Nightblood & Ruin

[Mage]

First of all, I put this post in the general Cosmere discussion because Nightblood is from Nalthis, this theory involves Scadrial, and Nightblood is now on Roshar, so I didn't feel like I could put this in only one book series.

I was recently listening to the Mistborn Era 1 audiobooks, and Ruin's Intent made me think of Nightblood. Ruin likes to destroy things, guess who else loves to destroy. This made me think that Nightblood's creation could possibly have been influenced by Ruin.

Nightblood's investiture is corrupted, which usually means the mixing of multiple shards' investitures. What if Ruin put some of his ruinous investiture into the sword, along with cultivation's investiture? Nightblood's black smoke is reminiscent of Ruin's mist.

Second, I think the timeline works out. 1-5 of the SA take place around 330 PC. In my head I think of Warbreaker taking place around 30 years before the Stormlight Archive, and Nightblood's creation happened 300 years before Warbreaker. That would place the Manywar and the creation of Nightblood right around the time that Vin released Ruin from the Well of Ascension.

Sorry if this is confusing. It made a lot more sense in my head, but I would love to know your guys' thoughts.

[Eternal Khol]

i dont know if Ruin put it there. It was probably Vasher and Shashara
 

 

Walin

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it. 

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

[Mage]

Oh okay. So the Intent of the command "Destroy evil" was strong enough that it made some of that investiture ruinous, or there is some of Ruin in Nightblood because everything is Connected in the Spiritual Realm?

[Eternal Khol]

1 hour ago, Mage said:

or there is some of Ruin in Nightblood because everything is Connected in the Spiritual Realm?

I dont think it’s this one, since brandon says “Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it.“ 

I think Brandon is indirecty stating that some of Ruin’s physical manifestations of Investiture were used or used during the creation of, Nightblood.

well he doesn’t say anything about it being used during his creation. But it would have to be the only way.

if any investiture he eats becomes part of him then he’d have Endowment, Ruin, Honor, and probably cultivation’s investiture by now

but if Ruin’s investiture were used during his creation. It should leave an imprint. Change the very way Nightblood worked/thought.

 

i dont know if it would be possible to make a Nightblood-like sword solely with Endowments investiture(well, im sure anything is possible) Maybe they needed investiture from the very Shard who is about decay and breaking things apart

Edited August 9, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Mage]

2 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

i dont know if it would be possible to make a Nightblood-like sword solely with Endowments investiture(well, im sure anything is possible) Maybe they needed investiture from the very Shard who is about decay and breaking things apart

It probably wouldn't be possible to make something exactly like Nightblood, but I think Azure's blade comes pretty close, and I think that is only Endowment-ous investiture.

[GudThymes]

On 8/8/2020 at 8:05 PM, Mage said:

It probably wouldn't be possible to make something exactly like Nightblood, but I think Azure's blade comes pretty close, and I think that is only Endowment-ous investiture.

From what I've read and seen on the topic I agree with the theory that the Nightwatcher had a heavy hand in the creation in Nightblood (besides the fact that they share the root Night). It's clear that Cultivation is definitely aware of Nightblood and it's implied that she knew about the sword before it came *back* to Roshar. We know that the form (sword) of the awakened object plus the words given to it (Destroy Evil) created the personality Nightblood, and we know that if either of those were different the way that he would work/think would be different.

 

Diverging from the creation for a second here. I think that the WoB could be perceived as that Nightblood has gained some of Ruin's investiture at some point in time. Nightblood is actively consuming the investiture around it when it is exposed. I believe that the "consumption" is Nightblood actually claiming that investiture from the Shard's intent and storing it as it's own investiture. So there could definitely "be some Ruin in Nightblood" if Nightblood ever consumed a hemalurgic spike.

[Eternal Khol]

30 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

We know that the form (sword) of the awakened object plus the words given to it (Destroy Evil) created the personality Nightblood

its more the visualization that went into the command, that really shaped his personality.

the command is usually more of a general guideline, thats further defined by the intent/visualization

you can give 2 identical swords the same command(destroy evil) but with different visualization, the end product could be drastically different.

 

 

39 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

I think that the WoB could be perceived as that Nightblood has gained some of Ruin's investiture at some point in time. Nightblood is actively consuming the investiture around it when it is exposed. I believe that the "consumption" is Nightblood actually claiming that investiture from the Shard's intent and storing it as it's own investiture.

so that would mean that Nightblood has, Endowment, Ruin, Honor, and probably cultivation’s investiture stored.

[GudThymes]

18 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

you can give 2 identical swords the same command(destroy evil) but with different visualization, the end product could be drastically different.

Right, thank you. I assume that you could give two different commands, but if you have the same visualization that could align the end product better than the same command with two different visualizations. Although they both have a role.

 

19 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

so that would mean that Nightblood has, Endowment, Ruin, Honor, and probably cultivation’s investiture stored.

I'm excited for the Nightblood book that will provide more answers. One nitpick is that I wouldn't necessarily say "stored" as I don't think Nightblood is able to access his investiture in a way that other entities can. Although I believe it adds to his Invested-ness? Like how a coppermind is invested, Nightblood is gaining more investiture beyond the breaths that went into his creation -- I just don't believe that there is any way to remove the investiture from him. 

