shadowwisp

Kaladin's personality tends to put him into to last ditch effort actions hahaha. Like jumping into the area to help Alodin and distract the other Shard wielders, or acting as a distraction/aggro to help Shallan escape from the Chasmfiend, or acting as a last line of defense for the king when facing Szeth for the first time and again at the end of the book. I think your definition of a tank is different from mine. A tank isn't someone who slams into someone, a tank is someone who protects others. And that fits Kaladin's role/personality quite well. He was hired to be a royal bodyguard after all. I do have to agree with you in that it's tough to see Kaladin wearing plate but he would be completely unreasonable not to. In both fights with Szeth, he lost his arm in a single slice. It took a significant amount of time and stormlight to heal it, both of which are invaluable in a fight against another Shard wielder. Plus, the Shardplate would help him against the extra radiation and cold temperatures high in the sky.

Yup, and I believe the Warbreaker sequel is to stop Yesteel from mass producing "Nightbloods". It wouldn't be that great of an issue/threat if he needed shardblades.

Just being nitpicky, Awakening is not just easier if the object is more similar to humans but to any form of life. Thus a dead shardblade would be magnitude times easier to awaken than a similarly invested steel sword metal mind. I had previously asked Brandon Sanderson if there was an overlap with the above ability and using Bronze. He stated that there is an overlap that involves "playing with spirit webs and/or the cognitive realm" To play devil's advocate, there is WoB that Nightblood is not his real name. Perhaps his real name is the dead spren sharblade's name. Similar to how Returned are named. That being said, I don't think Nightblood is an awakened lifeless. I think Nightblood is supposed to be "proof" that you can use one magic system to replicate another.

If Kaladin and Szeth end up having a rematch, I suspect he will desperately need the shardplate. Even without Nightblood, Szeth is personally being trained by a Herald. But is that not exactly what he did in the end of book 1? First to revere lash to draw all the enemy arrows towards his shield. It would have worked better if he had a stronger shield.....or shardplate. Then he ran solo into the middle of the enemy army to soak up as much attention as possible to let the other bridgemen place the bridge. You can't be more of a tank than that. And now that Kaladin is going to get a full team of squires, he is certainly going to be leading the charge into battle. If he ends up dying, presumably his squires will lose their abilities. So again, best interest for Kaladin to wear some shardplate.

WoB stands for Word of Brandon. Essentially something that Brandson Sanderson said in an interview that isn't necessarily in any of his books. I believe the term originates from fans of Wheel of Time. Same thing for RAFO which stands for Read And Find Out. RAFO: coppermind.net/wiki/File:Card_rafo.jpg

That is true, I didn't consider that idea. I wonder what they would call themselves.

It can't be the group of 16 that decided to shatter it because WoB is that the unknown force is still around while the original 16 are not.

Wasn't there a WoB of an unnamed, unknown, force equivalent to Adonalsium? Maybe the broken and uncooperative 16 can only influence their power within that small galaxy due to that unknown force.

Almost like a reverse Endowment. We know that Nightblood can drain any type of investiture but I wonder if the type of investiture drained would have any effect on Nightblood itself. Or is all investiture essentially the same? I'm a bit iffy on the realmatic theory on this, anyone know?

Hmm I'm not sure if Nightblood ever refers to itself with a name. Its introductions have always started with just "hello". Vivenna did verbally call out its name and Nightblood responded. But like you said, that doesn't mean much. I don't think Nightblood has any issues with long term memory. From my understanding, it is able to remember and learn like any other living creature. But it can't remember a certain chunk of it's memory where it killed Shashara and thus why Arsteel and Vasher aren't friends anymore. And since it can't recall that part of its life, it ignores any evidence of the contrary. I'm not sure if it is just denial with Nightblood's childlike personality or if there is a mental block of sorts. I suspect the latter. I just find it interesting that Brandon Sanderson hints that Vasher can remove memories. Here is a skill that doesn't seem to fit into the Awakening magic system in any way and it has very little relevance to the story. So why include it? Good call on the Nitpick! I forgot you could awaken steel normally. Unrelated but this annotation quote is quite interesting. Especially since we assumed that the biggest difference between Nightblood and a Shardblade is that the latter can change forms. Not sure if there are any implications of this. http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-warbreaker-chapter-forty-one/

Yup. I don't think too many people know that. At least I couldn't find any mention of it in this forum. I suspect it will be revealed in the last chapter of the sequel paralleling how Vasher revealed his real name in Warbreaker. In the annotations: http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-warbreaker-chapter-fifty-one/ I have been toying with a theory that depends if Nightblood knows that it has another name. If Nightblood forgot its original name, similar to how it forgot that it killed Shashara, then it would be too much of a coincidence that a character missing part of its memory is traveling with a character with the ability to remove memories (Vasher). We have already seen the results of a Spren forgetting its name/identity: Stormlight Archives Spoilers Perhaps Vasher intentionally crippled Nightblood as a fail-safe in case he died or if he lost Nightblood. Doesn't seem too far-fetched considering that he killed his wife to prevent awakened steel from falling into the wrong hands. Still a rough theory and I'm sure there are some holes in it, which is why I never created a thread for it.

