Fun with Nightblood

[The Stick]

Obviously, Nightblood did a lot this book. Szeth pulling him at the end was so epic. He now knows all the Surges, which is just crazy. I would not think that is possible for him to learn. When Vasher meets him again, I am sure he will be terrified. Now, Nightblood is basically an upgraded Yelig Nar in sword form you can use to disintegrate other people. 

Kal telling Nightblood to stop eating them was weird, maybe Nightblood is learning self control.

Nightblood in the CR was interesting. It makes sense though. He is extremely Invested, which would make him glow in the CR.

Finally, I am not sure if this is a retcon. I was under the impression that Nightblood destroyed your spiritual aspect and stopped you from going to the beyond, which was contradicted this book. Any thoughts?

[Cocoa he/him]

12 hours ago, The Stick said:

Finally, I am not sure if this is a retcon. I was under the impression that Nightblood destroyed your spiritual aspect and stopped you from going to the beyond, which was contradicted this book. Any thoughts?

It's the same issue of overlapping terminology as when you stab a spren with anti-light (since Word of Brandon is that Phendorana still went to the Beyond after Moash killed her). What in-universe characters often call a "soul" and that we call the "Spiritweb" in the "Spiritual Realm" of the cosmere isn't actually the same thing as the real-world philosophical concept of an immortal soul. Nightblood destroys someone's "spiritual aspect" in the sense that he breaks it down into raw investiture and absorbs it, like breaking someone's physical aspect down into so many protons, neutrons, and electrons, but there's an implicit "self" that exists even beyond the investiture that makes up someone's "spiritual aspect." Even someone's investiture "soul" were to be torn apart by Nightblood or anti-light or something else, a Christian visiting the Cosmere would still tell you that they went to Heaven or Hell, and a visiting Buddhist would tell you they had gone on to be reincarnated, and an Iriali would tell you that they had rejoined The One, and so on, and a philosophical materialist would tell you that there isn't any true afterlife, that the closest thing to a soul is the lingering connections and investiture that returns to the Spiritual Realm when someone dies just like their physical body eventually decomposes and returns to its base elements. This is the sort of thing that Cosmere characters mean when they talk about "going into the Beyond;" it's something intangible, immeasurable, and metaphysical in a way that even the Spiritual Realm isn't, more about faith than anything else.