Canticle Theory

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I was trying to figure out what the deal was with Canticle's interaction with it's sun, when suddenly Rick and Morty gave me the clue I needed.

For those of you who haven't watched the show, there is an episode where a lightsaber is dropped perfectly vertical and starts to burrow its way into the earths core.

My theory then is this: Someone dropped Nightblood perfectly vertically and it sank all the way into the planet's core. The Investiture from the Sun is being pulled into the planet by Nightblood, which is the only reason the entire planet hasn't been consumed yet.

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I was trying to figure out what the deal was with Canticle's interaction with it's sun, when suddenly Rick and Morty gave me the clue I needed.

For those of you who haven't watched the show, there is an episode where a lightsaber is dropped perfectly vertical and starts to burrow its way into the earths core.

My theory then is this: Someone dropped Nightblood perfectly vertically and it sank all the way into the planet's core. The Investiture from the Sun is being pulled into the planet by Nightblood, which is the only reason the entire planet hasn't been consumed yet.

That would be so funny. Love this idea!

But seriously, Nightblood isn't capable of consuming an entire planet, he would get full really, really fast. He can eat a lot, but he has a limit of how much he can fit in him. He's already supersaturated with investiture and has not much space left. We've seen him getting full in RoW, when Taravangian used him - he fell into a food coma state and stopped consuming investiture. The same would be true if everyone tried to feed an entire planet to Nightblood. And sure, Canticle is a really small planet - too small to be a planet - but it's massively invested enough to generate Earth-like gravity. Nightblood isn't anywhere near that invested and he can't fit anything more into him.

However, if dropped into the planet perfectly storming vertically, he should be able to eventually end up in the planet's core. Unlike Shardblade, which only cuts where its edge is and can be stopped by a force applied to its flat sides, Nightblood consumes everything that touches his blade. Cheese won't stop him. He can only be stopped if his handle gets stuck on some rocks, which is very likely because the handle is wider than the blade itself. So while he has some real potential to end up in the core of a planet, he would probably get stuck by his handle somewhere along the way, with his blade being unable to touch anything.

We know that Canticle was made like this for a specific reason by some powerful entity in Cosmere and its not the only one of its kind. The most liked theory is that it's Invention's invention. WoBs:

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

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

msyverw

So, what's up with Canticle? You've got the sunlight, it appears to be Invested and then the planet's core is trying to suck it up. And you know, where does it go after it does that, and...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, Canticle was built for a very specific purpose by a very powerful being in the Cosmere, that I will someday get to. You're going to see some more stuff like this. Basically, megastructures that imitate planets or other sort of heavenly bodies.

msyverw

So it's not like some avatar of Autonomy or something like that?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not an avatar of anything, it was built for a specific purpose, yes.

Just wait til I get to the Grand Apparatus, you're gonna love that. What was that voice that talked about a future Cosmere planet? Hmm!

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

[strmblsd he/him]

Reading the last WoB there and it made me think could a highly invested being be charging a super investiture battery in the middle of the planet? That was just the thought I had there.