Blades Appearing After Owner Deaths

[BrokeCursor]

I've been thinking about this for quite some time. There's a handful so hear me out.

What makes a Shardblade auto-summon at their wielder's death? 

I know the Radiants summoned them and left their spren as Shardblades, and it was a while before the common folk learned how to dismiss a Blade. A possible solution is that their connection is in/to the physical realm now, and without something/someone keeping it dismissed (ie: the wielder dies) would cause it to appear. That seems to imply that, without attention, the blade naturally appears in the physical realm. However there are some problems to that.

If it's connection is to the Physical Realm, wouldn't keeping it dismissed require constant thought and attention? You wouldn't have to use the 10 heartbeats, but just let go on the dismissal.

I always imagined it as you were pulling the blade into the physical, and you were putting it back afterward. But now it seems that the blade is pushing to get out, and you have to hold it in the cognitive.

Honestly confused. Might just be me wrapping around my own head too much.

[Chinkoln]

Well, the shardblades are permanently connected to the physical realm. When unbonded they manifest that connection by appearing as swords. When bonded, the shard bearer is their connection to the the physical realm. They can stay in the cognitive realm until summoned by mental thought from the shardbearer.

[+Harrycrapper]

I think it's because they exist more in the physical than the cognitive. The Radiant spren enter the physical realm with varying degrees, some like Pattern that are physical enough to actually be solid or Syl who can lift small objects. But then there's Highspren who seem to rarely appear in the physical realm. Now, all spren regardless of how far they are into the physical realm still seem to be able to manifest to a degree in the cognitive when they want. So, it stands to reason that dead blades can manifest in either realm, but what they do is entirely up to whoever they are bonded with. They don't have any will of their own, so if the bond holder says "go away" they go to the cognitive realm and only come back when they are prompted. 

I do wonder what happens when someone brings an unbonded dead blade through a perpendicularity to the cognitive realm or if that's even possible. Or if someone brought a bonded one through to the physical realm. Would it just manifest as a blade until it's bond holder summons it?

[+robardin]

4 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

Well, the shardblades are permanently connected to the physical realm. When unbonded they manifest that connection by appearing as swords. When bonded, the shard bearer is their connection to the the physical realm. They can stay in the cognitive realm until summoned by mental thought from the shardbearer.

This is the part we don't have a clear explanation for yet, though some pieces of the puzzle are being sketched out.

For one - in the vision that Dalinar receives where he witnesses the Recreance first-hand (or at least, part of it), a large number of Windrunners and Stonewards, together twice the number of known sets of Shards in all of Roshar in Dalinar's time, arrive at Feverstone Keep in Plate and summon their Blades, and then leave them as they walk away from their Ideals. They stick the Blades into the ground, and then drop their Plate, and then walk away.

Did their "deadeye" Blades and Plate appear as they abandoned their oaths, or did they intentionally first summon their Shards in order to lock them in Physical form, as if to allow them to continue to be used by people?

Shouldn't there be a lot more Blades than Plates, then, as only Radiants of the Fourth Ideal or higher would have Plate, but it seems pretty standard for Radiants to reach (and often stop at) the Third Ideal to gain the Blade? Where are they all?

And for another, ...

[oops - RoW spoilers...!]

Spoiler

 

...we now know from Kalak that being locked in half-death as a deadeye is only something that happened with the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram, along with making zombies of all the parshfolk Connected to BAM (all but the Last Legion, the forebears of the listeners). Surely Radiants had backslid on Ideals in the past, and that hadn't happened.

One might question if Kalak wasn't lying or saying something crazy because "all the Heralds are insane", but we have from Maya's own testimony that going deadeye had not been a foreseen outcome by the Radiants and the spren, who had collectively agreed to break the Nahel bonds.

 

And the whole "deadeye" thing feels a lot like being locked/trapped in an in-between state, like the unfortunate way the Shaod had suddenly started going wrong in Elantris.

They are "normally" locked into a Physical form as a Blade, being some kind of self-image as a Blade that either their last Radiant or the spren themselves had, but spending a week bonding to one with a gemstone Connects to a new person enough that the Blade can be dismissed to the CR and re-summoned after the "ten heartbeats" revives it again, inasmuch as the wielder thinks of it as a Shardblade (and not as a spren).

What's reviving Maya must have to do with Adolin thinking of her as a spren and not just a weapon - forming a deeper Connection.

Edited December 8, 2020 by robardin

[Dunkum]

32 minutes ago, robardin said:

This is the part we don't have a clear explanation for yet, though some pieces of the puzzle are being sketched out.

For one - in the vision that Dalinar receives where he witnesses the Recreance first-hand (or at least, part of it), a large number of Windrunners and Stonewards, together twice the number of known sets of Shards in all of Roshar in Dalinar's time, arrive at Feverstone Keep in Plate and summon their Blades, and then leave them as they walk away from their Ideals. They stick the Blades into the ground, and then drop their Plate, and then walk away.

Did their "deadeye" Blades and Plate appear as they abandoned their oaths, or did they intentionally first summon their Shards in order to lock them in Physical form, as if to allow them to continue to be used by people?

Shouldn't there be a lot more Blades than Plates, then, as only Radiants of the Fourth Ideal or higher would have Plate, but it seems pretty standard for Radiants to reach (and often stop at) the Third Ideal to gain the Blade? Where are they all?

<cut>

I don't recognize the stuff below this.  was all that about kalak and Maya RoW spoilers?  because those have to stay in the RoW boards

[+robardin]

12 hours ago, Dunkum said:

I don't recognize the stuff below this.  was all that about kalak and Maya RoW spoilers?  because those have to stay in the RoW boards

OOOOH my bad, spoilering.

(I don't think the speculation about Maya's "reawakening" or comparing deadeyes to the Shaod is new, people including myself were saying as much since reading Oathbringer what with the term "deadeye" being introduced and Adolin's Blade telling him her name and whatnot; though as should not be a major spoiler as everybody expected it, there are indeed Further Developments in that direction in RoW)

Edited December 8, 2020 by robardin