The Power of Nightblood | Cosmere Lore

hello would you like to destroy some evil today if you are let's jump right into the video [Music] hey guys it's christian from lost in discovery and on this episode of cosmere law we are going to talk about our favorite sentient sword in the cosmere night blood i hope you enjoyed my lighting glow up here i'm really really happy with this new setup and can't wait to use it in future videos now spoiler warning for this video about night blood i would strongly strongly strongly recommend that you've read war breaker before you watch this video and if you have at least read up to oathbringer to the end of oathbringer in the stormlight archive i'll be talking a bit about rhythm of war towards the end but i'll put a massive spoiler warning before i get into rhythm of war stuff short version of that read war breaker and up to oathbringer in the stormlight archive rhythm of war stuff is at the end if you've done that too all right let's do it so the origins of night blood start on the planet in althus and this is where the story of war breaker takes place on the planet of nautha cells a group of returned known as the five scholars these guys were doing research into the powers of breath and trying to push its boundaries and what you could do with it the five scholars were the group that figured out how to create lifeless with only using one breath instead of previously 50 breaths so they have made huge impacts on the world that warbreaker takes place in but perhaps their most significant invention or discovery was the sword nightblood and nightblood was created by two members of this group shashara and vasha who you might also know as the hell from the stormlight archive vasha and shashara were lovers they traveled throughout the cosmos together and we're trying to make discoveries regarding breath and different types of investiture and if you don't really know what investiture means it just means different types of magic systems in the cosmic now what inspired them to create night blood partly was seeing shard blades in rocha they didn't know how they were made but they knew that they wanted to create something similar to them night blood was mainly created by shashara but vasha was there to help out and it was created with 1 000 breaths invested into it now that's a very very small amount to start off with but it grew over time it was given one simple command destroy evil now already if you've read these books you know how a very loose term like that can lead to catastrophic and um what's the word misunderstood effects now the problem is that night blood itself does not have a concept of what evil is it has gained some sort of sentience but it has no experience with humans interactions or how societies work so its view of evil is quite distorted i think sanderson himself sums it up way better than i could right here this is what he says nightblood himself unfortunately doesn't quite understand what good and evil are however he knows that his master can determine who is good and who is evil using the sword's power to make people sick or through other means so he pretty much lets whoever is holding him decide what is evil and if the one holding the sword determines deep within their heart that they are evil themselves they will end up killing themselves on the sword now you probably recognize this from many instances in the stormlight archive and in warbreaker as well vasha will throw out night blood and people are drawn to this sword they feel attracted to it they want to use it and as you've seen many times before they end up killing themselves now we've seen at the beginning of war breaker even if night blood is unsheathed just the tiniest bit it can lead to catastrophic effects and we've seen people impale themselves even with the sheathed version of night blood now when you are sliced by night blood or stabbed by night blood or even nicked by night blood you disappear into a puff of smoke and you are destroyed completely we've known in sanderson's cosmere that things can live on in the cognitive realm and the spiritual realm is a bit of a mystery to us but we do know that night blood destroys you in all three realms so if you get nicked or killed by night blood you are dead it's completely dead as you can get in the cosmic so following on shashara ends up using night blood at the battle of twilight falls and causes destruction on a level unseen before in the history of nathus vasha is completely taken aback by this and shashara had full intention to share the process of how she made night blood to others and he just thought this could not happen night blood is just an abomination we have to stop this now and he ended up killing shashara with night blood so she could not achieve that goal so she is dead in the most complete ways you can get in the cosmic it's quite the tragic backstory for vasha we see light song when he's looking at the art every morning in his daily routine he sees a depiction of shashara holding night blood in this battle and you just see that's a very very bloody affair now that's pretty much the origins of night blood or as much as we know of it in war breaker this is what sanderson says about nightblood's role in war breaker night blood is part of a much larger story in this world he's dropped casually in this particular book more as a side note than a real focus of what's going on but his own role in the world is much much larger than his supporting part here would indicate and sanderson is absolutely right with that because he's planning a sequel to war breaker with the working title nightblood where i'm assuming we'll get the origin story or at least more of an understanding about night blood and where it came from now let's get to the fun part how night blood plays into the stormlight archive [Music] now i'm sure if you read war breaker before reading words of radiance you will remember forever the first moment you see night blood in the series it is one of those holy crap moments where you're just like this is some of the best and most exciting stuff i've read in a while and if you don't remember it's after seth is killed by kaladin resurrected by the herald nail and is given a sword who says hello would you like to destroy some evil today and you know right away which sword this is i am ashamed to say i had not read war breaker before reading this scene i read it afterwards of radiance so you can imagine how much i feel like i missed out on such a big moment regardless reading back it's still super exciting now despite that being the first acknowledgement or mention of it in the stormlight archive if you want to look at the stormlight archive in a chronological way nightblood has been involved in the series much before this it happens in a dalinar chapter in his flashbacks when he first visits the night watcher when he eradicates all memories of his wife the night watcher is trying to figure out what dalinar wants and actually ends up offering nightblood to him this is what she says perhaps it is possessions you wish she said spheres gemstones shards a blade that bleeds darkness and cannot be defeated i can give it