Say the words on Bondsmiths [Discuss]

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Brandon's video on the Bondsmiths mentioned that three spren grant Bondsmith powers. One of these spren is the Sibling. It is a creation of Honor and Cultivation. So it should be younger than at least the Stormfather. Does this video give us a lower limit on the age of the Sibling and the Nightwatcher?

[Quantus he/him]

Just a devil's advocate statement, but Not necessarily.  Some non-sapient Spren existed pre-shattering and this spren eventually became the Stormfather. But WOB does say BigA prevented spren from gaining sapience back then.  So it could be that the three Spren consider their Birth to Sapience to be their beginning, and that 's likely to be an elevation that H&C would have needed to do after they arrived.  

[alder24]

37 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Brandon's video on the Bondsmiths mentioned that three spren grant Bondsmith powers. One of these spren is the Sibling. It is a creation of Honor and Cultivation. So it should be younger than at least the Stormfather. Does this video give us a lower limit on the age of the Sibling and the Nightwatcher?

Not really. We know Urithiru existed during Nohadon's times - and that was mostly likely before the Radiant Orders were even established. The Stormfather is very old, predating Honor's death (it changed him, before that he was like a child, less aware) and maybe even predating Honor's arrival to Roshar (Highstorms predate even the Shattering). You can theoretically argue that the current Stormfather is only around 2000 years old and that would mean he is the youngest of them all. We know nothing about Nightwatcher's creation.

OB ch 113:

Quote

It is more than that. My memory of all this is … strange. First, I was not fully awake; I was but the spren of a storm. Then I was like a child. Changed and shaped during the frantic last days of a dying god.

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Pre-Shattering magic in books?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see. I would count the highstorms as that. Highstorm predates the Shattering. Now, the highstorm has been changed dramatically by certain events, but the highstorm does predate the Shattering.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

[Returned]

Do we know for certain that Urithiru was always as it is now, a physical manifestation of the Sibling? Or could it have been an impressive tower shaped into the mountain, onto which the Sibling was later grafted? None of that precludes the birth-as-gaining-sapience angle, nor does it mean that the Sibling's nature could not have been influenced by something that Honor and Cultivation did together, but I'm curious if that piece of the tower's history has ever been addressed.

[alder24]

23 minutes ago, Returned said:

Do we know for certain that Urithiru was always as it is now, a physical manifestation of the Sibling? Or could it have been an impressive tower shaped into the mountain, onto which the Sibling was later grafted? None of that precludes the birth-as-gaining-sapience angle, nor does it mean that the Sibling's nature could not have been influenced by something that Honor and Cultivation did together, but I'm curious if that piece of the tower's history has ever been addressed.

It was. There was a mountain where the Tower stands but it was reshaped to accommodate the Sibling. I doubt they made the Tower, left it standing for centuries and then the Sibling manifested - the mountain was reshaped specifically for the project to create Urithiru for the Spren. So the Sibling would manifest very shortly after the Tower was created.

Plus during Nohadon's times the Oathgates were already working. Spren of Oathgates call the Sibling as their parent, which means the Tower was already fully functional. Nohadon might have been a proto-Bondsmith (it was said he was a special Surgebinder among them).

Chronologically Nohadon most likely lived before the 6th Epoch (#SayTheWords are documented during this Epoch, Radiants are already established and well known) - each Epoch is a period in between two Desolations, there were at least 15 but no more than 50 Desolations, and the 8th Epoch lasted for at least 367 years (WoK ch 19 Starfalls vision). Add to this that early Desolations were separated by hundreds of years, you get that the Sibling existed for a very long time. 

RoW ch 83:

Quote

There was a spren that lived here. Not dead, as Raboniel had once proclaimed. This spren was the veins of the tower, its inner metal and crystal running through walls, ceilings, floors.
The stones had not been created by that spren, though a grand project had reshaped them. Reshaped Ur, the original mountain that had been here before. The stones remembered being that mountain

 

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

On 2/29/2024 at 10:43 AM, Quantus said:

Just a devil's advocate statement, but Not necessarily.  Some non-sapient Spren existed pre-shattering and this spren eventually became the Stormfather. But WOB does say BigA prevented spren from gaining sapience back then.  So it could be that the three Spren consider their Birth to Sapience to be their beginning, and that 's likely to be an elevation that H&C would have needed to do after they arrived.  

