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TL;DR- I think Kelsier is a Spren, in a Nahel bond, and IS his eye spike (summoned as a spike a'la a shardblade). With that in mind, the metal of his spike would be a god metal, either Lerasium or more likely an Alloy of Lerasium and Atium either Harmonium or a different alloy of different percentages of the two. Let me defend that a bit. First, most everyone agrees that what Kelsier is/was at the end of SH, a bodyless cognitive shadow, is categorically the same type of being as a spren. We have WoBs that support this and taking it further we have WoBs that state he could enter a Nahel bond as well. So its not a totally crazy idea. Next I want to talk about who he might be bonded with. Spook. In SH we see the Connection between Kelsier and Spook. If they solidified this connection and progressed in that connection, I imagine it would be considered a Nahel bond and if it got to a certain strength I don't see why it wouldn't have similar capabilities to a radian bond in the form of summoning. Now this would also imply that Spook is still alive. Enter the Spook is 16 (from tSA) theory. This would give that theory the motivation for why he would be skipping forward in time and keeping himself alive. To keep Kelsier alive until another solution is found to keep him physical. Overall, I think this theory could explain why Kels body is the way it is along with the problems he's having, I don't think its any more crazy then saying that he's pined to a body using a regular spike in a totally unique way, and I think it plays well with other fan favorite theories such as he has a Kandra body and 16 is Spook. Do I think its true? Na probably not, but I think it sounds cool and makes sense. I'd love to hear thoughts both for and against. (This is my first post on here, please let me know if I've done anything wrong. Very excited to join this part of the community)

I recently went down a cosmere rabbit hole(which I do on occasion) and I discovered that Design and Hoid somehow got off of Roshar to get to Komachi without breaking their bond. But I've also seen several articles state that that would be a bit of a problem for Hoid. How does this happen? I haven't read Yumi yet, if it's a spoiler, please don't tell me the answer, but if it isn't, I need answers.

It was stated in a WoB that a Cognitive Shadow like Kelsier could theoretically Bond someone on Roshar, and we have another WoB that says a Seon Bond taken to Roshar could allow the person Bonded to them to gain powers, albeit different ones from what Surgebinding normally grants; Basically, this got me thinking that a Returned could potentially form a Bond with a human and grant them powers, though the powers manifested would not be the same as those found in traditional Surgebinding. It would be almost like a mini-god granting a blessing to their mortal follower or champion .

I've had this theory bouncing around in my mind for a while and I want to see other's thoughts on it. To start with, I want to say that this is mostly unfounded. I think there's only really one piece of textually evidence, and it's not particularly strong. So I'm not particularly attached to it. Anyway, the gist of the theory is that Tien isn't dead. My explanation of this has a few different pieces. Firstly, Kaladin and Tien were both invested at the time, Tien more so. We have no idea how far along Tien was as a radiant, but he could have been pretty decently far and no one would have known. Kaladin was most likely first ideal at the time, as we know Syl was around, and Syl was able to travel to the physical realm because of her and Kaladin's connection. Secondly, Kaladin and Tien were already heavily connected. This is true for a few obvious reasons, such as them being close brothers. They loved each other deeply, and their connection mattered significantly to each of them. Thirdly, both had a deep desire to protect the other. Kaladin is the more obvious of the pair, seeing as his desire to protect Tien is a major plot point. However I think Tien's desire to protect Kaladin was just as strong, in a different way. Tien obviously wasn't going to be able to physically protect Kal, he wanted to protect Kal in mind and soul. We are told that Tien worked hard to cheer Kal up, and he was extremely important for Kal during the weeping. I think that Tien knew that Kal had depression, and he chose to help him as much as he could. Putting it all together, here's what I think happened. Tien is killed on the battlefield. Being highly invested, he would have stuck around a significant amount in the cognitive realm. But unlike most people, I don't think Tien would be able to accept his death. I think his strong will to protect his brother would keep him from the beyond, as we know is possible (If you don't know that, read Mistborn: A Secret History). I think that as a cognitive shadow, he could have been able to latch onto his connection with Kal, causing him to Nahel bond. However, because of his lack of a solid connection to any realm, I think the Nahel bond may only have been enough to keep him in the cognitive realm. So his ability to communicate with Kaladin would be extremely difficult. The piece of textual evidence I have is Tien's appearance in RoW. I think that was actually Tien, and not a copy created by Dalinar from Kaladin's memory. I want to go over some of the biggest problems with this theory. The first is the thematic implications. Tien's death is extremely important for Kaladin's story and his growth. Having Tien turn out to not have died would be a pretty big reversal of that, and could cheapen the character growth. I don't have a defense here, it's just true. 2: Kaladin has been to the cognitive realm. He has physically interacted with Syl, someone definitely Nahel bonded to him. If my theory is true, Tien should have been there. My defense here would be that Tien has somewhat accepted his current role, and knows that Kaladin needs to grow in ways that Tien cannot help with. This defense feels very loose, so it's most certainly a significant hole. 3: Why doesn't Syl know? Shouldn't she be able to see that Kal is bonded to Tien, or at least that Tien is hanging out in the cognitive realm? My defense is that we don't know if Syl would be able to know, and if Syl would even tell Kal if that was the case. She might assume that he knows, or think it better to not bring up. I think there are a couple different options, but nothing is very solid. I think Occam's Razor here says that Tien is dead, and I'm wrong. That's certainly true, and I'm not holding my breath. I want it to be true, but I think there are plenty of interesting stories to be told with Tien's death, so I would in no way be disappointed. Anyway, what are your thoughts? Can you think of better defenses, and/or more issues? Maybe there's a WoB out there that says "oh yeah tien is 100% dead" in which case whoopsies. But this is something I have put a decent amount of thought into, so hearing thoughts of all kinds would be nice.

