Saal

Wow, very interesting theory! I don't have anything to add at this time other than to say that you've piqued my interest and I will be following this thread.

Wow. This seems highly plausible.

My least favorite character in the cosmere, without a doubt, is Treledees from Warbreaker. His haughty, simpering, whimpering arrogance made me want to punch him in the teeth through the whole book. Then the sudden guilt I had when he went and got all noble by throwing himself on enemy swords to save his god-king made me hate him forever. OB Spoilers

I'm sorry if this should be obvious but what changes are you referring to? I didn't see anything mentioned in the Latest News section of the site nor on Brandon's website. Please let me know if I missed something.

I like this a lot. I'm kind of fantacizing that the person to pick-up Harmony would be Marsh.

Granted, but you must spend the rest of your life as a quadriplegic . I want a perfect understanding of realmatic theory.

So I like this interpretation for it's simplicity, but I suppose what I'm really after, but have explained terribly, is that I'm trying to get past the simple answer. It's like explaining that "if you rub two sticks together under the right circumstances you can start a fire." But when you start talking about how that works chemically, it's a much more in-depth process. Understanding that process can also let you make fires using other tools and under other conditions as well. I'm hoping for a better understanding of what's happening "chemically" when a spren bonds a person and can then turn into a shardblade. Is there a change to their sDNA? Is it mostly a cognitive change? Is it mostly a physical change? That hope is most likely why I interpreted Brandon's explanation as I did., so that I read it as the spren that were patterned after Honorblades instead of their Shardblade form being patterned after Honorblades. After perusing the forums for a few days looking for more info on this, I'm not finding very much... so I assume these are questions I might want to ask Brandon directly, or do you think they would get RAFO'd?

I'm rewording these from the Question and Answer thread in case this is the more appropriate thread for them. Does the Nahel Bond actually alter the bonded Spren's Spiritweb? If so, what determines which alterations are made? If not, does the bond "unlock" sections of the Spiritweb that they just did not previously have access to? Are Shardblades more Cognitive, Physical, or Spiritual in nature? If Syl passed through something in the form of a leaf, will she sever its soul? If not, then why does she act/function differently when she's in the form a Shardblade? ​What specifically caused the spren abandoned in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance to appear as a Shardblade instead of whatever their normal "physical" form? For example, why would Pattern not turn into the pattern shape that he normally has? ​Brandon has stated that Spren/Shardblades were patterned after Honorbales - was this just referring to their general shape or in their capabilities and powers as well?

Thanks for the welcome! Perhaps "fanboi" was too strong of a word; it's more like I find myself nodding my head in appreciation of their posts of on a very regular basis, each for different reasons. But I think that I will probably keep the names to myself for now. But I generally appreciate any post that is well written, with logical arguments supported by WoB or in-text quotes and examples unless the topic simply doesn't call for them..

Thanks! Is there any cake?

So I figured I would stop being that rude jerk who butts into conversations without ever introducing himself. I'm Saal. I've been using this online pseudonym for about 10 years now - ever since it was randomly generated for me while making a character for Knights of the Old Republic and I thought it sounded cool. (For anyone wondering, I've never seen Breaking Bad, but I'm told one of the character's on that show has the same name.) In terms of my BS fandom, I discovered Brandon when he took over writing the Wheel of Time and a friend of mine had already read all of his then-published works. I decided to read Elantris and I absolutely loved it so I picked up Mistborn and promptly read every book of his that I possibly could. I've been stalking these forums since The Way of Kings release. Historically I have preferred to let others do the theorycrafting and ask questions while I eagerly read all of their posts. It's actually been somewhat like watching a TV show where I've developed opinions on my favorite "characters" and personalities so that I find myself drawn to certain topics just because a specific person posted in it or created it. lol #fanboi I have found myself becoming increasingly interested in the Cosmere and how everything works, so I decided to make and account and start posting questions when I had them. If you have any other questions about me feel free to ask.

So based on the responses that I received in this thread I now haz moah questions. Does the Nahel Bond actually change the Spren's capabilities, essentially altering their Spiritweb? If so, what determines which alterations are made? If not, does the bond simply "unlock" sections of the Spiritweb that they did not previously have access to? Are Shardblades more Cognitive, Physical, or Spiritual in nature? If Syl passed through something in the form of a leaf, will she sever its soul? If not, then what makes her act differently when she's in the form a Shardblade? ​What specifically caused those spren to appear as a Shardblade instead of whatever their normal "physical" form? For example, why would Pattern not turn into the pattern shape that he normally has? ​Do we have any WoB on whether or not he was specifically referring to Shardblades being patterned after Honorblades general physical shape (i.e. they come with a hilt, blade, pummel, etc.)? EDIT: Would these questions be better suited to the Ultimate List of Questions for Brandon Sanderson?

So to reword that quote with fewer pronouns, you think he was saying something more like this...?

I'll agree that it's possible I'm reading into that comment too much, and that is how I initially interpreted his answer as well. But Brandon is famous for his subtlety, no? And some things just don't seem to add up for me, with that interpretation. Why would "first form" = "basic form"? Also, I don't remember the book saying exactly what happened to Syl after Kaladin fell into the Chasm, but leading up to that point she seemed to revert back into a more Windspren-like mindless state. Wouldn't that have been her "basic" state in Roshar?

