Oudeis he/him Posted August 31, 2015 Posted August 31, 2015 Nightblood being part of events doesn't make it a candidate for holding a shard. I agree Brandon has plans for Nightblood and it has interesting things to do as an Awakened Shardblade, and has a role to play in events. But the coolest parts of Nightblood are its personality and how it wants to destroy evil but has no idea what that means. It would destroy everything that's interesting about Nightblood to make it into a shard, (because we would have much less direct interaction with it, and its personality would be likely be gone next time we jumped forward on the timeline) and I think Brandon is a good enough writer to know that, and has different plans for it. I didn't miss that first point, I just really don't agree with it. We have WoB and examples in the text that show us you can't prevent a shard's intent by having someone hold that shard who disagrees with the intent, because in the long run they just end up with the shard's personality anyway. The options to contain odium are to more effectively trap his power, to splinter his power, or to merge it with another shard's intent. If SA has a positive ending that involves them defeating Odium, nobody new is going to take up that shard all on its own. As for Nightblood's Command... well, it depends how you view the personalities of advanced Awakened Objects. I would imagine his Command would influence him until his personality was changed sufficiently by Odium, if he held that shard, as the Command is part of his mind and personality. A little confused. You say Nightblood's not a candidate. Well... pretty much anyone's a "candidate". Not sure what your personal criteria for whether or not someone is a candidate, is. Just that you don't personally find it likely? I disagree that Nightblood would be less interesting as a Shard, or that being a Shard means we'll stop seeing him. (Perhaps see him less, but even the best character eventually fades into the background. I'm confident that if he does fade from the spotlight, at whatever time and in whatever means, Mr. Sanderson will make it an interesting part of the story.) Also, his personality will no more be "gone" than Sazed's was in his brief interaction in Alloy of Law. Nor, truthfully, was Sazed very much in the "background" of that book. His touch and influence was felt everywhere, he was referenced by characters constantly. His time "on screen" was small, but that was because he'd essentially become the scenery the play was set against. Sazed has always been one of my favorite characters, and if anything I enjoyed the part he played in Alloy of Law more than I enjoyed him in the first trilogy. You seem to be assuming that I'm simply wrong in my guess as to how Nightblood will handle the Intent. Moreover, you flat-out state that you assume you're right as to how Odium could possibly be dealt with. Frankly, considering Mr. Sanderson's apparent interest in subverting all tropes and expectations, I see your certainty as, if anything, evidence that Odium will be dealt with in some method other than the obvious ones you insist must happen. Not sure if there's a point in re-stating my point a third time, as I cannot think of a different way to phrase it and you don't seem to be picking up what I'm putting down... Nightblood won't "disagree" with the Intent to "Hate Things" anymore than he currently disagrees with his Command to "Destroy Evil." In fact, he's all for it. He's gung-ho. If he were to parody a Disney song, he would make, "Do you wanna kill some Evil?" from Frozen. (C'mon, let's go and slay!) He just has no capacity to understand what "Evil" is. I never said, nor would it make any sense, that Nightblood is going to resist the urge to hate things. I think he'll try with everything in him to hate all things. However, much like how he currently acts with Evil, I think he just will never understand Hatred. And I am absolutely not saying that his Command to "Destroy Evil" will somehow conflict with his Intent towards hatred. If you still don't understand what I'm saying, then I apologize for my lack of ability to explain. If you are still under the impression that my point is the point you believed it to be when you wrote your last post, please realize that there has been a misunderstanding between us. Well, that was an incomplete analogy on my part. I should have said that it's like a person being able to choose when the volcano erupts. The volcano just does one thing. The person using it might be evil, but the volcano isn't. In the same way, you could say that Rayse is evil but Odium is just a force of nature. Although, given enough time anyone holding Odium would eventually act in almost an identical way to Rayse regardless, so honestly I don't think you could say Rayse is evil either. He may have started out that way but in the end he will eventually not be an individual anymore. He can't actually choose not to erupt anymore, even if he wanted to. So it's still not a very good analogy. Shards actively eliminate their holder's free will and the Shards themselves have no free will. The fact that they can think doesn't make them responsible for their actions. Ah, here's a better analogy. Say you had 2 volcanoes and they both erupt on exactly the same day every year. One of them can think and the other can't. Is one evil and the other not? From the outside they're identical. Okay. I think I understand better what you're trying to express. I don't personally agree with it, but we're talking about Shards, which none of us yet have enough information on to be as sure as we'd like, or about the definition of things like free will and