Azure's "Shardblade"

[+robardin]

Remind me again, what is it about her blade that makes the Rosharans immediately consider it a "Shardblade", given that it has no gemstone, doesn't get dismissed or summoned but is kept in a sheath, doesn't burn people's eyes out but instead turns them gray as they die, and is the size of an ordinary sidesword rather than the usual "oversized", practically two-handed size of a normal deadspren Blade? Though the Fused assaulting Kholinar while she commanded the Wall Guard were also instinctively leery of getting too close to it?

[aneonfoxtribute]

It's just a really strong, exceptionally powerful sword. On Roshar, they have regular swords and Shardblades. It doesn't do the same thing as a normal Shardblade, but it's obvious not a normal sword, so they just conclude that it's some weird Shardblade. And they're not exactly WRONG, either. Nightblood is technically a Shardblade (as said by WoB, it's just a lot more dangerous than your average Blade), and Azure's sword is just a weaker, more controllable version of Nightblood. 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Frame of reference. 

[+robardin]

9 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

It's just a really strong, exceptionally powerful sword. On Roshar, they have regular swords and Shardblades. It doesn't do the same thing as a normal Shardblade, but it's obvious not a normal sword, so they just conclude that it's some weird Shardblade. And they're not exactly WRONG, either. Nightblood is technically a Shardblade (as said by WoB, it's just a lot more dangerous than your average Blade), and Azure's sword is just a weaker, more controllable version of Nightblood. 

Yes, I realize that her sword is akin to a Shardblade if it is (as we all assume) a "Type IV BioChromatically Awakened Entity" like Nightblood was meant to be. The sentient spren in Shadesmar recognize it as such, too, noting with surprise that it did not involve "killing" one of their number.

But on Roshar, particularly in Alethkar, there is so much tied into the mystique of Shardblades - ten heartbeats to summon, improbably enormous to wield without their built-in magic, cutting through things like they weren't even there, magnetically drawing one's eyes to them, etc., - that a "sword-plus" that doesn't meet any of those descriptions getting called a "Shardblade" seems a bit odd to me. I mean, it also makes the bearer "automatically of the fourth dahn".

I agree that it's clearly a case of "well, it's a magic sword, ergo, Shardblade"... But what's the tell that her blade is "magic" to a non-spren, just by looking at it? Does it give off a "vibe of power"?

Edited June 18, 2019 by robardin

[Karger]

25 minutes ago, robardin said:

I agree that it's clearly a case of "well, it's a magic sword, ergo, Shardblade"... But what's the tell that her blade is "magic" to a non-spren, just by looking at it? Does it give off a "vibe of power"?

It is likely pretty invested so I would guess so.

[+ILuvHats]

25 minutes ago, robardin said:

I agree that it's clearly a case of "well, it's a magic sword, ergo, Shardblade"... But what's the tell that her blade is "magic" to a non-spren, just by looking at it? Does it give off a "vibe of power"?

Well, there’s nothing immediately magical about it at first glance (that normal people can discern) except that it’s much larger than normal swords, which would lead most Rosharans to immediately believe it’s a shardblade. And their belief would be reaffirmed when they see it cut through people (kinda).

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, ILuvHats said:

Well, there’s nothing immediately magical about it at first glance (that normal people can discern) except that it’s much larger than normal swords, which would lead most Rosharans to immediately believe it’s a shardblade. And their belief would be reaffirmed when they see it cut through people (kinda).

Is it, though? Nightblood is described as being "larger than normal" in Warbreaker, which has two reasons - one, it was made for a Returned, and two, it was based on having seen Rosharan (deadspren) Shardblades, which are similarly oversized. But when I went back to see how Azure's sword was described, it's not mentioned as unusually large.

The first time it is mentioned is when someone on the Wall Guard is telling Kaladin about how Azure stepped in after their former commander had fallen during riots when the Cult of Moments attempted to seize the city gates. "We were almost overwhelmed, then Azure joined us, holding aloft a gleaming Shardblade."

Then, when Highmarshal Azure shows up and is a woman (to Kaladin's surprise),

Quote

The highmarshal was of average height for an Alethi woman, maybe just under, and wore her hair straight and short, reaching halfway down her cheeks. Her eyes were orange, and she wore a side sword with a glistening silver basket hilt. That wasn't Alethi design. Was it the aforementioned Shardblade? It did have an otherworldly look about it, but why wear it instead of dismissing it?

