So why exactly is Nightblood so stupendously overpowered?

[natc]

So he's literally a being engineered specifically to destroy evil, but is still terrible at it.

*cough*

The troubles of artificial shardblades . . .

[Yata]

So he's literally a being engineered specifically to destroy evil, but is still terrible at it.

*cough*

The troubles of artificial shardblades . . .

Is an unstable Shardblade, poor Nightblood

[DrakeMarshall]

That is a very matter of fact statement, considering we don't know if it's true. WoB suggests that the granting of sentience is something completely different from Awakening, particularly when you consider that Vasher states in Warbreaker's prologue that he's awoken various metal objects in the past. The granting of sentience is something special, an extra step to the Awakening process, and I doubt it's as simple as "just pour more breaths in it".

 

Well, there does seem to be some kind of correlation between massive amounts of investiture and sentience. Spren gain sentience if there is enough investiture involved, after all. This is because investiture must be directed by a consciousness.

 

I always assumed that is because, Nightblood is a "living paradox".

It's not a perfect (stable) Spren and it need extra Investiture to work (for example Nightblood has not enough Investiture to be both a Sentiet being and a Blade who cuts on all the realms at once).

At this point there isn't still the paradox:

Therefore Nightblood feed of near Investiture, and it tried to drain Investiture. But Nightblood is made by Endowment's Investiture. Take for Itself, it's a thing aganist his own being. Therefore Nightblood can't add the stoled Investiture to his own and reject it in a Twisted (and Dangerous) form.

I wouldn't say nightblood needs to keep using up investiture because it is an "unstable spren" or some such.

It seems to really just boil down to conservation of energy. Nightblood is a human construct, and apparently doesn't draw on the power of a shard because of this. So, to manifest powers like possessing people, waving their arms around to fight perfectly, and utterly destroy things it strikes, nightblood needs to draw on investiture as a source of power.

By logic of conservation of energy, I suppose this means the investiture nightblood consumes is dispersed after use, in a less useful form.

[Yata]

I agree with Consumed Investiture is dispersed after.

 

But about the difference between a standard Spren and Nightblood, I see it differently. Neither the standard Spren draw on Shard's Power.

Nightblood is exactly what a Spren is, an amount of Investiture that gained sentiences. Therefore I supposed that his need of Investure was about a deficit of his own power.

From the Warbreaker annotation, we discovered that Nightblood isn't capable to keep his full power and his full mind at the same time.

I simply thought that while Nightblood is used actively, he tries to restore his mental ability.

 

Of course I may be wrong

[DrakeMarshall]

This may be true. Would that mean that a less imbalanced type IV entity would be just as powerful but not require such a price?

It just seems that a shardblade, while obviously a huge and powerful blade, is actually somewhat passive. It is a sword that exists more in the cognitive realm in the physical, but being able to cognitively slice things up might not take new energy.

On the other hand, some of nightblood's powers, like utterly annihilating things and possessing people, seem like they might take energy themselves.

[Yata]

This may be true. Would that mean that a less imbalanced type IV entity would be just as powerful but not require such a price?

It just seems that a shardblade, while obviously a huge and powerful blade, is actually somewhat passive. It is a sword that exists more in the cognitive realm in the physical, but being able to cognitively slice things up might not take new energy.

On the other hand, some of nightblood's powers, like utterly annihilating things and possessing people, seem like they might take energy themselves.

Just a point, the "Standard Shardblade" slice the soul (or Spiritual if you prefer) not the Cognitive.

Nightblood instead cuts in all three realms

[DrakeMarshall]

Just a point, the "Standard Shardblade" slice the soul (or Spiritual if you prefer) not the Cognitive.

Nightblood instead cuts in all three realms

 

Is it confirmed that regular shardblades cut in the spiritual realm? Seems like a case could be made that they slice through the cognitive realm...

[natc]

I believe they all just cut all three in general, don't they?

[Yata]

Is it confirmed that regular shardblades cut in the spiritual realm? Seems like a case could be made that they slice through the cognitive realm...

I know there is a WoB about, but at the moment I have no time to find it. Later I will post it.

[Lilamal]

Putting the aside the question of just how much Investiture 1000 Breath is (compared to a Blade), Awakening steel and stone requires the Awakener to have reached the Ninth Awakening which is approximately 20,000 Breath. There is probably something significant there.

Yeah, you may be on to something there, but there is also the fact that there may also be a Divine Breath(s) among the 1,000, which means that it could be equivalent to much more than 1,000 normal breaths

[Yata]

Yeah, you may be on to something there, but there is also the fact that there may also be a Divine Breath(s) among the 1,000, which means that it could be equivalent to much more than 1,000 normal breaths

Nobody dies to craft Nightblood, therefore there isn't any Divine Breath in the Blade.

 

A fresh WoB (from the BoM release party):

 

 

 

My oldest asked if it took a life to create Nightblood: No, it did not. 

[natc]

Unless he's trolling us since Returned are already dead to begin with.

[DrakeMarshall]

Fun fact: with the number of breaths Susebron has, he might well be able to awaken several type IV entities like nightblood and still keep his tenth heightening.

[Yata]

Fun fact: with the number of breaths Susebron has, he might well be able to awaken several type IV entities like nightblood and still keep his tenth heightening.

