What powers will the Blackthorn have?

[Atlas333]

This question operates on the assumption that the Blackthorn will have a strong battlefield presence rather than commanding armies from the back line. When one of our heroes inevitably faces off against him, what powers will he have?

I feel like plate and blade are a given (but I'm curious where he'll get said plate and blade, although it likely doesn't matter), but the bigger question is will he have any invested arts? Will Retribution turn him into a Fused? Or will he convince a spren to bond with him? Or will he have surges directly from Retribution like the heralds?

It's anyone's guess but I suspect it'll be like the heralds... maybe the dustbringer or stoneward surges?

[Asininity]

Given that prophecy of him becoming the Champion was fulfilled, we can expect him to have nine Unmade shadows. Unless Retribution is going to unmake them again that means all Surges save for Adhesion, Thrill, some form of precognition, ability to corrupt investiture and animate Midnight Essence among the others.
Probably the same weird speed stuff that Heralds do

[Argenti he/him]

On 1/8/2025 at 1:33 PM, Asininity said:

Given that prophecy of him becoming the Champion was fulfilled, we can expect him to have nine Unmade shadows. Unless Retribution is going to unmake them again that means all Surges save for Adhesion, Thrill, some form of precognition, ability to corrupt investiture and animate Midnight Essence among the others.
Probably the same weird speed stuff that Heralds do

Well. Retribution can grant adhesion easily. Honor is part of him.

[OverlordBob999]

On 1/8/2025 at 1:33 PM, Asininity said:

Given that prophecy of him becoming the Champion was fulfilled, we can expect him to have nine Unmade shadows. Unless Retribution is going to unmake them again that means all Surges save for Adhesion, Thrill, some form of precognition, ability to corrupt investiture and animate Midnight Essence among the others.
Probably the same weird speed stuff that Heralds do

Basically just an incredibly busted version of Amaram in OB. Actually, now that I think about it, having Kaladin fight Amaram-Dalinar when he Returns could be pretty interesting.

[Hexagonal He/Him]

23 hours ago, OverlordBob999 said:

Basically just an incredibly busted version of Amaram in OB. Actually, now that I think about it, having Kaladin fight Amaram-Dalinar when he Returns could be pretty interesting.

That seems reasonable, but Amaram was only powered up by Yelig-nar(just to note). I think he may be directly powered by Retribution(like the heralds were by Honor), which could provide him more potential healing and speed(especially with a body made out of investiture like the heralds). The thrill(if released) would likely help the blackthorn fight more aggressively and for longer, the aid from Dai-Gornathis could make him be able to elscall really well(slip in and out of the cognitive to doge attacks), moelach could give something similar to atium, Re-Shephir might be able to physically improve the blackthorn(make his body?), and Sja-anat could help make the blackthorn be even more invested(not entirely sure how her corruption/enlightening works). Together I think it would take more than Kaladin to take him down. Taln breaks the sound barrier with his speed, which is something the Blackthorn could likely do. Likely it would be a team effort to take him down(4th and 5th ideal radiants and a herald or 2 as well). He likely would also be able to return like the fused and heralds, which would be incredibly dangerous.

[+robardin he/him]

I'm also wondering how "Spiritual Realm echo" of Blackthorn Dalinar From The Rift could be manifested in the Physical Realm.

The "original" Dalinar has died, left a corpse shielding a now-grown Gavinor atop Urithiru... And we saw that Retribution can easily manifest inside Urithiru, despite it being cocooned now by the Sibling (as he appeared in Lirin's examination room in order to vaporize Hoid "in person").

So Option Number One, he "staples" the Blackthorn Echo to the body of Original Dalinar, kind of like what Endowment does with the Returned on Nalthis.

Option Number Two, he has to find a "housing" for Blackthorn the way the Fused need a willing singer/listener host. I suppose that would have to be a human?

Option Number Three, he "Heraldizes" the Blackthorn somehow, such that he can incorporate physically entirely with Investiture. How this works without this version EVER having a "starter physical body" is questionable, though I suppose you could say that the Blackthorn DID used to have Dalinar's body, as in up to the events of the Rift, or something?

