Dalinar's power

[Vortaan]

Because we've seen quite a few fabrials in WoK and none of them are used by acting in accord with something as abstract as a shard's intent. They are all activated or used via simple mechanical means. Explaining Dalinar's glowing shardplate as some kind of new pseudo-fabrial mechanism is contrived in much the same way that it would be contrived to say that maybe Dalinar's plate is glowing because Hoid is making it so; there is no statement in the text that flatly contradicts either idea but at the same time neither idea fits into the SA magic as it has been presented.

Re: Vortaan's post - I agree that there's no good reason to assume that every important character in the SA will be a Knight Radiant, but Dalinar being one isn't the same as saying that all of the important characters are.

As far as a summary of what's going on with Dalinar, I would also add a few comments to Lamguin's post, and restate some of it slightly differently. Specifically:

1) Dalinar's shardplate glows when he is fighting to save Elhokar. Glowing shardplate only otherwise occurs when full Knights Radiant are using shardplate.

2) Dalinar while moving to save Elhokar exhibits "speed and grace no man - not even one wearing shardplate - should be able to manage." [this quote from Adolin's PoV in chapter 13, pg 209 in the US hardcover]. Dalinar is clearly doing something extraordinary here, and if we trust that Adolin is an expert re: shardplate, it isn't the shardplate that's enabling Dalinar to do it.

3) There is no strong evidence for or against use of stormlight by Dalinar.

4) Dalinar has not obviously interacted with a spren. That said, it is worth looking at what goes on inside Dalinar's head in chapter 26 (pg 381 in the US hardcover) when he begins to lose the Thrill while fighting the parshendi. He hears a voice that he cannot explain that whispers regarding shardplate and blades, "Once these weapons meant protecting", and then "Life before death." It's not clear what the voice is, but a spren has to be on the list of possibilities.

Re: point #3 above, it's worth noting that Dalinar's plate is damaged in the same fight where it glows and Dalinar performs physical feats that seem beyond what is normal for shardplate (in Adolin's opinion). It is therefore entirely possible that some part of what Darlinar does uses up a small amount of stormlight, but the leaking of stormlight due to the damage washes out his or anyone else's ability to perceive that a small amount of stormlight was drawm from the gems in the shardplate.

I think it's a bad assumption to assume that Shardplate and fabrials work on the same principles. Even the halfshard shields that have been created do not exhibit the full qualities of Shardplate. And no fabrial so far acts like Shardblades. If we assume that Shardblades and Shardplate have the same source, which I think is fairly safe, then it's a logical assumption to assume that neither are fabrials.

Actually, come to think of it, why wouldn't Shardplate work off of intent? If it was given to the Knights Radiant by the Heralds, would they really want it to be used for man to war against man? Look at the one instance when it glows. He's defending a person from a chasmfiend... coincidentally the same thing that Jasnah finds a picture of labeled "Voidbringer". What if Dalinar's intent to protect someone from the chasmfiend is what caused the Plate to react like it did?

A third point for intent being important: modern fabrials seem to involve the binding of a specific spren into the fabrial to make it work. Considering the Knights Radiant served the Heralds, and the Heralds served Honor, wouldn't honorspren be the logical choice to bind to their armor and weapons to make them powerful? And if so, perhaps those spren react better to honorable intent. It wouldn't change the mechanics of Shardplate, it still works, but it could be the difference between a professional driver behind the wheel of a car, or your average person. The car works the same, but the professional will be able to make it perform better.

[treblkickd]

I think it's a bad assumption to assume that Shardplate and fabrials work on the same principles. Even the halfshard shields that have been created do not exhibit the full qualities of Shardplate. And no fabrial so far acts like Shardblades. If we assume that Shardblades and Shardplate have the same source, which I think is fairly safe, then it's a logical assumption to assume that neither are fabrials.

I agree completely that shardplates are not fabrials, and should not be thought of in the same way. References in WoK that compare fabrials to shardplates and shardblades make it clear that fabrials really aren't in the same stratosphere.

Actually, come to think of it, why wouldn't Shardplate work off of intent? If it was given to the Knights Radiant by the Heralds, would they really want it to be used for man to war against man? Look at the one instance when it glows. He's defending a person from a chasmfiend... coincidentally the same thing that Jasnah finds a picture of labeled "Voidbringer". What if Dalinar's intent to protect someone from the chasmfiend is what caused the Plate to react like it did?

This idea just doesn't make any sense in the context of everything we are shown in WoK. Shardplate glows when Knights Radiant wear it in multiple of Dalinar's visions, including visions where those KR aren't fighting anything evil (e.g. when the KR give up their plate and blades).