It sounds more like as a cognitive shadow, he would have issues getting to another planet but not "space/in between planets" where the fortress is located. Remember, the Elantrians were worried about Threnody's Shades/Cognitive Shadows attacking them.

Nah, I think the Elantrians were on the outskirts of the cognitive realm for Scadrial. Otherwise Ruin/Preservation would have interfered. I think there is one thing we can say for sure about what Kelsier is doing: recruiting a new crew. No matter what his goal his, Kelsier likes being surrounded by friends/crew-members. I don't think he will be content with just native Scadrials either. I can see Kelsier and Shai getting along very well. Both have a grudge against Hoid, come from similar professions, and have unique skill-sets that allows them to manipulate the spirit-web directly. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe Hemalurgy and Soulforging are the only known magic systems that can significantly and intentionally manipulate the spiritual aspect of an individual. Not to mention that Essence Marks and Medallions would make a powerful and versatile combo to "buff up" the rest of the crew. Just have to find a loophole with the limitations of Forging.

I've always wondered if Nightblood's true name would give some insight on how he worked. But unlike the name of Dalinar's wife, I don't believe Brandon Sanderson told anyone the name yet. Guess we just have to wait for the sequel.

Could it be because each allomantic power is 100% Preservation? Burning gold or copper is still 100% Preservation. So Mistborn wouldn't have any "effects" since there is no change in the ratio of Shards. The same goes with feruchemy. But combine the two, and you get a different ratio (75%Preservation, 25% Ruin) of Shards giving you an "effect" that not normally seen. But it is different for Surges. Presumably, like the associated Spren, each Surge is a different combination of Honor and Cultivation. Since each Surge has a different ratio, it can considered as a separate magic system. Combine two Surges and you get a new ratio, leading to a novel "effect".

Maybe it alters how much the mass of the individual interacts with the higgs boson/field? hmmm or maybe that would make more sense with iron Feruchemy.

I think people keep on forgetting a key component of Awakening. Awakening = Breaths + Color + Command + Resemblance to Life. That is why it is kinda pointless to say that Nightblood "only" has 1,000 breaths, when we don't know the Color or Command was used to power it. Remember that one of the benefits of the 10th awakening is to fully draw out color from a source, making your Awakenings more efficient. We don't know by how much. We don't know if you can intentionally alter the amount of Color needed in an Awakening as well. We know that "Destroy Evil" was the Command, but the mental image/intent is much much more important than a verbal command. We don't know what the mental intent was. As for Resemblance to Life, we still don't know what Nightlbood is made of and if being a copy of a Spren/Shardblade would count as Resemblance to Life. Quote from Warbreaker: Another Quote on Commands: This is why someone with massive amounts of Breaths can't just pick up a sword and say Destroy Evil and create a second Nightblood:

If the screams have something to do with the spiritual realm, I wonder if Nightblood would have any sort of effect on them. IIRC, unlike Shardblades and Honorblades, Nightblood can affect the spiritual realm.

Another interesting tidbit that you might not know. Although a word of warning, it may be considered a spoiler since it is not in any of the books, it was just something Brandon Sanderson said during a Q&A. Crap, I'm not sure how to do the spoiler tag on these forums, so I will just link you to the Q&A of interest. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/-/ct6ccoe?context=3

I hate to be "that" guy, but since Hoid can change his appearance at will, I doubt the Hoid we will see will be the real Hoid.

Say you are a double Steel Twinborn. If you were to store Speed into Steel, you would be creating a new "Allomantic metal" right? So if you were to burn enough of that charged steel, would you become a savant? It's been a while, but I believe Miles lost the ability to feel pain. Was this ever explained? If not, that seems very much like a savant ability.

I don't think we have another Shard on Scadrial, just another Shard that is indirectly interfering. There is no way Harmony would let a Shard slip past him and settle on Scadrial.

hmmm, that is very interesting. Timeline-wise, that doesn't make sense unless he has atium immortality or worldhopping isn't just place but time as well.

Saw it answered or just the question? Maybe I'm blind but I couldn't find it on the official list of questions.

Instead of the Lifeless being a dull grey, would it be a bright white due to the Perfect Invocation ability? Would it be any different than a regular Lifeless? Any speculation/WoB on this?