Spren revival (WoR Spoilers)

[Spark]

I need your help with something I’ve been wondering about. I’m probably just overlooking things. Anyway, here goes.

 

So.. Syl more or less died when Kaladin went back on his ideals and seemed to regress instead of progress. What it took to bring her back seems to have the been his remembering and believing his already spoken ideals and formulating the next one - and even that almost wasn’t enough.

 

Now on to Pattern. At some point in her early childhood, Shallan bonded him, which means she formulated the first ideal, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to use him to kill her mother. As we now know, Shallan shut down after that. Lied to herself so intensely, that she completely denied Pattern and her powers. She even went on to kill her father. Denying everything should lead to the same outcome as Kaladins case: Almost killing her Spren.

 

In WoK, Shallan got in touch with her powers and her Spren again by speaking a truth. A truth, but not the truth that lead her to deny Pattern. Yet at the beginning of WoR, we see Pattern gaining consciousness (actually re-gaining it). It’s not until the end of the book that Shallan speaks the truth that actually mattered more, stops denying what happened and remembers the once spoken ideal. At that point, however, Pattern has already long been happily flopping around.

 

So.. there actually seem to be different requirements for killing and saving a Spren from the brink of death. Or am I missing something?

[RShara]

I don't think she ever went back on her oaths enough to "kill" pattern, she just pretended she couldn't see him, etc.  She thinks to herself how she can summon her Shardblade (Pattern) pretty much any time, and she can always see the "light" coming from the safe in her father's room.

[lonelymagician]

Shallan doesn't really have oaths to break. There's the first generic one, which is more of a way of living your life, then the next ones in her order are speaking truths, which don't seem like they can be violated. Maybe lying to herself and ignoring pattern all these years just made it difficult for him to manifest to her. Pattern never says or implies that he was dead like syl was, and there are some important differences. When syl comes back, she has full memory of before she left kaladin, whereas pattern seems to be learning it all again. Pattern also talks about coming from shadesmar as opposed to the spiritual realm (if that's even where dead spren go, it's a little unclear at this point), and he seems to also have recentish knowledge about shadesmar. So maybe he just regressed? It also could be possible that shardblade powers are granted earlier in the "oath" process for lightweavers (kaladin had to say the 3rd ideal to get it, but I don't think that was the case with shallan, since that would have made the truth she said to soulcast the 4th ideal, and would put her ahead of kaladin, which I guess she could be, but it just doesn't seem like it).

 

the ideals only matter in how the spren view them, and I think that honorspren would be more easily offended/killed than other types of spren, especially ones that love truth and lies. It could also have something to do with the Stormfather relationship. Honorspren especially seem to answer to him, where I bet pattern answers to a different governing body. It seems like the Stormfather was the one behind syl's removal even more than kaladin's emo backslide. Just some thoughts.

[Spark]

Hmm.. well, when Syl was about to die, she first slowly lost her consciousness, flitting about like any windspren would do. When we first see Pattern - and that's after years of denial and after Shallan speaking her first truth, he's pretty much the same - in his most reduced form, "dumb" as Shallan perceives him. And that must already be a step up from whatever was before Shallan spoke her first truth - if he was around at that time.

 

Now, that could be because for the first time, Pattern is actually learning. It could be that Pattern didn't learn anything when Shallan was a child - maybe she didn't teach him, maybe they were only together for a short while before she shut down. Yet if that's the case, then that would mean Pattern turned into a Blade without having gained real consciousness. That would be the equivalent to Syl turning into a Blade during the early stages of Bridge4. So again there seem to be different requirements.

 

Edit: Same time, similar thoughts.

Edited March 10, 2014 by Spark