How do you think the Shin Keep the Honorblades?

[arandomperson1234]

I think it was mentioned that Szeth’s family was in charge of maintaining them, with Szeth wielding the Windrunner blade and his father wielding the Bondsmith blade. Were the other blades just stored somewhere, or were they all being carried somehow? Did others know they had the blades? I remember reading that Szeth trained with all the blades, which makes me think that at least some of the blades were not actively used (which would make swapping easier). How do you bond an honorblade, anyways? Bridge 10 was passing one around for a while, which implies the process is fairly fast, and Moash/Vyre is able to fly immediately after receiving that blade.

Edited February 28, 2023 by arandomperson1234

[NameIess]

I think that the Honorblade are guarded by people such as Szeth and his family, who are trained in the use of them.

[alder24]

It seems that some members of the Shin society have the opportunity to train with them and be their "guardians’. By making Szeth take a Honorblade as a Truthless, they imply to have an ability to retrieve it from anyone who gets it (with Elsecallser's blade for sure). Shins are possibly keeping them to give them back to Heralds when they return, like Nale and Ishar got his blades back.

SA5 chapters:

Spoiler

There are temples where Honorblades are kept and guarded, the general population knows about them, and that Honorblades are there as well, and that Guardians train with them. However Honorblades are not there to be used to kill (as Shins despise killing).

There were also times when Shins invaded rest of the Roshar, and they used Honorblades and Surges during invasions:

Quote

Zykai (paraphrased)

Did the Shin use Honorblades in their invasions? If yes, did they also use Surges?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes and yes.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

 

[+Harrycrapper]

I'm not completely sure how they behave when they're unbonded, but the fact that Szeth was able to train on all the ones the Shin had seems to indicate they give Surgebinding abilities regardless of whether they're bonded or not. Either that, or there was some sort of rotation where they switched off, though I can't fathom why they would do that. I suspect bonding it is a similar process to bonding one of the deadeye Shardblades, just speculation on my part though. As for Bridge 4, none of them bonded the thing, that's why it was able to be stolen like it was. Simply holding it granted the Windrunner Surges and the ability to draw in Stormlight much like (spoilers for Mistborn era 2, specifically Bands of Mourning) 

Spoiler

holding a Malwish medallion grants Feruchemical abilities. Or how the Bands of Mourning granted every Allomantic or Feruchemical power. 

 

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I'm not completely sure how they behave when they're unbonded, but the fact that Szeth was able to train on all the ones the Shin had seems to indicate they give Surgebinding abilities regardless of whether they're bonded or not.

You can bond and unbond them at will, like Szeth did at the end of WoR. It's not a permanent bond like with spren. They can just unbond the blade and give it to someone to train with it, like bridgemen did in OB.

 

[Wandering Shade]

On 2/28/2023 at 5:59 PM, Harrycrapper said:

I'm not completely sure how they behave when they're unbonded, but the fact that Szeth was able to train on all the ones the Shin had seems to indicate they give Surgebinding abilities regardless of whether they're bonded or not. Either that, or there was some sort of rotation where they switched off, though I can't fathom why they would do that. I suspect bonding it is a similar process to bonding one of the deadeye Shardblades, just speculation on my part though. As for Bridge 4, none of them bonded the thing, that's why it was able to be stolen like it was. Simply holding it granted the Windrunner Surges and the ability to draw in Stormlight

We know this is not true. You have to be bonded to the Honorblade to use its powers. Simply holding it does nothing, its just a Blade.

We even know that Bridge 4 was bonded to the blade, because they were hiding it by having it de-summoned. That requires being bonded to it. Bonding to an Honorblade is not hard at all, from what we've seen. We watched Rock do it, it took him seconds. It was stolen by killing the person who was had been bonded to it, Eth btw, and then taking it off his corpse.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Wandering Shade