Rosharan God Redux: Their Roles and Investiture – Night and Nightblood

[Confused]

“[N]ew things are made from old things...” (RoW, Kindle p. 781)

This post refines my theory about Roshar’s three native gods. I’ve reassigned their roles as follows: Stone represents birth, building the continent from the ocean floor. Wind represents growth – Wind’s whimsical ability to spread life. Night represents death, the destructive power of Ruin. The cycle repeats.

I think Night has returned to Roshar as Nightblood. More on that later...

IMO, Bondsmiths of the living planet Roshar don't need Investiture for Surgebinding. Someone sufficiently attuned to Roshar can learn Roshar’s tones and rhythms. They can sing Roshar’s “Songs” to Surgebind. That’s how the Dawnsingers created the Dawncities. Kabsal the WoR Ghostblood assassin demonstrates how cymatic vibrations create replicas of the Dawncities. No Investiture needed. I think the Dawnsingers were Stone Bondsmiths.

The Sibling says, “Back when Bondsmiths bonded not to spren, but to the ancient forces, left by gods.” I think this phrase means that a Wind Bondsmith, for example, can bind the Surges of Adhesion and Gravitation simply by singing Roshar's Songs. I think Venli will be a Stone Bondsmith who binds the Cohesion and Tension Surges by singing Roshar’s Songs. I think this is what Adonalsium set up, what makes Roshar special among planets – the ability to make powerful magic without Investiture.

I believe each old god is made of some Shard’s assigned Investiture, that is, Investiture left by Adonalsium and assigned to a Shard at the Shattering. I speculate, for example, Adonalsium used his bonding power to create Wind. Post-Shattering, Wind would be assigned to Honor.

Stone

Stone is “one” but speaks with many voices. To me, this is Autonomy-like. IMO, Autonomy is the Shard of Fractals – that is, Autonomy’s “primal force” is fractals. Like Honor’s primal force of bonding, and Ruin’s primal force of destructive entropy, Autonomy grants access to its Investiture through fractals...I think.

Fractals are progressively smaller-scaled versions of the same pattern, all of which make one whole. Avatars seem like smaller-scaled versions of Autonomy. Autonomy and its Avatars remain “one whole,” since (Brandon suggests) Autonomy controls their Avatars through an inter-Connected mind – many voices that are one. 

Brandon says there is a “gathering” of Autonomy’s Investiture on Roshar that the Shard has yet to find. Brandon configures the shape of the Rosharan continent as a Juliet fractal set – a mathematical equation. Check out these WoBs: Skyward Release Party (Nov. 6 2018); and Bonn Signing (May 15, 2019) I think, in-story, Stone built the continent based on the Julia fractal set.

I agree with the folks who think Rock will be a Stone Knight/Bondsmith. Once a Stone Bondsmith learns to compose and orchestrate, I suspect they can shape huge quantities of Stone. Make and move mountains (and get rid of airsick lowlanders...), dig out lakes and valleys, and reconfigure Roshar’s landscape.

Wind

Wind’s Shard may be Honor. The forces Wind represents – Adhesion and Gravitation – are bonding agents. Wind erodes Stone and blows living seeds into Stone places where life takes hold and flourishes. Maybe Wind derives from some other Shard or combination, but I choose Honor.

Kaladin is the Child of Tanavast and the embodiment of Honor’s protective urges. Perhaps Kal’s personality and character match Tanavast’s. Maybe Tanavast pre-Shattering was a Yolen military man who loved the wind as much as Kaladin does. Tanavast does wear a uniform. Maybe he favored one-on-one aerial combat like earth’s WW I ace pilots. (Was Tanavast a Red Baron before the Red Baron – Manfred von Richthofen – before Snoopy?) Wind and Honor do seem to have a strong association. Maybe Kaladin and Tanavast share a common code of “honor.” Who knows.

Wind Bondsmith Kaladin should be able to use Roshar’s tones and rhythms to manipulate the wind. Because he can bind the Adhesion and Gravitation Surges without Investiture, he doesn’t need the Nahel bond and Syl. IMO, Kaladin must speak his 5^th Oath before he can become a Wind Bondsmith. He and Syl must fully merge their souls and become Wind (just as Szeth and his highspren must become Truth). I believe that’s the meaning of Fleet’s “soul” rising to fly the winds forever.

