Could Nightblood operate an Oathgate?

[+Keeper Exile he/him]

I think that this question really boils down to what makes the fabrial in the Oathgate work. If it is the spren in the Radiant Shardblade or Honorblade that makes the Oathgate work, then I do not believe that Nightblood would be able to operate it since it is not a spren, as far as I know. But if the Oathgates are operated perhaps by an object with enough Investiture, or some other sort of mechanism, then it would make sense that Nightblood would be able to make it work.

Sorry if there is a WoB about this that I missed. Thanks!

[Kaladin-Stormblessed]

Well first off, the Honorblades are not sprens if I m not mistaken. By my understanding, it seems that the common point between Honorblades and Shardblades is that they both contain Investiture. I think the way the oathgates work is when the Investiture in the Honorblade/Shardblades interact with the Oathgate spren, Oathgates are able to function. 

Nightblood on the other hand sucks up Investiture when drawn. My fear is if Nightblood is used, it could potential destroy the Oathgate permanently by eating up all the Investiture or power surrounding it. Therefore I don't think Nightblood could be used to make an Oathgate function.

I am sure we should be able to find out the answer regarding this in the next book if Szeth is lingering around

[Wander89 he/him]

I don't think putting Nightblood in anything is a good idea but we will hopefully find out in the next book the mechanics of operating Oathgates, now with Szeth sticking around.

[+robardin he/him]

It can't be just "stick an Invested object into the Oathgate mechanism and go", because dead Shardblades didn't work, even though they did flow to fit the lock. And they are still Invested.

3 hours ago, Wander89 said:

I don't think putting Nightblood in anything is a good idea...

My instinct agrees with this. Nightblood destroys to smoke even ordinary physical objects, I think the Oathgate would be destroyed.

The fact that an Honorblade can operate the Oathgates when a dead spren Blade cannot is interesting. It's probably related to having a "live" link to Honor... Even though Honor is dead?

I had a sudden thought the other day that "hey, maybe the Oathgates are the Dawnshards, like they turned them into the Oathgates in a swords-to-plowshares like maneuver or something, and the bit where one of them is different from the others references the Urithiru Central one!"  That would fit in with the Oathgates needing some kind of link to Honor to work properly, and Honor foreseeing that him being gone would put the Radiants at risk of having "unchecked" power and some kind of ability to destroy Roshar with the Dawnshards as they had done to Ashyn (the suppressed Dawnshard nature of them would be free to come to the surface). And the Recreance was specifically an action taken by that generation of Knights Radiant with the knowledge that Honor was dying and would be unable to keep a lid on them.

But it's complete and wild speculation, a crackpot theory with no support in the material. Yet.

[GoWibble he/him]

I don't think that they are Dawnshards, but it sounded good until I looked for WoB:

Curtis

Could you write something about Dawnshards that we don't/won't know?

Brandon

One Dawnshard is different from all the rest. 

Words of Radiance release party (March 3, 2014)

So, unless one of the Oathgates is different, then they aren't Dawnshards. 

 

But that wasn't the original question. 

 

I think that the Oathgates have enough Investiture to stop Nightblood from destroying them, and I think that it would work to operate the gate because Vasher and Shashara tried to make it like a Shardblade and have something like a spren

[Config2]

On 10/9/2019 at 2:15 PM, GoWibble said:

I think that the Oathgates have enough Investiture to stop Nightblood from destroying them, and I think that it would work to operate the gate because Vasher and Shashara tried to make it like a Shardblade and have something like a spren

As far as we know, nothing has enough investiture to stop Nightblood from destroying it eventually. Basically, the way Nightblood has worked in observation is that each time it destroys something, it drains a commensurate (not one to one, but the amounts scale with eachother to some degree) amount of investiture from the person wielding it. Then it becomes a balance of the wielder's investiture versus the target's investiture. 

The second half of the sentence assumes that it is the Spren that operates the oathgate. But it might not be that, it might be specifically the bond, or specifically honor's investiture (which Nightblood doesn't have an insane amount of). 

Outside of all of this, there is a characteristic we know that a blade needs to operate an oathgate: it needs to have a mutable shape. I can't find the exact quote, but Shallan notices that her blade doesn't stick out the other side of the control building despite the fact that it is a thin wall. Dalinar similarly provides a "key" using the Stormfather. 

We have never seen Nightblood alter it's shape, nor is it likely that he can. It seems to go against the two components that make up his being: the intent (his command, which necessitates him being a weapon of some kind), and his original base identity of a sword (which is hard to change, with soulcasting being the only thing we've seen that does. That wouldn't work, as he is too invested by far to be soulcast). 

I'm pretty sure that Nightblood can both destroy an oathgate, and not operate it.