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Returned that feed of Stormlight I put together this theory about "How could a Returned lives on Roshar for long (maybe infinite) time without Breath supply". First of all begin with "well know facts": - The Returned was dead people resurrected through the Divine Breath. - The Divine Breath is a Splinter of Endowment - A Returned must feed of One-Breath-amount of Investiture every week, or dies. - The Sprens are Shard's Splinters (like Seon). - On Roshar a Bond could grant additional powers. - The Seon-Bond are confirmed to give new powers on Roshar. - There are a Returned on Roshar who could be possible not use Breath to stay alive. Now I would add some of my "thesis" (this are contestable) : - The Returned are Bond with their Divine Breath. - The Roshar's Manifestation of Investiture had two effects: 1) Granted Ability based on the Bond's nature (example: a Seon-Bond doesn't grant the "surges"). 2) Granted the Ability to access to Roshar's Investiture (Stormlight) to use the point 1 Abilities. I have finished this long prologue and began to explain what my theory is: The Returned are Bond to their Divine Breath and on Roshar their Bond granted them addictional Powers. Regardless what this "powers" are, they are granted to the absorption of Stormlight to fuel them. This Stormlight could be used by the Returned to remain alive. A Returned could "suppress" his own Divine Breath every day and "unsuppress" it only when He would/must feed of Stormlight, this could me made directly from ad Highstorm (Dangerous) or quite easy from a Infused Sphere hidden from the Other's sight. If this is true, Roshar is the perfect Returned's Habitat. It offer an abundant Free Investiture (like other Shardworld) and a easy way to use its (otherwise from other Shardworld) to someone with a Bond. I really appreciate your opinion about this theory of mine

Kill the person who became the Shard -- the mind that controls the power. If you do so without any other sentient life form around, what happens? The power diffuses, "frantically" seeking a mind to direct it (like the mists in HoA, according to Sazed). With no sentient life nearby, each sufficiently large dollop of power will at some point develop sentience on its own (with "bizarre" effects) -- and become a splinter. So the trick is, catch them alone (Tanavast) or alone together (Aona and Skaize), with no other sentient life form nearby. Odium's failure to catch Tanavast completely alone will cause him big time trouble. (If this has already been discussed, affirmed, rebutted, etc. elsewhere, sorry!)

Over in "Buy or Sell" somebody theorized Pattern's death. As Brandon likes to keep it interesting, I don't think that Pattern would die in the same way Syl "died" in Words of Radiance. Today at Comic Con, I asked him if a splinter could use up its mind like Leras did when he imprisoned Ati. Brandon said yes, but that a splinter couldn't achieve something so powerful with it. So whatever splinter you love (Pattern, Syl, Nightblood, Ashe, Zahel's soul) could expend its mind in a burst of power. Do you think that any of these tiny pieces of god will ever be pushed to the point of using this ability? Zahel's soul's mind? Weird.

I did a search, but I didn't find anything directly connected to this. Feel free to redirect me if I've missed something. We know of entities called Splinters--sapient fragments of one of the Shards of Adonalsium. We know of several varieties: Divine Breaths are Splinters of Endowment, Seons are believed to be Splinters of Devotion, Skaize of Dominion, and spren seem to be Splinters of Honor. I have been contemplating the possibility that Splinters, like the Shards they are derived from, possess Intents. A Shardic Intent is defined as the drive to act in accordance to the nature of a Shard. Thus, Ati was compelled to act according to Ruin's Intent, Tanavast was compelled to act according to Honor's Intent, and Rayse is compelled to act according to Odium's Intent. Each of the Shards has a purpose, and this purpose drives them to a certain type of behavior. The interesting thing is that Splinters behave in a way consistent with Intents as well--perhaps more specific Intents, but Intents nonetheless. Consider. When a Nalthian dies in a heroic way, a Divine Breath can inhabit his or her body and create a Returned. It is no secret that every Returned has a purpose for resurrection--every Returned comes back with an intent to perform a certain act. Seons stress the fact that they feel their purpose is to love and serve. This, to me, sounds like an example of entities acting according to Devotion's Intent. Transformative Cognitive entities (known locally as spren) also act according to Intents. Syl consistently keeps a firm stance about her status as an honorspren, constantly pushing Kaladin to act according to her own drive to behave honorably. Pattern is similarly fascinated by lies and truth, which could be related to an Intent towards honesty. And finally... Nightblood. Nightblood is considered a Splinter of Endowment, and he has the most conspicuous Intent of them all: destroying evil. So there. From my perspective, there do seem to be similarities in the ways Splinters act.. I don't know if there is a deliberate connection, or what it would entail if there was. But I thought it couldn't hurt to slam this observation on the table to be vivisected and analyzed in a cold, professional light. We're all professionals here, right?

