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This line of thought springs from Leshwi's reaction to finding out about Venli's bond to her spren. The relationship between Singers/Listeners was never explained in depth beyond the fact that Singers/Listeners can trap them in their gemhearts to switch between different forms. In the listeners' songs, there is mention of a betrayal from the spren, but the information has been passed down verbally for many generations, and is therefore very unreliable. In Rhythm of War, Venli reveals her bond and Leshwi's reaction is to wonder whether they have been forgiven for their betrayal. That of course raises the question: What betrayal? Was their bonding with Odium some kind of betrayal? What was their relationship to sentient spren?

So, how is news that the recreance was not a genocide but a choice made by both the spren and the humans and that the humans had no idea that they would be killing the spren in doing so? Especially with the Ashspren and Willshapers, who seem to be holding the biggest grudge and working against the radiants? They are going to have to come to terms that their hatred of humans is unfounded.

So as RoW proved, Singer forms come from nahel bonds with spren in their gemheart. Lifespren for mateform, windspren for nimbleform, etc. We've also seen that Radiant bonds with highspren act differently when the spren is corrupted. So what happens when Singers bond a corrupted lowspren? Do they produce new forms? Old forms with slightly different abilities?We've seen forms of power, but those seem to come from true spren of odium, not just corrupted spren. This is even something that could have happened in previous desolation, unlike the corrupted radiants, because Sja-Anat has been able to corrupt low spren forever.

We know that the spikes placed into a mistwraith fixes their cognitive blockage. Could a spren bond be used to fix this blockage as well?

Wait! Ishar has been trying to bring spren into the physical realm. Kelsier is a CS and very similar to a spren. What would whatever Ishar is doing do to Kelsier? Would it bring him back to life? Will the Ghostbloods find out and try to steal his research to bring Kelsier out of the cognitive? I needed to get this out there in a moment of grand inspiration. Someone bring this up to BS tomorrow in the livestream if I am unable to! Edit: I was able to ask the question and get an answer, which was yes, this would help him, in a roundabout way.

I've been thinking how weird it is how bondsmith spren can just make or conduct various forms of investiture come into the physical realm. I think they might be Spren of the spiritual realm, first off the investiture itself is of the spiritual realm so them manipulating something not of the cognitive realm is weird. Second the Nightwatcher can do some kind of trickery with connection though I may be wrong since it seems everything attributed by the Nightwatcher was actually cultivation. I have feeling that when the gods of Roshar made bondsmith spren and unmade the took creatures from the spiritual realm and made them or unmade them so that they could experience the physical and cognitive realms. what do you think? Also since all things in the spiritual ream exist as one, it isn't weird for them to be as different as they are as bondsmith spren because the are probably like given more individual identity out of the spiritual realm.

Does anyone know if it is confirmed or not if Radiant Shards can split into two, dual-wielded Blades? Thanks!

We got another piece of the puzzle irt the Recreance, basically that the spren were active participants although they weren't fully aware of the consequences. That's great and all, it shows that humans were not complete monsters, but it does bring about some worrisome questions. My first one is why wasn't this information already known? I can sort of understand for Honorspren and maybe Ashspren and Inkspren; from the reactions of those we've met, their losses had to be among the heaviest. I can also understand it for some of the spren alive at the time. Sib was in withdrawal, Syl was in a coma, SF and maybe NW were unbonded and thus cognitively limited. Yet there must be some of them that knew this was an orchestrated act, an agreement between man and Spren. The Highspren in particular didn't lose a single soul to the Recreance. And judging from the actions of Cultivationspren and Cryptics and the favorable attitudes of Peakspren I am sure that there are survivors in the know among them as well. So how come it took the unlikely event that was Maya's partial revival for this information to become common knowledge? We can assume that spren aren't dumb, at least in their home realm. If that's the solution then that's both unsatisfying and unrealistic. So that leaves a couple possibilities, both of which are hinted at in RoW. Either those that lived through the Recreance are hiding something, or they were fundamentally damaged by the caging of Bo-Ado-Mishram. In the case of the former, what could be so bad that they were willing to stay quiet and let humanity take all the blame? And what changed so that they were willing to bond again yet still unwilling to share the secret? The latter is also plausible and all live spren are pretty much walking wounded whether they are deadeyes or not. So what exactly was BAM's actual role in Rosharan ecology and why was she able to provide at least partial functionality despite being Unmade? We got a lot of information but I feel we still lack the keystone. We have awhile to discuss it before we get our answers, probably in book 5.

Exactly what it says: some ideas and theories on spren I had after reading RoW Cusicesh, the Protector The Sibling is, well, a sibling of the Nightwatcher and the Stormfather. Sja-anat calls them a cousin, which could imply that the relationship between the original spren that would be unmade by Odium and godspren is similar to the one between cousin and Radiant spren. It makes sense: Re-shephir seems like a superpowered creationspren, Yelig-nar a superpowered windspren etc. If that is the case, is there a superpowered gloryspren somewhere? Cusicesh seems like an interesting candidate, given that his most pronounces feature is the face (OK, faces), something he shares with the NW and the SF The Oathgate spren OK, this is super tinfoil territory, but while reading RoW I thought about the weird potential link between Oathgate spren and Cryptics. Given their Surge, it would make sense for the Oathgate spren to have features similar to Inkspren and Reachers, right? It works for the former, but I cannot see an Lightspren features in them. On the other hand we are specifically told that Cryptics' hands come in two colors, exactly the same as Oathgate spren. Is it possible that association between sapient spren and Surges works differently for Surge fabrial spren? Thunderclasts We know that there is more to Cultvation's magic than Old Magic and ancient Stoneshaping seems like an excellent candidate. It has some decent foreshadowing, really: Singer gods ('spren, stone, and wind') mentioned in the Eila Stele, Shin reverence for stone, Cultivation being identified with Roshar itself by many people. Ancient Stoneshapers being corrupted by Odium also explains the Thunderclasts, the only Voidbringer being we couldn't match to any magic so far. Given that they are essentially twisted Singer souls, it could imply that this Stoneshaping didn't require a spren bond (unless the spren was also corrupted and merged with the Thunderclast). Could it be a genetic ability, like what the Horneater Sighted have, or maybe something granted by Old Magic style spiritweb modification? Stormstriders We now know that larkins are sapient, something that Tai-na also share to some extent - and based on the RoW ending, there's something more to the chasmfiends than we previously realized. From WoR Rysn interlude we know that Tai-na, besides the usual luckspren, also seem to bond some spen (considered their "soul" by the Reshi people) in their gemhearts. If so, this situation could extend to other greatshells, including larkins / lanceryns. It's more intuition than proof, but it seems likely that such spren would be rather huge and unique, as well as easily available in Highstorms (assuming that the bonding mechanism is shared with the Singers). I think that Stormstrides could be such spren (and maybe provide lanceryn Forms?)

So, we learn from Leshwi that the ancient Singers apparently did something to anger the spren, current-day spren seem to be much more fine with the Singers, with such a long gap without Desolations and the memory of the Recreance, plus the fact that most of the older spren became Deadeyes during the Recreance. Moving over to the Sibling, they are not fine with fabrials, even though the modern-day spren are fine with it, as fabrials employ non-sapient spren. Fabrials employ gemstones to capture spren... which is also what the Singers do to change their Forms, they capture spren within their Gemhearts. We've seen other creatures with Gemhearts before in the series, notably we've seen the process of Gemheart extraction when Eshonai pulls the Gemheart out of a Chasmfiend. Chasmfiends use spren bonds with Mandra or Luckspren so that they are not crushed by their own weight. These spren are seen flitting around Chasmfiends as well as other Greatshells like the Tai-Na [minor Dawnshard spoilers] We also see them around Skyeels, iirc, who probably use their bond with them to fly. Similarly, Musicspren seem to flit around the Ryshadium who might be in a bond of some kind with them. Though Ryshadium don't have Gemhearts. Spren can be captured in gems the same as Lights because they are made of Investiture. Is the purpose of Gemhearts really to capture spren? Because it would seem you can bond spren without trapping them in Gemhearts. They are attracted to natural phenomena and emotions... and the Rhythms. We saw the Dawnsingers seemingly Stoneshaping by using the Rhythms. We saw Lifespren responding to the Rhythms. Spren, like the Investiture they are made of, respond to the Rhythms. We saw other creatures that have gemhearts and need spren bonds, and they didn't seem to trap spren within their gemhearts. The spren were flitting about freely with them. They extract gemhearts from the Chasmfiends but did they ever find a Luckspren trapped within their Gemheart? We saw Eshonai extract a Gemheart from a Chasmfiend but there was no spren within it. (Would the spren be free upon the creature being killed or only if the gem itself is cracked?) What if the Dawnsingers originally used their Gemhearts to store Light? What if the crime that the ancient Singers committed against the spren which angered them was this? Trapping spren within their gemhearts to change their Forms.