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

22 hours ago, robardin said:

I'm also wondering how "Spiritual Realm echo" of Blackthorn Dalinar From The Rift could be manifested in the Physical Realm.

The "original" Dalinar has died, left a corpse shielding a now-grown Gavinor atop Urithiru... And we saw that Retribution can easily manifest inside Urithiru, despite it being cocooned now by the Sibling (as he appeared in Lirin's examination room in order to vaporize Hoid "in person").

So Option Number One, he "staples" the Blackthorn Echo to the body of Original Dalinar, kind of like what Endowment does with the Returned on Nalthis.

Option Number Two, he has to find a "housing" for Blackthorn the way the Fused need a willing singer/listener host. I suppose that would have to be a human?

Option Number Three, he "Heraldizes" the Blackthorn somehow, such that he can incorporate physically entirely with Investiture. How this works without this version EVER having a "starter physical body" is questionable, though I suppose you could say that the Blackthorn DID used to have Dalinar's body, as in up to the events of the Rift, or something?

The Blackthorn already was option 3 in the SR. All of the things manifested in the SR in WaT were investiture made into physical matter and then back again. I assume Retribution will just move him from the the SR to the PR. I also assume he'll have to do something to keep him from dying, and yeah, option 3 all the way "fleshed out" (see what i did there) would make the most sense.

Edited January 31, 2025 by JohnnyKaizen

[BridgeBoi]

Taln vs Blackthorn sounds like it would break the cosmere. Like literally, the cosmere would implode from sheer epicness. 

[Treamayne]

21 minutes ago, BridgeBoi said:

Taln vs Blackthorn sounds like it would break the cosmere. Like literally, the cosmere would implode from sheer epicness. 

Neither Blackthorn, nor SprenThorn stand a chance against Taln. WoB:

Spoiler

Quote

#1 Taln Fan

Who in the Cosmere could beat Taln in a fight back when he was in his prime?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends what level of abilities he has access to. If you're saying access to full abilities, I don't know of anybody who could beat him in an actual one-on-one.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

Quote

Questioner

How would Adolin fare against the greats like Lan, Rand, Galad, and how would Kaladin and his spear fare against Mat?

Brandon Sanderson

It’s really hard to say this, because what are different characters’ skill levels and things? For instance, I generally count Lan as the strongest and the best. My [Wheel of Time] books that I wrote show that. I think Lan would beat Adolin. You just can’t replace the twenty years of intense practice that Lan has, and the wisdom, no matter how talented of a rookie you are -- even though Adolin is not a rookie. I think Lan could go toe-to-toe with anyone non-immortal in the cosmere, because a lot of the cosmere people have an advantage, right? Taln has spent 4,000 years practicing with weapons. Granted, he spent a bunch of that time being tortured as well, but you know. He has many lifetimes behind him, and has been able to be killed making mistakes and never make those mistakes again. That is a leg up on someone like Lan or like Adolin that is just of a supernatural level. And so, while I think Lan would beat any swordsman in a fair fight from the Cosmere, I would count anyone who has a greatly expanded lifespan as an unfair fight. Like, I don’t think Lan would be able to stand against the better duelists among the Heralds or even against Vasher. Vasher’s got multiple lifetimes of practicing with the sword.

How would Kaladin do against Mat? It depends, Mat’s luck is a very big wildcard, and how is the luck on Mat’s side and how is karma working in Mat’s favor or against him in that given moment? That’s part of what makes Mat fun. So Kaladin is a soldier, again, not a duelist. Kaladin is really good with a spear, but his training is in war, his training is to be a battlefield captain. What even is Mat? Mat has been trained by fate itself with weapons, which is just really hard to play. Let’s call that a tie, edge probably to Kaladin.

Lan beats Adolin or basically any duelist but you put him up against the Heralds and he has a much harder time.

YouTube Livestream 16 (Aug. 20, 2020)

 

Doesn't mean it would be a great (but very short) scene.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

11 hours ago, BridgeBoi said:

Taln vs Blackthorn sounds like it would break the cosmere. Like literally, the cosmere would implode from sheer epicness. 

Just stick them both on a rogue planet, that the Cosmere won't miss too much, and let em go at it.

