Another Ishar Theory: His Plan and Possible Significance of Honorblades

[ArchangelCaesar]

In RoW, we get a more information on the whereabouts of Honorblades from multiple different sources. We get enough random Honorblades that it feels like Brandon is signposting something.

What if the Honorblades are keys to making new Heralds? Being that the Honorblades are required in order to connect new Heralds to the Oathpact?
Additionally, we have a super simple way to get new Heralds: Rysn as the Change Dawnshard.

The Plan is to Change the Oathpact with Rysn (possibly revealing some history of the Dawnshard.
To do this, you need the ten Honorblades and the Dawnshard and then Dalinar, as a Bondsmith, could take up the Dawnshard and command the Oathpact to Change the bearers of the Oathpact, who could renew it by going back to Braize. 
Or there is another person who could possibly pick up the Dawnshard, but that's a Spoiler for SP 4.

[Olmund]

Perhaps. That would be one way to bring the sleepless into the picture for SA5, from a narrative perspective.

That said, the Stormfather in the SA5 prologue seems to think there may be another (perhaps simpler) way to renew the oathpact. It's possible that he, too, was counting on the dawnshard -- but it's more likely that as the largest splinter of Honor's investiture he's able to do much more than he lets on.

[cometaryorbit]

I don't think Rysn can really use the Dawnshard to Change anything- without her having access to Surgebinding (or another Invested Art) it's mostly passive or dormant - just giving her Heightening-like passive benefits of being very heavily Invested.

[Rg2045]

Also we don’t know if there ever will be a new oathpact. I think it was said to give us a misdirection, a way to bring odium to the bargaining table so to speak. But navani fulfilled that role with the anti light. 
now I can see the oathpact being repaired in some way. To heal the heralds

[ArchangelCaesar]

On 7/27/2022 at 4:38 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think Rysn can really use the Dawnshard to Change anything- without her having access to Surgebinding (or another Invested Art) it's mostly passive or dormant - just giving her Heightening-like passive benefits of being very heavily Invested.

Of course, but she could momentarily hand off the Dawnshard or Connect in someway to the Stormfather because handy dandy Bondsmith powers. The real question is if the Sleepless will allow this to happen

On 7/27/2022 at 6:18 PM, Rg2045 said:

Also we don’t know if there ever will be a new oathpact. 

I've been leaning this way as a good ending to SA 5 for years. It would be a good but tragic ending would be having ten individuals (ish) sacrifice themselves to be tortured on Braize and then the back half is trying to find an actual better solution. I think there are enough signposts in the story-telling with the way he has been teasing the Oathpact and then now we have Taln and Ash with Jasnah and possibly a briefly sane Ishar possibly appearing in SA 5.  

[Returned]

It's possible that a new Oathpact will happen, though I still doubt it. I especially doubt that Ishar would be the one pursuing it, since he has had a front-row seat to how the previous Oathpact didn't work. It's not even clear that a new one is possible, now that the Everstorm exists. Why go to so much trouble to reproduce a failed solution that had such devastating consequences for you and your friends?

One of the few solid clues we have about what Ishar is up to involves

Spoiler

Bringing spren from the cognitive realm directly into the physical, which is a big deal.

For me any theory that doesn't account for this new, bizarre thing is suspect. Although I don't have any good ideas for what he'll accomplish with it (yet!).

[Yumiya]

4 hours ago, Returned said:

Bringing spren from the cognitive realm directly into the physical, which is a big deal.

 

4 hours ago, Returned said:

Although I don't have any good ideas for what he'll accomplish with it (yet!).

Hmm, being able to pull over unkillable forces that you could then press gang into an army sounds useful, if horrible, during a war with reincarnating foes.  

Or he could be trying to take hostages in order to force spren into Radiant Bonds to increase his number of loyal surgebinders. 

Maybe he simply thought he could force Odium into the Physical and kill him that way (unlikely). 

[Returned]

19 hours ago, Yumiya said:

Hmm, being able to pull over unkillable forces that you could then press gang into an army sounds useful, if horrible, during a war with reincarnating foes.  

Or he could be trying to take hostages in order to force spren into Radiant Bonds to increase his number of loyal surgebinders. 

Maybe he simply thought he could force Odium into the Physical and kill him that way (unlikely). 

Interesting ideas! The spren were, as I recall, dead (or seemed dead). Maybe that's something he was trying to fix through experimentation. I think we should also be open to the possibility that he's not behaving in any rational way due to his madness; whatever his plan, if he has one, might not make sense at all. I'd bet that there is more to it than that, though.

[cometaryorbit]

5 hours ago, Returned said:

Interesting ideas! The spren were, as I recall, dead (or seemed dead). Maybe that's something he was trying to fix through experimentation.

Yes, I think that's the idea - he can bring them through but can't yet make them survive, but was working on it.