The Night Brigade's Endgame

[TacoBellChoutaMeal]

I was thinking about this listening to an old episode of Shardcast. The Dawnshard that The Nightbrigade is after is Hoid's Dawnshard, Exist. Is the assumption that if they bestowed Exist on any one person, that the holder of the Dawnshard could save Threnody? Exist has made Hoid functionally immortal, and has done the same thing to Sig. Is the Nightbrigade's endgame to hold Exist and then have the holder clear out all the shades in the forest of hell and/or the evil on the main continent? Was this obvious to most readers and I'm only realizing this now?

[Nitpicking]

A person who is Exist can't harm a living being, but of course the shades are dead. We have no real clues (that I know of) what the Evil is, though. It is alive?

[TacoBellChoutaMeal]

At the very least they could use Exist to clear out the forest for the most part. I sort of doubt we’ll ever get that big threnody book elaborating on what The Evil is, but I’m not too beat up over it

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

On 7/5/2025 at 11:25 AM, TacoBellChoutaMeal said:

I was thinking about this listening to an old episode of Shardcast. The Dawnshard that The Nightbrigade is after is Hoid's Dawnshard, Exist. Is the assumption that if they bestowed Exist on any one person, that the holder of the Dawnshard could save Threnody? Exist has made Hoid functionally immortal, and has done the same thing to Sig. Is the Nightbrigade's endgame to hold Exist and then have the holder clear out all the shades in the forest of hell and/or the evil on the main continent? Was this obvious to most readers and I'm only realizing this now?

Funny enough, I only just had that exact thought yesterday, and I felt like an idiot for not figuring it out earlier.

The Evil is still on Threnody as per Nomad, the Night Brigade are Threnodites who want a Dawnshard, and their Admiral is confirmed via WOB to be the protagonist of the unpublished Threnody novel we may never get, the one about Threnodites trying to take the Homeland back from the Evil.

Of course they want a Dawnshard, it might not even be to destroy the Evil, the Intent of Exist probably won't allow that. But here's a theory, maybe they could use it to massively amplify whatever methods are allowing them to control the Shades and attempt to control the Evil itself.

It's obviously quite powerful, literally chasing an entire civilization right off an entire continent, and is said to be 'Mountain Sized', so it must be heavily invested and very powerful, it's very likely to be a Splinter of Ambition, a powerful one perhaps on the level of the Stormfather himself.

Such power in their hands would make them even more fearsome, perhaps giving them an edge in galactic politics. After all, Threnody doesn't have a Shard backing them like other worlds do, but perhaps with a Dawnshard they can get the next best thing.

Edited July 6, 2025 by JustQuestin2004

[Clarkmon22 He/Him]

couldn't the night brigade just find night blood and go slashy-slashy?

[Nitpicking]

7 hours ago, Clarkmon22 said:

couldn't the night brigade just find night blood and go slashy-slashy?

What if Nightblood thinks they're Evil and destroys them?

What if taking Nightblood away from the new Vessel of Honor would be really hard?

In any case, there are ... how to say ... there are spoilery things I don't want to spoil by being clear about them, that shed light on the Evil.

[Clarkmon22 He/Him]

huh?

10 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

What if taking Nightblood away from the new Vessel of Honor would be really hard?

taking nightblood away from the new vessel of honor?

wdym

10 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

What if Nightblood thinks they're Evil and destroys them?

 

nightblood can be tricked

10 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

In any case, there are ... how to say ... there are spoilery things I don't want to spoil by being clear about them, that shed light on the Evil.

I've read the whole cosmere, could you just put it in a box?

[Nitpicking]

1 minute ago, Clarkmon22 said:

huh?

taking nightblood away from the new vessel of honor?

wdym

nightblood can be tricked

I've read the whole cosmere, could you just put it in a box?

Nightblood as owned by Honor: I made up an ending in which Szeth becomes Honor. It's just in my head.

Spoilery stuff about The Evil:

Spoiler

Isles of the Emberdark shows us The Evil. We don't need to speculate nearly so much any more.