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The conclusion I've come to after hanging around the forums: SPREN ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING. And you know how the Purelake fish are like cooler versions of regular fish - because of spren? Or how chasmfiends are like cooler versions of other lifeforms - because of spren? Or even my pet theory about Ryshadium being cooler versions of horses because of spren? Clearly, Syl is a cooler version of a windspren because she has a spren. Discuss.

Not even a week left! Can anyone else see... anticipationspren... forming all around them...? Edit: This is aimed at those whom have not yet recieved a copy of the book. Some of you, I do realize, are lucky and are probably seeing victoryspren, joyspren, et cetera, after having received a copy of the book already.

I am not sure this thought was posted elsewhere, hope I'm not repeating it. Some of this could be a stretch but theories nonetheless Is it possible that Szeth-son-son-Vallano's spren is bound or imprisoned in his oathstone? And is that why Shin consider stone sacred because spren are imprisoned in it. The fact that there is no stone in Shinovar could be the reason why there are no spren and this could imply that they have no access to Shadesmar, and hence no storms (besides the fact that they have a mountain range protecting them). Is this why they had to exile Szeth as they couldn't risk him exposing Shinovar to Shadesmar... Moreover, Szeth is the Truthless, is his truth bound in stone? is his spren TruthSpren? Does Szeth become free when he finds his words or his 'oath' as a Radiant?

Good afternoon all. As I was tossing and turning last night chasing in vain after some sleep, I began to think of the way magic works. On Roshar, we have stormlight that seems to fuel, or power, the magic, Spren who are integral to using magic, and gems that store stormlight, trap spren and make fabrials work. On Scadrial, we had metals that fueled alomancy, mists of shards and pools of shards. We also found that Shards are blind to their 'focus' due to the power or investiture or something. What if the gems are the 'body' or physical realm representation of Honor and/or Cultivation, much as the Atium and Lerasium were physical aspects or 'bodies' of those shards? Now eating Lerasium brings you closer to Preservation, and thereby giving you stronger powers (or giving you powers to begin with if you previously were without). On Roshar, saying the Ideals bring you closer to Honor, giving you more power or starting your power, based on how far along you are. These I see as essentially the same thing. One is a physical act granting power, the other is a cognitive (or maybe spiritual) act granting power. Since on Scadrial you needed a physical act of consuming Investiture (in the form of the shard's physical form), and the metals merely provided the form for the power you channeled, could not the Cognitive (or spiritual) aspect on Roshar, mean that the physical form of the Shards act as the form granting which powers are expressed? This time the body of the shard forms the magic, instead of granting it as on Scadrial. I was very tired last night, and am typing this at work, so it may be full of holes I just haven't woken up enough to see. now, release your metaphoric moths to eat holes in my wonderful tapestry of conjecture! ~Logain

So, this is actually a rather small post, but I feel it is important. Kaladin, as far as we've seen him, seems very honorable, always doing the right thing, and never really breaking the rules. He seems a bit too honorable, and he attracted an Honorspren. WoR spoiler This seems a little too similar to be a coincidence. Are the Nahel-bonding spren attracted to those similar in personality to them? Or, and this is an interesting thought, do they manipulate the person they plan on bonding to and change their personality, their intent? Syl confirms that she was following Kaladin since before he even joined Amaram's army, around the time he volunteered to go with his brother to defend him. Seems honorable. WoR spoiler

From what I've seen, Surgebinding seems to be a pretty physical form of magic on Roshar. You know, healing people, making illusions, burning things, changing one thing onto another, and changing the gravity of things. All very physical aspects. We know that Voidbinding is the second form of magic on Roshar, and that it is strongly associated with predicting the future, and is considered evil, despite Shards like Cultivation being able to predict the future, which is why I think this future prediction thing is not an actual part of Voidbinding. I believe Voidbinding to be mainly Spiritual in nature, which would explain it's evil associations. Now, WoB is that the third form of magic on Roshar has to do with Fabrials. The translations of the Navani's Notebook pictures in WoK show that Fabrials are made by binding Spren to gemstones. Spren are Cognitive aspects of things in Roshar. From what I've seen in Navani's Notebook, this almost seems like an end-positive form of Hemalurgy, but instead of killing a person to steal their powers, you are capturing a spren to copy these powers. It also seems much more versatile, capable of not only very simple objects by use of a single Fabrial, but also capable of creating the emotion bracelet by combining ten fabrials. Oh, looky there. Ten. Ten Surges, Ten Voidbindings, Ten Sprenbindings. This is a very rough and incomplete theory, so feel free to comment and tear my theory apart, or to contribute and make this solid.

