LewsTherinTelescope

Maybe? Depends on a few factors: How the Heralds are immortal vs how the Fused are immortal. Don't know enough to speculate. The nature of the Oathpact. The Heralds' souls are bound together and also out making a prison, somehow. This might leave them more stretched out or more entangled, in which case trying to trap Jezrien's soul might not have been a very clean move and might've ripped off and/or left behind bits tied to the rest. What happens when the raysium does what it does. Raboniel seems to think the humans will work out a method more similar to how Nergaoul was trapped (though she doesn't really seem to know how she thinks a Fused will be trapped that way, which does make me think she's more exploiting others' fears than making a real argument), which may be less invasive than ripping a soul out of a body through a small knife. Also, the blackened wound + black smoke may indicate that the raysium caused damage and leaked out bits of soul, which probably is unhealthy. Additionally there's the fact that part of what Kalak attributes as a cause is the Oathpact being severed, but Jezrien's death itself is what severed it, so Kalak might not quite know the mechanics at play here as much as he acts like he does (which does make sense, as he hasn't really had a shot to play around with these things much). I'm also not fully sure if I think Honor being Splintered even should affect them or not, because the fact the Stormfather can still pull through Stormlight constantly and the Sibling can still pull through Towerlight shows there's still plenty to draw on in the Spiritual Realm. Plus, the other Heralds haven't pulled a Returned and dropped dead over the past couple thousand years, so I'm inclined to think they're still getting their juice.

A Fused trapped in a gem would, like Jezrien lack a valid connection to the Physical Realm. But I take it from Raboniel’s statement would retain a sufficient connection to the Spiritual. I'm not sure how much the Fused actually do or don't understand about what was happening with Jezrien, especially the ordinary ones who aren't super involved in the sciencey stuff. So Raboniel might a.) not know that's why that happened, or b.) be fearmongering to push them to go with her plan. Or c.) it might actually be accurate and a Fused wouldn't die.

Sazed does say that she's someone Hoid should approach again (and basically the only one of the sixteen who seems to have any positive feelings about Hoid lmao), so I doubt she's one of those who interpreted it as a hard oath. Considering his goal is "kill everyone else and be the sole remaining God", probably difficult to convince many others to join him. Plus, he's using the fact the people he's attacked have been paired up and thus breaking what some see as a pact as an excuse, which as we see with Endowment and Autonomy's letters has helped keep the other Shards off his back, so partnering with others would ruin this logic. And yet, she alongside Honor participated in his binding to the system (the Stormfather says her power and Honor's bind Odium's like the Oathpact), which would be odd if she didn't want him to be stuck there. She also worked with Honor to make the Sibling for the war effort, and the Nightwatcher has made Bondsmiths for that as well. She's been subtle with her direct actions, but she's been involved with all this from the start. Her plan with Taravangian also explicitly called for helping him control the Intent (making someone who can "bear this power with honor") and teaching him how to use it, which doesn't sound like she doesn't care and just wants it out, either. I do agree here. Maybe in the long term he'd consider it, or if she acted to stop his plans, but if he can have a friendly Vessel in his home base who is willing to teach him and help him improve his abilities and knowledge, I don't think he'll throw it away so quickly, especially when he's new to things and she is not. I don't know about Vivenna's Blade, but I did see someone else here point out something that originally I was skeptical of but that I've come around on because it fits so oddly well: Taravangian's moment of bravery. It's phrased remarkably similarly to the way the Intents of Ruin, Preservation, and Odium were displayed. Bravery, dying courage, glory of fighting to defend, the feeling of stepping off into the unknown.... those definitely sound like rather valorous concepts. And the moment is accompanied by him seeming to hear a voice right when he thought he failed that pointed out the opportunity, which could definitely just be an internal monologue, but with the other stuff... For reference, the description of Ruin: Preservation: Odium: It definitely feels like it fits the sort of pattern of these things, and just so happens to align neatly with the Intent of the one Shard that Harmony said seemed reasonable and wanted to speak with Hoid...

