Odium and Nightblood Hypothetical

[Knight of Iron]

Just a thought I had, what if at some point in the Stormlight Archive, Odium got a hold of Nightblood. Would Nightblood cooperate? And if Odium could get him to, would Nightblood drain Odium’s power, or something? How powerful would Odium be?

I wonder if Odium knows about Nightblood and whether or not he would stay far away or try and get his hands on it. It would give him an edge that he prefers over other shard’s without having to change his Intent.

[Aspiring Writer]

33 minutes ago, Knight of Iron said:

Just a thought I had, what if at some point in the Stormlight Archive, Odium got a hold of Nightblood. Would Nightblood cooperate? And if Odium could get him to, would Nightblood drain Odium’s power, or something? How powerful would Odium be?

I wonder if Odium knows about Nightblood and whether or not he would stay far away or try and get his hands on it. It would give him an edge that he prefers over other shard’s without having to change his Intent.

I have wondered what would happened if a Vessel got their hands on Nightblood, because they have infinite Investiture to use to power it, making them practically unstoppable, seeing as Nightblood is the equivalent of an investiture blackhole capable of destroying any magic system.

[Fezzik]

Relevant WoBs:

Spoiler

Questioner
If it's possible for Nightblood to actually interact with a Shard, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson
A Shard would try to stay very far away from Nightblood. Nightblood could not plausibly destroy an entire Shard but the Vessel could be in danger.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13379

Spoiler

Questioner
If Nightblood was to attack one [a Shard] and decided it was evil, could he destroy enough of that Shard to seriously weaken it compared to other Shards or not really?

Brandon Sanderson
I mean it would be such a drop in the bucket. To actually weaken the Shard. Like, there is so much out there. This would be hard to do. I won't completely nix it, but let's just say there's a lot that Nightblood would have to...

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13481

Both from last year.

[Weltall]

Since per that WoB the Vessel could be in danger if they tried wielding Nightblood (and we know from another that a mortal agent fueled by a Shard would do no better than any heavily Invested individual) there isn't much utility to a Shard trying to use the sword directly and it wouldn't make Nightblood any more powerful. We know that Odium for one would rather embark on a plan that might require him to wait for thousands of years in preference to one that opens him up to the possibility of an attack from Cultivation, so if getting drained by Nightblood permanently hurts the Vessel in a remotely similar way to how the Stormfather says Odium has been 'scarred' from his past battles, I suspect that he'd stay very far away on general principle.

[CosmereComrade he/him]

I don't think it would be within Odium's plans to do so. However, and seeing the WoBs quoted by @Fezzik it raises me a question: What would happen with Nightblood if he was exposed to a free unlimited source of investiture? Let's say, the cognitive realm of Sel. I guess, same as with "he could not plausibly destroy a shard", he would'nt be able to "suck up" all that investiture, but it might weaken it strongly, maybe causing another catastrophe on the planet.

Or, since in this case the investiture is kind of floating around (more like an intense storme if anything), could it just extinguish it?

What would happen if a shard would get vanished? Not like shattered, but if all it's investiture would disappear. What would that do to the cosmere?

[Chinkoln he/him]

A definite conclusion is hard. We need an answer to an important question if we want a conclusion, but Brandon has given a RAFO to it every time. The question is “Could Nightblood become the Vessel of a Shard?”. If he could, then I think that Nightblood could realistically weaken or kill a Shard, but if he can’t hold a Shard, then he might weaken it some but he probably can’t kill it.

[Knight of Iron]

2 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

A definite conclusion is hard. We need an answer to an important question if we want a conclusion, but Brandon has given a RAFO to it every time. The question is “Could Nightblood become the Vessel of a Shard?”. If he could, then I think that Nightblood could realistically weaken or kill a Shard, but if he can’t hold a Shard, then he might weaken it some but he probably can’t kill it.

I've been swimming through an ocean of Words of Brandon on this and kind of answered my original question.

I have found out that Brandon has said that Nightblood cannot Splinter a Shard, but he could damage a Shard.

Spoiler

Just another guyn

If a Shard were to wield Nightblood more directly, like Odium's champion and Odium channeling his power through Nightblood, would we see a lot of world ending stuff from that?

Brandon Sanderson

That-- What you just described would work no differently from a Knight Radiant wielding Nightblood

Just another guyn

Okay. And that would be scary powerful?

Brandon Sanderson

No. No, they'd feed off the Investiture and eventually would either run out or be drawing it so quickly that it would dissolve the person's soul.

Just another guyn

So souls are made of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, in the cosmere, souls are. So you'd have a little while, but eventually the person would just die and get eaten.

BYU Writing Class Wrap-up 2017 (April 25, 2017)

EDIT: *sigh* I found another one

Spoiler

If it's possible for Nightblood to actually interact with a Shard, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

A Shard would try to stay very far away from Nightblood. Nightblood could not plausibly destroy an entire Shard but the Vessel could be in danger.

EDIT: And I found another one on whether Nightblood can actually weaken a Shard. Way to go, Brandon, for shutting my thread down lol.

Spoiler

If Nightblood was to attack one [a Shard] and decided it was evil, could he destroy enough of that Shard to seriously weaken it compared to other Shards or not really?

Brandon Sanderson

I mean it would be such a drop in the bucket. To actually weaken the Shard. Like, there is so much out there. This would be hard to do. I won't completely nix it, but let's just say there's a lot that Nightblood would have to...

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Knight of Iron

[+Invocation]

3 hours ago, CosmereComrade said:

What would happen if a shard would get vanished? Not like shattered, but if all it's investiture would disappear. What would that do to the cosmere?

Investiture gets recycled from Nightblood's stuff anyway, so while it would spread that Shard out for a long, long time and potentially make it unrecoverable, it wouldn't start something horrible.

Spoiler

emailanimal

From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon...

chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon: Yes.

chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly.

This worries me somewhat because of the following observation.

Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second).

Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath.

Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing.

This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing.

I can see the following possible explanations to this:

1. Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well.

2. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit).

Thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy.

Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born.

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.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

 

3 hours ago, CosmereComrade said:

Let's say, the cognitive realm of Sel. I guess, same as with "he could not plausibly destroy a shard", he would'nt be able to "suck up" all that investiture, but it might weaken it strongly, maybe causing another catastrophe on the planet.

I saw a WOB a while ago (I can't find it right now, sadly) that said that he'd get tired and full after a period of gluttony, so I don't think it would be enough to cause another catastrophe. Take a bucket from an ocean and evaporate it, the ocean fills back in nearly indistinguishably. 

The real trouble would be actually getting him through the perpendicularity. Gotta make sure that sheath is on tight!

[Chanarach]

I'd be more worried about Odium manipulating someone into using Nightblood on Culti. Maybe a little nick is all that's needed for jackanapes Rayse to pull off another splintering.   

[Weltall]

Unlikely, as Dalinar himself recognizes when he runs into Odium, the forms that the Shards present themselves to people as aren't really them. Swinging Nightblood at the projection of Cultivation isn't going to do anything to the Shard except maybe annoy her for the rudeness of the act. Consider how many simultaneous projections we see a dying Preservation make in Secret History.