Short Introduction and WoR Ending Theory for Nightblood

[M'Hael]

Hello, I am a new 17th Sharder. So getting to the topic, after finishing Words of Radiance, I came up with a theory as to what Vasher has to do with Roshar and Nightblood's origins. So what we know of Nightblood is that he absorbs investitures while being used, can destroy material in similar a manner to a shardblade,and is possibly a result of the fourth type of awakening that Vivenna speaks of. This is suspicious because spren are living ideas, given sentience with the Nahel Bond while Awakeners give objects sentience by implanting Breaths (similar to how Windrunners implant Stormlight into objects when using the 3rd Lashing). With the black smoke Nightblood emits, it is possible that he is both a spren and an object with Breaths, which means that during the Manywar, a Shardpool must have been involoved. Another possibility is that Nightblood was originally Voidspren brought to Warbreaker's world as a weapon and then was killed so it stayed in it's shardblade form (when a spren is "killed" it stays a shardblade, at least that is what I thought Syl meant). This could be supported by the possiblity that absorbs two Investitures (which could also mean that it is a chosen object of two Shards, like how Preservation chose Vin at Hero of Ages and was able to have an almost infinite amount of energy form it's the Mist.) What do you think? Is there some flaw in the theory?

[Tempus]

We have Word of Brandon that...

 

 

• Any object with sufficient investiture becomes a splinter

• Investiture breeds spontaneous sentience, dependent on the amount of investiture

• Any splinter can form a Nahel bond on Roshar (and probably a general bond even when not on Roshar)

• Manifested Shardblades are some kind of metal

 

 

Spren, Seons, Skaze, Nightblood, and Divine Breath are all splinters. 

 

 

So, in conclusion, Nightblood is not a spren, but is essentially the same as a supercharged spren permanently in a shardblade. He is a metal sword, imbued with far more investiture than a spren is (enough to be a splinter), given sentience by the investiture, and given an intent by the Command. He was not originally a spren in the Rosharan sense, but he is essentially the same type of being currently, except far more powerful than most spren. It is even possible the Nahel bond would allow him to manifest/demanifest, that may be a property of the bond rather than of the spren itself.

[Awesomeness Summoned]

Welcome to the forum! Just a small word of advice, be careful about spoiler material in your titles in the future. The Cosmere section doesn't have any spoiler restrictions but the front page of the forum lists the most recent topics. Putting "WoR ending theory Nightblood" is a pretty spoilery statement to have openly visible to everyone who is just browsing the forums front page. At this point, I think the nightblood cat was already well and truly out of the bag so no worries but just something to think about when you title new threads in the future.

[Kurkistan]

• Any splinter can form a Nahel bond on Roshar (and probably a general bond even when not on Roshar)

Would you mind dropping a link for that?

[Tempus]

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

A: It would act very very similarly, yes. But it would be like… it wouldn't necesarily do the exact same things. It would be treated the exact same way, but wouldn't grant the same powers.

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.

From : http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7267-words-of-brandon-compiled-x-2/

There was a further one about night blood that clarified the ''any splinter' aspect a bit, but I'm on mobile, and can't seem to find it at the moment. Covers nearly all the splinters we know of regardless.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Tempus

[PorridgeBrick]

This is probably what he's referring to.

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

A: It would act very very similarly, yes. But it would be like… it wouldn't necesarily do the exact same things. It would be treated the exact same way, but wouldn't grant the same powers.

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.

Edit: Arggghhh, rusting storming dusting ninjas! Edited April 12, 2014 by PorridgeBrick

[Tempus]

*throws a smoke bomb and flees the thread*

[Kurkistan]

@Tempus

 

I would be very interested to see this Nightblood quote, since I disagree with your conclusions from those two WoB's.

 

The very important thing to remember about Seons/Skaze is that they're already bonded to specific people, so Brandon saying that that bond "works on the same fundamentals" does not automatically extend to all Splinters working in this way just because they do.

 

Perhaps that is the case, I but I think it quite unwarranted to go around (as you have been, I must say) asserting that all Splinters can/will form Nahel bonds on Roshar (or other types of bonds elsewhere) based on just those quotes.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Tempus]

So, I looked through my quote database for the relevant quote. I found a couple. First part, the main quote I was thinking of, Nightblood and bonding.

 

QUESTION

How is it that Nightblood, who is merely a near-sentient awakened object, was able to read minds, something a Shard like Ruin was unable to do?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It requires bonding (with the person whose mind is to be read) to read minds.

 

Pretty sure I imputed the part about it being similar to spren bonding there, but note that confirms that all known splinters except Divine Breath can and do bond.

 

So, in conclusion Kurkistan, I was inferring quite a bit. The evidence, however is fairly compelling.

 

• 4/5 known splinters form bonds (Divine Breath is the only one unconfirmed)

• 3/4 of those known bonding splinters can act fundamentally like a nahel bond on Roshar, and the one that isn't confirmed is Nightblood and said to be like a shardblade

• A suspected splinter, honorblades, can also form bonds. They also act like a Nahel Bond on Roshar, imbuing surgebinding and allowing stormlight breathing.

 

Thus, it seems like a good theory to me that the last known splinter, Divine Breath, can and could and does act in the same way. Please note it is not necessary that all splinters bond. We've seen unbonded spren, and seons can be unbonded as well, iirc. My theory is basically "This is how Vasher is getting access to his stormlight - this is the mysterious 'jury rigging' that Brandon talks about, or at least it is in relation to specifically Vasher and other Returned".

 

 

Other Supporting Quotes:

 

 

I've included some quotes that highlight what I consider to be important pieces of the puzzle - things that demonstrate how splinters work, how investiture grants spontaneous sentience, how much investiture Nightblood has, and other things showing similarities between various known splinters.

