[OB] Dalinar should wield Nightblood

[Watchcry]

If Dalinar has direct access to Stormlight to infuse gemstones, shouldn't he wield Nightblood? 

[Factfinder]

I like this.  It gets around the Stormfather's refusal to act as a shardblade for Dalinar, Szeth won't need Nightblood anymore once he starts summoning his own Skybreaker spren as a blade, and Szeth is already following Dalinar as of the end of Oathbringer so he's well positioned to hand it over.  And Dalinar seems like a much better check on Nightblood's homicidal tendencies than the Assassin in White anyway.

The only objection I can come up with is that Dalinar's close watch over and interaction with Jezrien's honorblade struck me as blatant foreshadowing that Dalinar would take it up himself, but maybe that was just a red herring.  I wonder who will get the honorblade if Dalinar gets Nightblood instead?

[Watchcry]

Moash has it. 

[Factfinder]

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Moash has it.

Err.... No?  Moash was given a knife that he used to kill Jezrien, but Szeth still had Nightblood by the end of Oathbringer. Moash's knife had a similar effect (trailing black smoke and leaving blackened wounds), but it wasn't Nightblood itself.

[Calderis]

4 minutes ago, Factfinder said:

Err.... No?  Moash was given a knife that he used to kill Jezrien, but Szeth still had Nightblood by the end of Oathbringer. Moash's knife had a similar effect (trailing black smoke and leaving blackened wounds), but it wasn't Nightblood itself.

The Honorblade was stolen from bridge four by The Diagram, and per Taravangian's agreement with Odium it was Delivered to the Singers. 

At the end, when Moash was given the name Vyre, he has Jezrien's Honorblade. 

[Factfinder]

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The Honorblade was stolen from bridge four by The Diagram, and per Taravangian's agreement with Odium it was Delivered to the Singers. 

At the end, when Moash was given the name Vyre, he has Jezrien's Honorblade. 

Oh!  "It" was referring to the honorblade, not Nightblood as I obviously assumed.  Right, that was my bad.  I forgot that part.

[RShara]

Dalinar only has unlimited Stormlight when he's summoned the perpindicularity, though.  Which exhausts him.  Normally, he relies on gemstones like everyone else, I would think.

[Watchcry]

I'm pretty sure he can do it at will now but it definitely does exhaust him if he does it too much. 

[Canucck]

With NB being an investiture sink, this might not work out well in the long run. With a direct connection to Honor wouldn't this weaken an already splintered shard even further over time? Especially with the link that Dalinar can provide

[TheMediocreMind]

5 hours ago, RShara said:

Dalinar only has unlimited Stormlight when he's summoned the perpindicularity, though.  Which exhausts him.  Normally, he relies on gemstones like everyone else, I would think.

With this in mind, wouldn't it make more sense for someone else to wield nightblood and wreak havoc while Dalinar summons the perpendicularity? That lets Dalinar focus and stay out of harm's way while he exhausts himself, while any radiant sill has access to said direct access to stormlight. 

I think Szeth and Nightblood are an awesome match. We all know how effective Szeth can be when commanded to slaughter, and he's only beginning to discover what could be done with nightblood. Only battle we've seen them in so far Szeth kind of peaked early and only ended up getting rescued by the perpendicularity. Now he knows exactly when to pull nightblood out and annihilate an entire army singlehandedly, thunderclasts and all.

[StormingTexan]

I wonder how many Fused will be killed once Kaladin teaches Szeth his little ride the storm trick for unlimited investiture before they simply hide during a highstorm. 

[Aminar]

That sounds less fun than Szeth having the Nightblood. We've already seen a curmudgeonly old warrior with Nightblood. We don't need all the dialogue to be "Shut up Nightblood". I much prefer the Szeth/Nightblood interaction. 

(From a practical perspective you could be right, but I feel like Dalinar lacks the conflict to even want to hold Nightblood. He'd probably find the sword repulsive.) 

[Watchcry]

@RShara, @TheMediocreMind, Dalinar appears to be able to infuse with Stormlight at will without having to create a perpendicularity:

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Kaladin flew across the churning ocean. Dalinar had been able to summon the strength to overcharge him with Stormlight, though it was obviously exhausting to do so.

