Theory on the Oath Pact, Honorblades, Heralds, and Talenel'Elin

[smearedblackink]

I have a theory I'd like to throw out there for discussion. I believe that Honor made the Honorblades work for anyone that could pick them up purposefully. So that the burden of being a Herald could be passed on to others and the Oath Pact could be maintained even after one of the Heralds broke under Odium's torture. This could also potentially support the theory that the "Madman" that is currently holding that position of the Herald of War is not the original Talenel'Elin, though I'm not entirely convinced that he isn't Talenel'Elin.

 

In addition, maybe the Honorblades are not inherently inefficient in their use of Stormlight, but that the wielder must speak something akin to the First Ideal to be awakened to Heraldom and become a better conduit for Investiture.

 

I say these things because it seems very shortsighted of Honor to place such an important task in the hands of ten men and women, who despite being immortal, still suffer from the pains of mortal beings.

 

So there you have it! Please discuss

 

~sbi

[signspace13]

This seems like an interesting theory, but I do not think that 'Heraldom', is something that could be passed on, so far we don't even know if Taln has his honorblade, as the shardblade that Dalinar had was not it.

 

with regards to the oaths I don't think they would apply to the Honor blades at all, in fact I don't think they always applied to the Nahel bond either, in one of Dalinar's visions we see Nohadon and he is talking to his trusted adviser about troublesome surgebinders.

 

later Teft says something about the Ideals being invented by an old king, whose name he (conveniently) forgot.

 

From this we can assume that it was Nohadon that made the first Nahel bond with a Godlikespren, possibly after writing 'the way of kings'. After this said Godlikespren conferred to the rest of the spren the ideals and the Nahel bond, thus creating the KR proper (this also gives some background to the order "bondsmiths").

 

Edit because: typos

Edited May 12, 2014 by signspace13

[Maffu17]

Could the Honorblades act likes Shards and gradually transform the personality of the user to match the divine attributes of the order who's power they are using. So that whomever took a blade would eventually become the kind of person who would uphold the Oathpact.

It could explain why the Stone Shamans chose to give Szeth the blade of protecting/leading knowing that when humans got hold of his Oathstone he would be used for their opposites and cause him the most psychological trauma.

[Aleksiel]

It's an interesting theory with some issues.

 

The only one with an Honorblade (that we know of) is Szeth. Part of what gave Syl a clue to what he was, is the amount of stormlight he consumed, so Heralds (as Szeth thought in WoK) have always been inefficient users of investiture.