Kaladin thinks of it as a "Shardblade" because he's already been told the Highmarshal had has one. But it's also described as being worn as "a side sword", meaning on the hip, by a woman of slightly below average height - definitely a normal Rosharan Shardblade would be too large/long to be able to do.

The first time we see it drawn is after Kaladin helps the Wall Guard fight some Fused who were testing out its defenses, becoming the first one of them to kill a Fused, who avoid fighting Azure with her Blade drawn. He finds her with her characteristic fighting stance that includes wearing her cloak around the forearm (likely Awakening it to help give her additional strength); "Her unsheathed Shardblade glittered, long and silvery."

(On the other hand, it does seem like her blade cuts through stone as easily as a normal Shardblade would, as she mentions using it to cut out blocks of it to Soulcast into food in the chamber lined with aluminum panels provided by Hoid.)

Later, as Elhokar leads their team to try to take the palace, Adolin summons his Blade and reflects on how "no sheath could hold a weapon like this, and no mortal sword could imitate it - not without growing unusably heavy. You knew a Shardblade when you saw one. That was the point." And yet, Azure's "Shardblade" doesn't qualify under those critieria! (Unless the "when you see it..." bit applies?)

Plus, where normal Shardblades feel unusually light for their size, an Awakened sword like Nightblood feels unusually heavy (even accounting for being oversized), due to all the Investiture embedded therein. We don't know how Azure's blade feels compared to Nightblood, but without Nightblood's behavior of absorbing Investiture, it was still likely Awakened with at least 10,000 Breaths, which cound make it unusually heavy.

And finally, when Adolin sees Azure fighting with it alongside him and Elhokar (both wielding Shardblades), he notes that her Shardblade wasn't as long as the other two, in addition to how the people she stabbed didn't have their eyes burn out, but instead turned "a strange ashen grey".

All this is to say: what is the "magic tell" for her blade that makes all these Rosharans consider it a Shardblade at first sight, if the usual physical cues are absent: super-sized, summoned from mist in ten heartbeats, etc.? Perhaps its "unworldy" "gleaming" and "glittering" is reminiscent of the "magnetic allure" of a Shardblade?

Or maybe because Kaladin and the others were all told from the get-go by the Wall Guard that the Highmarshal wieleded a "Shardblade", who would have seen her wielding it and dealing instant death to whoever it stabbed like a Shardblade would, and maybe the the grey skin vs. eyes burning effect is not something a non-Shardbearer would necessarily be first hand aware of as a strange difference. (And later, using it to cut stone.)

Edited June 18, 2019 by robardin

[Pathfinder]

6 minutes ago, robardin said:

Is it, though? Nightblood is described as being "larger than normal" in Warbreaker, which has two reasons - one, it was made for a Returned, and two, it was based on having seen Rosharan (deadspren) Shardblades, which are similarly oversized. But when I went back to see how Azure's sword was described, it's not mentioned as unusually large.

The first time it is mentioned is when someone on the Wall Guard is telling Kaladin about how Azure stepped in after their former commander had fallen during riots when the Cult of Moments attempted to seize the city gates. "We were almost overwhelmed, then Azure joined us, holding aloft a gleaming Shardblade."

Then, when Highmarshal Azure shows up and is a woman (to Kaladin's surprise),

Kaladin thinks of it as a "Shardblade" because he's already been told the Highmarshal had has one. But it's also described as being worn as "a side sword", meaning on the hip, by a woman of slightly below average height - definitely a normal Rosharan Shardblade would be too large/long to be able to do.

The first time we see it drawn is after Kaladin helps the Wall Guard fight some Fused who were testing out its defenses, becoming the first one of them to kill a Fused, who avoid fighting Azure with her Blade drawn. He finds her with her characteristic fighting stance that includes wearing her cloak around the forearm (likely Awakening it to help give her additional strength); "Her unsheathed Shardblade glittered, long and silvery."

(On the other hand, it does seem like her blade cuts through stone as easily as a normal Shardblade would, as she mentions using it to cut out blocks of it to Soulcast into food in the chamber lined with aluminum panels provided by Hoid.)

