Crazy Theory Time: Nightblood

[galendo]

This post is to theorize about Nightblood: how he was made, and why he's so powerful.  Warbreaker spoilers ahoy!

What we know about Nightblood's' creation:

-- Nightblood was made by a group of scholars trying to make a Shardblade using Awakening (Warbreaker)

-- At least one of the scholars had worldhopped to Roshar and seen Shardblades (WoB)

-- His creation involved around 1000 Breaths (Warbreaker)

-- "Something more" than just 1000 Breaths was required (WoB)

-- Nightblood has grown more powerful with time (WoB)

Now of course one simple explanation is that Nightblood started off with no more Investure than those 1000 Breaths -- barely a fiftieth of what the god-king has and probably not too far off from a Radiant spren, and grew stronger over time by consuming other Investure.  In support of this theory, we know that Nightblood seems to get somnolent after being unsheathed, like a person after a full meal, and we also know that some creatures (like Larken) can eat Investure.  This explanation falls a little flat, though, when we consider the sheer amount of growth required to go from ~1000 Breaths to "the most Invested object in the Cosmere".  Nightblood doesn't get wielded all that much -- he can't, given the speed at which he goes through his holder's own Breath, so it seems pretty unlikely that he'd have the chance to eat the millions (billions?) of Breaths' worth of Investure required.

Having Nightblood gaining power by taking others' Investure has another problem, too -- at least, if his Investure comes solely from Endowment.  Endowment's Breaths are all about giving to another person, not taking from another person.  If Nightblood were made solely from Breath, this sort of consumption would be antithetical to the nature of Breath and Endowment.

But what if his Investure weren't entirely from Endowment?

Minor Mistborn spoiler:

Spoiler

Up until now, the theory's been reasonably sane.  In fact, probably the most logical extension is that Nightblood has been making use of Ruin's Hemalurgy.  He's arguably a metal spike that's gone around spiking people (at least for a very loose interpretation of the term), and we know that Hemalurgy can steal Investure.  It still seems, though, like it would be hard to steal so much.

But I would like to draw your attention to another Shard that is about taking stuff, at least if his injunction to Dalinar to "Give me your pain" and the subsuming of Moash's passion are any indication.  Everybody's favorite Rosharan Shard, Odium.  It's also worth noting that all of his Unmade are about destruction.  Sja-anat corrupts spren, Yelig-nar consumes his users, the Thrill drives entire armies to destroy each other.  Why is this noteworthy?  Because Nightblood's Awakened Command is to "Destroy evil."

It's time to jump off the deep end, folks.

What if Nightblood were made not just with 1000 Breaths -- not even primarily with 1000 Breaths -- but using as its base one of the Unmade themselves?

Sound crazy?  It is.  (That's why I entitled this thread Crazy Theory Time.)  But that doesn't mean there isn't evidence to support it.

First of all, note that there's at least one missing Unmade.  One indication is from the chapter headings:

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"It will not take a careful reader to ascertain I have listed only eight of the Unmade here. Lore is confident there were nine, an unholy number, asymmetrical and often associated with the enemy."

"I am certain there are nine Unmade. There are many legends and names that I could have misinterpreted, conflating two Unmade into one. In the next section, I will discuss my theories on this."

"If I'm correct and my research true, then the question remains. Who is the ninth Unmade? Is it truly Dai-Gonarthis? If so, could their actions have actually caused the complete destruction of Aimia?"

Another possible missing Unmade is in the fact that there are apparently only nine of them, when what we know about Roshar suggests that there probably ought to have been ten.  So take your pick, whether from the chapter headings or from the nine/ten discrepancy.  At least one Unmade is unaccounted for.

Second, note that Nightblood bleeds black smoke.  You know who else bleeds black smoke?  The Midnight Mother, one of the Unmade.  Although my memory's not the greatest, I believe that the Unmade and their works are the only instance in all the Cosmere where we've seen black smoke, other than Nightblood.

Third, remember that at least one and perhaps all of the Five Scholars had been to Roshar (at the very least, Vasher knows how to get there).  Remember too that the Manywar was going on at the time too, leading to an arms race.  We know from Warbreaker that there was an arms-race with Lifeless; and we also know that Ysteel, like Vasher and Shashara, knew how to make Awakened swords (presumably Denth and Arsteel did, too).  So it seems at least plausible that there would have been an arms-race with Awakened swords as well.

