Bondsmith Spren and Mythology

[Mimiddle04]

I don't understand where this theory is coming from. Cucicesh, the Stormfather, and Nightwatcher are all different types of spren. KR bond one type of spren, and each Order's spren is made of a percent of Honor and a percent of Cultivation. This percent should not vary amongst spren in the orders. If the Nightwatcher and the Stormfather are of differing Shards (which everyone agrees, I think), then they can't possibly both be the spren for the Bondsmiths. The evidence points towards all Bondsmiths sharing the Stormfather. This would also explain why there were so few of them.

 

 

I mostly agree with you about this point but have a question.  If each spren has to be the same type how can there be more than one Bondsmith?  Isn't there only one Stormfather?  Or can he bond multiple Knights?  

 

So, in thinking about the Bondsmiths and their spren, and thinking about how Dalinar bonded with the Stormfather I got to thinking:

 

There are lots of theories that there are only three bonsmiths.  And that their spren are special.

 

So Start with Stormfather = Zeus = Lightning Bolt / The Heavens as a symbol.

 

Then go (this is where I started, actually) to Cusicesh = Posiedon = The Oceans

 

And to The Nightwatcher = Hades = The underworld

 

And, in Greek / Roman mythology, those three are the "big three"

 

 

Admittedly, the Nightwatcher is the most shaky in terms of alignment, but I can do enough mental gymnastics to see how maybe going and asking Hades for a Boon would get you a curse as well....

 

So, now is when you all come in and tell me that there is already WoB and to RAFO.

 

 

I don't disagree with the fact that a "big three" theory might fit well with Greek or Roman mythology, but other than that I'd say this is a bit of a stretch.  

 

Nightwatcher is generally associated with Cultivation, and that's almost the opposite of Hates.  

 

There is also the Cusicesh; some people worship it, but no one really interacts with it as far as we know.  The Stormfather and Nightwatcher are both able to communicate, and actively do so, while Cusichesh doesn't do any more than a normal spren.  It appears, goes through its faces, and disappears again.  So I would say Cusichesh is a lesser spren than Nightwatcher or Stormfather.

 

Last I'd mention that there can be more or less than 3 Bondsmiths.  The quote is "they had members only three, which number was not uncommon for them."  To me this means their numbers changed.  I guess that could mean it never exceeds 3 and could be 1 or 2.  But the quote about Bondsmiths goes on to state that "Their spren was understood to be specific, and to persuade them to grow to the magnitude of the other orders was seen as seditious."  This quote implies it was possible to grow the order but they wouldn't do so because it was "seditious."  So there would have to be more than just 3 spren, unless each spren could bond multiple people.

 

I know none of these things are WoB and they don't take away from the association with having a "big three" so to speak, but I think it makes it unlikely some of the more direct associations you assert are true.

[Moogle]

I mostly agree with you about this point but have a question.  If each spren has to be the same type how can there be more than one Bondsmith?  Isn't there only one Stormfather?  Or can he bond multiple Knights?  

 

My conclusion would be that he can bond multiple Knights. Most spren seem to have a range limitation (Syl says she'd lose herself if she went too far from Kaladin) which would probably break their bonds if they tried to bond multiple people, but the Stormfather continues on his merry way across the continent every week or so with no problems. Being super powerful has its perks.

[Bort]

I'd lean the other way Moogle. I think Bondsmiths each bond a unique Spren as it was said that the Bondsmiths were among the most diverse of the radiant orders, and each of their members were unique (at least, I think I'm recalling this correctly). Nowhere does it state that every Radiant in an order has to be bonded to the same type of Spren.

 

I can understand why people would make that assumption, but it is possible that the more unique Spren have their own set of abilities which are shared between them, like all Honourspren share abilities, perhaps all Godspren do too.

[Mimiddle04]

My conclusion would be that he can bond multiple Knights. Most spren seem to have a range limitation (Syl says she'd lose herself if she went too far from Kaladin) which would probably break their bonds if they tried to bond multiple people, but the Stormfather continues on his merry way across the continent every week or so with no problems. Being super powerful has its perks.

 

I don't know if it makes a difference.  But that was before she was fully bonded to him.  He hadn't even said the first ideal at that point.  She might be able to go a longer distance after he says more, or all, of the ideals.