A third point for intent being important: modern fabrials seem to involve the binding of a specific spren into the fabrial to make it work. Considering the Knights Radiant served the Heralds, and the Heralds served Honor, wouldn't honorspren be the logical choice to bind to their armor and weapons to make them powerful? And if so, perhaps those spren react better to honorable intent. It wouldn't change the mechanics of Shardplate, it still works, but it could be the difference between a professional driver behind the wheel of a car, or your average person. The car works the same, but the professional will be able to make it perform better.

Intent is, as far as the fandom understands it, one of the crucial pieces involved in magic in the Cosmere. On Roshar, we know that binding to an honorspren grants access to surgebinding (because Kaladin does just this). If Dalinar is also in the process of attracting an honorspren (or some other kind of spren - it doesn't have to be honorspren as we know from Nohadon) then it follows that he would gain access to surgebinding from that bond.

Just stepping back and looking at what happens with Dalinar in WoK, I think the evidence favors Dalinar being on the path toward surgebinding/Radiant abilities. So sure, binding with a(n) (honor)spren seems to grant access to surgebinding/KR powers, and those powers almost certainly include better use of/attunement to shardplate (just as you describe above). Carrying this over to the analogy used re: a professional driver with a car, it is something about the driver that makes the car perform better, just as it is something about Dalinar that makes the plate perform better. It is Knights Radiant (and only Knights Radiant) who we witness in WoK with the high-performance plate, and it is therefore sensible to conclude that if Dalinar is getting high performance results from the plate, then he is at the top of the list of candidates to become a Knight Radiant.

editted for spelling

Edited December 30, 2011 by treblkickd

[Aeshdan]

I think it's a bad assumption to assume that Shardplate and fabrials work on the same principles. Even the halfshard shields that have been created do not exhibit the full qualities of Shardplate. And no fabrial so far acts like Shardblades. If we assume that Shardblades and Shardplate have the same source, which I think is fairly safe, then it's a logical assumption to assume that neither are fabrials.

Actually, come to think of it, why wouldn't Shardplate work off of intent? If it was given to the Knights Radiant by the Heralds, would they really want it to be used for man to war against man? Look at the one instance when it glows. He's defending a person from a chasmfiend... coincidentally the same thing that Jasnah finds a picture of labeled "Voidbringer". What if Dalinar's intent to protect someone from the chasmfiend is what caused the Plate to react like it did?

A third point for intent being important: modern fabrials seem to involve the binding of a specific spren into the fabrial to make it work. Considering the Knights Radiant served the Heralds, and the Heralds served Honor, wouldn't honorspren be the logical choice to bind to their armor and weapons to make them powerful? And if so, perhaps those spren react better to honorable intent. It wouldn't change the mechanics of Shardplate, it still works, but it could be the difference between a professional driver behind the wheel of a car, or your average person. The car works the same, but the professional will be able to make it perform better.

A slightly different way of thinking about it: When Kaladin speaks the Second Oath, he immediately gains greater control and power over the Stormlight. So deliberately choosing Honor allows him to draw more power from Syl. Logically, Honorable actions would also strengthen the bond to the Plate, drawing more power from/through it.

[Aeshdan]

This idea just doesn't make any sense in the context of everything we are shown in WoK. Shardplate glows when Knights Radiant wear it in multiple of Dalinar's visions, including visions where those KR aren't fighting anything evil (e.g. when the KR give up their plate and blades).

editted for spelling

I think taking the Five Oaths grants you a permanent bond with the Plate. And remember that the Plate stopped glowing almost as soon as the Radiants gave it up.

[Wispsy]

i still believe shardplate is a fabrial. Its not even that its necessarily an advanced fabrial, as it predates any fabrials and is infact just a fabrial and the ones we know about on roshar are just very primitive fabrials and they work towards understanding it. In my opinion it is a little like the people on roshar have just started making computers (with stormlight instead of electricity so you can see how its a little different) and i mean like the original computers which were the wonder of their day and all that but really, very very useless as anything but a stepping stone onto greater heights. But on roshar god already dropped a load of the stormlight equivalent of an iPhone (which it turns out is shardplate). These both work on the same basic principles, but if you set your phones up in a head to head draughts(checkers?) battle (chess is too complicated for the original computers) the iPhone is gonna win every time. If you were to look at the iPhone when all you knew how to make was a rly bad computer it would look like magic it would do things that surely werent possible and didnt seem bound by the same rules, as it was made by someone with a far greater understanding of all those rules. But sitting here we can see that they really are the same, following the same rules, based on the same principles but at the same time worlds apart in functionality.

that sounded clearer in my head when i started it but i hope you get the jist of what im trying to say!

[cleric]

Has anyone brought up that shard plate and surgebinding are incompatible. Szeth says in the first chapter that surgebinders cannot use shard plate because they would draw the storm light from the plate leaving it heavy and useless. so Dalinar can not be a surge binder yet. if he was his plate would be useless.