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by Watchcry
Misspelled word

[RShara]

6 minutes ago, Watchcry said:

@RShara, @TheMediocreMind, Dalinar appears to be able to infuse with Stormlight at will without having to create a perpendicularity:

 

We don't know that.  We know he supercharged Kaladin and that it exhausted him.  I'm not sure how he could supercharge Kaladin without summoning the Perpendicularity.  But either way, the point stands--supercharging someone with Stormlight exhausts him.

[Vortaan]

2 hours ago, RShara said:

We don't know that.  We know he supercharged Kaladin and that it exhausted him.  I'm not sure how he could supercharge Kaladin without summoning the Perpendicularity.  But either way, the point stands--supercharging someone with Stormlight exhausts him.

I think putting Nightblood in the middle of a perpendicularity like Dalinar summons where all three realms are one would be monumentally bad idea.

[anna]

Wouldn't Zahel take his "best friend" back once Szeth goes to Urithiru with everybody else?

Edited December 20, 2017 by anna

[Nymeros]

5 hours ago, Aminar said:

That sounds less fun than Szeth having the Nightblood.

And this is why no one else should wield Nightblood.

[Aminar]

1 hour ago, Nymeros said:

And this is why no one else should wield Nightblood.

Except Syl. 

[Rainier]

3 hours ago, anna said:

Wouldn't Zahel take his "best friend" back once Szeth goes to Urithiru with everybody else?

You mean an Ardent, owning property? The only way Zahel claims Nightblood is if he reveals himself as the highly-invested worldhopper Vasher (or pick a name), and even then I don't see Szeth giving up the sword easily. It was entrusted to him by his god, and there's clearly plenty of backstory we're missing about the circumstances under which Nightblood and Vasher parted. Add to this Azure/Vivenna hunting both Vasher and Nightblood with a sentient sword of her own, and I'm expecting much, much more from this story line than confiscation. I posted a while back about this scenario, too.

 

As for this topic, it really feels like speculation on how to munchkin the most power out of what we're given. Nightblood is the closest thing we have to a nuclear bomb in the Cosmere, and the tradeoffs are there to prevent people using him, not as a challenge to overcome. Also, get off my lawn you whippersnappers! (I understand how curmudgeonly I'm sounding, I don't want to rain on the parade here).

[Factfinder]

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That sounds less fun than Szeth having the Nightblood. We've already seen a curmudgeonly old warrior with Nightblood. We don't need all the dialogue to be "Shut up Nightblood". I much prefer the Szeth/Nightblood interaction. 

True, I too would miss the opportunity to have Nightblood snarking at Szeth...  but would consider that a more-than-equitable trade-off for the chance to have Nightblood snarking at the Stormfather.  Picture a scene in which Dalinar has recently drawn Nightblood:

Stormfather: What in Tanavast's name is that bastard offspring of a true spren and a chasmfiend doing in your hand and what did it just do to that Fused you hit with it?!

Nightblood: Bastard offspring?!  Who is this guy?  He sounds awful evil to me...

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We don't know that.  We know he supercharged Kaladin and that it exhausted him.  I'm not sure how he could supercharge Kaladin without summoning the Perpendicularity.  But either way, the point stands--supercharging someone with Stormlight exhausts him.

That just means Dalinar has to plan in advance.  Step 1: summon the perpendicularity.  Step 2: use the perpendicularity to infuse literally (not metaphorically) a metric ton of gemstones with stormlight.  Step 3: rest for a bit.  Step 4: pass out infused gemstones to Dalinar's non-Radiant, non-Squire bodyguards.  Step 5: go to war and have said bodyguards toss a few bags of gemstones Dalinar's way when he and Nightblood are running low.  Step 6: epic win.

[TheWarriorPoet]

13 hours ago, Rainier said:

You mean an Ardent, owning property? The only way Zahel claims Nightblood is if he reveals himself as the highly-invested worldhopper Vasher (or pick a name), and even then I don't see Szeth giving up the sword easily. It was entrusted to him by his god, and there's clearly plenty of backstory we're missing about the circumstances under which Nightblood and Vasher parted. Add to this Azure/Vivenna hunting both Vasher and Nightblood with a sentient sword of her own, and I'm expecting much, much more from this story line than confiscation. I posted a while back about this scenario, too.

Technically, we don't know the circumstances behind Zahel becoming ardent. Maybe just like shen he never became an ardent officially, he just started living amongst them. Then he somehow have the ability to manipulate his appearance as well, it was shown in warbreaker. I think i will feel more secure when nightblood will be in hands of someone who knows the weapon. 

