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Theory: Nightblood exists enough in the cognitive realm to act as a spren and facilitate a Nahel bond. It sounds a bit out there but I want to see peoples thoughts on this.

One thing I don't understand is are all radiant's spren able to turn into weapons? Can Lift's plant spren turn into a weapon ? I mean all spren seem to have different abilities and obviously give certain abilities but is turning into a weapon something all spren should be able to do. Does shallan's and jasnah's spren sword debunk this theory? I'm getting the feeling that they all can but I hope that they don't. Lightweavers spren (shallan's) should be able to solve puzzles and detect lies but turn into a flying weapon doesn't make sense because IT CAN'T FLY and it doesn't seem to shape shift (based on pattern). I think giving the different spren different abilities would make it more interesting and more diverse. ** and by all spren I mean ones that bond to radiants

So recently I finished my re reading of SA, and somewhere into WoK I got into a discussion with some friends about shardplate, and it got me thinking. At this point probably stop reading if you haven't finished Words of Radiance. I'd like to see what people think about shardplate, since it seems it doesn't get as much attention as the other various shards. I had been thinking about the workings of plate, it started with realizing that if shardplate was really made out of metal, it should dent, except it doesn't, it shatters. When I brought this up to my freinds they seemed to think treating plate like a fabrial was silly since doing that in the past turned out to be false (i.e shardblades being spren). They believed that construction of plate was in some way related to the Nahel Bond, as shardblades are. Despite this, I'm pretty sure they are just fabrials. We know the gemstone in a shardblade isn't actually related to its function, but shardplate requires them AND a steady supply of stormlight. If the gemstones aren't infused then the armor is anything but light. And, probably most importantly, everything shardplate does can be related to the surges. Shardplate is metal, yet it shatters instead of deforming, I imagine that is is related to the surge of either tenstion or cohesion, but I can't say for certain since we don't yet know much about those surges. Progression or transformation would allow the plate to regrow from a single piece. The misting of the visor due to illumination. Obviously there's some pretty advanced fabrial science that is beyond our current understanding but as we've seen, the ancients had some pretty wicked knowledge in that department. This brings me to my second topic. History. Recent and not so recent. The vision where dalinar meets Nohadon seems to imply that Bond granted surgebinding was present long before the founding of the Knights Radiant. This is important because I believe shardplate was the hallmark of the Knights and came into existence around the same time. In fact I think this time was one of the few where it's construction was possible given the level of technology at the time. That they managed to construct something as sophisticated as the oathgates makes me think they could manage shardplate. As for recent history, both Kaladin and Renarin seemed to have no problem touching shardplate, which doesn't help the assertion that shardplate is of the spren. Something both my friends were eager to prove. tl;dr: Shardplate is just a very advanced fabrial that was made at the same period as the founding of the KR and the construction of Urithiru.

Brightlady Istow, highjudge of the dueling ground loves the law. She is so focused on the law and the rules she is not willing to stop Adolin's duel with Relis and friends. Though she has enough compassion she tried to make sure Adolin knew what he was getting into. I can think of no other characters who fit the traits the Highspren are presumably looking for more than Istow. I have no idea how that fits with Nalan's plans.

I think Brandon has told us how the Oathgates are locked. It struck like lightning this weekend on my re-read. After the Radiants stopped using the Oathgates, the purpose of the plateaus was eventually forgotten and the plateaus (except on the Shattered Plains) were built upon. There are many people and buildings to move, requiring an astronomical (if not infinite) amount of Stormlight. The locking is not intentional. Check out these quotes: Shallan has been mostly moving people from the warcamps, we don't know how physical matter affects the amount of Light needed. It's possible that physical matter is unimportant, only the number of "conscious" minds impact Light needs. We may see what happens if/when the palace in Kohlinar is emptied of people. A co-worker of mine pointed out: The Everstorm may take care of these "locks" by scouring the plateaus clear of buildings; inadvertently helping via destruction. Thoughts?

