Factoid about the Development of Shardblades

[Kurkistan he/him]

I saw this quote on Dragonmount:

Q for Brandon: Why do the Shardblades in The Stormlight Archive have the effect on flesh (human tissue) that they do?

A: He originally wrote the scene in the prologue with the assassin Szeth using a traditional sword, but it was so bloody and gruesome that Brandon was actually disgusted. He had to find a way to avoid that and so he came up with a new way for the swords to behave.

So this either means that Szeth didn't have a Shardblade or that Shardblades didn't used to have the "thou shalt not cut the living" specification. I'm leaning towards the latter, due to Szeth needing to take on a Shardbearer at the end of the road, which would have been slightly more impossible with a normal sword. Theories about Szeth's Truthless-ness and/or powers being tied to the sword also wouldn't work if it was a normal blade.

I like that Brandon changed it. I wouldn't have fainted or anything if there had been gore, but it does provide a nice thematic resonance--stated outright several times in the book--in that Shardblades were never really meant to be used against people. Edited April 16, 2013 by Kurkistan

[FlashWrogan he/him]

And allows for much bigger, epic, and violent battles while keeping the gore level down, thus leaving the book series more accesible to a younger audience, and/or those readers who prefer to avoid that kind of gore.

Edit: Forgot the period, shhhh! Ignore the run-on sentence too.

Edited February 21, 2013 by FlashWrogan