TL;DR: I think Voidbinding is the reverse of a normal Radiant bond. In a normal Radiant bond, the human actively uses the powers; in Voidbinding, the spren uses the powers through the human. Renarin Renarin's visions are very strange because they're not a power he uses with Intent. Its possible to have subconscious Intent to use a power you don't understand, especially to survive (like Kaladin redirecting arrows or Vin burning traces of pewter), but that's still a basic Intent to survive. Renarin's visions happen even if he actively doesn't want them to. Also, even now when he has more control, he has to ask Glys to replay the vision. It's not like Shallan Lightweaving - Pattern can help her (like when Shallan attaches an illusion to Pattern) but it's still very much Shallan using the power, with Shallan's Intent. So it appears that Glys is the one actively using the power, and it's Glys's Intent that is relevant. Ars Arcanum In the Ars Arcanum, Khriss describes Voidbinding as "cousin to the Old Magic". That always struck me as a bizarre thing to say, since the Old Magic isn't really an Invested Art per se, it's just the Nightwatcher (and maybe Cultivation) messing with people. But from this perspective, it makes sense - in both the Old Magic and Voidbinding, the spren is the one actively using the power; the human is a necessary part of it, but not really active. Other Possible Examples I was going to say that Death Rattles are likely Voidbinding - future sight due to an Unmade acting through a human. But this WoB looks like there's no Voidbinding on screen in WoK or WoR, which does argue against it. It's still possible, though, because it's certainly not pointed out as Voidbinding. I think it's more likely, though, that the Death Rattles, the Thrill, and Ashertmarn's revelry effect aren't Voidbinding by themselves - but can be a pathway to access Voidbinding. When Nergaoul's Thrill allows a bunch of voidspren to possess the Sadeas army, that might be Voidbinding, even if the basic Thrill effect isn't. That would also fit with how Voidbinding in culture is presented as this dangerous temptation - if fairly common effects like the Thrill can be a pathway to it, that makes sense. Yelig-nar might also be Voidbinding. I am not sure if the human host is really using the Surges, or if Yelig-nar himself is. Amaram, at the point we see him fight Kaladin, appears pretty taken over, so it's hard to tell. We'd need a PoV from a Yelig-nar host, or a WoB, to distinguish. The Voidbinding Chart and the Ten Levels I'm not sure if the "ten levels of Voidbinding" mentioned in the Ars Arcanum are just the warped Surge symbols we see on the Voidbinding chart (in which case, why are they called "levels"?) or ten kinds of Voidbinding originating from the nine Unmade + one other thing (maybe Enlightened Spren or Odium himself)? If they're tied to the Unmade, then do the Surge-based symbols mean each Unmade is linked to one of the Surges (presumably lacking Adhesion)? Possibly Cognitive/Spiritual interpretations of them, like Nergaoul's rage being Division based, Sja-Anat's effect being Progression based, or Ashertmarn's effect being Cohesion on a cognitive or Spiritual level, softening minds or souls to make them malleable?