[Moogle]

I'd lean the other way Moogle. I think Bondsmiths each bond a unique Spren as it was said that the Bondsmiths were among the most diverse of the radiant orders, and each of their members were unique (at least, I think I'm recalling this correctly). Nowhere does it state that every Radiant in an order has to be bonded to the same type of Spren.

 

I don't recall this on the Bondsmiths. Are you thinking of the Willshapers?

 

And now, if there was an uncut gem among the Radiants, it was the Willshapers; for though enterprising, they were erratic, and Invia wrote of them, “capricious, frustrating, unreliable,” as taking it for granted that others would agree; this may have been an intolerant view, as often Invia expressed, for this order was said to be most varied, inconsistent in temperament save for a general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity.

 

As to the spren thing, bonding a Nahel spren is the same as attracting any regular spren - if you act honorable, you get an honorspren, etc. The Bondsmiths appear to be all about uniting men, be it by being leaders or whatever, so they should be attracting the sort of spren that cares about that - which, so far as we know, is Honor's spren (the Stormfather). WoB:

Q:  When does a person become a Surgebinder? Because Kaladin talks about when he was a child, about it being a familiar feeling, and Shallan obviously was younger. Or is it when they speak the Words?

A:  The bond starts forming before the words are spoken, but if the words are never spoken that bond will eventually evaporate and get broken. But the bond will start forming before. Just like an emotion attracts a spren, acting in the way that the spren you would eventually bond will start drawing them toward you and that will start to create that bond.

(source)

 

Because of this, you aren't going to get multiple different types of spren for one Order. You don't attract joyspren by being angry, for example, so we shouldn't expect someone to be able to bond multiple types of spren when you act like a uniting-people-person.

 

I can understand why people would make that assumption, but it is possible that the more unique Spren have their own set of abilities which are shared between them, like all Honourspren share abilities, perhaps all Godspren do too.

 

Godspren aren't a type of spren like honorspren or angerspren are, so I don't believe this comparison is valid at all. Honorspren are spren attracted to people acting honorable/defending others/being leaders, painspren are spren attracted to pain - Godspren are not attracted to anything in particular, because the category has to do with power levels. "Godspren" are a different sort of category all together, and so far as we know the power level of a spren has very little to do with the sorts of people it bonds, which is what we'd care about when figuring out what Bondsmiths bond.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Moogle

[taveren]

seems like everyone just glossed over my post

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

My problem with Moogle's reasoning is that it requires assumptions about the Bondsmith's based on what we know of other Orders like Windrunners and Lightweavers.  Moogle reasons that because we know from Windrunners and Lightweavers that an Order only bonds one type of spren, and those spren are made up of a percent of Honor and a percent of Cultivation, that Bondsmiths can not bond both the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher, and instead its more likely that the three Bondsmiths share the Stormfather.

 

The problem as I see it, is pretty much the only thing we DO know for sure about the Bondsmiths is that they differ greatly from the other Orders.  There are only three Bondsmiths at a time, the only spren bonded to a Bondsmith thus far is the Stormfather, a godspren, and he for whatever reason survived the Recreance intact, etc.

 

So given that we definitively know that the Bondsmiths are unique among the Ten Orders, I don't think we can argue against a theory like 'the three Bondsmiths each bond either the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, or the Protector' based solely on our knowledge of other Orders.

 

Not saying I think that theory is correct, necessarily, just that the logic being used to defeat it takes unwarranted assumptions for granted, IMO.

Edited January 7, 2015 by ROSHtaFARian2.0

[dvoraen]

could be that the stormfather could just bond 3 people at the same time so it would still be one type of spren

 

maybe the bondsmiths didn't abandon their oath so the stormfather wouldn't be killed they could just commit suicide

 

what ever the reason the others had to break their oaths wouldn't be worth killing the stormfather

 

personaly i think that it is because the bonds caused other terrible things to happen between desolations like all the monsters they had to fight in dalinar's visions that aren't around anymore

I'll just go in order:

 

- Three wasn't an uncommon number for the size of the Bondsmiths, but there's nothing to suggest it's the limit, either.

 

- I claim that they didn't abandon their Oaths, myself, but suicide would certainly be a violation of the (shared) First Ideal for the Radiants.  They're choosing "death before life" there, rather than persevering.