I think Connection affecting other Realms is a bit different from specifically having Connection tying you to the Realm itself (Syl mentions if she goes too far from Kal, her Connection to the Physical Realm fades). That was my first thought, but the whole thing's weird enough I've given up on fully understanding it lol (Oh yeah, and it stops fabrials as well, iirc, which feels even weirder to me... it's all complicated.) That's fair. Lmao seriously yeah I'm not sure if I agree with this bit, but I could see the purpose (Intent, you might say) of the spren having some relevance to what they can do even beyond Surges, true. Yeah.... Bondsmiths do be scary. I don't know that I'd quite say the Tower was made around the heart as much as they, both being parts of the Sibling, were designed by Honor and Cultivation with both in mind to work together. Things like the Sibling manifesting as veins of metal and gem in the walls seem difficult to add in after the fact, but also I doubt they could stand on their own. That would be wild. Lmaoooo fair enough Then again, Ishar thinks he can "reset" it on his own... I think the Honorblades are capable of drawing through far more power than we tend to assume, though Honor probably used to keep them limited most of the time when he was alive to prevent Ashyn 2.0. But ultimately they are pieces of Honor himself that grant the bearer direct access to his essence (I think the wording was something like that), so I can see them getting pretty crazy. Though if Szeth thinks Abrasion is a Lashing... Side note, I love how the Windrunners using the Lashing terminology just comes from Kaladin overhearing Szeth mention the word in one of his insane rambles one time, lol. Hey if Lightweavers can have a gazillion passive effects so can Windrunners I think it's plausible that honorspren sort of being windspren influences the way the power can manifest, in addition to power levels. Just spitballing, though, and that doesn't answer everything either way.

Reminds me of the stuff Syl and Kalak mention about having Connection to the Spiritual, Physical, and Cognitive Realms... Still not sure how that works when Connection is a Spiritual attribute but I guess it does That's a fair distinction, you're right. Fits more with the "unite" theme as well. Ah, good catch. There are people nearby that may have gems (Lopen's only got drained very shortly before), but I don't know that it'd be enough to account for such a large blast. Huh, honestly yeah that makes sense. The suppressor does... stuff, for sure, but I have no idea what the mechanism is. Off the top of my head you have to account for: Knocking Radiants unconscious/Fused when normal Making Stormlight work more slowly for healing/Voidlight when normal NOT blocking (near) 4th Ideal Radiants due to strength of bond (but iirc Kal does feel a pressure)/Unmade when normal (but only sometimes, other times the Sibling was strong enough to suppress them) Knocking Windrunners less unconscious than other orders NOT blocking Honorblades despite the bond there being extremely shallow NOT blocking Kaladin's Adhesion or Lift's Progression NOT having a noticeable effect on Lift besides Abrasion being gone iirc? Allows a Reverse Lashing to be pushed through because of the Adhesion involved, but it takes active effort Can be healed away for 10 hours but then comes back Makes it harder to summon the spren as a Blade, and Teft is only able to summon a barely-substantial one with extreme effort from both him and Phendorana I've not seen any theory yet that really accounts for it all. Eh, the Tower's fabrials are made of the Sibling manifesting themselves. Dalinar and Shallan have to both do things (even if they don't fully understand those things) to get it to work. Not really the same thing imo. That does get some, yeah, but several of those (such as the heating fabrial and attractors) are explicitly noted to be part of the Sibling, and I'd find it really weird if the Tower at first came without doors or elevators lol. Yeah I really need to as well, there's soooo much. I'd just been assuming the Sibling created them like the SF makes honorspren, but I suppose that's not certain. More I meant if the Sibling can create new spren of that power level and with whichever Surge they want that feels like it has Implications for either the flexibility of Bondsmith spren or the way spren are made, but I'm not really sure what those implications are, lmao. True enough lol Listen if Syl considers the Vessel of Honor a mere Bondsmith I give up xD The Stormfather does in Oathbringer say this bit, though: And Ash talks about it as well: So it does sound like Ishar actually made the Oathpact, which is... wild. Huh, weird. Reminds me of some weird phrasing from the deleted Jasnah scene someone on the Discord pointed out recently: Jasnah please why no why LASH and GRAVITATION aaaaaa

Hmmm those are pretty interesting questions. I don't know that I have even theoretical answers to any of them, but it's something I'm definitely gonna be thinking on now.

