Is Syl really the only honorspren on Roshar?

[Chlehrma]

In chapter 26 when Dalinar is fighting the Parshendi, he loses the thrill and begins to feel revulsion at all of the death. A voice, possibly his own, speaks to him.

“Once these weapons meant protecting, a voice inside of him whispered."

Then a few Windspren dance by on the air and he hears:

“Life before death."

"What was that voice?”

We know that Syl looked very much like a Windspren before her bond matured. My theory is that while Syl may have been the first Honorspren to disobey the Stormfather, she was not the last. There are other Honorspren wandering Roshar looking for bond mates.

[Swimmingly]

Unless that was Syl herself.

[Arondell]

We know that Syl looked very much like a Windspren before her bond matured. My theory is that while Syl may have been the first Honorspren to disobey the Stormfather, she was not the last. There are other Honorspren wandering Roshar looking for bond mates.

 

Well we also know that there are other spren out there looking and that some of them are also, at least in part, splinters of Honor.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Arondell

[king of nowhere]

syl didn't knew herself she was a honorspren. many others may have forgotten and just be shambling about, until some ac of honor happening nearby wakes them

[Aminar]

She's the only one that left initially.  That was some time ago now, approaching a year.  Perhaps more followed or have seen what she's done.  That said, I don't think an Honorspren would have been whispering to Dalinar.  They seem to mature over the course of time, starting out disoriented and incapable of speech.  As time goes on they learn through the bond and through conversations with their human(/possibly listener.)  If an honorspren were whispering to Dalinar he'd have probably noticed it by now.

[Aleksiel]

But Syl didn't know the words, she liked them when she heard them, but didn't remember them. For a spren to be aware of the first ideal, it must have been getting mature for quite some time and that's no possible without a bond as far as Syl said. And it was a one time thing, nowhere else are windspren going around Dalinar like that. 

 

We know that Renarin sees a spren nobody else does, perhaps they have a bond and that's part of the reason Renarin runned on the plato when his father and the king were in danger? Renarin wasn't just reckless, but knew he could help - Dalinar feels a sudden wave of strength (if I recall correctly), may be his son interfered with a surge? And his spren was whispering to Dalinar? After all, he was surprised to find Renarin and Navani in Sadeas's camp, may be Renarin's spren joined Dalinar's army for a while and returned before Kaladin interfered?  

 

I'm gonna stop with my crazy speculations now! 

 

 

Unless that was Syl herself.

 

This could explain where she went when was absent, though why not tell Kaladin anything, even when he was hesitating to help Dalinar? She could have used it to prove she knew for certain Dalinar was honorable.

 

Syl says she's a cousin to windspren, probably there are other spren with similar appearance that search for someone to bond with, though

Wyndle said that spren were being send to bond with specific people

.

 

But whispering into someone's head is more of a Cryptic thing and they are nothing like windspren. 

[Aminar]

Well, Syl does grant a certain level of relation with Air-pressure.  I think we could probably learn about what Spren are associated with what orders by looking at the surges.  Or at least make sense of them.

For instance, Cryptics are apparently associated with soulcasting and Illusion(/Visual arts). We can reasonably assume that Truthspren are related to illusions.  We'd need to know more about Jasnah's Spren to work out more on Transformation.  All in all it feels like there are Spren Heirarchies, with Nahel-Spren(Spren capable of bonding) at the top and more obviously defined spren(flame, glory, death, wind, etc) lower down. 

[Aleksiel]

My point was that honorspren and Cryprics are two very different types of spren (there's even some sort of conflict between them). Thus, they are unlikely to express themselves in a similar manner. So my speculation is that  wind/honorspren (and those similar to them)  won't whisper to people.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Aleksiel

[Aminar]

I don't know about that.  I mean, I know some people that really hate eachother, are in constant conflict, and still do and like the same things.  I think that any Spren looking for a way to communicate is going to see whispering as an option, and it isn't like the whispering wind-spren were being cryptic or deceptive.  (Moreover wind and whisper go hand in hand descriptively.)

[Aleksiel]

True.  I'm basing my reasoning on Kaladin's and Shallan's sprens behavior, so there isn't enough information to make a reliable conclusion. 