Later, as Elhokar leads their team to try to take the palace, Adolin summons his Blade and reflects on how "no sheath could hold a weapon like this, and no mortal sword could imitate it - not without growing unusably heavy. You knew a Shardblade when you saw one. That was the point." And yet, Azure's "Shardblade" doesn't qualify under those critieria! (Unless the "when you see it..." bit applies?)

Plus, where normal Shardblades feel unusually light for their size, an Awakened sword like Nightblood feels unusually heavy (even accounting for being oversized), due to all the Investiture embedded therein. We don't know how Azure's blade feels compared to Nightblood, but without Nightblood's behavior of absorbing Investiture, it was still likely Awakened with at least 10,000 Breaths, which cound make it unusually heavy.

And finally, when Adolin sees Azure fighting with it alongside him and Elhokar (both wielding Shardblades), he notes that her Shardblade wasn't as long as the other two, in addition to how the people she stabbed didn't have their eyes burn out, but instead turned "a strange ashen grey".

All this is to say: what is the "magic tell" for her blade that makes all these Rosharans consider it a Shardblade at first sight, if the usual physical cues are absent: super-sized, summoned from mist in ten heartbeats, etc.? Perhaps its "unworldy" "gleaming" and "glittering" is reminiscent of the "magnetic allure" of a Shardblade?

Or maybe because Kaladin and the others were all told from the get-go by the Wall Guard that the Highmarshal wieleded a "Shardblade", who would have seen her wielding it and dealing instant death to whoever it stabbed like a Shardblade would, and maybe the the grey skin vs. eyes burning effect is not something a non-Shardbearer would necessarily be first hand aware of as a strange difference. (And later, using it to cut stone.)

So theoretically I think to answer your points:

1. When Kaladin saw it, it was sheathed, while when the Wall Guard saw it, it was unsheathed so they could see the blade

2. Dalinar, Kaladin and Co all saw Jezerien's honorblade and even though it too is normal size, they recognized it as a shardblade. 

3. Shardblades originally needed to be carried with you everywhere before they learned how to bond and dismiss it via infused gemstone

4. Dalinar and Kaladin remark how although shardplate can look like normal plate, just watching the way it moves and the design, you can clearly tell it is shardplate versus normal armor. Why not the same regarding normal sized shardblades? Seeing the gleam of the blade. How it seems to shine, etc. 

[Philomath]

I’d also point out that sometimes Rosharan vocabulary is incredibly lacking in diversity. Chickens, spren, wine, etc are all a single word that they would apply to a large array of things. So lumping all odd, mysterious, irregular swords under the category “shardblade” isn’t too much of a stretch for me. 

[+robardin]

43 minutes ago, Philomath said:

I’d also point out that sometimes Rosharan vocabulary is incredibly lacking in diversity. Chickens, spren, wine, etc are all a single word that they would apply to a large array of things. So lumping all odd, mysterious, irregular swords under the category “shardblade” isn’t too much of a stretch for me. 

"I'd buy that for a clearchip!"

The only thing I'd object to is that Shardblades in particular hold such a special place in Vorinist society... Would you really "outrank most of Alethkar" and gain landholding status of the fourth dahn for having a twinkly sword that isn't oversized, can't be dismissed and summoned, doesn't burn out eyes, and feels heavier than it should instead of lighter?

But then again, Nightblood and Azure's sword would probably be the first things on Roshar to "feel like it's a Shardblade, except for all the inconsistent bits that make it seem wrong"... Like... Ever. And as you say, they have a clear penchant for stretching the lexical umbrella.

[+Oltux72]

On 6/18/2019 at 8:00 PM, robardin said:

The only thing I'd object to is that Shardblades in particular hold such a special place in Vorinist society... Would you really "outrank most of Alethkar" and gain landholding status of the fourth dahn for having a twinkly sword that isn't oversized, can't be dismissed and summoned, doesn't burn out eyes, and feels heavier than it should instead of lighter?

It goes through stone like a normal sword through butter. A normal sword that can be summoned and dismissed is a gimmick, not a treasure. Hence the defining characteristic of a shard blade is the preternatural edge. Azure demonstrated that in battle.

On 6/18/2019 at 6:41 PM, robardin said:

We don't know how Azure's blade feels compared to Nightblood, but without Nightblood's behavior of absorbing Investiture, it was still likely Awakened with at least 10,000 Breaths, which cound make it unusually heavy.

