What type of Skybreaker is Szeth?

[cloudjumper he/him]

Is Szeth a real radiant or just one of Nalan's goons now? Szeth doesn't have a spren, so does this mean that he's not a Skybreaker? Also, Nalan just says, "Congratulations, you're a Skybreaker" to Szeth. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the herald isn't the one who chooses the radiant, it's the spren. However, I can see no way that Szeth can draw nightblood and use it without Skybreaker powers.

[Zathoth]

There are a couple ways this could work I guess

1. Szeth is just one of Nalans goons (But that is boring, so it wont happen)
2. Nightblood somehow works as a Spen and will give Szeth all the abilities he need.
3. Szeth has to use whatever glitch Vasher is using to be able to draw in Stormlight, but when he does Nightblood will somehow work as a spren and give him the surges.
4. Szeth will just find a way to draw in Stormlight and use Nightblood, no surges.

 

[Patrick Star]

At the moment, he's just one of Nalan's goons.

7 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

There are a couple ways this could work I guess

1. Szeth is just one of Nalans goons (But that is boring, so it wont happen)
2. Nightblood somehow works as a Spen and will give Szeth all the abilities he need.
3. Szeth has to use whatever glitch Vasher is using to be able to draw in Stormlight, but when he does Nightblood will somehow work as a spren and give him the surges.
4. Szeth will just find a way to draw in Stormlight and use Nightblood, no surges.

 

Yeah, 1 is the case right now.  2 can't work as a Skybreaker, since Nightblood is of Endowment, not honor.  And he's broken.  3 is because Vasher is a returned, it has nothing to do with Nightblood.  4 could happen.

[goody153]

8 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

There are a couple ways this could work I guess

1. Szeth is just one of Nalans goons (But that is boring, so it wont happen)
2. Nightblood somehow works as a Spen and will give Szeth all the abilities he need.
3. Szeth has to use whatever glitch Vasher is using to be able to draw in Stormlight, but when he does Nightblood will somehow work as a spren and give him the surges.
4. Szeth will just find a way to draw in Stormlight and use Nightblood, no surges.

 

1. Yeah

2-3-4: I suspect while i do think Szeth will either use whatever magical loophole Vasher found to absorb stormlight or find another way but he won't have the surges of the Skybreakers through nightblood. Remember that nightblood is of Endowment not Honor/Cultivation/Odium.

Though maybe a highspren would bond with Szeth and he would still have nightblood, 

Edited August 16, 2016 by goody153

[Yata he/him]

Well If Szeth became a Nale's Squire (if this is possible with an Herald) will gain the ability to drawn in Stormlight and use fully Nightblood.

PS: I have a theory with Nightblood once bonded will give to the partner the ability to use Stormlight, but Szeth will need some help to survive the Nightblood's bonding the first time

[WindCaller]

Night blood is confirmed to be a sort of robot spren as per WoB. We've seen in the war breaker books that he can choose to "bond" with whoever he chooses, as seen by his ability to speak in the minds of people. This is an assumption on the way night blood works, since i know other spren can talk to multiple people without rebonding.

Brandon has also confirmed that if something like a bonded aon were to come to roshar, they would grant their bonded abilities, if not quite the ones we would see by traditional bond. 

So we could assume, to a certain extent, that night blood can grant a pseudo bond to Szeth and with that, be able to draw in investiture? 

If not, Nalan/darkness has already shown in the Lift interlude that he somehow has access to storm light/awesomeness, so a better guess would be that he would share the secret with Szeth. 

This is all assuming that Nightblood can't just directly feed off storm light in spheres. 

[Yata he/him]

In the Annotation Mister Sanderson said that Nightblood Bonds with everyone that use it at full power and then survive to the experience. After this moment that people will not suffer any desire or nausea from Nightblood.

But Szeth without extra Investiture will die if Nightblood feed of him. Be a Squire may serve as first step to survive the Nightblood's requirement to bond

[+hwiles]

Szeth is adept at drawing in stormlight, why is it inconceivable that Nale will just hand him an emerald broam and tell him to breathe the light in the second he draws nightblood and re-sheath immediately? Probably wouldn't take that much damage, just lose some color in one hand

[Yata he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

Szeth is adept at drawing in stormlight, why is it inconceivable that Nale will just hand him an emerald broam and tell him to breathe the light in the second he draws nightblood and re-sheath immediately? Probably wouldn't take that much damage, just lose some color in one hand

He will die when his soul will be eated by Nightblood. On Nalthis the people survive a little because they have Breath.

