Author Topic: Nightblood and Metalminds  (Read 6911 times)

Technomancer

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Nightblood and Metalminds
« on: April 17, 2010, 04:32:23 AM »
I've been thinking lately and Nightblood shares a lot of similarities to a Feruchemal Metalmind but it also seems more advanced in some ways.  I thought perhaps discussing this might shed some light on Feruchemy and Awakening.  I also found it interesting that the only Awakened object that we saw truly gain sentience was made of metal, I could just be grasping at straws for connections but who knows?

On a side note: I was at Brandon's signing in Lincoln last night, and according to him due to its sentience Nightblood would be immune to the affect of an Allomancer trying to push/pull on it was iron and steel.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 05:09:25 AM by Technomancer »

Miyabi

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2010, 05:06:50 AM »

On a side note: I was at Brandon's signing in Lincoln last night, and according to him due to its sentience Nightblood whould be immune to the affect of an Allomancer trying to push/pull on it was iron and steel.

This interests me. . . .

Why would sentience change the affects of Allomancy?
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Fireborn

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2010, 05:15:51 AM »
Perhaps it's for the same reason that Allomantic pulling and pushing doesn't work on people, because it isn't strong enough.  TLR was able to push people because his Allomancy was strong enough to push on the metals in their blood, but there might be another reason.  The Cognitive and Spiritual aspects of a sentient being might be enough to counteract specific sorts of magical attack on a physical level.  Perhaps, since Nightblood being sentient gives it stronger Cognitive and Spiritual existence, it puts it on the same level as a person when it comes to Allomantic resistance.  The question that should be asked is whether or not TLR would be able to push on it.

Sorry, I'm kind of scrambling at fragmented ideas here, so feel free to rip it to pieces, I can take it.
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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2010, 05:19:58 AM »

On a side note: I was at Brandon's signing in Lincoln last night, and according to him due to its sentience Nightblood would be immune to the affect of an Allomancer trying to push/pull on it was iron and steel.

This interests me. . . .

Why would sentience change the affects of Allomancy?

The way I understood it was that was something like metal piercing the body not being affected.  A sword is metal and Nightblood has a, I guess you could call it a soul so the metal is its body and this makes it immune.  Of course this all came from the question of who would win in a fight between Vin, Vasher, and Raoden on an even playing field. (the answer was Vin btw, her faster magic and somewhat ruthless additude being sighted as the reasons.)  Of course he mentioned that Nightblood would be trouble for the Elantrian and Mistborn, to which I noted it being made of metal and fair game for Vin; the statement about sentience was his reply.  He also stated that in future books we'd being seeing other such metals that would be immune to Allomancy due to all of these worlds being in the Shardverse.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 06:53:18 AM by Technomancer »

Technomancer

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2010, 05:23:41 AM »
Perhaps it's for the same reason that Allomantic pulling and pushing doesn't work on people, because it isn't strong enough.  TLR was able to push people because his Allomancy was strong enough to push on the metals in their blood, but there might be another reason.  The Cognitive and Spiritual aspects of a sentient being might be enough to counteract specific sorts of magical attack on a physical level.  Perhaps, since Nightblood being sentient gives it stronger Cognitive and Spiritual existence, it puts it on the same level as a person when it comes to Allomantic resistance.  The question that should be asked is whether or not TLR would be able to push on it.

Sorry, I'm kind of scrambling at fragmented ideas here, so feel free to rip it to pieces, I can take it.
To be honest I'd also pondered if an exceedingly powerful Allomancer like TLR or Mist-powered Vin could Push/Pull on it, if my theory is correct then logic would say yes due to evidence in Mistborn but Nightblood already seems to break one rule...

ryos

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2010, 07:27:39 AM »
In allomancy, the metal is just a catalyst. It helps an allomancer open a channel through the part of preservation that resides in them and draw on Preservation's power. I think I read that in an annotation.

I recall from the chapter headings that allomancy comes from Preservation, hemalurgy comes from Ruin, and Feruchemy is of the balance. That's not explained any more than that, but I can speculate. Allomancy uses metal as a catalyst to draw on Preservation. Hemalurgy stores an aspect of a victim's body in a piece of metal and transfers it to another. Feruchemy allows one to store aspects of one's own body in metal, to be drawn out later.

Nightblood is similar in this respect to both hemalurgy and feruchemy. A bit of one person's soul (the Breath) was transfered willingly from one person to another; that person amassed quite a lot of Breath and stored 1000 of them in Nightblood. This mass of life force has managed to imbue the inanimate metal with the characteristics of human sentience, which itself probably (my guess) has something to do with the shards of Adonalsium, which, again, has something to do with the fact that metal inside a person can't be pushed or pulled.

(Honestly, I think metal inside a person can't be pushed or pulled because, were that not the case, Allomancers and Hemalurgists would have an excessively debilitating weakness. Clearly that requirement led to lots of in-world rationalizations.)

