Ripheus23 Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 What exactly is the deep/non-superficial difference between discord and war? Or, the "Intent-relevant" distinction? For that Harmony inherited the possibility of destructive Discord not just from the having of any two Shards at all, but by the Spiritual progeny of Ruin in him most emphatically: is this how the problem of the cosmere develops in terms of Roshar-Scadrial system interactions? That Retribution, holding the implicit Intent of the Rhythm of War and its Light, would be able to inflame the shadow of Discord inside the balance of Harmony? Through Nightblood even, maybe? That would be a weird substory in the back half: we're given a simple glimpse of front-half character development for Nightblood that turns into major character development down the road, but we also find that through the sword, Retribution would be able to affect Harmony in a special way? (Does Nightblood have an exotic Connection to Retribution, via Odium, akin to that of the Heralds and their Honorblades, from which it has learned so much? If the back half dwells on the character of the Heralds so much, what might this portend for the personality-based role of Endowment's dire allowance in the same context?)
alder24 Posted December 21, 2024 Posted December 21, 2024 17 hours ago, Ripheus23 said: What exactly is the deep/non-superficial difference between discord and war? Or, the "Intent-relevant" distinction? The names Harmony and Discord refer to how the two Shards of Ruin and Preservation are interacting with each other while held by Sazed. When they work together, they are Harmony, when they don't, they are Discord. It's not necessarily about war and conflict in the whole Cosmere, it's about conflict between two Shards in Sazed. Spoiler Questioner Is there a significance between Harmony and Discord being musical terms? And would they be considered different Investiture tones? Brandon Sanderson Yes and no. So what's going on here is that... it is significant, I chose those two terms very specifically. Not gonna tell you a lot about Discord or things like that, but the idea is that idea of Harmony is in... the sounds are in harmony, they are working together. In Discord they are not. I wouldn't call them Investiture tones, more the way the two tones are responding to each other. JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021) 17 hours ago, Ripheus23 said: That Retribution, holding the implicit Intent of the Rhythm of War and its Light, would be able to inflame the shadow of Discord inside the balance of Harmony? Through Nightblood even, maybe? How would Nightblood even do this? He's powerful, but nowhere near the infinite power of a Shard. At most he can kill a Vessel, which he did in RoW, but a Vessel himself is less investiture than an Unmade and could be trapped in a gemstone. That's nothing. Nightblood can't really corrupt a Vessel like he is able to do with people who want to use him for evil purposes. Spoiler Questioner Assuming you have a way to siphon out a Vessel from a Shard, how much hemalurgic metal would be required to contain that Vessel? Brandon Sanderson An astronomically large amount. Oh, the Vessel? Or contain a Shard? The Vessel, just a little dude... not that much. Basically, like a decent-sized gemstone would hold an Unmade, and that's more Investiture than we're talking about. Questioner Can hemalurgic metal hold around the same amount of an Invested creature as a pure gemstone? Brandon Sanderson No, gemstones can do more. Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023) 17 hours ago, Ripheus23 said: Does Nightblood have an exotic Connection to Retribution, via Odium Not really, at least nothing significant. He might have some Connection to Ruin as he contains his investiture (likely through his Command being Destroy, he corrupts all investiture he eats into Ruin's investiture, but we don't know this). He ate a tiny bit of Odium's investiture when he was already almost full, corrupted it and spit it out as a black smoke. It shouldn't influence him, investiture is just a food to him. Spoiler Questioner Did Odium have a lasting effect on Nightblood? Brandon Sanderson Yes, but basically everything has a lasting effect, right? Yes, Odium had a lasting effect on Nightblood, but not a significant one. YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022) 