To be honest it's possible he may survive but a Soul wound it's often a death sentence.

 

[+hwiles]

12 minutes ago, Yata said:

He will die when his soul will be eated by Nightblood. On Nalthis the people survive a little because they have Breath.

To be honest it's possible he may survive but a Soul wound it's often a death sentence.

 

There are some cosmere works I haven't read yet, are there people who suffer "soul wounds"?

I guess I'm just contesting the need for some kind of crazy shenanigans or secret exploit for Szeth to be able to draw nightblood and live in general. As far as I understand, Nale could breathe stormlight in and just be touching Szeth when nightblood is drawn, or, someone could perform a lashing on him, or, he could draw nightblood during a highstorm.

The interesting question is will Szeth be able to access surges? I have a feeling he won't be able to, considering that, if he could, realmatic problems and mumbo-jumbo aside, he would probably just be too powerful. Sure, kaladin beat him, but I don't think most of the radiants would stand a chance. Losing his surges greatly decreases his mobility, so he's not a looming threat to every radiant every second of every day. But he's still a highly trained assassin with a sword that is, as Sanderson puts it, "orders of magnitude more powerful than a shardblade."

So basically, I'd suggest he'll be a stormlight breathing, surgeless "skybreaker" with a sword that literally kills people on contact, and probably damages, hurts, or drains other spren-swords on contact. I'm assuming his bond with nightblood will let him breathe stormlight, otherwise his tenure as a skybreaker will be extremely short...Also, the surges aren't directly of Honor and Cultivation, they are of the spren, which might give them some more flexibility in their rules...though possibly not...

[Yata he/him]

15 minutes ago, hwiles said:

There are some cosmere works I haven't read yet, are there people who suffer "soul wounds"?

For example Hemalurgy rips the Souls... Often the bindpoints used are fatal also as mundane wound (the chest for example) but if (for example) there is a bindpoint to steal Allomantic steel in a finger. And someone spike a Mistborn to those finder to steal  his Steel.... The Mistborn would probably die for the Shock of his Soul bein ripped. And if He survives he would be lika a Nalthis's Drab.. with less Souls than normal and with a tons of problems (health, depression, ecc...).

About He be capable of Surges... I will say no. But Nightblood may (probably) gift some thematic power through its bond to the partner (but to be honest I have no idea about what kind of abilities).

[DSC01 he/him]

We know that Nightblood is essentially an artificial spren. This does not mean that he will necessarily grant Szeth Surges, but whatever happens, it will be along those lines. The fact that Nightblood is a Splinter of Endowment rather than Honor or Cultivation does not matter. Honor and Cultivation didn't collude to create the Surgebinding system; their magic systems are shaped by the planet that they are on. And just as there is WoB that seons transported to Roshar could form bonds similar to those between spren and humans via the Nahel bond, the same will be true of Nightblood. It may well be that he grants Szeth Surges, or it could be that he gives him some other kind of powers, but whatever the case may be, there should definitely be some kind of powers granted because that is how the magic works on Roshar.

Now, some may argue that Zahel/Vasher's example means that this will not be the case. That is, because Vasher can only feed on Stormlight to stay alive but cannot Awaken, something similar will happen with Nightblood. I disagree. There is a fundamental difference between Breath and Stormlight, and it is that Breath functions in units, while Stormlight is more like a substance. An analogy would be that Breath is bottles of water, while Stormlight is just water. So if you're trying to Awaken something, it's like, "Okay, I need 15 bottles of water to do that." If all you have is Stormlight, it's like, "Well, I have 20 liters of water; I'm pretty sure that's enough," but it doesn't matter because the slot that accepts water only takes bottles.

Nightblood, it is true, is made out Breaths, but that shouldn't affect anything in terms of the way the bond functions. 

[Argel he/him]

There will have to be something about absorbing Stormlight, or Nightblood will kill Szeth. Unless Nightblood is bonded with Nalan and is just being loaned to Szeth, but I didn't think it was easy to loan out Nightblood. It's also possible there is something weird going on with Szeth being resurrected.

[Naurock]

38 minutes ago, Argel said:

There will have to be something about absorbing Stormlight, or Nightblood will kill Szeth. Unless Nightblood is bonded with Nalan and is just being loaned to Szeth, but I didn't think it was easy to loan out Nightblood. It's also possible there is something weird going on with Szeth being resurrected.

Or the fabrial used to resurrect him.