Stuck behind "spoiler" just in case: Not saying I necessarily believe this, more that I'm looking for others' thoughts and opinions on the possibility.

The quote that got me thinking about the Stormfather's identity was this: from when he was confronted with the idea of bonding to Dalinar. So What is a Sliver? source Does this mean that the Stormfather has held, or is the cognitive aspect of someone who has held part of the Honor Shard? Could this be connected to his Vorin association with Jezrien? If this is true, why did he hold the power, how did he gain access (Shardpool in the Horneater peaks?), and what did he change while he held it? Where was Tanavast when this happened? Was the Honor Shard shattered at the same time that Tanavast was killed? We also know that he is a spren of some kind as he forms a Nahel bond with Dalinar to form a Bondsmith. Were all ~three of them bonded to the Stormfather? Is the Nahel bond necessarily one-to-one? If so, how is he still alive assuming they are gone? Do spren only die if oaths are broken? Could one of the old Bondsmiths have held the power, and would that make the Stormfather a Sliver? I had intended to come up with a more concrete theory, but obviously have more questions than ideas. Hopefully this can help start a discussion some of you will find interesting!

To start this off, I'm going to give a little Brandon quote. "The Highstorms are more related to the mist from Mistborn" This leads me to believe that first of all, the Highstorms may be some remnant body left behind of Honor after his splintering, as the mists were a sort of weakened body of Preservation after her trapping Ruin. This is supported by the time Kaladin sees the large face in the sky, possibly the face of Honor, or, another theory, this is the face of Odium, and the storms are his doing, which would be supported by the threat of the Everstorm. But regardless, we're talking Honor here. Now, another interesting thing about the Mist is that later in the series, (Mistborn spoilers) This could be similar to the Highstorms in this theorized way. Perhaps people need to go out into the Highstorms, or at least experience some exposure to them to develop a bond with a spren? Kaladin only started noticing Syl after spending time in the slave carts, where he had no choice but to spend time in the storms, since they were poorly protected. This could be Honor's way of communicating with people/helping them. (Mistborn spoilers) So perhaps Honor needs the storms? This could be supported by Dalinar's visions, confirmed to be sent by Honor, only happening during the storms.

I see a lot of people talking about Honorspens in particular as if it's an accepted fact that they are what where left when Odium killed Honor. Is there very good explenation for this? As I see it, spren cant be a slinter of honor beacuse they existed before Honor where killed, I agree with copermind that sprens are a merge of the powers of Honor and Conservation, in place of giving a part of there powers to humans as preservation and ruin did they gave there powers to the spren. so that all magic that humans can use is as a result of spren's giving them access to the shard magic. If Honor spren where a splinter of Honor, then Honor where killed by Odium before the Hearalds gave up there blades. The reason is the Nohadon knew about spren and Honor spren if they where a splinter then Honor where dead, but he where killed somewhere between the day of recreance and today. Can someone explain what it is that I have missed her?