 

 

 

Here's a supporting quote that if you read it with my theory in light makes a lot more sense (bolding mine):

 

Q:  [Paraphrased]In order to use magic from one world on another world, do they need a bit of the Shard with you?
A:  It helps a lot.  But there are other ways to do it ... [goes on to talk about hemalurgy]

 

Splinters are of course a bit of a Shard. So that's interesting.

 

---

 

And then here is the quote that imply that anything with a high enough investiture but no sentience can be considered a splinter:

 

 

CHAOS

Is there a Cosmere-specific term you use to describe, say, a Shard's power inside someone? For example, people on Scadrial had little bits of Preservation in them that made them sentient (and, with enough Preservation, Allomancy). This obviously doesn't make these people Slivers or Splinters, so I was just wondering if you had a word for it.

BRANDON SANDERSON

In my own terms, I refer to all of this as types of investiture. The degree, and effects, can be very different - but those people are invested. I term this Innate Investiture, and it is similar to what happens with people on Nalthis. That is also innate.

 

 

---

 

Here is the quote that confirms that invested objects gain sentience on their own

 

 

 

Q:  If Endowment were killed, would the Returned still come?
A:  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.

 

Well, all sentience seems to be created through investiture, thus the Scadrian humans, the sentience granted to Kandra when they get spikes, and the sentience that increases in Spren when they form a bond. Also, sort of Word of Brandon on that in Mistborn 3 Annotations:

 

 

Remember, all of the kandra save for the First Generation were born first as mistwraiths. That race of creatures breeds true, and has only a fifty-year lifespan. They die off, but birth new members. Taking one of those new members and adding spikes to them, however, awakens them and brings them sentience.

 

and also more proof on that in Warbreaker annotations, specifically regarding Nightblood

 

 

When he was created, the Breaths gave him sentience as planned. (That was a big part of the goal in making him—to prove the existence of Type Four BioChromatic entities.) However, once he is drawn, his Command takes force and he acts much more like a regular Awakened object—but one with very strange abilities and powers. During this time, his Breath is diverted to creating the powers, and his mind goes fuzzy

 

And one regarding spren, from the possibly reliable Jasnah:

 

 

“No,” Jasnah said. “You’re right.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “By my best guess, spren are elements of the Cognitive Realm that have leaked into the physical world. They’re concepts that have gained a fragment of sentience

 

---

 

Quotes talking about the enormous amount of investiture Nightblood has:

 

 

HEROWANNABE

Nightblood? I imagine is going to be very difficult.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Very hard. Of all the things you’ve listed, he’s the hardest. Far beyond even a shardblade.

 

Q:  [Paraphrased]How difficult would it be to Push on various things.

A:  [Paraphrased]It depends on the amount of Investiture in the person/object.  Nightblood would be the hardest thing to Push on, harder than Shardblades.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2014 by Tempus

[Kurkistan]

That's fair enough, Tempus, and surely an impressive array of quotes. My main concern, though, is that at this point you probably ought to go off and write a theory arguing for all of this. Then you can go around linking back to that theory and saying "we have [link] fairly compelling reason to believe [/link] that Nightblood can form a Nahel-bond of sorts with people on Roshar..."

 

Regardless of whether your are convinced, or even everyone is surely to be convinced, by some inference, it's always best to couch these things in terms of theory. Whenever I think of the "Shardblades are stored in the Spiritual Realm" debacle, it warns me of the snowball effect such claims can have.

[Tempus]

That's fair enough, Tempus, and surely an impressive array of quotes. My main concern, though, is that at this point you probably ought to go off and write a theory arguing for all of this. Then you can go around linking back to that theory and saying "we have [link] fairly compelling reason to believe [/link] that Nightblood can form a Nahel-bond of sorts with people on Roshar..."

 

Regardless of whether your are convinced, or even everyone is surely to be convinced, by some inference, it's always best to couch these things in terms of theory. Whenever I think of the "Shardblades are stored in the Spiritual Realm" debacle, it warns me of the snowball effect such claims can have.

 

That's fair and true Kurk. I'm actually slowly picking away at what I call my Grand Unified Model, basically a nice set of theories that are all internally consistent and encompass the known realmatic aspects of the cosmere. Whenever I find something particularly cool, though, I feel like sharing, haha. Go check out this. You'll either hate it or love it but it sure is intriguing. I had you in mind. ^_-

Edited April 13, 2014 by Tempus

[Kurkistan]

Well I do wish you luck at it. Fair warning: It can take quite a bit of text to try such a thing. Thread-answered, btw.

[Tempus]

Haha, I've got reams already. The first thing I did was start gathering all the quotes I have. I have a huge greppable data file of all the sanderson stuff I could convert, rip, or copy from the threads. My first attempt at investiture got so long I couldn't store it on a single wiki page, so I abandoned that ship and split it up!

[WeiryWriter]

Spren, Seons, Skaze, Nightblood, and Divine Breath are all splinters.

 

Technically Seons are not Splinters.  The Aons at the heart of the Seons are the Splinters.

[Kelvin]

Can you touch seons. I was always under the impression that seons are solid.

[Vortaan]

Just a quick thing on the original theory: there does seem to be an upper limit on how much you can Invest something. I personally don't think you could stick a thousand Breaths into a Shardblade, but your mileage may vary.

[Tempus]

Technically Seons are not Splinters.  The Aons at the heart of the Seons are the Splinters.

 

 

You mention this every time I bring this up, Weiry, and this is true. I think it's safe to say that I'm identifying them categorically as a whole, because we really have no real idea what the other parts of a seon are, or whether they matter at all. And if they do matter, how.