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 Blightsong How does corrupted investiture work, like Nightblood? Brandon Sanderson Oh, Nightblood. Again, this is a definition of what somebody feels is a corruption. For instance, there are spren that people would feel are corrupted. But that's corruption where the mixing of different Shards has changed things, and I think a lot of times when people say corruption, what they're meaning is the mixing of Shards' powers. Blightsong So is there a mixing of Shards' powers happening with Nightblood? Brandon Sanderson *smirks* RAFO. That's the natural question, I'm glad you asked it. Blightsong Ok, uhhh, so something similar is happening with Gavilar's sphere, right? Brandon Sanderson *contemplative silence* RAFO. OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016) 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)
Nitpicking Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 (edited) Folks do realize that the Command that created Nightblood, "Destroy evil," is literally ... retribution? Right? Combined with Ruin? And Nightblood is a person now? Nightblood eats both Sazed and Taravangian and becomes the Vessel of a 4-shard being, "Divine Justice." And that's my crack theory for the day. Edited December 22, 2024 by Nitpicking
Ripheus23 Posted December 22, 2024 Author Posted December 22, 2024 @alder24 my argument relies heavily on bizarre minor details about the relationship between the Heralds and Odium that lent itself to the Oathpact, such as established the Honorblades which the spren would imitate, wherein in turn the Five Scholars would imitate the spren and so the Honorblades in Nightblood. So that's already an extremely powerful cluster of Spiritual Connections between Nightblood and the Spiritual nature of the process by which Odium was bound. Add to this the Spiritual fact that it was by wielding Nightblood that Taravangian killed Rayse and Ascended, eventually to Retribution: then throw in Nightblood's friendship with the Honorblades on the eve of the Oathpact's revival. What do we get? A hell of a lot more Connection, Spiritually, between Nightblood, Odium, Taravangian, Retribution, etc. Like part of it would be just the sheer pathos of it. Of this diabolical weapon learning restraint and even grace and mercy, maybe, someday, yet being darkly influenced yet by its own inheritance from Ruin and its Spiritual entanglement with the greatest malice in the known cosmere. It'd be a great way to play the living-sword trope, too. I'm reminded of the Soul Calibur franchise, and its zany, zigzagging plot. Like the theme of these living magic swords with all this fancy stancework that goes into exercising them, it gives off that vibe, similar to the Final Fantasy vibe Sanderson gives off a lot (among other things). But the "logical" argument is super-heavily dependent, again, on the WaT stuff we've been given. Like, we're told that just because of however they interacted with Rayse on Ashyn, the old Heralds could play the role of the Oathpact as close to perfectly as was available at the time. It doesn't seem, to me, that any of the Heralds are more Connected to Rayse and/or Odium than Nightblood. Being the instrument of Rayse's killer seems like a deal-breaker Spiritual factoid when it comes to rankings: no matter how important any Herald's relationship with Odium's power was back on Ashyn, it wouldn't be more important, but only at most as important, as Nightblood's outcome in this case. I mean, I'd even be willing to gamble on an argument that Nightblood is more strongly Connected to Odium, than at least some of the Heralds. For example, maybe Kaladin as the new Herald-King. We were, if I remember correctly, given a relatively definitive statement of the purpose of the crimson-eyed Kaladin in Rhythm of War, as someone that Rayse sought to square off against Dalinar. Nevertheless, did that make of Kaladin someone more personally Connected to Rayse/Odium than, say, Nightblood would be? Or what was Rayse's strategy on getting to the Rosharan system? He's learned a lesson from his work on Sel, he's learned another one from his fight against Ambition. So he goes to... Ashlyn? Where Honor and Cultivation are not so present? To manipulate the Ashynites into serving/expressing him? And then going on this series of crazed