Did anyone else think it weird that Nightblood is a "He"?

[Wuestenfuchs]

Hi, 

I've just finished Warbreaker, and reading Stormlight I always thought of Nightblood as distinctly feminine. This is probably because I'm a native Spanish speaker, and I tend to asociate genders to nouns even when I'm reading English. Sword, night and blood are all feminine in Spanish. Also Nimi (as in Sword Nimi) also feels feminine.

I am the only one this happened to?

[alder24]

He's "he" because Vasher started calling him that.

Quote

Heartlight

What is Nightblood's opinions on gender, and who decided on him having he/him pronouns?

Brandon Sanderson

Nightblood is fascinated by gender, and trying to figure it out. Unlike spren like Syl, Nightblood has not self gender assigned as an influence of interacting with humans. That said, Vasher was probably the one who just started calling him He, so if you want to take the issue up with anyone, go to him.

/r/books AMA 2015 (March 13, 2015)

 

[king of nowhere]

in the italian language the neuter gender fell out of use and we somehow assigned genders to every object (bed is male, chair is female, closet is male, different kinds of lamps have different names some males and some females... we just go by ear, there's no logic. it mostly depends on the last letter in the word).

so, assigning a sword as a he is not weird. having to think in terms of "it" is what's weird.

(p.s. sword in italian is female, though greatsword is male)

[Mr. Misting he/him]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Lift refers to Nightblood as "she" in stormlight. But the WOB that alder has is basically what I was going to say.

[Letryx13]

I listened to WarBreaker and OathBringer as audio books, and NighBlood's voice is very different between them, not even accounting for different readers. He sounds distinctly male in WarBreaker, most often a very positive upbeat almost child like voice.  So I always saw him as a he.

[nyxvoid]

yes i did noticed this gender change from warbreaker to SA. in warbreaker , tone of nightblood felt feminine . also name 'nightblood ' felt feminine . and then in SA i read sword referenced as he. very surprising for me. 

[cometaryorbit]

Lift uses 'she' in RoW, yes, but I think that is just a PoV perspective thing. Vasher uses 'he' and Nightblood has, I think, passively accepted that (ie Nightblood doesn't understand what it means but doesn't object).

[Treamayne]

I've always thought of Nightblood as a nonbinary neuter. Why would a sentient object have gender? As seen by Vasher (male pronouns) and Lift (female pronouns), pronoun gender is in the mind of the person, not Nightblood. . .

On 12/20/2022 at 2:49 PM, Wuestenfuchs said:

Also Nimi (as in Sword Nimi) also feels feminine.

I don't think Sanderson has ever confirmed this, but I'm fairly sure the term "Nimi" was inspired by the Korean Suffix "Nim" - which is an honorific given to somebody of either gender (e.g. SeonsaengNim (선생님) = Honorable Teacher). At least Szeth's use of the term is very similar. . .

[Tglassy]

He's neither.  His voice is neither, as well.  People assign gender to him.  

I'm an American English speaker, and I was taught (or remember being taught) that "it" was reserved for inanimate objects or things that were not people, and is considered rude when applied to a person, therefore the genders used for people are "He" and "She", and when the gender is unknown, you revert to "He", as "He" can, in this case, be gender neutral.

Now, today, I've heard people throw a fit at that saying something something patriarchy keeping power or something, but I've never seen it that way.  It just reserves feminine language for when something is known to be feminine, and in my mind that is so it is not insulted by being called masculine.  Nobody cares if the masculine is insulted, so they get to be the blank 'gender neutral' one.  But that's just how I've always seen it. 

Using that logic, you'd refer to Nightblood as a He simply because his gender is unknown, or if it is known that he doesn't have a gender, then 'he' would be preferable to 'it", since "It" denotes it is not a person, and "He" would be preferable to "She" as "She" would be a misnomer because in my mind, while "he" can be gender neutral, "she" is always feminine, and if he doesn't have a gender, he isn't feminine.  

However, in Nightblood's case, he hasn't selected a gender because he doensn't understand the concept, even if it fascinates him, and therefore it really is whatever the person talking to him wants to assign him.  Lift decided Nightblood is a she.  Most others think Nightblood is a he.  It just depends.  

[lacrossedeamon]

Obviously Adolin feels differently, but it’s very Freudian to just assign a sword a masculine gender.

[Wuestenfuchs]

On 2/1/2023 at 2:59 AM, Treamayne said:

I've always thought of Nightblood as a nonbinary neuter. Why would a sentient object have gender? As seen by Vasher (male pronouns) and Lift (female pronouns), pronoun gender is in the mind of the person, not Nightblood. . .

I don't think Sanderson has ever confirmed this, but I'm fairly sure the term "Nimi" was inspired by the Korean Suffix "Nim" - which is an honorific given to somebody of either gender (e.g. SeonsaengNim (선생님) = Honorable Teacher). At least Szeth's use of the term is very similar. . .

Again, I'm Spanish, every word is either masculine or femenine. I always (unvoluntarily) asign each object a gender. 

[Treamayne]

21 minutes ago, Wuestenfuchs said:

Again, I'm Spanish, every word is either masculine or femenine. I always (unvoluntarily) asign each object a gender. 

That's great. There's nothing wrong with that at all; I was just hoping to explain why, in a non-latinic language, "Nimi" might not have any internal gender reference.