.(1. reproduction

2. growth and/or differentiation through metabolism (which usually implies some form of respiration)

3. adaptation to the environment

4. the ability to distort entropy--that is, to increase or maintain the organization of the living system at the expense of the environment. ) He doesn't attempt to reproduce, nor have the capacity to do so. He metabolizes breath, intelligence allows for adaptation, and communication covers the last one.

Beyond that, as far as the Spren thing goes, I think it's pretty simply that he is a cognitive being, a being of pure thought, like spren. It suggests a level of linkage between the three dimension. Enough spiritual investment can create cognition in inanimate objects. Spirit is created through the beliefs of physical entities, etc.

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By the technical definition Nightblood isn't alive.

 

There is no universally accepted technical definition of life. The technical definition you've proposed has issues in real life because fire is living according to it. I half-believe that the very concept of "life" is fundamentally flawed and just a bunch of fuzzy heuristics the brain has and we're wasting time trying to define it in real life.

 

It could be that Shardblades 'fuzz' simply because something they're cutting contains a decent amount of Investiture and/or a spiritweb. Not quite sure if that is what defines 'life' in the Cosmere. It's possible.

 

Alright, so we know that each Breath possessed by the humans of Nalthis is a fragment of Endowments power.

 

Would you mind providing a source for that? It was my understanding that a Shard gave up a part of their power to create humans, which require innate Investiture to be sentient. Once it's given up, it seems to replicate on its own and is no longer Endowment's. I mean, imagine if every single person on Nalthis kept having kids constantly and constantly for a trillion years and nobody ever died - would Endowment fizzle out because each Breath every baby born came from him/her? I don't think so.

 

Preservation also never became stronger as more and more people died on Scadrial.

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I'm sorry I generalized from this statement

 

 

 

The divine Breath, a single powerful Breath that grants the powers of the first five Heightenings, is a Splinter of Endowment

 

Between this and the fact that somewhere I know that we have WoB that only Nalthis Humans have Breaths I must have mistook all Breaths for Splinters

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't think the last statement is right. A breath cannot move of its own, does not have variety,doesn't fit to every thing in nature. All to say soreness have much more variety though only a fraction of them such as honorspren actually grant magical opera like breaths.

I believe also that the interaction of nightblood and a shardblade would be neutral, as both are great magical objects of their worlds. Further, night loos could be comparable in power as he is able to similarily effect the spirit of those he kills though he also deals physical ddamage. Nightblood seems to be able to absorb magic (breaths) and it could be possible that he could steal different magical such as stormlight. He seems to be alive though judging that he can converse and think, almost like honorspren would be able to, though he still retains that impression on thoughts by his I te t even as honorspren are by Honor giving interesting quirks and paths of thinking.

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Nightblood would destroy the shardblade. A radiant blade that is a live spren is a fraction of the shard of Honor. Nightblood has thousands of Breath. A Breath is a small fragment of Endowment. Nightblood also corrupts Investiture. The blade would be corrupted and destroyed. Nightblood might have some small damage from the interaction of different Investiture. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Brandon Sanderson

Objects with almost sentient behavior like Nightblood in Warbreaker share important links with the spren from The Way of Kings. If you understand the spren you will understand a lot about the connection between the books.

 

 

 

This quote specifically is plaguing me right now.  We know that the spren are primarily Cognitive entities that take a lot of effort/effort from a human (primarily Physical) to manifest in the Physical Realm, at least with any measure of sentience.  Nightblood, to me at least, seems like a Physical object that had its Cognitive aspect altered/amplified to be given sentience in the Physical Realm.  So Nightblood, the object, is Physical, while Nightblood, the sentience, is Cognitive.

 

What I'm now trying to figure out is how that is related to the spren.  Are spren and the Cognitive aspect of Nightblood essentially the same thing, and Nightblood's mind was forced into the sword, whereas spren are more or less free to take any shape they want in the Physical Realm?  Am I way off?

 

I think that we would need to know more about the Cognitive part of Awakening to answer this, but maybe all of the clues are there and I'm just not putting the pieces together.

 

If none of this makes sense, don't mind me.  I'm having a hard time putting to words the thought that my mind is bouncing around right now.