evil, and if all of human history has been unable to give us concrete definitions of those concepts I wouldn't expect you and I to settle on them now. In short, I don't believe that if you don't have free will, that you can think. If the conclusion is foregone, then you're just a really complicated program. I see a fundamental difference there. Free will and thinking both, to me, come down to choice. If you can choose how you act, you are both thinking and you have free will. If you can't do one, you can't do the other. I appreciate that these definitions are, by definition, abstract and personal. I guess in the analogy it would be a volcano erupting when it's going to erupt because of natural forces, and one erupting when it's going to erupt because of a large machine running by itself that no one has any control over. I also don't personally believe that this describes Shards. Mr. Sanderson has said that Intents get harder and harder to resist as time goes on. He's never said that they expand until they eliminate free will. I see a ton of Sharders making broad assumptions about how Intents actually work, and I disagree with most of them. That said, we know so little, I could be wrong. I look at someone like Leras, who held the power an unknown period of time but... thousands of years, I would guess. And he nevertheless set up a plan to cause his own death, and risk the death of anything and everything on Scadrial, and to kill his companion with his own power, all in pursuit, not of stability or stasis, but of growth, change, and advancement. Leras acted drastically against his own Intent, for goals wildly divergent from his own Intent, after being influenced by his Intent long enough for Ati, a kind man, to be turned into the Ruin who meets Vin. I just don't see how people's assumptions that Intent is the trump card can be true in the face of this evidence. But of course, we know very little about Shards, Intents, or the Spiritual Realm as a whole, so I could easily be wrong. 1
Moogle Posted August 31, 2015 Posted August 31, 2015 There are two recent AMA answers related to Shard's influence on their holders which may be of note in this discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/csvfjeb?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ct6zi66?context=3 A Shardholder can always override their Shard, it seems. 2
DreamEternal Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 There are two recent AMA answers related to Shard's influence on their holders which may be of note in this discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/csvfjeb?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ct6zi66?context=3 A Shardholder can always override their Shard, it seems. And yet it becomes harder with time... How does it work? Is the shard's influence proportional to the holder's willpower? Does its strenght grows in a declining geometric progression, eventualy reaching a limit? If given a strong enough motivation not aligned with Ruin, could Ati prevent the destruction of Scadrial? Could Rayse feel compassion, even after all these milennia? That answer just makes things harder to understand.
Oudeis he/him Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Well. things like "willpower" cannot be measured with a teaspoon and measuring cup, so we might never have exact answers. What quantity of "mourning" do I need to work through now that my grandfather's passed away? How much do I love my god-daughter? This might be one of those questions that, if there's an answer, it's not a matter of something chartable. People find ways to deal with willpower issues. Smokers, dieters, high-functioning people. A question like this might best be answered by one of them. 1
Ari he/him Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 A little confused. You say Nightblood's not a candidate. Well... pretty much anyone's a "candidate". Not sure what your personal criteria for whether or not someone is a candidate, is. Just that you don't personally find it likely? I disagree that Nightblood would be less interesting as a Shard, or that being a Shard means we'll stop seeing him. (Perhaps see him less, but even the best character eventually fades into the background. I'm confident that if he does fade from the spotlight, at whatever time and in whatever means, Mr. Sanderson will make it an interesting part of the story.) Also, his personality will no more be "gone" than Sazed's was in his brief interaction in Alloy of Law. Nor, truthfully, was Sazed very much in the "background" of that book. His touch and influence was felt everywhere, he was referenced by characters constantly. His time "on screen" was small, but that was because he'd essentially become the scenery the play was set against. Sazed has always been one of my favorite characters, and if anything I enjoyed the part he played in Alloy of Law more than I enjoyed him in the first trilogy. You seem to be assuming that I'm simply wrong in my guess as to how Nightblood will handle the Intent. Moreover, you flat-out state that you assume you're right as to how Odium could possibly be dealt with. Frankly, considering Mr. Sanderson's apparent interest in subverting all tropes and expectations, I see your certainty as, if anything, evidence that Odium will be dealt with in some method other than the obvious ones you insist must happen. Not sure if there's a point in re-stating my point a third time, as I cannot think of a different way to phrase it and you don't seem to be picking up what I'm putting down... Nightblood won't "disagree" with the Intent to "Hate Things" anymore than he currently disagrees with his Command to "Destroy Evil." In