delphinousy

while i conceptually understand why Kaladin seems like a good recruit for odium, i'm sure that at the end of book 5 he'll be a hero. but that doesn't mean he might not pull a darth vader, and fall to the darkside for a time. He could very well spend some time having given in to odium, much like how he spent some time breaking his oaths in WoR before finally coming, and having some event shock him back into taking responsibility for his emotions instead of abdicating it to odium. unfortunately, i'm also 90% sure that kaladin will not survive book 5, that he's gongn to pull a vin and be a big damnation hero but not survive whatever it is, or if he lives it'll be in a transformed state, becoming a new shardbearer or a new herald on braize or something

which actually brings me to a different thought. Nale is a herald and all that entails, but he is also a radient, and venlie is a stormform envoy and also a willshaper, so clearly being a radient doesn't lock you out of being more. i wonder if instead, once someone has completed the 5th ideal, their connection to the spren will be complete enough that they can forma new bond with a different order's spren?

i honestly beleive that with his super strict views on following laws and rules nale would not even think to try for a 6th oath. and i wasn't trying to say 'there is no proof against this' as an argument, i was pointing out that a vague reference to there being limits doesn't mean that what is commonly accepted as the limit of 5 is correct, or that it couldn't have changed

i'm not sure if this is me being a dumb user or something not working correctly on the site, but i've created posts and replied to threads, and i've selected 'notify me of replies' when posting, and selected 'follow topic' in the upper right, and i've set it to send me an email when there are new replies, but i don't get any emails, and i'll manually check back later and see that there have been replies. i have also checked in my profile, and whe i check the articles i follow page, it says i'm not following any, am i doing something wrong and not correctly following articles, or is ther something else going on? a specific example is the post created: Forums Rhythm of War and Dawnshard Spoiler Area RoW Lore, Magic, and Cosmere Discussion 6+ ideals theory which shows that i am the only one following, and i am set to let other see that i am following it, so you can check that thanks for any help

well yes, but brandon isn't saying that the limit is 5, just that there is a limit. We strongly suspect that Ishar is the one who bound the surges to the oaths, but we also know from the honorspren captain Notum that 'without honor there are no checks on your power' which he describes as being dangerous. we also now that, according to syl, the spren learned how to become shardblades after seeing the honorblades and learning to imitate it, so the shardblades weren't always a part of the orders and oaths, which means that the oaths and what they give aren't rigid, they can grow and changed (which makes sense because cultivation is suspected to have had a hand in their creation as well) what all this means to me now, is that before honors death, hey were likely limited to 5 oaths, but with honor being dead, they may be able to swear some sort of a final 6th oath. We don't understand why Notum said that the nahel bond couldn't be broken once the 5th deal was sworn, it is suspected that the spren and spiritweb of the radiant are merging, but we don't know, and they are still separate entities, even if they are too strongly bonded, but a 6th ideal may actually merge them fully into a single entity, and who knows what that would do to both of them. if that happened, it would probably be like how changes the people who are affected by it strongly, like koloss or inquizitors. i honestly think that it's a pretty low chance it will happen in the front 5 books, slightly greater i might happen in the back 5, but if we see it it will probably only once or twice total.

i'll admit i was hoping for a more concrete answer, but thanks for all the answers provided. i suppose it does make the most sense that it was an application so the 'adhesion' power that we're not overly familiar with, but i'm also interesting in knowing about why it's significant that kaladin is 'child of tanavast', because that's super interesting to me

I want, to ask how is it that Kaladin 'defltects' the highstorm in Oathbringer chapter 31? Adhesion brings things together, and gravitation creates forces, but neither of these seem to actually work to deflect the highstorm. also, are the windspren there watching him deflect it, like gloryspren, or are they there because they are doing the work, and somehow Kaladin was able to command them. Finally, is this something that technically any windrunner could have done as part of their powers, or was this special to Kaladin because of something unique to him, to Syl and her connection to the stormfather, or something else?

i don't know that kaladin is the only person that odium is trying to get to be his champion. i think that he prefers to corrupt someone who is major and important to the other side, but that he'll settle for someone else if he needs. i feel like moash is currently his backup champion if he can't get anyone else. i've also remembered that taln was not supposed to be the 10th herald, which implies that there is someone else who is supposed to have been the 10th herald who wasn't able to be for some reason, and i wonder if that person was corrupted/aligned to odium, and is odiums final, ultimate backup champion that he hopes to never use, because they are helping him resist honors binding and if they die he'll be more trapped but aside from that, odium would probably just be thrilled to corrupt kaladin

this is an interesting theory. likely, it will either end in kaladin pulling a dalinar and declining to become the champion, while going through a big personal growth, or he will fall, but possibly be redeemed. i don't think that kaladin will end the story or die as a villain, but he might pull a darth vader and go bad for a while before redeeming himself in the end

i don't think that kaladin was uncomfortable with syl being present, so much as the entire concept of being with someone while also having someone watching and/or participating in an intimate moment makes him uncomfortable, rather than being uncomfortable with syl