Well not for nothing the God-King has a Treasure of Breath .... It's possible that in the capital there is more Breath in him than in the rest of the population together

[Oversleep]

Why is Nigtblood overpowered? Because most Awakening require at least dozens and often hundreds of equivalent of (I'd say) a third of Investiture a living person has and Nighblood has thousands of them. It's definitely more Investiture than a spren has.

[natc]

Not that we know how much investiture a spren has.

[Yata]

Why is Nigtblood overpowered? Because most Awakening require at least dozens and often hundreds of equivalent of (I'd say) a third of Investiture a living person has and Nighblood has thousands of them. It's definitely more Investiture than a spren has.

As Natc says we don't know how much Investiture a spren has.

 

If We try to compare the various Splinter and say that Endowment's Splinter (Divine Breath) is as invested as a Radiant Spren (no proof at all).

We may see how a Splinter (a Divine Breath is at least 2000 Breath worthy) is more Invested than Nightblood ("only" 1000 Breath)

[Oversleep]

We know that Nightblood is a few magnitudes more powerful than a Sharblade. Few magnitudes means few 0's more. Three magnitudes - 1000 times stronger.
So yeah, I'd say Nightblood has far more Investiture than a spren.

[Yata]

We know that Nightblood is a few magnitudes more powerful than a Sharblade. Few magnitudes means few 0's more. Three magnitudes - 1000 times stronger.

So yeah, I'd say Nightblood has far more Investiture than a spren.

"more powerful" and "more invested" aren't the same with two effects that working in different ways.

Nightblood may be more invested than a spren (or less or equal), but that isn't a proof.

 

We also know that Nightblood has an "unbalanced" (without a better word) power and his Investiture isn't enough to keep his full Power and his full mind at the same time (while a Radiant Spren may do it).

[DrakeMarshall]

Well a radiant spren doesn't need power to manifest a shardblade... But to exercise less passive powers it still needs a fuel of stormlight (radiants need stormlight to surgebind). So why wouldn't nightblood's more active powers require a fuel of investiture? Nightblood doesn't simply act as a blade that cuts the spiritual, it actively destroys things it touches, and actively possesses people who aren't careful. That sounds like something that requires additional power to maintain.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Oathbringer]

Quick note: Shardblades are from spren, not directly from Honor. 

 

The only thing we know Nightblood is made of is at least a 1000 breaths. That alone is great power. However, since he feeds off of his wielder, he's been gaining more power--he took what, 50-100 from Vasher in like a minute. As before, he is an extremely condensed form of power. Also, Vasher and Shashara wouldn't have chosen a regular sword for such an important test, who know what they used in forging Nightblood, after all they invented incredible things in that time.

[Heir of the Void]

I'm having a pretty big problem with this too; I'm not really sure how a thousand breaths is a lot. Between 0 and 1000 AD, the population of Earth is, by most estimates, at around three hundred million people. Generally, the region of Nalthis we see appears to be at the very least on par with technology at this time period, speaking very broadly, so lacking any more evidence and assuming the rest of the planet is similarly Earth-like, we can assume that there are at least a quarter of a billion Breaths in circulation at any one time.

This means that Nightblood contains, at most 0.0004% of Endowment's power, or four thousand nS (nanoshards), without allowing for Endowment to have retained any Investiture. As we know Endowment is not splintered (as Honor is, which would suggest more Investiture is available on Roshar), so the total proportion would be somewhat less than the four thousand figure.

 

It could be possible that either:
 

1. Spren are much more efficient at producing physical effects, and thus posses far less actual power, or
2. Endowment's power can be converted into outside investiture more efficiently, so a much smaller piece of Endowment is needed to generate a given unit of capital.

Alternatively, Nightblood might not be especially powerful, but rather serves as a conduit to rapidly consume power to generate a given effect; plutonium in a bomb rather than a reactor. However, WoB imply that this is not the case.

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

You also need to include in your calculations 25 returned with about 2.000 breaths each, plus another 2.000 for the God king and however much additional breaths in the treasure, about 50.000? And 40.000 lifeless with 1 breath each, and 1.000 Kalad's phantoms IIRC with more than one breath, I think it was 50 each.

 

But this is acting on the premise that every human breath comes directly from Endowment and not (at least partly) from the planet's 'background investiture', like non-Nalthian souls.

[Oversleep]

But only Divine Breath is a Splinter of Endowment; regular Breaths are just some kind of background Investiture... I'm not really sure how it works, the more people there are, the more Breath there is, so where does all this Investiture comes from?

If Preservation put more of himself in humans, how is it that new humans doesn't take more power from him?

[Landis963]

But only Divine Breath is a Splinter of Endowment; regular Breaths are just some kind of background Investiture... I'm not really sure how it works, the more people there are, the more Breath there is, so where does all this Investiture comes from?

If Preservation put more of himself in humans, how is it that new humans doesn't take more power from him?

 

I think it's a template thing.  Preservation gave of himself to make certain that the first Scadrian humans could both preserve and ruin.  Likewise, when Endowment created humanity on Nalthis (as I assume she did), she made it so that whatever part of the soul they eventually called Breath could be shucked off and put back on as easily as an article of clothing.  After that templating is done, maybe natural Innate Investiture collects in the mother during pregnancy, and it forms into the soul-shape set forth by whichever Shard did the templating?  

 

Sounds like a question for the Big List.  

Edited February 5, 2016 by Landis963