Shardblade summoning distance?

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

Is it possible for a person with a shardblade to summon the blade some distance away from their body? In all of the examples we've seen, it appears in their hand, but could this just be because this is the most convenient location?

The reason I was wondering was that Adolin mentions that shard blades normally disappear once you let go, but that with a certain level of concentration the owner can keep them solid. It made me wonder whether concentration could also be used to create distance at the initial summoning instead of maintaining it afterwards.

[Landis963 he/him]

Given what we know of shardblades, I suspect it would be difficult, bordering on impossible, to summon it at a distance from its owner.  However, I suspect that the Radiants could pull tricks like that.  (Being cagey because I don't know whether or not you've read WoR)

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Under the assumption that the blade "spawns in" and then you have to grab it so it doesn't fall, rather than it just appearing in your hand, then I think you could.

If that assumption is right, then you already summon it a small distance away from your hand. I doubt you could ever get more than a foot away, and that would likely take years/decades of practice to master.

With possible exception to Radiants(because reasons), I think the biggest issue with this line of logic is the "why," rather than the "how" or "if." Why would a Shardbearer want to do this? The blade would just fall to the ground and despawn if they don't catch it, so there is a notable lack of incentives for performing this trick.

[Guest]

Seeing how Adolin can't even get his to remain solid when not touching it, I would say it is either incredibly difficult or plain impossible, for Shardbearers. It may be different for Radiants.

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

55 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

(Being cagey because I don't know whether or not you've read WoR)

I have read WOR.

6 minutes ago, maxal said:

Seeing how Adolin can't even get his to remain solid when not touching it, I would say it is either incredibly difficult or plain impossible, for Shardbearers. It may be different for Radiants.

There was one scene where Adolin was practicing throwing his Shardblade, where he notices that it takes considerable concentration to keep it from disappearing upon leaving the hand. I believe that it was in WOR, though I could have gotten it confused with WOK.

37 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Under the assumption that the blade "spawns in" and then you have to grab it so it doesn't fall, rather than it just appearing in your hand, then I think you could.

This was something else that made me ask, since there are a few points in the books where Szeth or another Shardbearer mentions the blade falling into their hand after summoning.

[DocHoliday he/him]

Blades drop into the hand. Dalinar notably disarmed Elhokar with a timely kick, before the Blade dropped into his hand.

[Calderis he/him]

Blade summoning is still tied to hand placement. See Dalinar's summoning of the not-Honorblade against Amaram. 

[Spoolofwhool]

2 hours ago, maxal said:

Seeing how Adolin can't even get his to remain solid when not touching it, I would say it is either incredibly difficult or plain impossible, for Shardbearers. It may be different for Radiants.

He can normally, that was just an unusual lapse for him. He mentally talks about how he mastered shardblade commands ago. Also, summoning a shardblade and lending it to someone else is not a rare practice among high-level lighteyes like Highprinces and the King. That's how the King's blade work.

Spoilered for length.

Spoiler

Adolin threw his Shardblade.

Wielding the weapons was about more than just practicing stances and growing accustomed to the too-light swordplay. A master of the Blade learned to do more with the bond. He learned to command it to remain in place after being dropped, and learned to summon it back from the hands of those who might have picked it up. He learned that man and sword were, in some ways, one. The weapon became a piece of your soul.

Adolin had learned to control his Blade in this way. Usually. Today, the weapon disintegrated almost immediately after leaving his fingers.

The long, silvery Blade transmuted to white vapor—holding its shape for just a brief moment, like a smoke ring—before exploding in a puff of writhing white streams. Adolin growled in frustration, pacing back and forth on the plateau, hand held out to the side as he resummoned the weapon. Ten heartbeats. At times, it felt like an eternity.

He wore his Plate without the helm, which sat atop a nearby rock, and so his hair blew free in the early morning breeze. He needed the Plate; his left shoulder and side were a mass of purple bruises. His head still ached from slamming into the ground during the assassin’s attack last night. Without the Plate, he wouldn’t be nearly so nimble today.

Besides, he needed its strength. He kept looking over his shoulder, expecting the assassin to be there. He’d stayed up all night last night, sitting on the floor outside his father’s room, wearing Plate, arms crossed on his knees, chewing ridgebark to stay awake.

He’d been caught without his Plate once. Not again.

And what will you do? he thought to himself as his Blade reappeared. Wear it all the time?

The part of him that asked such questions was rational. He didn’t want to be rational right now.

