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Splinters of Honor


Aradel

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Just finished watching the Google+ hangout, and while I didn't take notes religiously there was one answer that caught my attention: The shard of Honor has indeed been splintered.

(PS I'll feel really embarrassed and foolish if this was already confirmed sooner without my knowledge.)

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Nope that was the first time it was confirmed anywhere, it was CrazyRioter's question. We were just freaking out in the chatroom, we had all pegged it as an RAFO. How wrong we were. Nahel spren are probably the big Splinters, in my opinion.

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Okay. Honor is splintered. Splintered as in: destroyed, that's how I understand it.

Because there can be Splinters while the Shard remains more or less intact, isn't that the case with Endowment (sorry if I get that wrong).

If Nahel-spren are Splinters, I'd say they were there before Honor was splintered.

Also, is his death the same as being splintered? Being splintered seems to me like something instant, and Honor seems to have died slowly.

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Okay. Honor is splintered. Splintered as in: destroyed, that's how I understand it.

Because there can be Splinters while the Shard remains more or less intact, isn't that the case with Endowment (sorry if I get that wrong).

If Nahel-spren are Splinters, I'd say they were there before Honor was splintered.

Also, is his death the same as being splintered? Being splintered seems to me like something instant, and Honor seems to have died slowly.

Hmmm... That brought up a thought that is probably completely non-sensical. So, Honor is splintered into Honorspren, etc, and when they lose/lost awareness and became like the other random spren, he 'died'. Meh. I dunno.

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Remember, in the prelude Kalek doesn't mention any spren floating around. None At All.

I've always thought this was significant, but now I'm convinced that it is because Honor hadn't been splintered when the Heralds broke the oathpact.

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Well you're right about that. Brandon has confirmed that already.

Alloy of Law Signing Report - Green Hoodie Mistborn (Verbatim)

QUESTION

Was the Almighty still alive when the Heralds packed it in, and did the Radiants pack it in in direct response to what the Heralds did?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Radiants did NOT abandon their post as a response to the Heralds. The Radiants abandoned it for some other reason which will become evident eventually. The Almighty was still around when the Heralds did their thing.

Source

Edited by Windrunner
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Hmmm... That brought up a thought that is probably completely non-sensical. So, Honor is splintered into Honorspren, etc, and when they lose/lost awareness and became like the other random spren, he 'died'. Meh. I dunno.

Even if it may be completely non-sensical I like it a lot ;) We know that Honor was still around when the Heralds abandoned and is not anymore. So he must have been splintered/died in between.

Remember, in the prelude Kalek doesn't mention any spren floating around. None At All.

I've always thought this was significant, but now I'm convinced that it is because Honor hadn't been splintered when the Heralds broke the oathpact.

But Nohadon mentions honorspren. And Nohadon inspired the Radiants (they read his book "The Way of Kings") so Nohadon comes before KR. KR come before the Prelude. Of course that could mean that only Splinter-spren existed before Honor's shattering. And those seem to prefer to only show themselves to their bondee. And the other 'normal' spren could have come to 'life' afterwards with Honor's splittering.

My theory about spren is that they are cognitive aspects bonding with Stormlight during Highstorms because the Highstorm carries some of Honor's power which is to be found at the origin in some kind of Shardpool.

Could also be that when Honor splintered, his Power overflowed Roshar, creating spren everywhere. Then it was washed away with the next Highstorm, leaving everything at the origin...

I like that, so much new thought in my head :)

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Hopefully this isn't too obvious to everybody and people will correct the holes (or wholes) in my understanding.

What are the splinters of Honor?

As I see it, a Shardholder can voluntarily create slivers when alive, and some are created when a Shard is splintered so there is no longer an intact Shard (presumably the holder dies in the splintering, if they weren't already toast). If we call the first kind of slivers "voluntary splinters" and the second "involuntary (or would post-mortem be better?) splinters" we get.

What are the voluntary splinters of Honor?

What are the involuntary splinters of Honor?

The obvious candidates are the Heralds and the sentient spren like Syl.

The sentient spren: As said above, there were Radiants before the Heralds packed it in. The Radiants used honorspren at least. So, if they were splinters , at least some of the sentient spren were voluntary splinters.

The Heralds also predated the decease, so if they are splinters, they are voluntary splinters.

Another mystery, alluded to above, is: Why doesn't Kalak see spren in the opening scene? Why don't spren appear in Dalinar's visions?

Crazy theory: Tanavast and splinters can't see spren. Why?

Because spren are to Honor like the markings on metal were to Ati in mistborn.

I believe that the Heralds are voluntary splinters of Honor, which gave them their immortality and inability to see spren, among other things.

If this crazy theory is true, then Syl is not a splinter, because she can see other spren. The instance I remember for sure is that when Kaladin is dying after being exposed in the Highstorm, Syl fights the deathspren.

So this leaves us:

Voluntary splinters: Heralds

Involuntary splinters: ?

Remnants of Honor, but not splinters: Some sentient spren, Ryshadium horses, the power gained by committing to the oaths, Shardblades and Shardplate, Dalinar's visions, the highstorm face.