Why make it sentient?

[Numuhuku]

On 6/17/2019 at 10:22 PM, robardin said:

Remind me again, what is it about her blade that makes the Rosharans immediately consider it a "Shardblade", given that it has no gemstone, doesn't get dismissed or summoned but is kept in a sheath, doesn't burn people's eyes out but instead turns them gray as they die, and is the size of an ordinary sidesword rather than the usual "oversized", practically two-handed size of a normal deadspren Blade? Though the Fused assaulting Kholinar while she commanded the Wall Guard were also instinctively leery of getting too close to it?

I think to the average Rosharan, all those things are semantics for scholars to worry about. If you have a sword that can cut through stone, steel and flesh like its wet tissue paper, then for all they care its a shardblade. Technical definitions won't make someone any less dead if they get hit by it.

On 6/18/2019 at 1:00 PM, robardin said:

The only thing I'd object to is that Shardblades in particular hold such a special place in Vorinist society... Would you really "outrank most of Alethkar" and gain landholding status of the fourth dahn for having a twinkly sword that isn't oversized, can't be dismissed and summoned, doesn't burn out eyes, and feels heavier than it should instead of lighter?

Well does the twinky blade chop through stone, steel and flesh like wet tissue paper? Roshar's ultimately revere shardblades as practical instruments of war. And if a "weird" shardblade can do 90+% of what a "normal" shardblade can, I doubt they'd value it substantially less than a regular shardblade. At least anybody who had the imagination to think of it being turned on them.

[Karger]

If it looks like a shardblade and acts like a shardblade then it is a duck.  Even if it is technically not a duck.

[Wander89]

Rosharians are used to swords like blades being these mythical weapons and don't really have any other explanation for what they do. I'm sure they do notice that there is no gem in the hilt and does not disappear or appear like the Shardblades do.

[Numuhuku]

2 hours ago, Wander89 said:

Rosharians are used to swords like blades being these mythical weapons and don't really have any other explanation for what they do. I'm sure they do notice that there is no gem in the hilt and does not disappear or appear like the Shardblades do.

Well again, it's worth noting that people familiar with shardblades might have an explanation for that by assuming the bearer had not yet fully bonded their shardblade. Perhaps due to the previous owner having died recently. And oathbringer did establish that the gem stones that allow bonding aren't integral to the blades themselves, and can even be destroyed. I don't think that historically speaking, it'd be that out there for someone to have to go into battle/campaign with a blade that wasn't fully bonded, or that had it's gem stone damaged.

People are probably over focusing on how odd a non-bonded Shardblade would be. At least in the short term.

 

(Actually, given that the gem stones that allow blade summonings/dismissing aren't native to the blades themselves, do we have any basis that Azure's shardblade couldn't be fitted with such a gemstone, and that Azure just hasn't had a chance/reason to try to acquire one yet? Might be a decent Brandon Question).

[Renen]

I think the way you have to look at is is like this:

Think of shardblades as those unrealistic anime swords. While yes regular shard blades are stupidly big and do some other things, Azure's is smaller but looks just as unrealistically anime. Just without being overwhelmingly big. 

 

I'd say it'd be like a comparison between a sword like this, and a regular steel sword you'd see in history. 

Spoiler

Dammit I'm on mobile. Can't delete the spoiler >_<

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by Renen

[cfphelps]

9 hours ago, Numuhuku said:

Well again, it's worth noting that people familiar with shardblades might have an explanation for that by assuming the bearer had not yet fully bonded their shardblade. Perhaps due to the previous owner having died recently. And oathbringer did establish that the gem stones that allow bonding aren't integral to the blades themselves, and can even be destroyed. I don't think that historically speaking, it'd be that out there for someone to have to go into battle/campaign with a blade that wasn't fully bonded, or that had it's gem stone damaged.

People are probably over focusing on how odd a non-bonded Shardblade would be. At least in the short term.

 

(Actually, given that the gem stones that allow blade summonings/dismissing aren't native to the blades themselves, do we have any basis that Azure's shardblade couldn't be fitted with such a gemstone, and that Azure just hasn't had a chance/reason to try to acquire one yet? Might be a decent Brandon Question).