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.

First off, seeing as this is my first post on here, I'm not really sure if someone else has already expounded this (frankly fairly weakly conjectured) theory, so if they have, sorry about that. Anyway, both Shardblades and Hemalurgy work with Spiritwebs, yes? And we know that Shardblades create a bond with the Spiritweb. So what I was thinking is that maybe instead of simply creating a bond, Shardblades (the present-day versions, not Radiantblades), they work more like Hemalurgy and tear off a part of the Spiritweb to create said 'bond', something that could have changed after the Day of Recreance. It would explain why spren, or at least Syl, dislike the blades, as rather than them being representative of Odium or something like that, they are simply fundamentally broken.

This is my first post, so I'm going to have to ask you to stick with me here. Honor, aka the Almighty, as we all know, is dead, splintered by Odium. My first thought was 'Oh, then the Spren must be his splinters.' WRONG. The spren have been around during the time of the Almighty, as shown by one point in the book (possibly a Words of Radiance spoiler) This says that Surgebinders existed during the time the Almighty was alive, and thus so did the spren (Nahel Bond). However, that does not mean the Spren are not -of- the Allmighty. I believe that all spren are a form of the Almighty's investiture in the world, as they seem to have all -bonded- with specific emotions/elements/abilities. WoR spoiler Now, second part of this theory. If the spren are all from Honor, what does that leave Cultivation? Well, that leaves him with Shinovar. Think about it. Unlike what Ruin and Preservation did, fighting for power, Honor and Cultivation decided to split up the land, they made a deal of sorts. Honor would get the land and shape it any way he wanted so long as it didn't mess with Cultivation's area. Thus the mountains around Shinovar so that Cultivation's land wasn't effected by the Highstorms. This would explain many things. First of all, it explains the lack of spren in Shinovar, since Honor has no sway there. Second, it would explain why the Shinese revere farmers and hate warriors, since warriors have to do with Honor, and farming has to do with Cultivation. Thirdly, it might explain the Shinese reverence of rock. The mountains that separate Shinovar from the rest of Roshar could be a holy symbol of their god's protection. Small side theory, I think Cultivation might actually be a man, since at the end of WoK, when Taravangian is talking to Szeth, he says, "Sometimes I wonder if the Lifebrother himself sent you to me." I know the Lifebrother is a nickname for one of the Heralds, and the Herald might have been an Edgedancer, which would explain Lifebrother, you know, growing plants and healing people could have to do with Life, but that is just a side theory. (thanks for the comments. I believe the Lifebrother might still be a Herald, though not Cultivation, and I do feel slightly stupid for posting this part.) WoR spoiler WoR spoiler Szeth's people, under the command of Cultivation, who I believe not only is still alive, but occasionally communicates with his/her people, gave Szeth a Shardblade as mentioned in the before quoted conversation with Taravangian. Not only does this mean Kaladin has the potential to be an immensely more powerful Windrunner but also gives an implication that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation. I say this because perhaps Szeth wished for the powers of a Radiant, and so got Windrunner powers, but in return for the great cost of being eternally enslaved, doomed to kill, and yet seemingly absolved of all sins he is forced to commit, for this is the price their god made him commit. Any thoughts?

So the 17th Shard Organization uses Shadesmar to WorldHop, and Shadesmar is the Realm where the Spren live. So Why can't Spren enter other worlds? Is it because Honor was only "active" in Roshar?

Navani, our beloved scientist and mother of the King, has two journal entries including pictures and notations in the Alethi script, which i recently learned to read. After translating the entries, and then learning that the translations are already online, it came to my attention that Navani has a device known as an emotion bracelet. This bracelet allows you to detect the emotions of those around you, though it also detects your own and those of people in far off rooms, but seems to focus entirely on one person. How it works is it focuses on one person (seemingly of it's own accord, though possibly it focuses on the closest person feeling strong emotions) and different gemstones light up, corresponding with different emotions that person is feeling. Now, with emotional spren, this doesn't seem so useful an object, but consider, we have only seen a person attract one kind of emotional spren at a time, as well as the fact that less powerful emotions will not attract spren. Using this, since nobody knows of the existence of this fabrial that we know of except for her, Navani has put herself into an extremely powerful position. Remember how Navani has a reputation for being able to know all of the rumors in a location hours after she arrives? Perhaps she is using this device as a sort of mind-reader so to speak, using the emotions displayed+context clues to determine what is happening and what a person is thinking. I believe she is using this to help the king, since he is so inexperienced. My opinion of Navani has grown much at this discovery.

The theory I have here isn't too backed up, but I have a feeling I'm at least close. And the next feeling I get is that it's horrible. Anyway, I think that the reason Shardblades and Shardplate glow has something to do with spren. So far, the only people we've seen with glowing shardblade are/were the Knights Radiant, and as soon as they left their Plates and Blades, they lost their glow. And they also were no longer "owned" by the Knights, whom we know had Spren due to their Surgebinding capabilities. My guess is, if a Surgebinder holds a Blade and/or is wearing a set of Plate, it will glow again. So if Kaladin does end up with a Shardblade, it'll glow. I hope.

In Chapter 11 of Words of Radiance, Eshonai refers to the Parshendi people as listeners. And this gets me thinking. Not only are the Parshendi able to see how the spren appear, zipping at lightning speeds from the Origin, but they can also hear music, playing at the same speeds. This brings to mind Odium. I'm not sure where I heard this, but one post I saw related Odium as a sort of Musical Shard. This might make sense, since he is also connected to the colors black and red, both of which are noticeable on Parshendi. At one point, Eshonai mentions that she is trapped in the Plains, away from the Parshendi gods. Gods being plural. This begs the questions; Are the Parshendi actually creations of Odium? And if so, do they know it? Or do they worship something else they found on Roshar, maybe some other powerful spren being, since they can see spren more, and so might worship them more? Or perhaps this spren-vision they have is similar to what Rock experiences? One quote I believe incredibly important is "Instead, she and the others had ordered the murder of the Alethi king in a desperate gambit to stop the listener gods from returning." The listener gods? This brings up an enormous amount of questions. The Parshendi are the listeners... and they have their gods... so are the listener's gods different than the listener gods? Perhaps the listener gods are Honor and Cultivation, so perhaps both of them are splintered? Maybe they are called the listener gods because the Shards are in a sort of mental states, capable of entering minds as shown with Wax and Sazed/Harmony, and so the Parshendi, servants of Odium, prefer them dead, so they cannot mess with the whole hive mind mental music thing going on? I really don't know, since there is so much speculation here, but opinions would be appreciated.

Has anyone wondered if spren have souls?

I don't know if this has already been dicussed or if it has any merit at all, But I was looking through some other forums about spren creating, or developing plate, or shardblades. Could Szeths blade be an honor spren that has been transformed into a blade? And because It is an honor spren it allows him to have the abilities of a windrunner while he has it.... no blade, no powers It would explain why his is so unique and different from other blades feel free to tear this apart

