Black smoke, corrupted Stormlight, Voidlight. Integrating Szeth's new sword into the series' narrative?

[yurisses]

Sigh--I'm probably overanalyzing this. Was trying to find ways Brandon would spin Nightblood into TSA's narrative without relying on either purposely vague or out-of-place Cosmere explanations, and I came up with this. So, for what it's worth...

 

We know that Nightblood's black smoke is corrupted Breath. However, since Nightblood is on Roshar, it will/has eventually run out of Breath. Nightblood is going to be emitting corrupted Stormlight. In fact, Szeth compares the black smoke to Stormlight.

 

Szeth swore he could see a small trail of black smoke coming off the metal. Like Stormlight, only dark.

 

But wait! We know of something else that looks like Stormlight and is black. Gavilar's sphere.

 

Szeth hesitated, then knelt down and took the sphere. It was odd, unlike any he’d seen before. Though it was completely dark, it seemed to glow somehow. With a light that was black.

 

There is no explicit comparison to Stormlight here, but the fact that it is seen is a sphere is a strong parallel. A lot of people even dub it Voidlight. We know that this Voidlight is related to a Shard different from Stormlight's. (Stormlight is distributed by the Stormfather, but makes plants grow, so it's unclear whether that hints towards Voidlight being related to Odium, or perhaps Cultivation)

 

What can we infer from this potential connection? A few ideas:

 

- The Voidlight in Gavilar's sphere might be atypical Investiture, one that has been 'corrupted'.

- Nightblood might not be able to feed on Voidlight, same as being unable to feed on corrupted Breath.

- If the black light (Voidlight) is connected to Odium, Nightblood and his black smoke may have a connection to Odium as well. (Doubtful, but would integrate Nightblood into the narrative completely--although having Odium interfere with Awakening is forced.)

- Even if the sphere and Nightblood are not related, we might be seeing more of corrupted Stormlight in other places in the story, later on.

 

Edited July 5, 2015 by yurisses

[natc]

Now that I think about it, I recall Odium once being referenced as the Broken One, while Nightblood is described as a "broken" shardblade. They both seem to release or emit black investiture, if the black sphere is what we think it is. Only other source of black investiture I recall is Ruin.

Something is really strange about the name Broken One, tbh. If anything he is known for breaking things.

[Paragrin she/her]

Just off the top of my head, but the only time I remember hearing 'the Broken One' is the one Death Rattle that said, IIRC, "three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns", and it might have continued, I don't remember. That almost sounds like the Broken One is something separate from any of the three Shards on Roshar.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Paragrin

[yurisses]

Good catch on the Broken One!
 
Here's something else to think about: We know that Investiture cannot be destroyed or created. When consumed, Investiture presumably returns to the Shard that emitted it. In that WoB, we learn that Investiture follows its own version of the laws of thermodynamics. Brandon compares Investiture to energy; it's safe to assume the First Law equivalent is: "The total Investiture in the Cosmere remains constant" (the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed.)
 
I propose a possible Second Law equivalent: The amount of corrupted Investiture in the Cosmere cannot decrease over time. (the state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time.)
 
Think about Nightblood's corrupted Investiture: does it return to its Shard of origin, like normal consumed Investiture? If so, does the Shard simply cleanse the Investiture? Doubtful, as there'd be no narrative purpose to Investiture corruption, bar aesthetics... Does corrupted Investiture become unusable? Does it become only usable for twisted purposes? Does corrupted Investiture, once consumed, possibly return to Odium, instead of the Shard of origin? After all, it's possible Gavilar's sphere is corrupted Investiture (due to its similarity to Nightblood's black smoke), and the sphere was suggested to be related to Odium...
 

PhantomMonstrosity
Let's say some mistborn jerk tosses Nightblood into the mists. What happens?

Brandon Sanderson
I suspect the mists would pull away from Nightblood, though he'd try to feed on them.
(source)

Now, there are multiple reasons why the mists would pull away from Nightblood... but here's one of them: Mists (Investiture) consumed by Nightblood is raw power lost forever, either unusable, permanently twisted or possibly stolen by Odium. (edit: or Endowment... thanks Oudeis!)

Edited July 6, 2015 by yurisses

[Oudeis he/him]

There's something related I've wondered forever. WoB is that Ruin could power allomancy, or Preservation could power hemalurgy, but that it involves expending power in ways Shards are hesitant to do. What does that mean? If Ruin chose to directly power an Allomancer, would that power leave him permanently and permanently join Preservation? If Nightblood feeds on something, would that power recycle into Endowment?

[Ugouka he/him]

If the power DID return to Endowment, I'm relatively curious as to what would happen if someone opened up Nightblood to the Dor...Elantris showed us that certain Aons supplied a constant outlet for the Dor (ie. lights). Could such an Aon be etched onto Nightblood to let it draw upon it? Perhaps use that to force the power of 2 shards into Endowment, causing essentially another convergence, like Harmony? I suppose that would leave Sel essentially magicless, but hey...if you need a bigger, badder shard to fight off Odium, it could prove vital.