[Theory] Honorblades are deadeyes (or something like them)

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

Investiture, when you have enough in one place, tends to gain sentience. The honorblades are splinters of Honor he made himself, and clearly quite invested. Each generation of blade since them- sprenblades and nightblood- has been sentient. Spren figured out the radiant bond when trying to replicate honorblades- but why did they try to replicate them? What made spren look at an inanimate sword and go "i could do that", unless the swords were, in fact, something similar to them. To me, it would just make sense if the honorblades, too, were sentient. So why haven't we seen this sentience? Well, for the same reason people didn't know pre-radiant-return shardblades were sentient: cause they're dead. They died, probably, when the heralds gave up the oathpact.

This would leave one honorblade still alive, Taln's honorblade, one that we haven't seen yet and clearly has *something* going on behind the scenes. (Primarily, who swapped it out for a normal shardblade after taln returned? Where is it now?)

We haven't seen shardblades in the cognitive realm, and it's like our radiants have had a lot of opportunity to either. They lost the honorblade before they figured out how to go to shadesmar. It's not like the radiants would have to be dumb and not think to check what honorblades look like after they knew spren were different in the cognitive. (Technically there was a couple-month period where Jasnah could have checked, but I think it's a lot more believable for one person in a couple months to not think of this than a whole city in a year). There's also a cheeky WoB about honorblade's 10 heartbeat limitation

Quote

treegrass

How long does it take to summon an Honorblade? Is it ten heartbeats or instant?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Honorblades, as far as anyone knows is ten sec- ten heartbeats. If you were to ask Szeth how long it would take, he would say ten heartbeats.

treegrass

But they're not?

Brandon Sanderson

I am not saying that. I am saying if you ask Szeth, if you ask the current bearer of Jezrien's Blade, they would all say it takes ten heartbeats.

Questioner 2

What about for the Heralds?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO there.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

My assumption for a while was that the reason for this was about perception. They thought it would take 10 heartbeats, so it did. But in the Vyre interlude, we see him going "Adolin was able to summon his blade in less than 10 heartbeats. There must be a way I can too" and actively trying, to no avail. And the shin have more experience with honorblades than they do shardblades- and i doubt the 10 heartbeat thing is that common of knowledge among people without shardblades, so why would they think this limitation exists? So maybe they actually *do* have a 10 heartbeat limitation, because they're deadeyes.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Stormtide_Leviathan

[Frustration]

The Honorblades are sentient, but they do not have spren like manifestations 

Spoiler

Fluffy (paraphrased)

When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 15, 2022)

 

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

40 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

The Honorblades are sentient, but they do not have spren like manifestations 

 

Huh interesting. That still doesn't rule out the possibility that that self-awareness was damaged by the heralds giving up the oathpact or something, but it doesn't really point toward it either

[Marabout]

If the blades take 10 seconds to summon for everyone Except for their respective Herald then maybe the sentience of the blades is from a splinter of the Heralds themselves.  

[Beodrakis he/him]

I believe that the honorblades are like nightblood, sentient, but not mobile. when they were alive, they probably would have talked to their owner. Like Nightblood talks to Szeth.

[Marabout]

Nightblood is a special case.  It was made from a thousand tiny shards of different people (breaths).  Which is probably why it’s personality is so unstable (also because it was created with a very vague command).

Azure’s blade i theorize was made from a single Returned breath (divine breath).

The Heralds we’re likely highly invested and may even have been cognitive shadows by the time the Honorblades were made.  Although it’s been stated that Honorblades are made from Honor’s own investiture, each one may also contain a shard of the Herald they were made for.  Kind of a proto-Nahel bond between Honor and the Heralds.  This proto-bond would be what gave Spren the idea for the Nahel bond (what they were trying to replicate).