 

- I'm not sure what you mean here by "worth killing."

 

- One of Dalinar's visions seems to suggest that monsters such as Midnight Essence only seem to appear during a Desolation, or thereabouts.  However, this was "word of mouth" from the vision-him's wife, so she would have that second-hand at best.  The presence or absence of Surgebinders hasn't really been conclusively linked to the cause of a Desolation.  I rather doubt it, myself.  Otherwise, why would the spren 'sense' one near and then return the Surges to humans?

[Moogle]

So given that we definitively know that the Bondsmiths are unique among the Ten Orders, I don't think we can argue against a theory like 'the three Bondsmiths each bond either the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, or the Protector' based solely on our knowledge of other Orders.

 

Just because you can't prove something wrong does not mean you can't argue against it! We have to make decisions based off of incomplete (and sometimes wrong) information all the time. If we limited ourselves to only information that proves or disproves a theory, we'd have very little to say or discuss.

 

My point is not to prove that the theory is wrong, but just to say I find it very unlikely as it would clash with our understanding of how spren work. My evidence is not just the Windrunners and Lightweavers, but how spren work in general. Spren are attracted to certain phenomenon, and this extends to bonding spren - wildly differing spren such as the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher should not be attracted to and bond the same sort of individual is the main thrust of my argument.

 

It's entirely possible (and even likely) that the rules change as your bonded spren grows in power - and it's confused even moreso because the Stormfather isn't a spren in the typical sense (or is he?), since he's a Cognitive Shadow - but nothing we've ever seen really indicates that the fundamental rule of spren being attracted to one certain sort of thing is being broken here. The Bondsmiths do swear oaths, after all, which would make for a relatively similar set of individuals.

 

Again, I'm not trying to say that everything I say is 100% true and unassailable. Sometimes, the most unlikely option ends up true. I'm just looking at our current picture of how things work (which is itself still a work-in-progress and could be wrong), and then finding that this theory clashes with a few of those things, and so I don't think it's likely to be true. I still do think it's possible to argue against this theory, and I think my arguments against it are pretty solid, though. I would be pretty surprised if it ended up true, but it's possible.

 

As to the "Bondsmiths are unique!" comment, well, all of the orders are unique in some way. The Bondsmiths might be particularly unique, but they still managed to find their way into the Surgebinding Chart and Vorinism (which itself could be wrong) still managed to associate a number of things with them, such as heliodors and the traits of "Guiding/Pious".

Edited January 7, 2015 by Moogle

[taveren]

i wasn't limiting the stormfather to 3 just saying he could do more then one at a time.and they could be choosing the stormfathers life over theirs so maybe a loophole sort of to the oath. and on the worth killing i meant that the deaths of the other spren were an acceptable loss to the other radiants but the stormfather was to important to kill.and the spren bonds must have been causeing harm somehow. haveing the oathpact made by honor it might allow for a larger force on both sides. it wouldn't be honorable to fight with overwhelming numbers of radiants when the oathpact was made to only allow for the heralds so it gave odium more power also to make it even

[Moogle]

There's a new fresh-off-the-press WoB!

 

Me: If Shai were to gain a Shardblade, then she gave it up, could she create an essence mark that represented the history where she still had the Blade? If she then applied the essence mark could she summon the Shardblade or a copy of it?

B: So, um, doing that sort of thing, like rewriting herself even to be an Allomancer., or something like this....this is possible, but, in order to gain the Investiture she wants to have, she will have to input that much in Investiture, which her current magic system is not capable of doing. Okay? Alright, so, rewrite so that I have a Shardblade would require some sort of hacking of her magic system, which is currently impossible to her in her current situation.

Me: So, if she had had a shardblade and gave it up, she could not rewrite herself to have that back without more input?

B: Um, she could....Yes, exactly. Now rewriting, yes, that would be a lot easier than just rewriting herself so that she had a Shardblade.

Me: That's what I was asking.

B: Yeah, but what you're asking about would be much easier and that probably is within her power, but what that would do is, yeah, that's totally within her power. It would create some weird implications where she's summoning it, and someone else summons it back from her, cause the Shardblade thinks it's held by two people.

Me: So it wouldn't be a copy, it would be the same blade.

B: Yes. Mmm hmm.

