Was Leshwi a [spoiler]?

[Harfyn]

A windrunner?

So - when Venli tells/shows Leshwi that she is a Radiant, Leshwi asks if she knew an Honorspren. To me, this brought together a lot of why Leshwi was so connected with the Windrunners - its not just that the Heavenly Ones are the most analogous to Windrunners, but that they were ANCIENT Windrunners - before spren chose humans. I think that Leshwi is going to be our key to discovering what the Dawnsingers did to lose sprens' trust. My guess is that there was some... recreance-lite that happened with the Dawnsingers, but I haven't fully worked out what that timeline would be. This might be why there is only one "generation" of fused - they are the original dawnsinger radiants - that Odium chose due to their unique connections to the surges/spren. And the fused were willing to help because they had just been abandoned by their spren for... some reason. (or maybe not why, but these events feel like they could/should be connected to me - they could have the same cause, maybe)

Were Dawnsingers true "Radiants"? Or did they just form another type of bond with those spren? Will Leshwi revive her old Honorspren and become a heavenly one-windrunner? (along the same lines as Venli's dual willshaper/envoy form powers)

I need to do a re-read to find more details that support this (and try to find clues of why spren left singers in the first place), but wanted to bring it up here to see what other people thought.

[Aon Tia]

I think that dawnsingers had some sort of binding with spren and access to surges but it was something different from nahel bond. It may be possible that they did not form singular bonds but forged friendships with spren. Which were less binding and probably did not need oaths. 
Most hint for this we get in the chapter “song of stones” where Venli is shown a sort of vision where ancient ones are shaping the stone using rhythms. I am not sure if stormlight was important to this system. 
So if there were singers who reshaped stone and there must be singers who flew or who healed etc etc 
It may be that what these singers used to do, singing rhythms of Roshar and attracting spren and working magic is what is referred to as “old magic”

Regarding Leshwi I am also interested to know that being cut off by odium and devoid of constant feeding of void light directly from odium, how are these heavenly ones going to survive? Will she keep her surge? 

[Harfyn]

Good call - I like the idea of there having been a pre-nahel bond between dawnsingers and spren - Maybe this was what the Radiant oaths were modeled after? (or maybe they are more of a modification - oaths have more safeties in place to prevent "the bad surgebinding thing" from happening)

Re: Leshwi having access to Odium's investiture, I think Brandon has confirmed via WOB that a shard can't choose to turn off their magic system for a particular person - its a law of nature at that point. So I think Leshwi would need to do something that would put her more in his power to actually be affected. Like once she dies, he will have power over her again, but until then she still has access to any powers she normally would. 

[Nymeros]

No she was introduced in Oathbringer so she's not a spoiler.

 

Edit: No definitely not. The Fused came before the Heralds came before the Knights Radiant.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Nymeros

[IndigoAjah]

2 hours ago, The Traveller said:

I think that dawnsingers had some sort of binding with spren and access to surges but it was something different from nahel bond. It may be possible that they did not form singular bonds but forged friendships with spren. Which were less binding and probably did not need oaths. 
Most hint for this we get in the chapter “song of stones” where Venli is shown a sort of vision where ancient ones are shaping the stone using rhythms. I am not sure if stormlight was important to this system. 
So if there were singers who reshaped stone and there must be singers who flew or who healed etc etc 
It may be that what these singers used to do, singing rhythms of Roshar and attracting spren and working magic is what is referred to as “old magic”

Regarding Leshwi I am also interested to know that being cut off by odium and devoid of constant feeding of void light directly from odium, how are these heavenly ones going to survive? Will she keep her surge? 

Luckily the chump has a giant storm to refill the light in gems etc! 

 

But Navani can sort her out regarding that one, I think.

[Starla]

I wonder if the ancient singers could bond with the higher spren to take a specific form, similar to how they currently bond with lesser spren to take Workform, Warform, etc, and this granted some form of power that resembles the current radiant powers and ideals. Like a singer who has an Honorspren in their gemheart would be exhibit honorable traits and protect others of their kind, with perhaps some access to gravitation. 