So you've got a group of people who've been to Roshar, have observed the shardblade/spren interaction, and who were in the midst of an ever-greater arms race.  Investure's a lot easier to get at on Roshar than it is on Nalthis, and at least some spren can already turn into Shardblades.  Plus, spren can be stuffed into gemstones for convenient transportation.  Why restrict yourself solely to Breaths when you've got all that convenient Rosharan Investure just sitting there?  It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that one of them would have thought to stuff the biggest spren of all -- one of the mindless Unmade -- into a gem for convenient Shardblade repurposing.

In this case, the thousand Breaths would have been more of a...modification to the Unmade's original drive than a true Command.  Not mindless destroying, but destroying evil.

And hey presto, that gives you one of the most Invested objects in all the Cosmere.  It gives you, in short, Nightblood.

[Kon-Tiki he/him]

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Walin[PENDING REVIEW]

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson[PENDING REVIEW]

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it. 

source

I think this is a cleaner explanation of the question you're trying to answer

[Dalakaar he/him]

3 minutes ago, galendo said:

Nightblood doesn't get wielded all that much -- he can't, given the speed at which he goes through his holder's own Breath, so it seems pretty unlikely that he'd have the chance to eat the millions (billions?) of Breaths' worth of Investure required.

Millions no, but it's worth considering how Vasher typically uses him. He goes through quite a few people every time Vasher drops him at their feet and lets em kill themselves. And we know Vasher has been around for a long time (hundreds of years) presumably, doing exactly that to people he doesn't like. So again, millions not likely, but thousands? Actually quite plausible. I wasn't keeping a kill-counter but in Warbreaker alone Vasher uses that tactic frequently.

---

That aside not sure about the theory as I have a couple ideas that contradict a few things. Sounds interesting though. It does make me ponder something along similar lines... 

What if Nightblood was used against an Unmade? 

 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

Not to mention all the Lifeless that he "poofs" with just a scratch, probably takes their investiture in that action as well!

 

[Scion of the Mists]

I don't remember anyone else coming up with a possible Nightblood-Hemalurgy connection.  It's very interesting!  Especially now that we have the Hemalurgy table: Aluminum spikes take all powers from the victim, and the heart is the universal bindpoint.  What are "evil" people compelled to do with Nightblood: stab themselves in the heart.  

[galendo]

13 hours ago, Dalakaar said:

Millions no, but it's worth considering how Vasher typically uses him. He goes through quite a few people every time Vasher drops him at their feet and lets em kill themselves. And we know Vasher has been around for a long time (hundreds of years) presumably, doing exactly that to people he doesn't like. So again, millions not likely, but thousands? Actually quite plausible. I wasn't keeping a kill-counter but in Warbreaker alone Vasher uses that tactic frequently.

Yes, but the thing to remember is that we're seeing Nightblood being used at times of...high activity, for lack of a better term.  For most of the past several hundred years presumably Vasher hasn't been going around murdering random people.  I'm pretty sure Nightblood spends something like 99.99% of his time in his sheath.  Probably more.  So sure, he might pick up a few kills here and there, but the main times of gain are when he's being actually wielded.  Which are almost certainly few and far between.

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What if Nightblood was used against an Unmade? 

Possible, but the thing is that Nightblood just doesn't seem noticeably more powerful in OB than he does in WB.  Of course we haven't seen a whole lot of him in OB, but he seems to behave about the same as he did in WB.  So unless it was something that was done around the time of his creation (or at least, prior to WB...what was Vasher up to for the past three hundred years?), or unless eating an Unmade had less effect than I would think, then we need to look elsewhere.

13 hours ago, Green Hoodie Mistborn said:

Not to mention all the Lifeless that he "poofs" with just a scratch, probably takes their investiture in that action as well!

I'm guessing that he does.  But the thing is, he's still got to be getting most of his Investure from his user.  Referring again to when Vasher uses him in WB, he probably eats a couple hundred Breaths from Vasher in the time that Vasher kills...I forget but maybe a couple dozen Lifeless.  If you were quick and careful you could maybe get it down to more of a 1:1 ratio, but most of the time Nightblood's eating more Investure from his user than he is from his foes (at least on Nalthis; I'm not sure how much Investure a Fused or one of those big rock monsters contains).