rampages millennium after millennium? So he wants an army, to span the stars. Why does a Shard need such an army to accomplish the goal of killing all other Shards? I think that a lot of their power is actually "offset" in the Spiritual Realm. I mean that in part on the narrative level: to be Shards of a god like Adonalsium, these people have to interact in a mystical way with the flow of history on worlds they've invested heavily in. They have to have a seemingly indirect order of divine providence in history, like the meek and hopeful deeds of Preservation for example. Kind of like a super-complicated version of "the gods lose power if they lose worshipers" trope, except in this case it's more like certain "conceptual paradigms" (read: Intents) have to be maintained in a civilization, for that civilization to engage with the magic potential of the relevant Shard. It was by using Dawnshards in an unfortunate way that the Heralds desolated Ashyn. Not by using the Shard of Odium directly. I could admit that Ishar, for example, might very well be more Spiritually bound to Odium than even Nightblood at this point, what with going in Odium's Shardpool. But maybe not: if the godmetal of Odium is the Physical aspect of the Shard par excellence, then Ishar would arguably be much more Physically Connected to Odium than directly, "purely" Spiritually so (Connection being a Spiritual matter in se, it must be that even Physical and Cognitive Connections are Invested symbolic representations of Spiritual patterns/structures, though). But Taln? Or Jezrien? Or Kalak? Or Chana? Or Ash? And even back then, when the thing relevant to the Oathpact had already been done, Ishar had not went into the pool of Odium. So, whatever Odium did, in engaging with the future Heralds, that inspired Ashyn's ruin and enabled the Oathpact by way of Connection's power, and which got crystallized in the godmetal Honorblades, seems like it just has to be related to Nightblood's future role in the Roshar situation. Now, the other thing would have to be (for the theory to work) that Nightblood has the right connection to Ruin/Discord. It has a strong Physical Connection, directly-speaking (by virtue of being able to destroy many things very precisely), but a seemingly very weak Spiritual or even Cognitive one. As far as I remember from the Arcanum, it's not even post-RAFO yet whether Endowment deliberately intervened in Nightblood's creation to get the weird fragment of Ruin into it or whatever (or: whether she was involved in the first place!). And Vasher certainly didn't plan on that happening; a bunch of magic academics trying to mimic living magic swords made by alien nature spirits from a different planet, aren't planning on summoning the shadow of the dead god of destruction, one assumes. So the reasoning would really have to draw on the alleged overlap of Discord and War (as Intents/"Shardshadows" (Intentional names of possible Shards/combinations)), which would be better supported with the postulate that something on a more general level, having to do with Shards combining at all, leads to certain kinds of interlocking/merging symmetries. Like, Preservation and Ruin as a dyad would be symmetrical, along some angle of metaphysical reflection, to Honor and Odium as a dyad, so while there would, from many angles, be many differences between the one dyad merging vs. the other one doing so, there would also be some kind of "harmony" between them, from whatever other angles. Incidentally, then, there is a huge Fortune-based/Spiritual Connection between Harmony and Retribution: they're the first two di-Shards, both in the hands of mortals who Ascended under certain auspicious and tenebrous conditions related to the overthrowing of the old Shard-holders. And Harmony's Spiritual Connection to Kelsier, relayed through the Ghostbloods and the way their meddling contributed to the Final Ten Days, well... Bonus points if the Ghostbloods have an interest in monitoring, or at least being aware of, Awakened swords that contain elements of Ruin's ancient power. If there is supposed to be a serious Roshar/Scadrial problem in the future, then the Intents of Discord and War would be simultaneously, intersectingly realized in this context anyway, maybe (since even when those things are not the same on various levels/in various ways, they are both happening...).