So book 1 definitely had an emphasis on windruner bindings with Kalidin and the assassination scenes book 2 had an emphasis on lightweaving with Shallan's growth story book 3 might end up not being centered on another Radiant (eshonai could be the focus) but I still think we will see plenty of surgebinding exploration. With windrunning and lightweaving explored decently well so far, I think we are going to get some new stuff. The obvious possibilities are Jasnah, Renarin, and Dalinar. I personally don't think we will see much of Dalinar's abilities as he will be performing administrative duties and is going to get his stuff thoroughly explained in book 5. I think it likely that both Jasnah's soulcasting and Renarin's progression will be explored a small amount as both characters should receive a decent number of chapters. However, those two abilities have already seen brief explanation so i dont think we will see too much material focused on exploring them. Perhaps we are going to see an all-together new Radiant with unexplored abilities, Sanderson certainly didn't seem to have a problem with bringing in new Radiants left and right at the end of WoR. Something like a Dustbringer or Stoneward could be interesting. Dalinar is seeking to unite the new knights so the discovering of a new Radiant could be a decent sub plot, and perhaps we could get some early interlude chapters from the Radiant (possibly fighting the parshendi/voidbringers) to explore his abilities/spren before he is found and brought to Urithru. Maybe Kalidin or Jasnah are going to discover him/her? I feel like its a decent way for Sanderson to bring some new ideas and fresh material to the world, as well as to provide more world-building/magic-building note: we could see Lift, but given that she is getting her own book (likely) in the second set of 5 books and since we have explored her abilities, i think it less likely.

I tried looking around and couldn't find anything on this, how did Shallan become a radiant, or at least start bonding pattern? I was under the impression that one could not fully bond a spren unless they were "broken".They could start to attract one but couldn't finish the bond. In the book she seems to have became a radiant after she killed her mother. But how could she summon pattern before breaking. And Shallan's mother couldn't have broke her because her becoming a radiant was the whole reason she attacked shallan in the first place. The reason this bothers me is that shallan references that as what broke her. Is this what her next truth will be about or am i missing something?

Okay, which is more important: Justice or mercy? Justice or life? Go.

Anyone else from VA, anyone? Anyway, does Shallan have a Shardblade?? I just came across this little quote while rereading the book that I must have inexplicably skipped first time through because I did not remember it at all: Obviously, that sounds like a Shardblade. And this seems to imply, with "the fruit of her sin," that she obtained it from Does anyone have any theories on who he might be and who he was involved with? How did he come across both a Shardblade and a Soulcaster, and still be of such low ranking? It was mentioned that the men he was apparently involved with had strange diamond tattoos on their hands. Could they be related to those creatures Shallan (and supposedly Jasnah) sees? I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas.

So I was fooling around with the Third Ideal of the Windrunners, trying to see how I would have said it (I'm pretty sure there was a WoB somewhere that it isn't the wording that matters as much as the sentiment (which reminds me of the idea of personal recensions of the Wizard's Oath, from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (awesome books, btw))) and I came up with this: I will grant protection to any who seek it. Comments on plausibility and more speculated Ideals (both serious and not) welcome.

Alright, this is my first theory here. Be gentle! I think it's possible that all the orders of the Knights Radiant has access to Soulcasting along with the other Surges granted by their particular order. This stemmed from the scene where Kaladin is learning to do a Basic Lash and sees Shadesmar. This bothered me and I kept thinking about it, concluding it may be possible Soulcasting to occur for other orders. This is a bit strange. It seems to imply that viewing Shadesmar was the reason that Kaladin was able to start performing the Basic Lash. But this would be inconsistent with all the other non-Soulcasting surges we've seen used for the first time in the story. Kaladin didn't view Shadesmar when he did either of the other two Lashes (Reverse Lashes while running bridges and Full Lashing when sticking the sphere pouch to the barrel). Nor did Shallan view Shadesmar when she started Lightweaving for the first time. But for some reason, Kaladin sees it here. I believe he was so metally focused that he inadvertently crossed Realms, however briefly. His experience is also very similar to Shallan's earlier in the book. Shallan hovers between the Realms, much like Kaladin did. Kaladin sees Shadesmar but still is aware of Sigzil talking in the Physical Realm. The only two people we've seen Soulcast are of those two orders, but it's possible that it's simply a coincidence that the two who have Soulcast have access to the Transformation surge. Based on this, the requirements for Soulcasting seem to be visting Shadesmar while holding Stormlight, finding the object you wish to change, persuading it to change (be it through truth, logic or some other form of persuation) and offering the object the Stormlight as fuel for the change. All of those steps appear to be able to be accomplished without a bond to a spren that would put one in the order of Lightweavers or Elsecallers. We've made the assumption that the surge of Transformation is Soulcasting. It's even in the Ars Arcanum that way. But that document is written from the perspective of someone in-world and probably shouldn't be taken as an absolute truth (though it's probably fairly accurate in most, if not all, aspects). This would seem to imply that Soulcasting is one of the surges in the chart. But I don't think it necessarily means that. If you have access to surges, you would have access to Soulcasting due to being able to visit Shadesmar while holding Stormlight. This would mean that Soulcasting is still a subset of Surgebinding while not necessarily being a specific surge. This does, however, leave the question of what the Transformation surge is if it is not Soulcasting? It's possible that I'm way off here. If I am, it still begs the question of why Kaladin briefly slipped into Shadesmar when learning to Lash.

Something I feel everyone is missing is that it doesn't seem to be just brokenness that makes you a Radiant but showing an outstanding virtue through that brokenness like Honesty, Honor, Leadership, and Bravery and loyalty. and so far I think that everyone who is a radiant deserves it, Renarin for his loyalty, Shallan for her Honesty (or her ability to make others honest), Kaladin through his Honor, and Dalinar for his Leadership. Shallan has shown that she can bring out the best in people by telling them how she sees them or how they could be seen, perhaps this has always been a quality of Shallan, as it has been said that shallan had a shardblade and a spren even before she lost her mother. Something that was said that i can't quite recall where was that even with Radiant's spren, you have to show their virtue to attract them, just like any other spren. so maybe instead of finding all of the broken Characters in the books and pointing "Radiant!", and then discussing how broken they are, we should consider what we know of their character to judge it's possibility not exactly how broken we think they are.

As you already Know, Radiants have 2 surges. I speculate that this surges can be categorized as a Specialty Surge and a Basic Surge. The Specialty Surge grants the Radiant 2 powers whilst the Basic Surge grants only 1 power Examples Windrunners have Gravitation as their Specialty Surge so it grants them 2 powers (Basic Lashing and Reverse Lashing). On the other hand Adhesion is their Basic Surge so it grants them 1 power alone (Full Lashing). Edgedancers have Progression as their Specialty Surge so it grants them 2 powers (Growth and Regrowth). On the other hand Abrasion is their Basic Surge so it grants them 1 power alone (Slicking). No Radiant orders have the same specialty even if they share surges. For example Windrunners and Skybreakers share the Gravitation surge but Gravitation surge is the specialty surge for Windrunners alone which means Skybreakers specialty will be Division. Using this info we can predict which of an Orders surges is the Specialty or Basic surge. This info lets us know how many powers each surge will grant to each order. We can further speculate on what this powers are using the info weve been given via books or via Brandons definition of each surge. Using this theory I’ve created a powers list for yet to be revealed order. Order of Skybreakers (Specialty: Divison Basic: Gravitation) 1. The 1st Division Power is Destruction-My guess is that this is the power to create miniature earthquakes hence the name skyBREAKERS. 2. The 2nd Division Power is Decay-I suspect it is the power to cause living things to decay on contact. 3. The Gravitational power is Basic-Lashing. Order of Dustbringers (Specialty: Abrasion , Basic: Division ) 1. The 1st Abrasion Power is Slicking-we saw Lift demonstrate this one. 2. The 2nd Abrasion Power is likely related to Burning- Dustbringers manipulate friction to produce burning heat 3. The Division Power is Decay. Order of Truthwatchers (Specialty: Illumination, Basic: Progression) 1. The 1st Illumination Power is most likely related to Seeing-Lightweavers are able to manipulate waveforms so that they can see things-even the Future. 2. The 2nd Illumination power is most likely Lightweaving but my gut says its something else. 3. The Progression power is Regrowth. Order of Lightweavers (Specialty: Transformation, Basic: Illumination ) 1. The Illumination Power is Lightweaving 2. The 1st Transformation Power is Soulcasting 3. The 2nd Transformation power is unknown but I suspect It involves transforming ones essence into one of the essences-Ill call it Selfcasting Order of Elsecallers (Specialty: Transportation ,Basic: Transformation ) 1. The 1st Transportation Power is Realmatic transition also known as Elsecalling 2. The 2nd Transportation Power is Motion-My guess is that its will be some form of Telekinesis 3. The Transformation power is Soul-Casting Order of Willshapers (Specialty: Cohesion , Basic: Transportation ) The Transportation Power is Elsecalling The 1st Cohesion Power is likely what I call Shaping.-the power to Harden, Soften , increase Elasticity of objects by manipulating molecular bonds The 2nd Cohesion Power is likely what I call Bubble- the power to Slow down, accelerate and Freeze objects by manipulating molecular speeds Order of Stonewards (Specialty:Tension, Basic:Cohesion) 1, The 1st Tension Power is unknown and I have no guesses. Dont quite understand Tension 2. The 2nd Tension Power is equally unknown 3. The Cohesion Power is likely what I call Bubble Order of Bondsmiths (Specialty: Adhesion ,Basic: Tension ) 1. The 1st Adhesion Power is Full Lashing 2. The 2nd Adhesion power is Unknown and I have no guesses 3. The Tension Power is Unknown and I have no guesses