I agree with you overall but wanted to point out that Navani tells Dalinar that she discovered the gemstones weren't natively part of the shard blades, and mentions it as a new discovery, and Dalinar sounds surprised. So while it is probably somewhat "normal" for someone to not have bonded a blade yet, I think the average Roshan would expect a gemstone. I also think that Navani mentions that the blade changes shape to accept the gem though (or maybe that comes up as part of Adolin winning one when he smashes the stone and says it wasn't necessary but he wanted to make a point), so seeing a shard blade with no gem and no socket for one might be more normal. 

 

The other thing is that while we focus on the main characters, many of whom have shards, we get to see and hear about them a lot. But from the numbers listed shards are not terribly common compared to the general Roshan population, so many Roshans have never seen one. There's so much mystery and legend surrounding them that the average Roshan probably isn't going to notice some of these inconsistencies. Like Numuhuku says, if it operates and is magical looking like a shardblade, that's what it would be classified as to the non scholars. 

[John Flamesinger]

On 6/21/2019 at 11:05 AM, Oltux72 said:

Why make it sentient?

I don't know. We do know it is sentient, since when Azure gets her back from the Honorspren crew in OB, Azure says it's "investigating" the spren crewmember.

[Edgedancer_of_spirits]

It could be a half dead spren?

[+robardin]

On 6/21/2019 at 2:05 PM, Oltux72 said:

Why make it sentient?

You mean, why is Azure's blade sentient enough to have opinions on someone who picks it up, reminiscent of Nightblood but without the Investiture draining?

I think it's fundamentally a part of Awakening a Type IV BioChromatic Entity, "sentient objects made by Awakening inorganic materials like metal and stone."

2 hours ago, Edgedancer_of_spirits said:

It could be a half dead spren?

Half dead, or half alive?

Contrast her sword and Nightblood with Kalad's Phantoms, which needed organic materials (bones) to anchor them and are modeled in the form of a living person (being statues), and thus are a kind of hybrid between a Type II Entity (Lifeless) and a Type III Entity (an Awakened organic host that was never alive, e.g., a cloak or a rope). Awakening a completely steel sword, with no organic component and not in the form of anything living, requires so much Breath that putting that much Investiture into it automatically comes with a level of sentience - a "sprenification", if you will.

A Rosharan sentient spren is a being composed of Investiture centered around an abstract concept. that gives shape to how it thinks and acts. On the other hand, the driving concept in the investiture-come-to-sentience that is an Awakened Type IV entity is its Command. And we don't yet know what Azure's sword was given as its Command.

To the honorspren that examined it, instead of being a "dead remnant" of a pre-existing spren that has had its driving concept ripped to shreds (the oath that was made and a bond that was formed to a living host, and then severed), while leaving it able to manifest in the physical form of a Shardblade, Azure's sword is coming from the other direction: something that was originally "dead" and wholly of the Physical Realm and essentially no Investiture, that had no driving concept but was given one along with sentience-level Investiture.

[Nymeros]

 

On 6/18/2019 at 9:18 AM, robardin said:

I agree that it's clearly a case of "well, it's a magic sword, ergo, Shardblade"... But what's the tell that her blade is "magic" to a non-spren, just by looking at it? 

Eating color and slicing through hard objects like a hot knife through butter seem sufficient as demonstration of its magical nature.

[Lidolas]

On 6/24/2019 at 4:45 PM, Karger said:

If it looks like a shardblade and acts like a shardblade then it is a chicken.  Even if it is technically not a chicken.

I had to fix that  

But I agree.  It seems most people notice something different about the sword.  And they only have two real categories.  Sword or Shardblade.

[Renen]

Spoiler

On mobile done know how to delete. Why does this always happen to me. 

With what we see of the blade draining the color from folks, could it have been made to be a breath extractor? As in, you don't get a choice (or have to say rust) your breath is getting extracted (and you get dead). So perhaps with it having some breath capacity maybe it's actually just visually... more? With how odium is described as adonalsium's divine wrath (that is not being dpened by other attributes like preservation) I think Endowment is basically adonalsium's divine glory? It saturate colors, makes things seem more rich. It could be that in book 4/5 someone just gets that the reason they count the sword on the same level as the very impressive radiant shard blades, is because it has this aura of just looking better than a normal sword somehow?