alder24 Posted December 23, 2024 Posted December 23, 2024 On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: @alder24 my argument relies heavily on bizarre minor details about the relationship between the Heralds and Odium that lent itself to the Oathpact, such as established the Honorblades which the spren would imitate, wherein in turn the Five Scholars would imitate the spren and so the Honorblades in Nightblood. So that's already an extremely powerful cluster of Spiritual Connections between Nightblood and the Spiritual nature of the process by which Odium was bound. Add to this the Spiritual fact that it was by wielding Nightblood that Taravangian killed Rayse and Ascended, eventually to Retribution: then throw in Nightblood's friendship with the Honorblades on the eve of the Oathpact's revival. What do we get? A hell of a lot more Connection, Spiritually, between Nightblood, Odium, Taravangian, Retribution, etc. Ok, I got you. You want Nightblood to make an Oathpact that will bind Harmony. It may be possible. However the Oathpact didn't bind Odium directly, at least not in the significant way, it bound his Fused and Voidspren and it utilized Braize's weird properties. Nightblood can't bind Harmony directly, he can bind something of his, but because Harmony is nowhere near Braize, I doubt he even would be able to create Oathpact to bind something of Harmony. On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: But the "logical" argument is super-heavily dependent, again, on the WaT stuff we've been given. Like, we're told that just because of however they interacted with Rayse on Ashyn, the old Heralds could play the role of the Oathpact as close to perfectly as was available at the time. It doesn't seem, to me, that any of the Heralds are more Connected to Rayse and/or Odium than Nightblood. Being the instrument of Rayse's killer seems like a deal-breaker Spiritual factoid when it comes to rankings: no matter how important any Herald's relationship with Odium's power was back on Ashyn, it wouldn't be more important, but only at most as important, as Nightblood's outcome in this case. I mean, I'd even be willing to gamble on an argument that Nightblood is more strongly Connected to Odium, than at least some of the Heralds. For example, maybe Kaladin as the new Herald-King. We were, if I remember correctly, given a relatively definitive statement of the purpose of the crimson-eyed Kaladin in Rhythm of War, as someone that Rayse sought to square off against Dalinar. Nevertheless, did that make of Kaladin someone more personally Connected to Rayse/Odium than, say, Nightblood would be? Yes, he's Connected to Odium, but I wouldn't say that his Connection is much stronger than that of Heralds. All Heralds, except for Taln, served Odium on Ashyn, they were given powers directly by Odium, from Odium. They were his. That forges a very strong Connection. Taln also had a Connection to Cultivation because he tried to kill her. So Nightblood would have comparable Connection to Taln's Connection to Cultivation, but I'm not convinced his Connection was stronger to that of the other 9 who were fully Odium's. As for Kaladin, Connection to gods is helpful when forging an Oathpact, but it's not required. Szeth was a candidate, but he didn't have a lot of Connections to Shards. Kaladin did have a bit more to both Honor and Odium. The Oathpact is sworn to Honor and is bound by the power of Honor. Retribution now holds Honor, so he can probably use this to make something similar. WaT ch 64: Quote “Most of you once served him,” Tanavast said. “He granted you his powers. There is a Connection we can exploit, so long as the circle contains enough of you. Strongest would be sixteen or my own number of ten—it cannot be nine. If you speak oaths to me, my power can be channeled and governed by rules to prevent a cataclysm. I will take back your Surges, then grant them anew, and together you will become a force that both protects Roshar and binds the enemy away from it.” [...] “It must be a volunteer,” Tanavast said. “And to create the bond, it is better if it is someone who has interacted with the gods in the past.” On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: Or what was Rayse's strategy on getting to the Rosharan system? He's learned a lesson from his work on Sel, he's learned another one from his fight against Ambition. So he goes to... Ashlyn? Where Honor and Cultivation are not so present? To manipulate the Ashynites into serving/expressing him? And then going on this series of crazed rampages millennium after millennium? So he wants an army, to span the stars. Why does a Shard need such an army to accomplish the goal of killing all other Shards? Because direct clashes with Dominion, Devotion and especially with Ambition left a wound on Odium and made him weaker. Rayse tried to avoid making the same mistakes so he tried to find servants to exploit other Shards weaknesses before he could strike and kill them - like he did eventually to Tanavast. Desolations were not a part of his