It will also be interesting to know how Naln came in possession of the weapon, is it possible that Vasher is in the same league as heralds or more powerful

[Rainier]

1 hour ago, TheWarriorPoet said:

is it possible that Vasher is in the same league as heralds or more powerful

Yeah, I'd say he's in the same realm, albiet not as much concentrated Investiture. The Returned are technically slivers of a Shard, which is also how I'd interpret the Heralds. However I get the feeling that 10 specific Heralds with 10 powerful Invested artifacts are, while of the same class as Returned, much more powerful due to fewer of them. I'm not sure what the count of Returned is, but it's easily dozens at any one time.

That being said, even though he may lack the raw Investiture of a Herald (or Honorblade, we're not exactly sure where most of the power lies), the fact that he knows how to create a superweapon makes him easily one of the most dangerous creatures in the Cosmere. 

[StormingTexan]

19 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Yeah, I'd say he's in the same realm, albiet not as much concentrated Investiture. The Returned are technically slivers of a Shard, which is also how I'd interpret the Heralds. However I get the feeling that 10 specific Heralds with 10 powerful Invested artifacts are, while of the same class as Returned, much more powerful due to fewer of them. I'm not sure what the count of Returned is, but it's easily dozens at any one time.

That being said, even though he may lack the raw Investiture of a Herald (or Honorblade, we're not exactly sure where most of the power lies), the fact that he knows how to create a superweapon makes him easily one of the most dangerous creatures in the Cosmere. 

I agree and would also add Vasher is kinda an elite Returned as well being one of the 5 scholars. The other thing that muddies the water is if you are looking at this in the current state. How powerful are the Heralds currently with their insanity and the fact we only know of one actually in possession of their honorblade? We know Vasher can awaken on Roshar but we do not know how much breath he currently posses at the end of Warbreaker it wasn't much besides but we know there is a time gap that we do not know what happened. 

[TheWarriorPoet]

35 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Yeah, I'd say he's in the same realm, albiet not as much concentrated Investiture. The Returned are technically slivers of a Shard, which is also how I'd interpret the Heralds. However I get the feeling that 10 specific Heralds with 10 powerful Invested artifacts are, while of the same class as Returned, much more powerful due to fewer of them. I'm not sure what the count of Returned is, but it's easily dozens at any one time.

That being said, even though he may lack the raw Investiture of a Herald (or Honorblade, we're not exactly sure where most of the power lies), the fact that he knows how to create a superweapon makes him easily one of the most dangerous creatures in the Cosmere. 

I think Vasher is technically more powerful then heralds, he is immortal (kind of) can have weapons like honorblades (night blood) and then, he can probably create humans version of thunderclasps too, he is known to be the only person with the ability to create an army made from Stone casted bodies. 

[Rainier]

1 hour ago, StormingTexan said:

I agree and would also add Vasher is kinda an elite Returned as well being one of the 5 scholars. The other thing that muddies the water is if you are looking at this in the current state. How powerful are the Heralds currently with their insanity and the fact we only know of one actually in possession of their honorblade? We know Vasher can awaken on Roshar but we do not know how much breath he currently posses at the end of Warbreaker it wasn't much besides but we know there is a time gap that we do not know what happened. 

Yeah, relative power of Vasher vs Heralds depends on a couple of things, but I think the #1 most important factor is the Honorblades. The Honorblades are most likely directly connected to Honor, and so I'd guess they are more invested than any single Returned upon Return. Without them I'm not sure what Vasher collected a treasure of 10,000 Breaths somehow, and somewhere, but we don't know where they went or if he's still holding them. There's even speculation that he got that Investiture from Roshar.

1 hour ago, TheWarriorPoet said:

I think Vasher is technically more powerful then heralds, he is immortal (kind of) can have weapons like honorblades (night blood) and then, he can probably create humans version of thunderclasps too, he is known to be the only person with the ability to create an army made from Stone casted bodies. 

This is again a question of how Invested these characters are themselves, without their artifacts. I'll also mention that the only reason Vasher could do that on Nalthis is because there were bones set into the statues, however you're right that a Soulcast body would be able to be Awakened, as it had once been alive.

That's more of a question of knowledge as power, rather than magic as power. Vasher is certainly one of the most learned characters we've met, and I'd assume he's up there with Khriss in terms of Cosmere knowledge in the tier below Hoid.