 

My conceptual headcannon is that he's kind of like a black hole for investiture in the Cosmere. It adds to him but can't be used.

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, GudThymes said:

 (besides the fact that they share the root Night).

This is a coincidence, as Brandon told us in the annotations that 'Nightblood' was not its original name.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Weltall

[GudThymes]

41 minutes ago, Weltall said:

This is a coincidence, as Brandon told us in the annotations that 'Nightblood' was not its original name.

Thanks for sharing the WoB. I meant my comment more as a joke, I didn't know the full extent of the naming between the two though.

[dungeonfood]

On 8/8/2020 at 7:39 PM, Mage said:

Nightblood's investiture is corrupted, which usually means the mixing of multiple shards' investitures.

Why do you say Nightblood's investiture is corrupted? If it was, I'd think it would be red in some way. See the WOB below:

 

FirstSelector

Does red in cosmere signify one Shard co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

[Honorless]

5 hours ago, dungeonfood said:

Why do you say Nightblood's investiture is corrupted? If it was, I'd think it would be red in some way. See the WOB below:

 

FirstSelector

Does red in cosmere signify one Shard co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

In the WoB that Weltall links, it's mentioned that the black vapour leaking from Nightblood is from Corrupted Breaths

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Anyway, Nightblood is named for the smoke he leaks, and he originally had a different name when he was created. Vasher himself dubbed the sword Nightblood after he had used it to kill the woman he loved. The blackness that leaks out is actually corrupted and consumed Breaths, the ones that Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him.

Warbreaker Annotations (April 25, 2011)

So apparently, not all Corrupted Investiture is going to be red

[Elias]

I personally always thought that Nightblood was created from a normal steel sword with the command to "destroy evil".

Now, for some grounding facts about the cosmere:

1. We know that at the Shattering, all Investiture in the cosmere became evenly divided amongst the sixteen Shards. This holds true irrespective of location in the physical or cognitive realms.
2. We know that each Shard has a specific color typically associated with it (blue-white for Honor, white for Preservation, and most importantly here black for Ruin).
3. We know the Vessel of a Shard does not have the ability to control all of a Shard's Investiture at one time, or perceive everything that gets done with said Investiture at one time.
4. We know that each of the original sixteen Shards has a single intent or driving motive for its existence.

I operated under the assumption that, while Nightblood was created from a normal steel sword with the command to "destroy evil", one of two things happened.

1. Because the concept of destruction was so central to the command, it acquired a little of Ruin's Investiture to incorporate into itself because the rules laid out above would've simply required it to be the case, much like how when cosmologists calculate the curvature and expansion of the universe, dark matter and dark energy simply must be included in the equations for the math to make any sense, or how when Mendeleev reorganized the chemical elements chart into the periodic table, he had to put in gaps to correctly categorize the properties of the known elements, and those gaps were later filled in with previously unknown elements.
2. Those original 1000 Breaths animated Nightblood upon its creation, but as it drew in Investiture, its central command of "destroy", perfectly aligned with Ruin as it is, imprinted the Investiture it gained, and the bit that leaks back out is colored black because whatever intent the Investiture had originally has been overwritten by Ruin's. At first glance it would seem to violate the rule that all Investiture is shared equally between the Shards, but the Coppermind specifically phrases that in the past tense, i.e. that even split of Investiture was only the case immediately after the Shattering, after which Investiture could be moved and shifted between Shards, possibly through application of Intent, powerful enough to overwrite what was already present.

In both cases, while it is Investiture tied to Ruin that is leaking back out of the sword, it is really more incidental than anything deliberate, and its likely too little Investiture for Ruin to do anything with, or even be aware of without specifically going looking for it, like how most of the time you don't really notice the presence of any one particular hair on your arm amid the thousands of other hairs.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Elias
Clarifying

[Brgst13]

This just occurred to me: Nightblood is able to take steps like talk to people to get them to move him to where he needs/wants to be.  How does he know for example that the fisherman will take him to where someone else would take him to Vasher?

In light of the WoB above, it might be possible that Nightblood is not pure steel but a steel/atium hybrid.  This would explain the Ruin aspect, as well as why the smoke is black.

[Proletariat]

It's clearly not corrupted investiture as we are familiar with re: Trell and Odium due to its black colour, and in particular it's not corrupted Breath which is 'sticky' in the sense that any holder of Breath that is or once was living must willingly surrender it. Breath doesn't leak like Stormlight or the mists.

I'd suggest that it's just brutally destroying Investiture from other Shards and producing concentrated Ruin at a slightly lower rate of return - that's the nature of the corruption and consumption. As the resultant colour isn't that different whether it's Breath, Stormlight, or Voidlight that Nightblood feeds upon I also don't think the smoke is a hybrid light, and I don't think it became that way due to devouring something of Ruin given that's not really how Ati's investiture worked (Hemalurgy was about destroying and coopting bits of Preservation). If it was of Endowment it isn't any longer - it's essentially a Ruin spren now - and I'm guessing it was based on the visualisation and command that was given and perhaps the metals in Nightblood are not what Shashara and Vasher believed.