Szeth's Unique Aquisition (SPOILERS!!!!!!)

[The Count]

I think it more likely that Nightblood would want to have conversation with the spren if they ever came into contact.

 

If Nightblood can just touch a living shardblade and kill / absorb the spren instantly then it would be completely OP and story breaking IMO.

 

I think Nightblood would be intrigued by meeting another sentient blade.

 

On the other hand, Nightblood relies on the opinion of it's holder to judge the nature of evil so the question really is: how will Szeth decide what is evil and what is not.

 

There is no denying that he could be a very potent weapon against the voidbringers.

[Confused]

I thought that Nightblood determines who is "evil" based on who covets it, rather than the "opinion of its owner." According to the Coppermind Wiki article on Nightblood:

 

"The Breaths it inherited decided '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.'

 

"Those it defines as 'evil' feel drawn to possess it; once an 'evil' person picks Nightblood up, the sword is able to take control and will murder anyone in the vicinity who is evil, finally killing its wielder when there is no one left. A 'good' person, someone who wouldn't want to use Nightblood for evil purposes, feels sick in Nightblood's vicinity. [Empasis added.]"

 

Maybe Szeth would win a fight against Kaladin, or any Windrunner, because they'll all get sick and vomit their way through the fight, but Nightblood wouldn't attack him or them, given the primacy of honor to a Windrunner. Other orders though...

[Inkthinker]

I think some of you might be misreading Szeth's character... here's a man who's allowed himself to be led by the nose in all things, against his own better instincts, because he thought that he was "Truthless", and therefore could not trust himself.

Now he's learned that he was never Truthless, and that he's done horrible things for evil men by allowing himself to believe what others say. I argue that he's going to be incredibly stubborn about obeying anyone in the near future, because look where being obedient got him? He's going to be paranoid about being lied to or misled, and that's going to make him suspicious of everyone and everything.

He'll go from being spineless to being obstinate to the point of fault.

[Moogle]

I think some of you might be misreading Szeth's character... here's a man who's allowed himself to be led by the nose in all things, against his own better instincts, because he thought that he was "Truthless", and therefore could not trust himself.

Now he's learned that he was never Truthless, and that he's done horrible things for evil men by allowing himself to believe what others say. I argue that he's going to be incredibly stubborn about obeying anyone in the near future, because look where being obedient got him? He's going to be paranoid about being lied to or misled, and that's going to make him suspicious of everyone and everything.

He'll go from being spineless to being obstinate to the point of fault.

 

That's a very interesting way of interpreting him. It rings true to me, and I quite like it. Also, Skybreakers were Just/Confident, so there's that "obstinate to the point of fault" idea coming in.

[Sabrina Stormshard]

Hello, a cheerful voice said in his mind. Would you like to destroy some evil today?

[bombadilio]

This is crazy!

 

I had no idea that Sanderson was linking:

 

Warbreaker, Mistborn and Stormlight into one.

 

Were you guys fully aware of this? My mind ticked and did not catch on when Vahel had said "color" I thought I just was missing something, then I also didn't follow (still dont) the purelake scene... How do we know that was Vahel and Demoux? What is Demoux doing in this book?

 

Then finally when nightblood says "Hello... a cheerful voice said.. In His mind Would you like to destroy some evil today" After 10 hours of reading till the wee hours I jumped in and screamed  You gotta be kidding me. Then started googling warbreaker sanderson and came here. Really, I am not sure I understand how these are supposed to all relate. 

 

Vasher dealt with breaths and theoretically was the king and released his breaths into statues (does this lead to how the Alethi form their bodies into statues after death?). 

 

Are they lost heralds? Is it the same plane, or another planet they were on?

 

How then do people go from breaths ---> Stormlight --> alloys... It doesn't make sense since it makes you wonder if this is being forced are part of the whole original plan. Then if it is part of the whole plan is his 10 book epic including Mistborn as well..

 

Food for thought.

Edited March 20, 2014 by bombadilio

[Kikuo]

This sword is only able to see black and white and i'm not even sure if it's able to see white, because in Warbreaker it just couldn't understand why people ran from it. 

 

OK guys I totally had a little flashback - even thought Nightblood is NOT completely like this, I thought of the Sword of Truth from Terry Goodkind - when Richard was using it he had to have his intentions clear in his mind. Like, if he was using it for a just reason it would work, but if he was trying to use it for the wrong reasons it would stop him from using it.

 

Seems like Nightblood does the opposite though! It causes you to want to do more bad things/destruction instead of protecting you from doing them?