[hoser]

Dalinar seemed to glow when protecting Elhokar from the chasmfiend and bridge 4 from the Parshendi.  In conjunction with the quoted internal voices, I think he already has a spren bond that he is not aware of. 

The back cover verbiage makes it pretty clear that Dalinar will be a Bondsmith, which I think will have a different kind of spren than Syl.  If Bondsmiths are order 10, then his spren could be an honorspren or even one of the Honorspren (if there are several types of honorspren and only one type of Honorspren). 

As for Syl's thinking she is the only honorspren.  When she says that, her face seems different to Kaladin.  I think it might be current information from the cognitive realm. 

I don't think the Bondsmith spren will look like windspren, since all the bonding spren have all looked different so far and Bondsmiths won't have the gravity surge. 

That Syl might have said that to him is a great idea.  If he is bonded to one spren, could another speak to him?  Why not?

 

I know nothing. 

[Moogle]

As for Syl's thinking she is the only honorspren.  When she says that, her face seems different to Kaladin.  I think it might be current information from the cognitive realm. 

 

This is an interesting thought. I'm trying to figure out if there's meaning involved with Syl's face-change or if she was just being unusually serious or something. Wild speculation: she was kidnapped and an odiumspren is now talking to Kaladin in her place.

[Aleksiel]

I just noticed this in a Kaladin's chapter:

 

 

If you flee… you leave all the other bridgemen to be slaughtered, a voice whispered within him. There has to be something you can do for them.

No! he fought back. If I worry about that, I won’t be able to save Bridge Four. If I find a way out, we’re going. If you leave, the voice seemed to say, then who will fight for them? Nobody cares. Nobody….

 

So there's a voice speaking to Kaladin as well and it's not Syl. Any theories, the Almighty/Herald/Cultivation trying to get in touch with potential Radiants?

[Delightful]

I just noticed this in a Kaladin's chapter:

So there's a voice speaking to Kaladin as well and it's not Syl. Any theories, the Almighty/Herald/Cultivation trying to get in touch with potential Radiants?

I hate to poke a hole at this theory, but that could easily be Kaladin's internal monologue. Like in WoA

Elend hears a voice in his head, speculated to be a Shard. WoB says its information from his fencing tutor coming back to him in the middle of a battle, nothing supernatural about that

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to tell when its normal thoughts vs supernatural being talking psychically.

That being said, I highly suspect that Dalinar does have a spren that he's not fully aware of, especially when eg 'life before death' jumps into his head in the middle of a battle and he wonders at the voice who said it. I think maybe Syl is mistaken about being the only honourspren, though I have no theory why.

[don_karma_II]

I just noticed this in a Kaladin's chapter:

 

 

So there's a voice speaking to Kaladin as well and it's not Syl. Any theories, the Almighty/Herald/Cultivation trying to get in touch with potential Radiants?

 

It was Hoid.. He loves these stuff that make 17th sharders go crazy!

[Aminar]

That feels very much like internal monologue. Kaladin's concious if you will. Of course, that's Occam's Razoring things, a principal I find sketchy in fictional works, but that's the impresion I got.

[Natans]

To me the "visions" and the "voice" are related, something supernatural are happening with Dalinar, and the number one suspect of supernatural things in roshar are the sprens.

 

In one of the epilogues someone was reported see strange vision in the highstorms, in another epilogue someone said that he saw beings with "lines in the place of heads".  We know that the second one are related with a spren the first one also could be a example of this.

 

Which spren so far interacted in a different way with the human that he bonded ( Jasnah was threated, Kaladin pranked, Shallan stalked). maybe the vision are some kind of bonding process peculiar to the spren that Dalinar are bonding.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Natans

[AerionBFII]

i hope so i like Syl to be unique!!

wouldn't she be like spren court nobility?? Along with the lie spren?

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

I don't want her to be unique... it'll be very hard to refound the knights radiant with only one true Windrunner around!

[FollowYourMuse]

I think Syl may be the only Honor spren to have recently left Shadesmar but that does not mean that there are not "lost" honor spren that have been in the physical world from before. When the Radiants broke their bonds and gave up their plate and blades, their spren were "lost" they forgot who and what they were, until they make a new bond they are just mixed in with the other spren.

