Spren are Patterned after Honorblades?

[Saal]

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but a simple forum search did not turn up a thread title about this exact issue. The closest I found was this thread from before the release of WoR.
 
 
WOB

 

 

Q:  Why were all the shardblades swords when they can take on any weapon form they want? Would they all revert to swords when they die?

A:  When they die they'd revert to the basic form which was a sword since they were patterned after honorblades

 

 

I couldn't find any WoB that elaborates on this, so all I'm really left with is scraps of evidence throughout these forums and in his books and deductive reasoning. I am really intrigued by this concept though and it has sent my mind reeling in a hundred different directions, so I am going to attempt to condense these thoughts into a comprehensible format in the hopes that someone out there might have some more information or insights - supportive, contradictory, or otherwise.
 
My first question is, "Do we know to what part spren were patterned after honorblades?" Again, I couldn't find any WoB that elaborates. The original question in the Q&A was only referring to spren that have been bonded and are capable of transforming into a Blade, so I am limiting any examples I look at to spren that fit the same criteria - particularly Syl and Pattern since they are the ones that have had the most "screen" time.
 
Is Brandon referring to a spren's Physical aspect? Syl and Pattern's physical appearances onscreen would seem to discredit this, or at the least don't support this.
 
Is Brandon referring to a spren's Cognitive aspect? Pattern's appearance in Shadesmar would appear to discredit that this, or at the least doesn't support this.
 
It then seems plausible to me that this would be referring to their Spiritual aspect. Based on the Wiki, I am assuming that this would be the same thing as their Spiritwebs.

 

The Spiritweb is a rather mysterious concept in the cosmere, very little is known about it for sure. However, it does seem likely that the Spiritweb is a person's Spiritual aspect. Evidence suggests that the Spiritweb is laid out in a specific pattern in a person. This pattern forms a network of lines and points.^[2] These points are sort of Spiritual pressure points

The Spiritweb is related to "Spiritual DNA;" a person's Spiritual heritage from living on a specific Shardworld.^[3] It is also passed down like regular DNA, from parents to children.^[4] The Spiritweb is also implied to determine which manifestations of Investiture a person can utilize.^[5][4]

 

 

 

Entropicscholar's treatise on Forging the Spiritweb, expands this definition to include objects and other non-living entities.

The Spirt-Web, is the sum total of all physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and other ties a person object or thing have to other people objects or things.

 

 

This expanded definition appears to be supported by the use of Soul Stamps on inanimate objects in The Emperor's Soul. (I can provide a quote when I get home tonight and have access to my copy of the book.)

If so, then I think it is reasonable to assume that each Honorblade has a Spiritweb that gives the holder access to a specific set of surges AND that Spren are somehow able to use those Spiritwebs as a template for their own that in turn grant their bond-holder access to those same surges.

 

Thoughts?

[bschnebs he/him]

I think you might be reading too much into his comment.  I read it as the weapon form that spren take after bonding a Knight Radiant was modeled on the honorblades, so when the spren 'dies' due to breaking the bond, that's the form it reverts back to.  A sword was the first weapon form that Syl took, even though Kal is obviously more comfortable with the spear. 

[Saal]

I think you might be reading too much into his comment.  I read it as the weapon form that spren take after bonding a Knight Radiant was modeled on the honorblades, so when the spren 'dies' due to breaking the bond, that's the form it reverts back to.  A sword was the first weapon form that Syl took, even though Kal is obviously more comfortable with the spear. 

 

I'll agree that it's possible I'm reading into that comment too much, and that is how I initially interpreted his answer as well. But Brandon is famous for his subtlety, no? And some things just don't seem to add up for me, with that interpretation.

 

Why would "first form" = "basic form"? Also, I don't remember the book saying exactly what happened to Syl after Kaladin fell into the Chasm, but leading up to that point she seemed to revert back into a more Windspren-like mindless state. Wouldn't that have been her "basic" state in Roshar?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Spren are not patterned after honorblades, it is the Nahel bond/shardblades that are patterned after the honorblades.  Spren existed before the honorblades, some even existed before Honor himself.

 

In the purelake vision towards the beginning of WoR Honor makes a comment to the effect of "These orders were a surprise to me, they copied what I gave to the Heralds".  Honorblades grant surgebinding to their bearers, so to does a Nahel bond with a spren and sufficiently advanced Nahel bonds allow the spren to manifest as a shardblade.  The default/basic form of a shardblade is a sword, because the honorblades are swords.

 

Syl's death in WoR doesn't quite apply here, she and Kaladin had not progressed far enough in their bond for her to manifest as a shardblade.  We do know that if she were to die now that Kaladin has spoken the Third Ideal of the Windrunners she would manifest as a dead shardblade.

[Saal]

So to reword that quote with fewer pronouns, you think he was saying something more like this...?

 

Q:  Why were all the shardblades swords when [spren] can take on any weapon form they want? Would [the spren] all revert to swords when they die?

A:  When [spren] die they'd revert to the basic [weapon] form which was a sword since [their weapon forms] were patterned after honorblades

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Basically, though it would be more like "When [spren who have a bond that has progressed to the point where the spren can be summoned as a shardblade] die they'd revert to the basic [shardblade] form which was a sword since [shardblades] were patterned after honorblades"

[Saal]

Basically, though it would be more like "When [spren who have a bond that has progressed to the point where the spren can be summoned as a shardblade] die they'd revert to the basic [shardblade] form which was a sword since [shardblades] were patterned after honorblades"

 

So I like this interpretation for it's simplicity, but I suppose what I'm really after, but have explained terribly, is that I'm trying to get past the simple answer. It's like explaining that "if you rub two sticks together under the right circumstances you can start a fire." But when you start talking about how that works chemically, it's a much more in-depth process. Understanding that process can also let you make fires using other tools and under other conditions as well.

 

I'm hoping for a better understanding of what's happening "chemically" when a spren bonds a person and can then turn into a shardblade. Is there a change to their sDNA? Is it mostly a cognitive change? Is it mostly a physical change?

 

That hope is most likely why I interpreted Brandon's explanation as I did., so that I read it as the spren that were patterned after Honorblades instead of their Shardblade form being patterned after Honorblades.

 

After perusing the forums for a few days looking for more info on this, I'm not finding very much... so I assume these are questions I might want to ask Brandon directly, or do you think they would get RAFO'd?

Edited October 3, 2014 by Saal