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but a simple forum search did not turn up a thread title about this exact issue. The closest I found was this thread from before the release of WoR. WOB I couldn't find any WoB that elaborates on this, so all I'm really left with is scraps of evidence throughout these forums and in his books and deductive reasoning. I am really intrigued by this concept though and it has sent my mind reeling in a hundred different directions, so I am going to attempt to condense these thoughts into a comprehensible format in the hopes that someone out there might have some more information or insights - supportive, contradictory, or otherwise. My first question is, "Do we know to what part spren were patterned after honorblades?" Again, I couldn't find any WoB that elaborates. The original question in the Q&A was only referring to spren that have been bonded and are capable of transforming into a Blade, so I am limiting any examples I look at to spren that fit the same criteria - particularly Syl and Pattern since they are the ones that have had the most "screen" time. Is Brandon referring to a spren's Physical aspect? Syl and Pattern's physical appearances onscreen would seem to discredit this, or at the least don't support this. Is Brandon referring to a spren's Cognitive aspect? Pattern's appearance in Shadesmar would appear to discredit that this, or at the least doesn't support this. It then seems plausible to me that this would be referring to their Spiritual aspect. Based on the Wiki, I am assuming that this would be the same thing as their Spiritwebs. Entropicscholar's treatise on Forging the Spiritweb, expands this definition to include objects and other non-living entities. This expanded definition appears to be supported by the use of Soul Stamps on inanimate objects in The Emperor's Soul. (I can provide a quote when I get home tonight and have access to my copy of the book.) If so, then I think it is reasonable to assume that each Honorblade has a Spiritweb that gives the holder access to a specific set of surges AND that Spren are somehow able to use those Spiritwebs as a template for their own that in turn grant their bond-holder access to those same surges. Thoughts?

Maybe this is the mechanism for someone becoming a Champion of Honor and/or Cultivation? They are somehow such an exemplar of one Shard's virtues that they are able to attract and form bonds with one of each of the Nahel Bond-forming Spren of that Shard? I'm not sure if that would jive with all of the "hybrid" spren that are out there, though. If it's true though, that might lend support to your idea LeftVash.

I think 1-10 odds are very good, actually, if you're an entire army of Stormform Parshendi being controlled by a Shard vs an under-equipped army of humans. I imagine it would be like fighting a 1v1 in an RTS, but one player has the Fog of War turned off and all advanced units while the other is using only basic units and has to fight with the Fog of War. It's certainly not a done deal, but the deck is heavily stacked in the first players favor. I've actually wondered about this myself. One thought that I've had - but have no real proof to substantiate - is that they had a way of holding onto Stormlight better than Szeth and other normal people do. I don't have the quote on me, but I believe it was confirmed that Radiants in Shardplate can hold onto Stormlight perfectly? If so, I'm kind of hoping this was an intentional design feature somehow base on the Heralds. But that's wild fancy on my part. Assuming the Heralds have to follow the same rules for using Stormlight that the Radiants do, then I would have to agree with your assessment.

It depends on the state of the regular human armies and their technological capabilities. I don't believe that we have been given any direct evidence of the technological state of humanity at the start of the first desolation, but we know that they are utterly destructive. In the SLA Prelude at the very beginning of Way of Kings, the humans are described as being extremely primitive. And if the "He-Who-Calls-Himself-Taln Mantra" is any indication, it wasn't out of the ordinary for the Heralds to teach humanity how to make brass. This would indicate an extremely low level of technological advancement. They also would have had severely limited access to any Shardic magic systems, without any Spren to bond with them. So I would contend that a regular human army wearing loincloths and using wooden spears with stone tips vs an army of Warform Parshendi would be torn to shreds. Now we pit that same human army vs an army of Stormform and other "Odiumforms" - each potentially being controlled by Odium himself? They're going to need something to tip the scales in their favor and overpower an entire army of beings that are potentially stronger, faster, more agile, and with access to a Shard's magic system. A single Herald with access to all 10 surges could likely be a 1-man army. Especially when we consider the destructive power of a single Radiant with access to 2 surges. Now, I admit that this is extremely conditional reasoning. It's possible there was something in place that would prevent Odium-spren from bonding with the Parshendi that would thus help even the scales during a Desolation, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that to be the case. In fact, if the Desolations are simply the mortal manifestation of a conflict between Honor/Cultivation and Odium, then that would seem to imply a need for some kind of manifestation of Odium's power during the Desolation. I'm not sure what that would be, but Odium-spren bonded Parshendi seem like a reasonable conclusion. (Edited to fix some spelling and grammatical errors. I also added in the last sentence of the last paragraph.)

I've always imagined that there was a significant gap between when humans arrived on Roshar and when spren started bonding them, but I have never seen anything definitive that says one way or the other. If humanity had to go through even one desolation without any Surgebinders, save for the Heralds, then I would presume that the Heralds themselves are strong enough to overpower a horde of "Odium-form" Listeners. Each of them having access to all of the surges would probably provide such an advantage.

It seems logical to me that if Bondsmiths do bond Godspren, there would be one for Cultivation, one for Honor, and one that was a blend of the two.