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Hello, first post, be gentle with me We don't really know that the Nightwatcher is a Bondsmith spren. It's a good theory, seems widely accepted and quite probable. But so far as I know, no in-book quote or WoB confirms her as such. I think it's likely that she probably is one of the three Bondsmith spren, as a counterpart to the Stormfather. She already has a magic system (-ish?) associated with her, the Boon and Curse: granting a wish but with a curse attached alongside it. Couldn't someone also ask her for the boon of being granted Radiancy (is that the word?). Has anyone in Roshar's history? Could she grant other spren bonds, lower spren or spren of the other Orders? And assuming she is a Radiant spren, could someone ask to bond with her? Could it be how she herself is supposed to be bonded? Could the next Bondsmith have to trek to the Valley and ask for the boon of bonding her? What could be the Curse to accompany such a Boon? Would they need to speak the Ideals or would the Curse, sort of, supplant the words?

I just wanted to think for a second about why humans had the ability to bond higher spren but singers, who seem to be fully rational creatures like humans, at least in any form besides dullform and slave form. I think the reason for this has to do with evolution on Roshar and what higher spren get from the Nahel bond: sapience in the physical realm. Humans are physical beings--their cognition is a product of biological processes of the physical realm which obviously are manifested in the cognitive realm, and facilitated by innate investiture in the spiritual realm. The Parsh natives of Roshar evolved on a planet where the cognitive-based investiture was all over the place, and from evolutionary terms, the path of least resistance to developing sapience was a symbiotic process between humanoid and spren, rather than a fully physical process. The result is, obviously, that the sapience of singers is less physically grounded than that of humans, and thus a nahel bond is not nearly as firm a grounding in the physical realm as it is for humans, whose sapience is a result of their physical brains, at least on a material level. I think this is correct, but what has changed recently? Are spren bonding singers like Venli or (hopefully) Rlain even though the bond is less secure because they think it's just the right thing to do, and it CAN serve, just less well, or is there some other difference?

My theory is that Shardplates are a portion of the Radiants' cognitive aspect, manifesting in the physical realm by a mechanism analogous to that of living Shardblades. This idea originates because current Plates seem to be sensitive to it's bearers minds: they adapt to the shape of the bearer's body and some experienced ones can even give mental orders to their Plate, for example, causing a part to come off the rest. We know that the more Radiants progress in their order, the closer they are to their spren. I even think I remember something about their Spiritwebs becoming more intermingled with each step of this process. We also know that spren have the ability to manifest in the physical realm in the form of metal. Knowing this, it seems possible to me that the Nahel bond may eventually grant the Radiants the ability to bring into the physical realm part of their cognitive aspect, which is shaped around their bodies due to being an extension of the way they view themselves. In my opinion, this would explain better than the current theory —Shardplates being minor spren— why Syl doesn't hate those who use current Plates like those who use dead Blades. For in their creation during the Recreance, no spren —not even sub-sentient ones— were harmed, but the very Radiants who broke their oaths were.

