Toaster Retribution Posted June 16, 2016 Report Share Posted June 16, 2016 I never really understood this whole "screaming Shardblade" thing. Shardblades are more or less dead spren, right? Might someone explain this? And also, does the Plate suffer from the same dead-spren thing as the Blade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vertigo Posted June 16, 2016 Report Share Posted June 16, 2016 I don't know the specific quote, but I think Shallan and Pattern discuss in WoR that spren don't really die, they just fade back into normal spren. So when someone who has bonded with a spren picks up a Shardblade, they are hearing the screams of the semi-sentient spren, lamenting that the human they had bonded with broke their oaths, just like Kaladin did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackhoof Posted June 16, 2016 Report Share Posted June 16, 2016 Well they aren't quite "dead", they are just broken. Syl uses the metaphor of a rock cut in half. The rock isn't "dead", but it is not whole, not what it once was. She also says that the ten heartbeats are required to "revive" the spren, so I'd say that when held and in physical form (as opposed to invisible spren form) they are "alive" enough to feel pain, and scream. The Plate, we don't know. It certainly doesn't act like Blades in any way, other than being obviously magical. It isn't unbreakable like Blades are, it remains physical at all times, it can't be summmoned or bonded, it can be regrown with stormlight, and feeds off it, as well as requiring gemstones. We have no concrete answers about Plate atm, as far as I know, but in my opinion I believe Plate are not formed from Spren and does not scream. I believe they are incredibly powerful fabrials, of a sort, made with the knowledge given by the Spren perhaps, and perhaps only forgable by Radiants through the use of Surgebindings. They are certainly technology or magic beyond the modern Rosharan world, but they aren't Spren. I think they were made specifically for the Radiants, maybe by the Radiants. Consider the Heralds- at no point do we ever receive an indication that they wear Shardplate. They certainly carry the Honourblades, and are Surgebinders, and are superhuman in many other ways, but never are they mentioned as wearing Plate. Perhaps modern art depicts them wearing it, but we can't trust modern art too well. Consider Telen, Herald of War. As far as he knows, he is returning to fight a Desolation, but he doesn't appear with Shardplate like he appears with his Blade. I think Heralds are too superhuman to need Shardplate- or at least their own dedicated set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eki Posted June 16, 2016 Report Share Posted June 16, 2016 (edited) Yeah, shardblades are pretty much spren that were killed when a Knight broke their oath. I guess the idea is that spren give up a lot of themselves to the Radiant (and the Radiant in turn expands their consciousness in the Physical Realm, among other things) in order to form the bond, and when the bond snaps due to oathbreaking, they can't continue 'living' as they did before. Because the bond between Knights and spren was somehow based on the Honorblades, the spren reverted to blade form. You can't really kill a spren completely though, and when the blade is summoned, the spren come back alive just a tiny bit. Radiants are open to hearing the screams of the spren when that happens. Plate does not suffer from the screaming. Renarin wears plate without problem, and Kaladin uses a plate helmet as a glove. There are theories that shardplate is made out of non-sentient spren, and doesn't depend on oaths. (One reason given is that windspren tend to flow around Kaladin, but that could just be that he makes a lot of wind. So to speak.) Edited June 16, 2016 by Eki 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts