So a shardblade against aluminum is it more
Butter knife against steel wall
Or
Regular sword against a metal surface.
Like can a shardblade cut through one layer of aluminum foil like a normal sword or can a single layer effectively stop a shard blade ?
As far as I understand, it stops its magical capabilities, but it's still a sword
It's still a *relatively light* sword, as it doesn't have the same expected mass for better cutting.
True, but since it takes whatever form you want, it's gonna be the sharpest sword in existence, something is something. Also it's still made of a god-metal, it's gonna be durable as hell
Yeah, if you make it narrow enough, some of those we've seen have been pretty thick.
I mean most real swords are lighter than people think. Even what we call great swords only weighed an average of 6-7 pounds
Oh, absolutely, but they weren't the monstrous chunks we see in the art. Shardblades, especially the dead ones, are big. And more than big, they are thick. A zweihander/montante/spadone/whatever you want to call it, was a few mm at most. Looking at the official art, that's multiple centimetres of thickness.
And the characters still comment on how light they are.
Light compared to what they look like. I always imagined their net weight to be in the normal range of a 2-handed sword, but the volume makes a person expect more. If you get what I mean.
I don't think they would be multiple cm of thickness and I haven't seen art suggesting that. They are meant to be absurdly large, but that would be over the top imo.
I dunno, the official takes on Oathbringer looks THICK.
Just took another look at the cover and I it really doesn't seem very thick to me. Certainly not multiple centimetres. It's hard to judge from the picture alone though.
The light weight is relative to what people would assume given the size; there's still plenty of weight to cut.
Quote from Words of Radiance:
So from that quote we know a shard blade weighs less than a longsword.
Yep, but not substantially less, and besides the weight of a sword is not that important to cutting. It's far more about the structure and stance you use, which is why every sword is as light as it could possibly be while still being strong.
They are relatively light for their size, but their size is also huge so I would expect them to have similar masses as normal swords although with, due to their size and momentum, a handling that's more similar to great swords. So I'd suspect they'd still be great cutters - not as well as a sword of steel with the same proportions - but those you wouldn't be able to wield at all so that's not a fair comparison.
In WaT Lift was expected to be able to break through some Aluminum foiling with Wyndle.
It turned out to be more like Aluminum plating, so she was unsuccessful, but the fact that they even thought she could be successful points to it being a "normal" sword vs normal Aluminum, keeping in mind that Shardblades lack the mass a sword would normally have and the wielder probably isn't as strong as normally expected.
WaT I-13
(small skip, within the same chapter)
I believe that a shard blade could tear through thin aluminum (picture pushing a stick through aluminum/tin foil, paper thin), but it wouldn't cut through a block of aluminum like it would stone.
Question though, are shard blades literally sharp in addition to their shard-ness? Would it be able to cut thin aluminum due to its shape, irrelevant to its shard properties?
I mean its of course adjustable, but generally I would say they are shaped like a normal sword. That would mean they can cut like a normal sword if you ignore their magic stuff.
Probably as live blades dull or take non sharp shapes when they don’t want to cut. Probably has an intent or a cognitive bias that means they need to look sharp to help cut magically better
*laughs in cheese armor on r/cremposting
It should be regular sword against aluminium. The only part that aluminium stops is the magic cutting ability.
The latter. It's still a sword. An indestructible one at that.
Not sure if this is considered a spoiler, but Nightblood can damage them, so maybe not indestructible. But it does beg the question of what happens to the spren if that happens…
The recent spoiler stream suggests that that event was unusual even for Nightblood.
That was also due to its nature as a thing that is capable of annihilating investiture.
Relatively indestructible, one could say.
Your not going to wrap yourself in foil and be immune to shardblade if that's what your asking.
The aluminum only stops the magical properties of the blade, but your still swinging a six foot long sword. The physical properties remain, and that's going to tear through thin metal without an issue... And once it's pierced the aluminum, the magical properties function again.
Ah but we've seen aluminum lines shields work and like idk a candelabra and cutlery
Id assume those have thicker aluminum around the edges, and probably a band across the middle. Stops the standard wide sweeping slashes of shardblades on the edges, while using as little as necessary.
I think "Lined" is s bit of an understatement here. It's not like the aluminum inside of an aluminum lined hat.
The problem with aluminum as a defensive measure is that it's a relatively soft metal you swing a massive sword at it, and your going to want to have a good half inch or more of aluminum... And every hit is going to leave a huge gouge in the metal. A different metal or wood backing to help support the metal is going to make a huge difference there, but an effective defense against weaponry made from aluminum is going to become bulky and heavy very quickly.
If you were wearing an aluminum hat and got smacked in the head it’d probably rip the tinfoil and then kill you.
If you layer aluminum foil on something like a shield, it would not be able to magically cut through the aluminum and would thus be blockable. These are the Half-Shards that we see in WoK, which a king tries to use against Szeth.
[deleted]
I'll need to reread interlude 13, but the candelabra and shields/maces should have enough mass to stop a Shardblade, or "regular sword against metal". A lining doesn't need to be very thick when backed by something stronger, and the candelabra I read as solid aluminum, meaning it's ~1 inch thick at least
I imagine it would be regular sword vs regular aluminum. A shard blade could probably cut through aluminum foil but not a solid block of aluminum
IT should be just like metal vs metal, if it's a live shardblade I imagine becoming a spiked sledgehammer might be quite effective.
If you've read Mistborn, then you'll understand why aluminum does what it does.
A sharblade doesn't cut in the physical world, it cuts in the spiritual. It litteraly cleaves off the spirit web.
But it is wholly made of Investiture.
Aluminum + Investiture = ....RAFO :)
And a sheet of aluminum foil would be like an immovable object to a sharblade.
It would act like a regular object. Considering how light shardblades are it would definitely be less effective then sword, but it still probably wouldn't be hard to pierce through foil.
Regular sword against metal surface. The blade doesn't magically go through, but you're still hitting the aluminum with a giant anime sword. A Shardblade will still cut aluminum foil, for example. (WaT spoilers) Adolin's candelabrum probably should have snapped after a couple of hits, but the basic idea was fairly sound. Aluminum doesn't make very good armor in absolute terms, but it would probably block some hits. The tendency to bend and dent may make some injuries worse, but that's arguably still better than letting a shardblade through.
Laminating aluminum and steel might be an interesting exercise for a high-tech society.