He shook the condensation from his Blade, then twisted and hurled it, transmitting the mental commands that would tell it to hold together. Once again, the weapon shattered to mist moments after it left his fingers. It didn’t even cross half the distance to the rock formation he was aiming for.

What was wrong with him? He’d mastered Blade commands years ago. True, he hadn’t often practiced throwing his sword—such things were forbidden in duels, and he hadn’t ever thought he’d need to use the maneuver. That was before he’d been trapped on the ceiling of a hallway, unable to properly engage an assassin.

- Words of Radiance, Chapter 36

 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

He can normally, that was just an unusual lapse for him. He mentally talks about how he mastered shardblade commands ago. Also, summoning a shardblade and lending it to someone else is not a rare practice among high-level lighteyes like Highprinces and the King. That's how the King's blade work.

I have personally always find it odd Adolin would struggle with the command. I never gotten a decent answer for it as "he was stressed and tired" doesn't seem to be enough to explain it. Adolin himself is surprised he can't make it work and I am surprised too. 

[Calderis he/him]

37 minutes ago, maxal said:

I have personally always find it odd Adolin would struggle with the command. I never gotten a decent answer for it as "he was stressed and tired" doesn't seem to be enough to explain it. Adolin himself is surprised he can't make it work and I am surprised too. 

I always took it as stress and fatigue and the fear he didn't want to acknowledge. Szeth had trounced them. He felt incapable of defending his father from an assassin who had flatly stated they were coming to kill his father. 

Fear, stress, and pushing yourself to fatigue because of those two, can easily disrupt the ability to focus. 

I work in a skilled construction trade, so at times there are short term periods of round the clock work. During those we now have a rule in place that no one can work past 20 hours straight because it wasn't uncommon for people to work 25-35 hours, then try to drive home and die and/or kill someone by falling asleep at the wheel. 

Adolin was pushing himself hard at that point, and as much as it gets underestimated, sleep deprivation is no joke. 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Calderis

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

I always took it as stress and fatigue and the fear he didn't want to acknowledge. Szeth had trounced them. He felt incapable of defending his father from an assassin who had flatly stated they were coming to kill his father. 

Fear, stress, and pushing yourself to fatigue because of those two, can easily disrupt the ability to focus. 

I work in a skilled construction trade, so at times there are short term periods of round the clock work. During those we now have a rule in place that no one can work past 20 hours straight because it wasn't uncommon for people to work 25-35 hours, then try to drive home and die and/or kill someone by falling asleep at the wheel. 

Adolin was pushing himself hard at that point, and as much as it gets underestimated, sleep deprivation is no joke. 

Fair point, but how is it we do not see other Shardbearers experience the same issue? How come Renarin has no trouble with his Blade commands? Isn't he even more stressed and feared than Adolin? This is the common assumption... Shouldn't Adolin, with all his experience, be able to push through one sleepless night? Was the event truly this unsettling to him?

I had wondered about it as if one encounter with Szeth can do this to Adolin, what will the aftermath of Sadeas's death do to him?

[Calderis he/him]

42 minutes ago, maxal said:

Fair point, but how is it we do not see other Shardbearers experience the same issue? How come Renarin has no trouble with his Blade commands? Isn't he even more stressed and feared than Adolin? This is the common assumption... Shouldn't Adolin, with all his experience, be able to push through one sleepless night? Was the event truly this unsettling to him?

I had wondered about it as if one encounter with Szeth can do this to Adolin, what will the aftermath of Sadeas's death do to him?

When did we see Renarin use a blade command?

Edit: I feel like I'm definitely forgetting something, but I can't think of an example of a blade staying after being thrown/dropped, other than Adolin practicing, and Honorblades. 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Calderis

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

There was the time Dalinar offered his shardblade to Sadeas, but it's possible there was some other factor since he was planning to give it away. That or the fact he stabbed it directly into stone could have had an influence.

Also, thanks to @Spoolofwhool for finding the exact chapter I was thinking of. I couldn't find the specific page in order to quote it, so it's nice to have a reference.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

When did we see Renarin use a blade command?

Edit: I feel like I'm definitely forgetting something, but I can't think of an example of a blade staying after being thrown/dropped, other than Adolin practicing, and Honorblades. 

We saw Renarin do it, twice. Once, after the fight with Szeth, Renarin is looking distressed, sitting down, his Blade discarded at his feet. Then, after the 4 on 1 duel, he cries in a corner with his Blade laying at his feet.

We also see Aladar lent his Blade to his champion during fights and Dalinar allows his to remain solid, far-way from him, for a long period of time, in order to trap Amaram.

