Shardplate Spren

[hungryMishim Bridgeman]

I’m sure this (or similar) has been posted before, but I’ve been enjoying thinking about it so I’m posting here for discussion opportunity.

 

We have a couple of confirmed cases now of living shardplate. Kaladin swears the fourth ideal and gains his shardplate, composed of windspren. Jasnah’s living plate is confirmed to be made of logicspren. (1)

 

What makes a spren a likely candidate to make up a radiant’s sharplate (based on Kaladin and Jasnah’s examples):

•  The radiant is commonly around this type of spren, or vice versa

•  The spren is attracted to things the radiant does (such as windspren appearing when Kaladin “flies”)

•  The spren is not a “higher” spren

 

More criteria that are my personal opinion only:

•  Not an emotion spren. My reasoning is that emotions are fickle and fleeting, and thus attracting emotion spren would be inconsistent. Gloryspren fall into this category.

•  Not an “unsavory” spren, such as rotspren, deathspren, plaguespren, decayspren. My reasoning is that these would be less likely to be “attracted” to things the radiants do.

 

Here is a breakdown of confirmed shardplate and my guesses. What are your thoughts?

 

Confirmed:

•  Windrunners = windspren

•  Elsecallers = logicspren

 

Likely:

•  Edgedancers = lifespren

•  Lightweavers = creationspren

 

Personal guesses:

•  Willshapers = musicspren (I’m basing this solely on the fact that the stones “sing” to Venli)

•  Dustbringers = flamespren

•  Skybreakers = starspren

•  Bondsmiths = bindspren (2), or possibly a different spren type for each bondsmith 

 

No idea, maybe a spren we haven’t seen yet:

•  Truthwatchers

•  Stonewards

 

Other potential shardplate candidates:

•  Concentrationspren

•  Gravitationspren (3)

•  Luckspren (4)

 

(1) Jasnah’s shardplate is confirmed to be made of logicspren in a WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14477

(2) Bindspren are the tiny spren Kaladin sees sticking a rock to a wall when he uses a full lashing in Way of Kings chapter 57.

(3) Gravitation spren are found around heavy objects. They are used by singers to take on work form.

(4) Luckspren are arrow-shaped and bond to greatshells and larkins.

[Invocation Mistborn]

If they weren't true spren, I'd say keenspren would probably be Truthwatcher Platespren, but that doesn't work. Might be anticipationspren or persuasionspren, since on some level Truthwatchers are connected to seeing things and predicting things and disbursing information about those things. Stonewards are probably groundspren or concentrationspren.

[Elegy Stone Shaman]

There's some interesting discussion about it in this thread:

It's in the general Cosmere discussion forum though. I think there's some really good ideas in there.

[Quantus Most Ancient]

2 hours ago, hungryMishim said:

More criteria that are my personal opinion only:

•  Not an emotion spren. My reasoning is that emotions are fickle and fleeting, and thus attracting emotion spren would be inconsistent. Gloryspren fall into this category.

•  Not an “unsavory” spren, such as rotspren, deathspren, plaguespren, decayspren. My reasoning is that these would be less likely to be “attracted” to things the radiants do.

Fun!  Forgive me while I challenge the assumptions a bit.

 

I am entirely convinced that Bondsmith Plate will be made of Gloryspren, on the basis of how they were congregating in huge numbers around Dalinar in very much the same way the Windspren were congregating around Kaladin from OB onward. Also, I would classify Logicspren and Creationspren as the same sort of "Passions"/emotion class of spren as the more classic spren like Fearspren.  The two categories being those that represent Cognitive concepts and those that represent Physical ones.  

I dont think the Emotionspren are more fickle so much as they are simply less common in the Physical Realm because Humans are more fickle/fleeting than the natural things, so they are pulled into the Physical Realm less often and for shorter periods.  But the Spren in Shadesmar felt that way about Windspren Kaladin was attracting, who spend more time in the Physical Realm.

EDIT:  I hit post before I got to the second one.  I think "Unsavory" might be a wildly subjective thing that could still be compatible with certain Orders.  Decayspren in particular might makes as much sense as Firespren for Dustbringer, for example, since Division can do either, and the particular Surge use in both cases is "Decay" as an equivalent to "Full Lashing" or "ReGrowth".

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Quantus

[hungryMishim Bridgeman]

3 hours ago, Quantus said:

Fun!  Forgive me while I challenge the assumptions a bit.