I'm fairly sure this idea will have been suggested before, but I want to try and dive deeply into it for the sake of it, really. I want to know if you guys think it'll happen or not. So, then. The theory/hypothesis. Will the 5th ideal cause the Radiant and Spren's spiritwebs to be so thoroughly connected that the two become indistinguishable in the SR, thus causing them to become Cognitively and Physically the same being? I suppose the big points against this would be 1. If we've seen Nale's Highspren on-screen, since he's a 5th ideal skybreaker (but also a Herald which might change things) and 2. How would Shardblade summoning work if that's the case? We already know a single spren can't manifest as two separate pieces of shardblade because that involves splitting their spiritweb, which, OUCH. So if this was the case, there would need to be some alternative. Perhaps we've seen a proto-form of this, when Dalinar manifests a not-Blade out of stormlight to use the Oathgate and flee. If a 5th Ideal Radiant could do that reliably and safely, whatever it is (i think it was partially condensed stormlight, personally), then they wouldn't need to split their spiritweb to manifest a Shardblade. Alternatively, they could just do something like FMA and have a sword-arm instead. Another consequence of this would be that the Radiant/Spren hybrid would take on physical traits from both components, which could have some pretty cool visual alterations. Like imagine how a full-truth Lightweaver could look, with that weird, almost glassy Cryptic cloak, maybe their face has a moving tattoo that matches the pattern of their Cryptic (or a new pattern that represents the Radiant AND their Cryptic!). That would be SO cool. In terms of how this affects powers, with effectively 0 resistance between the Radiant and their Spren, they would have perfect access to their Spren's surges, without any weird latency or Stormlight inefficiency (note: i'm not claiming the hybrid would not leak Stormlight at all... But Brando did specify in a wob that "humans" leak too much, so maybe this is the caveat). Continuing with the Lightweaver example (totally not because of personal biases), this would likely have bigger ramifications with Soulcasting, given how the Cryptic does the translating between Cognitive aspects and the Radiant. Perhaps with this final step, the Radiant can just comprehend and speak to the beads in Shadesmar directly. Would certainly expedite the process, if nothing else. With Lightweaving, one downside I can see is that without the Spren being separate, you couldn't do the thing Shallan does and stick an illusion of Veil to Pattern for him to walk away with and misdirect people. However, I can see one way to circumvent this. If Plate really is lesser spren, then perhaps Lightweavers can stick Illusions to those as well (which for one just sounds amazing, a swarm of illusions that the Lightweaver uses as misdirection, forgoing the defensive capabilities of Plate). Another effect this may have is on aging, or lack thereof. I wonder if a Spren is enough to slow the aging of their hybridized Radiant waayyy down. Not to be ageless like the Heralds, but maybe... Maybe it could be with a tweak from a Bondsmith, Stormfather permitting. That's a mini-theory for another time, though. One last piece of meta-evidence is that SA is meant to be sort of like an anime, and this is similar to one of those somewhat prevalent (in my experience) anime tropes.

So, I found a WoB that answers a little of this question (below), but still leaves questions for me. If a lighteyes becomes a Radiant and gains the ability to summon a living Shardblade, how much (if any) does their eye color change depending on the order? Like, if someone with blue eyes becomes a Willshaper, will their eyes turn purple? Because Brandon has implied that there could be a change, but that it might be subtle because the lighteyes are descended from people who were gradually but permanently altered by the bond/stormlight. Presumably blue eyes would mean someone was descended from a Windrunner. This leads to another question: If a change in eye-color has already occurred due to investiture exposure and been passed down through genetics, and a descendant joined an order that would normally have produced a similar, but different, change [like red or orange or purple], would the descendant's children have blue eyes or the eye color of their parent's order? The WoB, quoted: "Questioner My question has to do with the color of Shallan's eyes currently, because we've noticed over the books that Kaladin's eyes, as he's continued to use his Surge, changed to lighter and lighter blue. Whereas one could argue that Shallan is farther in her Ideals than Kaladin is, yet her eyes have not changed at all. Brandon Sanderson Right, 'cause they were already light. Questioner 'Cause they were already light? So it only affects lightness or darkness in the eyes, not necessarily any other color? Brandon Sanderson It's not like it is-- It's not like it's saying "Light minus 50%". Questioner It's not like Honor is blue and-- Brandon Sanderson No. It is not. It is just kind of the way that the changes the Stormlight is making the body and certain people are already descended from people who had repeated, over time, changes by the body which stopped physically... That's not to say that all lighteyes that's where they came from. There are some that are natural mutations."

What would giving Breath to spren result in? Breath is supposed to be more in the Physical than the Spiritual due to the nature of Endowment / to facilitate their transfer. Would the adaptability of Breath to different sDNA cause it to become more Cognitive in nature? Or would it make it easier for the spren to push into the Physical Realm and retain their coherence there? I assume that the rules of Awakening should still remain the same for them and they would still gain Heightenings if they acquire more Breaths, but would doing so change what kind of spren they are if they have more of Endowment's Investiture or would Endowment's nature mean her Investiture wouldn't change the inherent nature of the spren? If the spren was a Nahel Bond capable spren, would this count as Corruption assuming their nature does change? Would they still grant the same Surges? Could they grant the benefits of the Heightenings to their Bondmate? Seeing as the Nahel Bond is a melding of the Spiritwebs, to some degree, would transferring Breaths be easier between Bondmates or could a Bondmate use one another's Breath at the Fifth Ideal?

