Spike eye Posted June 7, 2023 Posted June 7, 2023 Idk about you guys but after reading “War Breaker” and understanding night bloods origin Iv been a little perplexed as to how an awakened object could nearly instantly destroy the mind of a shard. As I understand it the only other time a shard has been eather kiled or shadered is by another shard. This has lead me to try and figure out what makes night blood so powerful. What Iv concluded is that it’s a vacume. This is somewhat obvious, but I theiriezed on the specifics and I think I got something that works. When Shashara made the sword she pushed thousands of breaths into something that had at no point ever contained a sole. In my mind a breath is the spark of the sole, like how Preservation gave a spark to humanity to make them sentient. Anyway the sole is part of the spiritual realm. In consintrating so many breaths (parts of the sole) into this object the spiritual realm tryed to fill it (with a sole) thinking it was a living thing, this wasn’t really possible, their was no space for a sole in a thing that had never had life for a sole to attach too. But with so much breath the force of the spiritual realm broke this impossibility, it snaped in trying to fill the sword and created a whole. In trying to fill nothing it formed the vary gap it was trying to fix. Now instead of a sole being added it acts as the negative space for a sole. It can’t fill that gap bc it is the gap. The sole is essentially a complex form of investiture. In this way when night blood touches investiture it try’s to fill its gap, problem is the gap is part of the spiritual realm, beyond space, so impossible to fill. When it dosnt have investiture it feeds on the sole using that to try and fill that gap. It killed Odiums mind which was a spatially limited amount of investiture, but couldn’t take all of the power, as it was also part of the spiritual realm, and essentially infinite. So when Shashara made night blood she forced a one way brake between the realms. Not a perpendicularity but a direct connection. Not evil but consuming. This feels a little more balanced to me. No power, no mater how invested a person is should be able to compete with that of a shard, however breaking a law the gods can’t and snapping some of the realms is definitely something humans could do.
alder24 Posted June 7, 2023 Posted June 7, 2023 12 hours ago, Spike eye said: When Shashara made the sword she pushed thousands of breaths into something that had at no point ever contained a sole. Everything in Cosmere has a soul. Even metal. It was never alive, that's why it's so hard to Awaken it, but metal still has a mind and a soul. Every object in Cosmere has a soul and mind. Not as invested as the human soul. 12 hours ago, Spike eye said: It killed Odiums mind which was a spatially limited amount of investiture, Shards exist mainly in the Spiritual Realm, which is spaceless. A mind of a Shard is limited to what that Vessel used to be before Ascension - and Rayse was just a human. His mind got expanded, yes, but that's still a human mind, limited, not infinite like Shard's power is. 13 hours ago, Spike eye said: No power, no mater how invested a person is should be able to compete with that of a shard Nightblood can't compete with a Shard, he did compete only with Odium's Vessel which is only a small fraction of the Shard. Very, very small fraction. 12 hours ago, Spike eye said: Idk about you guys but after reading “War Breaker” and understanding night bloods origin Iv been a little perplexed as to how an awakened object could nearly instantly destroy the mind of a shard. As I understand it the only other time a shard has been eather kiled or shadered is by another shard. This has lead me to try and figure out what makes night blood so powerful. What Iv concluded is that it’s a vacume. This is somewhat obvious, but I theiriezed on the specifics and I think I got something that works. When Shashara made the sword she pushed thousands of breaths into something that had at no point ever contained a sole. In my mind a breath is the spark of the sole, like how Preservation gave a spark to humanity to make them sentient. Anyway the sole is part of the spiritual realm. In consintrating so many breaths (parts of the sole) into this object the spiritual realm tryed to fill it (with a sole) thinking it was a living thing, this wasn’t really possible, their was no space for a sole in a thing that had never had life for a sole to attach too. But with so much breath the force of the spiritual realm broke this impossibility, it snaped in trying to fill the sword and created a whole. In trying to fill nothing it formed the vary gap it was trying to fix. Now instead of a sole being added it acts as the negative space for a sole. It can’t fill that gap bc it is the gap. The sole is essentially a complex form of investiture. In this way when night blood touches investiture it try’s to fill its gap, problem is the gap is part of the spiritual realm, beyond space, so impossible to fill. When it dosnt have investiture it feeds on the sole using that to try and fill that gap. It killed Odiums mind which was a spatially limited amount of investiture, but