So what would happen if a human did actually Bond with a Lesser Spren? What could they do? It's quite clear that they wouldn't gain Surgebinding but perhaps they could gain some kind of lesser abilities? Like if someone bonded to a Windspren could they gain some kind of small-scale wind manipulation or perhaps they could gain the ability to sense the wind and 'see' everything around them without using their eyes? Or if someone managed to form a Bond to a Stormspren, could they gain the same Red Lightning Powers as a Stormform Regal? Or maybe they'd just gain the power to materialize a Lesser Spren as a Mini Shardblade? Shardknife?

Title. Would it possible for say, a horse to bond an Honorspren and become a windrunner, assuming the spren isn't being upity about bonding an animal? How intelligent would an animal have to be? Could a plant do it?

So, I’m on my 10th or so read through of SA, and just started RoW again. We learn during the evacuation of hearthstone that Kaladin has lines of squires ready, but that he needs Spren for them to say their third ideal and become full knights. In earlier books, specifically the end of WoR (when Kaladin earns his blade) and End of Oathbringer (When Teft and The Loren earn their blades/become full knights) it is on their second. As well, though this deals with Skybreakers rather than Windrunners, back in Oath bringer, when Szeth is joining the SBs, he says the first ideal, but cannot consume Stormlight, unlike both Vathah (who seems to have done it without saying and ideals at all) or Kaladin (who also seemed to have done it without saying oaths) is this because the skybreakers are more “orderly” than other sects of Radiants? In general, the rules for ideals and progressing through radiancy have seemed somewhat inconsistent throughout the books, the only true consistency being that you get your armor at the 4th Ideal. Actually, we also never seem to see Nale in his armor, even though we know he is a sky breaker of the 5th ideal. Sorry for the rambling, more ideas come to me as I’m writing out this post.

So the Unmade are basically super-spren that came from Odium, they're similar to the Godspren like the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher and the Sibling, though probably a step beneath them on the totem pole. So my question is could someone Bond with an Unmade? Not Yelig-Nar I mean like Sja-Anat or Nergaoul, would it be possible with one of them? If so what kind of craziness would arise from that?

Hypothetical situation, some guy becomes a sliver, bonds with a Spren then dies and becomes a Cognitive Shadow. So what happens to the Nahel Bond? Will it break or continue after death?

So the Honorblade's whole thing is that they can grant anyone access to Surgebinding at the drawback of not being as efficient with Stormlight as the Nahel Bond, so my question is this: If a Surgebinder held an Honorblade with entirely different Surges, like a Windrunner with the Lightweaver blade, would the presence of the Nahel Bond get rid of the inefficiency problem?

Did Ishar forge the Oathpact himself with the powers he recieved from Honour, or did Honour forge the Oathpact? Also, did Ishar create the Nahel bond, and if he did, did he do it around the same time?

Hoid has bonded a Cryptic. Now to progress through his “oaths” he must speak truths about himself. What truths might Hoid speak about himself? I assume must be truths he hasn’t already said, even to himself. I don’t think we have enough information even to guess, except maybe for one truth about this immortal being surrounded by mortals who cannot understand him: “I am alone.” I doubt he will say that, but it’s my only guess. What do you think?

Are Knights Radiant always bonded to spren of the gender they find attractive in humans? I was thinking that Knights Radiant were always bonded to member of the opposite gender, but then I remembered that Renarin and Rlain are bonded to masculine spren. Renarin and Rlain are attracted to masculine people, though, so now I'm wondering if Radiants always bond spren of the gender they're attracted to (in humans).

Hey everyone, Not sure if this is worth making a thread for but just read the below sequence from WoR Chapter 63 and was just blown away how I did not notice this. Love how Shallan just casually drops what a spren who has had their bond broken in Shadesmar is supposed to be like. Brandon with the "100 Sneak" in writing haha.

Who do you think might become the third bondsmith? This topic has probably been explored on this forum, but I can't find it, so it's probably time for another post. Also, do we know for a fact that the third bondsmith spren is the Nightwatcher? My guesses, such as they are, are Adolin, Hesina, or Dabbid.