An additional thought about Kaladin/Fleet. Wit cautions Kaladin to listen to Roshar or die. Fleet races the highstorm into Shinovar but metaphorically crashes when he outruns the highstorm, which supplies him Stormlight. At that moment, I believe Kal is no longer a Radiant. Syladin continues to fly solely on the tones and rhythms of Roshar. They defeat the storm and reclaim Roshar for Wind.

Night...and Szeth and Nightblood

Now the fun stuff. “Night” and “Nightblood” is too juicy to ignore...

I speculate Night leaves Roshar with the Five Scholars and returns to Roshar incorporated into Nightblood. Szeth currently bonds Nightblood’s destructive force. When Szeth swears his 5^th Oath, he becomes the embodiment of Truth. Nightblood administers Szeth’s judgment – the Sword of Retribution reborn. [WoK describes a carved relief of  “Nalan’Elin, emitting sunlight, the sword of retribution held over his head.” (Chapter 18, Kindle p. 286, bold added.)]

Facts

The Sibling tells us, “The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her.”

Night left Roshar after the Shattering. Cultivation kept a piece of Night’s essence.

Nalthis’ Five Scholars were early Worldhoppers who visited Roshar. Shashara and Vasher created Nightblood based on the Shardblades they saw there.

Shashara and Vasher thought they Invested Nightblood solely with Breaths. Brandon tells us Nightblood also holds Ruin’s Investiture.

Nightblood’s creation was “really bizarre” and “very hard” to replicate.

Nightblood gains Investiture over time and is one of the cosmere’s most heavily Invested objects. I presume Nightblood grows whenever he “destroys evil.” (I theorize Nightblood seeks thermodynamic equilibrium between his internal self and the external world. That dynamic IMO causes his destructive effects to accelerate rapidly.)

Quote

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) (bold added).

Is Night made from Ruin?

This is the first hurdle to my conjecture: Does Night represent death, entropy, destruction? There’s no direct evidence.

I start with the assumption that every living system (like Roshar) includes birth, growth, death, and rebirth in new form (a “Transformation” cycle). Investiture converts to matter and energy and back to Investiture eternally. IMO, Transformation is Cultivation’s “primal force,” a system she monitors, prunes, and trims but doesn’t dominate.

Cultivation doesn’t exist when Adonalsium creates Roshar. Adonalsium designs Roshar as a living planet (IMO). He installs his own system, one of Stone, Wind, and Night. If Stone is birth, and Wind is growth, then Night must be death in order to trigger the life cycle’s renewal. I suspect one reason “Few loved her, or even spoke of her” had to do with Night’s association with death and destruction.

Death doesn’t necessarily mean Ruin. Cultivation’s Intent of Transformation also includes death and rebirth. But post-Shattering Roshar would be redundant and boring if Cultivation simply recapitulated what Adonalsium made. I don’t think Brandon would do that narratively. The three old gods each seem to be made from different Investitures. Cultivation might succeed to the old gods’ collective Transformation cycle. But I don’t believe Adonalsium would Invest Night as “death” with only Cultivation, since that Investiture encompasses so much more than that.

Besides, it would “ruin” my theory... So let’s just assume Adonalsium made Night with the power that became Ruin!

How Did Night Become Part of Nightblood?

My speculation also depends on Night’s ability to hide. Maybe she’s always been incorporeal and unseeable. If she does represent death, Night would be the metaphoric shadow that passes unnoticed. Assumption No. 2: Night can make herself invisible, or hide in shadows, or hide in a person’s “dark” mind.

Night leaves Roshar. (“Death Takes a Holiday,” “Meet Joe Black”?). I speculate Night flees to avoid Cultivation Transforming her. She follows the Scholars to Nalthis. She’s curious, maybe about the Scholars, certainly about life off-Roshar. She might want a new home rather than submit to Cultivation.

Night’s curiosity, and Ruinous Investiture, draws her to Nightblood’s creation. Shashara’s Command “Destroy Evil” might pull Night’s nearby Ruinous Investiture into Nightblood’s creation. Nightblood is more “conscious” than Vasher thought the sword should be. And it has a name before “Nightblood.” Maybe the sword first calls itself...“Night”? Does Vasher add “blood” when he sees black smoke leak from “Night” like “blood” layering its edges...?

Once incorporated into Nightblood, Night loses her sense of her history and identity. In the Warbreaker Annotations, Brandon says,

Quote

[T]he quirk of being an Awakened object [causes part of Nightblood’s mind to be] hard forged in that moment with read-only memory that cannot be changed. Much of him can learn and grow, despite what Vasher says, but he cannot overwrite those initial concepts, states, and understandings that were burned into him during his birth. [Bold added.]