4 hours ago, Harfyn said:

Will Leshwi revive her old Honorspren and become a heavenly one-windrunner? (along the same lines as Venli's dual willshaper/envoy form powers)

Sadly, I doubt her Honorspren (Riah) is still around. All of the Honorspren were killed in the Recreance, except Syl. There were a couple of times in the book where Leshwi seems curious about Syl, and somehow knew she was very old. I'm guessing she wanted to ask Syl about Riah.

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

26 minutes ago, Starla said:

Sadly, I doubt her Honorspren (Riah) is still around. All of the Honorspren were killed in the Recreance, except Syl. There were a couple of times in the book where Leshwi seems curious about Syl, and somehow knew she was very old. I'm guessing she wanted to ask Syl about Riah.

It seems likely that some deadeyes are gonna be woken up one way or another. I saw one theory that sja-anat's "enlightened" spren used to be deadeyes, plus there's whatever's going on with Adolin and Maya. So I wouldn't count Riah out yet. 

And I'm saying this only like, half because I want only good things for Leshwi. The other half is cause I want to see a corrupted honorspren.

[Harfyn]

26 minutes ago, Starla said:

I wonder if the ancient singers could bond with the higher spren to take a specific form, similar to how they currently bond with lesser spren to take Workform, Warform, etc, and this granted some form of power that resembles the current radiant powers and ideals. Like a singer who has an Honorspren in their gemheart would be exhibit honorable traits and protect others of their kind, with perhaps some access to gravitation.

Sadly, I doubt her Honorspren (Riah) is still around. All of the Honorspren were killed in the Recreance, except Syl. There were a couple of times in the book where Leshwi seems curious about Syl, and somehow knew she was very old. I'm guessing she wanted to ask Syl about Riah.

Oh yeah Riah is almost certainly a deadeye - but I wonder what would happen if Leshwi found the blade or went into Shadesmar to see the body. I feel like they'd have a fairly strong connection to start the same process Maya is currently undergoing with Adolin. Which, admittedly is completely new and I don't know if Leshwi and Riah would qualify, but would be cool to see. A lot of what happens after that will depend on things that will probably get explored in the next book with both Adolin and Shallan being very connected to deadeyes (for different reasons). 

[Aon Tia]

3 hours ago, IndigoAjah said:

Luckily the chump has a giant storm to refill the light in gems etc! 

Well humans can not infuse gemstones during everstorm with Voidlight. It was mentioned in OB, Navani and her scholars had tried. 
whatever voidlight gems they had, they got off of fused or regals they killed on the battlefield. And we don’t know how they get these gemstones. 
But yea may be Leshwi knows and can manage till she dies. 
 

[Honorless]

3 hours ago, The Traveller said:

Well humans can not infuse gemstones during everstorm with Voidlight. It was mentioned in OB, Navani and her scholars had tried. 
whatever voidlight gems they had, they got off of fused or regals they killed on the battlefield. And we don’t know how they get these gemstones. 
But yea may be Leshwi knows and can manage till she dies. 

Apparently Odium tries to regulate his Light, you need to sing the Song of Prayer in order to store Voidlight. Humans aren't good at hearing the Rhythms so they haven't been able to capture Voidlight. 

[Aon Tia]

47 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Apparently Odium tries to regulate his Light, you need to sing the Song of Prayer in order to store Voidlight. Humans aren't good at hearing the Rhythms so they haven't been able to capture Voidlight. 

Ok! That is how it works. Thanks Hon. So you think Leshwi can just sing the song and get voidlight or odium decides to bestow it upon them. I guess the former but I am not so sure. 
Di you think Fused can bond with spren and become radiants?