Ok. I'm new but I've tried to at least be mostly thorough while digging through the forums for my ideas and/or supporting evidence. My new job allows for many hours of audio (by far my preferred method) and allowed me to start binging Shardcast, something I had little time for previously. An episode I watched recently talked about deadeyes and The Recreance. A WoB was mentioned that talked about the deadeyes being similar to something that happened previously in the cosmere. The argument on shardcast was the situation one like Seones (Maybe spelled right?) Or shades on Threnody. The majority of the crew heavily sided with similar to Seones, and most posts I have read speak very little of shades. This is my thoughts. There are WAY too many clues about BAM and the recreance. WAY too many. The entire narrative is directing you straight at it. Well, all the Mistborn epigraph was trying to point you straight at Vin. Well, now there's Harmony. Ya know? So why would Brandon put out dozens and dozens of blatant clues that BAM was the cause of deadeyes? Simple misdirection. Here is my actual theory. The problems on Threnody started because Ambition was basically killed by Odium. Now we have Shades. My best research has been able to provide, Honor was dying in the time leading up to The Recreance. His death probably coincided very close with The Recreance. Seones issues were caused by Elantris magic system being directly connected to the landscape. That is NOT the case on Roshar. The landscape changed. The Seones changed. On Roshar, the singers were connected to BAM, not the Radiant Spren creating Nahel Bonds. The radiant spren as far as I can tell are connected to Honor (some more than others). So what if the parshmen lost their form because of the imprisonment of BAM. But the deadeye were because of the death of Honor. I love new information so feel free to prove me wrong. Totally want the real details. But I feel the shades on Threnody are what was referred to in the WoB. Not the Seones. I am reasonably confident this theory has merit. BUT The secondary part of my theory maybe is a lot more fluid and all that. So, if the deadeyes are mainly affected by the death of Honor, and a VERY good chance also that it was connected to Honor breaking his own oathes. Spren are connected to Honor. Honor breaks his oathes and dies. Radiant oathes being broken now cause deadeyes. This happened near simultaneously with The Recreance. A huge theory I see getting repeated is Kaladin taking up the Shard of Honor. (Sometimes Dalinar and others) BUT I think Adolin has shown more Honor than anyone. He is the 1 throughout many books, he has shown kindness to slaves and servants, common soldiers. He is always championing whatever "righteous cause" comes along. Who is closer to Honor? I had a wild theory before about Adolin being Honors champion. But what if, instead of Dalinar or Kaladin, Adolin became Honor! A bit of supporting evidence or implications or whatever. Similar to the beginning part of my theory. Sanderson loves misdirection. I see a lot of mention of Adolin as a "side character". Sazed was a side character for all the same reasons Adolin. As far as I am concerned Adolin and Sazed are on the same level of side/main character. Now we have Harmony. Whether or not it is Adolin, I think when the shard of Honor had coalesced in whichever way and finds another vessel, the new vessel will renew the oathes and free the deadeyes. I believe near simultaneously, right before, right after, which have you. In a very similar timeline BAM will be released and fix any issues still with the singers. I'd love to hear any feedback pro or con. I really hope my idea isn't completely stale and repetitive as I'm late to the forum party. Lol.

Apologies if it has been discussed or I've forgotten something. What would happen to a sapient spren if it was captured in a gem? We've obviously seen lower spren be captured and we've seen Unmade like the Thrill and Ba-Ado-Mishram (kinda seen) be captured, but what about the in-between? Could you manifest some effect from a fabrial made with a Sapient spren? What would happen if the gem was broken and the spren escaped (would the spren experience a loss of function, cognition, etc.). (I think this has been somewhat discussed in some Shardcasts about Ba-Ado-Mishram.) Does this affect bonds (thinking Nahel) in strange ways?

First of all, I cannot take full credit for this theory, as the basic idea of “inverted Nahel Bond” comes from this post by @Seloun While re-reading Oathbringer I realized that it actually explains most, if not all, weird things and quotes about corrupted spren and Voidbinding, so I decided to write down all arguments in favor of it. The basic premise is that Voidbinding (at least the form shown in the Voidbinding chart) is an extension of Surgebinding and the Nahel Bond, caused by adding Odium's Investiture to the Radiant spren. As a result, a person gets two Surges from the bond, and the spren gets two matching Voidbindings, explaining the similarity between the two charts. This would make Voidbinding a magic system of all Rosharan Shards, with its name probably being a portmanteau of Odium/Void + Surgebinding Here are all the hints I was able to find: The Surgebinding chart shares the color theme with the map of Roshar, as beings from the Physical Realm get the powers; the Voidbinding chart using the colors of the Shadesmar map hints at spren being the ones to get powers Odium's Tone is now a pure Tone of Roshar, and Eshonai's last chapter in RoW implies that all Tones and Rhytms form a wonderful harmony. Spren getting powers and, by extension, a more equal footing with people, seems to be compatible with that way more than if Voidbinding was a separate thing purely of Odium. Also, spren now essentially share mortality with people, so getting powers would be a natural next step Voidbinding being the cousin of Old Magic makes a lot of sense now: people get Old Magic powers by being changed by the Nighwatcher, spren get powers by being changed by Sja-anat Corrupted Truthwatchers cannot control their visions, but their spren seem to have at least some level of control. Glys can record the visions to show to other people (possibly similar to how Lightweavers can capture Memories), and Tumi knows exactly what is going on during Rlain's first vision, even though Rlain is clearly surprised by the whole thing Glys having access to futuresight beyond what he shows Renarin would explain him talking in future tense and providing constant protection against Odium's futuresight Glys also wants to give his sorrow to Renarin, hinting at the reversal of typical roles in Voidbinding Tumi thanks Sja-anat for his eyes in her interlude in RoW, presumably referring to the futuresight We know about corrupted Truthwatchers and futuresight, which is most probably the Voidbinding of Illumination, but what about Progression? I believe that there might be some hints in Oathbringer about that. The quotes below were sometimes interpreted as Renarin having a gemheart: There's no way Renarin naturally has a gemheart, but what if Glys used his Voidish Progression to grow one in his body to have some place to hide? It wouldn't need to be big, as a cremling gemheart was enough for Tumi in RoW, and it would explain a lot, in my opinion

The Wiki Page https://coppermind.net/wiki/Nahel_bond starts with: But I remebered this: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/452/#e14509 I came to this Topic when i wanted to mention, "This Character has a Nahel Bond" in a WTCC Question but checked the Wiki to not confuse everyone. Can we change this in the Wiki? I know that WOBs are only secondary canon but the quote is from December 2020, so it is pretty recent and past RoW. And he literally said, that it is the definition. It does not just change "human or singer" to "being from the Physical Realm", but also "sentient spren" to "spren".

Is there a link between human and spren gender ? i.e Kaladin is a boy his spren is a girl... It always seems whatever the human is the spren is the opposite gender. Has this been discussed somewhere?

Brief disclaimer: It has been some time since I posted theories on here (probably since OB came out more or less), and my Cosmere knowledge is a bit rusty, and probably outdated. If I get anything wrong, please let me know. I also do not currently have a copy of RoW on me, so I won't be quoting directly (feel free to give quotes, and I may edit some in later). I have also not read Dawnshard, so no spoilers for that please. Anyway, on to the theory: Essentially my theory is that Adolin and Maya have formed/are forming a sort of reverse Nahel bond. If my understanding of Nahel Bonds is correct (and honestly most investiture in the cosmere), they are formed when spren attach themselves to a radiant's spiritweb, utilizing cracks in the web to attach more thoroughly. My theory is that when the Recreance occurred Spren and Radiant spirit webs were forcefully separated (it is confirmed that the Spren were damaged in the Spirit realm, but to my knowledge, not how). I believe that a piece of the Spren's spiritweb remained attached to the original Radiant's spiritweb. This sort of fits in with the description of their eyes, as in the eyes are just kinda absent. Essentially, I am saying that I think that piece of the spren remains trapped in the original Radiant's web (Which is why a radiant could revive their own dead spren after killing it). This is why I think Maya and Adolin are forming a sort of reverse Nahel bond. Instead of the spren filling in the cracks in the Radiant's web, Adolin is filling in the cracks in Maya's spirit web. I think this is also why it might be that in RoW, Maya begins swearing the first oath, not Adolin.

So as Im reading RoW, a thought came to my mind. What would the process of a Human/Singer bonding a spren look like in the Cognitive Realm? Is it even possible? Also, could a person "encounter" a spren in Shadesmar and bond it, while still there? Or do they both need to be in the Physical Realm? Would the Bond be initiated differently? Related to that would be the question of a KR swearing a higher ideal while in Shadesmar, which What are your thoughts?

Okay, so i recently ask if there was a way for someone to get a nahel bond of Roshar, and answer was yes, but difficult. So what would happen if someone bonded with a spern, and then just left Roshar? Would the spern just stay and Roshar? Would the bond break, or would they just be waiting there? What happens if you go back to Roshar? Is the bond fine?

Boy, I'm going to be using this a lot now. Okay, i know I read a thread somewhere talking about it, but what has BS said about taking spern bonds and shardblades of Roshar?