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Neither Blackthorn, nor SprenThorn stand a chance against Taln. WoB:

I was pretty sure that was the case, right up until Dalinar gave the Blackthorn all of his memories. Not that Dalinar's memories would give him any sort of advantage over Taln, but that the process of memory/experience transference is now canon. And if Retribution gives the Blackthorn the observations of Honor and Odium of battles, one-on-one fights, and the like, for the last 10,000 years? Well then, that would be an entirely different fight, wouldn't it? Perhaps not a different outcome, but the Blackthorn would no longer be fighting at such a huge disadvantage, if any disadvantage at all. And since when have you seen Taravangian (of all people) do anything at a disadvantage? I fully expect Retribution to OP the Blackthorn as much as he can, without feeling like he would be a threat to himself (Retribution, the Blackthorn is always a threat to the Blackthorn as far as I can tell).

[Treamayne]

9 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Well then, that would be an entirely different fight, wouldn't it?

I don't think so, though I can understand why you think it might. 

To me, Retribution giving SprenThorn battle information (and it's unlikely that it could be done the way Dalinar did in the vision - otherwise Honor would have done that instead of Visions in the first place) would be like a tween watching 100 hours of martial arts on YouTube and thinking that means he "knows kung fu." A memory of practice and war could never, in my mind, be close to equal to actual thousands of years of actual fighting, muscle memory, and learning from mistakes the hard way. 

Is your idea possible? Unfortunately, yes. Would it make sense or be a fulfilling story. No, not to me. 

Sorry. 

[Elite01]

As far as the Blackthorn getting surges how would that work? I figured that in order for Fused and radiants to get surges they had to have cracks in their spiritweb and they would be filled to access power right? 

If Blackthorn is a spren would he have cracks in his spiritweb? I don't really have an answer but my best bet is no. So he could have things like plate and blade and unmade assisting him but it would be more like magical equipment then the blackthorn himself having powers.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

12 minutes ago, Elite01 said:

If Blackthorn is a spren would he have cracks in his spiritweb? I don't really have an answer but my best bet is no. So he could have things like plate and blade and unmade assisting him but it would be more like magical equipment then the blackthorn himself having powers.

The Blackthorn is like a spren, in that he was made tangible by investiture, but that investiture was converted into matter. For all intents and purposes, he's a clone of Dalinar Kholin. He has all the cracks in his spiritweb that Dalinar did up till the Rift...which is probably quite a lot. Not only will he have surges, what I'm more interested in are the unique surges that Retribution will come up with, being a blend of Honor and Odium.

[Atlas333]

On 1/30/2025 at 9:32 AM, robardin said:

I'm also wondering how "Spiritual Realm echo" of Blackthorn Dalinar From The Rift could be manifested in the Physical Realm.

I think it'd be sick if the Blackthorn just possesses a suit of shard plate (we've seen spren can wear shardplate so why not). However, I think it's more likely he'll just get the herald treatment.

[RefusesToElaborate]

On 1/31/2025 at 3:32 AM, robardin said:

I'm also wondering how "Spiritual Realm echo" of Blackthorn Dalinar From The Rift could be manifested in the Physical Realm.

The "original" Dalinar has died, left a corpse shielding a now-grown Gavinor atop Urithiru... And we saw that Retribution can easily manifest inside Urithiru, despite it being cocooned now by the Sibling (as he appeared in Lirin's examination room in order to vaporize Hoid "in person").

So Option Number One, he "staples" the Blackthorn Echo to the body of Original Dalinar, kind of like what Endowment does with the Returned on Nalthis.

Option Number Two, he has to find a "housing" for Blackthorn the way the Fused need a willing singer/listener host. I suppose that would have to be a human?

Option Number Three, he "Heraldizes" the Blackthorn somehow, such that he can incorporate physically entirely with Investiture. How this works without this version EVER having a "starter physical body" is questionable, though I suppose you could say that the Blackthorn DID used to have Dalinar's body, as in up to the events of the Rift, or something?

About option Number 2.

Moash already has two spikes. Why not a third? To lance the conciousness of The Blackthorn to Moash.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

On 1/31/2025 at 10:37 AM, Treamayne said:

I don't think so, though I can understand why you think it might. 

