Broken Cryptics and Seons (Elantris/WoR spoilers)

[parvoneh]

Hi everybody,

First of all, just in case, this post has spoilers for Elantris as well as WoR. I noticed something in passing and I didn't see this discussed anywhere - my apologies if I just missed it. Pattern mentions that all of the originally bonded Cryptics were rendered mindless when the KR broke their bonds:

 

"All dead," Pattern said. "To us, this means they are mindless - as a force cannot truly be destroyed. these old ones are patterns in nature now, like Cryptics unborn. We have tried to restore them.. It does not work. Mmmm. Perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done."  (Hardcover, page 888)

 

This seems remarkably like Seons - symbols disrupted by a missing component when the Chasm formed and the Aons didn't sufficiently resemble the Physical landscape to convey the Dor. The Seons were restored by making the alteration in the Physical Realm when Raoden drew in the Chasm line in the master Aon of Elantris as well as the individual Aons, restoring the connection between the Spiritual (the Dor) and the Physical Realm, allowing the flow of Investiture.

 

In this case, the KRs breaking the bonds tore the sentience out of the spren - not a Physical event. The Cryptics have tried to restore the broken spren but to no avail, suggesting the breach isn't in the Cognitive Realm. Shai mentions in Emperor's Soul...
 

"The Spiritual Realm contains an object's soul - its essence - as well as the ways it is connected to the things and people around it."  (Paperback, p. 53)  

 

So oaths appear to forge Spiritual bonds rather than Cognitive. Pattern suggests that there may be a way to reforge that bond, if the original knights still lived. Shardblades sever the link to the Spiritual Realm, but is the reverse possible? There is precedent for healing from Shardblade wounds via Stormlight, when Kaladin restored the severed Spiritual connection to his deadened arm; not the same as regrowing from existing living Spiritual inventory as Lopen seems to be doing. Saying The Words appears to have restored the severed bonds with Syl: "I was only as dead as your oaths." (HC, p. 1031).

 

So I guess my questions boil down to these:

1. What causes Cryptics or spren with the potential of bonding to people to be 'born', separate individuals from their respective forces or concepts?

2. Can the spren be reborn by new proto-KR saying The Words, or are they less able than 'unborn' spren? (spren reincarnation?)  Can proto-KR saying the words restore those bonds with broken spren like adding the Chasm line in an Aon?

3. Can Stormlight itself reforge Spiritual bonds, like Kaladin healing his arm? Is there a way to infuse a proto-KR  with Stormlight they couldn't otherwise channel to create the Spiritual connection with a broken spren?

 

 

 

[Lopen Skybreaker]

I think there would have to be new spren for the new KR. The spren are only as dead as the original KR's vows. If they'd kept their vows until they died then the spren would have unbonded at that time to wait for someone new who is worthy to bond with. As it is, they broke their vows, killing the Spren, then died. The spree are dead without their original knights. At least i hope that's how it is. Too many books have surprise reincarnations and stuff. Can't the occasional massacre just stay a massacre?

As for stormlight reforming spiritual bonds, my assumption is that there has to be something physical to represent that bond, like Kaladins arm, otherwise where is the stormlight to go?