This is a theory that i came up with when i remembered that syl had explained that the spren who bonded with radients learned to make shardblades after honor crafter the honorblades for the heralds. This is implying that the 10 orders of spren were already bonding to radients, but they actually had to learn and figure out how to become shardblades, that this wasn't knowledge given to them or a built in part of the process that honor and/or cultivation built into the nahel bonding process. The theory is that this shows that the bonding process can grow and change, so why should we assume that the orders of the nights radiant are limited to only 5 ideals. it's entirely possible that if someone isn't fully satisfied with the 'journey' that they have been on, that they don't feel they've reached their destination, then they might go further and find a sixth or seventh ideal to swear. even if the orders were originally built with only 5 ideals per order, that may no longer hold true, we've already seen that different characters are swearing different ideals form each other within the same order, even though they still follow broad trends

i think that maya will be revived completely without oaths, and after she is revived, adolin will either be able to then start swearing oaths, or will actually have a fully formed nahel bond without oaths. i think the reason that she is recovering is because adolin was shown to actually treat his sword like a person, and has basically believed that and acted that way ever since he got her. we know that spren are mostly a cognitive realm entity, and so it is his thoughts about her that have been slowly restoring her, because his specific belief that she was 'his' sword has been slowly counteracting her belief that she is broken beyond repair. i think that when she if finally healed, it will be a really major moment for the spren, that until that happens, most of the unbonded spren will be resistant to rejoining with the radients again, and only small numbers will bond, but once adolin heals maya, a lot more will start bonding.

i would think that the boon and curse would be one and the same. for all that she would gain with becoming more human, she would lose by being less spren, and the final gain/loss would be her getting a full actualization to become human (or some sort of near human like how herdazians and horneaters are) and the final loss might be her Connection/Nahel bond through kaladin, that by becoming fully human to be with him, he, and she , would lose the bond, and kaladin would no longer have powers. it might even be that as she went through the progress of this change, that kaladins powers would weaken, even as he may have been completing more oaths, and at the end all kaladin would have would be plates (however that actually works out), because syl wouldn't be a sword. However, if that happened, i thin that Syl and Kaladin would still ahve a Connection unique to them, and that instead of syl granting kaladin martial mastery, isntead it would reverse and syl would be gaining knowledge form Kaladin, both her wished for understanding, but also his medical knowledge/skills, and she would become his assistant surgeon as he became a master surgeon, to spend the rest of his life healing instead of killing and there were hints in the books that cultivation and honor worked together to create the sentient spren, and we know that ruin and preservation made the scadrians, so it is 100% possible that she could turn syl from a creatue that it basically 90+% cognitive into a full human(ish) being. i honestly think fi ti happened, she wouldn't be fully human, there would be remnants of her honorspren form, but she would be able to have children with kaladin. an example of a remnant might be that her hair would glow with/like stormlight, or that she could control it directly into whatever shapes she wants jsut by her will, or her body being more maleable or something. however, i do admit that this ending is a little bit to happy fo us to likely see it come from brandon sanderson, but i like it all the same

i've wondered if kaladin and rlain and venli were going to break off and form a 3rd size between odium and dalinar. while i believe that dalinar would be open to peace with the parshendi/voidbringers, the rest of the 'humans' that he will eventually ally with won't be, so he'd be limited in being able to make piece with even the neutral singers. I also think that dalinar is going to be following in tanavasts footsteps and trying to create a new oathpact to restore the previous cycling nature but with improvements, which means that he's angling for a champions fight with odium, and i fell like kaladin and several others will, if their not already there, get tot he point of wanting to make a different solution. so, i can totally see kaladin and venli making a human/parshendi/singer faction, and having some of the other random races on roshar join in, and be working for peace, sometimes in conflict or agreeance with both sides.

Szeths encounters with the skybreakers and tefts 3rd ideal show that while each persons ideals follow similar topics and ideas, they are still individualized. i beleive that the 'standard' 4th ideal of the windrunners is the acceptance of not being able to protect everyone, and that kaladin won't ever be able to swear it, and will instead eventually develop some alternative 4th ideal for himself, specifically a refusal to accept that he cannot protect everyone, and an affirmation to try to do exactly that, something like "i swear to protect everyone, even knowing that i will fail", rather than him trying to change himself to be a more 'standard' windrunner