It seems to me that there could be other spren that are involuntary splinters, but otherwise, the remaining involuntary splinters are a mystery.

What do people think?

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Nope that was the first time it was confirmed anywhere, it was CrazyRioter's question. We were just freaking out in the chatroom, we had all pegged it as an RAFO. How wrong we were.

Pemberly watched the chat. (So did I.) This morning, she told me Brandon needs to shut up. (Or something like that.)

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Crazy theory: Tanavast and splinters can't see spren. Why?

Because spren are to Honor like the markings on metal were to Ati in mistborn.

If you remember, Ati, Leras, Vin, and Sazed saw all metals glowing brightly when holding their respective shards. Ruin couldn't read what was written on metal, because it would be obscured by the glow.

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I seem to remember Syl describing Spren as once being all the same being.

Since Syl is an Honorspren, I'd think that a mark for all spren being splinters of Honor.

Found it:

"and all spren are, in a sense, virtually the same individual" p262

perhaps not as strong a statement as I thought.

There are however different ways for Shards to manifest themselves right? Things like Leras leaving behind the mist-snapping mechanism, a sort of cognitive(lower case c) imprinted memory on the world's physics?

Edited by Voldy
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I remember why I said that maybe when Honorspren etc. lost their awareness when Honor died-someone on the IRC was proposing that Honor is reforming. That would certainly be cool and explain why the spren are regaining awareness. Of course, we don't even know if shards *can* be healed, or the process

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I remember why I said that maybe when Honorspren etc. lost their awareness when Honor died-someone on the IRC was proposing that Honor is reforming. That would certainly be cool and explain why the spren are regaining awareness. Of course, we don't even know if shards *can* be healed, or the process

I suppose they can. By putting all the splinters back together. That would be one Void of a work. Also Power seems to be regathering every 1024 years. As in Preservation's Shardpool. Also I don't believe that corrupted Breath is definitively lost.

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I remember why I said that maybe when Honorspren etc. lost their awareness when Honor died-someone on the IRC was proposing that Honor is reforming. That would certainly be cool and explain why the spren are regaining awareness. ...

That is an interesting idea. I had assumed that when the Radiants abandoned their oaths, the associated spren dissolved the Nahel bonds and lost their sentience. The Nahel bond spren would still wander around looking for beings to bond with.

I interpret Brandon's other bombshell that other sentient spren exist to mean that other people that we haven't met yet have formed the bond w/appropriate spren. This would be consistent with either a pocket of Radiants having persisted or other people having started the bonding process like Kaladin and Syl.

It seems clear to me that Jasnah has a bond with a particular spren, but who else is there? The possibilities include:

  1. people having communicated with Gavilar before he was killed (since he seems to have known things that Dalinar still doesn't know)
  2. if voidbringers or other servants of Odium bond with spren, there could be existing pockets of sentient spren bonded to Odium's servants
  3. people associated with the king of Kharbranth
  4. the people on the Yulay peninsula (not sure about this location) that Sigzil references as anticipating the return of Radiants.

Edited by hoser
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5. the other two Surgebinders we've seen in action. Szeth and Shallan. We haven't seen their spren, but that does not mean they have none. They must have, at least Shallan, if you say that Szeth gained his powers in another way, which I do not believe.

6. probably other Shin. I believe that Szeth has been trained. He is well informed about his powers, he know the names of the Lashing, knows that he is Surgebinding, while Dalinar for example has no idea what Surgebinding is. Those stone shamans, if they can recover a blade, they should have some way to get the blades after all.

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7. Groups trained by heralds, possibly including the Shin mentioned above. The mysterious Shin Lifebrother could be a herald.

8. If Cultivation has followers that bind spren, then some of Cultivation's followers.

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The more I think about it, I do not feel spren are from Honor. My thought is that they are the physical representation of Cultivation. Syl grew more sentient as Kaladin did his thing, that to me is more an effect of Cultivation than Honor. She might have been feeding off of his honor, but her growing and the plethora of other types of Spren leans me toward Cultivation.

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I really think people are involving Cultivation in Surgebinding too much. I see it as just Honor's system with no other Shard involved. Syl is an Honorspren, you can't get any closer to the intent of Honor then using the word honor. You don't Cultivate something to gain Surgebinding, you swear and Honor oaths. I just see no reason to involve another Shard into a system that seems to not contain any evidence or necessity for Cultivation to be involved.

Stormlight is weird, and I'm not going to speculate on it. It's part of the highstorms and powers Honor's magic but also seems to predate his arrival. We need more information on Stormlight.

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CrazyRioter, I'm so glad you got to ask your question. I had a second question that was Cosmere related, but I didn't want to ask it until Brandon heard yours. I'm so glad whats-his-name followed through. (I'm still a little pissed at Gabriel for hogging so much of the time. He shouldn't have been allowed a third question.)

I'm thrilled that we got this little nugget of information out of Brandon.

The fact that there are other spren that can become sentient leads me to believe that not all can. I'm thinking that only Honor spren can gain sentience (assuming that they're the splinters of Honor) and ordinary spren can't.

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