Thus, Adolin remains the sole example of a Shardbearer having trouble with the command. The fact Renarin can do it, despite also being highly distressed and untrained is rather.... odd or it is odd Adolin struggles so much.

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, maxal said:

Thus, Adolin remains the sole example of a Shardbearer having trouble with the command. The fact Renarin can do it, despite also being highly distressed and untrained is rather.... odd or it is odd Adolin struggles so much.

No evidence for this, but I feel Renarin's is a conflict with his Nahel bond keeping the blade from disappearing in an attempt to be rid of it. As for the others, Dalinar is Dalinar, and Aladar primarily used his Blade in that fashion, so he probably has more practice in "lending" the blade than in actually using it.

Furthermore, I think the command is only needed in initiating the blade from not disappearing. So in both Aladar and Dalinar's examples, they gave the blade command, and then handed the blade off. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

I don't know how much evidence there is to back this up, but this seems kinda like a silver/bronze situation. Get bronze, you're just happy to medal. Get silver, you're crushed about not getting gold.

Adolin thinks that he should have been able to defend his father, and the fact that he couldn't is eating away at him because he's letting it affect him. Renarin seems like he has a more realistic opinion of what his limits are due to his sickness, so while he's also devastated that he couldn't protect Dalinar, he seems more capable of understanding that he "couldn't have stopped Szeth," while Adolin thinks that he "should have stopped Szeth, but wasn't able to."

As subtle of a distinction as that is, it makes all the difference when it comes to maintaining your composure and concentration.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Calderis said:

No evidence for this, but I feel Renarin's is a conflict with his Nahel bond keeping the blade from disappearing in an attempt to be rid of it. As for the others, Dalinar is Dalinar, and Aladar primarily used his Blade in that fashion, so he probably has more practice in "lending" the blade than in actually using it.

Furthermore, I think the command is only needed in initiating the blade from not disappearing. So in both Aladar and Dalinar's examples, they gave the blade command, and then handed the blade off. 

Technically, all Adolin has to do is give the Blade the command and then throw it. It shouldn't be much different from Aladar and Dalinar handling theirs.

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

I don't know how much evidence there is to back this up, but this seems kinda like a silver/bronze situation. Get bronze, you're just happy to medal. Get silver, you're crushed about not getting gold.

Adolin thinks that he should have been able to defend his father, and the fact that he couldn't is eating away at him because he's letting it affect him. Renarin seems like he has a more realistic opinion of what his limits are due to his sickness, so while he's also devastated that he couldn't protect Dalinar, he seems more capable of understanding that he "couldn't have stopped Szeth," while Adolin thinks that he "should have stopped Szeth, but wasn't able to."

As subtle of a distinction as that is, it makes all the difference when it comes to maintaining your composure and concentration.

This too makes sense but then again, is true, it means Adolin is under serious stress. Not that I ever doubted he were, but it is always something I have been reluctant to push forward as the general perspective is Renarin is the stressed out one, not Adolin.

I definitely do think being so useless in a fight truly unsettled Adolin, especially since it was a fight to defend his father. I am not sure about the bronze versus silver medalist analogy as I never read Adolin as someone wanting to win just so he could say he won, but wanting to win such as to reassert his family's honor. I don't think he'd be disappointed to be bested out within a fair duel, but knowing he failed in his self-imposed task of being strong for his family members perhaps truly got to him.

Still, his instincts as a fighter should allow him to maintain his composure. The fact he couldn't does tell us how vulnerable he is to highly stressful situations. The ability to handle stress is bond to grow in importance as the foes they fight will become more and more terrible and unbeatable. 

It makes me fear for Adolin 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 minute ago, maxal said:

I am not sure about the bronze versus silver medalist analogy as I never read Adolin as someone wanting to win just so he could say he won, but wanting to win such as to reassert his family's honor.

I merely meant it in the sense that his view on what he does/achieves was different than Renarin's view. Starting from a low point(his sickness) changes the perspective on success and failure. Starting from the high point(heir to highprincedom, a skilled duelist, etc..) shifted Adolin's perspective, even if his reasons(honor) remained pure. While what happened wasn't a game in any sense, that shifted perspective changes how you handle any loss.

He wins duels all the time, and has the confidence to back it up. You are right that if he lost a duel, he'd have enjoyed getting a run for his money rather than beat himself up about losing. But even with all that confidence, he failed when it counts.

9 minutes ago, maxal said:

should allow him to maintain his composure. The fact he couldn't does tell us how vulnerable he is to highly stressful situations. The ability to handle stress is bond to grow in importance as the foes they fight will become more and more terrible and unbeatable. 

