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Why no-one can take up Honour ... but ten people - and their spren - can

Ixthos

By Ixthos
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Ixthos

Ixthos

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I disagree with a popular theory, which is that Dalinar will take up Honour. But I do think Dalinar will become someone who holds that power, just not alone.

 

There are ten orders of knights, each expressing a different part facet of Honour, and most of them are contradictory. Skybreakers and Windrunners fought one another, each trying to keep their oaths, which ran against one another. Lightweavers don't get on with Windrunners, with their differences in approach and views. Some focus more on martial honour and others more on social honour. Some are outward focuses and some inwards. Only Bondsmiths keep them all in line, keep them united, but even then, a Bondsmith doesn't express every facet of honour - Bondsmiths express only bringing people together, and becoming a better person.

 

Thematically, the stories are also about how no one person can save them, they must unite together. Multiple nations, multiple species, multiple Orders. I think when Honour was splintered that it was also a splintering along the lines of the idea of Honour, and I think that can be reconciled only by having ten people, each representing the ideal of honour in different ways, guided by a Bondsmith and possibly a Truthwatcher, unite, and together take up Honour.

 

Ten people, ten spren - or maybe more - taking up Honour, each to represent a different side of it. And possibly taking up parts of the other shards too. I think this will only happen in the tenth book, or maybe the ninth, but either way, I don't think Honour will be remade into a shard held by Dalinar or any other person, but by ten people, together.

 

In new unity.

 

 

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Gasper

Gasper

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I like this, I like it alot. It is similar to something I theorized about the Stormfather holding Honor and giving the Bondsmith Honor's abilities and the ability to share Honor's powers with the other radiants. 

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Ixthos

Ixthos

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@Gasper Cool idea! That probably will be a precursor to this if my theory is right :-)

@Gray to It might, but if the Bondsmith vessel leads, it might not be a problem, and as one of the letters showed, it isn't impossible for a council of minds to rule a shard, possibly by each taking charge of a different region of space, or simply agreeing to work for a common purpose, but not to interfere with how the others does so.

@Invocation Thanks and thanks :-D

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Calderis

Calderis

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My biggest issue is how? 

Dalinar's powers make sense for repairing a fraction of the Shard of Honor, and in my opinion facilitating a feedback loop that would allow him to restore the whole... 

I can see arguments for most of the other combinations being used to do so as well... 

But lightweavers, Dustbringers, and Skybreakers, I just don't see a way for their powers to be used to reconstitute a portion of Honor. Elsecallers are... Eh in themselves but I can see Transportation and Transformation working much better in that regard than Illumination and Transformation. Truthwatchers are in a similar boat for the same reason. 

How would this work? 

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Philomath

Philomath

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I’ve had a theory similar to this. That Dalinar has ascended to only a piece of Honor and that others may be able to ascend to other splintered pieces as well. I don’t know if there is a WoB proving this wrong, but if Adonalsium was able to shatter into different shards with varied intents, then maybe Honor could do the same when he splintered. My theory is this would correlate with “Honors purposes” that are occasionally mentioned. Dalinar has ascended to Unity which in my opinion is a piece of Honor, not a reinterpretation of it. 

My only disagreement would be that each person would necessarily pair with a Knight Radiant order. It could go either way for me. 

I also like it because it avoids being too similar to endings in other series we enjoy from Brandon. 

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RShara

RShara

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2 hours ago, Invocation said:

It already wasn't symmetrical. Onor isn't symmetrical, since the H is a nothing-letter to the Alethi.

H is a placeholder letter to balance out a word, like in Nohadon. So Honor is as symmetrical as Nohadon.

Quote

“The h sound can be for any letter,” Shallan said absently. “We write it as the symmetrical letter, to make the word balance, but add a diacritical mark to indicate it sounds like an h so the word is easier to say.”

So it's really Ronor, but the R is pronounced as an H, so it's Honor.

Edited by RShara
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Shardbearer

Shardbearer

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To my mind these 10 people wouldn't be Honor, if that's how it went. They would be... I dunno, Shardlets of Honor? 

