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Ishar WTF man?!


NysemePtem

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Ok, so I'm really, really glad Ishar showed up. Like when he was mentioned in OB I was pissed that nothing happened... but now I'm just like totally reeling after everything we've learned about and from him:

1. He recovered his Honorblade

1.1 He can literally just manipulate any connection?!?! The implications are insane

To what extent can Dalinar do this? 

1.2 The Shin serve the Unmade somehow? This connects to an earlier comment (can someone find it?) About an Unmade taking up residence in Shinovar

2. His insanity. He's delusional. But, like Taln, the perpendicularity inspired a lucid period. Why does the perpendicularity do this, but only sometimes? Is it the presence of Honor somehow? 

2.1 He implies he wants to refound the Oathpact, during his lucid moment. Will this happen? I've heard it suggested that the series will end with a new oathpact refounded using the main characters as heralds, but it is frequently met with derision. I don't like this theory, for reasons i won't go into unless asked. However, considering the other twists in this book (looking at you, mr. T) I doubt Brandon will go with this approach. I do see this as plausible, however: 

Spoiler

Book 5 ends with Ishar and Dalinar forming a temporary Oathpact. They don't want to permanently restrain the Fused on Braize, but they take this step to buy the coalition time to recover. 

Books 6-10 take place when the new Oathpact fails 

3. THE SPREN. THE DAMNATION SPREN. What. The. Actual. storm. ISHAR!!!

why is he doing this? What is he even doing? How could he possibly do this? Is he manipulating connection somehow? I don't like it.

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Seeing Dalinar and Ishar opening Perps and performing acts of god so casually was definitely awesome.  

 

The part that made me most excited about this entire scene was actually the reference to Taln though.  In this fight, we see Ishar fight with his blade expertly, godlike with it, yet the Stormfather claims he is the weakest fighter out of all the Heralds.  When Dalinar asks who the best was, Stormfather immediately replies Taln without even hesitating.  I simply cannot wait to see Taln in action.

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3 hours ago, NysemePtem said:

2. His insanity. He's delusional. But, like Taln, the perpendicularity inspired a lucid period. Why does the perpendicularity do this, but only sometimes? Is it the presence of Honor somehow?

He said during his thirty seconds of sanity that it was because a Bondsmith had leveled up, and that being near any Knight swearing a new Oath would probably be helpful.

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10 hours ago, ShalladinForever said:

  I simply cannot wait to see Taln in action.

Same!

I suspect that'll be more likely in the back 5 books. The heralds are kind of in the background now, as resources/obstacles for the main characters, but some (Taln and Ash, at least) are supposed to take a more leading role in books 6-10.

Edited by ftl
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Something I took note of was Ishar nearly stealing the connection to the storm father.

Could something similar be why the fuzed appear so terrified of Dalinar? Could he somehow take or destroy their connection to Braize and kill them?

Or could he possibly even manipulate their connection to Odium and do something more extreme?

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Really looking forward to Kaladin becoming Patch Adams and healing this guy ... in 10 days. 
 

Why does Ishar want to bring Spren fully into the physical realm unbonded and not in blade form? What’s he trying to accomplish? 

Is this more of his “no proto-surgebinders” crusade? Nale was killing the humans that bond, Ishar is trying to bring spren into the physical realm in a new way so that can’t bond anyone? 

It’s well over a year late for that. Maybe he has some new terrible plan that involves moving between realms in a new way.

Edited by Child of Hodor
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On 11/19/2020 at 9:56 AM, NysemePtem said:

why is he doing this? What is he even doing? How could he possibly do this? Is he manipulating connection somehow? I don't like it.

I am reminded of another Brandon scene, in a non-Cosmere book.  In Firefight, in the Reckoners series, the heroes learn that the tech granting super powers is literally powered by pieces of the people who (used to) have super powers. 

In a similar vein, given the mad genius of Ishar, I expect he was experimenting with the dead, given bodies of Radiant spren to determine if there is a way to Surgebind without the Nahel bond. As in, chop up the Radiant sprens' manifested physical bodies, and determine if there are pieces of those manifested bodies that can be used to fabricate artificial Surgebinding.  In a way, it makes a lot of sense.  Fabrials are tech that trap spren externally and use their abilities. Ishar is trying to see if he can create an anti-Fabrial.  

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On 11/20/2020 at 10:42 AM, Blacksmithki said:

Something I took note of was Ishar nearly stealing the connection to the storm father.

Could something similar be why the fuzed appear so terrified of Dalinar? Could he somehow take or destroy their connection to Braize and kill them?

Or could he possibly even manipulate their connection to Odium and do something more extreme?

Oooh that makes a lot of sense! I like that!

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On 11/21/2020 at 4:12 AM, Sparks said:

I am reminded of another Brandon scene, in a non-Cosmere book.  In Firefight, in the Reckoners series, the heroes learn that the tech granting super powers is literally powered by pieces of the people who (used to) have super powers. 

In a similar vein, given the mad genius of Ishar, I expect he was experimenting with the dead, given bodies of Radiant spren to determine if there is a way to Surgebind without the Nahel bond. As in, chop up the Radiant sprens' manifested physical bodies, and determine if there are pieces of those manifested bodies that can be used to fabricate artificial Surgebinding.  In a way, it makes a lot of sense.  Fabrials are tech that trap spren externally and use their abilities. Ishar is trying to see if he can create an anti-Fabrial.  

Good call! If he can figure out what it is about the spren that allows sugebinding and somehow bind that to humans, he could equip whoever he wants with surgebinding powers. The honourblades making unchained surgebinders has been scary enough, but they're somewhat limited in the sense that they are much less efficient with stormlight. If Ishar can circumvent that by using Radiant Sprens' spleens or whatever he'll become much more of a force with which to be reckoned. 

 

More scary than this though is the notion that he could be attempting to turn himself into the Rosharan equivalent of a Fullborn... A mad herald with access to multiple surges?

On 11/20/2020 at 10:10 PM, Subvisual Haze said:

Ishar's using his powers of connection to force all the other Heralds to trust him.

I love this. It's not clear how long he's had his Honorblade so that might be recent, but are we sure  he doesn't have access to surgebinding outside of that? He was the OG, right? If his manipulation of Connection is the reason all the Heralds speak so highly of him that would be cool as hell.

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