Shardblades in Middle Earth

[Zmaray he/him]

Would a Shardblade be able to kill a ringwraith?

[Vissy]

By Cosmere standards, the Ringwraiths are extremely invested beings - like Cognitive Shadows with a physical presence. That being said, they probably would anyway, because Shardblades are hax.

[Weltall]

Shardblades cut the Spiritual Realm so if we assume that translates to the Nazgul's own 'plane' then yeah, a Shardblade should be able to hurt tthem. Secret History confirms that you can truly hurt a Cognitive Shadow by damaging the soul so if you assume the Nazgul fill a similar niche then yeah, Shardblades would work. Though Nightblood would be better.

[Knight Oblivion]

I would say that shardblades and honorblades would likely work. Meanwhile, Nightblood would definitely work.

 

So, all three versions of the weapon could do the trick.

[Oversleep]

As I have already said in Random Stuff:

On 30.05.2017 at 2:15 AM, Oversleep said:

Evil overlord who made nine human kings serve him by offering them power. He rules over the wasteland of ash. He was defeated by having the jewelry that contained his lifeforce stolen.

  Hide contents

This guy

  Reveal hidden contents

or this guy?

  Reveal hidden contents

TLR is Sauron. Ruin is probably Morgoth.

[Andy92]

19 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

As I have already said in Random Stuff:

TLR is Sauron. Ruin is probably Morgoth.

Seems accurate since Ruin and Morgoth were both involved in the creation process of their respective worlds. I actually never thought about all the similarities between Middle Earth and Scadrial before. 

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Killing a Ringwraith is tricky since their essence is tied to the rings. You'd probably have to destroy the rings to keep them dead actually.

I agree with Melcor being Ruin. He'd probably make a decent Odium too, what with being chained and his release bringing about the end of the world.

The similarities are likely due to Tolkien borrowing from mythology, and certain archetypes being a major part of our collective unconsciousness.

Now, why does my phone lack a thorn?

[Scriptorian he/him]

I suppose the next logical question is: "Could a shardblade destroy, or even damage, the One Ring?"

And to answer my own question: "Eh, no."

I'd say the Ring is at least as invested as Nightblood, and probably more. It contains the larger share of a demigod's power, and specifically made to be indestructible. None of the rather powerful people in Middle Earth could even dent it. Nightblood would have a better chance, but the Ring's primary mode of defense is to just corrupt everyone nearby into not wanting to destroy it. I don't think Nightblood is quite strong-willed enough to resist that. Of course, is the opposite true? Would the Ring be able to resist Nightblood's "precious effect?" Well, almost certainly, but it was amusing to think about.

But then, what would happen (or could it even happen?) if Nightblood were to take up the One Ring and make himself a new Dark Lord? Since the Ring acts as an amplifier for someone's native power (read: investiture) and given how powerful Nightblood is...the possibilities are indeed troubling. Since Sauron primarily used the Ring to enhance his mind-control powers, to the point where he could affect entire nations, my guess is that Nighblood's nausea/pick-me-up-and-kill-everyone aura would extend to the point of causing continent-wide chaos. This is, of course, assuming he wouldn't just consume all of the Ring's power and vaporize the planet. That would certainly be one way to destroy all of the evil. For the sake of all worlds, we can be glad that this unholy matrimony of Artifacts of Doom can never happen.

Well, that post meandered a bit.

 

[Jace21 he/him]

I actually think Nightblood would be fine at destroying the Ring, at least in theory.

He cant be corrupted, the ring cant offer it anything that it wants. Nightbloods sole purpose is to "destroy evil". Even if he has trouble deciding what that is sometimes I doubt its enough to let the ring sway him. 

And its true the ring is almost indestructible but Middle Earth is actually pretty light on destructive magic when compared to the Cosmere. Its main defence would be how invested it is but Nightblood might work anyway sincs he doesnt seem to follow the usual rules.

The ring could just corrupt his wielder though.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Light on destructive magic?! You do realize that you have wars that sunk continents, a continent being risen and sunk into the sea, poisoness gas clouds killing everyone, and an evil so great the entire world has to be destroyed to remove it? Not to mention the dragons... Ancalagon crushed a mountain range when Earendil killed him.

Of course, by the time we get to LotR the Vala are elsewhere; we see a few severely limited Maiar; one long dormant Balrog; and a badly weakened Maia who wants to dominate, not destroy. The major destructive stuff happened much earlier... and Sauron can't even shapeshift anymore!

Sigh... any one know where I can find a thorn on my I phone?

[Weltall]

3 hours ago, Scriptorian said:

But then, what would happen (or could it even happen?) if Nightblood were to take up the One Ring and make himself a new Dark Lord? Since the Ring acts as an amplifier for someone's native power (read: investiture) and given how powerful Nightblood is...the possibilities are indeed troubling.

Assuming the Ring would work on a sentient sword (I suppose you'd have to lash the former to the latter) I think you'd get a very weird situation where their two corrupting effects are trying to work on each other simultaneously. Nightblood tests to see whether you're 'evil' and if you are, it gets you to ultimately kill yourself. The One Ring enhances your power and corrupts you to be unable to make yourself destroy it and generally tries to manipulate things so it ultimately gets back to Sauron's hand. So the question is, which effect would come out on top? And once we've resolved that, what happens next? Because neither of these unholy sentient artifacts can actually move on their own...

My guess though is that Nightblood's would trump the Ring's. Here's how I imagine it going down: Ring works its magic on Nightblood, Ring tries to convince Nightblood to use its powers for selfish purposes because that's what it's corruption does, Ring thus trigger's Nightblood's Evil-sense and leads it to conclude that the Ring Is Evil And Must Be Destroyed, Nightblood eats the Ring's power. I'm not sure the Ring's own power to keep its bearers from destroying it would apply here because Nightblood is kind of simple-minded ('I'm a sword, it's best to stick to what I'm good at' and all) and literally exists to perform that one Command which is incompatable with the continued existence of the Ring. Sauron's precioussss just doesn't have much to work with there.

Now if you had someone holding both things at the same time... either the Cosmere is doomed because the wielder has just become an uberpowered Dark Lord that would make Rashek look like a chump or Nightblood's effect overpowers the Ring's and the poor sap commits suicide by Nightblood. Which may result in the Ring being destroyed if they try to hack it with the sword first or let Nightblood eat its magic first, or it may result in a dead person and two artifacts just sitting there waiting for the next person to pick them up. I think Nightblood could possibly damage the Ring directly, based on Brandon's assertion that it's the most heavily-Invested thing we've seen that isn't a Shard. So if it's anywhere close to one of our 'fractional gods' in power it might be enough to overcome the Ring's own inherent immutability which is itself on the demigod level.

[Andy92]

I never saw the Ring as corruptive in and of itself. The Ring grants power, and the hearts of most men can't handle that without becoming corrupted (that's why Gandalf thought the hobbits would be better at carrying the Ring than men would in the first place). There's a scene in the books where someone puts on the Ring and it seems to have no affect on them as well. So unlike Nightblood that drains Investitute from its wielder regardless of who it is, the Ring seems to amplify whatever is in the heart of its holder. 

[Jace21 he/him]

3 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Light on destructive magic?! You do realize that you have wars that sunk continents, a continent being risen and sunk into the sea, poisoness gas clouds killing everyone, and an evil so great the entire world has to be destroyed to remove it? Not to mention the dragons... Ancalagon crushed a mountain range when Earendil killed him.

Of course, by the time we get to LotR the Vala are elsewhere; we see a few severely limited Maiar; one long dormant Balrog; and a badly weakened Maia who wants to dominate, not destroy. The major destructive stuff happened much earlier... and Sauron can't even shapeshift anymore!

Oh I know a lot of destruction has happened previously but by the time the ring is really in play, their is little power left to challenge it. 

Numenor is fallen, the elves are weak, and the valar dont interfere. So there isnt too much left to really test the invulnerability of the ring.

As for nightbloods command vs the rings influence I am pretty sure nighblood would win, but someone wielding both the ring and nightblood could be terrifying.

[Oversleep]

1 hour ago, Jace21 said:

Numenor is fallen, the elves are weak, and the valar dont interfere.

Valar avoid interference
Elves weak
Numenor's fallen
There's taint on his soul already
Sauron's ring

[cometaryorbit]

16 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Killing a Ringwraith is tricky since their essence is tied to the rings. You'd probably have to destroy the rings to keep them dead actually.