IOW, if Night becomes part of Nightblood, she likely loses her memory and identity during Nightblood’s Awakening. She seems to retain her sapience and, briefly, her name, but everything else wipes clean.

Vasher brings Nightblood to Roshar, where it ends up with the Nightwatcher. In describing Nightblood to Dalinar, the Nightwatcher makes no reference to “Night” or “Nightblood,” only “A Blade that bleeds darkness and cannot be defeated.” (OB, Kindle p. 1078.)

And now Szeth holds the Sword of Retribution, the instrument of his Truthful justice.

Conclusion

The Night stuff is reasonable speculation at best. I do think Wind and Stone Bondsmiths can bind their Surges without investiture. Unlike Radiants and Fused, I believe Bondsmiths simply sing Roshar’s Songs to Surgebind.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Confused

[coolsnow7]

8 hours ago, Confused said:

I speculate Night leaves Roshar with the Five Scholars and returns to Roshar incorporated into Nightblood

This is a brilliant call and I think you’re correct. I’ve been wrestling all week with “what is the connection between the Night and Nightblood” - I should have thought of this! In particular because of the points you noted below. 

I’m sure there will be some details that get tweaked (for example, maybe only certain aspects of the Night have made it into Nightblood, while the rest were left on the cutting room floor, or something like that) but I assign high probability that the main point here will be confirmed in this book.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

18 hours ago, Confused said:

Brandon says there is a “gathering” of Autonomy’s Investiture on Roshar that the Shard has yet to find.

I think this is reading too much into that line personally, to me that sounds like he's just saying "all the Shards are everywhere". That said, I do think Cohesion has some thematic parallels to Autonomy the same way Division has some thematic parallels to Ruin.

19 hours ago, Confused said:

This is the first hurdle to my conjecture: Does Night represent death, entropy, destruction? There’s no direct evidence.

There's a lot of evidence through the Nightwatcher for the death aspect, at least.

Kaladin references her as bringing death and lies [tWoK 14]:

Spoiler

She smiled, and watched as Kaladin began to stretch. Once he finished, he stood and stepped out onto the street again, mostly recovered from his exhaustion. She zipped into the air and rested on his shoulder, sitting with her arms back and her feet hanging down in front, like a girl on the side of a cliff. "I'm glad you’re not angry. Though I do think that you’re to blame for what’s happening to me. Before I met you, I never had to think about death or lying."

"That’s how I am," he said dryly. "Bringing death and lies wherever I go. Me and the Nightwatcher."

And as a spirit of evil fate or something [tWoK 47]:

Spoiler

The enemy. That was what they were called. Yet whenever there was an actual border dispute with the Vedens or the Reshi, those men would line up beside Amaram's troops and they would fight together. It was as if the Nightwatcher toyed with them, playing some forbidden game of chance, occasionally setting the men on his gameboard as allies, then setting them to kill one another the next day.

Nohadon alludes to her being in the afterlife [tWoK 58]:

Spoiler

“ ‘Yes, I could have traveled quickly. But all men have the same ultimate destination. Whether we find our end in a hallowed sepulcher or a pauper’s ditch, all save the Heralds themselves must dine with the Nightwatcher.’ ”

She's also believed to be "below" [RoW 82]:

Spoiler

Oh storms, Shallan thought, growing cold. Stormfather above and Nightwatcher below … He's right. That is a solution to this problem. A way to let Adolin win. A way to bring the honorspren back.

 

19 hours ago, Confused said:

Night left Roshar after the Shattering. Cultivation kept a piece of Night’s essence.

I don't know if I quite agree with this. It's a plausible reading of what the Sibling says, but imo it could just as easily refer to the way the Honorblades are the same "stuff" as spren despite not being spren themselves. Especially since the Sibling views their own nature as a "legacy" of the Stones as different from the way they're a "child" of Honor and Cultivation.

19 hours ago, Confused said:

I do think Wind and Stone Bondsmiths can bind their Surges without investiture. Unlike Radiants and Fused, I believe Bondsmiths simply sing Roshar’s Songs to Surgebind.

Sounds decently plausible to me.

10 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

This is a brilliant call and I think you’re correct. I’ve been wrestling all week with “what is the connection between the Night and Nightblood” - I should have thought of this! In particular because of the points you noted below. 

