About Spren and Splinters

[Jules❤️]

Contains spoilers for anything from Oathbringer and before: 

Hello everyone ❤️ I just want to say that I am brand new to this forum and still haven’t finished Oathbringer, so if I get anything wrong then that’s why haha. Anyways, I was curious on what exactly Spren are and how they came to be. So I know that the Spren are supposed to be the embodiment of people‘a conception of certain things, but they are also splinters of Honor, killed by Odium. So they are splinters, but it says on the Coppermind wiki that Spren existed before humans even came to Roshar, so did Honor die during the time of the Dawnsingers? Or did he still exist, and if so, then how are Spren splinters of Honor if Honor wasn’t dead at the time? Did Honor create the splinters himself??

[Quantus]

Splinters, like spren, are little pieces of shards that have been broken off, but there are several ways that can happen. The Shard can voluntarily break them off and mold it for some purpose, or they can be broken off in the process of the shard being Shattered. The Honorblades are Splinters that Honor pulled off by choice as a way to empower the Heralds, for example, but they arent as "awake" as a full spren.  Minor Elantris Spoiler:

Spoiler

Seons are a very spren-like and were created as a side-effect of the Shattering of the Shards on that world (Devotion and Dominion).

Spren are Investiture that has gain a level of sentience (as distinct from 'Sapience' which is the term he uses for those with human-level intelligence) that existed on Roshar as part of it's ecosystem before the Honor was even created in the Shattering of Adonalsium (who in turn created the very artificial and/or unnatural planetary system of roshar).  Honor and Cultivation sort of inherited them and settled the world (not sure which came first, honestly).  In Adonalsium's time there werent any Sapient ones allowed to exist, but the animal-ish ones  were around, as was the Highstorm (but maybe not the Stormfaher, I dont think we know).  Now they are all a blend of Honor and Cultivation, with some Odium being added to the mix for Voidspren, but Odium seems to like to take existing raw materials and work from there (as with the Fused). 

 

 

[Treamayne]

Welcome to the Forums. In case you may be unfamilair with some tools available to you, I hope this helps (ignore if you know all of this already):

Spoiler

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Hope that helps.

1 hour ago, Jules❤️ said:

I was curious on what exactly Spren are and how they came to be.

@Quantus Hit many of the highlights, but to summarize the relevant bit:

Regular Rosharan Spren (flamespren, emotion spren, etc) have existed since Roshar was created (and were likely created by Adonalsium). The Sapient Spren that form Nahel bonds with humans to make Radiants were created by Honor and Cultivation after they arrived in Roshar.

I don't know how far into Oathbringer you are, but Syl references this is Ch 7:

Spoiler

Everything has a spren. His mother had taught him that from an early age.

“So … some of my spears have been women, then?” he asked.

“Female, at least,” Syl said. “Roughly half, as these things tend to go.” She flitted up into the air in front of him. “It’s your fault for personifying us, so no complaining. Of course, some of the old spren have four genders instead of two.”

“What? Why?”

She poked him in the nose. “Because humans didn’t imagine those ones, silly.” 

 

Edited June 5, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Argenti]

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

(but maybe not the Stormfaher, I dont think we know)

He was around. Essentially the Storm was around, but not the Father. In layman's terms, he was around, but not particularly self-aware. I imagine he was closer to a lesser spren than a true one.

[Quantus]

2 hours ago, Argenti said:

He was around. Essentially the Storm was around, but not the Father. In layman's terms, he was around, but not particularly self-aware. I imagine he was closer to a lesser spren than a true one.

The Storm existed. It may or may not have had a spren incarnation at all, we just dont know.

[Argenti]

13 minutes ago, Quantus said:

The Storm existed. It may or may not have had a spren incarnation at all, we just dont know.