(source)

 

It's slightly tangential, but it's clear that it's theoretically possible for a spren to have a bond with multiple humans. Whether this can arise naturally or for non-dead spren is an open question, but it is interesting and definitely leaves room open for the Stormfather to bond multiple Radiants.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Moogle

[kari-no-sugata]

A single Radiant can have multiple squires. We know little about technical details of squires but I'd be surprised if the details of the Radiant/Squire bond is unrelated to the Spren/Radiant bond.

 

For "normal" spren they are mostly in the Cognitive Realm and forming a bond pulls them into the Physical Realm which affects their mind -which is why breaking the bond can "kill" them. However, the Stormfather is already heavily in the Physical Realm which suggests that forming a bond with him has little effect on his mind... and that breaking it would have little effect.

 

Edit: The "anti-gravity spren" we see around Chasamfiends etc are another example of a "many-to-one" bond. It's worth remembering that Radiants were not designed by the Shards - they're more like an emergent property of Roshar's magic system.

Edited January 7, 2015 by kari-no-sugata

[Mimiddle04]

Do we know if the Knights existed before the shattering of Honor?

[kari-no-sugata]

Do we know if the Knights existed before the shattering of Honor?

 

When don't know exactly how long the Knights have around for (a long time before the "Last Desolation" at least) or when Honor "died" but based on Dalinar's visions, Honor was still alive at the Recreance. I wouldn't be surprised if the Knights existed for many thousands of years before Honor's death.

[Mimiddle04]

When don't know exactly how long the Knights have around for (a long time before the "Last Desolation" at least) or when Honor "died" but based on Dalinar's visions, Honor was still alive at the Recreance. I wouldn't be surprised if the Knights existed for many thousands of years before Honor's death.

 

If the Knights were around before the shattering of Honor wouldn't that mean the Bondsmiths were bound to Honor himself?  Doesn't the Stormfather say he is what is left of Honor or the largest piece of him left or something along those lines?

 

I might be looking at it differently than other people but to me that means the Stormfather didn't really exist until after the Shattering.

 

Am I looking at it wrong?

[Moogle]

If the Knights were around before the shattering of Honor wouldn't that mean the Bondsmiths were bound to Honor himself?  Doesn't the Stormfather say he is what is left of Honor or the largest piece of him left or something along those lines?

 

I might be looking at it differently than other people but to me that means the Stormfather didn't really exist until after the Shattering.

 

Am I looking at it wrong?

 

It's confusing, because we know by WoB that the Stormfather is Honor's Cognitive Shadow. However, the Stormfather himself was apparently around even before humans showed up on Roshar, as Eshonai says this about him:

Eshonai preferred a shield. It felt more like facing the Rider straight on. This one, the soul of the storm, was the one the humans called Stormfather—and he was not one of her people’s gods. In fact, the songs named him a traitor— a spren who had chosen to protect humans instead of the listeners. Still, her people respected him. He would kill any who did not respect him.

...

She lifted her head, eyes closed, and put her face to the winds— feeling them blast her, shake her. She felt the rain on her skin. The Rider of Storms was a traitor, yes— but you could not have a traitor who had not originally been a friend. These storms belonged to her people. The listeners were of the storms.

 

Things are unclear for the moment. However, I think it's a safe assumption that the Stormfather would have been around and avaialble for bonding for Bondsmiths based on this passage from Eshonai.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Moogle

[kari-no-sugata]

Random thought...

 

Back in the distance past when the first spren started bonding with humans to create the first such Surgebinders (eventually leading to the Knights Radiant), they were apparently trying to mimic the Heralds / Honorblades. I have a mental image of spren going "ooh, that's cool, I wanna try!" though I have no idea how appropriate that is.

 

Now, try applying the Stormfather to that mental image. It just doesn't work!

 

Taking a more general approach, I find it hard to imagine the Stormfather wanting to bond humans - what would he get out of it? I can see two options: Honor commanded him to (like showing the visions) or it was something he decided to do to protect the normal spren. The general impression I get is that Honor compelled him.

[taveren]

well he probably wasn't as much a grumpy old man back then

[Mimiddle04]

Random thought...

 

Back in the distance past when the first spren started bonding with humans to create the first such Surgebinders (eventually leading to the Knights Radiant), they were apparently trying to mimic the Heralds / Honorblades. I have a mental image of spren going "ooh, that's cool, I wanna try!" though I have no idea how appropriate that is.