For what it's worth, Nightblood isn't the sword's original name, when Vasher killed his wife he renamed it after the smoke it leaks like blood.

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)

(OP does reference this, so I assume he's seen this WoB, just not sure if you have or not.)

[brute_cage]

i think one major hurdle im having is the question “how did a huge piece of investiture coded and deeply a part of Roshar manage to leave?”

 

could be things we dont know yet but based on our current knowledge thats gotta be difficult 

[logicless.bt]

8 hours ago, brute_cage said:

i think one major hurdle im having is the question “how did a huge piece of investiture coded and deeply a part of Roshar manage to leave?”

I came back to this post because I had the same thought. Night was invested enough to be worshiped by the people, how could she just up and leave? The two options are that the Five Scholars figured something out, or that people forgot her enough to let her depart. I struggle with either interpretation tbqh.

[listerfeend]

On 10/21/2024 at 12:00 AM, Confused said:

I speculate Night leaves Roshar with the Five Scholars and returns to Roshar incorporated into Nightblood.

Problem: The timeline we currently have would have put Vasher and Shashara on Roshar post Recreance. Night, presumably, "left" LOOOONG before that

Quote

Fluffy (paraphrased)

When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 15, 2022)

 

Edited October 23, 2024 by listerfeend

[AquaRegia he/him]

On 10/21/2024 at 12:00 AM, Confused said:

Wind Bondsmith Kaladin should be able to use Roshar’s tones and rhythms to manipulate the wind.

Fortuitously, he just happens to know the rudiments of the flute (a WIND instrument) now!

[Confused]

As always, thanks all for your comments! It’s nice to know someone does hear when a tree in the forest falls...

@LewsTherinTelescope, those are wonderful WoBs referencing death and the Nightwatcher. They support my speculation. You are correct that the Sibling’s statement – “Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence... [bold added]” – doesn’t mean that essence comes from Night herself. If Night is made from Ruin, as I speculate, then Cultivation simply grows the Nightwatcher with some of Ruin’s essence in addition to Cultivation’s own. I think the Nightwatcher uses that Ruinous essence to destroy a bit of the boon-seeker’s Spiritweb. Cultivation’s essence grows back the missing piece as the boon/curse.

Next are the questions about how Night might have snuck off Roshar:

22 hours ago, brute_cage said:

i think one major hurdle im having is the question “how did a huge piece of investiture coded and deeply a part of Roshar manage to leave?”

14 hours ago, logicless.bt said:

I came back to this post because I had the same thought. Night was invested enough to be worshiped by the people, how could she just up and leave? The two options are that the Five Scholars figured something out, or that people forgot her enough to let her depart. I struggle with either interpretation tbqh.

The amount of Investiture an entity controls and/or contains is neither defined nor limited by mass or volume. Those are Physical Realm concepts. Most Investiture lies in the Spiritual Realm, which lacks dimensions. I believe control is more a function of Intent and Command than the amount of Investiture used. Think Lifeless, each created with a single Breath.

“Night,” of all of the ancient gods, should be able to hide herself easily. She can hide during her namesake night or in any shadow. Perhaps even inside a person.

“Few loved her, or even spoke of her.” People probably don’t miss her and prefer not to think of her. Death continues on Roshar even in her absence. Some of her functions seem transferred to the Nightwatcher, as @LewsTherinTelescope shows. I think Night as a god would have little trouble slipping out of memory.

@logicless.bt says, “Night was invested enough to be worshipped by the people...” Your question assumes “Invested” means the same thing for a spren made from Ruin as it does for one made from Odium, Cultivation, or Honor. Those Shards reside on Roshar. They can’t move from the planet without dis-Investing themselves. But Ruin is Invested on Scadrial. I believe assigned Investiture left by Adonalsium on Roshar shouldn’t be stuck there unless its Shard also resides there.

Now the timing question:

10 hours ago, listerfeend said:

Problem: The timeline we currently have would have put Vasher and Shashara on Roshar post Recreance. Night, presumably, "left" LOOOONG before that

I think the timing fits nicely. Here’s the Sibling’s statement on timing (bold added):

Quote

“It has been confusing,” the Sibling said, “to learn of all that has happened while I slept. I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.

It sounds like “Night” left and Cultivation replaced her with the Nightwatcher while the Sibling slept. The Sibling slept from around the time of BAM’s capture and the Recreance. This works just fine with known timing.