plan. On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: It was by using Dawnshards in an unfortunate way that the Heralds desolated Ashyn. Not by using the Shard of Odium directly. It was both. Or rather Dawnshards were not mentioned as a weapon used to destroy Ashyn (but we know from WoBs they were involved), Surges were. Odium and Honor Surges were the main cause of Ashyn destruction. On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: But maybe not: if the godmetal of Odium is the Physical aspect of the Shard par excellence, then Ishar would arguably be much more Physically Connected to Odium than directly, "purely" Spiritually so (Connection being a Spiritual matter in se, it must be that even Physical and Cognitive Connections are Invested symbolic representations of Spiritual patterns/structures, though). There is no such a thing as a "Physical or Cognitive Connection," all Connections are Spiritual. Investiture can manifest as a physical matter because investiture is matter and is also energy. That's why investiture pulled into the Physical Realm manifests physically as either solid, liquid or gas. But Connections are purely Spiritual. You can have Connections to the Physical Realm, but they are still Spiritual. On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: As far as I remember from the Arcanum, it's not even post-RAFO yet whether Endowment deliberately intervened in Nightblood's creation to get the weird fragment of Ruin into it or whatever (or: whether she was involved in the first place!). She was. Spoiler OrangeJedi When Nightblood created, was Endowment involved in any way more than normal? Brandon Sanderson Good question, you qualified that the right way! I would say yes, but maybe not to the extent you're thinking. OrangeJedi Normal being using Endowment's Investiture to Awaken. There's something special. Brandon Sanderson I would say, there is something special. Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018) On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: So the reasoning would really have to draw on the alleged overlap of Discord and War There is no Shard of War. It's Retribution. Just because his rhythm is called War doesn't mean there is a Shard of War. Combined Rhythm of Honor and Cultivation is called Tower, would those Shards combined create the Tower Shard? No, that doesn't make any sense. On 12/22/2024 at 8:11 AM, Ripheus23 said: Incidentally, then, there is a huge Fortune-based/Spiritual Connection between Harmony and Retribution: they're the first two di-Shards, both in the hands of mortals who Ascended under certain auspicious and tenebrous conditions related to the overthrowing of the old Shard-holders. No, that's irrelevant. All Shards are strongly Connected because they were once part of something greater - Adonalsium. But those Connection were most likely ripped apart during the Shattering.
Ripheus23 Posted December 23, 2024 Author Posted December 23, 2024 @alder24 I should have specified how thin my picture is of how Nightblood might figure in Retribution's possible future conflict with Harmony. I didn't think, "By forming on Oathpact-like barricade around Scadrial," or so, but that's an interesting option, actually. From what I might outdatedly remember at this time, there's a WoB somewhere where Sanderson RAFO's something about the ability of any Shard/metal to specially manifest in a sword-like way. Humans throughout the cosmere learning that Shards can be bound by special rituals involving these kinds of swords would be a super-interesting way to connect the intraplanetary magic systems on an interplanetary level. There could be factions pointing out how Braize is relevant to the prototype, daring and desperate protagonists willing to try to find a surrogate for Braize in their area, etc. But it could be a way that some mortal groups might be minded to rebel against the dominion of the Shards. Other than that, I should think that War-with-a-captital-W is an Intent, specifically a possible Shardic Intent. You say that it's incidental to the case that Lifelight and Stormlight intertwine as Towerlight. Not too many things are further from what I believe, since one of the things I believe very sharply is that Adonalsium had some kind of super-special city-like manifestation. I assume this because of how many Cosmere books take place hugely in directly or indirectly enchanted cities: most Scadrial stories, Elantris, Warbreaker, WoK (Kharbranth), WoR (the warcamps and listener enclave), O (Kholinar and Urithiru), RoW (Urithiru again), to name the ones I know. (It looks like there's not so much urban journeyfare in a lot of the side-stories, including the ones I know I haven't read yet.) And there'll be a book about Silverlight, reportedly. Silverlight, again... If Urithiru has a spren, and one of the deeply mightiest spren no less, then I think it stands to reason that the fusion of the Intents of Life and Cultivation with those of Storms and Honor would bear the implicitly deific title of "the Tower," even as an Intent. One of the forms of Intent