4 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I don't remember anyone else coming up with a possible Nightblood-Hemalurgy connection.  It's very interesting!  Especially now that we have the Hemalurgy table: Aluminum spikes take all powers from the victim, and the heart is the universal bindpoint.  What are "evil" people compelled to do with Nightblood: stab themselves in the heart.  

Huh.  That's a great connection, too.  I haven't seen the Hemalurgy table, though it seems weird to me that there's a universal bindpoint, especially one as big and obvious as the heart.(why even bother spiking people anywhere else?), but if so then that's a great observation.

[Ripheus23]

I'll raise you a crazy theory and suggest that the Five Scholars knew about the Unmade as representations of evil, and those were what Shashara was visualizing when she issued the Command, "Destroy evil." So maybe an Unmade was destroyed to make Nightblood, and then Nightblood was made to destroy the rest of the Unmade 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Ripheus23

[Dalakaar he/him]

4 minutes ago, galendo said:

Yes, but the thing to remember is that we're seeing Nightblood being used at times of...high activity, for lack of a better term.  For most of the past several hundred years presumably Vasher hasn't been going around murdering random people.  I'm pretty sure Nightblood spends something like 99.99% of his time in his sheath.  Probably more.  So sure, he might pick up a few kills here and there, but the main times of gain are when he's being actually wielded.  Which are almost certainly few and far between.

Vasher seems the active type to me pre-Zahel-level-boredom. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree given the amount of qualifiers. (Ie. the lack of real information on his past.) We just don't know.

[supersmith]

22 hours ago, galendo said:

I'm guessing that he does.  But the thing is, he's still got to be getting most of his Investure from his user.  Referring again to when Vasher uses him in WB, he probably eats a couple hundred Breaths from Vasher in the time that Vasher kills...I forget but maybe a couple dozen Lifeless.  If you were quick and careful you could maybe get it down to more of a 1:1 ratio, but most of the time Nightblood's eating more Investure from his user than he is from his foes (at least on Nalthis; I'm not sure how much Investure a Fused or one of those big rock monsters contains).

Where are the breaths going? Like it says that Nightblood "eats" a lot of breath whenever you unsheathe it, so where are they going? They can't be destroyed, so maybe nightblood uses them to become more powerful. 

[+ILuvHats he/him]

24 minutes ago, supersmith said:

Where are the breaths going? Like it says that Nightblood "eats" a lot of breath whenever you unsheathe it, so where are they going? They can't be destroyed, so maybe nightblood uses them to become more powerful. 

You’re right to think the investiture can’t be destroyed, but it can be recycled, so not all of the investiture Nightblood consumes is necessarily increasing his investiture content.  Some of it could be sent back into the cognitive realm, or something. 

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uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

But you’re also right to think what he consumes at least partially adds to his power, since this is the most likely explanation for Nightblood becoming more invested over time.  We don’t know exactly what Nightblood does with the investiture though.  

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@Effir

What happens to the investiture that nightblood 'consumes'?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

 

[supersmith]

Ya I guess it could just be recycled, but it makes more sense to me if Nightblood just uses it. 

[galendo]

22 hours ago, supersmith said:

Ya I guess it could just be recycled, but it makes more sense to me if Nightblood just uses it. 

It's probably a bit of both.  Brandon tends to write magic systems that mirror real-life physics, and no (useful) physical process is 100% efficient.  So even if Nightblood's "eating" the Investure, he's probably not eating all of it.

The black smoke that he bleeds is probably an indication of the Investure working its way back into the ecosystem.  It seems to be magical in nature, after all, and it's pretty clearly going away from him.

On 1/15/2019 at 11:19 AM, Ripheus23 said:

I'll raise you a crazy theory and suggest that the Five Scholars knew about the Unmade as representations of evil, and those were what Shashara was visualizing when she issued the Command, "Destroy evil." So maybe an Unmade was destroyed to make Nightblood, and then Nightblood was made to destroy the rest of the Unmade 

That's actually kind of a cool idea.  It would explain what Nightblood's doing on Roshar, too.  Granted the most likely reason is just that Vasher brought him and lost him somehow, but this idea definitely seems more clever.