But I'm just rambling to take a break from studying. Sorry you had to read that bag of wind.
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clarissavandell

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2010, 04:00:35 AM »
Do you think that Brandon's magic systems are so closely interlaced, that perhaps it's on purpose?  Like Hoid and the Shards of Andolasium?  That perhaps the systems are some kind of 'sister magics'?

Or perhaps I'm reading too far into this.

But that leads into how far the magic systems are entrenched within the shards...

Technomancer

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2010, 04:28:36 AM »
Do you think that Brandon's magic systems are so closely interlaced, that perhaps it's on purpose?  Like Hoid and the Shards of Andolasium?  That perhaps the systems are some kind of 'sister magics'?

Or perhaps I'm reading too far into this.

But that leads into how far the magic systems are entrenched within the shards...
No I think you're on to something.  When he told me about Nightblood's immunity to Allomancy and mentioned that there would be other metals that would also be immune to Allomantic effects he refered to an "overarching magic system".  This does make sense as it the Shards that provide the power for the magic and they were all once part of Andolasium.

However a new question comes to mind about Nightblood's immunity, since it's a living sword it's immune to iron and steel but what about zinc and brass?  Could Nightblood be Soothed or Rioted or perhaps with the addition of duralumin, controlled like a kandra or koloss?

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2010, 08:06:18 AM »
What I would like to know is if someone who is both an allomancer and an awakener would have their allomantic strength boosted by having a large amount of breaths.  This comes from the idea that having more of preservation's power is what determines how strong an allomancer you are, would this work with the power of endowment (if that is exactly what breaths are)?  Another thing that I think supports this is the existence of Atium mistings, who are gifted via preservation with the ability to only use ruin's power could mean that shard power is shard power and can be interpreted through all magic systems.  Maybe.
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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2010, 08:02:03 PM »
What I would like to know is if someone who is both an allomancer and an awakener would have their allomantic strength boosted by having a large amount of breaths.  This comes from the idea that having more of preservation's power is what determines how strong an allomancer you are, would this work with the power of endowment (if that is exactly what breaths are)?  Another thing that I think supports this is the existence of Atium mistings, who are gifted via preservation with the ability to only use ruin's power could mean that shard power is shard power and can be interpreted through all magic systems.  Maybe.
I suppose it's possible but some of the systems work very differently.  For instance AonDor but of course that could be something like Allomancy with the Aons being the tap in place of metals; also Elantrians seem dramically similar to Returned, coincidence?  Now about your question: I don't think a Mistborn storing Breath would become any stronger Allomanically, they'd just become able to able to Awaken, but Breath seems similar to the mists in some ways, if they could find some way to burn Breath I'd wager it would have an effect like Vin burning the mists.

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #10 on: April 18, 2010, 09:07:32 PM »
Nightblood is steel right?  What if a feruchemist stored speed in it?  Maybe nightblood could steal it, maybe the feruchemist would get a surprise when he/she tried to withdraw his or her speed.  What it was used as a hemalurgic spike?  Scary stuff, the possibilites are endless.
Oh, I got it.  Nightblood has speed stored in it, then is stabbed through the body of an elantrian, into it's waiting hemalurgic host.
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Technomancer

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2010, 09:52:32 PM »
Nightblood is steel right?  What if a feruchemist stored speed in it?  Maybe nightblood could steal it, maybe the feruchemist would get a surprise when he/she tried to withdraw his or her speed.  What it was used as a hemalurgic spike?  Scary stuff, the possibilites are endless.
Oh, I got it.  Nightblood has speed stored in it, then is stabbed through the body of an elantrian, into it's waiting hemalurgic host.
but Hemalurgi spikes steal allomantic powers, would it steal the powers of an Elantrian?   Plus Nightblood would just suck it's new host dry if it were used as a spike.

clarissavandell

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2010, 02:24:44 AM »
So could we say that the Dor and Breath are somehow related as well? 

Technomancer

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2010, 02:32:26 AM »
So could we say that the Dor and Breath are somehow related as well? 
Yes.

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Re: Nightblood and Metalminds
« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2010, 06:55:57 AM »
Nightblood is steel right?  What if a feruchemist stored speed in it?  Maybe nightblood could steal it, maybe the feruchemist would get a surprise when he/she tried to withdraw his or her speed.  What it was used as a hemalurgic spike?  Scary stuff, the possibilites are endless.
Oh, I got it.  Nightblood has speed stored in it, then is stabbed through the body of an elantrian, into it's waiting hemalurgic host.
but Hemalurgi spikes steal allomantic powers, would it steal the powers of an Elantrian?   Plus Nightblood would just suck it's new host dry if it were used as a spike.
Actually a hemalurgic spike can steel allomantic powers, feruchemical powers or just plain human qualities depending who kill with it and where it's placed int he recipient.