Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

I just had a crazy thought.

Most Shardblades on Roshar are dead. But Vasher is on Roshar, a guy who knows how to bring dead objects back to at least an imitation of life. What would happen if he used Awakening on a Shardblade?

He probably wouldn't. He wouldn't be able to envision anything but a second. Nightblood.

He can´t. Shardblades are basicly fully Invested already, so he couldn´t put any more in, also Investiture (Shardblades= Roshar Investiture) doesn´t mix with other Investiture (Breath= Nalthian Investiture)

Except Vasher/Zahel is apparently able to use stormlight to keep himself alive in place of Breaths, so clearly some level of substitution works.

Thats more that he as a Returned needs a steady source of Investiture to continue being alive.

On Nalthis, that Investiture is provided by consuming Breath (ie turning it back into Investiture to use) while on Roshar Stormlight can be used.

Essentially, Bio Chromatic Breath is Wood for Gasoline, Stormlight is Diesel.

You can set both on fire to gain heat but you can't use Gasoline in a Diesel Engine or Diesel in a Gasoline engine.

But if Vasher brought some Breaths with him to Roshar, either inside himself or storing them in an object, those could still be used even if he wasn't on Nalthis?

Probably, unless Identity and Shardworld mechanics get wonky.

He could use them to Awaken things that aren't made from Investiture, sure. I mean, he could probably make some Lifeless if he was bored, but given that Rosharan's don't have Breath its a sharply limited commodity to do so.

Also, remember, Awakening Nightblood took the 9th Hightening, and we atm have no idea how many Breaths beyond his Divine Breath he has left.

edited 24th Sep '17 3:55:28 PM by 3of4

Would a Knight Radiant or a Returned be able to Breathe in the Mists in Scadrial? I mean, it's literally free Investiture just THERE, floating around in front of your face.

I was thinking that Shardblades would fall under the rule that says objects which were once alive are easier to Awaken then things which were never alive.

Now, it is a general principle that, the more Investiture something has, the harder it is to affect it with magic, but the rules on that are a little unclear to me. Like, if someone took Nale's healing fabrial to Nalthis and tried to use it to grow back Susebron's severed tongue, would his immense Bio Chroma keep the device from working properly on him? Is Lightsong just lucky his Divine Breath healing was potent enough to overcome that obstacle? Or does having loads of Investiture only block magical effects that would be considered unwanted?

Depends. It's not entirely clear how Vasher manages to take in stormlight, since there's no one to freely give it to him like there is with Breath.

edited 24th Sep '17 4:17:59 PM by RavenWilder

Vasher is also Vasher.

He's one the few main characters who I have no issue believing would be able to figure out Investiture conversion mechanics with little difficulty.

So I think he could probably do the mist thing.

But anyone else might take a bit longer if its possible.

edited 24th Sep '17 5:21:23 PM by 32ndfreeze

No. The Mists are not free Investiture, they are a part of Preservation/Harmony

Breathing in a god would probably get you a polite 'Stop that' from the latter these days. And then probably shot by Wax.

They might be able to drain a Nicrosil Metalmind, but Allomancy works by burning Metal as Catalyst to draw the Investiture from/through Preservation/Harmony.

Quoth the Coppermind:

(I figure Vasher simply breathes in Stormlight like a Radiant would and it then has the same effect as consuming a Breath would. Breath and Stormlight are merely forms of energy storage, not different forms of energy after all)

I actually wonder now if the Heralds and former Knights Radiant could draw Stormlight directly from Honor before he died, like an Allomancer draws Investiture straight from Harmony

Also, on a different note regarding a Radiant on Scadrial. Apparently Aluminium can stop a Shardblade (remember, Investiture Sink) but its super rare on Roshar cause you can only Soulcast it. I wonder if that means an Aluminium Bullet would be a *bad* thing for someone in Shardplate.

edited 25th Sep '17 3:16:07 AM by 3of4

Interesting. Would it have to be aluminum all the way through, or would aluminum plated steel work? After all, there would still be metallurgy issues.

For that matter, what metal does a Shardblade most closely resemble? The constant mentions of it not being as heavy as it seems leads me to think its a low-density metal. In which case, we'd know the answer to the aluminum bullet thing. After all, just because it's hit by an investiture sink doesn't mean it stops being a pseudo metal.

Huh. Is Nightblood's sheath made of aluminum? That could likely explain a lot.

I think its simply appears as metal but has no specific imitation of any real metal. Pseudo-metal.