Edited March 20, 2014 by Kikuo

[Glaring at the Survivor]

Nightblood is one thousand times as strong as Syl. I say this because NB is "orders of magnitude" which could well be one thousand times as strong, and he was made with the Invested souls of one thousand people, (so he's, like, one thousand souls/spirits) and Syl is just one.

Anyway,

Well, at least we'll likely see what a Shardblade hitting Nightblood will do in book 3, huh? A secondary thing would be to see how good Szeth is without Windrunning. Certainly most of his victories so far depended on the fact that no one understood or prepared for people doing the things he did.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 387973120 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 431470896 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

I've said it elsewhere, but I'm pretty sure that Skybreakers (Szeth's order) have the Gravity surge. Meaning Szeth will still have the same surge he used (majorly) before.

And by the way, has Szeth or Kaladin ever used the Pressure surge?

I bet he can feed off stormlight, but not nearly as efficiently as breath. That said, I don't think he'll break a shardblade, just resist it. He hasn't been shown to have lightsaber qualities.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 387973120 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 465103152 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

Nightblood has been worse than a light saber, when unsheathed especially.

Warbreaker Spoilers

1) It kills its user unless the user in Invested in some way (or so we assume)

2) When the unsheathed blade of Nightblood touches someone, the turn into smoke and literally cease to exist.

3) When Nightblood was used by Vasher as he chased after Denth, Vasher plunged the sword into the ceiling and a, what was it, circle with a ten foot diameter of the floor turned to smoke.

Yeah, worse by far.

I also don't think Szeth will be quite the murderer he was before. Then, he (thought he) had no choice. Now, I'm pretty sure it's obvious that he does.

Unless Nightblood controls him...

Edited March 20, 2014 by Stroniax

[Laloric]

I have an interesting (to me at least) idea that NB v SB would finish the severing of the Nahel bond for "dead" spren. thus assisting Dalinar's vision requirement to return the shards to the KR, by allowing the spren to coalesce back in the cognative realm and re-select new radiants. Now in terms of a "live" spren as in Pattern or Syl, I think the idea that the spren and NB would interract on a different level, and I'm still thinking about that interraction. But if you think of it in terms of investiture both spren and NB are essentially the same, and with an assumption that 1 spren = 1 breath (yeah I know its an off the handlebars thought) NB would be the magnitude more invested than a SB that we have WoB pointing to.

[snote]

I don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but Szeth straight up awakens a tarp during his fight with Dalinar.

"...Adolin cursed and lunged for the assassin, but a fluttering tarp, brought by the assassin in passing, leaped toward Adolin. The monster could command innanimate objects! Adolin sliced through the tarp and then jumped forward to swing for the assassin..." - Words of Radiance, Chapter 85, Swallowed by the Sky. 

It could be just a lashing that is misunderstood by Adolin, but that sounds hard to misinterpret.

[FlatLine]

I don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but Szeth straight up awakens a tarp during his fight with Dalinar.

"...Adolin cursed and lunged for the assassin, but a fluttering tarp, brought by the assassin in passing, leaped toward Adolin. The monster could command innanimate objects! Adolin sliced through the tarp and then jumped forward to swing for the assassin..." - Words of Radiance, Chapter 85, Swallowed by the Sky. 

It could be just a lashing that is misunderstood by Adolin, but that sounds hard to misinterpret.

Sounds like Szeth just lashed the tarp to fall in Adolins direction. Adolin has never seen anything like it before, so it looks like he is controlling the tarp. 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Or it could have been the chaos of battle and either Vasher or Darkness (if he knows of awakening) could have awakened the tarp to prevent Adolin from being killed by Szeth as well? 

 

1. I still don't think that Darkness/Nin is going to make Szeth into a "real" skybreaker by getting him a Nahel bond
2. That begs teh question for me... what or how will Szeth use Investiture to power Nightbloods abilities? 
3. I can't wait to see Szeth on screen wielding Nightblood in Shinovar

[trendkill]

@bombadilio

 

I would highly recommend looking at the Coppermind wiki (wiki link at the top here) before delving too far into the forums.  Long story short:  Most of Brandon Sanderson's adult novels take place in the same universe, known as the Cosmere.  This includes Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive, and The Emperor's Soul (I might be missing one or two).

 

Main things in the wiki that you'll want to look at are going to be the main Cosmere page, Adonalsium, Hoid, Shards, and maybe the different Realms (Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual), maybe even Realmatic Theory.

[Zionite]

Not really Cosmere informed.Could someone explain to me what the powers of Nightblood are especially in comparison to Shardblades and honor blades.

[trendkill]

Short answer: we don't really know yet.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Not really Cosmere informed.Could someone explain to me what the powers of Nightblood are especially in comparison to Shardblades and honor blades.

