Can Nightblood Break Commands?

[Duxredux he/him]

Random thought, might be worth asking for a WoB.

Can Nightblood break Commands, particularly of a Lifeless?

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Random thought, might be worth asking for a WoB.

Can Nightblood break Commands, particularly of a Lifeless?

No WoBs. I don't think so. Nightblood can't use his "Breaths" to Awaken, so I doubt he could break a Command of other Breaths. He probably can't Command Breaths at all.

Spoiler

Oudeis16

Could a typical Awakener give Breaths to Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Oudeis16

Could it use those Breaths to Awaken?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

General Signed Books 2017 (Feb. 21, 2017)

 

[Guest]

We know Nightblood can vaporize a Lifeless, eating the Investiture of the animating Breath and ending the Command, so I'm a little confused what exactly you're asking.

[Rorzikel]

31 minutes ago, LabRat said:

We know Nightblood can vaporize a Lifeless, eating the Investiture of the animating Breath and ending the Command, so I'm a little confused what exactly you're asking.

They're talking about the Eighth Heightening's ability to "break" a lifeless's command and take control of them.

[Treamayne]

20 minutes ago, LabRat said:

We know Nightblood can vaporize a Lifeless, eating the Investiture of the animating Breath and ending the Command, so I'm a little confused what exactly you're asking.

Have you read Warbreaker? (Spoilers, if not)

Spoiler

Command breaking is ending the Security Phrase used to give a Lifeless orders, so that a new (different) security phrase can be issued and give the Lifeless different orders. Lifesong's Priests broke the lifeless squirrel's Commands, which allowed him to do the stunt he used to talk to Allmother (Ch 42)

Also, from the Annotations to Ch 31:

Spoiler

Beyond that, Bluefingers has managed—by sneaking through the tunnels that Vasher discovered—to get his forces to Command Break some of the Lifeless in the compound, then insert hidden Commands into them alongside their existing ones. In this case, he wanted the Idrians to see the Lifeless and the city watch cause a slaughter among their people. So he seeded some of the Lifeless with Commands to attack and kill if they were shown aggression by Idrians.

He didn’t know when the slaughter would happen; he doesn’t have enough control over events in order to do that. His little Lifeless bombs just happened to go off here, when the Idrians started to resist.

Command Breaking is one of the Heightenings (Ars Arcanum)

Quote

Eighth - 10,000 - Command Breaking Command Breaking: Any persons of the Eighth Heightening or more gain the ability to override Commands in other Invested objects, including Lifeless. This requires concentration and leaves the Awakener exhausted.

 

Presumably, the real question behind the OP's question is if Nightblood can access Heightenings for all the Investiture it holds. I would guess the answer is:

Even if he could, it would only be when drawn - and when drawn Nightblood's cognitive functions are imapired and in that case Nightblood would be unable to use them even if they were available.

Annotations to Ch 58:

Spoiler

Note that Nightblood doesn’t remember being drawn. When he was created, the Breaths gave him sentience as planned. (That was a big part of the goal in making him—to prove the existence of Type Four BioChromatic entities.) However, once he is drawn, his Command takes force and he acts much more like a regular Awakened object—only one with very strange abilities and powers. During this time, his Breath is diverted to creating the powers, and his mind goes fuzzy.

 

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Rorzikel said:

They're talking about the Eighth Heightening's ability to "break" a lifeless's command and take control of them.

Oh! They meant "Break the Lifeless," they said "break Commands" which would include things like commands given to rope, sheets, stick figures, etc. where the only way to stop the Command is to damage the object until it becomes less humanlike than it started such that the Breath can't power it further.

[alder24]

18 minutes ago, LabRat said:

Oh! They meant "Break the Lifeless," they said "break Commands" which would include things like commands given to rope, sheets, stick figures, etc. where the only way to stop the Command is to damage the object until it becomes less humanlike than it started such that the Breath can't power it further.

That's not Command Breaking. You can Command Break Awakened objects without damaging them, just like you can do with Lifeless. Command Breaking is about overwriting Commands of other Awakened entities (type 2, 3 and even 4) with your own Commands, it's not just Lifeless.

[+hwiles]

Well, Nightblood does have a limited possession and mind-control effect on some people...I don't think he's smart and deliberate enough to outright break or overwrite commands of Lifeless, but we know that Lifeless are a lot more alive than most people in-world are aware of so he might be able to accidentally influence or indirectly overwhelm and reorient their souls by his proximity.