This entire post is a HUGE speculation, so be warned. Edit 6/11: This chart was created to mimic the Kabbalah, and uses color, form, relationships and symbols to create meaning. The ideas below are all my interpretations of these relationships and symbols. The main structure of the diagram is a large eye with two pupils and 10 lines radiating out from the center. The smaller symbols form a ring around the iris. The beasts wings form the sclera of the eye. If you take away all the trimmings it becomes the symbol of Knight's Radiant. "Dalinar recognized the symbol, the particular pattern of the stylized double eye, eight spheres connected with two at the center. It had been the symbol of the Lost Radiants, back when they’d been called the Knights Radiant." (Ch 19). But what does that symbol mean? I believe these images are a graphical representation that Honor and Cultivation merged into one Shard with two Intellects. In effect, they are both peering out of the same eye, but with slightly different points of view. The Harmonic Table: KR symbol Double Eye Double Skull I think its quite important that the two Winged Greatshells are symmetric, and that there is a single larger head with mandibles created in the negative space between the two physical forms. The left beast represents Cultivation, the right beast represents Honor, and the central head depicts the spiritual union of the two Shards. There is also a Glyph located at the place where the two Dragonwasp heads connect. The heads and symbol viewed together resemble a crown with the central gem placed over the forehead. This Gem contains the glyph of Ishi. Now putting it all together: Ishi is associated in the Ars Arcanum with guidance and piety, and resides in the third eye focus of the spiritual union of Honor and Cultivation. The Skybreakers then are an Order of Radiants devoted to guiding us based on visions of the future. Ishi is the 10th Glyph, so 10 becomes a symbol of revelation. Each glyph and map shape is important, and you can make similar interpretations for each order of the Knights Radiant. We can even use this image to figure out the general location of the two Shardic pools, and predict their release into the physical realm through the Greatshells. This is also a way to organize Surges, and by association, Invested Spren. Think of the diagram as a coordinate axis grid. The x-axis is Investiture, the y-axis is Realm. The quadrants tell you the element type. Before we go any farther I suggest you look at how the color changes from top to bottom. Up is Physical, down is Cognitive. Left is Cultivation, right is Honor. Each Spren relates to a primary element or combination of primary elements. Going clockwise from the top right we get air, fire, water, earth and spirit in the middle. The large glyphs are Spren, and correlate to an Order of Kights Radiant and an Honorblade. The small glyphs are Surges and represent a power of creation. Starting from 1:00 and going clockwise the Surges are: External Physical-Gravity, Pressure External Mental-Darkness, Light External Temporal-Transportation (Timespace Contraction) Internal Enhancement-Transformation (Spiritual Connection) Internal Mental-Memory, Awareness Internal Physical-Perception, Strength This fits with Windspren ( Pressure and Gravity), Cryptics (Memory and Transformation) and JasnahSpren (Transportation and Transformation). If this is grouped correctly, StoneWards would be Strength/ Perception. Edit: Skybreakers would be Strength and Gravity, Lightweavers might be Light and Transportation (which could explain how Hoid gets around through time and space) Where are the other 6 Surges? They were never Invested by Honor/Cultivation but the spren exist and some have already been incorporated into fabrials. We see a radiant use Heliodor (gold) to mend wounds and we've seen a painspren fabrial work. What is an Honorspren? What is a Cultivationspren? That depends on how sensitive or specific you want to be. I'll just arbitrarily say you must have more than 50%, which would give you 4 Honorspren, 4 Cultivationspren and two hybrids. A purist would say there are no Honorspren as they all contain a bit of Cultivation. Surges and Symmetry: To understand Voidbinding you will need to grasp the theory behind Surgebinding. Each Surge represents a power of creation and is accessed through an associated Wave, or perhaps through the Concept of how that wave should function, or through a portion of the Ideal Form of the original Wavepattern that sparked the creation of all things. It seems the medium is variable, and you can reproduce a Surgepattern with light, sound, color or even quantum probability waves. Notice that everything in the chart has perfect symmetry. This is a reflection of how waveforms have spin, creating alternating positive and negative cycles and generating perfectly balanced patterns. Symmetry became a cultural obsession in an attempt to get closer to the Harmonic Divine. Voidbinding The Table of Dissonance: Enter Odious Interference. His Intent is either to enslave or destroy everything else in the Cosmere. If He were to join the spiritual union He should add varying amounts of His investiture to each of the available spren, effectively creating a z-axis to the Harmonic Table. But He is a Jealous Younger Brother and didn't want to sully His Essence by combining with others. Instead, He found a way to enslave or destroy the Surges in the Harmonic Table. First, he created a way to trap the Investiture of the paired Shards into StormGems (Fabrials) and harnessed their powers. Next he used those powers to create perfect dissonance in the waveforms of the 10 Surges. Notice that the Table of Dissonance pairs up exactly with the Table of Harmonics. Surges are warped by reversing their charge and spin. This would in effect create an anti-surge. The very powers of creation are turned against themselves. Matter, Spirit and Mind are replaced by Fire and Shadow. EDIT: you can try this out for yourself by drawing a sine wave. Try and swing the part below the x-axis to create net zero at all points along the graph. EDIT: This is a supernova created when a star began to produce antimatter at its core. The organized matter turns into random energy and forms fire and empty space. This theory is far from complete, but it is as thorough as I can make it with the Splinters I'm working with. I'll be trying to finish the Harmonic Table based on Shardic Lens Theory, but could be hard to link everything up with only 10 of the 16 powers. My guess is we will see more Fabrials fill in the gaps for us. Since this theory depends on Honor and Cultivation uniting into one spiritual entity, it serves to reason that they are both partially splintered and partially whole. How that would affect the Cognitive aspect of the two shards is unclear, but best interpreted after reading chapter 57 and 75. Edit: I've done numerous organizational changes to clarify things, and I changed the Labels on the image a bit. For example, Heat changed to Light Edit 4/28: Based on discussions on page 3, renamed inertia to Strength, switched Gravity and Pressure locations. Updated image to reflect changes. Removed "Spin" from OP to avoid unnecessary confusion.

Regarding the following quote I'm worried. Please bear with me for my befuddlement, the possibility that this question was brought up before (I didn't find anything), and the possibility that BS yet clarified my problem (I didn't find anything). That reads to me as if there are only "Slivers of Adonalsium," but there would be no Slivers of one of the sixteen Shards of Adonalsium. At the moment I understand Splinters and Slivers as kind of a "pair" of description. But with the above quote I likely think that that "pair" should be Slivers and Shards. edit: If I'd be right we'd have to adjust the coppermind article about Slivers.