fact, he's all for it. He's gung-ho. If he were to parody a Disney song, he would make, "Do you wanna kill some Evil?" from Frozen. (C'mon, let's go and slay!) He just has no capacity to understand what "Evil" is. I never said, nor would it make any sense, that Nightblood is going to resist the urge to hate things. I think he'll try with everything in him to hate all things. However, much like how he currently acts with Evil, I think he just will never understand Hatred. And I am absolutely not saying that his Command to "Destroy Evil" will somehow conflict with his Intent towards hatred. If you still don't understand what I'm saying, then I apologize for my lack of ability to explain. If you are still under the impression that my point is the point you believed it to be when you wrote your last post, please realize that there has been a misunderstanding between us. Have you read Misborn: HoA recently? Sazed has to literally "hold" the powers in his hands to ascend. I'm not sure Nightblood is elegible because it doesn't have hands, or any way to move itself without a wielder- it could be there's some alternative way to "hold" a shard in order to ascend so that Nightblood qualifies, or that its wielder tries to attack the unheld Shard after Rayse is killed and thus ends up with Nightblood "holding" it, but I'm really not convinced that's in the cards for the sword. Brandon certainly likes surprises, for sure, but the closest I've seen anyone get to predicting his surprises is the people who figured out Hemalurgy ahead of HoA. I'm not saying it's impossible, it just doesn't seem like something that's likely from either what we know about ascending as a Shard, or what we know about Nightblood's role in events so far. Brandon loves suprise endings, but this one doesn't fit with the themes he's established for the Stormlight Archives, for Nightblood, or for his works in general in my opinion. That's definitely a subjective judgement though so YMMV. Wheras say, Sazed's ascension made perfect sense if any of us would have thought to theorise it after being so thoroughly distracted by Vin. Finding a new holder for Odium may not even be part of the events of the Stormlight Archive- we shouldn't assume that the way Brandon intends to address every difficult intent is going to be to get it a new holder. I had misunderstood that you were trying to say that Nightblood would agree with Odium's attempt if he could understand it but his lack of understanding would somehow stymie Odium's Intent. I actually disagree with that even more- as the normal process of the Intent influencing its holders personality went forward, Nightblood would gain that understanding over the medium-to-long term, and it would no longer be an obstacle to fulfilling the Shard's intent. There are two recent AMA answers related to Shard's influence on their holders which may be of note in this discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/csvfjeb?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ct6zi66?context=3 A Shardholder can always override their Shard, it seems. Interresting, although it sounds like it's a statistical unlikelihood once a Shard has been held for a few centuries. But what Oudeis is saying is that Nightblood is an excellent candidate for holding Odium, (even though from the end scenes of HoA it appears you require hands to hold a shard) because its inability to understand hatred would stymie the intent. The gradual "transformation" of the personality would make it understand hatred in my opinion, as it integrates more of Odium's intent, so while in the short-term those quotes are relevant, it's probably not a factor in the medium-to-long term, as Nightblood's command, a core element of his personality, might well agree with Odium's intent, so once it has enough information to understand the intent, it might well be just as bad as Rayse and have no desire to override the Shard's intent.
Witborn Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Don't have much to add only that I just re-read the ending of HoA and Sazed never uses his hands to take up the shards. He only touches their power. Also, Vin inhales the mists. So while we don't know if Nightblood could take up the power of a shard for sure based on other factors, his lack of opposable thumbs does not preclude him from doing that per se.
Ari he/him Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Don't have much to add only that I just re-read the ending of HoA and Sazed never uses his hands to take up the shards. He only touches their power. Also, Vin inhales the mists. So while we don't know if Nightblood could take up the power of a shard for sure based on other factors, his lack of opposable thumbs does not preclude him from doing that per se. Hmm, you're right, it doesn't explicitly say he grips the power physically, I'm looking at the quote now: (from the first edition US hardback HoA) Not on his shoulders. Not in his hands. On his arms. By the Forgotten Gods! He slammed his arms into the twin mists and seized the powers offered to him. He drew them in, feeling them infuse his body, making him burn. His flesh and bones evaporated, but as they did, he tapped his copperminds, dumping their entire contents into his expanding consciousness. So, I was reading into this a little when I said you appear to need hands to grip the power, but it looks like at the very least you need to be thrust into the physical manifestation of the power, or perhaps actually move yourself and intend to take it up. You may not need to grab it literally, but this still means that it would take a pretty contrived accident for Nightblood to end up holding a shard.
