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Honorblade Talenel


tom45a

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If I'm not mistaken, Taln's honor blade is actually missing at the moment. He had it when he arrives in Kholinar at the end of WoK, but when he's brought to the Shattered Plains in WoR, he no longer has it, it's just a normal shardblade that arrives with him.

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Questioner

Why didn't Dalinar get the powers of a Stoneward when he bonded Taln's [Honorblade]?

Brandon Sanderson

Some readers have already figured this out, so I don't think I'm engaging in too large a spoiler to dig into this one here.

There are several oddities going on here. The most important one relevant to this question is the Blade in question. If you compare the descriptions of the sword described in the epilogue of The Way of Kings to the one that traveled with the madman (allegedly Taln, the Herald) to the Shattered Plains, you'll find they are different.

The one that the characters obtained in Words of Radiance is NOT an Honorblade. It's an ordinary Shardblade (as ordinary as one of those can be called.) I'm not going to say specifically what happened to the Blade Taln arrived with at Kholinar, but I will say that it IS a different weapon from the one in Words of Radiance.

The other issue here is the somewhat lesser question of whether this character is actually Taln, the Herald, or not. Some characters in-world don't believe that it is, though his viewpoint in Words of Radiance strongly implies otherwise. This isn't specifically relevant to the conversation for reasons I'll talk about below--but it is tangentially related. Because in the cosmere, Intent is important to many of the types of magic. It's theoretically possible to hold an Honorblade and not realize what its powers are, and therefore be unable to access them.

As an aside, this character was actually the primary protagonist of the version of The Way of Kings I wrote in 2002. A man who woke up, with lingering memories of madness, and claimed to be a Herald when nobody believed him--as he couldn't manifest any powers, seemed to have lost his sword, and lore said the Heralds weren't coming back anyway.

When I wrote the new version of The Way of Kings in 2009 or so, one goal was to focus the storyline. I'd included so many characters in the 2002 version that none of them progressed very far in their arcs, creating a strong setting and interesting characters--but a bad book. During the new version, I decided that this character would be moved to the later books, and I'd explore him there.

In the 2002 version, the text was very dodgy on whether or not Taln was a Herald. Confronting the fact that he might be crazy was a major arc and theme of the book--however, as I've worked on the new version, I've realized that it would be dangerous to be too vague on this. Stringing people along with the question for a book or two is one thing, waiting until book six or eight to do a character's arc, and leaving the question of whether they're a Herald or not all that time, seemed unfair.

So the text is going to be making manifest fairly quickly who this person is. You'll have confirmations long before we dig into his viewpoint in the later books.

So, a recap:

1) The swords WERE swapped somehow.

2) Someone could hold an Honorblade and not realize they had access to powers.

3) This character may or may not actually be a Herald--but the text is going to make the answer clear, and I'm not trying to trick you.

source

The "allegedly Taln" thing is resolved. He's Taln. But yeah, we haven't seen Taln's blade since the end of tWoK. 

Edited by Calderis
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CCQ

I just read Edgedancer. I was just wondering... Did Ishar deceive Nalan on purpose or was he just wrong-- he had wrong information?

Brandon Sanderson

All the Heralds are insane.

CCQ

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

It manifests in different ways. Do not trust anything any Herald says. Ever.

CCQ

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Nale trusts Ishar too much.

CCQ

Okay, but so did he do it on purpose, or...?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... So "on purpose" is a difficult thing when you're referring to someone with the psychology that Ishar has.

CCQ

Did he know what it was-- that it was a lie?

Brandon Sanderson

*sighs* Alright, I'll RAFO that until I get to him, but the answer is kind of a yes and a no. Okay? So there is part of him that knows and there is part of him that doesn't want to believe it. And yet the things he's been doing lately in Roshar are done because he knows what's coming.

source

I bolded the relevant part, but Brandon says to never trust anything a Herald says. I think the mad man known as Talk ultimately will be Taln the Herald. But never trusting anything they say, ever, is pretty interesting to them and what we "know"

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6 minutes ago, Wyrdspren said:

From Coppermind page on the Order of Stonewards. Can't get the exact quotes it references though.