However now that he has given the plate away he might start to become one.

[Voidus]

Has anyone brought up that shard plate and surgebinding are incompatible. Szeth says in the first chapter that surgebinders cannot use shard plate because they would draw the storm light from the plate leaving it heavy and useless. so Dalinar can not be a surge binder yet. if he was his plate would be useless.

However now that he has given the plate away he might start to become one.

The KR's of old all wore Shardplate and had no problems, Szeth actually said that it interfered with his Lashings, this is probably because it's a heavily invested object and so he couldn't Lash himself while wearing it, actual KR's may be able to overcome this. And that wouldn't prevent Dalinar from being a Surgebinder, just from using his abilities on himself.

[dj26792]

the problem with shardplate and surgebingind being incompatible is that they can't be, we see knights radiants doing both, the entire point of the knight radiants was that they have shards and use surgebinding. So Szeth's comment must be in some way wrong. We know that investiture interferes with other investiture but the knights radiants were definitely capable of surgebinding themselves while wearing plate.

[Meg]

Szeth might have other experiences because he -- what is stated somewhere -- is not a 'Radiant-to-be'. Wherever his abilities come from it's another way of gaining access to Stormlight than Kaladin's. He's infusing Stormlight like Kaladin does too. But why he has this ability seems to be based on other premises.

And Szeth didn't only mention that

His Lashings interfered with the gemstones that powered Shardplate, and he had to choose one or the other. (TWoK Prologue)

but it's also said

Then he dropped his Shardblade. ... In this state, the Shardblade would only be a distraction. Szeth himself was the real weapon. (TWoK I-9)

.

So I personally don't think his comment is "wrong". He only has another way of looking at things, and, thus, he is not the right person to be compared with Dalinar or Kaladin.

[Stormfather]

I think people are putting too much emphasis on Dalinar giving away his blade. Syl didn't like them, and that probably affects them with Kaladin in some way, but Remember that Shallan has attracted truth spren and has a shardbalde. It may be that the shardblade will influence things with certain spren, but just because Dalinar had one doesn't mean it kept spren away. It could be something just with shardblades that Syl doesn't like that is more along the lines of it being used to kill in recent years. Or it could be that the shardblade should come from the bond that comes with being a KR and she doesn't like people having them other wise. We don't know yet. But we do know there is one case, Shallan, where she attracted special spren even with a shardblade.

[Dahak]

From an in-story standpoint, Dalinar seems revolted by killing the Parhsendi, which could be reltated to his magic, while Kaladin seems perfectly fine with what he is doing at the end.

I wouldn't say perfectly fine. From Chapter 73 Trust

“That, and I killed a lot of Parshendi today. I found myself regretting their deaths. They showed me more honor than most members of my own army have. I didn’t like the feeling, and I want some time to think about it. The bodyguards I train for you, we’ll go out onto the field, but our primary purpose will be protecting you, not killing Parshendi.”

[Galladon]

I've had a couple of ideas while reading this thread (sorry that it is a little of topic but it's no subject that hasn't been mentioned in this thread before (so, I don't feel that guilty):

1: Is the thrill necessaryly of odium? If hypothetically Alethcar is granted the thrill (and it's warriors doctrin) to create a nation that is skilled enough for the true desolation (as sanpping in Mistborn).

2: I think there is a base afinity towards surge-binding (Kals depressions when there are no highstorms) so maybe Kaladin is special.

3:Plate - Ability - intererance of Seth has nothing to do with Dalinar or Kals interactions with plate and ability (seths power is something differently gained)

4: this is baseless speculation but what if blades and plate are forged form Honour and Odium and have therefor an ambigous nature. So if they are in "good Company"(KR) they gain something and otherwise loose it. (Thought as it is a typcal theme (good and bad complimenting each other) it might have some merit).

Dalinar's power:

I think that he is , as so many before me have stated in that beginning stage where the powers start to manifest. (though I'm not sure if the KR actually could inteact with their spren - Kal beeing special; maybe).

As to the time it took him to atract one- I think till shortly before Kals "bond" it was not possible -(there must have atleast been someone worthy, I mean it was thouthands of years is a long time) - something must have changed. Otherwise how do you suppose 2000 honourable men and women will arise in a couple of years that haven't done so in centuries.

I'm sorry for the spelling and the structure (me beeing german one would expect better structure :lol:/> )

[The Count]

As to the time it took him to atract one- I think till shortly before Kals "bond" it was not possible -(there must have atleast been someone worthy, I mean it was thouthands of years is a long time) - something must have changed. Otherwise how do you suppose 2000 honourable men and women will arise in a couple of years that haven't done so in centuries.

This...

I am more than certain that something has recently happened / changed to allow spren bonds to form again.

From the 2 readings, I think it may be whatever Gavilar did the night he was killed. The main unknown in this is Jasnah and how long she has been able to soulcast.