Huh, forgot all about bindspren. Weird. Wonder what's up there. I guess it depends how you treat the terminology, because a lot of the magics do work via that behind-the-scenes anyway (Gravitation, for example). I'd probably define it more in the vein of the way you do later in the post, a "Spiritual" use is one that solely affects the Spiritual, while a "Physical" one is one that affects the Physical. I do think they work via the same mechanic, however, just differing specifics. He probably vaguely knows about the concept as "that stuff Dalinar does and that Syl waxes on about sometimes", but I doubt he really understands it, yeah. That's fair. I agree in the broad scope, but don't quite agree with the specific terminology here. I think it all works via Connection, just in different ways. Not every bond of knowledge (as the SF talks about it) means the same thing, and not everything has the same meaning when shared. So Dalinar might make a Connection that is the "knowledge" that he uh definitely 100% totally grew up in Azir nope ignore that Alethkar line right there he's certainly Azish and so grew up speaking it, while Ishar makes the person and ground both "know" that they're one body and the person's actual body tries to share the Stormlight with the ground, and the Full Lashing does... something similar but not identical, etc. (Also, lol'd @ "Dalinar's Duolingo", Odium better hope he hasn't forgotten any of his Malwish lessons ) I think it might be plausible, depends on if it's pure Adhesion or involves Tension or is something else weird somehow. Though, if Ishar was specifically going to create the Oathpact I could see Tanny Boi giving his Blade admin rights but not the rest. But I'd lean towards either "yes" or "involves Tension", instead of the latter two options. Agreed, merely trying to think about what that means more. I'm actually curious whether it's really out of nowhere or not, because in most of the main cases I can find it described (Kaladin's Second and Third, and Lopen's Second), they actually drain all the spheres around them in one go, and in the other main one (Kaladin's Fourth) he's in the storm and might be drawing from there. So is it truly drawing from the Spiritual, or more something tied into the same thing as the Reverse Lashing and their "strength of squires" bit, with Gravitation and Adhesion doing wonky things and drawing alllll the nearby Light to them? That does make sense, I'm curious about that now. There's still that weird scene in tWoK where Shallan accidentally falls into Shadesmar after swearing an Ideal that then never happens again... It works for that distinction I guess, but it doesn't distinguish between, say, a Full Lashing and what Ishar does, or Dalinar using a language and Ishar stealing a Radiant bond, or whatever in Elithanathile is happening with the spren for Ishar's experiments. So I think narrow scope vs broad scope are better terms for the difference at hand (Windrunners vs Bondsmiths), instead of just trying to categorize it by where the most noticeable effect is. Tbf, Urithiru also has: Doors Heating Suppressor Pumps Elevators and in general just a lot of things, even including conjoined fabrials iirc. So I'm not sure that'll necessarily all fall under the Surges of Adhesion and Tension, as much as the Sibling being a super massive spren that's learned to use their Investiture more flexibly than most. (fwiw, Navani mentions the pressure fabrial is actually an incredibly complex network of attractors bringing in air.) (The Sibling is also referred to as "the parent" by the Oathgate spren, which is interesting but I have no idea the implications.) Navani also comes to the same conclusion for some reason, iirc even though Szeth is right there and can tell them it presumably doesn't match any of them in appearance... so admittedly that might just be a case of "doesn't seem to be a spren, maybe it's that"! But either way they are absurdly powerful from what Brandon's said, yeah. I do think that's most likely, yeah. I should note, by "honorspren come from windspren so they can do random wind stuff" I meant that perhaps it's something somewhat related to how the windspren can do wind things, as opposed to just something actually fully random, but I do still think it's less likely either way. Is this laid out and explained anywhere? I don't recall the exact mechanics being delved into but I might've just missed it. And apparently Szeth trained with all of the Surges, iirc, so this would mean even the Bondsmith Blade, because otherwise he'd be missing Tension from the list. That's a different thing from "this is the first time the Honorblades have been wielded since Honor's death", though. (But also yeah as Frustration mentions, Nale's been using his for a few centuries now.)

@RSharaput together a proper spreadsheet about this, lol

Not necessarily.