I'm not really sure if that is even plausible. I would guess that with Honor being Splintered it might be harder for someone to become the new Vessel.

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RShara

RShara

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3 hours ago, Invocation said:

Oh, so I was just misunderstanding how the H functions in Alethi. My bad. Thanks for the correction!

No worries. Anyway, That's probably why it's Honor even in the UK bindings.

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Ixthos

Ixthos

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@Karger As @Invocation explained, I'm not American, so I don't use American spelling, even when I'm talking about something I read from an American author. My biggest challenge when reading Mistborn is to make sure I don't end up using the American spelling of aluminium in general conversation due to how often that shows up :-P I spell Honor as Honour rather than Honor as a matter of ... honour :-P @CrazyRioter To each their own, and I see where you are coming from, but I don't think of them as proper nouns - if I met someone named Honor I would spell it that way when talking to them, but I think that it doesn't quiet apply to the shards, though I can appreciate your stance :-)

 

@Calderis My theory about how that can be done is I think similar to your own - I think that the shards of Honour are "grouped" in the spiritual realm around the ten different ideals and ideas of Honour, and that each is also still connected to the others, but weakly. Dalinar could begin to connect to the largest part, the core part which connects to the others most strongly that corresponds to the Bondsmith part, but once he united those splinters into a partial shard, and tried to take it up and take up the rest, he would find there is some resistance, because while he matches the idea of Bondsmith-Honour, he doesn't match the idea of [Other orders]-Honour. But, at that point, he could feel the connection the other Knights have to that part ([Specific order]-Honour), though it is still too fractured for them to take it up. Using his connection to that part, which he hadn't taken up yet, but was connected to it kind of like (Mistborn spoilers:)

Spoiler

Sazed before agreeing was touching the powers, and that changed him to let him survive the heat but he hadn't yet taken them - while he was saying why he couldn't take the power.

In a sense, "Dalinar/Bondsmith-Honour" would form a triangle with each "[Order]-knight/[Order]-spren" and the still-broken "[Order]-Honour", with Dalinar-Bondsmith-Honour fixing [Order]-Honour with the Knight in question and their spren assisting by solidifying the connection he had, and then the knight and spren taking it up to become part of the now more complete Honour, only it might not be Honour any more if they are also using investiture or the entire shard of one of the others to complete the patch, so Cultivation or Odium also being drawn partially or completely in as well. I think this also addresses your concern, @Steel Inquisitive ([Edit:] And @Shardbearer! Sorry, I forgot to add you in - I also refer you to the case with the writer of the letter which used plurals :-) ) in that the shard technically wouldn't be Honour any more - I think, and this is the current form of this theory, which might change, that the new shard would contain either all or some of Cultivation (due to the bottom orders), and at least a little bit of Odium (due to the left hand orders), though it also is possible that it will contain all of them - I've referred to this idea before as a single/partially-dual/dual/partially-triple/triple shard, which I'm sure we can all agree is a very simple and straightforwards description :-P I think that the "right hand" orders are Honour-Cultivation, with the top right being more Honour, the bottom more Cultivation (though still with more Honour than the top has Cultivation), and the "left hand" orders are Honour-Cultivation-Odium, but only a little Odium, as Brandon has said that Surgebinding also has some Odium in it. The right hand orders are all focused outwards (protecting others, making sure others obey the law, being obedient to someone else, listening to others), while the left hand are more inwards and slightly more selfish (standing firm, exploring, learning, finding truths about oneself).

 

Part of the reason for this - the taking up parts of other shards - is I don't think a shard is just the investiture that it is composed of, but might also be an idea, and that idea is what is shattered and this then shatters the power. I don't think every spren needs to die to fix the idea, as they are just power associated with the idea or ideal, but if they are needed, then getting the power from other shards to fill in the gaps could help avoid an issue if the power must be regathered - the spren lost - to fix the shard.

Edited by Ixthos
Forgot to mention Shardbearer - sorry about that
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ZenBossanova

ZenBossanova

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6 hours ago, Ixthos said:

the "left hand" orders are Honour-Cultivation-Odium, but only a little Odium, as Brandon has said that Surgebinding also has some Odium in it.