I think it’s also unclear when the Scholars did visit Roshar:

Spoiler

Here’s the WoB @listerfeend relies on:

Quote

Fluffy (paraphrased)

When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 15, 2022)

I think this paraphrased WoB is ambiguous. Brandon never says the Five Scholars travelled post-Recreance. “Fluffy” assumes they visited after the Recreance on the further assumption the Scholars only encountered dead Shardblades. Brandon ignores the timing part of the question. He just says Honorblades also existed.

This is also an ambiguous WoB that suggests a different timing:

Quote

AndyGranny

The Five Scholars traveled from Nalthis to Roshar. And Intent is very important across all of the Cosmere. But also, Sel is actually closer than it is to Roshar. And from everything we know right now, when it comes to Intent, the Intent of using the Aons mirrors sort of Awakening. So did they travel to Sel as well, and has that influenced the way Nalthians learned to Awaken?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO for right now. Let's just say that the things that happened on Sel that prevented travel were not in place several thousand years ago.

What I sidestepped is whether the Scholars had been to Sel, I heavily implied people from Nalthis had been to Sel. Don't take that as canon, that it's specifically the Scholars. That part is a RAFO.

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021) (bold added).

Weak confirmation that some Nalthis people visited Sel. RAFO as to whether they were the Scholars. OTOH, we also have this WoB:

Quote

FirstSelector

I read that you had said if you had written Khriss' essay on Nalthis, it would have been more or less that she was talking about the magic, and then mention that there were scholars on this planet that were spitting distance from, like…

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah.

FirstSelector

So, Vasher, and maybe some of the other ones have been off world--

Brandon Sanderson

Shashara has been, yeah.

FirstSelector

...Are they known to the people at Silverlight? Like--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah.

FirstSelector

Like does Khriss know Vasher?

Brandon Sanderson

Know Vasher is a different question than know of Vasher. But they are widely regarded as early cosmere scholars... They are pioneers of this sort of stuff. So yes.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016) (bold added)

I remain unclear when the Scholars visited Roshar. Odium Splintered Devotion and Dominion before he settled in the Rosharan system. One WoB implies Nalthians can get to Roshar through Shadesmar only by going through Sel. (This begs the question how Vivenna found her way to Roshar, but whatever...)

If the Five Scholars WERE the Nalthians who visited Sel, that visit might have occurred millennia before the Recreance. The Scholars could have moved on to visit Roshar at that time. Moreover, the Scholars “are widely regarded as early cosmere scholars... pioneers.” The last two thousand years might not be considered “early” or “pioneer” when the Shattering occurred 10,000 years ago.

So...I think the Night left Roshar after the Recreance, while the Sibling slept. But the evidence of when the Scholars visited to me is squishy and unreliable.

Again, thanks to you all for your comments! C.

Edited October 24, 2024 by Confused

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

It sounds like “Night” left and Cultivation replaced her with the Nightwatcher while the Sibling slept. The Sibling slept from around the time of BAM’s capture and the Recreance. This works just fine with known timing.

The wording is confusing, but I don't think that's true:

Quote

“It has been confusing,” the Sibling said, “to learn of all that has happened while I slept. I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.

“Now, the Stormfather has changed, and the Nightwatcher has not spoken to me as she used to. My siblings are no longer as I remember. I hate that.”

This only works if the Nightwatcher existed before they were asleep. My best guess at how to make the "seems" work is Cultivation just didn't explain what she was doing and so the Nightwatcher's precise nature is theory on the part of those in-world, and potentially it happened before Sibling was born so it's all hearsay to them.

Edit: also, there's this from RoW 116:

Quote

"The Stormfather doesn't know what to make of this," Dalinar said. "I think he finds it strange. Apparently, his Bondsmith and the Nightwatcher’s Bondsmith sometimes had relationships, but the Sibling’s Bondsmith was always apart."

 

Edited October 24, 2024 by LewsTherinTelescope

[listerfeend]

14 hours ago, Confused said:

On 10/23/2024 at 1:04 PM, listerfeend said:

Problem: The timeline we currently have would have put Vasher and Shashara on Roshar post Recreance. Night, presumably, "left" LOOOONG before that

I think the timing fits nicely. Here’s the Sibling’s statement on timing (bold added):

Quote

“It has been confusing,” the Sibling said, “to learn of all that has happened while I slept. I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.

It sounds like “Night” left and Cultivation replaced her with the Nightwatcher while the Sibling slept. The Sibling slept from around the time of BAM’s capture and the Recreance. This works just fine with known timing.