To me, Retribution giving SprenThorn battle information (and it's unlikely that it could be done the way Dalinar did in the vision - otherwise Honor would have done that instead of Visions in the first place) would be like a tween watching 100 hours of martial arts on YouTube and thinking that means he "knows kung fu." A memory of practice and war could never, in my mind, be close to equal to actual thousands of years of actual fighting, muscle memory, and learning from mistakes the hard way. 

Is your idea possible? Unfortunately, yes. Would it make sense or be a fulfilling story. No, not to me. 

Sorry. 

You're forgetting the other half of that equation though. A Taln who comes back mentally well, rested, and in better fighting shape than he's been in 6,500+ years. I fully expect Retribution to try everything he can to make the Blackthorn impossible to defeat. I also fully expect that to not matter in the slightest when it comes to Taln.

[Treamayne]

Clarified by PM:

13 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I do think that Retribution will give SRDalinar a bunch of experience Matrix-Style. Or more likely, he could literally do to him what he did with Gavinor and have him experience those battles first hand for thousands of years in the SR and still poof him into the PR after a few Rosharan days, 7000 years older and deadlier.

I think that Brandon could do this to make the Blackthorn a true horror and for the stakes to seem so high as to be insurmountable. And at some point, Taln will step onto the stage and it will probably seem like the Blackthorn is a real and present danger to Taln (and all of the Heralds) but I would be truly shocked if we went 5 books and (once book 6 is out) 19-24 years without actually seeing Taln fighting on screen, only to have him get his butt whooped by 2nd hand Dalinar. Where would the fun be in that? I do expect that Taln will wipe the floor with Dalinar. It's just that every once in a while, Brandon does things that I really don't want him to..and Taln going down to Dalinar (not killed, but defeated) seems like a thing he could do...only for him to triumph later or some nonsense. That's my actual concern.

Concur on all points - except the "Matrix style download." I don't think that works in Cosmere mechanics, or we would have seen it employed instead of visions so far. I also think that if Retribution had SprenThorn live multiple desolations as training, that he would end up broken the same way that Heralds and Fused are broken. 

[Hexagonal He/Him]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

I also think that if Retribution had SprenThorn live multiple desolations as training, that he would end up broken the same way that Heralds and Fused are broken. 

That is an excellent point, but I don't see Retribution making SprenThorn(great name from the community btw) live through too much immense pain. We still don't know much about the training that Gav underwent besides is being visions of the past and battle training(the memory of Dalinar almost killing Elhokar seems to have had a big effect on him[maybe experienced it many times in the 20 years of SR training]), so the limits are not known. I think it would be possible for Retribution to have SprenThorn train in his own memories of battle with specific weaknesses(to help make life ending mistakes to learn from in the way that Brandon describes Taln having).

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Clarified by PM:

Concur on all points - except the "Matrix style download." I don't think that works in Cosmere mechanics, or we would have seen it employed instead of visions so far. I also think that if Retribution had SprenThorn live multiple desolations as training, that he would end up broken the same way that Heralds and Fused are broken. 

Dalinar at the Rift, was a man who didn't just live for battle, it was all he ever wanted to really do, because he was essentially addicted to Nergaoul. I don't know that Retribution could reproduce the Thrill in the PR, but he most certainly can in the SR. I would think that letting SprenThorn cut loose in the SR for as long as he wants, to get better and better, would be right up his alley. I would think that anyone would break down eventually, but SprenThorn wouldn't see endless battles as torture, he'd see it as paradise. At which point, all Retribution need tell him is that there are endless worlds to conquer and set him loose on the Cosmere.

The real potential monkeywrench in the plan would be Dalinar's memories after the Rift through to the end of book 5. We've seen Taravangian steal people's memories before, but that was out of Breaths, not out of a brain, so who knows if that's allowed or not. Mostly, I get annoyed every time I think about how long I'm going to have to wait for some answers. *heavy sigh*

22 minutes ago, Hexagonal said:

That is an excellent point, but I don't see Retribution making SprenThorn(great name from the community btw) live through too much immense pain. We still don't know much about the training that Gav underwent besides is being visions of the past and battle training(the memory of Dalinar almost killing Elhokar seems to have had a big effect on him[maybe experienced it many times in the 20 years of SR training]), so the limits are not known. I think it would be possible for Retribution to have SprenThorn train in his own memories of battle with specific weaknesses(to help make life ending mistakes to learn from in the way that Brandon describes Taln having).

Training in his own memories is also an option, but as I said above, the Dalinar of that time loved to fight just about more than anything. I don't really see him fighting as a negative for him, at least not at first.

[Treamayne]

10 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I don't know that Retribution could reproduce the Thrill in the PR, but he most certainly can in the SR. I would think that letting SprenThorn cut loose in the SR for as long as he wants, to get better and better, would be right up his alley. I would think that anyone would break down eventually, but SprenThorn wouldn't see endless battles as torture, he'd see it as paradise.

That's my point though. The torture may contribute to the Herald's PTSD, but it is not the root cause of their problems. The shear weight of millenia of memories for a being not mean to hold that much is their main problem. SprenThorn living out many desolations of training will cause the same reaction - whether he enjoys the experience or not. 
WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

Why or how are the Heralds the only ones we've seen so far that are affected by magical maladies due to either their high Investiture or long lives?

Brandon Sanderson

I would argue the Fused are having the same situation, so they're not the only ones. The why and how... there's a whole host of things going on here. Like a lot of physical and mental illness, it's not one thing or the other. But it is a compound of other things.

One is going so long without certain protections that you kind of need to take. The human being's soul might be immortal, depending on your argument in the cosmere. (That's really up to you.) But they certainly aren't meant for thousands of years of existence, the same way that our bodies aren't. There's some of that.

There's some of the things they've been through. Like, legit trauma; this is not all simply a magical ailment. You've got people with PTSD, layers of PTSD on top of layers of PTSD, for thousands of years, bearing things that no human being without their level of Investiture would even be able to bear. You've got that manifestation, you've got their own sense of guilt.

And these things are all just kind of overlapping together with the fact they've been alive for so, so very long. And a lot of the people that you've seen otherwise have not been alive nearly... orders of magnitude more for the Heralds. The only people you've seen that are that old are: some of the dragons, Hoid, and Vessels of various Shards. And you're basically at that group. And this is a group who knows what they're doing. Either they were built like the dragons, this is part of their innate nature, that they are functionally immortal. Or you are getting the Shards. Or you're getting people that are 300 years old, which is a very different thing, cosmere-wise, than having lived for thousands and thousands of years, part of it being torture.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

Quote

mastapsi

Is the Heralds' madness related to and/or the same thing as the Fused's madness? The Stormfather mentions that each time one of the Fused is reborn, their mind is further damaged. Is it the same with the Herald? To many rebirths, possibly compounded by the fact that they not only often died each Desolation, but were tortured until the next one?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, these two things are related. (There are some hints in Rhythm of War at how Hoid has avoided a similar fate.)

Note that the torture--and the many rebirths--are a big part of this. But their age is also a factor.

 

So, even if you mitigate the negative experience aspect, without a memory management technique like Hoid's, the weight of age will still make them insane (just, possibly, slighlty less so). I'd hate to think of the recursive effect of overlapping non-identical instances of the same memory would have (Groundhog Day and other stories all show this driving people to suicide, sooner or later - and that seems very realistic to me). 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

32 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

So, even if you mitigate the negative experience aspect, without a memory management technique like Hoid's, the weight of age will still make them insane (just, possibly, slighlty less so). I'd hate to think of the recursive effect of overlapping non-identical instances of the same memory would have (Groundhog Day and other stories all show this driving people to suicide, sooner or later - and that seems very realistic to me). 

That all makes sense, except that the boss here is Taravangian. He was ruthlessly methodical and extremely detail-oriented before he became a god, now he's something else entirely. He'd be aware that conquering the Cosmere would take centuries, if not millennia, and he's not like Darth Sidious, keen to replace those closest to him as time goes on, not where Dalinar is concerned, at the very least. He'll want him at his best, forever. Because he wants some kind of twisted version of those fireside chats, forever. I assume that Retribution will do whatever it takes to safeguard SprenThorn's mind for the thousands of years of plans he has in the making. It would be completely outside of his character, up to this point, to not do so.