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This idea has been kicking around in my head for a while, but I was a bit unsure if I had sufficient factual evidence to back it up. I'm sure there are people who have contributed to this idea (via comments or threads), so if you have prior art on this stuff let me know and I'll give credit. NOTE: Realm-wide spoilers abound (in particular, for Elantris and Mistborn) Theory: Jezrien picked up the remaining pieces of Honor after Tanavast died. He is the Stormfather and the face in the highstorms. However, the long years of immortality combined with other factors has rendered his mind unhinged, hence the name "The Broken One." But wait, you say - Odium is clearly The Broken One! Let us look at the source of this quote: We know from WoB that there were three primary Shards on Roshar. With the new info from Lift and Brandon we can now analyze this quote. * Honor - Tanavast died and his power was let loose in some way (see below). * Cultivation - Her Shardholder no longer cares about the humans on Roshar. * Odium - At the time of the quote, Rayse was on his home planet Braize. What happened to Honor's power? Well, there was something similar to what happened when Leras, Skai, and Aona died (see here for more): From this, we learn that the uncontrolled power of a Shard is extremely dangerous. The power "builds up," as we saw from Raoden's POV's in Elantris. On Sel, there was some measure of relief in the form of Seons/Skaze, but it was not enough and Shadesmar there is overwhelmed in some way. But cruically, we learn about what one person can do to wrangle the power, even if it is just a small part. There is also WoB that Splintering a Shard is a long process. Finally, there is a WoB somewhere (it elludes me at the moment) that connects the highstorms and the mists from Mistborn, with Brandon stating there is a term we have not yet discovered to describe them. We know that the mists resulted from Leras sacrificing his mind, and therefore control over Preservation, to imprision Ruin. Let's put the pieces together. Jezrien is known as the Stormfather, and as Jasnah points out in WoR Ch 3, the mythology surrounding him seems to be independent of the notions of Honor and Cultivation. There is something intelligent that Kaladin interacts with in the highstorms (the enormous face). And, by the combination of spren and something else, the power that was held by Tanavast is kept in check on Roshar. From these facts (and Brandon's almost hint about Kelsier), I propose that Jezrien actually picked up some large part of the Shard Honor when Tanavast died. EDIT: With the great comments below, I have a better explanation for what is going on in the following paragraphs in a response below. The immediately preceeding statement was an idea I have had for a long time, but there was an important snag - Darkness (almost certainly Nalan) references Jezrien as "drooling." This seems to imply that Jezrien has suffered some severe mental trauma that has left him weak-minded. How can we reconile these two pictures? I propose that Jezrien wasn't able to take full control of the Shard pieces or there was something about his mental damage (due to 4500 years or so of immortality) that rendered him weak-minded. I would love to back this up with data, but we have never seen someone running around with only half of a Shard. I think the current state is that most of Jezrien's mind is occupied with Honor, leaving behind his body with only a token consciousnes behind. His body hasn't been "vaporized" by Honor because he doesn't command the whole Shard, just a large chunk of it. This is where the name "The Broken One" comes in - Jezrien (as everyone would interact with him) is a drooling, mentally weak mess. And the part of his mind that is wrangling Honor still has scars from the Desolations and then abandoning the Oathpact, so it's not doing well either. Why hasn't Odium come back to finish the job? His modus operandi is to be the only Shard at his power level - something which the mostly-Splintered Honor could not hope to match. Thus, Odium would be content to just leave Jezrien scrambling to pick up whatever pieces he can, laughing as the latter's mental demons haunt him. There is one last important quote, from the face in the storm itself. He says "Odium reigns," and many people take this to be the reason that Odium is "The Broken One." However, we can now interpret this as Odium having the upper hand on Roshar. The constant infighting, the failure to follow Nohadon's example, and so on could be construed as a failure of Honor and Cultivation to lead their world. And in doing so, they have let Odium take control. In conclusion, I propose that Jezrien picked up a large chunk of the Shard Honor before it fractured completely. This is the source of the name Stormfather, since the part of the physical embodiment of Honor is the highstorms. Cultivation and Odium are not currently involved with events on Roshar. Jezrien was termed "The Broken One" due to the mental state of his physical body and what issues he still has from the Desolations and immortality. EDIT: New conclusion: I propose that Jezrien picked up a large chunk of the Shard Honor before it fractured completely. This is the source of the name Stormfather, since the part of the physical embodiment of Honor is the highstorms. Cultivation and Odium are not currently involved with events on Roshar. Jezrien was termed "The Broken One" due to his mental health at the end of the cycle of Desolations and subsequent abandoning of the Oathpact. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to be sure that I was clear on all of my points. Thanks for reading!

