Rhythm of War- Nale as a Skybreaker

[Daik Amaram he/him]

Hello everybody, I am excited to post a topic for the first time! I’ve been thinking a lot of RoW and there has been something constantly bugging me ever since finishing the book. Why is Nale holding back his full power? As revealed in RoW Nale is a fifth ideal Skybreaker. This means he not only has access to shard plate but also whatever mystery power is granted by the fifth ideal. If he were to use these resources he would not only have absolutely smoked any radiant he fought, he would also have been more effective at his mission. Instead he chooses not use his shard plate. Any thoughts? 

[alder24]

Welcome to the Shard.

We have no idea. He should use it. Somehow he doesn't want to. He is a Herald, and he was fighting for hundreds of years without a Shardplate and being a Radiant, so maybe his madness makes him ignore a plate in favor of visual presentation? No idea.

[NameIess]

Thing is, I doubt he needs it. Considering how good Ishar was with a power set not really geared towards fighting, I don’t think there’s any Radiant who could beat him one on one (or even with a group) whether he uses Plate or not. When he went to kill Dalinar, there was nothing anyone could do besides Dalinar’s connection trick.

so basically, I just don’t think we’ve seen him in a position where he feels the need to use Plate.

[Daik Amaram he/him]

1 minute ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

Thing is, I doubt he needs it. Considering how good Ishar was with a power set not really geared towards fighting, I don’t think there’s any Radiant who could beat him one on one (or even with a group) whether he uses Plate or not. When he went to kill Dalinar, there was nothing anyone could do besides Dalinar’s connection trick.

so basically, I just don’t think we’ve seen him in a position where he feels the need to use Plate.

That’s quite a flex on his part if that is true, but that would be awesome. I can definitely see this being true just based off of him being one of the strongest fighters in SA. I’m interested to see how the cast will try and deal with him as a future enemy. As good as Szeth is I don’t believe he would realistically be able to take him down.

[Daik Amaram he/him]

8 minutes ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

Thing is, I doubt he needs it. Considering how good Ishar was with a power set not really geared towards fighting, I don’t think there’s any Radiant who could beat him one on one (or even with a group) whether he uses Plate or not. When he went to kill Dalinar, there was nothing anyone could do besides Dalinar’s connection trick.

so basically, I just don’t think we’ve seen him in a position where he feels the need to use Plate.

I agree, it begs the question of how the cast will deal with him in the future. I don’t really see a realistic way of him being defeated unless there is some sort of bondsmith hack that gets revealed again but once again that might not be realistic. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Daik Amaram
Replying twice

[Daik Amaram he/him]

Sorry this is my first time using this so I wasn’t aware I was responding to the same post rip

[NameIess]

Just now, Daik Amaram said:

I agree, it begs the question of how the cast will deal with him in the future. I don’t really see a realistic way of him being defeated unless there is some sort of bondsmith hack that gets revealed again but once again that might not be realistic. 

Szeth might be able to beat him with Nightblood, as the ability to eat your opponent’s sword is pretty powerful, but yeah, it’ll be pretty rough if Nale decides to apply himself on the battlefield.

[Daik Amaram he/him]

Just now, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

Szeth might be able to beat him with Nightblood, as the ability to eat your opponent’s sword is pretty powerful, but yeah, it’ll be pretty rough if Nale decides to apply himself on the battlefield.

That is true, however Nale’s combat abilities would probably render nightblood useless as szeth would have a hard time actually landing a blow not to mention how Nale has two swords so if one gets destroyed by night blood he can just whip that bad boy out without missing a heartbeat , pun intended. it’s ironic to me that szeth’s old sensai is one of the only characters who has two shard blades 

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, Daik Amaram said:

That is true, however Nale’s combat abilities would probably render nightblood useless as szeth would have a hard time actually landing a blow not to mention how Nale has two swords so if one gets destroyed by night blood he can just whip that bad boy out without missing a heartbeat , pun intended. it’s ironic to me that szeth’s old sensai is one of the only characters who has two shard blades 

Yeah, Szeth would still have a very hard time with Nale, especially since Nale is presumably aware of Nightblood’s abilities and will be prepared for them, unlike Ishar.

[Daik Amaram he/him]

40 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Welcome to the Shard.

We have no idea. He should use it. Somehow he doesn't want to. He is a Herald, and he was fighting for hundreds of years without a Shardplate and being a Radiant, so maybe his madness makes him ignore a plate in favor of visual presentation? No idea.