A moot point, as they were still sentient by the 6th epoch.

On 2/29/2024 at 10:30 AM, Oltux72 said:

Brandon's video on the Bondsmiths mentioned that three spren grant Bondsmith powers. One of these spren is the Sibling. It is a creation of Honor and Cultivation. So it should be younger than at least the Stormfather. Does this video give us a lower limit on the age of the Sibling and the Nightwatcher?

Everyone seems to be misunderstanding the question. The answer is a very simple yes, we know that the must be at least that old. I'm not sure that we're really learning anything new though. I also don't know that the sibling must be younger than the stormfather though.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 2/29/2024 at 5:18 PM, alder24 said:

Not really. We know Urithiru existed during Nohadon's times - and that was mostly likely before the Radiant Orders were even established.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

Pre-Shattering magic in books?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see. I would count the highstorms as that. Highstorm predates the Shattering. Now, the highstorm has been changed dramatically by certain events, but the highstorm does predate the Shattering.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

I am sorry, but that is problematic.

1. The Oathgates were operational.
2. Operating an Oathgate requires a Shardblade

You see the issue?

Furthermore if Ishar established the orders that must have happened during a Desolation, mustn't it?

Urithiru without the Oathgates makes almost no sense. So what was the sequence of events? If the orders existed in the sixth epoch, the latest time the Knights Radiant could have been founded is in the desolation between the fifth and sixth epoch, isn't it?

15 hours ago, Lego Mistborn said:

A moot point, as they were still sentient by the 6th epoch.

Everyone seems to be misunderstanding the question. The answer is a very simple yes, we know that the must be at least that old. I'm not sure that we're really learning anything new though. I also don't know that the sibling must be younger than the stormfather though.

The thing is that this constrains the time Roshar was without Knights Radiant to the first very few epochs.

Do we agree that the Fused must have been equipped with Surgebinding before they returned in the first Desolation that they met the Knights Radiant or they would have been wiped out?

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

I am sorry, but that is problematic.

1. The Oathgates were operational.
2. Operating an Oathgate requires a Shardblade

You see the issue?

Radiants require Oaths and Ideals. Spren at first were just mimicking Honorblades - they gave people Surges and Shardblades. There is no issue. Radiants were bound by Ideals, proto-Surgebinders weren't and they could have still had their blades without Oaths.

9 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Furthermore if Ishar established the orders that must have happened during a Desolation, mustn't it?

Or shortly before it, but yes. But there were dozens of Desolations.

12 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

If the orders existed in the sixth epoch, the latest time the Knights Radiant could have been founded is in the desolation between the fifth and sixth epoch, isn't it?

Possible, but this could have happened even earlier. We don't really know. It would be nice if we know in what Epoch did Nohadon live. Spren could have started mimicking Honorblades during, or shortly after the First Fused Desolation. But I suspect it happened much later, during the second, third or maybe fourth Desolation (it was said that Fused didn't always know how to use Surges, Spren might have started to mimic Honorblades as a direct response to Fused using Surges).

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 3/3/2024 at 4:02 PM, alder24 said:

Radiants require Oaths and Ideals. Spren at first were just mimicking Honorblades - they gave people Surges and Shardblades. There is no issue. Radiants were bound by Ideals, proto-Surgebinders weren't and they could have still had their blades without Oaths.

That raises the next question. How did Ishar get the Surgebinders or their Spren to swear oaths? Prestige only? Naked threats?

On 3/3/2024 at 4:02 PM, alder24 said:

Or shortly before it, but yes. But there were dozens of Desolations.

Technically yes, but not before the sixth epoch. By that logic Nohadon must have been fifth epoch or earlier, right? And as he personally sees the aftermath of a Desolation no later than the early fifth epoch.

And if we take the notion that people discussed where Urithiru was to go, the Knights Radiant already existed, when it was founded. Is a Desolation long enough for that?