to you and without a doubt we know that is for sure night blood now it's unclear how the night watcher found herself in possession of night blood but there is a theory that vasha slash zahel as you know him installment archive traded night blood with the night watcher for some sort of deal about how he's existing on rocha but that's a very iffy theory with lots of holes in it it's more like an assumption people have made i'm sure if we do get a sequel to war breaker called night blood we might get a scene that explains the transition from nathus to russia who knows anyway the fact is vasha at some point got rid of night blood they had a very very tumultuous and complicated relationship as anyone does with this bloody sword so yeah i can't blame him for getting rid of her so that's where he starts to show up in the stormlight archive but then it gets really really damn exciting in oathbringer one thing i noticed in doing research for this video that i found very interesting was when nightblood is talking to seth or a seth calls him sword nimi he comments that he can hear the voices in zeth's head so that really does confirm that this is not just a mental illness thing going on with seth this is some sort of spiritual realm effect it seems that is happening to seth there's a lot there to dive into but that's a whole other video i think when night blood talks to its owner in their head it almost occupies that space it can read people's thoughts it can understand their mood and this is what has led to the great banter we get between nightblood and everybody else it also seems he can talk to people passing by and we've seen how he can make people feel sick in the presence of the blade now we see nightblood in full effect at the battle of phthalo field in oathbringer and we see the fully destructive potential of this weapon and it is glorious seth enters flying down from the sky ripping a thunderclast in half like it's nothing and from there you're just like what is gonna happen with this sword but we also see the detrimental effects it has basically once you take night blood out of its sheath it consumes investiture so it consumes the investiture of the objects or people it's killing but it also consumes it from the wielder itself that's why we start to see the black tendrils and the veins bulging from the users of night blood we see it consume their face it happened to zeth it happened to lift as she was helping him and it is a terrifying potential it seems that every time night blood destroys something it inherits the power of that person or object probably the better word is it inherits that investiture so it gains strength and that's why starting from a thousand breaths and it just got more and more and more terrifying as the story of the cosmic progresses so that's where we will up to by the end of war breaker and oathbringer with nightblood now the next section is for you guys who are up to date and have read rhythm of war as well i wanted to keep this a separate section because i know a lot of us are still going through this new book so if you have not read come back later whenever you do because there's lots to talk about night blood and what happens in rhythm of war all right in rhythm of war it's like night blood had his time to shine well i don't know why i'm saying his had its time to shine another thing i did not mention is people designate different genders to it i believe seth refers to him as he lyft refers to night blood as she so it seems to be very fluid night blood itself doesn't have no concept of gender though though it's it's trying to understand now there are so many notable moments of knight blood and rhythm of war one when he chipped isha's on a blade this was the first time we've seen an honor blade have any sort of resistance against it we've seen shard blades clash but never get chipped or broken on a blades are a step up from a shard blade but we see that knight blood took a freaking chip out of it and i know it seems like nothing but in this world of the cosby that is ridiculous and isha the herald isha is totally shook by this and gets out of dodge so fast two in the same scene seth is able to use blood to close a purple i can never say this word seth uses night blood to close up perpendicularity which has been unseen before darna asks if he has destroyed it but the stormfall confirms that blood just closed it and it could be reopened but reading the scene again you see that night blood fills itself with the investiture from this moment and it gets stronger and stronger it drinks the energy from the people and things that it consumes but i know most of you who clicked on this video are waiting for me to talk about one moment maybe one of the biggest moment in any of the cosmere books ever and that is when taravagian uses nightblood to kill the vessel of the shard of odium rays probably the most mind-blowing moment in rhythm of war so we know that seth actually did kill taravangen he killed him with a normal blade but there was this moment in between moments where as he was passing he was going into another realm i'm not sure if it's the spiritual realm or the cognitive realm reading the chapter again it just says tara vengean was taken into odium's realm and in that realm tara vengeance saw a manifestation of night blood he could still see it and in that moment he knew what to do it's part of the diagram it's part of what was meant to happen for tyre range and he knew in that moment what needed to be done and it's so perfect he took knight blood and rammed it up into odium killing the vessel of that shard rays and it's described that night blood was full and contented he didn't needed no more investiture he drank more than he could handle and was as powerful as possible i'm assuming because of it with the death of rays someone needed to take up the shard of odium and who better than our boy taravangian so i think that really sums up the true power of nightblood it must be i'm calling it the most powerful terrifying and destructive weapon in all of the cosmere thank you so much for watching guys i really really hope you enjoyed this video about knight blood i hope you enjoy this new lighting setup i have if you are new to the channel i have so much stormlight content on my channel please check it out and if you want more let me know i can't wait to keep building this and keep making more videos this has been so much fun to get back to stormlight i miss doing videos on this and it's so hard not to put down wheel of time and go right back to the cosmere but don't worry i'm gonna stay focused thank you so much and i'll see you guys all in my next video

Channel: Lost in Discovery

Views: 23,294

Rating: 4.9823165 out of 5

Keywords: nightblood, cosmere lore, stormlight archive, stormlight archive lore, Warbreaker, Brandon sanderson, cosmere explained, what is the cosmere?, stormlight archive review, rhythm of war review, rhythm of war ending, taravangian odium, szeth, Nightblood stormlight, Nightblood warbreaker, Szeth sword, best fantasy books, lost in discovery

Id: zkTfWLvpDOA

Length: 14min 56sec (896 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021