The Stone Shamans Are Heralds-in-Waiting

[Confused]

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

 

                        - W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming,” 1919

 

 

I recently started a topic asserting the Heralds are identity spren and that the Honorblades are Voidbinding fabrials. (I’ll get around to explaining more about Voidbinding in another post. It is NOT associated with Voidbringing, however.) I posited that, when it’s time for a Desolation, the identity spren search Roshar for temperamentally-suitable hosts to bond with. This last idea needs revision.

 

It seems unlikely the spren would search Roshar for a new host. I can’t see Taln’s spren flitting from Shinovar to Kholinar before bonding with someone. And where’s the Blade in the meantime?  I know Syl searched everywhere for Kaladin, but making sure you inform the world that a Desolation is imminent seems a different order of magnitude than finding an honorable man. (Is Syl Diogenes?)

 

I theorize that the main purpose of the Stone Shamans is to be Heralds-in-waiting (and to recover the Honorblades). They train with the Honorblades, learn how to use the Blades’ Surgebinding abilities, and learn other martial arts. Comes a Desolation, they’re ready and waiting for the identity spren to choose one of them to bond with.

 

My original theory in the linked post says the Heralds don’t know they’re not human. I’m sticking with that for now. If the Heralds don’t know, then the Shamans probably don’t either; although it’s possible the Shamans do know, and that “becoming a Herald” wipes all such memories away.

 

In either case, the Shaman who will become Taln travels to Kholinar with the Honorblade. Outside the gates, he (or the Blade) does whatever must be done to initiate the bonding process. Pooff! He becomes Taln, complete with the glistening muscles that show the spren just came from Shadesmar.

 

He is confused (love that word) because the “Taln” spren was left unbonded for an extraordinarily long time. Like other spren who bond in the Physical Realm after a long absence, it takes awhile for the Taln spren to reorient itself. (Think of Pattern after a relatively short time.) As of the end of WoR, Taln is better – he remembers “Ishar’s Knights” – but is not yet fully himself.

 

As stated in the other post, I believe the Stone Shamans keep the Honorblades in the mountains east of Shinovar. Not only do the mountains block Stormlight from reaching Shinovar, but the Honorblades suck up any remaining investiture that might otherwise slip through. That’s what keeps Shinovar spren-free.

 

Because the Stone Shamans had not seen a Desolation in 4,500 years, and had not seen a spren in Shinovar in all that time, they came to think Voidbringers were a myth. They may even have bought into Aharietiem. They were normal humans, passing along their knowledge non-magically.

 

(Awaiting the writing of still another post: “Voidbringers” are what Odium’s investiture turns otherwise normal objects/entities into. First Odium “corrupts” (that is, invests) an Adonalsium spren. Then that spren bonds with another object/entity, giving that object sentience and infusing it with Odium’s mandate (intent). The “corrupted” spren in Dalinar’s Purelake vision was itself an Adonalsium spren before it became Odium-invested and created a thunderclast. Stormspren are Odium-invested windspren that turn listeners into Voidbringers; honorspren are Honor-invested windspren.)

 

When Szeth somehow recognized that Voidbringers were real and imminent, he caused an ideological crisis among the Shamans. Their belief system would shatter if Desolations were possible. They had no choice but to banish him as “Truthless.”

 

Nale now tells Szeth to take out the Shamans. This would enable Nale to recover the Honorblades for the true Heralds (that is, the ones the identity spren are still bonded to). It will also prevent the Shamans from wrongly using them, since only the Heralds with all their experience and knowledge will understand how best to use the Blades in the “True Desolation.”

 

Nightblood meets Honorblade. Both suck magic. Place your bets…

[hoser]

This is creative and it seems like it might be brilliant if I could only understand it, but I feel so confused ...

Snap-upvote for Diogenes reference!

“...

I recently started a topic asserting the Heralds are identity spren and that the Honorblades are Voidbinding fabrials. (I’ll get around to explaining more about Voidbinding in another post. It is NOT associated with Voidbringing, however.) I posited that, when it’s time for a Desolation, the identity spren search Roshar for temperamentally-suitable hosts to bond with. This last idea needs revision.

...

 

the Heralds are identity spren

Before every Desolation, spren implanted in the Honorblades take over a temperamentally-suited host and implant them with "... abilities ... physical appearance, personality and memories." 

• Brandon has said that the Oathpact was between Honor and the Heralds.  So the Oathpact was the an agreement between Honor and the Heralds to turn them into Unmade?  When a new host gets taken over, there is nothing of the host left?  This fits with Honor's intent?  Destroy your allies and use them to possess and annihilate innocents.  With Honor like this, who needs Odium? Isn't possession one of Odium's favorite tools?  This would explain the Recreance, I guess, so there's that.
• What happens after the Desolation to the surviving Heralds?  They think they are returning to Braize, but they are really annihilated? 
• The memories of being tortured so horribly that these super-honorable people break at the prospect are imaginary as the torture never occurs?
• Why bother with a temperamentally-suited host?  They are going to be made over anyway, right? 

I theorize that the main purpose of the Stone Shamans is to be Heralds-in-waiting (and to recover the Honorblades). They train with the Honorblades, learn how to use the Blades’ Surgebinding abilities, and learn other martial arts. Comes a Desolation, they’re ready and waiting for the identity spren to choose one of them to bond with.

