Ripheus23 Posted January 9, 2025 Posted January 9, 2025 (edited) Nale was considered the Herald of Justice, and "Justice" was a name I saw floated on these forums for a possible Honor + Odium combo. (Sidebar: and Taln was the Herald of War, another concept related to that combination.) The Coppermind for some reason has an entry, last updated in July of last year, for Nale's legendary "sword of retribution." Nothing in the entry references Nale's actual Honorblade, however, nor his Shardblade via his Skybreaker spren. So I wonder what, if any, foreshadowing is suggested by the legend of the "retribution sword"? Nale was not much involved, in any direct way, with Retribution's Ascension. Like, sure, everything on Roshar played some implicit Spiritual role in that event, on some level, but scene-wise he was far away and preoccupied with Ishar, Kaladin, and Szeth's actions, the shielding of the spren. Random theory: talk of the "retribution sword" was a veiled prophecy, perceived as a myth for the past by those whose future-sight lead to the prophecy, of a weapon Nale will use, after Retribution came along, a combination of his Honorblade and something of Odium (of course I'll predict "one of the Unmade") such that this combination embodies the theme of an Odium + Honor combination. A Retributionblade, I guess. ADDENDUM: a possible candidate for a new meta-prologue? The Coppermind says: Quote Some thousand years before the Desolation, Ishar took up the power of the Well of Control, which affected both Ishar’s sanity and the other Heralds.[14][42] And: Quote Approximately a thousand years before the True Desolation, Nale woke up one day and realized that he had harmed someone out of irritation. The incident scared the already-unstable man, leading him to believe that he could not be trusted with making his own choices. From then on out, Nale would be dedicated wholly to upholding the law, no matter how nonsensical or contradictory it was.[24] I'm thinking that Ishar's partaking of the Well has to do with Nale's destabilization, but so what if that was the meta-prologue scene: the influence of Ishar's deed on the Heralds? Since we're in the 1100s as of the Archive, we'd be shown the scene that more or less started the modern Vorin timeframe, maybe. Edited January 9, 2025 by Ripheus23 1
RedBlue Posted January 9, 2025 Posted January 9, 2025 As far as I can work out, there is only one reference to a ‘sword of retribution’ in the books. WoK chapter 18 (emphasis mine): Quote The corridors of the king’s war palace were growing richer by the week. Once, this hallway had been just another Soulcast stone tunnel. As Elhokar settled in, he had ordered improvements. Windows were cut into the leeward side. Marble tiling was set into the floor. The walls were carved with reliefs, with mosaic trim at the corners. Dalinar and Renarin passed a group of stonemasons carefully cutting a scene of Nalan’Elin, emitting sunlight, the sword of retribution held over his head. This is a heavily mythologised depiction of Nale, so given the lack of other references to this sword, I think we can assume it is a Vorin interpretation of his Honorblade. As for why it’s called the sword of retribution — well, Nale is known as the Herald of Justice. Retribution is what you call it when you go after wrongdoers. I don’t think it’s linked to Retribution the Shard. Generally speaking, I don’t think every instance of a Shard’s name appearing in some random context is a reference to the Shard. Their names are common words. As for the events of 1000 years prior — good catch. The overlap on the timing does suggest that Nale’s change in behaviour (becoming overly obsessive about the letter of the law) was directly caused by Odium’s influence via Ishar. This might be an important fact for Nale’s recovery process, since it diminishes his culpability somewhat. 2
Ripheus23 Posted January 9, 2025 Author Posted January 9, 2025 @RedBlue hmm, maybe the prophetic import of the phrase, if there is any, has to do with Nightblood instead. Like, Nightblood sees itself as shining brightly, so maybe the image of Nale's mythic sword (if not an Honorblade) is a vision of that. But so why does the Coppermind even have a separate entry for the phrase at all??? That's part of what gets me. We don't have entries for every curious phrase; we don't have separate entries for every Honorblade (AFAIK).
RedBlue Posted January 9, 2025 Posted January 9, 2025 21 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said: But so why does the Coppermind even have a separate entry for the phrase at all??? That's part of what gets me. We don't have entries for every curious phrase; we don't have separate entries for every Honorblade (AFAIK). The Coppermind is a wiki run by fans. It’s not official, and the people who write the entries don’t have any special secrets. Presumably, the ‘sword of retribution’ phrase caught someone’s eye as they were reading and they made an entry. I strongly doubt there’s anything deeper going on here.
Ripheus23 Posted January 9, 2025 Author Posted January 9, 2025 9 minutes ago, RedBlue said: The Coppermind is a wiki run by fans. It’s not official, and the people who write the entries don’t have any special secrets. Presumably, the ‘sword of retribution’ phrase caught someone’s eye as they were reading and they made an entry. I strongly doubt there’s anything deeper going on here. I wish I had a chance to ask Sanderson one of those questions that gets put up on the Arcanum, but I wouldn't want to waste my chance if I got it, either. For this one, I might phrase it as, "How much foreshadowing is there, about Retribution, in the earlier books?" On the other hand, if I asked about this example specifically, I might get an answer that would help me work on my theory about Retributionblades in general. Hmm... But part of me would also want to ask, "Should we expect the back half books to each be as long as the front half ones?" among other things, so who knows... 1
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