I can understand him not using his fifth ideal power just because there is probably some sort of big reveal with kaladin for that sort of thing but the fact that he chooses not use shardplate is probably a flex and just shows how confident he is in his abilities. I agree that there really isn’t any other character besides maybe a different herald that could fight him and win 

[Stick The Savant]

21 minutes ago, Daik Amaram said:

I can understand him not using his fifth ideal power just because there is probably some sort of big reveal with kaladin for that sort of thing but the fact that he chooses not use shardplate is probably a flex and just shows how confident he is in his abilities. I agree that there really isn’t any other character besides maybe a different herald that could fight him and win 

I feel like his justification could be along the lines of "it would be unjust to use shard plate against a foe when he can easily defeat them anyways"

[Isilel]

On 2.3.2023 at 6:38 PM, Daik Amaram said:

I agree, it begs the question of how the cast will deal with him in the future. I don’t really see a realistic way of him being defeated unless there is some sort of bondsmith hack that gets revealed again but once again that might not be realistic. 

 

My impression is that Nale doesn't really want to fight them - he just feels that he doesn't have a choice, according to his principles in his current mad state. So, he only attacks half-heartedly and probably hopes to be defeated. In fact, it seemed to me since OB that Nale was purposefully setting up Szeth as somebody who'd be able to do so,  if needed and provided him with Nightblood for that very reason.

[Daik Amaram he/him]

4 hours ago, Isilel said:

 

My impression is that Nale doesn't really want to fight them - he just feels that he doesn't have a choice, according to his principles in his current mad state. So, he only attacks half-heartedly and probably hopes to be defeated. In fact, it seemed to me since OB that Nale was purposefully setting up Szeth as somebody who'd be able to do so,  if needed and provided him with Nightblood for that very reason.

I can see what you mean. That could certainly be a possibility although I disagree with certain parts of what you are saying. It is true Nale was a herald who lead the knights radiant before but for the past millennium he has been killing radiants to prevent the true desolation. During that time he had many chances to change but he did not which means he is probably too lost in the sauce to come back. This tells me he definitely has all intentions of fighting the other orders especially now that he has aligned his oaths with the Parshendi. However, I do agree he may be looking for someone who can defeat him as to end his misery. If Nale was killed with Nightblood I feel like that might lead to his permanent death as nightblood is basically an anti-investiture weapon which could severe Nale’s connection to the Oathpact. 

[cometaryorbit]

Nightblood would definitely permakill Nale. If it can consume a Shard's Vessel, a mere Herald should be no problem. It wouldn't even be a matter of cutting Connection to the Oathpact (like what happened to Jezrien); Nightblood destroys on all three realms. Nale's Cognitive-Shadow self, not just his body, would be obliterated/consumed.

That doesn't mean killing him with Nightblood would be easy though - he obviously knows what it is (which Rayse might not have) and would use Gravitation to stay out of range.

I do wonder if Nale gets full 5th ideal Radiant healing, or if the nature of being a Herald limits him to the much worse Honorblade level of healing. If he gets all the benefits, he'd have been invincible before Honor died- as a Herald he'd have unlimited Stormlight, and as a high ideal Radiant he couldn't be killed by physical harm until out of Stormlight (and Nightblood/anti-Investiture weren't yet available).

Conceivably he might not have Plate. I don't think we know exactly why a Radiant bond gives Plate (which is a bunch of other spren); its already weird enough that Nale (basically a spren himself as a Cognitive Shadow) can have a Radiant bond *at all* (as a Cognitive entity, how can he give a spren a Connection to the Physical?)

Edited March 6, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

44 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

its already weird enough that Nale (basically a spren himself as a Cognitive Shadow) can have a Radiant bond *at all* (as a Cognitive entity, how can he give a spren a Connection to the Physical?)

He is a Cognitive Shadow but he has a body, thus giving him a very strong connection to Physical Realm.

Mistborn SH spoiler:

Spoiler

Kel lost his connection to his body, which made his connection to Physical Realm severed.

And spren can bond even with another spren

Spoiler

Kolby Bradshaw

Could a spren bond another spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically possible, probably not a direction I'm ever going to go in the books for inception/recursive sort of weirdness reasons, but theoretically possible.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

[cometaryorbit]

That WoB doesn't say that a spren-spren bond would give the full benefits of a Radiant bond, though. There are lots of other spren bonds (Ryshadium, chasmfiends, probably Rock's "blessing from the spren", etc).