I saw some discussion about Shallan's safehand being gloved in another thread, so I went to Tor.com to see for myself. While looking at the endpaper of Shallan, I started to focus on the creature next to her on the ledge. Then I went to the page that shows preliminary sketches by Ben McSweeny and Michael Whelan. Most of the sketches included a similar looking creature. That got me thinking that it might be Shallan's spren, Pattern. I realize that the descriptions of him so far do not support that. However, it's possible Pattern could experience a physical change. Syl's appearance doesn't change much, if any, from the first time Kaladin describes her. But that isn't surprising because she seems to remain largely ephemeral and non-physical, even with her cognitive growth. (Side note: not sure that it's Cognitive, as in realmatics, but I think it is since the return of her memories allow her a better perspective on how she sees herself.) Perhaps Pattern will go through development of a physical nature like Syl is undergoing development of a cognitive nature, giving rise to the creature with the arthropod-like appearance in the endpaper. Honestly, it seems like becoming more physical than cognitive would be a step-down for Pattern at this point, but perhaps some aspect of his bond with Shallan will require or enable such physical changes. What do you think?

So, after reading the latest chapters here. I believe the conflict between the Honorspren and Cryptics is quite obvious (correct me if I'm wrong). That they are in conflict on whether or not they should bond with humans again. It is stated in chapter 3 of WoR: And this in chapter 6: Which implied that the cryptics CHOSE Shallan (I believe that Pattern found Shallan at a young age and followed her, observing her - then had the other cryptics follow her to see if they approved, that is why she saw tons of them the months before she entered shadesmar - but this is neither here nor there.) This implies that the cryptics are actively trying to bond with KR candidates - at least I think that this is what this implies. And lastly, we have this from Syl in chapter 9: She was forbidden to come, but she came anyways. Also, she is the ONLY honorspren who has come. It must have been a big deal, because she clames she disobeyed the stormfather: (*note* I belive this helps add some weight behind the theory that the Almighty and Stormfather are two seperate entities) I believe this creates a solid argument, pick it apart if you can!

Okay this is probably a crazy theory and I may be off base but I have been thinking about this for days. What if Spren transformed into shardblades when needed? Like as the bond develops, the Nahel spren becomes more and more developed physically and eventually turns into the shardblade. The reason I came up with this is that Syl is becoming more entrenched in the physical world and Kal can actually feel her standing on his hand now. The 10 heartbeats for a blade to appear could account for the time it takes for a spren to pop over to the cognitive/spiritual(??) realm and transform into a blade and pop back into the physical realm. This would also explain the great betrayal of the KR to the spren. When the KRs laid down their swords, they were actually giving up their bond to their spren. That is why the spren screamed and would also explain why Syl doesn't like Dalinar's shardblade. It is essentially a comatose spren. Okay. I am at work so I can't cite passages to back up my theory but I thought I would hear what you all think. Feel free to blow massive holes into my theory.

So here's a fun quote: That means that the Stormfather is probably an active entity in Shadesmar. My bet is that he's some type of spren, like the Nightwatcher or Cusicesh.

So, haven't seen this up anywhere else, but came across this in my recent rereading in WoK and with what's been seen in WoR so far - interesting possibilities are afoot at the Circle K. (Otherwise known as Shadesmar? Is that how Bill and Ted did it?) In Shallan's chapter of WoR, we are given a much better idea/definition of Spren and their relation to the Cognitive realm, and humans than previously: Now, comparing the idea of spren as "living ideas" with this from "Wandersail": Now, Hoid may just be being cryptic here about the way he stole his identity from someone. But there seems to be just a little too much of a correspondence to Shallan and Jasnah's discussion. We know Hoid is intimately involved with and expert at manipulating Shadesmar to travel between worlds. What could this mean for him, if he originated somehow in the Cognitive Realm? This would be an interesting idea (see what I did there? ), as Hoid could then be literally the embodiment of storytelling - which would explain his penchant for being a spreader of knowledge and tales... Ok, all you who are smarter than me in the ways of the Cosmere - Discuss!