couldn’t take all of the power, as it was also part of the spiritual realm, and essentially infinite. So when Shashara made night blood she forced a one way brake between the realms. Not a perpendicularity but a direct connection. Not evil but consuming. This feels a little more balanced to me. No power, no mater how invested a person is should be able to compete with that of a shard, however breaking a law the gods can’t and snapping some of the realms is definitely something humans could do. I don't know if I’m following this. If Nightblood is "a gap" that can't be filled, how is it possible for him to be oversaturated, filled to the brim with investiture and even go into a food coma because he has no more space for more investiture? How can a vacuum in a limited physical space, contain more investiture than every living being we've ever seen? Nightblood also contains not regular investiture, but a corrupted one, which isn't a negative of investiture, like Anti-Investiture is. Anti-Investiture might create a "vacuum" as you said, but it would have an explosive reaction in contact with any investiture, and it wouldn't make Nightblood consume more investiture, this interaction would actually drain Nightblood out of Anti-Investiture, that's why we know he can't contain Anti-Investiture. And then there is Vivenna's sword, which is also a type 4 entity, made in a similar way as Nightblood, likely with 1000 Breaths too. Why doesn't she consume investiture like Nightblood based on your theory, if all that is needed is sticking a bunch of souls into a piece of metal? I think Nightblood is fairly well explained. At least not his creation, but rather why he consumes Investiture. Nightblood is like Returned. And Returned need Investiture every week to feed their Divine Breath. Nightblood does the same. He needs investiture to feed his Command just like Returned does, and he searches for any available form of Investiture, including matter. But because of the way he was created (with some Ruin involvement), he just feeds on everything he can take at once, with no restraint. That made him the most invested object in Cosmere, one of the most invested individuals as well. That's how magic on Nalthis works, it searches for any available investiture to feed on. That's why Returned can feed their Divine Breath with Stormlight. Just like Surgebinding feeds on Stormlight only, Allomancy on Preservation's power or god metals, Awakening has no limits and takes everything it can reach, if done badly. At this point Nightblood acts more or less like god metals and Shardblades - they all are like little black holes, piercing 3 realms, existing in all of them at the same time equally. That's why he was able to kill Rayse, as he pierced through spacetime itself. WoBs on which I've based this: Spoiler lucagreene18 If Szeth were to have drawn Nightblood immediately after he had consumed Rayse, would he still have drained Szeth's Stormlight? As it said he seemed like he had eaten as much as he could. Brandon Sanderson At that point, Nightblood had entered into essentially a food coma... Well, no, the food coma one came when he was drawing from the perpendicularity. I don't think he was in food coma mode at that point. I think that he could still have drawn more at that point, I'd have to go look at exactly what I wrote, if I'd put him into food coma mode or not. It is possible. This is one of the things I wanted to answer with the book. A lot of people have been theorizing, could Nightblood eat an entire Shard? And indeed, Nightblood could not eat an entire Shard. That is not within his capability. In fact, one of the reasons that he leaks Investiture is: he's too stuffed full of it. There is more Investiture in the sword Nightblood than it can actually hold, it's supersaturated. And it leaks Investiture (that it's done some weird things to). But it is constantly hungry for more and constantly leaks it, but it definitely can get full for a time, and it could not eat an entire Shard. I did see questions about that from people floating around, and it's something I'd been meaning to get to eventually. Nightblood is definitely relevant to things that are happening in the Cosmere, but it is not as simple as grabbing the sword, sticking it into a Shard, and defeating the Shard, unfortunately. Though, as you see in this book, there are reasons for a Shard to still be afraid of Nightblood. It didn't destroy Odium, but Rayse still really had a bad time. YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020) Spoiler Questioner Is Nightblood more or less susceptible to damage and/or death when he's satiated on Investiture? Brandon Sanderson Satiated, he's much less dangerous. More susceptible, I would say by technicality, yes. When he's full, it's gonna be harder for him to pull in things, so all sorts of things could happen. So yes. But it's not that he's weaker, it's not like the metal is easier to break or bend, it's more that he's not as likely to suck your soul. Questioner So he behaves more like a regular sword. Brandon Sanderson Yeah, a little bit more. Still, for human levels of Investiture, still really dangerous to touch him. He's satiated, but if he's at 100%, and the amount of you he could eat represents 0.001%, the moment a little of that wears off, you're gone. So still would not be picking him up in most cases, just out of that, "Oh! He got a little hungry again!" But in terms of larger, grand scale Shard stuff, much safer to handle. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) Spoiler Questioner Nightblood has more Investiture than any other being, right? Brandon Sanderson Not every other being, but definitely one of the most highly Invested individuals that we have seen. Questioner So Nightblood, he was used to wound Odium. Is Odium now weaker than he was before? Brandon Sanderson Not in a relevant way. Technically, yes. Not in a relevant way. The amount taken, compared to how much there is, is pretty small. And a whole bunch of what happened there was focused on the Vessel, not on Odium itself. Questioner Could Nightblood consume Odium? Brandon Sanderson Nightblood would get full before consuming even the smallest fraction amount of Odium. As you saw, Nightblood kind of got full in that instance. Actually, it was with the perpendicularity, it would be similar to that. So for those who are wondering, no, you can't stab Nightblood into the planet and absorb the planet. Nightblood is really dangerous, as we've seen, but we're not talking "absorb planets" dangerous. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) Spoiler 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) Spoiler 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) Spoiler Ilkhan2016 Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across. AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar. /u/mistborn is that right? Brandon Sanderson A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive. To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture. Extesian This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another? Brandon Sanderson Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form. But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases... You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it. Celestial_Blu3 How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB? Brandon Sanderson That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019) Spoiler Chaos Is atium Invested? Brandon Sanderson Is atium Invested? Atium is Investiture distilled into the Physical Realm, right? So is electricity electric? Or is it-- Chaos Well I think the question Sharders had was if it's Invested, how can people Push and Pull on it. That was the struggle. Brandon Sanderson Atium breaks a lot of rules, in the same way that you will see other things break rules. Atium plays weirdly. When you get distilled Investiture, you're starting like-- My kind of rule for myself is it's kind of like when you start going on the quantum level, the rules just start playing weirdly. Because it's like, what Realm does atium exist in-- is another thing. Because-- Pure Investiture like that is like a mini black hole, right? It's like existing in three Realms at once. Kind of, and things like that... There's lots of weirdness. The writerly answer is there is lots of weirdness because when I built atium, I didn't have the rest of the cosmere built, right? And so it breaks a lot of rules that I later set up that everything else has to follow, right? So the writerly answer is we just have to accept that atium and lerasium and some of these other distilled Investiture things are going to play very weirdly with the magic systems. But that's okay. Nightblood will too, and some of these things that were built even after the cosmere was coming together. Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017) 1
Leuthie Posted June 7, 2023 Posted June 7, 2023 Yeah, I think Brandon has been very open as to what Nightblood is. It's a steel sword Awakened with the Command "destroy evil". The amount of Investiture needed to maintain its life is too much for steel to hold, so Investiture is constantly leaking out. Because of the constant leaking, the life requires a constant input of Investiture, hence the constant sucking. So let's picture what's going on here. The steel sword was originally much like Stick. It's Cognitive aspect was a small sphere and it's Spiritual aspect was a dot, a blip, a node on a web. When Awakened, this node became a huge blob with tendrils. The Physical and Cognitive aspects can't contain the Spiritual aspect, so the Spiritual remains a big Amoeba-like structure (the Blob), free to pull all other Spirit Web nodes into itself. As the Physical form gets near someone, the Blob can interact with that Spirit Web. This explains the "mind control" abilities as Nightblood starts manipulating the Connections within the Spirit Web itself. On contact, the Blob engulfs the Web, taking it into itself and destroying it in the process. This is how I picture Nightblood's mechanics in the Realmatic space: A Spiritual Blob, given form by huge amounts of Investiture stuffed into a too small container and Commanded to do something it knew nothing about (what is "destroy"? what is "evil"? to a steel sword? "I am a steel sword"). 2
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