 

The problem I have with this is: we know that Warbreaker takes place roughly 200 years before Way of Kings. We also know that the events of the Manywar took place roughly 300 years before Warbreaker. So, for Vasher and Shashara to have visited Roshar pre-recreance would have to mean that they were Returned at least 2000 years before the events of the Manywar, with basically no historical record. 

13 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

“It has been confusing,” the Sibling said, “to learn of all that has happened while I slept. I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.

“Now, the Stormfather has changed, and the Nightwatcher has not spoken to me as she used to. My siblings are no longer as I remember. I hate that.”

As @LewsTherinTelescope states, Sibling knew Nightwatcher before she slept. And she went to sleep somewhere around the time of the Recreance. Which still puts Night leaving sometime before that, at least in my opinion. This also does not include the fact that Nightblood is not the swords original name. 

Side note: It's interesting, in that quote, that Sibling says "Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone's perception" and then goes on to call the Nightwatcher by name. This makes me wonder if there is a Nameless being floating around Roshar made of the same stuff as Night, imperceptible. This could also just be the Sibling being somewhat artistic in their description of what happened. 

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

5 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

Side note: It's interesting, in that quote, that Sibling says "Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone's perception" and then goes on to call the Nightwatcher by name. This makes me wonder if there is a Nameless being floating around Roshar made of the same stuff as Night, imperceptible. This could also just be the Sibling being somewhat artistic in their description of what happened. 

Wyndle mentions something similar in RoW:

Quote

"I have met the Nightwatcher," Wyndle said. "She does not … think the same way the rest of us do. Cultivation created her to be apart, separated from humankind, un-Connected. Mortal perception of the Nightwatcher does not influence her like it does other spren. Mother wanted a daughter whose shape and personality would grow organically."

So I think it's just weird wording, but it's possible.

[listerfeend]

13 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

So I think it's just weird wording, but it's possible.

It feels like very weird wording to me. I'm told I'm way too pedantic about things, but this feels weird

[LewsTherinTelescope]

6 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

It feels like very weird wording to me. I'm told I'm way too pedantic about things, but this feels weird

I don't disagree that it's strange and I wouldn't be shocked if there's more, but this book so far has been full of things that make me go "that sentence should've been workshopped more", so given the connection to what Wyndle says I'm more inclined to say it's just her, personally.

[Confused]

@LewsTherinTelescope and @listerfeend, I’m not sure what your objection is. I speculate, without evidence, that Night left Roshar with the Five Scholars. You speculate, equally without evidence, that she disappeared and maybe left Roshar millennia earlier.

Night might have hidden during those millennia and still remained on Roshar. Night might have weakened even before the Recreance, just as Wind now seems weak. BAM's capture might have affected her. The Nightwatcher replaced many of Night’s personified functions including Night’s association with death. So Night lingers until the Scholars show up. She follows them. Isn’t that just as reasonable a speculation as yours?

I know Nightblood is not the sword’s original name. I discuss this in the OP. I speculate Night constituted the mind and Ruinous Investiture that augmented Nightblood’s creation. Shashara's "Destroy Evil" Command might have pulled Night into the sword: First, the Command "Destroy" uses Ruin's Investiture. Second, I speculate Rosharans viewed Night/death as "evil" and Night personified their view. After the sword’s Awakening, Night might have retained enough Identity to remember her name, Night. Vasher renamed the (now black) sword Nightblood (I speculate) after seeing the gaseous Investiture leakage.

Regards! C.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

Night might have hidden during those millennia and still remained on Roshar.

Why make everyone think she "left" for thousands of years? And how did none of the various immensely powerful entities on the planet notice? Why follow the Scholars and not any other worldhopper?

It's not impossible necessarily, but it requires a lot of leaps that in my opinion we currently don't have reason to think happened.

The mechanism of her being pulled in because the Command is Ruinous also seems odd to me—if someone did an Awakening aligned with Honor or Cultivation on Roshar, would it just suck in all nearby spren?

[Confused]

Good questions! But Night becoming Nightblood is just too juicy a possibility to ignore. I’ll try again to address your doubts, hopefully with more clarity.

On 10/24/2024 at 4:41 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

The mechanism of her being pulled in because the Command is Ruinous also seems odd to me—if someone did an Awakening aligned with Honor or Cultivation on Roshar, would it just suck in all nearby spren?