I think a Shardblade might or might not technically 'kill' them in the sense of them passing to 'the Beyond', but it would be quite capable of injuring their spirits to the point of making them ineffectual.

OTOH, the Witch-king was killed with swords less magical than a Shardblade...

12 hours ago, Scriptorian said:

I'd say the Ring is at least as invested as Nightblood, and probably more.

 

12 hours ago, Scriptorian said:

This is, of course, assuming he wouldn't just consume all of the Ring's power and vaporize the planet.

 

The Ring's power, while great in the relatively low-magic Third Age of Middle-Earth, is pretty small on the Shardic scale.

It contains most of the power of Sauron, but Sauron's power is nowhere near enough to vaporize a planet. The greater Valar (including Melkor originally) have the power to reshape the world - but this may be a relatively slow process, the early timeline of Arda is very long. (Rashek used a fraction of a Shard's power to significantly distort a planet's orbit.) And Sauron is much less powerful than a Vala. He's not terribly impressive in the Silmarillion, when other really powerful beings are around.

Given that the most impressive thing we see him do is shroud Mordor and Gondor in smoke, Sauron is probably comparable to or somewhat lesser than the Stormfather (who can control the highstorms, which are rather larger scale and really powerful).

Given that Nightblood is one of the most Invested non-Shard things in the Cosmere, he's probably on that level. And he's specifically an Investiture-eater; so IMO, Nightblood would shatter the One Ring and eat its Investiture.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

My personal rank system goes: Eru = Adonalsium+ (Eru IS the Abrahamic God so...) Valar = Shards Maia = spren

Killing the witch king was more complex than it seems; the sword Merry assaulted him with was created specifically to harm him. Eowyn only slew him after. Had Sauron regained his full power he would likely have been able to resurrect him. Rongwraiths = Cognitive Shadows? That actually works. So I would see a Shard blade 'killing' them by removing their ability to interact on the physical world, with the rings preventing them from moving on.

I think part of what limited the Valar was the fact that they were creating concepts, starting from scratch, and actively working against someone who undid everything they did. They also have a REALLY weird sense of time. 1 Year = 1000 years, I believe. And time actually moved differently then. Early Arda is WEIRD. (And that's before we get into the two versions of creation...)

Sauron isn't that powerful though, just in comparison to whom he was working against. His real power was always in manipulating others so losing his shape shifting took away one of his major tools. It hurt him a lot more than Moringotho.

Slightly off topic, but what would the Trees and the Silmarilli be considered in the Cosmere? Maybe: Silima = God metal?

Just realized: Ungoliant eats Investiture just like Nightblood! So what would happen if those two met? Especially right after she eats the trees.

@Andy92 The ring definitely corrupted. Tolkien is pretty clear on that. The extent of the corruption actually varied based on many different factors. The Ring's corruption ultimately causes Frodo to fail. Thank Eru for deus ex machina! (Literally; what happened with Gollum was Eru intervening.)

Edited June 4, 2017 by Kingsdaughter613

[cometaryorbit]

8 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Rongwraiths = Cognitive Shadows? That actually works.

Yeah, they are pretty similar - the Morgul knife has the same "contagious ghostliness" effect seen in Threnody's Shades.

 

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Slightly off topic, but what would the Trees and the Silmarilli be considered in the Cosmere? Maybe: Silima = God metal?

Well, the Two Trees are an unrepeatable work by a major Vala, so probably something like a Shardpool, at least in the sense that Yavanna Invested a ton of herself into them

I don't think the Silmarils are really equivalent to a god metal, though, since it's the light within that's really special. The material, while  unbreakable and the work of a peerless craftsman, was made by Feanor, not condensed from godly essence. What makes the Silmarils so important is that they contain the only Unsullied Light left within Arda, not their unbreakability (super-hard materials don't seem to have been terribly unusual in the early Ages of Arda - Orthanc, the wall of Minas Tirith, the palantiri...)

 

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Just realized: Ungoliant eats Investiture just like Nightblood! So what would happen if those two met? Especially right after she eats the trees.

Well, hmm... I think Ungoliant would try to eat Nightblood's Breaths and Nightblood would register Ungoliant as evil and therefore try to make her kill herself. At that particular point, Ungoliant would probably win that one (she was able to capture Morgoth until the Balrogs came to help him out).