So I have a suspicion about the identity of the elusive spren of the Radiant order of Truthwatchers. In Edgedancer (about a page into chapter six), Lift’s Cultivationspren, Wyndle, mentions a type of spren known as Keenspren. Context: Lift was talking with a young street urchin, using all kinds of very strange words in odd ways. After the urchin leaves, Wyndle says: “Mistress, that was the strangest conversation I’ve ever heard, and I once grew an entire garden for some keenspren.” Truthwatcher’s spren are described as looking like “light reflected onto a surface through a crystal.” And Glys, Renarin’s corrupted spren, looks like a crystalline snowflake growing up from Renarin’s back. Many of the examples of corrupted spren we’ve seen were still recognizable as the type of spren they were. Keen means sharp, either in mind or as an edge, like a blade. I think this correlates well with what we’ve heard of the spren’s appearance in addition to the traditional personality attributed to the order of Truthwatchers. I would love to hear other suspicions about the Truthwatcherspren. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, so please share your thoughts on my theory!

One of things that has always bothered me Is why none of the Singers had ever bonded a non void spren before . Venli is the first to ever do so . Even she thought it was not possible . So on a reread of WoR I found the Song of Spren . The song seems to contradict itself . At first it says that Singers can’t provide what men can provide . Comparing their bond to broth and humans bond as meat . Making me believe that the spren won’t gain much intelligence . Later it says this was promised in days passed. So is a Nahel bond possible or not ? I know Venli has one . But is it that Venli spren is the only type that can do it , and is that why it’s never worked before ? I’m sure the answer is in this song . So can some of you tell me what you think it means

So, by far the most thorough vetting of who should get access to phenomenal cosmic power is to be found in the system of Surgebinding, those who became the Order of the Knights Radiant. We know that Honor created the Honorblades and gave them to his Heralds. We know that Ishar had a major hand in the creation of the Oathpact, which is why he is called the Binder of Gods. We know that he "thrust organization upon [surgebinder]" when he learned of their access to the Surges. He hoped that the Knights Radiant would help preserve humanity and its knowledge during the Desolations, and help rebuild civilization after the Decisions. He became the patron Herald of the Order of Bondsmiths. We know that spren recreated the powers granted by the Honorblades. Honor had no hand in this and was surprised. So... Who created the Ideals? We know that wielding Honorblades does not seem to require any oaths as we see with Szeth. So it's not inherent to the system of Investiture itself. So did the spren create the basis of the Ideals of the Knights they were to bond? Did Ishar craft the binding oaths so that the Surgebinders were generally chosen based on personal merit instead of happenstance and had to act within a structure? Did Honor craft the Ideals of the Knights Radiant? And if he did, Cultivation probably had a hand in it too... The themes of bonding, swearing oaths, personal growth meshes so well with their Intent Did the first Bondsmiths create the Ideals? Do we have any mentions or hints in the books? Any WoBs?

If this has been posted before, forgive me, I didn't locate it elsewhere. Something occured to me and it seemed no one has brought it up. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BONDSMITH BONDS THE NIGHTWATCHER? The reason I ask is because the NIGHTWATCHER has access to the old magic. Sure Dalinar bonded the Stormfather, but that's just boring Honor. Ho hum . Will the Nightwatcher's Wordsmith be able to manipulate the old magic as well? What say all you wise ardents?

Okay, I'm not sure about whether it was a theory only or was it confirmed somewhere. Does Nahel bond pull the Surgebinder and spren closer together, what results in spren being pulled more into Physical (somewhat confirmed because as the bond progresses spren can manifest as Shardblade) and Surgebinder being pulled more into Cognitive Realm? I mean, Kaladin was able to see spren nobody else could (like bindspren) and the other instance we have is Rock who is a Horneater who are a result of human/Parshendi interbreeding so they are closer to Cognitive (I just realised that that is also not confirmed).

Ivory is embarrassed about being bonded, right? And I seem to recall Pattern implying that the Cryptics feel a similar uneasiness about the bond. With Syl, my memories are kinda fuzzy. I recall her talking about how the Honorspren see her as something of a rebel, but then there was also that whole deal with the Honorspren checking out Kaladin's squires. I'm curious about Ivory, mainly, because his race of spren seems important. Stately, even. In the prologue to WoR, Jasnah saw many shadows in Shadesmar, which I assume were inkspren asides from Ivory. I say that because after Ivory bowed to Jasnah, the narrative mentions that the shadows whispered to each other. Perhaps, this was their shock at Ivory accepting Jasnah? Thoughts on this? Mostly want to hear what feeling everyone else is getting from this. It's almost like bonding is a taboo among spren.

Spren only bond to those with gaps in their spiritual web. If a spren would fill such a hole, then the person becomes even more broken, could another spren come along and make the radiant a double radiant (with two spren)?.

In OB, it sound like it's possible to force a person to bond a specific type of spren. (Nale would do it, to bond potential radiants to make them skybreakers, or kill them.) Is it? Does that mean that the type of spren is technically irrelevant?

Hi there! First time poster, but long time fan of all of you on the forum. In one of the Shallan flashback chapters, the one where she buys Jushu back, the man collecting her debt said something interesting. Shallan's necklace was made of aluminum, which can only be soulcast. There's been some WOB where he's said that aluminum has some weird effects on magic systems all over the cosmere. My theory is that the aluminum necklace supressed or killed Shallan's bond with Pattern. Shallan's father, influenced by Odium, didn't want another radiant around to ruin his plans, so he gave her the necklace to try to sever the bond. That's just my take on it. Thoughts?

Hello! Fairly new to the Shard and this is my first post. I apologize if this topic has been covered but I searched and couldn't find a direct answer. I have recently finished my third listen of Oathbringer and started thinking about greater implications of Odium's creepy new dagger. If Ishar is killed (for real) by this dagger, will the requirement of Oaths become removed from the nahel bond? Since Honor is dead, it seems like the rules of being a Radiant are already starting to flex and bend more and more, what with the Skybreakers literally fighting for Odium, or Malata and her very anti-social spren who seem largely intent on destruction for its own sake. However, it seems like the first Oath is still required for the bond to form, regardless of the difference of other higher Oaths. Since Ishar was the one who decided to implement the Knights Radiant and lay down this codification of Oaths, would his death lead to the relaxation of this requirement? Would we get the problems on Roshar that Nohadon speaks of in Dalinar's flashbacks, with surgebinders that can bond spren in a more private contract between just the two of them, allowing someone who is less-than-nice to wield great powers? Would this in turn actually cause the destruction of Roshar - as feared by Honor in his last days - due to surgebinding? It seems like Honorspren have always largely been rather strict with their bonded human partners, but I get the sense other spren wouldn't be nearly so choosy or demanding unless they had to be. And if Ishar isn't the one holding the collective Radiant spren to the necessity of Oaths, then what is? I get the impression that the spren aren't exactly all in a unanimous vote with one another about most things. What else, aside from divine/semi-divine will, could cause all of them to agree on Oath requirements? The other option could, of course, be that Cultivation would hold everyone to the Oaths regardless of Ishar living or not, but she's so mysterious and rarely seems interested in interfering with humans in a large, authoritative oversight kind of way. I'm really hoping one or more of you clever people have some answers or ideas!

So I'm rereading WoR, and i just passed the part where Hoid comes to Shallan and delivers a message from Helaran. Hoid specifically tells Shallan Could Hoid once have tried to bond a spren (a Cryptic)?

How do you think the Nahel Bond would be effected by a Knight Radiant traveling through space? I assume a spren like Syl would be more okay with traveling, and I feel it is implied that Willshapers and Lightspren potentially travel all over, but what if Dalinar had to board a spaceship and leave, would he still be connected enough to the Stormfather to benefit from the bond? Could the Stormfather travel? Does anyone have any thoughts on this? If the Stormfather were on a space station large enough to contain him, could they power it with stormlight and all Radiants always have plenty of power (while on the ship or whatever)? Any other thoughts about the Knight Radiant Orders in space??

I'm new here to the forums so sorry if this is something that has been brought up before but I haven't heard anyone talk about. So this insmy thought on how the spren choose people and how the nahel bond connects humans to spren. So my theory started recently in my millionth reread of WoR when Kaladin says tonSyk that he is no knight, that he is broken. Syl replies to them that all of the knights radiants are broken, much like Kaladin and shallan and even Yv from the interlides was in his youth. The next part that grew my theory was when Szeth is sitting in top on Urithiru and mentions how the town's people leave out spheres for him to use and mentions he burns through them to fast since he has" to I'm perfect a body". The last part that goes into this invloves Mistbirn Secret History and Keliser and crazy people. He can only interact with crazy people and syas that they have cracks in their spirit. So my theory is after I've already made this way to long a post is this, the Soren watch people who are " broken" or have "cracks" in their spirits, they watch them.closley because these are the people they can not only see more clearly in the coginitve real but also because it is easier for them to bond with them the same was as it's easier for Keliser to talk to crazy people. I think that this also has to do with why they can burn storm light more effectively since the nahel bond fills in the cracks in the spirit web in the cognitive real bringing making them partially begin to bind spiritually with a Soren that is made of and lives if investiture. Sorry for rambiling that out and not really getting my points across it's late here in the east coast, it's much clearer in my head. Still I would love to hear what you think, looking forward to being part of the forums.