Nale has a body *sometimes*. He became a Radiant before Aharietiam. What about when he was dead on Braize? Did his highspren temporarily lose sapience, or get booted back fully into the Cognitive Realm, until the next Desolation when Nale came back?

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Nale has a body *sometimes*. He became a Radiant before Aharietiam. What about when he was dead on Braize? Did his highspren temporarily lose sapience, or get booted back fully into the Cognitive Realm, until the next Desolation when Nale came back?

There is a WoB on that too 

Spoiler

Chaos2651

We know Nale was the only Herald to join his Order. Based on the vision Dalinar had while touching him, it seemingly happened before the Last Desolation. Did Nale spend time on Braize while he had a Nahel bond? What happened to his highspren while he was there?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. So, if you end up in Braize as a Herald with a Nahel bond, your spren most likely would end up there with you. But there are circumstances where the spren could be left in Shadesmar and separated from you. Both are possible.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

[therunner he/him]

12 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Conceivably he might not have Plate. I don't think we know exactly why a Radiant bond gives Plate (which is a bunch of other spren); its already weird enough that Nale (basically a spren himself as a Cognitive Shadow) can have a Radiant bond *at all* (as a Cognitive entity, how can he give a spren a Connection to the Physical?)

Well, we know that Ishar did something to wild Surgebinders that started popping up, and reformed them into Ishar's Knights, as other Heralds called them.
So, to make them more useful (since they did not have unlimited Stormlight to survive like Heralds) he possibly used Bondsmithing to add-on couple of things, like Plate.

Core of Knights Radiants is Nahel bond so I think Ishar could have easily changed it.

[Little_Dagger she/her]

Considering that Nale had spent several years killing every potential knight radiant, perhaps he simply didn't want to wear a plate with their insignia carved into his chest plate? That maybe too hypocritical even for him...

[alder24]

53 minutes ago, Yuliya said:

Considering that Nale had spent several years killing every potential knight radiant, perhaps he simply didn't want to wear a plate with their insignia carved into his chest plate? That maybe too hypocritical even for him...

He isn't like this. He thought of his actions as right. A way to prevent Desolations from coming back. This is all that matters to him as a Herald of Justice and a Skybreaker. He didn't feel guilt, shame or anything to be fair. But you might be on the right track. As a Radiant hunter he didn't use Surgebinding a lot, wearing a glowing plate would make him too recognisable, as even in Azir  viziers  were wondering since when constables can have Shardblades. He might get use to working under the cover, but this still doesn’t explain why he isn’t wearing a plate during Desolation.

[Little_Dagger she/her]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

He didn't feel guilt, shame or anything to be fair. 

I don't think that is entirely true. Edgedancer spoiler below:

Spoiler

Nale does break down crying in the novella, when he acknowledges how wrong he had been.

As for Desolation, we see him after the battle, correct? Perhaps, he had dismissed the Plate already.

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Yuliya said:

I don't think that is entirely true. Edgedancer spoiler below:

That was after he got persuaded by Lift that he had failed. Before he didn't feel anything, even addmited it to Lift just pages earier.

4 minutes ago, Yuliya said:

As for Desolation, we see him after the battle, correct? Perhaps, he had dismissed the Plate already.

During the battle with Dalinar's forces, he flew to Dalinar's platform and was without a plate. He got an arrow in the face from Cord. So plate would be very useful here.

[Little_Dagger she/her]

13 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That was after he got persuaded by Lift that he had failed. Before he didn't feel anything, even addmited it to Lift just pages earier.

During the battle with Dalinar's forces, he flew to Dalinar's platform and was without a plate. He got an arrow in the face from Cord. So plate would be very useful here.

Yes, but the Edgedancer happens before that battle with Dalinar and Cord. So by then he had already acknowledged that he was wrong killing innocents.

[alder24]

25 minutes ago, Yuliya said:

Yes, but the Edgedancer happens before that battle with Dalinar and Cord. So by then he had already acknowledged that he was wrong killing innocents.

And immediately turned against Radiants which suggest that any shame he might have felt for his actions would be unlikely to wage on his decision to not wear a plate.

Even during times when he was killing Radiants, including "capable" Lift, he still didn't wear a plate.