[OB] On the Missing Shardblades

[Cenanin]

3 hours ago, .S.A.M.K.M said:

Blades are technically still a type of spren, so could be contained in a gem stone. Their killed state might make the process easier.

You know what, I think that's really important. What we know about fabrials and the shardblades couldn't be summoned until someone added gemstones later on, perhaps spren would come back but when they added gemstones it trapped the spren and they can't regenerate. Maybe the shards disappeared until gems were added. The more I think about it, the more I realize there are a ton of clues that the spren didn't "die."

[insert_anagram_here]

5 hours ago, Cenanin said:

You know what, I think that's really important. What we know about fabrials and the shardblades couldn't be summoned until someone added gemstones later on, perhaps spren would come back but when they added gemstones it trapped the spren and they can't regenerate. Maybe the shards disappeared until gems were added. The more I think about it, the more I realize there are a ton of clues that the spren didn't "die."

I was always under the impression that spren belonged in the Cognitive realm, but human emotions and gems were what lured them to manifest in the Physical Realm. So when a strong Nahel bond was formed between a spren and a human, that spren gained the ability to manifest itself in the Physical Realm at the bonded human's will. That's why it's body can become a weapon, and as most Radiants wanted, a Shardblade. That bond with a human would make it become even more powerful and gain self awareness, learn how to exist in the Physical realm, by taking the human's behavior as an example kind of like a child does. (That's why Venli's spren develops a Listerner-kind of behavior).

Now when that bond is severed, the oath is broken, the spren basically disconnects from its Physical realm manifestation, but it doesn't go back to being a simple spren in the Cognitive realm. Because it has developed into a self aware being, it can be heart broken by the human's betrayal and might wander the Cognitive realm with burned eyes.

Now what fabrial technology brought, is that humans can use gems to bond spren back on to the Shardblades. The initial spren of the Shardblade, does not have a choice on the matter, so it is somehow enslaved by the gem. That's why Maya is close to Adolin when he enters Shadesmar. Because of the gem.

So where the missing shardblades have gone? Well, the ones that were somehow fabrial-bonded to humans are being passed down from a person to another person, but my best guess it that the rest of them have decayed and broken down to dust and possibly now part of other life forms on Roshar. (gemhearts maybe?)

[WardenGiggles]

Did the KR know the blades and plate would be left behind when they abandoned their oaths? How would they? It seems to be it had to be a conscious decision to force those things to remain, otherwise, why summon the blade and plate before breaking the oath?

 

Also, the visions are not necessarily 100% accurate, more just a interpretation of something Dalinar needed to see.

[Cenanin]

11 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I was always under the impression that spren belonged in the Cognitive realm, but human emotions and gems were what lured them to manifest in the Physical Realm. So when a strong Nahel bond was formed between a spren and a human, that spren gained the ability to manifest itself in the Physical Realm at the bonded human's will. That's why it's body can become a weapon, and as most Radiants wanted, a Shardblade. That bond with a human would make it become even more powerful and gain self awareness, learn how to exist in the Physical realm, by taking the human's behavior as an example kind of like a child does. (That's why Venli's spren develops a Listerner-kind of behavior).

Now when that bond is severed, the oath is broken, the spren basically disconnects from its Physical realm manifestation, but it doesn't go back to being a simple spren in the Cognitive realm. Because it has developed into a self aware being, it can be heart broken by the human's betrayal and might wander the Cognitive realm with burned eyes.

Now what fabrial technology brought, is that humans can use gems to bond spren back on to the Shardblades. The initial spren of the Shardblade, does not have a choice on the matter, so it is somehow enslaved by the gem. That's why Maya is close to Adolin when he enters Shadesmar. Because of the gem.

So where the missing shardblades have gone? Well, the ones that were somehow fabrial-bonded to humans are being passed down from a person to another person, but my best guess it that the rest of them have decayed and broken down to dust and possibly now part of other life forms on Roshar. (gemhearts maybe?)

Right, this is how I would have worded it and actually thought today that the gem was the reason she appeared to Adolin. But then I thought about the Reacher's deadeye father and realized no I don't think the gem traps them. I think it tethers them to the physical realm and stops them from actually doing self-exploration, I also thought that the reason Maya is definitely reviving is because Adolin came to her realm and gave her some conscious juice which will slowly but surely start to revive her. Which likely hasn't happened a lot before. Not many people are crossing into Shadesmar, and those that do know what the blades are and most probably avoid them.

I "think" that without the gem the spren might be able to do it on their own and fully form back into the cognitive realm. I think this is what happened to the shardblades. The plate....maybe without the gems the plate just turned back into windspren and such after so long a time.