[Honorless]

On 12/1/2020 at 11:19 AM, The Traveller said:

Ok! That is how it works. Thanks Hon. So you think Leshwi can just sing the song and get voidlight or odium decides to bestow it upon them. I guess the former but I am not so sure. 
Di you think Fused can bond with spren and become radiants?

The former but Odium does seem to keep track of his Investiture from Venli not wanting to get Voidlight herself but requisitioning it a̶n̶d̶ ̶T̶a̶r̶a̶v̶a̶n̶g̶i̶a̶n̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶V̶o̶i̶d̶l̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶s̶p̶h̶e̶r̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶O̶d̶i̶u̶m̶.̶

Edit: that was Corrupted Windspren, my bad

Yeah, I was hoping for Leshwi to become a Radiant actually 

Edited June 13, 2021 by Honorless

[Aon Tia]

34 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Yeah, I was hoping for Leshwi to become a Radiant actually

Me too. She will make a pretty good windrunner actually. I had hoped that more than 5 heavenly ones would have followed her!

[Friendshipspren]

15 hours ago, Harfyn said:

 

Re: Leshwi having access to Odium's investiture, I think Brandon has confirmed via WOB that a shard can't choose to turn off their magic system for a particular person - its a law of nature at that point. So I think Leshwi would need to do something that would put her more in his power to actually be affected. Like once she dies, he will have power over her again, but until then she still has access to any powers she normally would. 

Oh good. Also perhaps it's possible they can use stormlight now. I mean if Venli can use voidlight to perform surgebinding , surely the opposite could be true too 

Rayse would have frowned on it since he likes to keep the fused emotionally agitated and with voidlight.

So perhaps it was possible but they just didn't have any reason to do it but now do.

Or perhaps navani could find a way for her to use stormlight or towerlight

[Aon Tia]

I thought that Venli can use both because she has bonded both a voidspren and a radiant spren. 
She has voidspren trapped in her gemheart by Timbre

[+robardin]

i definitely agree that Leshwi’s words and actions reflect what the OP is suggesting.

” They’ve come back to us! ... Forgiven us!” is her reaction to finding that Venli has a Radiant spren. And then she asks after a specific honorspren.

 i’ll wrote more later when i’m not on my phone

[Harfyn]

6 hours ago, Friendshipspren said:

Oh good. Also perhaps it's possible they can use stormlight now. I mean if Venli can use voidlight to perform surgebinding , surely the opposite could be true too

Rayse would have frowned on it since he likes to keep the fused emotionally agitated and with voidlight.

So perhaps it was possible but they just didn't have any reason to do it but now do.

Or perhaps navani could find a way for her to use stormlight or towerlight

Oh that'd be very cool - which... makes me curious if the hybrid lights will cause different effects in the surges that use them... or if they just have different physical/spiritual properties that determine WHO can use them. It might make sense to use voidlight/warlight for anyone who can use it since it leaks slower than stormlight, but only if your surge doesn't also work differently. (though maybe you want to avoid having the emotional effects of voidlight?)

 

[+robardin]

On 11/30/2020 at 1:26 PM, Harfyn said:

A windrunner?

So - when Venli tells/shows Leshwi that she is a Radiant, Leshwi asks if she knew an Honorspren. To me, this brought together a lot of why Leshwi was so connected with the Windrunners - its not just that the Heavenly Ones are the most analogous to Windrunners, but that they were ANCIENT Windrunners - before spren chose humans. I think that Leshwi is going to be our key to discovering what the Dawnsingers did to lose sprens' trust. My guess is that there was some... recreance-lite that happened with the Dawnsingers, but I haven't fully worked out what that timeline would be. This might be why there is only one "generation" of fused - they are the original dawnsinger radiants - that Odium chose due to their unique connections to the surges/spren. And the fused were willing to help because they had just been abandoned by their spren for... some reason. (or maybe not why, but these events feel like they could/should be connected to me - they could have the same cause, maybe)

Were Dawnsingers true "Radiants"? Or did they just form another type of bond with those spren? Will Leshwi revive her old Honorspren and become a heavenly one-windrunner? (along the same lines as Venli's dual willshaper/envoy form powers)

I need to do a re-read to find more details that support this (and try to find clues of why spren left singers in the first place), but wanted to bring it up here to see what other people thought.