And mass still is an issue for a Aluminium counter to a Shardplate. A sheet of Aluminium foil would stop the CUT YOUR SOUL part of the Shardblade. At which points its still a incredibly sharp mass of pseudo metal fully capable of cleaving you old style.

Exactly. However, depending on the physical properties of a Shardblade one you take away the investiture powers, it might not be an issue. For all we know, it has the mass of aluminum too.

So I've decided to reread Words of Radiance in preparation for the release of Oathbringer. So far I've read the prologue and the first chapter, and I had a couple observations I don't remember thinking of on my first read through.

First, since Jasnah's spren is appearing to her and she's able to make use of stormlight during the prologue, she must have already fulfilled the first ideal of the Knights Radiant ("Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.") I find this timing significant because Jasnah is on her way to a meeting with an assassin, an assassin she has used before and is planning to use again to eliminate potential threats to her family (in this case, she was planning to take a contract out on Elhokar's wife). This suggests that, though Kaladin will get in trouble with his Windrunner oaths for silently condoning a political assassination, the other Orders aren't as bothered by it.

My other observation is that, when Jasnah starts giving Shallan an exposition dump about Shadesmar and spren and how their powers work, Shallan is surprised that Jasnah is telling her all of this so soon, assuming that she'd want to hold onto such valuable information and not give it up so freely. That mindset (that the truth is valuable and should be guarded jealously) is exactly the same as the Cryptics have, and is a nice reminder of why they chose Shallan.

Makes sense. Logically, the Elsecallers would be Transport and logistics officers, what with making the food and transporting the food. What she is doing is merely handling the background logistics of getting an assassination ready. Totally in line with the most logical function of her group.

Don't forget that the main problem with Kaladin and the assassination was that he was implicitly allowing the assassination of someone he had sworn to protect. On the plateaus before he and Shallan fall into the chasms, Syl even tells him that he can't turn Moash and the assassins into Dalinar, because he swore he wouldn't. Even though he and Syl both agree that the assassins are wrong, breaking his oath would still be wrong (the lesson being "be careful what you promise"). The impression I got was that swearing the Third Ideal and protecting Elhokar gave Syl enough strength to survive breaking the other oath.

That gets at something I wondered about before: if the climax to The Way of Kings had gone differently, and the Alethi had cornered the Parshendi on the Plateau and were slaughtering them, would Kaladin have had to come to the Parshendi's aid in accordance with his "Protect those who cannot protect themselves" oath, or would betraying the Alethi army by helping their enemies also be bad for his honorspren?

I believe we discussed this before. Two things: One, Kaladin never swore to fight for the Alethi armies (well, not since Amaram, and we can assume the betrayal voided all of Kaladin's responsibilities to the man), so he could theoretically fight against them in defense of the Parshendi without breaking any oaths. Second, unless the Parshendi had actively surrendered, they wouldn't be considered "helpless" since they were armed and fighting back. If they did surrender, Dalinar wouldn't have allowed Sadeas to slaughter them indiscriminately. If Sadeas insisted, they might have even come to blows over it, at which point Kaladin would have again had a choice to help Dalinar—though it wouldn't have been quite as important a choice, since Dalinar would have had more of a fair fight against Sadeas and thus wouldn't have been considered helpless.

Dalinar's army was armed and fighting back against the Parshendi, but it seems them being sufficiently overmatched with nowhere to retreat to was enough to count.

Personally, I think what really pushed Dalinar's army into the "cannot protect themselves" category was the fact that they were betrayed.

Otherwise, it would have been an instance of one army defeating another. Kaladin isn't forced to help whichever side is loosing a conflict.

I see it more as him always having to help those who have been dealt an unfair hand, either because of the circumstances of their life or because of malicious people.

edited 26th Sep '17 7:28:08 AM by GutstheBerserker

New chapter is up! Pattern is a cute little cockblocker!

link for anyone that needs it.

Lots of interesting character stuff this time around.

I forgot about the chapter until after I really bshould have been asleep, so I'll post what I thought properly tomorrow.

Oh, Pattern was wonderful. And Shallan creating an entirely new personality on the spot, while useful, isn't exactly the best sign of a healthy mind. And Adolin really needs to confess what he did soon. Sooner or later, someone is going to realize that something is wrong, and it's going to be at the worst possible time.

And it seems a large portion of the Parshmen weren't turned into Voidbringers, but just Parshendi. That's wonderful and bodes well for Azir's negotiations, but then there's the question of the strange spren that spotted Kaladin. Is there a Voidbringer around?