 

I am entirely convinced that Bondsmith Plate will be made of Gloryspren, on the basis of how they were congregating in huge numbers around Dalinar in very much the same way the Windspren were congregating around Kaladin from OB onward. Also, I would classify Logicspren and Creationspren as the same sort of "Passions"/emotion class of spren as the more classic spren like Fearspren.  The two categories being those that represent Cognitive concepts and those that represent Physical ones.  

I dont think the Emotionspren are more fickle so much as they are simply less common in the Physical Realm because Humans are more fickle/fleeting than the natural things, so they are pulled into the Physical Realm less often and for shorter periods.  But the Spren in Shadesmar felt that way about Windspren Kaladin was attracting, who spend more time in the Physical Realm.

EDIT:  I hit post before I got to the second one.  I think "Unsavory" might be a wildly subjective thing that could still be compatible with certain Orders.  Decayspren in particular might makes as much sense as Firespren for Dustbringer, for example, since Division can do either, and the particular Surge use in both cases is "Decay" as an equivalent to "Full Lashing" or "ReGrowth".

 

I didn’t realize the Dustbringer’s ability is called decay! That’s an excellent case for decayspren being a candidate for their shardplate.

[Harrycrapper Forger]

4 hours ago, Quantus said:

I am entirely convinced that Bondsmith Plate will be made of Gloryspren, on the basis of how they were congregating in huge numbers around Dalinar in very much the same way the Windspren were congregating around Kaladin from OB onward. 

I'm going to back this up with Elhokar's comment from early in TWoK where he said that he only seems to see Gloryspren around Dalinar. 

[Cocoa Gyorn]

Looks like @Quantus beat me to the points about gloryspren, emotionspren, and decayspren xD

My personal guesses for the Truthwatchers are either awespren (just since they're sort of misty and awe seems like an appropriate match thematically for people trying to discover things), concentrationspren (good for an order of scholars), or anticipationspren (again, discoveries).

In regards to us not having seen or at least heard of all the cousin spren yet, it's a possibility, but there is this WoB:

Quote

Daniel Greene

Are there thousands of more spren that you have planned out and know what they look like? Or are those just, as you’re writing them in the moment, “This is what the spren’s gonna look like.”

Brandon Sanderson

At this point, we’ve gotten through all the ones that I’ve preplanned, and at this point, I toss new ones in now and then. Usually, I only do that in large measure if we’ve gone to a new location. Because you have seen the spren that inhabit the area of the Shattered Plains in Shadesmar, but there can be emotion spren… like, I’m doing awespren more often in this book, and there’s a new one in this book, but everyone’s in Urithiru. Different place, you can attract different types of emotionspren. Different Shadesmar ecology.

Waterstones RoW Release Event (Nov. 18, 2020)

Which isn't totally conclusive, of course. He might have specifically avoided pre-planning the cousin spren for some orders to give himself wiggle room later, and according to other WoBs mistspren weren't even originally intended to be the Truthwatcher spren, so there's plenty of room for things to change as the series gets written.

[Halyo_Alex Cryptic]

One of my slightly more obscure guesses is that Joyspren are the Willshaper plate spren, the logic being, well, what's more joyous than freedom?

[Quantus Most Ancient]

8 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

One of my slightly more obscure guesses is that Joyspren are the Willshaper plate spren, the logic being, well, what's more joyous than freedom?

From a purely thematic stance I really hope this is in Venli's future...

[Ciridae Svrakiss]

12 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

One of my slightly more obscure guesses is that Joyspren are the Willshaper plate spren, the logic being, well, what's more joyous than freedom?

I agree, if you look at the painting of Kalak, the little spren near the bottom of of the image fit the joyspren description really well, and so far we've seen other Herald paintings include platespren that are pretty much confirmed for those orders, like Jezrien and the windspren and Ishar and the gloryspren. 

So yeah, I also think joyspren are the Willshaper platespren

[Chinkoln Prime]

I would like to point out that on the coppermind, all the spread are classified as lesser spren, including the 2 that have been confirmed to become Shardplate for an order

RoW

Spoiler

Logicspren for Elsecallers and Windspren for Windrunners.

My personal opinions are that Windspren will be Windrunners, Logicspren will be Elsecallers, Creationspren will be Lightweavers, Lifespren will be Edgedancers, Gloryspren will be Bondsmiths, Passionspren will be Willshapers, and Bindspren will be Skybreaker. I haven’t really thought about any other orders.