To review basics, every Shard’s magic system can grant any magical ability, but only in its own way, that is, in a way consistent with its Intent:

“The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do.”

“The means of getting powers…are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.”

To me, “Destroy” is life-endowing Breath's antithesis. Breaths might find it hard to obey the Command. This dynamic resembles the directly opposing Shards, Ruin and Preservation. Ruin can perform Allomancy, which is Preservation's magic, but only by stealing Preservation through Hemalurgy:

Quote

As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals—even the two divine ones—are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.

Source (bold added).

Here, “it wouldn’t be as natural or as easy” to use Breaths to fuel destruction even if possible. Instead, I think the Breaths endow Nightblood with the tool of destruction, the power of Ruin. IOW, in order to obey the Command Destroy, the Breaths add Ruin to Nightblood. The metal sword provides a Focus to summon Ruin. Ruin then overwrites – "corrupts" – the Breaths to implement the Command.

We know this corruption happens. We know the sword only becomes black upon Awakening, a sign of Investiture corruption. We know Nightblood holds Ruin as well as Breaths. We know Nightblood’s creation was a highly unusual, almost impossible to replicate event. The question is, how does Ruin get into Nightblood?

I first argued years ago that Ruin partly created Nightblood because of the Destroy Command and the sword's metal Focus. The only difference now is my speculation that Night is the source of Ruin.

On 10/24/2024 at 4:41 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Why make everyone think she "left" for thousands of years? And how did none of the various immensely powerful entities on the planet notice? Why follow the Scholars and not any other worldhopper?

No one knew Wind was around all this time until Wind spoke to Kaladin. Hoid never mentioned the “ancient spren” until recently. Maybe Night wanted to avoid notice. Maybe she didn’t so much “leave” as hide or dwindle. The Shards replaced each of the old gods with the Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and Sibling. They might have known the old gods survived and not cared. Or maybe they didn’t know. Could Cultivation have found Night? Maybe. Did she care to? Maybe not. As Hoid tells Dalinar and Navani, “The Shards are not omniscient—it is relatively easy to hide things from them.”

We don’t know when other Worldhoppers visited Roshar. According to Brandon’s timeline, cosmere stories chronologically earlier than SLA  take place on Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis, and Threnody. Brandon hints at early Worldhoppers from Sel, but that way is now closed. Scadrial’s Worldhopping is more recent. If Felt is representative, Scadrian Worldhoppers prefer to blend in unnoticed – “Ghostbloods.” That leaves the Nalthians, Scholars interested in learning and making new things using Breaths. Maybe the Scholars worked where Night could see them. It makes sense to me a curious Night might have tired of a dull life on the lam and followed them. 

To sum up, I think it plausible that Night hid indefinitely from the other “gods” and Shards. I also think it plausible that Night followed the Five Scholars to Nalthis, though that “conclusion” is pure guesswork. I do think it’s very plausible the Breaths used Night’s Ruinous Investiture in order to execute Nightblood’s Awakening with the “Destroy evil” Command.

Maybe a red herring, but again too juicy to ignore. C.

Edited October 29, 2024 by Confused

[LewsTherinTelescope]

5 hours ago, Confused said:

Here, “it wouldn’t be as natural or as easy” to use Breaths to fuel destruction even if possible.

That's fair.

5 hours ago, Confused said:

The metal sword provides a Focus to summon Ruin.

I don't think I understand what you're proposing here.

5 hours ago, Confused said:

No one knew Wind was around all this time until Wind spoke to Kaladin.

Normal people didn't, but I'd be surprised if the Shards had no idea. Even the Sibling mentions a difference in the Wind now compared to when they were young.

5 hours ago, Confused said:

The Shards replaced each of the old gods with the Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and Sibling. They might have known the old gods survived and not cared.

The Stone at least wanted a "legacy", it wasn't something the Shards imposed (we don't know either way about the Wind).

5 hours ago, Confused said:

Could Cultivation have found Night? Maybe. Did she care to? Maybe not.

Why make a replacement if she's still around?

5 hours ago, Confused said:

As Hoid tells Dalinar and Navani, “The Shards are not omniscient—it is relatively easy to hide things from them.”

