A look back at Vyre's Knife after chapter 14

[Honorless]

So near the end of OB, we saw Jezrien getting stabbed and seemingly permanently killed. Many people wondered about the mechanism via which the knife worked and whether Jezrien was truly gone or had his soul captured so he couldn't reincarnate as Heralds were wont to do. The knife that Moash/Vyre used had a sapphire set into the pommel and the sapphire in question glowed during the deed. In the same book, we saw an Unmade getting trapped within a gemstone, so we knew that it was a strong possibility. People also noted the similarity with Hemalurgy.

Of course people asked Brandon to confirm certain things:

1) Jezrien's soul was captured so it couldn't be reborn (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/377/#e12261)

2) The mechanism is similar to Hemalurgy (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256/#e8665 , https://wob.coppermind.net/events/258/#e8774)

3) Sapphire, which is specifically linked with Jezrien and the Windrunners, was used specifically against Jezrien here (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262/#e8798)

And in chapter 14, we are told that the Fused could also be captured in gemstones:

 “They imprisoned some of the Unmade in these, Leshwi,” Raboniel said. “How close do you think they are to discovering they could do the same for us? Can you imagine it? Forever imprisoned in a gemstone, locked away, able to think but unable to ever break free?”

 

A) So, Jezrien could still be rescued, reminding y'all just in case you forgot all about him.

But in which case, so could Moelach.... (And may I remind you, they just chucked the gemstone he was imprisoned in into the ocean. And may I also remind you that Nazh was capable of retrieving Shallan's sketchbook from the bottom of the ocean after her ship sank)

Hmm, I wonder... how was Re-Shephir imprisoned back then by some historical Lightweaver? Was she also captured in a gemstone? How'd she get out?

B )  This mechanism might work against other Cognitive entities. It works with spren, Unmade, Fused, Heralds, so it might also work with the Returned or Divine Breath, with Seon & Skaze, with Shades (is that how Nazh's Shade gun worked? Heyyyyy... firespren flamethrower, anyone?)

C) Sapphire was used against Jezrien, so was the King's Drop targeted because of this? Odium did say he was seeing to it as an additional safeguard for something unlikely to happen or something like that, iirc (could someone check?). Was there more to the King's Drop than just being a perfect gemstone?

D) If the mechanism is similar to Hemalurgy, what happens if you, you know, go through the entire process? After the stealing comes the grafting. What would happen if Vyre's knife is stabbed into someone again? Would Jezrien take over their body, Fused style or possession style? Would they get some of Jezrien's attributes?

Edited October 29, 2020 by Honorless
The B) became sunglasses emoji

[Leuthie]

Investiture can be stored in gems. See Stormlight. The simpler the Investiture, the less it leaks from imperfect and incompatible (wrong color, basically) gems.

A Cognitive Shadow (which is what the Heralds, the Fused, Vasher (all Returned, actually), Kelsier, Spren, etc. are) is Investiture. The more complex the being, the more complex the Investiture. The more complex the Investiture, the harder it is to hold within a gem. Color and structure have to be in sync with the complexity of the Investiture.

We know all this.

Gems are a matrix of molecules, usually carbon.

Metals are a matrix of molecules, as well. Hemalurgy generally refers to the storage of Investiture in metals via the piercing of the Physical in a location that allows contact with the correct part of the Spirit Web that the piercer wants to store. I would suspect that gems can also be used in place of metal to store more complex forms of Investiture. In the case of Jezrien and this gem, there isn't a particular part of the Spirit Web the stabber wants to store. All that's required is contact with any part. Connection between the Spirit Web, the metal of the dagger and the gem allows the gem to pull the Spirit Web into itself and lock it.  Captured Jezrien Spren.

I think the complexity of the Investiture that requires a gem for storage precludes it from being tacked on to a new Spirit Web the same way abilities are swapped in the first Mistborn series. Jezrien might be able to take over a new body in the same way that Fused take over Singers, should he be released. But I don't think he can be forced into one via another stabbing.

[Honorless]

Brandon always gave the impression that the color of the gem was important

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/190/#e4080

ArsenoPyrite

I have a technical question here re: gemstones in The Stormlight Archive. How are the lines drawn between different types of gem? Emerald and Heliodor are both varieties of the mineral beryl. Emerald can get its color from trace amounts of chromium, vanadium and/or iron. Heliodor gets its color from iron combined with microscopic crystal defects. So, is the line between these two defined by color? If so, would a heliodor lose its usefulness if it were heated (which would turn it colorless or pale blue). Is it defined by trace elements--in which case, how do you deal with emeralds, or with aquamarine (the blue variety of beryl, which can also contain chromium or vanadium in small quantities and is mostly colored by iron). Sorry for getting so technical, but this gem nerd needs to know!

Brandon Sanderson

I actually spent a long time working on this while building the world. You'd probably be amused by how long I spent on it. Chemically, many of them are actually very similar, as you pointed out. I tried doing the book originally with them all being different, not using any that were basically the same crystal with different colors, but it didn't work out. There weren't enough, and so I had to stretch to make it all work.