Syl is the only spren (as far as I can recall) to tell Kaladin her name. All the rest — Pattern, Ivory, Wyndle, Spark, etc. — were named by their Radiants. (I don't remember if Glys was a given name or a habituated name, but I think Renarin named him?). So did the Stormfather name her, maybe?

Hey 17th Shard, My best friend shared with me an interesting theory that I wanted to run past you. He is not much for the forums but he did say he would be OK if I shared it here. I took his idea and built up a quick assumption list to help solidify his insight. Assumptions: 1. Bondsmiths can make and break Nahel, and other, bonds between a person and a spren. This assumption is not, necessarily, pivotal to the theory but perhaps the Bondsmiths are the ones who figured out what to do. 2. There is some sort of fundamental, underlying principles that dictate how these bonds are formed. Perhaps it is the innate system of the Rosharan system that makes the rule, perhaps Honor/Cultivation have a hand in it, perhaps it is a mix of those two, or perhaps it is something else altogether. Whatever the reason is, I do not think it is too big of a stretch to say that Brandon would create governing principles for the Rosharan magic systems. 3. The Knights Radiant of old (pre-Recreance) knew that Parshendi (or Parshmen) were Voidbringers. Or, since there is some debate about what a Voidbringer actually is, we might say that the Knights Radiant of old were aware that Parshendi/Parshmen were involved, somehow, with Desolations and Voidbringers. Theory: The Knights Radiant, knowing that Parshendi were related to the Desolations/Voidbringers (see assumption 3), discovered a way to break (see assumption 1) the underlying magical principle (see assumption 2) that allowed Parshendi to bond with Voidspren. In doing so, however, they also had to break their own bonds as well because the underlying principle applied to both their Nahel bond and the Parshendi bond. The Recreance was a direct result of the Knights Radiant deciding to give up their bonds because they thought it would forever prevent the Voidspren from bonding with the Parshendi again. We know that one Order of Radiants (possibly the Skybreakers) secretly kept their bonds which means that whatever a Bondsmith (see assumption 1) did to break the underlying principle (see assumption 2) was not completely successful - either due to the Order that secretly refused or perhaps because the Bondsmith just did something wrong. This mistake/accident/betrayal meant that some of the Parshendi remained Parshendi (Eshonai's people) and most turned into the Parshmen. This also means that the line in the Diagram about Taravangian possibly reusing the secret that broke the Radiants before could be referring to this. If the current Radiants were told that they could break all of the Voidspren's bonds with Parshendi by sacrificing their spren what would Kaladin, Shallan, and the others do? Could they justify to themselves not doing this? If they could save the world by sacrificing their spren... well, I think it would be hard for them to refuse. What say you Sharders? Is it possible that the Recreance was caused by the Knights Radiant delibrately trying to break the bonding process so that Parshendi could never again join with a Voidspren?

Should I have known this already? I kinda recall Sansderson indicating that Radiant spren are generally of the opposit sex from the bonded Radiant. I don't think Renarin is homosexual but I'm surprised we got a same sex nahel bond so early. Naturally, Renarin is the one dude whose head we aren't in....

I was recently re-reading the ending of Words of Radiance, particularly the scene where Dalinar speaks his first/second ideals, thus becoming a bondsmith. However, he joined with the Stormfather, who was against this, and reacted angrily upon Dalinar's speaking the First Ideal. While I was reading, it occurred to me that in the Wheel of Time series, forming a similar bond to create an unwilling Warder was seen by the characters as little better than rape, due to the man's inability to resist the bond. Essentially, Dalinar has forced an ancient and sentient spren into a mental and magical bonding without it's consent or agreement, forcing said spren to provide him with the ability to control Stormlight, and at the same time, putting the Stormfather's very existence into danger if Dalinar abandons his vows. In your opinion, was this an immoral action?

So, I've seen a lot of theories here about Eshonai becoming a KR, and it got me thinking if that's even possible. On my most recent reread of WoR, I saw that Syl tells Kaladin that Parshendi can't become surgebinders (chapter 44). So how do all you theorists explain this part? I would normally think that surgebinding is pretty important to be a KR. Could She perhaps be wrong about this/misleading Kaladin?