Why, Nightblood

[Sheridan_rd]

When I first read Warbreaker I thought considering the rules of Awakening, wouldn't a wooden club (Scardinal dueling cane) be a more logical and cost effective vessel than a sword?

Theories:

1. Sanderson really liked the idea of super powerful talking sword and wrote one into his book "come he'll or high water" haha

2. Vasher's wife didn't realize the Shardblades on Roshar were sentient and recreating one would give the resulting sword a "mind of its own".

*** I apologize if this topic has been asked in another thread

[Spoolofwhool]

2. Nightblood being sentient was intentional. Vasher and Shashara were trying to prove their theory regarding Type IV Awakened Entities by actually creating one.

1. They were trying to replicate a sprenblade so it makes sense they would use a metal sword as that was the closest base they had to sprenblades.

[Samaldin he/him]

Nightbood being made from metal could also have something to do with how Invested Vasher and Shashara wanted to make Nightblood.  Edgedancer spoiler

Spoiler

Wyndle says that sprenblades can take any form but they have to be metal because of the way Investiture condenses

so that could mean if you want somehing to hold absolutly ridiculous amounts of Investiture it would need to be metal

[ccstat he/him]

1 hour ago, Sheridan_rd said:

 

1. Sanderson really liked the idea of super powerful talking sword and wrote one into his book

2. Vasher's wife didn't realize the Shardblades on Roshar were sentient.

I suspect #1 is partly the case. The magical sword is a staple in fantasy, and I'm sure that Brandon built Nightblood into the cosmere as his take on that tradition.

In a meta sense, #2 is also probably correct because at the time that Warbreaker was written, Stormlight was still in WoK Prime form, in which spren didn't exist. If I understand correctly, that version of the world had manufactured, non-sentient shardblades, so Nightblood's awareness would have been truly unique. Obviously the canon has changed, and Brandon may have now modified the backstory motivation/understanding that Vasher and Shashara had.

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, ccstat said:

In a meta sense, #2 is also probably correct because at the time that Warbreaker was written, Stormlight was still in WoK Prime form, in which spren didn't exist. If I understand correctly, that version of the world had manufactured, non-sentient shardblades, so Nightblood's awareness would have been truly unique. Obviously the canon has changed, and Brandon may have now modified the backstory motivation/understanding that Vasher and Shashara had.

Not really, he's stated as recently as 2015 (ie, well after canonizing how Shardblades function) that Nightblood was an attempt to create a Shardblade by people who knew of the things, in a different magic system (source). And as Spoolofwhool points out, making the sword sentient was all part of the plan since doing so would prove the existence of Type IV entities. Brandon mentions this in the annotations; Nightblood's sentience wasn't an accident.

[Sheridan_rd]

4 hours ago, ccstat said:

I suspect #1 is partly the case. The magical sword is a staple in fantasy, and I'm sure that Brandon built Nightblood into the cosmere as his take on that tradition.

That's what I thought.

1 hour ago, Weltall said:

Not really, he's stated as recently as 2015 (ie, well after canonizing how Shardblades function) that Nightblood was an attempt to create a Shardblade by people who knew of the things, in a different magic system (source). And as Spoolofwhool points out, making the sword sentient was all part of the plan since doing so would prove the existence of Type IV entities. Brandon mentions this in the annotations; Nightblood's sentience wasn't an accident.

Question answered!

I just figured if the 5 scholars had followed the scientific method they would have done proof of concept experiments before making the leap to creating Nightblood