 

Nightblood

 

But we don't really know too much concrete about its powers. 

[Zionite]

Thanks for the reply.

Judging from the info,Nightblood should feed on the rosharian equivalent of Breath.Which would be Stormlight.

However Nightblood isnt a splinter like a spren so it shouldnt grant any surgebinding powers.

[Moogle]

Thanks for the reply.

Judging from the info,Nightblood should feed on the rosharian equivalent of Breath.Which would be Stormlight.

However Nightblood isnt a splinter like a spren so it shouldnt grant any surgebinding powers.

 

Nightblood is a Splinter, though. It's made of Breaths, which are all a little bit of Endowment. We have this rather interesting WoB:

 

Q: If an Elantrian was bonded a seon and traveled to Roshar would that bond act as a Nahel bond?

A: The bond would act very similarly granting the bonded certain abilities but not exactly the same as the spren bond. 

 

And also this:

Source:

Q: Does Szeth have any Surgebinding powers . . . losing the honorblade?

A: He would not have any after losing the honorblade. However, he has been approached by a member of one of the orders. And so, it's entirely possible that you would see him going somewhere with that. He also has a very special sword, that does very special things.

[Zionite]

Interesting.The Quote do seem to hint at Nightblood being a Splinter.So if powered by Stormlight,It could bestow powers on its wielder just like a spren.

 

However Nightblood is a Splinter of Endowment not a splinter of Honor/Cultivation .Splinters of Honor/Cultivation grant Surgebinding powers.On the other hand  Splinters of Endowment like Divine Breath grant Returned Powers.

 

So that means that the wielder of a Stormlight powered Nightblood will have the powers of the Returned.Fitting for Szeth who has now returned from the dead.

[FlatLine]

Interesting.The Quote do seem to hint at Nightblood being a Splinter.So if powered by Stormlight,It could bestow powers on its wielder just like a spren.

 

However Nightblood is a Splinter of Endowment not a splinter of Honor/Cultivation .Splinters of Honor/Cultivation grant Surgebinding powers.On the other hand  Splinters of Endowment like Divine Breath grant Returned Powers.

 

So that means that the wielder of a Stormlight powered Nightblood will have the powers of the Returned.Fitting for Szeth who has now returned from the dead.

 

That's exactly what I'm thinking. 

[Zionite]

I wonder if Szeth will gain the physical apperance of a Returned as well as the powers.Seems likely to me

[happyman]

You know, I hadn't even twigged to the fact that Szeth came back from the dead before getting Nightblood.  Seems thematically appropriate given his previous wielders.

 

[wild speculation]Maybe it's even closer than that.  Nalan claims that he had used Regrowth to restore Szeth, but what if he actually used a distinct power derived from Endowment to make Szeth into a Returned?  Adapted to Roshar, perhaps?  The only difficult part of this would be Szeth having kept his memories, but I think we can assume that even if it was derived from Endowment, it was modified.[/wild speculation]

[Zionite]

You know, I hadn't even twigged to the fact that Szeth came back from the dead before getting Nightblood.  Seems thematically appropriate given his previous wielders.

 

[wild speculation]Maybe it's even closer than that.  Nalan claims that he had used Regrowth to restore Szeth, but what if he actually used a distinct power derived from Endowment to make Szeth into a Returned?  Adapted to Roshar, perhaps?  The only difficult part of this would be Szeth having kept his memories, but I think we can assume that even if it was derived from Endowment, it was modified.[/wild speculation]

I actually considered he bolded but I cant figure out wh Nalan would lie about the ressurection-He clearly trust Szeth.So thats why Im inclined to believe Nalan told the truth.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Nightblood is a Splinter, though. It's made of Breaths, which are all a little bit of Endowment. We have this rather interesting WoB:

 

And also this:

Source:

 

I'm cross posting this here, but this is based on a tidbit from the SF signing...bottom Q/A

 

So Nightblood = Shardblade = Physical form a Spren can take = Splinter of a Shard

 

Does that then mean that Nightblood is a DestroyEvilSpren? 

 

That is a serious question btw. He seems to be the Spiritual Ideal of destroying evil given full Sapience to his Cogitive aspect via the Investiture of Breaths. He should also then be a splinter of Endowment in the same way that Rosharian Spren are splinters of Honor/Cultivation. 

 

Would a Seon that traveled to Roshar end up in the form of a Shardblade? 

[PorridgeBrick]

WoB is theoretically yes, but you'd need a way to bring the Seon more into the physical realm iirc. I'll go find the quote.

Edit: Here's the quote.

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

A: 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.

Edited March 26, 2014 by PorridgeBrick