So as we know, Ishar is up to some shenanigans, somehow manifesting spren into the physical realm. I think that he's trying to figure out how to get surgebinding powers from spren without bonding them. So he (somehow) manifests them physically and has a poke around inside them to see if it can be puzzled out. If this is his plan, I think he's doing this for one of three reasons. He's either: 1) Doing crazy things for no reason because he's as mad as a bucket of cremlings. 2) Looking to build himself an army of unoathed surgebinders. 3) Attempting to gain the use of more surges on top of those granted to him by his blade. But how? Well, we've seen his mastery over the surge of connection, so maybe he is either able or thinks he's able to somehow pull whatever it is that grants surges out of spren. The other, scarier option is that his 'surgery' is actually him experimenting with hemalurgy. Spike a spren into a human... What happens? Thoughts?

So Ishar is trying to pull spren from the Cognitive Realm into the Physical Realm. At first this seemed really random to me, like some kind of deranged concentration camp-style experimentation (which it definitely is), but it seems less random the more I think about it. (I will apologize in advance if this has already been mentioned elsewhere) Ishar (and Thaidakar) both seem very interested in escaping their limitations inherent in being cognitive shadows. I could be misremembering the lore (or maybe it hasn't been fleshed out yet - the pun in this statement is coming), but do the Heralds simply rematerialize new bodies each time they return from Braize? We know they don't possess a physical host like the Fused do, but there seems to be some strange disconnect (or unique quality) that allows them as cognitive shadows to ALSO be physically present in the Physical Realm. Then again, Braize is ALSO in the Physical Realm, so despite being Cognitive Shadows, they also fully exist in the Physical Realm. They are so immensely invested that they are no longer human, and are more akin to spren. This is why I suspect Ishar is experimenting on spren. Somehow the Heralds can practically be spren, but exist in the Physical Realm, with physical bodies, but spren do not seem to make this transition into physical bodies well (as evidenced by the contents of the tent). If this transition is causing physical decay for spren coming into the Physical Realm, I suspect a similar transition is what is causing cognitive decay for the Heralds existing as they do.

There is a theme that keeps coming up often enough that I'm starting to think its a clue as to the fate of the Cosmere, and the motivation of Adonalsium. The heralds are immortal beings that have minds, that have been "corrupted" by madnesses unique to each of them. At first I thought this was tied to their torture on Braize in between desolations, but I think it's also been hinted at that more than just the torture is wracking their minds. The immortality itself means their memories have disappeared into oblivion, which has contributed to the destruction of their identity as well: Kelek's Note: It's not just the heralds. A lot of immortal beings are tired of life. Secret History: I think Zahel is wrong. I think that cognitive shadows are the soul or contain the soul. The spren thing comes up a lot in RoW, but I think its wrong, if only because we see that the spren become more human-like over time rather than the other way around. Investiture becoming conscious and making decisions; it feels like spontaneous life from power, sort of Cosmere abiogenesis. I think that there are some more clues about this with Ishar's experiments trying to bring them into the physical realm. Also, is Ishar one of the five scholars? Something dark is going on there, maybe Ishar is the bad guy for the back 5? Anyway, more issues with immortality: Through Mistborn through era 2: Elantris Bringing it all back around: In RoW we get the BEST vision that Dalinar has ever sent to anyone, and I think this gives us a clue as to the meta-theme of the cosmere: This is the real deal. Somehow Dalinar used connection to allow a conversation between Tien's REAL soul with Kaladin. I think this has major implications for "Journey before Destination" - that connection is formed on the journey, and that it is possible to revisit those moments through connection. And Tien somehow influenced the world to get this object back to him. I have no idea how. Fortune maybe? The message is here: So what is the implication for the greater cosmere, history and direction? i laid it out kind of in a previous post I think these all point to a risk of immortality / immortality being a double edged sword, as a theme in the Cosmere. Even Adonalsium is hinted to have known about, and perhaps even had some part in their own shattering. I actually think this is the inspiration behind the Iriali religion. Dawnshard: So what is Odium's Endgame? I think with Odi-vangian we are going to see something interesting - Odium wants to preserve ALL life through making them immortal. I think this will end up being very anti-"Life before Death, Journey before Destination, Strength before Weakness". He wants to SAVE US ALL. To do it he will still likely want to destroy all other shards to be the last one standing. I think it might be interesting to see the endgame be the right to die (and go to the Beyond), versus the right to immortality but as a slave/servant/underling of the only god, Odium.

Ok, so I'm really, really glad Ishar showed up. Like when he was mentioned in OB I was pissed that nothing happened... but now I'm just like totally reeling after everything we've learned about and from him: 1. He recovered his Honorblade 1.1 He can literally just manipulate any connection?!?! The implications are insane To what extent can Dalinar do this? 1.2 The Shin serve the Unmade somehow? This connects to an earlier comment (can someone find it?) About an Unmade taking up residence in Shinovar 2. His insanity. He's delusional. But, like Taln, the perpendicularity inspired a lucid period. Why does the perpendicularity do this, but only sometimes? Is it the presence of Honor somehow? 2.1 He implies he wants to refound the Oathpact, during his lucid moment. Will this happen? I've heard it suggested that the series will end with a new oathpact refounded using the main characters as heralds, but it is frequently met with derision. I don't like this theory, for reasons i won't go into unless asked. However, considering the other twists in this book (looking at you, mr. T) I doubt Brandon will go with this approach. I do see this as plausible, however: 3. THE SPREN. THE DAMNATION SPREN. What. The. Actual. storm. ISHAR!!! why is he doing this? What is he even doing? How could he possibly do this? Is he manipulating connection somehow? I don't like it.

After RoW, we now get confirmation that spren/Voidspren can be killed by various means. The discovery of Navani-Reboniel's hybrid Light and anti-Investiture probed a new window to destroy embodiments of creations which is concerning but at the same time provides an opportunity to be explored more. However, the methods have been subjected to both sides and now its a race of distributing these Anti-Lights in form of armament in battlefield. However, we are forgetting that there are some other ways to kill spren as well, which excludes breaking of oaths because that was something done from mutual acceptance. I'm gonna list them down including something we've forgotten since Oathbringer: Using Anti-Voidlight We all know anti-voidlight destroys the immortal essence of Voidspren and prevents them from being reborn again. Gavilar had it way before Everstorm, something having gotten from Braize. I don't know how he got it from there or who gave him but clearly his plans included to hurt Odium since he wanted to bring back desolations- which means clearly someone else knew about it, perhaps one of the Fused and contacted him just the way Venli was contacted by Ulium? Anyway, we know anti-voidlight could be a great weapon for Radiant faction. Using Anti-Stormlight Just like Anti-Voidlight, Anti-Stormlight destroys Radiant spren i.e completely renders them incapable of forming again even in Cognitive Realm. This is worrying since the apparatus and instructions have been already sent to Kholinar by Reboniel to produce more amount of this violent Light. It also shows that when a spren is killed, The knight feels terrible pain as if their soul is being ripped. If sprens start dying, there would be perhaps some spren would be willing to bond back to them but the soul-trauma received would push them into a catatonic state. Which is even more concerning when it comes to usage of Anti-Stormlight.... But there are two more methods of killing spren which was shown: Bringing them to Physical Realm This is terrible. This left me tittering in corner of my eyes despite being a Biotechnologist myself. But I think bringing Spren back to Physical Realm in their full bodies kills them as we saw at Ishar's warcamp. So...a Bondsmith can possibly bring any kind of spren to Physical Realm and they'll die as they are not Connecting, without Intent. I believe this could be applied for Voidspren as well but this is a terrible method and we have only three Bondsmits- Dalinar, Navani and Ishar, and one of them is bound to Tower, one of them would perhaps not do such a thing and another is a raving lunatic. Almighty know what might happen to poor spren. Which brings us to the last method we all are forgetting- Kaladin killing a Voidspren in Kholinar using Syldagger During raiding Kholinar palace, Kaladin summoned Syl as a dagger and used it to pin one of the Voidspren that was able to cut it. The spren screamed and seemed to rip into a thousand pieces until it faded into nothingness. Syl experienced a terrible feeling for doing it but surely they killed a spren in some uncanny manner we don't know. I have no idea why it wasn't discussed further or Kaladin never mentioned it again and we just jumped around it. I don't know if it is possible only for Kaladin and Syl or other Radiants as well but this must be looked into. So I guess these methods are known to us which can be used to kill spren which is an important aspect of war. The question is, if these methods could be applicable for powerful sprens like Unmade or Godsprens as well which could be very concerning because usage of these methods on either sides would result in catastrophic consequence. I would specially like to discuss more about Kaladin killing the spren since it hasn't been discussed.

