Nale a Compunding Skybreaker?

[DMIsidoros]

Hey there. I'm new to the forums so I have no Idea if this has come up before. I wanted to have a quick chat about why the Nale doesn't want to go grab Jezzrian's Honorblade off Sezth in Chapter 77 of RoW and the implications of it for the future of Stormlight.

So while Nale is having his super friendly chat with Venli and Ulim he says,

Quote: "There is a man here in the city tonight. I have been tracking him due to his unusual circumstances. He possesses an artifact that belonged to a friend of mine. I have sworn not to touch said artifact, for... reasons that are unimportant to you." Unquote 

So Nale clearly knows about Szeth and Jezzrian's blade and that made me think of what possible reason he (and i'm going to assume the other Heralds) could have for not taking the Honorblade.

My immediate thought is that when Honor made the Honorblades he made all the Heralds swear to not take more than one so they couldn't gain what he percieved to be to much power. (I think the "chains" Honor had put on Bondsmiths and the Radiant Oaths themselves are other examples of him not wanting people to access to much power) 

So I started thinking about what would happen if someone was bonded to more than one Honorblade at a time. I believe it would certainly grant access to all the avaliable surges associate with the blades. But that's not what really intrigued me. I started thinking about what would happen if you had access to two overlapping blades. For example, lets say that someone became bonded to both the Edgedancer and the Truthwatcher Honorblades. This would give them access to the Progression surge from two different sources. I think that this would likely have a similar effect to how compounding works on Scadrial. For example, two Progression blades could use Regrowth to heal faster, with less Stormlight and probably for more serious and longer lingering wounds. 

Now I think this is especially relevant when it comes to the (forgive my phrasing) power level of Nale. We know that he is both a Skybreaker of the Fifth Ideal and that he is bonded to his Honorblade, giving him acess to the Surges of Gravitation and Division twice. I agrue that because of this Nale is probably the most powerful Surgebinder on Roshar, (maybe discounting insane Connection Bonsmith stuff). I assume he'd be almost impossible to kill as he would process Stormlight at such an efficeient rate as to essentially make him as close to a perfect container as the leaky human body can be. I think his compounded Gravitation makes him incredibly fast and almost certainly a better sky warrior than even the Heavenly Ones and I could easily see compounded Division as being a potential cause of the Shattered Plains, so you really don't want to be around that. Combine this with him being a Herald (and I would guess one of the upper half in terms of best fighters) and you have one incredibly scary problem to deal with.

So. Here is my prediction for book 5. At some point in their journey to Shinovar, Szeth and Kaladin are going to have to go toe to toe with Nale and he is going to wreck him. We've already seen that Szeth is not even a slight threat and I can't imagine Kaladin will be much better. So I reckon that one of them is going to have to take Jezzrian's blade off Moash and use it to counpound their abilities. 

From a Surgebinding mechanics point of view, it would make more sense for Kaladin to have it, but from a story point of view I think Szeth getting it back and using it for good would be super awesome. But I can easily see a faceoff in the sky with Nale, Kaladin and Szeth, each wielding two blades and having an awesome show down. 

TLDR: Nale's Honorblade lets him coumpound his Surgebinding and I reckon that someone needs Jezzrian's blade to do the same and beat Nale.

[Mage_914]

I like it, though I feel that the efficiency part of it doesn't make much sense. If he's using double Gravitation he should be using double stormlight, right?

 

Then again surgebinding (or at least gravitation) is already sort of unlimited power-wise as you can always pump more stormlight into more lashings so maybe double bonds somehow effect efficiency like you theorize, but I have no idea how that would work realmatically. 

[IndigoAjah]

Interesting concept, though to really Compound he'd basically need a way of multiplying Investiture. We don't know enough about Heralds to know whether they could do that with their Honorblades: for others, using an Honorblade drains Stormlight dangerously quickly, but I think there are hints that it's not the case for the Herald attached to their specific Blade, who being Invested by Honor themselves might be able to access Stormlight direct from the source I guess, or even form their own.

 

In which case, I can see them being very dangerous, especially if they had a Nahel Bond and thus an inherent channel to Shadesmar 

[Chinkoln]

I don’t know if Compounding is the right term in this situation. Compounding refers to getting extra power from Feruchemy using allomancer, and I think it is somewhat specific to those two magic systems, with minor allowances for some situations (Hemalurgy, direct Shardic interference). I don’t think that you could gain EXTRA power from Stormlight, that just isn’t the way it works. 
The term you should use is Resonance, because that is what would happen. Possession of more than two magics let’s you create new things. For example, there is Resonance between Dalinar and Shallan when they use their powers to create the map of the world. All Lightweavers have a Resonance between soulcasting and lightweaving, they gain the ability to take Memories. If I remember correctly, the Windrunner’s Resonance is reverse lashings (When they can attract objects to one another, not when they physically stick them together). Compounding is a form of Resonance, but it talks about a specific type of Resonance. When Wax creates his “steel bubble”, that is believes to be a unique resonance between his allomantic steel and feruchemical iron.

Possession of 2 or more honorblades is possible and it would create new combinations or Surges and new Resonances. The same would happen if you bonded with 2 or more spren of different orders, though Brandon has said that this would be very difficult to do. Another refutation of your argument for increased power, is the situation of bonding more than one spren of the same order. Bonding more than one spren doesn’t increase your power significantly or make your Stormlight usage more efficient.  

Edited January 10, 2021 by Chinkoln

[NameIess]

Brandon implies in this WoB that it wouldn't matter much:

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a non-Windrunner picked up Jezrien's Honorblade would they gain Windrunner powers as well?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a Windrunner picked up that blade, would their abilities be enhanced?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There would be some compounding but strength is not as much an issue with Surgebinding as is the strength of the spren bond and how much Stormlight you are using.

Words of Radiance Houston signing (March 11, 2014)

 

[Halyo_Alex]

2 hours ago, Nameless said:

Brandon implies in this WoB that it wouldn't matter much:

 

So carrying more charged gems would be a more important factor. Nice.

[AquaRegia]

A. Welcome to the 17th Shard - glad you are here.

15 hours ago, DMIsidoros said:

TLDR: Nale's Honorblade lets him coumpound his Surgebinding and I reckon that someone needs Jezzrian's blade to do the same and beat Nale.

B. I don't have any guesses as to whether this will happen... but it is a super cool idea.  Conversely, if it DOES go down like this, I'm going to pissed off that you spoiled it for us LOL

It is canon (somewhere, don't ask me where) that the Heralds did borrow each other's Honorblades sometimes.  I don't recall if having two at once was specifically addressed.