Ascendant Warrior he/him Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 I think contact may be necessary, but I do not see something ethereal as needing to be held physically. I imagine it is more of a mental intake of power. The intent is most likely what matters, not the actual movement, though it probably helps to demonstrate the intent.
Ari he/him Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 (edited) I think contact may be necessary, but I do not see something ethereal as needing to be held physically. I imagine it is more of a mental intake of power. The intent is most likely what matters, not the actual movement, though it probably helps to demonstrate the intent. You would definitely require the contact otherwise anyone who intended to pick up the Shard could do so no matter where they were, and for instance, one of the other shards might have decided to pick up Ruin or Preservation without having to risk travelling to Scadrial to manifest. Intent to pick up a shard would seem to fit in with how the magic works. And we have WoB that Sazed's magic (unknown if this means general investiture or specifically the fact that being a Feruchemist aligned him with both Preservation and Ruin spiritually so that he was more compatible with the Shards) made taking up the Shards easier, although a normal human could do it too. He's also mentioned specifically that the Shards require a mind to hold them or direct their power, or Bad Things Happen, so anything that's mindless, eg. a Returned, couldn't take up a Shard. It's debatable whether a Type 4 biocromatic entity counts as a mind for this purpose, but I'd be inclined to say they do based on what we've seen of Nightblood. They certainly have weird minds that we'd regard as damaged or under-developed by human adult standards, but there's certainly memory, self-reflection, communication, feelings, and analysis there. I suppose with that, the question is really: Would Nightblood actually intend to take up a shard under any circumstance? And if it would, would it take up any shard, or would it only take up some? I imagine any being that would discriminate among the shards they would pick up would most likely choose not to take up Odium on its own if they knew what they were getting into. Edited September 1, 2015 by Ari
Oudeis he/him Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Have you read Misborn: HoA recently? Sazed has to literally "hold" the powers in his hands to ascend. Also, Vin inhales the mists. Thank you, Witborn. Of the exactly two examples we've ever seen of full Ascension, one of them involved hands in some way. The other involved absorbing a power source directly into your body and feeding off of it... exactly like what Nightblood does with Breath. Neither of these examples can possibly be cited to say definitively, this is how it happened once, and therefore how it must happen in 100% of cases. I appreciate that you're very clearly convinced, and I have no intention of trying to shake your conviction. That said, you are very confident for someone who has far more speculation and assumption than fact to support himself. You personally find it unlikely, and I appreciate that. I fully admit that my own arguments are somewhat specious. I'm mostly posting here so that if I'm ever proven right, I can prove that I guessed it in advance. If you find any actual concrete evidence suggesting that Nightblood can't, or won't, take up the Shard of Odium, feel free to provide it. Also, I knew from the very first epigraph of Hero of Ages (which, yes, I did read. And may I say you asked that in a rather snide way) that it was Sazed. "I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages." I read that and it was simply exactly the way Sazed, and no one else, would speak. I briefly considered through the book that it was Spook, but eventually dismissed that notion. And for what it's worth, you mention people guessing about hemalurgy. I forget if it was at the end of the second book or start of the third, but I also did deduce that Vin's earring was granting her the power of allomantic bronze. You say that you don't know of anyone who guesses plot points in advance. How often would you have? I see you joined the site in 2010. Since then, the cosmere novels which have come out are: Emperor's Soul, Alloy of Law, Words of Radiance, Sixth of the Dusk and Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. Two aren't even sequels, and the other two are drastically divergent from their previous books. So basically, you've had the opportunity to see people speculate on one book, Words of Radiance, before it came out. I personally saw several people come up with theories in the intervening years, most of which proved to be false or haven't been proven yet, and many which it turned out to be true. Where is it you go to that the absence of correct guesses about the cosmere is conspicuous? Obviously, feel how you wish. I realize my arguments aren't solid enough to actually change anyone's mind if they aren't inclined to agree with me. However, I hasten to suggest that your certainty that I'm wrong is somewhat premature. And I have stolen enough of teknopathetic's thread. I am shortly going to repost my initial argument in a new, speculative thread, and I would like to politely request that any rebuttals be moved there, so that people can get back to discussing the intent of this thread here. 1
Confused Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 Oudeis's theory has much to commend it. BUT Nightblood's mind WILL expand as it consumes increased power (no need for physical contact) and his "command" will change. From then on Odium/Nightblood's new mandate will be "HATE EVIL." It will truly becomes a "Sword of Retribution" as some have speculated.