And that should be removed, because we've been flat out told he didn't. 

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Questioner (paraphrased)

The Shardblade that Dalinar had at the end of Words of Radiance, was that the Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Shardblade that Dalinar had at the end of Words of Radiance that he gave up?

Questioner (paraphrased)

Yeah, that he gave up.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, it was not.

Questioner (paraphrased)

It was not? So what happened to the Honorblade that the Herald had?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Nobody kno - Well, somebody knows, but it is not known to the main characters.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Can I ask if Hoid-

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

If Hoid knows?

Questioner (paraphrased)

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Hoid did not take it, but I’m not answering whether he knows.

Footnote: This was transcribed from a recording, so it should be close to verbatim. However, the audio file has been taken down, so it cannot be verified exactly.
source

 

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On 9/9/2018 at 1:22 PM, Calderis said:

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Hoid did not take it, but I’m not answering whether he knows.

What. That blows my theory.
If Hoid doesn't have it my next guess is the ghostbloods. They're the type of people to steal a super powerful weapon and not use it at all.

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15 minutes ago, stonedshaman said:

But if the ghostbloods took the honorblade wouldn't they then know that taln was a herald, thus mitigating the need to send shallan in to see who he is in WoR?

Not necessarily. It just means that he was a guy in posession of an Honorblade. 

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Taln is still bonded to his Honorblade, we assume someone which it out, but if they knew it was a Honorblade, why leave a shardblade, and its place. Honorblades can bonded immediately, Honroblades can be dismissed at once. If they thought is was a shardblade, why leave a shardblade behind.

This is how I think it went down.

Taln appears. The guards and Dalinar's worker put him into the castle. Taln dismisses the blade, Hoid tells  them that they need to bring Taln and the blade to Dalinar. They could not find a blade, they freaked out, and gave him one of the king's blade hoping that Wit is too much of an idiot to realize they gave Taln a new blade.

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2 minutes ago, Nothing-Ridiculous said:

I do not think we have confirmation he was bonded to his honorblade, especially since it did not disappear when he collapsed. As for replacing it with a shardblade, I think whoever stole it didn't want it to be obvious that it was stolen. 

All the Heralds were bonded to their blades, you have to consciously break the  bond

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8 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Taln appears. The guards and Dalinar's worker put him into the castle. Taln dismisses the blade, Hoid tells  them that they need to bring Taln and the blade to Dalinar. They could not find a blade, they freaked out, and gave him one of the king's blade hoping that Wit is too much of an idiot to realize they gave Taln a new blade.

The blade is an unknown Shardblade. 

4 minutes ago, Nothing-Ridiculous said:

I do not think we have confirmation he was bonded to his honorblade, especially since it did not disappear when he collapsed. As for replacing it with a shardblade, I think whoever stole it didn't want it to be obvious that it was stolen. 

Honorblades don't turn to mist unless willed, even if dropped. 

Quote

luke.spence (paraphrased)

You mentioned that human can’t bond Honorblades, but Nalan tells Szeth that his bond with his Honorblade has been broken. Can you clear this up?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Humans CAN bond Honorblades. There's a crucial difference between Honorblades and Shardblades. When you drop an Honorblade, it does not disappear, even if it has been bonded. A Shardblade will disappear when dropped.

source

 

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46 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Taln is still bonded to his Honorblade, we assume someone which it out, but if they knew it was a Honorblade, why leave a shardblade, and its place. Honorblades can bonded immediately, Honroblades can be dismissed at once. If they thought is was a shardblade, why leave a shardblade behind.

This is how I think it went down.

Taln appears. The guards and Dalinar's worker put him into the castle. Taln dismisses the blade, Hoid tells  them that they need to bring Taln and the blade to Dalinar. They could not find a blade, they freaked out, and gave him one of the king's blade hoping that Wit is too much of an idiot to realize they gave Taln a new blade.