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?

This is a crazy theory, but the symmetry is quite appealing to me. The initial inspiration for this comes from this passage describing Glys and Renarin recalling a vision for Dalinar: The key point here is that Glys is the one that 'captured' the vision, and Glys is the one using the Stormlight, and Glys creating the images. If these are through surges (and the 'capture' sounds similar to e.g. Shallan's Memory), Glys appears to be the ones using the surges. A separate observation, by Navani: Where the does music come from? The most obvious solution is just that Raboniel's daughter heard it, but we don't see any other Listener/Singer hum anything beyond their 'emotion' rhythms. And the parshmen didn't sing at all, when they were (apparently) unConnected due to the BAM captivity. So it doesn't seem like they sing because it's something they overheard; they sing because they have some sort of capital-C Connection to the source of the music. Part A: What if Glys is the surgebinder between him and Renarin? Still trying to work through this, but the basic idea would be that the 'corruption' essentially creates a hole or a break in the spren that could be filled by outside Investure (much like how it works with people) - and this changes the bond, perhaps making it not exactly reversed, but maybe more symmetric. Part B: What is Raboniel's daughter's spren could also bind with a human in a similar way? Or...what if Raboniel's daughter could bind with a human (as they are practically spren themselves, and 'broken' spren at that)? Part C: What if the deadeye spren all have similar 'holes' due to the damage from the broken bonds post-BAM capture? In a way Adolin might be sort of proving this as he seems to be able to provide energy to Maya, if with difficulty: So human can somehow power spren, rather than the reverse. But for whatever reason the process is inefficient, or doesn't work well - maybe because humans are aren't just of Honor and Cultivation, but also of Odium. So they need a spren with all three aspects for the connection to be able to flow in the direction of the spren. My wild surmise is that the deadeyes will need to be 'corrupted' in order to be restored (such potential for drama there, too) - and that the Fused will be able to bond with humans (in the reverse way). That's how the war will end.

Okay, so in this thread, we are basically going to take any character and try to guess what Spren Bond would fit them most. This can be any character anywhere, including dead ones. And yes, you count Kelsier as a Spren for funsies. My addition is Elend and the Stormfather because.... come on, it fits. Elend is possibly the most honorable character in all the Cosmere, giving up his power when he could lie and keep it or take military control and had to basically be forced to take back the reigns. The Stormfather and he would get along great.

I, as many here, were wondering how Cord managed to find enough Stormlight infused gemstones to power up the armor. Could she "talk" or "ask" the sprens to infuse gemstones on their own will?

Nikli tells Rysn that she's forbidden from bonding a Spren and becoming a Radiant now that she's a Dawnshard, and we know that the Dawnshards were used (at least in part) to Shatter Adonalsium, and that part of the weapon that Shattered Adonalsium is why Hoid is immortal. So assuming that that equates to Hoid being a Dawnshard like Rysn, that... That's interesting. Because Hoid DOES have a Spren, the Cryptic that almost bonded with Elhokar. HMMMMMMMMM. Just a thought I had.

Do we know if the Singers can change form by bonding with True spren? Is Nahel bond the only way a sapient spren can be bonded with?