The Ideals of the Knights Radiants (written up in the in-book Way of Kings): one shared ideal and four unique ideals for each order unlock enhanced capabilities and even trigger access to stormlight (or at least the second ideal does for Kaladin). I have been assuming that the surges were a shared Honor-Cultivation system with the Oaths as an Honor system built on top of them. Could the spren have created the oaths? (tWoK chapter 67) Jasnah says (chapter 6) that the spren are returning the oaths. Does that strengthen the thought that they empowered them in the first place? The spren created the Radiants in imitation of what was done with the Heralds. It was a surprise to Honor. (WoR chapter 3) Nohadon complains that some of the Nahel-Bond spren are not discriminating enough. (tWoK chapter 60) So the spren created Surgebinding and it was kinda good, but it had a bug in that the empowered people wouldn't necessarily work together. Could the spren be the ones who changed their own system? The spren could have created the Ideals to restrain the behavior of the surgebinders. A Surgebinder either adopts the progressive ideals or doesn't become a strong surgebinder. The knights thought they had to disband (or whatever they did) because continuing as knights would lead to Something Bad. In doing so, they violated their Oaths to their bonded spren, not least of which is the first: journey before destination. Spren may have died or become mindless as a result. Syl comments on gravity working consistently as a working agreement (between the spren?) to keep people's minds from being blown (this is a whole topic of it's own) (Chapter 9 WoR). The oaths could be a similar agreement between the spren (and maybe Nohadon) to limit the strength of the Surgebinders who have not adopted all the ideals. Of course, Honor and the spren could have worked together on this also. What do people think?

First off, much credit to vikorr! He is the person who set this off in my brain case. Second off, if this has been said before, then I'm sorry! And finally... the theory! Alright, ladies and gentlemen. The main of my theory lies on the principle that a spren bond has to do largely with your cognitive aspect. Which is not only decided by how you view yourself, but how others view you. In the Emperor's Soul, Shai tells us, It is important to know that when Shai describes the Cognitive Realm, she says that the way an object is viewed before she says and how it views itself. Which brings us to our next point. When Syl is talking about what Kaladin used to be, and why she followed him, she says, A large part of the reason that Syl joined with Kaladin was because that others saw him as upholding his honor. Even when he was a wretch, he still held some of that respect. Now, onto the recreance. There are two death rattles that are particularly significant: Emphasis on the love. In it's absence, the bond dissolves (which relies on the conjecture we get, finally, by moving onto Feverstone Keep). From <WoR Spoilers!> We know that many spren died in this event. They died because not only did the knights Radiant forsake their vows, the people of Feverstone Keep visibly saw it as a betrayal. They had thought of the Knights Radiant as enemies and traitors, and were prepared to fight for their lives. So... Tadaa! In culmination: A massive part of the nahel bond is having an honorable cognitive aspect, which is largely determined by how others view you.

This was inspired by a similar thread by Bloodfalcon in the non-spoiler forum, so credit him with some of the value (if any) of this post. Any failings of this post, on the other hand, belong to me exclusively. Edit: Aand there are failings ... As Aether pointed out below, the timelines do not match. Gavilar was assassinated 5 years and 8 months before the main events of tWoK. At the end of tWoKTaravangian says the death rattles started 7 years earlier when Gavilar investigated the Shattered Plains for the first time. So there must have been a year between when he first investigated the plains and his assassination. Whatever Gavilar did the day of his assassination could not have triggered the death rattles because they started a year earlier. Gavilar destroyed a barrier that had been in place between spren and men, the cognitive realm and the physical. With the barrier down, the spren are trying to communicate with humanity by giving dying people ideas that they then speak. The reasoning follows: Gavilar told the Parshendi he was going to do something. It scared them so much they had him killed. Gavilar claims to have already done something to Szeth. Mr. T claims the death rattles started at about the same time: "We do not know why some speak when others do not," Taravangian said. "But the dying see something. It began seven years ago, about the time when King Gavilar was investigating the Shattered Plains for the first time." People seem to be bonding spren pretty frequently. Jasnah says: "The old ways are returning, and I don’t see it as a hopeful sign. It’s an act of self-preservation. The spren sense impending danger, and so they return to us." Jasnah had a forceful encounter with her spren the same night Gavilar was assassinated. The Radiants abandoned their weapons and their role along with presumably their oaths and Nahel bonds Darkness claims Surgebinding will bring on a desolation This leads to the prefatory theory: Gavilar destroyed a barrier that had been in place between spren and men, the cognitive realm and the physical. But why do the dying people see things that seem significant in the death rattles? Jasnah suggests the spren sense the coming desolation and want to help avert/survive/prepare for it. The spren are choosing important thoughts and presenting them to the dying to be expressed. But how does that work? I haven't a clue. But hopefully this will help inspire an idea that replaces or enhances it. Enjoy!