Nightblood and the Catacendre

[Wandering Shade]

This is a theory I've been kicking around in the back of my head for a little while. It takes the WoBs about Nightblood's creation (Endowment's involvement and Ruin's Investiture) and mixes them with some timeline analysis to get a final result and hopefully partially answers the question of Nightblood's creation.

To summarize in a single sentence: Nightblood was made as Ruin died.

I think that Endowment waited until she knew that Ruin was about to die, then pushed Shashara to make Nightblood. She took some of Ruin's Investiture, momentarily free of any Vessel's control, and mixed it into the Breaths used to make Nightblood, resulting in the sword we all know and love, rather than a normal Awakened Sword like Vivenna's Blade.

How do I know these events line up? Info from Warbreaker, Stormlight, and Mistborn Era 2. We know that Era 2 starts 341 years after the Catacendre. Era 2 takes place between Stormlight 5 and 6. Warbreaker takes place before SA, probably between 10 and 20 Rosharan years (extrapolated from the fact that Vasher trained Adolin) though we don't have an exact date. The Manywar was ~300 years before Warbreaker, though again we don't have an exact date. Adding the extra 10% from Rosharan years and given that we also don't know how long a Nalthian year is, its possible that the Manywar was happening during Mistborn Era 1. Especially if the Nightblood book adds some extra years in there or if the Manywar over 300 years before Warbreaker.

What do you all think? Reasonable? Crazy?

Edited January 4, 2023 by Wandering Shade

[+Invocation]

I'm kind of on board with this, mostly because I think Endowment has exactly the kind of potential to do things like preemptively make a Vessel-killer in the event that Harmony's Vessel turns out to be another Rayse. It's a good deterrent.

[cometaryorbit]

On 1/3/2023 at 9:06 PM, Wandering Shade said:

its possible that the Manywar was happening during Mistborn Era 1. Especially if the Nightblood book adds some extra years in there or if the Manywar over 300 years before Warbreaker.

Actually, it would need to go the other way. We have 330-340 (Scadrian/regular) years to work with between HoA and WoK, and 300 years between the Manywar and Warbreaker... if the Manywar is at the same time as HoA that puts Warbreaker only 30-40 years before WoK. If the Nalthis side of the timeline expands it won't work at all (Vasher won't be on Roshar in time).

It would work much better if the 300 years since the Manywar was rounded up from, say, 260 years (allowing Warbreaker to be 70-80 years before WoK).