Now the Stone Shamans are unwitting trainees for being possessed, because the It's too hard for the identity spren to impart the knowledge of how to use the Honorblades?  Considering the other things these Honor-Unmade supposedly do, using an Honorblade seems trivial. 

Wasn't Shinovar a Vorin nation at Aharietam (sp)?  So Stone Shamanism only took over after there were no more desolations?  When there were desolations, there weren't Stone Shamans and they wouldn't have had the Honorblades to practice with, so they wouldn't have had the skills that they are chosen for? 

Szeth is given a punishment worse than death for telling the Stone Shamans that their reason for being, the thing they practice for and what they spend every Highstorm doing is meaningful.  

The "truth" of the Valley of Truth is that the purpose and activities of the Shamans are meaningless.  They do their things despite a world view that tells them that their activities have no purpose?  

 

As stated in the other post, I believe the Stone Shamans keep the Honorblades in the mountains east of Shinovar. Not only do the mountains block Stormlight from reaching Shinovar, but the Honorblades suck up any remaining investiture that might otherwise slip through. That’s what keeps Shinovar spren-free.

So the Honorblades suck up Investiture on the scale of an entire Highstorm?  But wait, they don't suck it up at all unless wielded effectively.  Kaladin carried one around for a while without noticing anything.  Szeth carries pouches of spheres around that seem to be drained only when he is infused or surgebinding.  So the Shamans travel to the other side of these huge mountains for every Highstorm and line up so they can absorb all the Stormlight to a huge region.  During the highstorm they infuse and consume the investiture to waste it all.  This is the alternative to  the mountains stopping the rain and the stormlight nexus not occurring without the storm.  This seems like a Rube Goldberg machine that can't work as an explanation of the lack of spren in Shinovar.  But maybe this is a largely irrelevant sidebar to the main point.  

In either case, the Shaman who will become Taln travels to Kholinar with the Honorblade. Outside the gates, he (or the Blade) does whatever must be done to initiate the bonding process. Pooff! He becomes Taln, complete with the glistening muscles that show the spren just came from Shadesmar.

 

He is confused (love that word) because the “Taln” spren was left unbonded for an extraordinarily long time. Like other spren who bond in the Physical Realm after a long absence, it takes awhile for the Taln spren to reorient itself. (Think of Pattern after a relatively short time.) As of the end of WoR, Taln is better – he remembers “Ishar’s Knights” – but is not yet fully himself.

• So the Honorblade (one that was not with the Shamans, Taln's) somehow transports itself to Shinovar and convinces a Shaman (so far as we know, the Honorblades are not sentient) to travel to Kholinar (using a blade that does not have the transportation ability, no less) so the Shaman can be possessed. 
• And "Taln," whose most lucid moments are his first ones (when he actually communicates clearly with Hoid) is a person remade by a spren uncalibrated by time and slowly recovering.  What does it matter if the spren slowly recovers after botching the demonic possession?  It seems particularly irrelevant when it seems to be nowhere near "Taln" at the moment.  Wouldn't "Taln" have to be the one recovering?  I guess a sentient spren-Honorblade that can travel freely could go anywhere, so that might explain why it doesn't seem to be near Taln. 
• When the Honorblade fixes itself, it will go back to "Taln" and re-possess him properly?  Aren't spren pretty fixed in how they operate?  Wouldn't they be the least likely to break over time and similarly unbreak?

 

The more I think about this theory, the more confused I get. 

Edited July 29, 2015 by hoser

[lidrevan]

Occam's razor...  are you overthinking it ?

[Edgedancer]

Given that according to your theory the most important function of the Honorblades would be attracting these Herald-Spren wouldn't the capability to use them to block out all Spren be a pretty big design flaw? And on a similar note, if the earlier Shamanates actually wanted to become the next generation of Heralds, why would they have build this anti Spren wall in the first place?

 

Talking about design flaws, if the blades already have a Spren check that makes sure the wielder is worthy (or whatever term you want to use here), before they impart all the imporant Herald stuff on them, why not also lock the Surgebinding behind said bond to keep the powers from going to some random mass murderer?

[Chicken]

A little aside: "Voidbringing" is a thing Lift was making up. It's not real.

[kaladin_stormblessed_]

I like the theory that the Heralds are actually spren that possess people, but I think it would make more sense if the Heralds actually were their honorblades, but when the honorblade is bound to a person, the sentience from the blade is transferred to the person, and either its not a perfect transfer or the spren in blade form is "dormant" and doesn't remember being a sword. It would make more sense here with the WOB that shardblades were made as imitations of honorblades, also why honorblade users dont channel stormlight as efficiently as a KR, similiar to how Pattern used up the stormlight faster than Shallan would have. We haven't seen any "unbound" shardblade because taln's just recently acquired a new person, and the rest of the Heralds are still alive, if not in posession of their blades, so their isn't much evidence, but i feel this fits in much better than having the blade and "Heraldspren" be different things.

[Seloun]

While I don't really agree with the reasoning, I think there's something to the premise. It's interesting to note that the fate Szeth is supposed to have for being Truthless (running around with an Honorblade and being damned to eternal torment after death) sounds a lot like what the Heralds seem to go through. It certainly seems like the Stone Shamans know something about the Oathpact, though their understanding might be corrupted (e.g. they may think being bound to the Honorblade at death is what causes the 'damnation').