So, I was thinking along similar lines to this.

Leshwi is one of the Fused who actually lived in times before the original conflict between humans and singers. Her reaction to Venli saying she'd bonded a Radiant spren was - after demanding "What have you done?" to Destruction, a rhythm of Odium, upon seeing her draw in Stormlight - was to manifest a joyspren and immediately start to speak/hum to the "old" rhythms. "Venli, they've come back to us! They've forgiven us." She then inquires to Longing about Riah, an honorspren she once knew, long ago, that was "precious" to her.

So yes. Leshwi at least, and other Heavenly Ones (if not all of them) or ones that have been following her lead in spirit as well as word, seem to have acted "honorable" with the Windrunners because they, too, had been close to honorspren in their past. And it also explains why Leshwi had been looking for Kaladin's spren while fighting, as well as suggesting that it would be good to preserve "them and their spren" after a singer victory.

We know the Nahel bond, with its Surgebinding and manifestation of Shards, was something the spren did "in imitation of the Honorblades". So I think you are also correct in considering that whatever the singers used to have with the spren was not quite the same. Perhaps they bonded with them in typical singer fashion, to take on a different form? If bonding a painspren brings on warform, or a gravitationspren workform, perhaps bonding a sentient spren grants a Surge but not two of them (which would explain why the Fused each get one, not two, Surges)?

(It's likely Riah is a deadeye, too. So if freeing BAM results in some kind of mass awakening of deadeye spren, well, things could get very interesting very quickly.)

Leshwi's phrasing of the spren "coming back to" and "forgiving" the singers is very telling, as you say. The "oaths and precepts" and Five Ideals structure of the Nahel Bond seems to be something Ishar imposed (if the epigraphs are to be believed), which given his current insanity and repossession of the Bondsmith Honorblade is now particularly terrifying.

[Jondesu]

I have to admit, I didn’t connect that when I was reading it, but it makes so much sense! I love this idea! I want to see Leshwi turned back into a singer Windrunner again. I do agree that she probably only has one Surge, just like the Fused do with their corrupted Surgebinding, but that’s not a problem since she’s so experienced with it.

[+Bzhydack]

But we know Fused dont have any powers innitialy. Stormfather tells us that.

[Honorless]

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

But we know Fused dont have any powers innitialy. Stormfather tells us that.

That is true, he did say the Fused learned to bind the Surges a bit later, he seemed to imply that happened after one or more Desolations, iirc.

I remember that the stones said new powers came from old powers, so this might've been some kind of proto-Surgebinding, but the not the same thing, to the same scale.

[Master Silver]

I love this topic. I think Sanderson was/is setting up a third group. Against Odium, but not in the human camp. The Listeners. Yes, I'm stating the obvious. But what is slightly less obvious, is that this group, the Listeners, will be powered by a new type of investiture. The Rhythm of War. Stormlight and void light in harmony. Toward the end of the book, one of the spren said they just learned about this, and they had to teach it to their siblings. So, that means, at least in my mind, these corrupted spren of Ba-a-do-mishra (sorry about spelling), will power their Radiants with War-light (if I can use the term). Heavenly ones could potentially bond wind spren. If they were once Windrunners, we may see a huge jump in their ability to own the skies. There are about what, 20 of them? On the specific issue of dead eyes, Adolin has begun the work. But Dalinar asked the Stormfather about healing dead eyes. The Stormfather said it is impossible because the Radiants are dead. But the Fused are not dead, so possibly they could say their oaths and heal their spren. I think Shallan (or more likely Radiant) is going to point out this obvious fact. Say your oaths again and mean them. That should heal the bond in someway, like Kaladin and Syl.