Hoid gathering power on Roshar(Words of Radiance Spoilers)

[EmanEmal Crew Leader]

Well I was thinking about the shard blade that Dalinar gets from Taln and mainly how it's not an honor blade as you would expect Taln to have, him being one of the Heralds and all. 

 

Dalinar's shardblade screams like normal shardblades do(when held by radiant) which means that it is

[spoiler]
A dead spren
[/spoiler]

and it does not give him any surgebinding powers.

 

Now very interestingly the Taln has at the end of the way of kings is described as a large spike while the shard blade that Dalinar ends up with is described as cleaver like so I thought maby they aren't the same blade right? 

 

and that somehow Taln had managed to get a second shardblade while wandering around and mostly insane and I thought "well maybe that's just something Hearlds can do and they can just summon extra shard blades or something."

 

But then I had a better idea 

 

So Hoid is known to swipe various objects that can grant magical powers, like that Lerasium bead, and an unknown quantity of breath and stuff like that right?

 

and Hoid was the guy who met with Taln first, immediately after he showed up.

 

So what if Hoid swiped Taln's honorblade, swapped it out with a regular shardblade so that no one asked questions, and made of with stone-warden powers free of any oaths and all those normal surgebinder/spren bond restrictions.

[Kurkistan Most Ancient]

An interesting idea.

[AerionBFII Cryptic]

Totally agree man love the theory!

Hoid definitely has his own grander agenda involving the greater Cosmere;

“And while I am your friend, please understand that our goals do not completely align. You must not trust yourself with me. If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so. With tears, yes, but I would let it happen.”

- Hoid to Dalinar

I think he is preparing for something big that involves the whole Cosmere as he's seen in all the worlds so far...

I think it's revenge he's after....it's one hell of a motivator

Edited March 16, 2014 by WEZ313

[xbauks Grand]

Totally agree man love the theory!

Hoid definitely has his own grander agenda involving the greater Cosmere;

- Hoid to Dalinar

I think he is preparing for something big that involves the whole Cosmere as he's seen in all the worlds so far...

I think it's revenge he's after....it's one hell of a motivator

 

Not sure what his motivation is but I'm thinking he's trying to create a mini Adonalsium. He's slowly gathering powers from each and every Shard we know of.

[AerionBFII Cryptic]

I don't think he will get his hands on Nightblood but I would pay money to see that conversation.

[ranstang94 Awakened Object]

if an honor blade cannot be bonded but can be given (several posters are saying that Brandon made that comment), doesn't that mean that it cannot be stolen? How would Hoid have managed this unless he was able to use some of his other powers to convince Taln to give it to him... 

I can imagine something like Wayn's trading going on... "Left him a nice cleaver for it!"

[junior Oldblood]

Apparently Hoid didn't take the blade.  RShara found this while listening to the San Francisco signing -

 

Q: At the very end of WoR, Dalinar touches a Shardblade and it screams at him. Should that particular Blade have been safe??

A: No it should not have. It's a clue that something has happened. There are other clues that something is wrong with what the story you've been told is.

 

Q: Did Hoid switch out the blades?

A: Hoid did not switch out the blades, but good question.

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6899-spoliers-dalinars-blade/

[Glaring at the Survivor House Lord]

I wonder if Taln himself switched the blades.

Hehe.

[RShara Unmade]

Hoid didn't switch the blades.  Not necessarily that he didn't take it.  Although who could and would put another one in its place is a rather short list.

[duladen Ferring]

I wonder if returning his Honorblade would help Taln overcome his insanity. Perhaps the blades always helped the Heralds deal with their torment in Damnation.

[junior Oldblood]

I wonder if returning his Honorblade would help Taln overcome his insanity. Perhaps the blades always helped the Heralds deal with their torment in Damnation.

 

I dunno.  Looking back, I think there are signs that Taln had already lost it by the time he appeared at the end of WotK.  His insanity seems to be more the result of the fact that he was betrayed by his fellow Heralds.  I think there's a chapter header somewhere in WotK that indicates that all of the punishment that should have been split between the ten was instead focused on him.  And since there's been a much longer gap between Desolations this time around (as evidenced by all of the technological progress that Taln's babbling suggests doesn't typically occur), it's likely that he had both ten times as much torment, and a much longer period of torment than usual.

 

In short, the guy's been betrayed by the people he trusted, and has suffered horribly as a result.  And the suffering has gone on for a much, much, much longer time than usual.  Small wonder his mind is broken.

[RadiantRachel Skaa]

Hmmm....after reading Junior's post regarding what Rshara overheard at the San Fran signing, I am starting to re-think the entire explanation that the Spren in the shardblade's are dead/broken. What if they TOO are being tortured by Odium's yucky sprenlings somewhere in the cognitive realm? I know we have heard from Pattern and Syl that the broken spren are impossible to gather information from, but what if the real cause for their crazy is not merely being abandoned by their human via broken oaths? What if the act of breaking the oath in its entirety opens up the spren to be susceptible to torture by the bad spren? It would make sense that what happened in real life to the heralds could happen to the cognitive counterparts of the KR.....and if Adolin actually does wake up the spren in his shard, maybe he will be able to help piece Taln back together as well? Just... You know....thinking out loud on a message board again....sigh