Like I said, I think we can't take anything we know as 100% accurate. I think there is a ton of unreliable narration and outright deception from characters going on and that we're being misled completely. Especially from the spren, and Jasnah especially. The more I think of Jasnah, the more I think she's a Diagram member. That note that was given to her about Renarin being the traitor is really really bugging me, because Mr.T goes onto make importance of Renarin when talking to Odium. She was around Mr.T for awhile.

[.S.A.M.K.M]

During one of the visions, Dalinar had a vision where he was told to go see some one specific for issues with his shard plate. It makes sense if the Knights radiants had some kind of armorer or weapon master. The spren might assume or create the items themselves, I could see such a man, gathering these weapons and placing them in an armory.

plate apparently only were made by the higher level Knights, and when kaladin first said the words he did not get a sword straight away.

[Emerald101]

On 12/10/2017 at 0:40 AM, ccstat said:

I'm not sure how many they would have actually moved to the CR, if the goal was really to help the deadeyes. Once the first hundred didn't receive them, would they have kept trying?

Maybe after they realized the first few didn't work they kept doing it because they hated the idea of humans carrying dead spren around.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Emerald101
more relevant

[Xavien]

On 12/12/2017 at 6:51 PM, aemetha said:

This will be the least fun theory in this thread, but I think it's more than possible they just got lost.

Consider that in our world (which doesn't have highstorms burying the land in crem and sinking ships with regularity) we've lost any number of precious artefacts in a similar span of years. The arc of the covenant, the holy grail to name just a couple and those weren't regularly employed in armed conflict. Anything lost at sea would sink, anything lost on land is buried in crem.

Early after the Recreance there would also be a high incentive to 'lose' shards won in battle.  Anyone you grant shards to instantly becomes a potential threat to your position so there would be a natural inclination to reduce the number of these threats and keep the amount of shards in your vicinity to a manageable level.  You wouldn't want to just keep them in some cache for future use either, too risky.

[NightFrost]

On 12/13/2017 at 8:20 PM, Cenanin said:

Shards can also be things like rods, bows, hammers, forks, whatever. Maybe a lot were thrown away as useless. We only see swords, but we know they can be whatever.

Beware the shardspoon

[.S.A.M.K.M]

It is believed that plate is made from lesser spren like wind spren. The gems in it store storm light and anchors it to this world. I wonder if the ancients had fabrials to summon and dismiss plate at need. I bet that if the plate is drained of power and destroyed, the spren would be free to roam. The lesser spren is less capable, so not able to change like the blade.

[Matt91]

It doesn't explain the blades, but I wonder if a lot of the plate was destroyed. They say that the gemstones were added later to the blades, if that is true of the plate too, then when it shattered there would have been no way to regrow it. If all pieces were shattered before they discovered how to refuel it then the set would have been lost.

[.S.A.M.K.M]

If plate is truly a form of corporeal spren, then it stands to reason it could be contained in a gem, which might mean my idea of summoning belts for the armor might not be do far fetched.

[Ashaman_Wade]

My new thought on this is that Ishar has requested the Harolds to bring him the shardblades. Maybe he was pulling them out of circulation and instead of protecting humanity and the dead spren as he initially wanted to he fell more mad and built up his God king status. 

Maybe he had Nale use nightblood to fully send the spren beyond. Maybe he was working on bringing them back through connection. Maybe a mad hoarder who is using dawnshards to give himself trapped radiant spren as power for super surgebinder. 

Just stray thoughts with no proof other than the way all the heralds have regarded Ishar so far and the path of nightblood. 

[.S.A.M.K.M]

I have a theory on how to heal the blades. There are locations where energy pools for specific types of spren. It is where new spren are formed. My theory is that the energy at such locations could fill in the gaps and holes in the so Caledonia dead spren.

 

do we know if the available blades are all the same type of spren or are they spread across the orders?

[Subvisual Haze]

I like this theory a lot.  It answers another question that had been bugging me.  In the chapter 84 epigraph we get the line

Quote

"The enemy makes another push toward Feverstone Keep. I wish we knew what it was that had them so interested in that area. Could they be intent on capturing Rall Elorim?"

Which strongly hints that Feverstone Keep was near Rall Elorim, and thus located in Iri.  If so, why didn't the nation of Iri suddenly become a superpower?  Hundreds of shardblades and plates were dropped on their soil, and yet by present time they appear to possess almost none of them?  And yet Alethekar became a world power and later went on an Azir conquering spree with less than a tenth of the number of blades that were left behind in Iri?

I think the blades and plates that are still in the physical realm at present time belonged to knights that abandoned their oaths in unusual or isolated places.  Those that dropped their weapons in a giant pile like the Windrunners and Stonewards did at Feverstone Keep likely inspired some force to come and collect the overwhelming majority of blades for safe storage in Shadesmar.  Maybe the Sleepless returned them to cognitive realm and partially what caused the Scouring of Aimia?  Widescale shard "theft"?