It makes me fear for Adolin 

I agree with this sentiment. Something is gonna have to happen to him to rectify the situation, and I've no idea what Brandon has in mind. And that worries me

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I merely meant it in the sense that his view on what he does/achieves was different than Renarin's view. Starting from a low point(his sickness) changes the perspective on success and failure. Starting from the high point(heir to highprincedom, a skilled duelist, etc..) shifted Adolin's perspective, even if his reasons(honor) remained pure. While what happened wasn't a game in any sense, that shifted perspective changes how you handle any loss.

He wins duels all the time, and has the confidence to back it up. You are right that if he lost a duel, he'd have enjoyed getting a run for his money rather than beat himself up about losing. But even with all that confidence, he failed when it counts.

This is all true, but wouldn't you say Renarin is highly keen on proving himself? He also he didn't experienced the disastrous fight, he was told to stay and protect the king. He argued against it, but ended obeying. When we next see him, he is sitting, looking defeated with his Blade set at his feet. Now, there are no ways to evaluate Renarin's stress levels within this scene, but he is a highly untrained Shardbearer: he doesn't have Adolin's years of experience and whichever training he did get, he had to punch through it while weathering a screaming Blade, wrongly thinking it was his head which was abnormal. In any advent, that kid is tough. Radiant or no, the commands for a dead-Blade ought to be the same and if this one can go wrong when the bearer lacks focus and/or concentration, then Renarin surely has an unknown ability here. Or the command isn't hard and the problem is just Adolin.

I think the last sentence summarizes it best: he failed when it mattered the most. It makes me wonder how he would have handled losing one of his Shards duels... 

39 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I agree with this sentiment. Something is gonna have to happen to him to rectify the situation, and I've no idea what Brandon has in mind. And that worries me

I have had a lot speculative thoughts for Adolin: he lost the Thrill. We saw how it unsettled him. We saw Dalinar being unsettled when losing the Thrill, but we never saw Dalinar literally stop fighting and/or dropping his Blade.in the mist of battle. Adolin trembled all over and he couldn't fight. What would have happened had he still needed to fight, had he not encountered Eshonai offering a "fair duel", something he could do?

Fighting Szeth unsettled him hard enough he failed at commanding his Blade. What if it happens in a moment where he actually need control? 

Will Brandon push Adolin further down, will he make him freeze in battle? Him. 

So yeah, it does worry me, but at the same time, it would make a good story... 

[Calderis he/him]

I actually wonder if this is an instance where Renarins autism is helping him. Focus on the blade command my have been a handy distraction to help him deal with the overwhelming emotions he must have been feeling. 

[bschnebs he/him]

On 7/1/2017 at 6:16 PM, Faceless Mist-Wraith said:

Is it possible for a person with a shardblade to summon the blade some distance away from their body? In all of the examples we've seen, it appears in their hand, but could this just be because this is the most convenient location?

The reason I was wondering was that Adolin mentions that shard blades normally disappear once you let go, but that with a certain level of concentration the owner can keep them solid. It made me wonder whether concentration could also be used to create distance at the initial summoning instead of maintaining it afterwards.

I'd say its probably one of those instances of where they've come to expect the blades to behave in a certain way, so they do.  I figure if somebody didn't "know" it had to be summoned to hand, then they could summon it elsewhere.  Brandon seems to have a lot of abilities be limited by the user's perception of how they work.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

15 hours ago, maxal said:

I have personally always find it odd Adolin would struggle with the command. I never gotten a decent answer for it as "he was stressed and tired" doesn't seem to be enough to explain it. Adolin himself is surprised he can't make it work and I am surprised too. 

For the sake of argument, I would propose that post-traumatic stress would be a suitable and realistic explanation for Adolin's behavior in this scene.

Adolin was used to feeling like a God on the battlefield, killing dozens (hundreds?) of enemy soldiers at a time while wildly outnumbered without suffering more than minor wounds.  He is renowned as one of the greatest duelists in the world, and his father is widely speculated to be among the greatest warriors to live since the fall of the Radiants.  And they didn't just lose to Szeth, they got trounced.  And who saved the day?  A bridgeman Adolin had been something of a jerk to.

In this scenario, Adolin's wealth of combat experience could actually have worked against him in terms of the psychological effect the defeat would have on him.  Renarin was brave certainly, but deep down, he probably didn't expect to win; he's a smart guy, and not afraid to face a challenge, but he's inexperienced and untrained.  He got over the "defeat" because in his eyes, it could've been much worse.  If Chuck Liddell (former UFC Heavyweight Champion) attacked me, and I managed to come out alive, I'd get over getting beat up relatively quickly because I'd have had no reasonable expectation of doing better than that.