((Note: I do not think Szeth's abilities come from a spren at all so he could still be badass before whatever Gavilar did))

On Dalinar:

I denitely think he will grow in power, not sure weather he will interact with his spren in the same way as Kal though. Maybe only windrunners ge that level of interaction with their spren ( or maybe Kal is a special case)...

Shallan certainly doesn't have the same kind of bond / relationship with the truthspren as Kal does with Syl. Different for all orders maybe??

Either way, roll on book 2!

[CabbageHead]

IMO, Dalinar is showing us the beginning process of finding his power where Kaladin was showing us how the process changes you and part of the why. (displaying honorable traits) I hope this is comprehensible, since Kaladin was also discovering, but further along than Dalinar.

I would agree with that, but also I would suggest that Kaladin's starting point was further along the path than Dalinar's. Dalinar comes from a priviledged but completely amoral background. Acting with not just a "Code" of honour, but a morally responsible code of ethics, is something that was drilled into Kaladin from an early age. This is even something that Dalinar himself comes to realise about the Alethi people as a whole, and that he expresses in his "lesson" to the King at the end of the book.

Edit: capitalised Code. In Dalinar's case, it is a rulebook to be followed without many questions, until you begin to understand. In Kaladin's case, it is his nature because it has been explained to him throughout his upbringing.

Edited February 16, 2013 by CabbageHead

[Torian'Omil Stonespark]

Hello, I am super new, but I am excited about a place to discuss TWoK...

I have read what everyone has to say on Dalinar, and it is obvious that he has a natural affinity for wearing the plate greater than other Shardbearers, but I will reserve my opinion until at least another book is out. I will reveal my hopes more than a theory...

I more associated this character with Jezrien, King of the Heralds, than any of the other characters thus far revealed, and the "charge" left to Dalinar by his brother to "Find the most important words a man can say." left me kind of wishing that Dalinar would be the "Founder" of the new order of KR.

[KingKong]

Well obviously Dalinar is a Dawnsinger.

[Senor Feesh]

Apologies if this has been discussed already. Trawling database, found this quote regarding the KR glyphpage.

It should be telling that one of them ended up on the front of the book, this is actually the same symbol as one of these, just done in a slightly different style. This is what we call in the books the glyphs, the writing system, they actually can be read phonetically, but they are also partially art.

The inspiration for these that I gave to the artist was the Arabic writing, where people actually, often take words and will do them as designs and these beautiful works of art, changing the words, and that’s what happened with the-you probably can’t see that very well- the embossing on this but that’s what happens with the writing system on this world and so the glyphs will usually will write them in the shape of something and that’s one of the glyphs written in the shape of a sword.

I'm not sure what he's referring to. I don't have a hardcopy, and I'm having trouble seeing a sword-shaped glyph in Whelan's artwork. Is there an embossed glyph on the hardcover? If so, what does it look like?

Edit: I mention this because I assume that's Dalinar on the cover, and this could be relevant to his best fit KR order.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Senor Feesh

[Elwynn]

Not sure exactly what you're missing, but if you don't have a hardcopy, hit up Isaac Stewart's website. He has very nice pics of all the art in the book, as well as a compilation pic that is not in the book.

You'll see the sword glyphs and the one imprinted on the hard cover (not the dust jacket), which corresponds to the top-right glyph of the Radiant Order glyphs. It represents the Windrunner order and Kaladin developing in to one since this was his book.

[Senor Feesh]

Ah, thanks Elwynn - I didn't think to ask about the actual cover (as opposed to the dustjacket). I have the UK paperbacks, which have art by Sam Green. So the Glyph-sword in question is the same one as the internal sword on the first and fifth books, which was tied to the Windrunner symbol over in... another thread I can't seem to find now, but would have linked to otherwise. :/

In which case, would have nothing to do with Dalinar after all, (my misunderstanding).

[False]

Hey All, I'm also new to the forum and the books (read them both twice within a few months) and want to add my 2 cents.  

 

WoR spoilers

I'm sure someone already made mention of this but Dalinar is undoubtedly a Knight Radiant although his spren and all his powers are yet to manifest.  One piece that caught my attention was when he was wounded at during the Everstorm battle at the end of WoR and the medic, after seeing his horribly scarred shoulder, asks him how he is able to move his arm.  While the scars may not have healed from stormlight, he is able to use his arm without stiffness or pain.  This MUST be a result of him healing his internal scarring although the external scars are still present (similar to Kaladin's scar on his forehead).

 

Forgive me if someone else already made this point, I only read the first few posts.  Keep up the theorizing, this series is FANTASTIC and I am so glad I found another series that keeps me reading over and over again similar to the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Moogle
tagged wor spoilers.

[happyman]

Holy thread necromancy, Batman.