Another possibility: we don't know where the Honorspren capital of Lasting Integrity is located, but Syl vaguely refers to living far to the west.  Perhaps the Honorspren capital itself was located nearby Feverstone Keep, aiding in rapid recovery of the shardblades.  I wouldn't be surprised if Lasting Integrity has a large deadeye spren nursing home on site.

[Isilel]

On 29.1.2018 at 3:00 AM, .S.A.M.K.M said:

do we know if the available blades are all the same type of spren or are they spread across the orders?

Some descriptions that I have found for another thread:

We know that Adolin has an Edgedancer's blade, IIRC Moash's blade looked similar and also briefly manifested "vines" when summoned, so it probably was one as well. The mysterious shardblade that had been switched for Taln's Honorblade looked  "cleaver-like" and Elhokar's was long and thin, with large crossguard and decorated with 10 "fundamental glyphs" on the blade. Pretty good variety, I'd say, but it is not easy to assign some of them to any Orders.

I do think that there are shardblade caches around - Nale certainly had dead shards at his disposal, as we know that Helaran Davar was given some. Also, it is possible that squires can use them without hearing screaming. Other Heralds may have also squirrelled some away or even purposefully pulled as many as they could out of circulation and hid them. Ditto Aimians. Possibly the Shin, even. Some groups of Radiants may have broken their Oaths in secluded places and hidden their blades themselves. In any case, I think that Odium's forces are going to come into possession of large numbers of shards - either via Ishar's treason or by some other means. Perhaps some of Odium's spren remaining on Roshar - intelligent Unmade or lesser spren that managed to hide away after the Last Desolation, have kept track of shards caches and now the greatest advantage that the Radiants had over the Fused is about to be severely reduced.

 

[MountainKing]

I think that most of the spren were healed. Because the spren were broken by the Knights Radiants abandoning their oaths. The Radiants themselves were chosen for their traits, and their time as radiants make those traits stronger. With their oaths gone they are know powerless, but they will probably still act on these traits that they have lived by for most of their live. Thus, reviving the dead spren,  The spren would either leave to comsere, or the Radiamts would not reclaim their power.

Also we know from The Ways of Kings or Words of Radiance, that the Nahel Bond can be cancel is both parties want it:(I will add quote if I can find it)

Couldn't find the quote from the book

But found WoB:

Quote

Questioner

So, the fan page wanted to know. Would it be possible for Hemalurgy to steal a living Shardbalde? That was the top voted question.

Brandon Sanderson

Ok, so you're bonded to a Shardbalde. You get spiked, then they spike off the bond so that the Shardblade is bonded to someone else.

Questioner

I assume so...

Brandon Sanderson

But can they do it with a living Shardblade? You can definitely do it with a dead Shardblade because its just stealing the Connection. With a living Shardblade, yes you could do that 'though the spren could break the bind at will.

Questioner

So the spren would survive? That was the second-- the corollary--

Brandon Sanderson

Ehhh. Would the spren survive? The spren would survive as long as the oaths were--

Questioner

Intact?

Brandon Sanderson

--the person didn't break the oaths. But you could theoretically steal the bond, break the oaths, and kill the spren. If you wanted to. Its a very convoluted to kill a spren, they are easier to kill than that, but yes. You could do that. That is a viable but twisted route that you can do. You would end up with a dead spren and a Shardblade, so there is that. But there are easier ways to accomplish that...

source

There is the chance that the Recreance was only a show, and most of the Radiants called back their blades and canceled the Nahel bond, and the only a few left shards because they knew that more Desolations would come even if they quit there job.

Edited January 31, 2018 by MountainKing
Adding Quote

[CrazyRioter]

There are several blades with flame motifs that I suspect were Dustbringer blades. Eshonai's blade and Galivar's for example.

[Isilel]

12 hours ago, MountainKing said:

I think that most of the spren were healed.

We know that it is not the case as _all_ the Nahel spren that we have seen so far tell us the same tale - that all the "adult" spren among their peoples were killed by the Recreance - which means that they aren't around their fellows. I do think that some of the ancient Radiants - particularly those of the Orders of Elsecallers, Willshapers, Truthwatchers and Lightweavers may have left the Rosharan system via worldhopping instead of breaking their oaths and either founded or joined cosmere spoiler:

Spoiler

Silverlight. No need to worry about destroying a planet when you live in the Cognitive Realm, right? And their spren are now stuck there or keep bonding their descendants.

In fact, the interlude of Puuli the Natanatan lightkeeper makes me wonder if some of their descendants might return to Roshar when they hear about the Desolation, bringing these ancient spren back. We know from Azure that using  Honor's Perpendicularity for transfer into physical realm is supposed to be dangerous - well, it dumps a traveller into the eye of a highstorm, so no wonder. But I suspect that it is safer at the Origin and that they have a kind of worldhopper way-station there, complete with ships that can take them to the mainland*.