The emotional anguish, humiliation, and feelings of insecurity encountered by failing utterly at a task you believe you have mastered after a lifetime of disciplined training can manifest in extreme ways.  Additionally, near-death experiences are known to affect different people very differently.  Sanderson interviewed active duty and veteran service members during his research for the Stormlight Archive; while Adolin's intense psychological reaction to his near-death defeat by Szeth might seem unrealistic at a glance for a war-hardened veteran of dozens of intense battles, I think it's actually extremely realistic and "human" of him.  It's just something that, thankfully, most people don't ever have to face.

Anyhow, that was my interpretation of things.  I generally don't like Adolin as a character, but I actually feel like his occasional moments of weakness make him much more believable.

Back to OP's question, people exist primarily in the physical realm, which is, spatially, very rigidly and location dependent.  Action at a distance magic in the physical realm is relatively short-range for other magic systems, such as those seen on Scadrial, Nalthis, Sel, and First of the Sun.  Just as a general rule of thumb, if you're doing magic in the Cosmere in the Physical Realm, the effect usually manifests pretty close to your physical location.  The sole exception I can think of off the top of my head is Elantrian teleportation, however, I would argue that Elantrians are weird, so this shouldn't count against me.  In other words, blades probably can't be summoned any meaningful distance away from the body.

[Guest]

19 hours ago, hwiles said:

The emotional anguish, humiliation, and feelings of insecurity encountered by failing utterly at a task you believe you have mastered after a lifetime of disciplined training can manifest in extreme ways.  Additionally, near-death experiences are known to affect different people very differently.  Sanderson interviewed active duty and veteran service members during his research for the Stormlight Archive; while Adolin's intense psychological reaction to his near-death defeat by Szeth might seem unrealistic at a glance for a war-hardened veteran of dozens of intense battles, I think it's actually extremely realistic and "human" of him.  It's just something that, thankfully, most people don't ever have to face.

That's a great interpretation, though when Brandon interviewed war veterans, he meant to have their advice for how to write Kaladin, not Adolin. It doesn't mean he isn't writing some of it into Adolin's character arc, but as far as I am aware, he isn't one of the character he did research for.

I personally love the scene and I wish there was more of them: they truly help flesh out Adolin's character as more than an empty place-holder for an evil path.

 

[gbazz4 he/him]

On 7/1/2017 at 7:37 PM, The One Who Connects said:

With possible exception to Radiants(because reasons), I think the biggest issue with this line of logic is the "why," rather than the "how" or "if." Why would a Shardbearer want to do this? The blade would just fall to the ground and despawn if they don't catch it, so there is a notable lack of incentives for performing this trick.

If you could summon it at a distance from you could you summon it where the blade actually appears in the physical realm piercing another person? That might make for possible creative uses of a shardblade. Maybe if you are in battle and you see a friend too far away to help you de-summon and re-summon to kill the individual threatening your friend? Or a shardblade wielding assassin could do that from far away to not give away their identity. I guess this would all a depend on how far away you could summon your blade if you could summon it away from your hand. Just some thoughts.

[soulcastJam he/him]

I've always thought there was a difference between the way Adolin keeps his blade intact while throwing, and keeping the blade intact for lending.

In the case of lending, the blade is to remain intact indefinitely until it is summoned back to the owners hand. You take the blade from a semi-stable state, bound to the physical realm by direct contact with the owner, and place it in a stable state in the physical realm where no contact is required. It is locked there until summoned.

In the case of throwing, the blade is supposed to stay intact, but only for a limited time. The difficulty for Adolin is that he is keeping the blade in a highly unstable state without the stabilization coming from physical contact. In this case the blade will disappear when he stops focusing on it. He doesn't have to summon it for it to disappear. This is very important. If he threw the blade in a stable state then in the 10 heartbeats it takes to resummon the blade someone could pick up or catch the blade and use it for their own purposes. <del>Or they could break the gemstone, severing the ties to him and he could lose the blade forever.</del>

My point is, Adolin's trick is orders of magnitude harder than what is happening with the king's blade.

As a further illustration, take this visual.

You have a bowling ball and a small hill. You can easily put the ball on either side of the hill (stable physical realm or dismissed blade). You can also hold the ball on top of the hill with your hand (summoned blade). It's very difficult to keep the ball on top of the hill without your hand however (summoned and thrown blade).

Edited July 6, 2017 by soulcastJam