The thieves knew it was an Honorblade, but nobody else did.  We know that it's possible to "hold an Honorblade and not realize what its powers are, and therefore be unable to access them."  By swapping a regular shardblade for Taln's blade, they gained an Honorblade without anyone else knowing that anything was amiss.  

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The blade that arrives at the Shattered plains is an unknown blade that someone had in hiding.  We know this for a fact because in the Taln interlude of WoR Elokhar mentions there was no record of the blade.

Whomever stole the blade must have had:

  • access to secret shards
  • wide reaching power and influence
  • most likely greater Cosmere or at least Realmatic awareness
  • the ability to be on hand at the time of Taln's arrival or the means to get there in short order after getting word of the honour blades appearance
  • the motivation to go through the trouble of acquiring the honour blade
  • must have had the means to find out about the appearance of the honour blade in the first place.

Candidate groups  (TLDR: the Skybreakers did it)

Odium's Forces

  • would want an Honour blade as they show by demanding Jezrien's from Mr. T, but we have no evidence that Odium had  consolidated his power or organization enough to make a physical realm play of this kind at the end of tWoK's.  Also the close proximity of Hoid to this blade makes it unlikely that Odium was involved without a level of fireworks that would demand screentime

Sons of Honour

  • Amaram just finds out about the madman/shard blade at the Shattered Plains and we know he has spanreed contact with Restares at the least, so it's unlikely the SoH are involved

Ghostbloods

  • as with the SoH, they only begin their investigation at the Shattered Plains via Shallan

Stone Shamen

  • hard for the Shin to infiltrate this far East, they are very conspicuous and would be spotted

The Diagram

  • I don't think they are far reaching enough to have found out about Taln's arrival at Kholinar before the SoH or Ghostbloods.  It's one thing to have Makabaki information mongerson your payroll or have some ardents you used to own/amongst your members reassigned to other kingdoms to make their "revelations" seem independant of your agenda, but the infiltration of the Kholinar city watch seems too much for the diagram.  I'm not sure how they got an Alethi shardbearer on their side but it is obvious why they would want to recruit him or shard him up and have him infiltrate the war camps.  Randomly setting agents in the guard brigades of distant cities that are becoming more irrelevant by the day seems like a waste of resources.  Perhaps the Diagram predicted the Heralds will return at Kholinar and they set their agents for this eventuality.  The brazen way Graves recruits randos, and his clumsy assassination attempts make me think the Diagramists are not the most disciplined organization.  I find it hard to believe they would be able to keep a long standing objective/active mission like watching the Kholinar gates for returning Heralds a secret from the Ghostbloods who are clearly watching them (and dismissing them because they are clowns not simply because they underestimate Mr. T)

17th Shard

  • like Odium's forces the proximity of Hoid whom they are actively trying to locate make it unlikely that they were involved.  Brandon does make it clear that Hoid didn't take the blade, but refuses to rule out that Hoid Knows who took it.  This could mean that the 17th Shard almost unwittingly stumbled onto Hoid as they chased an unrelated objective of capturing this honour blade, and Hoid simply eluded them using life sense or some other skill, thereby not taking the blade but knowing who has it.  I think this is unlikely and a little too convoluted.

As of yet unseen/off world Force - (Ire, Nalthian customs agents, the Daughters of Cultivation, some new religious zealots from yet another Kelsierian church)

  • always a possibility but with no evidence hard to include in your reasoning, not reasonably worth discussing

The Skybreakers (my bet as the thieves)

  • access to replacement Shardblade they probably don't mind giving up?  Check.  Intimate knowledge of what to watch for and where?  Check.  Constantly on the lookout for causes/harbingers of the next desolation? Check.  Ease of travel and access at the highest level to Alethkar? Check (Nale's invitation to prologue and they can all fly).  Would Hoid stand aside and let such an important artifact fall into their hands?  I think so, I doubt even Hoid could predict the Skybreakers would swear for Odium.  He probably would have thought it was safe for the Skybreakers to hang on to the honour blade, and would have went along with (turn a blind eye more than actually facilitate) their recovery efforts.
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