In TWOK when Dalinar fought with the knight radiant, the lady knight said Harkaylain was not often wrong in anticipating desolations. Which means Harkaylain must have fought several desolations. I'm thinking the time between desolations couldn't be just for a couple of years or even decades or else humanity would have been wiped out if they came so frequently even with the radiants. Leading to the conclusion that surgebinding must affect how radiants age if Harkaylain has a track record on knowing when desolations come. Of course this hinges on the Heralds not breaking so easily and that the desolations are so destructive that there must be time for humanity to recover. Also Dalinar did not really describe Harkaylain in a way to determine his age so its just speculation. Anyway I was thinking about this because Jasnah will be in her late 40s, early 50s in the second half of the series. Brandon would be doing something different if Jasnah is actually that age but I'll go with surgebinding slowing the ageing process.

I've been reading Sanderson for a while, but never really bothered with a forum account until now. Hopefully I can contribute some stuff to the discussion of the man's latest work! So, it's pretty obvious that each of the books will start with Dalinar's assassination as the prologue, as seen from the eyes of a different participant or character at the time. With Words of Radiance's release, a lot of interesting stuff has been revealed that wasn't shown in Szeth's version of the scene, and there's a /lot/ of weird future hooks that I don't think I've seen addressed anywhere else. For starters, who was Jasnah planning to assassinate? If the two letters she wrote were similar, then it'd imply that Jasnah had reason to possibly want Aesudan dead- but why? More importantly, though, has anybody analyzed what Jasnah overheard in the hallway? So who's 'Ash'? Who's the person who's 'getting worse'? What exactly are they 'getting worse' in? I'm personally of the opinion that 'That creature' is Szeth, but that raises the question of who 'my lord' is, and why the Azish ambassadors should think that Szeth's Honorblade ought to belong to their lord instead. Alternatively, maybe they're talking about Nalan, Nightblood, and Vasher? That makes so much less sense, though- as far as we know, none of them show up in the scene anywhere. And just /what/ exactly did these people 'do' which they thought was wrong, and how does it relate to Szeth keeping his Honorblade? I have so many questions about this scene. ------- On a different note, I also noticed something strange about the prelude to Way of Kings. In the Way of Kings, in the introduction scene where Kalak and Jezrien prepare to abandon the Oathpact, Kalak describes seeing "Men in primitive wraps, carrying spears topped by bronze heads." This matches exactly Talenel's statement in Words of Radiance that, after every desolation, people would be reduced to stone-age level technology, with bronze being their highest technological achievement which could only be reached when the Heralds returned. This raises a few questions, because Kalak also states that the primitive bronze-using men were juxtaposed with "others in gleaming plate armor", presumably Knights Radiant- and it's been stated that the Knights Radiant were founded by Ishar, to preserve knowledge of the past and to help protect men. Does that mean that, as soon as the Knights Radiant were founded, the Heralds immediately gave up their burdens? There's little other way to explain the convergence of the 'primitive stone-age men' period with the 'knights radiant protect humanity' period. But if so, that means that the Knights Radiant only ever fought /one/ single Desolation before the Recreance alongside the Heralds, if even that. Otherwise, with the Knights Radiant around to do their job of protecting and teaching, humanity wouldn't have been reduced to not even knowing how to cast bronze every desolation. So... seriously, Heralds? You just give up the oathpact as /soon/ as you set up the Knights Radiant? Not even a few generations to make sure that you've taught them everything important about fighting Desolations and being Honorable and whatnot? The lack of foresight the Heralds display here is, honestly, completely galling. Though that's not really a surprise, once you take into account the state of Roshar, four-and-a-half millennia later. More interesting, though, is why the Heralds felt like they /could/ put down the Oathpact once they set up the Knights Radiant. The Heralds thought that perhaps they could end the cycle of Desolations forever by setting down the Oathpact- in which case, setting up the Knights Radiant feels almost pointless. If there's no more Desolations to protect humanity from, why even set up an elite corps of magic knights? So, ultimately, my question is this: did the abandonment of the Oathpact require, somehow, that others- the Radiants- take it up? If not, what was the /true/ purpose for why the Radiants were formed? The pieces of information I have doesn't add up to a coherent whole, and I notice I am confused.