On 3/3/2024 at 4:02 PM, alder24 said:

Possible, but this could have happened even earlier. We don't really know. It would be nice if we know in what Epoch did Nohadon live. Spren could have started mimicking Honorblades during, or shortly after the First Fused Desolation. But I suspect it happened much later, during the second, third or maybe fourth Desolation (it was said that Fused didn't always know how to use Surges, Spren might have started to mimic Honorblades as a direct response to Fused using Surges).

That would imply that Odium gave the Fused surgebinding but Honor, still alive and well at that time, did not react. It would seem to me that the sequence of events needs to be the other way round. The Spren learn how to bond humans and Odium is forced to counter that.

[alder24]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That raises the next question. How did Ishar get the Surgebinders or their Spren to swear oaths? Prestige only? Naked threats?

Just by using logic. Something happened during Nohadon's times, a Surgebinder used his powers to rage war just before another Desolation started. This reminded others that Surgebinding powers can be devastating, that they had already destroyed one planet and if those new Surgebinders won't be restricted, they would destroy Roshar as well. The very same reason that causes Recreance. If during Recreance spren were willing to commit a potential mass suicide, then being restricted by noble Ideals isn't that bad.

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Technically yes, but not before the sixth epoch. By that logic Nohadon must have been fifth epoch or earlier, right? And as he personally sees the aftermath of a Desolation no later than the early fifth epoch.

Yes.

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

And if we take the notion that people discussed where Urithiru was to go, the Knights Radiant already existed, when it was founded. Is a Desolation long enough for that?

Disagree. WoK ch 35:

Quote

"Though many wished Urithiru to be built in Alethela, it was obvious that it could not be. And so it was that we asked for it to be placed westward, in the place nearest to Honor."

It doesn't say Radiants discussed, just people. It could have been kings and leaders who wanted to have Urithiru close to their lands. In WoR Shallan discussed that every map places Urithiru close to the borders of a country the map originated from. One of the maps was made during Nohadon's times. Non-Radiant Surgebinders fit too. 

Quote

“Urithiru,” Shallan said, pointing toward a shining city depicted on the map as the center of everything. It wasn’t in Alethkar, or Alethela as it had been known at the time. The map put it in the middle of the mountains near what might have been modern Jah Keved. However, Jasnah’s annotations said other maps from the time placed it elsewhere. “How could they not know where their capital was, the center of the orders of knights? Why does every map argue with its fellows?”
[...]
“Each shows Urithiru in a different location,” Shallan said. “Notably close to their own lands, yet not in their lands.”
[...]
“Behardan King . . . something I do not understand . . . order, perhaps . . .” Pattern said. “Map? Yes, that would likely be map. So the next is perhaps to draw . . . draw . . . something I do not understand . . .”
[...]
“You’re reading the Dawnchant!” Shallan exclaimed. She scrambled up to the map beside which Pattern hovered, then rested her fingers on the script at the bottom. “Behardan, you said? Maybe Bajerden . . . Nohadon himself.”

 

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That would imply that Odium gave the Fused surgebinding but Honor, still alive and well at that time, did not react. It would seem to me that the sequence of events needs to be the other way round. The Spren learn how to bond humans and Odium is forced to counter that.

Or Fused always had the ability to Surgebind, they just hadn’t learned it before. HoA spoilers:

Spoiler

Just like Inquisitors under Ruin had the ability to compound but they hadn’t learned fast enough to use it - Ruin didn't help them for some reason. The same can be true for Fused. 

Or maybe Honor had no time to react as spren started to bond with people before he could have done anything. Or maybe he tried to do something but it failed. Or maybe he thought Heralds are enough. There are too many possibilities.

[Returned]

10 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That raises the next question. How did Ishar get the Surgebinders or their Spren to swear oaths? Prestige only? Naked threats?

I could swear there was a reference somewhere to Ishar threatening to destroy [them] utterly if they did not bend to his outline for the Orders and the Surges they would be permitted to wield. It's been too long since my last full re-read to feel confident I could find it though.

Additionally, the whole idea of the Knights were to preserve human knowledge between Desolations. That's obviously a desirable goal for human and spren alike, and if Ishar (the most knowledgeable, non-Shard being on Roshar about relevant matters) said that this was the only way to make it work I could see people largely going along with it even without the threat of destruction.