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I think that we would need to know more about the Cognitive part of Awakening to answer this, but maybe all of the clues are there and I'm just not putting the pieces together.

 

My interpretation as it stands (tell me if it doesn't make sense), is that spren are the ideas of humanity that became energized by Investiture and thus became 'alive'. Similarly, Nightblood is an idea ('destroy evil') given life by Investiture. So there's the connection there. Why Nightblood is only capable of staying inside the sword might have to do with the fact that the sword was already in the Physical when infused by Breath, but I'm not sure where to go with this.

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I've got some ideas in my head that might form a theory/hypothesis, but I need to organize them and actually put words to it before I decide if it's going anywhere.

I'm super tired right now, so I might lose the thought before it goes anywhere, but suffice it to say, I'm very intrigued by the similarities and differences between Nightblood and the spren. Specifically the Cognitive parts.

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Does anyone know what kind of presence Nightblood would have in Shadesmar, since it seems to be focused mainly in the physical and spiritual realms...

 

Well, Nightblood the physical sword is obviously focused on the Physical Realm, and it seems that the way it destroys is somehow linked to the Spiritual Realm, in much the way Sharblades are, judging from the WoB quote mentioned earlier

GREEN HOODIE MISTBORN
Is there any relation between the smoke that is emitted when a Shardblade cuts somebody and the smoke that Nightblood emits in Warbreaker?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, there is...

This, coupled with the fact that we know there are important connections between Nightblood and the spren, would indicate that Nightblood's got stuff going on in all three Realms.

Physical: He obviously exists here, with a pretty solid manifestation.

Spiritual: If Shardblades sever the target's Spiritual connection (which I think is either known or strongly suspected? Could be wrong about this), and the smoke is related to that, then Nightblood is plainly interacting with the Spiritual Realm as well.

Cognitive: From the discussion on this thread, I'm willing to believe that Nightblood's sentience is largely a thing of the Cognitive Realm. Also, we know that spren are largely beings of the Cognitive Realm, and Brandon did mention the connection between semi-sentient objects and spren, further implying that Nightblood's sentience is something of the Cognitive. 

 

Just my thoughts outlining Nightblood and his interaction with the three Realms.

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Well, pretty much everything has components from all three Realms.  But I would say that each thing/person is more of one than the other. 

Humans: Primarily Physical, can manifest in the Cognitive through some effort, has the spiritweb in the Spiritual (as well as possibly ends up there after they die if they don't move on to something else).

Spren: Primarily Cognitive, can manifiest in the Physical though some effort, don't know the relation to the Spiritual at this point (other than that Shardblades may be cutting the soul/spiritweb of the person it strikes, but I don't think we've gotten firm confirmation of that).

 

What I was kind of thinking earlier (lost most of my train of thought by this point) is this: what if Nightblood's sentience wasn't created by the act of Awakening?  What if the sentience already existed in the Cognitive Realm (like the spren), and then was drawn into the Physical Realm through Awakening, possibly being altered in the process?  Like maybe there was a Cognitive being that already liked destroying evil, and the Awakening drew that one in because of the Command that was used.  Alternatively, maybe it was just the closest Cognitive being around, and it had something altered by the Command, making it want to destroy evil.

 

I don't know.  No real evidence of anything here, just some of my random thoughts.  I fear that I may have derailed this...

Edited by trendkill
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What if Awakening just imbues investiture into an object which already has a cognitive aspect (which we know they all do from both EoS and tWoK) and gives it the ability to be motile and obey commands semi-sentiently, and the more complex the command, the more sentience is required, therefore the more investiture and breaths... hence Awakening.

Maybe Nightblood's conscious mind is really just that same semi-conscious object mind type that we saw when Shallan tried to Soulcast the stick into fire, but supe'd up on Investiture steroids?

So Awakening, would be not a physical thing (though there are physical consequences/aspects), but much more of a "bestowing sentience in the physical realm to something which already has a sense of self in the Cognitive", thus allowing it to act and obey, and the more investiture, the more complicated the instructions.

That would provide the link between Nightblood and the spren I believe.

Edited by Green Hoodie Mistborn
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