The Theory: The Unmade were all once Singer god-spren similar to the Nightwatcher and the Stormfather I do not know if this theory has already been proposed, but I think there is plenty of evidence to back this up: Evidence #1: The Unmade Sja-anet says that they were “made then unmade” I hate to state the obvious but we can at least confirm that the unmade were something else before they sided with Odium. I always wondered what “made” them in the first place since Odium was probably the one who unmade them. We know from Syl that the origins of the god-spren were created partly due in part to the human personification of forces and partly due to the investiture of Honor/Cultivaiton. So, just like how the current generation of god-spren were “made”, the Unmade might have been “made” in the Cognitive realm by collective personification of mortal minds. Evidence #2: The Unmade are said to predate humanity on Roshar. This is where I step into the nebulous realm of speculation, but I am envisioning a singer pantheon of gods. For example, Dai-Gonarthis the Black Fisher was a type of sea god-spren like Poseidon, while Ashertmarn the Heart of Revel was some type of jubilee god-spren like Dionysus. Nergoel the Thrill was a god of competition or war like Nike or Athena. The list goes on. Then, once Odium came to Roshar, he twisted the god-spren to his own purposes in the same manner that he perverts alot of the manifestations of Investiture. We know that the current generation of Bondsmith god-spren were created by humans because the Sibling/Urithiru can’t predate the arrival of the Knights Radiant. It would make sense that for the thousands of years of sentient life on Roshar, there would be more than three god-spren created. It would also make sense that the singers would create their own god-spren. Evidence #3: In the Oathbringer prologue with Eshoni and Gavilar, Eshoni says she doesn't want the gods of the singers to return Who are the singer gods that Eshoni is refering to? She can’t be referring to the Fused because Venli doesn’t call the Fused their gods, she calls them their ancestors. Eshoni could be referring to Cultivation, Honor, and Odium who have been worshiped by singers in the past. But it would be odd to fear the return of the god(S)(plural) because we know Honor is dead, Cultivation never left, and Odium is one god. ** To play devil’s advocate with my own theory, this wouldn’t explain why there are nine Unmade and nine orders of Passions. That is a weird coincidence. But it doesn’t seem like the Passions and the Unmade are linked, just like how the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher don’t directly correlate with an order of the knights radiant. Maybe Odium just likes the number nine.

This theory is bit streched, bu I think its interesting. Maybe some others have it, but I didnt see anything similar. We know, that Roshar Planet and Roshar System number is 10. Everything on Roshar is revolving around this number - ten Surges, ten Essences, ten Radiant Orders and so on. But is one incosistency. We have only 9 types of Inteligent Spren, Radiants Spren. Bondsmith Godspren are not "type" every one of them is unique. So should be one more type of inteligent spren. So where they are? Answer - bonded in Surge Fabrials. Soulcasters, Regrowth Fabrials, Oathgates etc. This type of Spren can be called Servespren - they like to help Humans. They can form Nahel Bond, but they dont like possibility to serve just one human/few humans, so they dont want to. In exchange, they chose to have artificiall bodies - Fabrials - and grant their powers to anyone. And is one more Spren who did the same thing - Godspren Sibling. They have artificiall body - Urithiru - and serve everybody. I think Sibling is related to those Spren in the same way Stormfather is related to Honorspren - can be literaly "parrent" for them, can create them, and also can "grow" bodies for them. Yes, I think Soulcasters were not made, they grew in Urithiru. They can be made, of course, as normal fabrials, but first soulcasters probably grew. Servespren can grant any Surge, but only one, and it is limited by his body - Fabrial. You can ask - witch surges can Servespren grant, if he is Bonded by proper Nahel Bond? Its simple - Adhesion and Tension (in physical aspects).

That is probably stupid question but, Is it possible? If you have a bond with five sprens can you be a Super-Radiant? With all surges?

Now that we know that gravityspren = workform, which spren do you think go with the rest of the forms? Presumably creationspren cause artform, and passionspren, mateform. Scholarform is probably logicspren. Nimbleform is, I dunno... *pulls random spren out of a hat* ...anticipationspren? I'm going to say anticipationspren. Warform... where did I put that hat? Okay, flamespren, gonna go with that. Assuming they can find flamespren in the middle of a Highstorm.