So, I went back to the original, and decided that color was enough to differentiate them. Just as steel and iron are very similar in the mistborn world, Emerald and Heliodor can be very similar--but produce different effects. The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs.

So, in a long winded answer, a gemstone with an impure color would be considered like a bad alloy in the Mistborn magic--it either wouldn't work at all, or would work very poorly. The chemical and color signature needs to be of a specific variety to provide the proper key to accessing the power of transformation.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 15, 2013)

 

ceraius

This is involving gemstones and their properties on Roshar. Given that Sapphire and Ruby are actually the same crystal - corundum - differing only in their impurities - how would you explain the differences in their properties, with respect both to their essences and their function in fabrials? For example, I am assuming that two identical fabrials, one made with a sapphire and one made with a ruby, would not function the same. To take it a step further, any corundum that is not ruby red is simply called a sapphire of whichever color it happens to be (blue sapphire, green sapphire, colorless sapphire, etc.). How does this play into things; would a blue sapphire have different properties than a green one or a colorless one?

Brandon Sanderson

This was a big part of the magic for me in working on Roshar, as I wanted the gems to work differently from Scadrials metals in order to avoid repetition. The fact that many gems are basically the same thing was one of the launching points actually. Let me say that you are on the right track.

On Roshar, color of the gem is more important than actual crystalline structure.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 2, 2015)

so your theory makes sense. Color, perhaps in a Cognitive sense, rather than chemical or crystalline structure.

Also makes me wonder why certain colors of gemstones were associated with certain pairs of Surges...

Edited November 13, 2020 by Honorless

[Master Silver]

So Moash's knife is interesting in that no one has ever done that to a herald before, but given what @Leuthie and @Honorless have said it makes perfect sense, that if you can suppress Radiant powers, store stormlight, suck stormlight into things, and capture spren, that it can also be done with cognitive shadows. For the humans, dead Shardblades might be a step in the right direction of figuring out how to do this. To my knowledge dead Shardeblades are the only weapons the humans use with gemstones that do something interesting (I'm not counting half shards which simply strengthen materials). Shardblades already sever the soul of the living thing they cut, they just need to find a way to have the soul stored in the gem in the pommel of the blade. The only other solution to fused is to have Night Blood kill them all. Has Brandon said whether or not Fused killed by Night Blood are reborn in the Everstorm?

[spaidapig]

1 hour ago, Master Silver said:

So Moash's knife is interesting in that no one has ever done that to a herald before, but given what @Leuthie and @Honorless have said it makes perfect sense, that if you can suppress Radiant powers, store stormlight, suck stormlight into things, and capture spren, that it can also be done with cognitive shadows. For the humans, dead Shardblades might be a step in the right direction of figuring out how to do this. To my knowledge dead Shardeblades are the only weapons the humans use with gemstones that do something interesting (I'm not counting half shards which simply strengthen materials). Shardblades already sever the soul of the living thing they cut, they just need to find a way to have the soul stored in the gem in the pommel of the blade. The only other solution to fused is to have Night Blood kill them all. Has Brandon said whether or not Fused killed by Night Blood are reborn in the Everstorm?

The direct questtion concerning Fused in Nightblood was RAFOed. But he confirmed, that the Thunderclast from [OB] is gone for good.

So I'm fairly sure, that Nightblood can kill a Cognitive Shadow in a way, that it is definitely gone.

 

[Zelly]

Good catch on Nazh's notebook, I figured the sea wasn't failproof, but dang looks like the drop may already be in trouble from worldhoppers.

Also a note on gem color, in the Ars Arcanum recarding soulcasting, Khriss pretty much states

Quote

"as the chemical structures are identical for several of these gemstone varieties, aside from trace impurities, the color is the most important part..."

So Moash's knife also leaked black smoke in the scene where he kills Jez, which is very Nightblood-ish.  I theorized awhile back that there may be an arms race in developing these types of weapons.

We don't have a good term for weapons like Nightblood do we?  So far it's been pretty unique, but what could we name the category if there end up being more?    My ideas were all terrible (DEATHBLADE).

[Halyo_Alex]

4 hours ago, Zelly said:

We don't have a good term for weapons like Nightblood do we?  So far it's been pretty unique, but what could we name the category if there end up being more?    My ideas were all terrible (DEATHBLADE).

Nightblade sounds fine to me.

[NameIess]

On 11/12/2020 at 5:30 PM, Zelly said:

We don't have a good term for weapons like Nightblood do we?  So far it's been pretty unique, but what could we name the category if there end up being more?    My ideas were all terrible (DEATHBLADE).

Black holes, disintegrators, doomsday machines. In all honesty, I expect that Nightblood is going to be very much an anomaly. If we do have to terminologize it, I'm going with fourth class invested weapon, with Honorblades in class three, basic Shardblades in class two, and sand mastrell's sand in class one.

(Dawnshard spoilers)

Spoiler

I would put Dawnshards in class five.