Nightblood contains Edgli's darkness

[Ripheus23]

Elsewhere, I have proposed a theory that the Shards each hold some Spiritual "darkness" within themselves, that was supposed to be cleansed from them. I base this on the surprising coincidence between the words and concepts in the following (Answer to Job), and the Cosmere overnarrative:

Quote

The new factor is something that has never occurred before in the history of the world, the unheard-of fact that, without knowing it or wanting it, a mortal man is raised by his moral behavior above the stars in heaven, from which position of advantage he can behold the back of Yahweh, the abysmal world of "shards."^8 {Footnote 8: This is an allusion to an idea found in the later cabalistic philosophy. [These "shards," also called "shells" (Heb. kelipot), form ten counterpoles to the ten sefiroth, which are the ten stages in the revelation of God's creative power. The shards, representing the forces of evil and darkness, were originally mixed with the light of the sefiroth. The Zohar describes evil as the by-product of the life process of the sefiroth. Therefore the sefiroth had to be cleansed of the evil admixture of the shards. The elimination of the shards took place in what is described in the cabalistic writings---particularly of Luria and his school---as the "breaking of the vessels." Through this the powers of evil assumed a separate and real existence. Cf. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 267-EDITORS.]}

There's a WoB that says Endowment was at least a little more involved, maybe, in the creation of Nightblood, than just as the general source of Awakening-magic or whatever. So, theory: Endowment transferred some/all of the evil part of herself, into the sword, which is what went "horribly wrong." (Granted, whatever went horribly wrong was something that Vasher was afraid could happen again, so I'll go with "transferred some" instead of "all" for now.)

[Quantus]

I think Edgli's meddling takes the form of her choosing people to become Returned based on a specific intended  Hoped for outcome, with the sort of foresight you'd need to be a Shard to arrange.  In the case of the Five Scholars I think she was specifically hoping for them to world-hop to Roshar and then try to mimic the shardblades to create the Chekhov's Godkiller.  As an even less supported Idea, I think the theme of Five Ideals combined with the fact that Honor and Cultivation werent behind the emergence of the Radiants (and the Watsonian fact that Warbreaker was conceived as a Stormlight prequel), all make me thing Edgli's meddling was behind it as well.  I think she uses her Spiritual knowledge sort of Aim's her chosen at different goals, but consistent with "Endowment" she is giving them the tools and then letting them succeed or fail on their own (as their free will theoretically dictates), as opposed to actively meddling throughout.  

Here's WOB that Edgli has hopes but not specific tasks for the Returned, and is herself very erratic.  

This new WOB makes me think it's crazy power is coming from Ruin, which while not a counter-argument, would make it a bit more of a tangle being both Ruin and also some secret bit of Edgli separate from the initial Breaths.

 

Also, had she purged herself of her own evil/darkness, I'd have kinda expected her letter to be less...cold?

[Ripheus23]

4 hours ago, Quantus said:

Also, had she purged herself of her own evil/darkness, I'd have kinda expected her letter to be less...cold?

Well as I said, if Vasher was right and it would've been possible to make more Nightbloods, and if it takes Edgli's darkness to do so, she could've only siphoned off part of her darkness in this case.