 

Now, try applying the Stormfather to that mental image. It just doesn't work!

 

Taking a more general approach, I find it hard to imagine the Stormfather wanting to bond humans - what would he get out of it? I can see two options: Honor commanded him to (like showing the visions) or it was something he decided to do to protect the normal spren. The general impression I get is that Honor compelled him.

 

It sounds like you're applying Syl's personality to all Spren when you say spren saw Honorblades and though "ooh, that's cool, I wanna try."

The way I see it is the Stormfather, being the default leader of Spren, saw that Honor had blessed ten humans with Honorblades to help them fight against evil.  Stormfather knew Odium was evil and that he wanted Honor to win. He decided the spren should try to help humans in their battle and he began to develop a way to do so.  This was the beginning of the shards

 

My order of events might not be 100% here so I apologize beforehand if that's the case.

 

Flash forward thousands of years and Honor is shattered. The Heralds stop honoring the Oathpact.  The humans betray the Spren killing hundreds if not thousands of them.  Because of the actions of man Stormfather decides never to trust them again and abandon shards all together.

 

At least that's how I see it going in my head.

[taveren]

i think he is only in control of the honor spren since he is the largest piece of honor left

 

wyndle called the nightmother mother  and is probably more cultivation then honor and isn't likely under the stormfather

[Mimiddle04]

My overall point still works.  Not all spren are childish like Syl before bonding, and the leaders such as Stormfather, Nightmother, and any other large spren capable of thought without the bond probably started the bonding process to help humans fight Odium.  

 

I doubt the Stormfather was ever thinking "Wow a shiny sword, I bet I could do that if I tried."  I don't think he ever had a childish manner about him.  But he and other major spren probably initiated the bonds after great thought and a lot of seriousness...before humans showed their true colors and screwed everyone else over.

[taveren]

you can't judge them till we know why they broke the oaths. considering it almost all of them it must have been a dam good reason they knew what would happen and it would kill their spren what do you think it would take for kaladin to kill syl on purpose

[Mimiddle04]

I was also talking about the Heralds wimping out on the Oathpact to let Taln be totured alone instead of manning up and going through it like they were supposed to.

 

As far as Kaladin goes.  He almost killed Syl already.  I know you said "on purpose" in your post implying he didn't do that on purpose, but he at least had hints.  She told him how she'd lose herself without him and how he could only kill to protect.  He could see that she was becoming more wind spren like and less like herself.  He knew what he was doing was wrong, even if he didn't know why exactly.  So while he didn't say "Okay I abandon my oaths and sentence you to death."  He had to have had an inkling of what he was doing, and did it anyway.

 

Plus Kaladin is supposed to be honorable by definition of attracting an Honor spren.  Shallan for instance very much has a love hate relationship with Pattern.  It's true she was a child when she wished him dead, but in her head he is still the reason her father had to pretend to have killed her mother and so she will always resent him for that.

 

Also I was partially refering to human nature in general.  People like Sadeas and Amaram will always exist and wars will always come about.  So with the Stormfather being eternal, maybe after thousands of years of seeing human nature he wasn't so sure they were the good guys.  Even without the breaking of the bonds and Heralds not upholding their part of the pact, humans have a tendency to be destructive.

 

To be honest I was engaging in hyperbole.  But while I was exaggerating when I said humans showed their true colors, it was only an exaggeration and not completely without merit in my head.

Edited January 8, 2015 by Mimiddle04

[taveren]

yeah well hard to fault someone for not getting tortured for thousands of years after already doing it 99 times

[Arondell]

Also I was partially refering to human nature in general.  People like Sadeas and Amaram will always exist and wars will always come about.  So with the Stormfather being eternal, maybe after thousands of years of seeing human nature he wasn't so sure they were the good guys.  Even without the breaking of the bonds and Heralds not upholding their part of the pact, humans have a tendency to be destructive.

 

Actually the continued advancement of technology and civilization in general would tend to refute that point.  Yes, you can always point to examples of destructive behavior.  Though if you just willing to look around you'll probably see a lot more examples of constructive behavior on both the individual and societal level.  If we didn't have the positive tendencies as well as the negative ones we would still be running around hitting things with rocks.