Pardon, but could you explain this? Is there a WoB I missed? 

I wonder if this is what Dalinar was referring to when he said, I am Unity. He was fitting into the roles left open by the missing Herald and by the missing role of Hono(u)r. If this is true, we can expect Kaladin to say he is Protection or Leadership. Jasnah might say she is Logic. Etc. 

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Ixthos

Ixthos

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56 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

Pardon, but could you explain this? Is there a WoB I missed? 

I wonder if this is what Dalinar was referring to when he said, I am Unity. He was fitting into the roles left open by the missing Herald and by the missing role of Hono(u)r. If this is true, we can expect Kaladin to say he is Protection or Leadership. Jasnah might say she is Logic. Etc. 

And Szeth can say "I am the Law!"

For that part, the quote is from https://wob.coppermind.net/events/117/#e1640. Highlighting the relavent part:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

So all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. Um... There is some Odium influence too, but that’s mostly voidbinding, which is the map in the back of the first book.

Basically, while Odium is mainly in Voidbinding, this quote seems to be saying that surgebinding does have some Odium. As there does seem to be a distinction between the left and right hand sides as the orders are presented (Windrunners top right, Skybreakers top of the rightmost, Dustbringers bottom of the rightmost, etc.) I think that could be an indication of the more self-focused (and thus "passionate") orders, while the more others-focused orders are less Odium influenced. Not that the Odium-influenced orders are bad for being partially connected to Odium, only that they have a small amount of Odium added to them, just as Truthwatchers have a much more significant and fair amount of Cultivation in them.

 

Another partial reason I believe this is - if Odium is associated with Salas the purple or violet moon, and Honour with Nomon the blue moon, and Cultivation with Mishim the green moon, then, looking at the chart, the topmost right order of Honourspren - Windrunners - are blue, and Honour. The bottommost order of spren - Truthwatchers - are green, and Cultivation. And one or both of the two leftmost orders of Inkspren and/or Lightspren - Elsecallers and Willshapers - are dark purple/indigo/violet, and Odium. So the top is Honour, the bottom is Cultivation, and the left is Odium, while all still being mostly of Honour with some Cultivation, and only very slightly Odium.

 

Also, @Calderis fair enough :-) to each their own, and civil disagreement is one of the best ways for an argument to end :-) I like your theory too, I just feel that this is how things have been set up, and it seems logical to me, though I can appreciate that you disagree. I hope as events unfold more is revealed :-)

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Bigmikey357

Bigmikey357

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So basically Honor stays splintered but the largest pieces form sub-Shards that could still Realmatically be considered as Honor. The example of possibilities include what Autonomy is doing. Am I getting the jist of the theory? 

If so, I have 2 questions. The first one is yet unanswerable but something I always keep in mind. What is the threshold? It has to be a level above Herald or it would have already happened when Honor died. Similar for full 5 KR. How are they gathering that sort of power, especially if Cultivation doesn't want to cooperate?

Question 2 is less a question than following the implications. What if this is true? If it works they will not be content to be Shardlettes. They will have to move away from each other in order to become full Shards in their own right. The problem is the difficulty in spren leaving Roshar. They'd have to overcome that first. And if they achieve the escape Velocity without losing enough power that it makes them either shatter or devolve then finding another planet in the Cosmere to consolidate power will change their powers. New Magic systems popping up everywhere in a truly haphazard fashion. Something tells me that Hoid or some others of the original 16 are gonna take exception to this and try for the Odium play.

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ZenBossanova

ZenBossanova

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2 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

If so, I have 2 questions. The first one is yet unanswerable but something I always keep in mind. What is the threshold? It has to be a level above Herald or it would have already happened when Honor died. Similar for full 5 KR. How are they gathering that sort of power, especially if Cultivation doesn't want to cooperate?

I suspect Cultivation is behind many of these type things. Perhaps she vetoed the Heralds getting it, with the possible exception of Future!Taln. 

Truth is, I would also keep an eye on Sja-Anat, and other Unmade. If Odium is severely injured, the Bondsmiths could do some recruiting. 

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