Weekly Roundup time! Some fun things this week: there are two giveaways associated with Cytonic preorders! Also, we finally got that movie review Brandon mentioned a couple months back. But first, we've got the obligatory Defiant (Skyward 4) update: prewriting is at 33%. Not much else to say there. Also, in case you missed it, the US cover for ReDawn was revealed on Tuesday! Moving on to the main event, though: if you're looking to preorder Cytonic, there are two giveaways going on, depending on where you preorder it from. The first is a giveaway for anyone who lives in the US and preorders from ANY US retailer (be it Amazon, the Mini-Con, or a local bookstore; as long as they give you a receipt, it qualifies): If you enter the retailer and receipt number (as proof of purchase) into the form on Get Underlined's website, they'll send you an enameled pin (Brandon says Doomslug in the video, but the poster shows the M-Drone hugging a mushroom), and a link to virtually watch the Cytonic release party at the Dragonsteel Mini-Con on November 23rd from 7PM-9PM MDT. The second is a sweepstakes open to anyone who preorders from Barnes & Noble's website or applies via email (see below). One winner will receive: A leatherbound journal A signed copy of Cytonic A collection of some of Brandon's favorite books, including: Going Postal An Ember in the Ashes The Black Prism Uprooted The Promise of Blood The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms The Star Touched Queen Project Hail Mary A Darker Shade of Magic In addition, thanks to legal requirements in the United States, an alternative method of entry is available for those who don't want to purchase from Barnes & Noble: you can instead send an email to [email protected] titled "Entry Form Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson Sweepstakes", with your name, email address, and physical address. (Only one entry per person is allowed, and duplicates will be disqualified.) On the other hand, if you preordered from Barnes & Noble but want to opt-out, you can send an email to [email protected] with the subject "Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson Sweepstakes Opt Out". These events are not mutually exclusive: if you preorder from B&N, that order does qualify for both their sweepstakes and the Get Underlined giveaway, and emailing to enter B&N's contest does not prevent you from getting the pin and release event access. If you live outside the US, Team Dragonsteel is currently in talks with the UK publisher about other promotions, but we'll just have to wait and find out whether or not that comes to fruition and in what way. In other news, Brandon did a mostly spoiler-free review of Jungle Cruise. An aside: he actually mentioned he had made a film review (although had not revealed which movie) back in August, covered in our very first Weekly Update article—how time flies... And lastly, he announced that the Halloween livestream has been moved to October 30th, at 3PM MDT. Adam did actually put a note about this on the last Weekly Update video, so our previous Weekly Roundup article did mention the correct date, but if you were listening to the video without paying too much attention to the screen, you may have gotten the old schedule instead. As a reminder, the Halloween livestream will be Brandon and Emily opening fanmail all dressed up in-costume, to try and work through a lot of what has built up since the normal streams stopped having fanmail segments. No questions will be taken, except those sent in with said mail. Should you wish to watch Brandon's update video, it is of course on YouTube, and embedded below. Ordinarily, a transcript is eventually uploaded to Brandon's website by Brandon's assistant Adam, but his posts haven't been made for this one or last week's yet, so can't link to it here.

Ah, I see. Huh yeah that's interesting. Likely after it took over, but since we don't actually know how the Evil spread we can't be super certain on the specifics. Most likely, yeah. From the sound of it, the Evil is really bad news.

A problem? Worth noting that, according to Khriss, the Cognitive Realm representation of the Homeland is also really dangerous. Some people being able to access the CR is also different from being able to evacuate en mass—Khriss mentions that "there is no stable perpendicularity—only very unstable ones that cannot be predicted easily, and have a somewhat morbid origin." Yeah, was just curious about the "The same essay also mentions that Khrissalla did not get her information about pre evacuation magic in person" bit.

That's why I drew the distinction I did–the powers aren't different abilities, imo. One seems to be a subset of the other, I feel. (With the exception of the Windrunners messing with the air, which seems completely unrelated to the Full Lashing mechanically, and which Dalinar cannot do, so who knows if that one is even pure Adhesion or is a combo Surge, or just an "honorspren come from windspren so they can do random wind stuff" thing, or what).

Depends on the context. Sometimes people just mean it like that, which is fair enough (though I still think it's more appropriate to use different terminology because Bondsmith powers are really broad and "Physical" and "Spiritual" don't capture all the variations, but also we don't really have terminology for anything beyond Full Lashings so it's not like we can do much there lol). But I have seen people propose it as a completely separate power to the normal Surge a la Renarin's abilities vs a normal Truthwatcher's before, and express uncertainty over whether it's possible for a Bondsmith to use "Physical Adhesion" (which they can) because they see them as two different things. That's more the stance this is against (though perhaps my post was not clear there, because it was rushed a lot more than my usual).

Mostly, yeah. Mainly just pushing back against the idea that Bondsmiths are like, accessing an entire different version of the Surge like the way Renarin's futuresight is or something. It's just accessing a narrower part vs a broader part that includes said broader part, imo. Imo, yes. If the bond is a similar level of depth (and I think it'd be odd if it wasn't, though this is just gut feeling on my part), then it will probably involve significantly more Investiture simply because the spren has significantly more Investiture. Plus, Bondsmiths can do crazy things like create Light, and Dalinar can open a whole Perpendicularity. Combine that with the in general far more expansive access to the powers (which, as we see with the Bands, is something higher levels of Investiture can cause in at least some cases), and I think it's reasonable. Maybe? Wish we'd seen Tension literally ever to be able to say I don't think that's an unreasonable idea, but it does make more sense to me for the absolutely staggeringly absurd level of power a Bondsmith is capable of achieving to be due to the wayyyyy larger spren than due just to the combo of Surges, because otherwise you'd expect orders with similar levels of craziness from the combinations and we just don't really seem to see that (and also it adds a much stronger limit: much harder to make a new "godspren" than a bunch of normal-sized spren of Adhesion and Tension, if on a meta level you want to keep things from getting too out of hand).