Nightblood question

[Condensation she/her]

My sister and I disagree on this point, will you settle it?

Is Nightblood a Shardblade? My sister says no because the attempt failed so it's only half a Shardblade, but I think it is, but its just a different kind of Shardblade. I'm fairly certain I remember it cutting stone, and it is formed by a soul(or a lot of souls). What is your opinion? Has Brandon answered this question before?

[Karger he/him]

Think of them as updated version of the same thing like different models of the same type of car.

Quote

18th_Shard

Does a Herald using an Honorblade consume the same "dangerous" amounts of Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Honorblades are less efficient; this doesn't change when a Herald uses them. (But they have other advantages.)

uchoo786

Are Honorblades closer in power to Nightblood than they are to Shardblades made from Spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Hard to say. They're all similar, but at the same time, very different. And in a way, Nightblood is what you might call a "Third Generation" blade.

uchoo786

Ah gotcha. And in this analogy, Honorblades would be 1st gen and Sprenblades would be 2nd gen?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

/r/books AMA 2015 (Aug. 4, 2015)

 

[trav]

Nightblood is an attempt to recreate what Shardblades do. its not a Shardblade.

its a sword of regular metal endowed with additional abilities. Shardblades are spren. dead or alive.

 

 

[Chiberty]

12 hours ago, trav said:

Nightblood is an attempt to recreate what Shardblades do. its not a Shardblade.

its a sword of regular metal endowed with additional abilities. Shardblades are spren. dead or alive.

 

 

Nightblood kind of is a spren. Spren are pretty much just (semi)sentient Investiture, right? Brandon mentioned that even the Shards would be considered spren.

Edited June 25, 2020 by ChickenLiberty

[Elegy he/him]

This is very dependent from how Shardblade as a term is defined. Now, it's very important to consider that Shardblade is a Rosharan term and the Rosharan language tends to use very, very broad definitions: All birds are chicken, all Shards are spren, Adonalsium and Nightblood are spren. So it's pretty safe to say that by Rosharan standards, magical blades would probably be called Shardblades by default. So that's my answer: When a parrot is a chicken, Nightblood is a Shardblade.

[GoWibble he/him]

8 hours ago, ChickenLiberty said:

Nightblood kind of is a spren. Spren are pretty much just (semi)sentient Investiture, right? Brandon mentioned that even the Shards would be considered spren.

*robot spren

Quote

Boogalyhu34

Can Nightblood be considered a Splinter and does it function like a spren realmatically, are there distinct differences is what I'm asking.

Brandon Sanderson

Nightblood is kind of his own strange thing. He's an attempt to use one magic to replicate something in another. He's closest to a spren, but kind of like a...robot spren, for lack of better words to use.

Argent

When you say that Nightblood is "an attempt to use one magic to replicate something in another," do you mean life in general, or are you referring to a specific effect in a specific magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

There are those involved who knew that Shardblades existed before they tried the Nightblood experiment.

uchoo786

So does this mean Vasher had knowledge of Shardblades before creating Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

It means what I wrote, and nothing more at this point.

wickedmath

Dude. That's the most tantalizing RAFO I've seen in awhile. Have other Shards made Shardblades besides Honor?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

Phantine

Is that why Vasher uses the word 'Investiture' instead of some personal term for it?

Brandon Sanderson

I could be wrong, but I think Vasher was the first one in any book I allowed to use cosmere-aware terms for speaking of things like the magics. (Investiture is one of these.)

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 25, 2015)

 

[+Harrycrapper]

Shardblades and Nightblood are both relatively large chunks of Investiture that gained sapience over time. One difference is that I don't think Nightblood can transition between realms without a perpendicularity like Radiant Spren can. I don't think we've seen Nightblood cut through inanimate objects like a Shardblade can, but it usually just destroys stuff, so I'm not sure there.