that can be carven from the Spirit-crystal of Adonalsium (such as if the group who Shattered Adonalsium had chosen to read its Intentional architecture differently, to put its nature into different categories, different by type and/or number (if I remember my WoB's correctly)). So, I see no problem with thinking that if Dalinar had taken up Odium and Honor, he would have personified the Intent of War; and Navani was studying the fusion of Stormlight and Voidlight under the auspices of her love for Dalinar, among other things. So her conceptualization of the fused Intent would have gravitated more towards a representation befitting Dalinar's personality more than, say, Taravangian's. It's not incidental to, "He had to come up with a cool name for the evil beings, so he slapped 'Void' and 'bringer' together and voila!" that Sanderson uses the word "Void" as the key prefix-epithet in this context. That is true enough in its own way, but Sanderson also has had his characters analyze the emotional effect of Odium as explicitly void-like. So the Intent of the Void is a shadow of the Intent of Odium, nothing more, but nothing less. It is a way that Sanderson has generically stipulated that philosophical disputants in the cosmere might follow, in the sense of different participants in the Shattering being deeply-thought-through individuals, each with specified Intents and so on of their own. So, the Shard of Odium could well have ended up as the Shard of the Void instead. Or then the Voidshard, knowing the way some cosmere peeps like to slap words together... Anyway, I really don't know what I was thinking might happen except, like, Retribution would be funneling a tiny, but possibly compoundable, amount of his power through Nightblood, into Harmony, to kind of "worsen" the itch of Discord's shadowy presence. There's a tad bit of evidence that Harmony might, just might, be slipping a little in the struggle, at some time or other. So Retribution wouldn't have to send a huge burst of energy through the Nightblood Connection to maybe "tip the scales" if the problem is already there/happening. It's also the kind of creepy-zany move that I could see Taravangian making, when confronted with the persona of Sazed (can you imagine a philosophical debate between those two???). ... And as for those two again: to my understanding, one aspect of Spiritual Connectivity has to do with the "greater emotional and moral significance" of things that have happened in history, not just things from "the beginning of time" or some surrogate for that, but at any future time that turns out to be "important," too. It's like thematic/narrative connectivity, but infused into the Cognitive and Physical Realms via the setting (a series of fantasy books). Stuff like romantic love is a good exemplar of the dynamics of it all; Sanderson has certainly had a bunch of curious love stories threaded into the Cosmere saga, after all. I assume that another special way that Adonalsium's power manifested was in a book-like format, and this is why Ruin and Preservation would ever end up in a weird duel over manipulating their direct and indirect local scriptures, or why Odium would be both willing and able to annihilate Dalinar's copy of The Way of Kings. Those phenomena were holdovers among the Shards from the manner of some of Adonalsium's magic, I'm guessing. So, as far as the actual IRL readership goes, we haven't been shown the Shattering yet. We have, however, been shown the dual Ascension of two philosophical powerhouses, one sensible, the other unstable, so we can sort of "just see" the spiritual connection between them, from our point of view. Sanderson has shown us variations on his philosopher-king enigma/theme, with both these figures. Granted, I assume that some/many of those involved in the Shattering would have been analytical and authoritative in some domain or other (like the dragons at least??? I've seen stuff about them have a deity-like stature already???) but again, even internally, in terms of the timelines of the stories we're reading, the emergence of the di-Shards has been one of the pinnacle moments in the saga to date. Each time it's happened, it's sent shockwaves through the community of the Shards and other cosmere/Realmatic powers. The level of Connection in the story has to be read, in part, off our level of interpretative connectivity in reading the story; the schematic content of the concept/imagery, of Connection, is, "Imagine that all these events were taking place in a story someone were writing with a plan like divine providence for the entire story." But we, the readers, know that it's a story. So the same command given in-world is the command for the readers, but for the readers, it is not just to be imagined that this world is a story, but this is known. So, whatever we know, about the content of the story as it has been written in the time that we know, is reflected in the intended content of the talk of Spiritual Connection, in the Cosmere books, themselves.
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