Another possibility that occurs to me is that maybe the Radiant spren can be trapped in gems? This may have seemed more merciful to some of the "recreating" Radiants. Or, maybe this is the method for taking them off-world - there is a WoB that that it is possible, but there is a trick to it.

As a corollary to this, I have to wonder how the Horneaters can be unaware of foreign travellers occasionally appearing on or coming to their Peaks? We know that Rock has seen Hoid, of course, and considered him a god, but wouldn't less overpowered travellers need to trade for guides and supplies with the natives, as the mountains outside the Peaks themselves are supposed to be harsh and getting up and down them both hard and dangerous?

[GiveMeASpren(I'mCrazy)]

Could Worldhoppers have slowly taken some of the blades away with them over the millenia?

[MountainKing]

5 hours ago, Isilel said:

We know that it is not the case as _all_ the Nahel spren that we have seen so far tell us the same tale - that all the "adult" spren among their peoples were killed by the Recreance - which means that they aren't around their fellows. I do think that some of the ancient Radiants - particularly those of the Orders of Elsecallers, Willshapers, Truthwatchers and Lightweavers may have left the Rosharan system via worldhopping instead of breaking their oaths and either founded or joined cosmere spoiler:

It just doesn't make sense. We know that after a spren dies, all a Radiant has to do is proof they follow their oaths to fix them, willing or unwilling. An Edgedanceer is just not going to stop caring for the poor, and a Windrunner won't stop being honorable. And if they keep following their oaths as the powerless people they are they will have to eventually bring their partners back. Not only that, but we know that the spren can cancel their Nahel Bond, so why when they were hearing the Radiants talk about performing a massacre on their partners did they not just leave. And even when the spren who are too invested in their partner can't immediately leave, this was plan ahead of time, giving the spren time to cancel the bond. Also the spren are the Radiants best friends, look at the spren-radiant relationship in the series, everyone but  Dalinar and the Stormfather, and Teft and his spren, are close. I don't think most Radiants would kill their closest friend.

[Isilel]

52 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

It just doesn't make sense. We know that after a spren dies, all a Radiant has to do is proof they follow their oaths to fix them, willing or unwilling. 

 Nope, Kaladin also had to (re-)say the Words when he brought Syl back. Also, there are hints in the epigraphs to WoR from thee in-universe WoR book that most of the ex-Radiants were slaughtered shortly after the Recreance. 

52 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Not only that, but we know that the spren can cancel their Nahel Bond, so why when they were hearing the Radiants talk about performing a massacre on their partners did they not just leave.

The point was to discourage the spren from ever bonding in the future - and it worked out pretty well in that regard. I also think it likely that the massacred spren agreed with their partners that their deaths were worth preventing the destruction of the world. Now, I do think that both the old Radiants and their spren were misled in some way, because it is all but impossible that humans on Ashyn could have used the surges in the same way that the Radiants do, not to mention that they couldn't have had oath-limited Nahel bonds. Oh, and we have quotes both by Taln and by the Stormfather that suggest that surge-binding was completely unknown on Roshar before the creation of the Honorblades - so something is definitely rotten both about Eilia Stele and about Honor's senile rantings.  But when your god tells you that you are going to destroy the world, few would have the inner strength to doubt and, particularly among the Radiants, few would be selfish enough to risk it.

As I have said in my previous post, I do think that some Radiants did leave Rosharan system instead, but they wouldn't have been too numerous.

6 hours ago, GiveMeASpren(I'mCrazy) said:

Could Worldhoppers have slowly taken some of the blades away with them over the millenia?

That would depend on whether it is easier or harder to take deadeyes out of Roshar's/Rosharan system's Shadesmar than the living Nahel spren, I imagine. I don't remember any rumors/legends about such weapons in the other Cosmere books, though. And, of course, dead shardblades would be useless for humans living mainly in the Cognitive Realm

[MountainKing]

14 minutes ago, Isilel said:

Also, there are hints in the epigraphs to WoR from thee in-universe WoR book that most of the ex-Radiants were slaughtered shortly after the Recreance. 

I didn't know that, but could you list a page number or chapter for me to read.

[Spoolofwhool]

21 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

I didn't know that, but could you list a page number or chapter for me to read.

Quote

"This act of great villainy went beyond the impudence which had hitherto been ascribed to the orders; as the fighting was particularly intense at the time, many attributed this act to a sense of inherent betrayal; and after they withdrew, about two thousand made assault upon them, destroying much of the membership; but this was only nine of the ten, as one said they would not abandon their arms and flee, but instead entertained great subterfuge at the expense of the other nine."

- Words of Radiance, Chapter 41

 

[WardenGiggles]

So the one would the Skybreakers? What's the referenced subterfuge then?

[MountainKing]

Thanks