Oudeis he/him Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 People are still assuming that this second expansion of his mind will solve the problem that the first expansion of his mind could not. Nightblood is at least as smart as an adult human as far as we've seen, and he still cannot understand evil. Why are we assuming an "expansion" will allow him to understand hatred? Vin's expanded mind allowed her to ennumerate an army of koloss. It allowed her to perceive a whole world at once. It allowed her to mourn the death of thousands through her own folly, while enough of her mind was left over to ponder implications. It provided her with information, the history of the use of her power and its potential future applications. However we see from Sazed that while it can tell you how to move a planet, it doesn't tell you where to move the planet. It alone would not have allowed him to create the animals to repopulate the world. Map the continents. Fix the biology of humans. And Ruin. Vin outwits him with Elend, and Elend was able to checkmate Ruin, specifically because Ruin could not understand what drove them. He couldn't understand love. Love isn't even directly opposed by ruin, and Ati was once a mortal man (well he was.. some manner of... sentient being), presumably capable of love. Yet after millenia even his "expanded mind" was unable to comprehend the bond between Vin and Elend, and the strength they could find from it even in death. Is it possible the way a Shard expands a consciousness will change something fundamental about Nightblood and allow him to understand hatred in a way he doesn't understand evil? Yes. However everyone is saying it like it's some obvious, foregone conclusion, that "expanded consciousness" has to include understanding something entirely alien to your own nature. If someone has evidence to support this theory beyond the assumption that this is axiomatically true, I for one would be titillated to see it. If not, and people want to just believe that this is what it means, that's perfectly all right. That said, until someone can find some reason we should expect that a second expansion of Nightblood's mind will fix what the first one so fundamentally couldn't, I am going to continue to respectfully insist that my hypothesis does hold water. 2
Shadowspren he/him Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 I'm not sure Brandon would be a fan of the simple "evil because evil" explanation. And again, there is a WoB saying Odium isn't the platonic form of evil or anything. But wouldn't you still classify Odium as being the most prominent Evil that we know of in the Cosmere? Excluding the opposing force of Adonalsium (there is something like that isn't there?) WoR spoiler (just in case) What if Szeth becomes the champion that is spoken of to beat Odium? If he uses nightblood (who destroys evil) to kill Odium... I don't know how, but if he got close enough do you think Nightblood could feed off the power of the shard in destroying it? just a thought
thekingofpillowland he/him Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 As WeiryWriter kindly noted earlier, WOB is that the definitions of the word odium "the feeling of strong hatred, and that which provokes hatred from others." Both apply to the shard as well. (source) So my theory for the way Odium's intent works, is that it drives it's bearer to inspire hatred. Since we have a WOB saying that both of these definitions are accurate descriptions of Odium's intent, the idea makes sense, right? Odium both hates and attempts to be hated by everyone. In fact, if you interpreted this in a different way, Odium could just as easily be called "Conflict". This might explain some of Odium's goals, too. If Odium hates everything and desires to create hatred, why wouldn't he go after the other shards? Their destruction will both allow him to continue to fulfill his intent, as well as inspire hate and fear in those individuals who are cosmere-aware. Of course he wouldn't pick up the shards either, he would consider it a demeaning prospect, the equivalent of you or I considering smearing ourselves with mud, before climbing into a sewer pipe. Plus splintering the shards just makes people hate and fear him even more. If this is the case, then Odium is not just evil for evil's sake, or because Rayse was evil. Odium is evil because part of it's intent makes it want to cause trouble, in order to get people to despise it.
Ansalem Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 Well, provoking hatred from others doesn't necessarily mean provoking their hatred toward you. It could just as easily mean that Odium inspires others to hate each other instead.
thekingofpillowland he/him Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 Well, provoking hatred from others doesn't necessarily mean provoking their hatred toward you. It could just as easily mean that Odium inspires others to hate each other instead. Maybe that is why his splinter Nergaoul inspires the Thrill? It encourages people to fight eachother, rather than Nergaoul and Odium. 1
Yata he/him Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 I always thought it the Intentof a shard was a fairly abstract concept in which the shardholder interpreted it in his own way. In case of Odium-Rayse, we have a megalomaniac / superb with the intent of hatred . The result is an entity that wants supremacy and tries to destroy the competition and doesn't want to change itself. 1
thekingofpillowland he/him Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 All we really know is that Rayse was dangerous, even before he had his shard. We don't know how he thinks or interprets Odium's intent. From an external p.o.v it might seem that Odium is trying to become the supreme power, but as of now, we don't know for certain.
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