[don_karma_II]

As for Syl's thinking she is the only honorspren.  When she says that, her face seems different to Kaladin.  I think it might be current information from the cognitive realm. 

I believe since sprens are partly from cognitive realm, their appearance is definitive of the way the person sees the spren. When Kaladin first sees Syl, he can't help but think of her as a 'she'. Their appearance becomes more and more solid and definitive as the spren bonds and as she becomes more in the physical realm. When she was giving that information she was looking at a reflection of herself in the puddle of water. Maybe what her face becomes is probably the way she sees herself, probably thats why her face changes immediately once she turns to Kaladin. 

Edited February 15, 2014 by don_karma_II

[Swimmingly]

I subscribe to the theory that her altered face was that of her previous surgebinder, and she's trying to trigger more memories or just spend a moment in nostalgia.

[WitSpren]

I am very concerned that Jasna says that her Spren is an Honor Spren, but Syl says that she is the only Honor Spren that came.     This seems very suspicious.       Also, it seems that all Cryptics are not Symbol heads.    I need the book, so i can start figuring this out!!!

[Tarion]

Have we seen anything to indicate that Syl came to Roshar recently?

She's quite clear that before bonding with Kaladin, she was virtually mindless, with little understanding of complex concepts like time.  She could have been flitting around for most of the last 4000 years, before finally establishing a bond and redeveloping her personality

[hoser]

Have we seen anything to indicate that Syl came to Roshar recently?

She's quite clear that before bonding with Kaladin, she was virtually mindless, with little understanding of complex concepts like time.  She could have been flitting around for most of the last 4000 years, before finally establishing a bond and redeveloping her personality

Yes, I believe that she came recently, based on the following from ch 9:

“Coming here was dangerous,” Syl said.

“Into the chasms?” Kaladin asked. “There aren’t going to be any chasmfiends this close to the warcamps.”

“No. I meant for me, coming into this realm before I found you. It was dangerous.”

“Where were you before?”

“Another place. With lots of spren. I can’t remember well… it had lights in the air. Living lights.”

“Like lifespren.”

“Yes. And no. Coming here risked death. Without you, without a mind born of this realm, I couldn’t think.

...

Syl landed on the side of the pool, looking like a woman standing on an ocean’s shore. Kaladin frowned, leaning down to inspect her more closely. She seemed… different. Had her face changed shape?

“There are others like you,” Syl whispered. “I do not know them, but I know that other spren are trying, in their own way, to reclaim what was lost.”

She looked to him, and her face now had its familiar form. The fleeting change had been so subtle, Kaladin wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it.

“I am the only honorspren who has come,” Syl said. “I…” She seemed to be stretching to remember. “I was forbidden. I came anyway. To find you.”

“You knew me?”

“No. But I knew I’d find you.” She smiled. “I spent the time with my cousins, searching.”

“The windspren.”

“Without the bond, I am basically one of them,” she said. “Though they don’t have the capacity to do what we do. And what we do is important. So important that I left everything, defying the Stormfather, to come. You saw him. In the storm.”

The hair stood up on Kaladin’s arms. He had indeed seen a being in the storm. A face as vast as the sky itself. Whatever the thing was—spren, Herald, or god—it had not tempered its storms for Kaladin during that day he’d spent strung up.

“We are needed, Kaladin,” Syl said softly. She waved for him, and he lowered his hand to the shore of the tiny violet ocean glowing softly in the chasm. She stepped onto his hand, and he stood up, lifting her.

She walked up his fingers and he could actually feel a little weight, which was unusual. He turned his hand as she stepped up until she was perched on one finger, her hands clasped behind her back, meeting his eyes as he held that finger up before his face.

“You,” Syl said. “You’re going to need to become what Dalinar Kholin is looking for. Don’t let him search in vain.”

“They’ll take it from me, Syl,” Kaladin whispered. “They’ll find a way to take you from me.”

She came from the cognitive realm with a sense of urgency, so I think it was recent.  At the very least, I don't think spren were forbidden to come 4000 years ago.