So, the Heralds are off wherever to be tortured and when they returned to Roshar, the Desolation began, after which they needed to return, lest another Desolation start up again. The nahel bond is the spren copying the way that Honor empowered the Heralds. In Dalinar's visions, we see the Radiants fighting all kinds of strange creatures that do not appear to be present on Roshar in the first two books. Is it possible that the Radiants and their bond were somehow drawing forth the very things that they were fighting against? Clearly, it wasn't a full-on desolation, but if they discovered that they, themseves, were the source of all this misery, I can see them abandoning their shards and breaking their bonds/oaths as a way to protect Roshar. Also, one of the Knights in a WoK vision mentions that anybody with the desire to fight should be compelled to come to Alethela. That sounds a lot like the Thrill, sort of. Could it be that the unmade, back in the day, was Bonded to say, a Bondsmith, and he somehow drew fighters to him in Alethela? And then after the recreance, he was "unmade," his mind broken, it now just gives off the effect of the Thrill? Just some thoughts.

Hi all! I am sure I'm not the first to think of it, but I have an idea that we'll probably have characters of 10 different Knights Radiant Orders for the next books' flashbacks. So who would you consider the most possible candidates, if that's the case? So far we have 2 books published and know about next three. That'll be: Kaladin: Windrunners Shallan: Lightweavers Szeth: Skybreakers Eshonai : ? Dalinar: Bondsmiths Then, if it's true that Renarin have a book, there will be: Renarin: Truthwatchers Also I think it's very possible for Lift to have her own book, which will cover Edgedancers too. So the ones left are Stonewards, Willshapers, Dustbringers and Elsecallers. For Elsecallers I REALLY hope for Jasnah, I'd like to know her backstory, and for Stonewards I'd say Taln. So what do you guys think about that? And does anyone know what order Eshonai could be?

I have long suspected as many have that Eshonai will be a (the first?) Parshendi Radiant. A new WOB from the DC signing seems to confirm this: The term not allowed is interesting, but I digress. I think we can work out which order Eshonai might belong to, based on the fact that each of the 10 books is linked with an order of Radiants. The front five are Kaladin - Windrunners Shallan - Lightweavers Szeth - Skybreakers Eshonai - ??? Dalinar - Bondsmiths The back five include by most recent accounts Lift - Edgedancers Renarin - Truthwatchers Jasnah - Elsecallers "Taln" - Stonewards The only two Orders not represented on this list are the Willshapers and the Releasers aka Dustbringers. I reckon than Eshonai is one of these two. But which one? Willshapers - Resolute/Builder Dustbringers - Brave/Obidient Personally, I would guess at Eshonai being a Willshaper. What do you guys think?

There seems to be some correlation between the gender of the Heralds and Radiants, and between the Heralds: (opposite pairs) Ish - Bondsmith - Male <=> Pali - Truthwatcher - Female Jez - Windrunner - Male <=> Ash - Lightweaver - Female Nin - Skybreaker - Male <=> Battah - Elsecaller - Female Chan-a-rach - Releaser - Female <=> Kalak - Willshaper - Male Vedel - Edgedancer - Female <=> Taln - Stoneward - Male So far (almost all) of the Radiants (or Radiant candidates) seem to correlate with the gender of their Herald: Dalinar - Ish - Male Kaladin - Jez - Male (Szeth) - Nin - Male (?? Eshonai ??) - Chan-a-rach - Female Lift - Vedel - Female (Renarin : doesn't fit the pattern) - Pali Shallan - Ash - Female Jasnah - Battah - Female (??) - Kalak (??) - Taln Renarin is the only one that doesn't seem to fit the pattern (as always, Renarin never fits in with everyone else...) This seems somewhat suspicious. I'm also assigning Eshonai as a Releaser partly because her (assumed) comet-like spren looks kind of 'dustbringer'-esque (whatever that may mean) and partly because it fits the pattern best. Also, if we subscribe to Shallan/Kaladin (diametric opposites), another combination that follows the pattern is Szeth/Jasnah (from a meta perspective, their ages line up pretty well; they also seem to have one of the more interesting potential pair dynamics).

This is something that has been bothering me for a long time, and with Words of Radiance out, my... not concern, but quandary, let's say, has only grown. Specifically, I wonder how exact the Immortal Words, the Radiants' Ideals, have to be. The First Ideal, "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." sounds pretty solid, and I can't imagine it morphing into anything, even if it's related. But the others? Considering that at least one Order doesn't have set-in-stone rules (the Lightweavers who must speak Truths, not Ideals), is it wise to treat all of them the same way? Kaladin's Windrunner Ideals and Lift's "I will remember those who have been forgotten." could maybe work for all the members of their Orders, but Dalinar's? Shallan's? Lastly, there is the issue of the Stormfather officially accepting Kaladin's and Dalinar's Second Ideals. Does he get input with the Orders whose spren are closer to Honor than to Cultivation? Does he even have a choice on the matter - can he deny a Radiant's upgrade even if he or she speaks the correct Words? And if so, we loop back around - are there specific Words each (or at least some) Order must speak, or are they tailored individually? So let's take a stab at this. How do you think this will work? Do all of the Ideals offer some flexibility, or are there some that are set-in-stone, and some that are left to the Radiant's personality flaws?

In Wor we see the amazing healing capability of both the Growth surge (the Regrowth from Lift's interlude) and the passive healing ability given by holding stormlight. Indeed stormlight has been seen to heal the severed soul links from wounds cause by a shardblade, and to straight up regrow limbs. Given that stormlight seems to be all about repairing damage and regenerating cells. What happens to the aging process in surgebinders that frequently use stormlight. Think about it, old age is just the cells in the body being heavily damaged and degraded over time due to the enviroment and cell division. Based on what we have seen so far in WoK and WoR, it should be trivial for stormlight to heal any damage to the body caused by aging. The only way i can see stormlight as not granting extended life or immortality is if it heals by restoring the body to the state that one believes themself to truely be. For example, a surgebinder will still age becuase they think they should still be aging. As in if the effects of stormlight healing are closely tied to the cognitive realm. Penny for your thoughts (not really, I don't have any pennies).

So now we know what Shardblades (and maybe Plate too), actually are. You can take this one of two ways, as the Blade is the physical representation of the Oaths a Radiant takes, or the Blade is the actual body of a spren.... which raises an interesting debate for our heroes. They know the Blades that they've traditionally used are effectively corpses, whether of promises or spren it doesn't really matter. The symbolism behind those Blades is terrible, and using them is likely to anger any spren that cross over from Shadesmar. So... do the new KR allow Shardbearers to join their fight? Or do they insist that these people give up very powerful weapons in the name of Honor?

Hey all, I just want to know which order of the Knights Radiants do you like the most, and would want to be If you like just the Surgebinding powers and not have to follow the 5 Ideals of an order that is cool too. Well i like the Windrunners and their powers How about you guys ?

When Kaldin spoke the Words, "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves," we rose to our feet and roared with excitement! When Lift spoke "I will remember those who have been forgotten," we shed tears and begged for more! Speaking the Ideals of the Knights Radiant have become some of my favorite moments in modern literature. I can't wait to see more Ideals! And so, dear friends, this poll. Who do you think will get to have their shining moment next? And please, drop a post to let us know why you chose them, how it might happen, and what the words might be!