The Stormfather is a vital part of the highstorm... He doesn't just control the storm; he is the storm. He powers it's motion and generates all the stormlight. The Singers have a different name for him, which definitely implies he was around before. And also, everything on roshar has a spren, especially something as big and influential as the highstorms.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Argenti

[Quantus]

9 hours ago, Argenti said:

The Stormfather is a vital part of the highstorm... He doesn't just control the storm; he is the storm. He powers it's motion and generates all the stormlight. The Singers have a different name for him, which definitely implies he was around before.

Agreed, but that's still the post-shattering era.  We don't know what if any roll the Storm had in the Investiture ecosystem before that, or whether Adonalsium used a spren for any piece instead of handling it personally.

9 hours ago, Argenti said:

And also, everything on roshar has a spren, especially something as big and influential as the highstorms.

That's one in-world theory.  The competing one is that spren are attracted and then Connected to their namesakes rather than being a literal incarnation of the bead-objects that anchor them more like the human radiant in a Nahel bond.

[Argenti]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

That's one in-world theory.  The competing one is that spren are attracted and then Connected to their namesakes rather than being a literal incarnation of the bead-objects that anchor them more like the human radiant in a Nahel bond.

No? Everything in the cosmere has a cognitive aspect. No matter if it's scadrial or roshar. "Spren" doesn't just mean stuff like honorspren, flamespren or the unmade, the stick also has a "spren". If a stick has  a spren so does the giant storm.

[JohnnyKaizen]

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

Agreed, but that's still the post-shattering era.  We don't know what if any roll the Storm had in the Investiture ecosystem before that, or whether Adonalsium used a spren for any piece instead of handling it personally.

I am not sure how spoiler-y this is, but talking about greatshells and ecology and whatnot

Spoiler

The storm almost certainly was depositing investiture at everypassing, otherwise every creature with a gemheart wouldn't have been able to exist. And, since we know there was life on Roshar pre-shattering, I would tend to agree that the Highstorm did provide investiture, and most likely had some sort of (what we'd now call "lesser") spren that eventually became the Stormfather. 

 

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, Argenti said:

No? Everything in the cosmere has a cognitive aspect. No matter if it's scadrial or roshar. "Spren" doesn't just mean stuff like honorspren, flamespren or the unmade, the stick also has a "spren". If a stick has  a spren so does the giant storm.

Rosharans use the term "spren" for both, yeah.

Spren in the proper cosmere-aware sense are Splinters, though, and the beads of objects aren't that kind of spren - they're just Cognitive aspects.

But I do think the Stormfather/Rider of Storms existed in a not fully sapient form before the Shattering, because he's just so key to how the highstorm works... but was probably so different that it's arguable whether that was the same entity as the current Stormfather.

The Adonalsium-era spren apparently mostly became "of" Cultivation after the Shattering, presumably because they're tied to nature and the growth of life on Roshar (in gemhearts, etc).

It's not clear (at least to me) whether the Investiture distributed by the highstorm was "of" Honor before Honor arrived on the planet, though. Honor Investing the planet might have replaced the Investiture already there.

[Argenti]

32 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Rosharans use the term "spren" for both, yeah.

Spren in the proper cosmere-aware sense are Splinters, though, and the beads of objects aren't that kind of spren - they're just Cognitive aspects.

But I do think the Stormfather/Rider of Storms existed in a not fully sapient form before the Shattering, because he's just so key to how the highstorm works... but was probably so different that it's arguable whether that was the same entity as the current Stormfather.

The Adonalsium-era spren apparently mostly became "of" Cultivation after the Shattering, presumably because they're tied to nature and the growth of life on Roshar (in gemhearts, etc).

It's not clear (at least to me) whether the Investiture distributed by the highstorm was "of" Honor before Honor arrived on the planet, though. Honor Investing the planet might have replaced the Investiture already there.

Yeah, something like the stormfather was around, but honor has changed him quite a bit

[JohnnyKaizen]

31 minutes ago, Argenti said:

Yeah, something like the stormfather was around, but honor has changed him quite a bit

He was the stormchild back then.

[Argenti]

35 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

He was the stormchild back then.

stormbaby