Easy for Hoid is somewhat different from the normal definition of the word

5 hours ago, Confused said:

We don’t know when other Worldhoppers visited Roshar. According to Brandon’s timeline, cosmere stories chronologically earlier than SLA  take place on Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis, and Threnody. Brandon hints at early Worldhoppers from Sel, but that way is now closed. Scadrial’s Worldhopping is more recent. If Felt is representative, Scadrian Worldhoppers prefer to blend in unnoticed – “Ghostbloods.” That leaves the Nalthians, Scholars interested in learning and making new things using Breaths.

I wouldn't say Felt cares about blending in, he jokes about being "more foreign" than Dalinar and Shallan susses out his worldhopper nature fairly quickly.

He's "heavily implied" (his own words) that Nalthians were worldhopping millennia ago, early enough to have reached Sel pre-Dor:

Spoiler

AndyGranny

The Five Scholars traveled from Nalthis to Roshar. And Intent is very important across all of the Cosmere. But also, Sel is actually closer than it is to Roshar. And from everything we know right now, when it comes to Intent, the Intent of using the Aons mirrors sort of Awakening. So did they travel to Sel as well, and has that influenced the way Nalthians learned to Awaken?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO for right now. Let's just say that the things that happened on Sel that prevented travel were not in place several thousand years ago.

What I sidestepped is whether the Scholars had been to Sel, I heavily implied people from Nalthis had been to Sel. Don't take that as canon, that it's specifically the Scholars. That part is a RAFO.

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

And that Roshar's pre-Shattering age is part of why there's so many worldhoppers there, implying the networks have been growing for a while:

Spoiler

Adarain

There seems to be a concentration of “aliens” in the west of Roshar, with both the Sleepless and the Iriali being non-Rosharan, possibly the Siah Aimians too (though I have my own headcanon about them); and of course the Ashynite humans arrived somewhere in the west too, probably in or near Shinovar. Is this a coincidence? It seems reasonable to me that in the past, Honor’s Perpendicularity was somewhere in the region and at least some of these groups used it to arrive on Roshar.

Brandon Sanderson

Not a coincidence. Having multiple perpendicularities on the land, mixed with easy-to-access Investiture, mixed with a vibrant Shadesmar side with actual cultures and cities all make Roshar a tempting destination. The amount of investiture flying around (literally) also makes the place a little easier to find in Shadesmar than other destinations might be.

There's also the fact that it wasn't created post-Shattering, like Scadrial was. There's just been more time to get to it.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 16, 2020)

 

6 hours ago, Confused said:

I do think it’s very plausible the Breaths used Night’s Ruinous Investiture in order to execute Nightblood’s Awakening with the “Destroy evil” Command.

I do think it's plausible there's a connection there of some kind, though I'm uncertain on the details.

6 hours ago, Confused said:

Maybe a red herring, but again too juicy to ignore. C.

Fair enough! I do think it's worth considering even though I have reservations.

Worth noting that Nightblood is "significantly linked" to the nightmares and Midnight Essence:

Spoiler

Diss the Chris

In Yumi, the outer edge of Kilahito and the Nightmares are being described as being completely nonreflective, and they drip with a black liquid that smokes. The same description has been given to the Midnight Essence and to Nightblood. Are these linked, and indicative of some kind of warped Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

They are significantly linked. (There you are; we’ll use “significantly” in that regard.)

YouTube Spoiler Stream 6 (Dec. 19, 2023)

Specifically, the mechanic has to do with something trying to become self-aware but being held back:

Spoiler

Strifelover

My question is around connections between corrupted Investiture on different planets. We have the shroud; we have Midnight Essence; we have the nightmares; and we have Nightblood. All of them have, like, oozy black smoke. Are they all connected somehow with the corrupted Investiture of Odium, Ambition...?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. The question is: all of these different manifestations (we've got the Midnight Essence, we've got the shroud, we've got Nightblood), are they connected? Are they all related in some way to Odium or Ambition? The answer is no to the second.

When I was building the Cosmere, one of the things that I knew is that I wanted to explore magic systems really in depth. And in order to do that, I built fundamental principles by how magic, Investiture, would manifest. And I wanted it to be consistent. For instance, I wanted the rules... if you're making illusions in one world, I wanted those illusions to behave a lot the same way that they would on other worlds. So I built these fundamental principles that I build up from. And one of those fundamental principles is about Investiture that is trying to become alive and is being held back by something. And that is where you get Midnight Essence sort of things. It's, like, one step from being able to become self-aware, but it's being held back. And there's even, kind of, some frustration in there, as much as something not truly self-aware can have. So if you watch for that theme, you'll see it more and more.

C2E2 2024 (April 26, 2024)