Origin of the Unmade

[Etedbert]

This is a rambling theory, apologies. I’m not sure if this has been brought up before but I couldn’t find anything on a cursory search.
I can also find quotes to back up anything people have questions about. But this is really long already and I don’t want to write a manifesto quite yet.

I was thinking about where the Unmade might have come from, especially given the way the Sibling fears becoming transformed into something like them by Raboniel in RoW. We know her plan was slowly flood the sibling’s pillar with void light and then use the surge of transformation. Is it possible that this is the way Odium created the other unmade? There are hints that the unmade were all something else before being “Unmade” into what they are. The other weird thing about the Unmade is the variable levels of intelligence, seemingly reflected with the length of their names. Single name unmade like Moelach, and Nergaoul are described as mindless, just sort of radiating their respective effects into the PR around them. But then there are the two name Unmade who are cognizant and often have their own agenda like Sja-Anat, or Re-Shephir. Then if the pattern holds Ba-ado-Mishram is a step beyond even them. BAM is also weird given the lack of historical consensus about her. Some say she was unmade, some say she was a voidbringwr priestess. So there’s 9 unmade, 4 of which are mindless, all (that we know of) enflaming certain emotions of nearby people or manipulating fortune and giving death rattles to people. Then 5 unmade who are cognizant beings who reflect more advanced uses of investiture, Re-Shephir using midnight essence, and Sja-Anat pretty clearly uses Transformation in a way I can only assume is the same as to how the unmade were originally “Unmade” just on lesser Spren or radiant spren. Anyways, the other time we see 5 as a notable number with Odium is the number of shards he’s killed. Technically he’s killed/splintered 4. Devotion/Dominion over on Sel, then Ambition at Threnody, and finally Honor on Roshar. However we know Mercy was at the fight with Odium and Ambition, and that Mercy was injured at the least.

the theory is basically this, the unmade are all large splinters of Odium, and the 5 more advanced unmade are made by combining Odium’s investiture with splinters of other shards that he’s killed. Basically collecting these powerful minions as he goes along (possibly founding the myth of the “deepest ones” on Threnody). He had 4 by the time he gets to Roshar, and after splintering Honor, creates a 5th unmade out of a large splinter of Honor, a larger splinter of himself, and a Fused priestess, making BAM. This would explain BAM’s contentious historicity. The timing of this is important, since BAM has to be Unmade before the False Desolation, which ends with the Recreance, and we know Honor dies shortly before the Recreance. So in this scenario, Honor is splintered, BAM is created and basically IMMEDIATELY sets off the false desolation. This explains BAM’s greater cognizance than other unmade, being both a former Singer/Fused, and using the forging of connection and bonds similar to Honor to give singers forms of power for the FD.

Possibilities for which shards splinters were made into unmade

Ba-ado-mishram = Honor

Sja-Anat = Mercy (feels fitting given her character and choices so far. She shows mercy to Shallan, as well as her children)

Dai-Gonarthis = Dominion (no evidence for this, purely vibe based. D-G seems to live in the ocean somewhere, maybe he purposefully crashes any boats that try and get away from the continent, stopping them from entering his ‘domain’)

Re-Shephir = Ambition (I feel like there’s a WOB somwhere where Brandon got tight lipped after someone asked about R-S being connected to Ambition in some way. R-S also has this drive to mimic human violence, possibility mimicking violent ambition)

Yelig-Nar = Devotion (I mean eating a storming sphere has got to be a pretty hefty show of devotion to whoever’s asking you to do it. Otherwise I don’t have a lot of evidence for this one. Y-N is a weird one since he has two names but we never hear him really talk on his own or hear his thoughts or anything)

I could also see swapping Y-N, and S-A, since maybe Y-N is weaker than the others and needs a host because he was made with the splinter of a shard still not fully dead (Mercy being only wounded in the fight, not killed)

anyways please poke holes in this, and again, I’m happy to find quotes or WOBs if anyone is curious about my wild conjecture

[Arkangel]

I've always been firmly in the camp of Unmade being Splinters of other Shards. At least some of them. I know that many in the fandom believe that they are all from Roshar...mainly because of this WoB:

Quote

Questioner

Are all of the Unmade native to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are. Eh… yes, I’m gonna say the Unmade all count as being native to Roshar, yeah.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

I could see it going either way. However, I could also see it being a Connection thing. The Unmade are now all Connected to Roshar in the same way that (TSM)...

Spoiler

SigZellion became a Canticle "native" when he accepted his Connection to the planet.

 

Actually, speaking of TSM, there are some other new insights that could relate to "unmaking"...

Spoiler

The process of creating the Charred involves corrupting a sunheart into a cinderheart with "special Investiture", likely just another Shard's Investiture. Implanting the cinderheart creates a similar effect to that of Yelig-nar, burning away the person's Indentity and Connection.

I wonder if this is a similar process to how Odium unmade the Unmade. He combined his own Investiture with that of his conquered Shards and then implanted it into a spren of Roshar.

[alder24]

8 hours ago, Etedbert said:

However we know Mercy was at the fight with Odium and Ambition, and that Mercy was injured at the least.

We don't know that. We know Mercy fought at the Threnodite System, we don't know on which side, we don't know if she was wounded, we only know Harmony finds her worrying. I personally believe she fought on Odium's side, trying to kill Ambition as an act of twisted mercy.

7 hours ago, Etedbert said:

He had 4 by the time he gets to Roshar, and after splintering Honor, creates a 5th unmade out of a large splinter of Honor, a larger splinter of himself, and a Fused priestess, making BAM.

The timeline doesn't fit. BAM was present before the False Desolation, before Honor was Splintered. She was present in previous Desolations, acting as Odium's general. She existed long before Honor was Splintered. OB ch 106 epigraphs:

Quote

"I find Ba-Ado-Mishram to be the most interesting of the Unmade. She is said to have been keen of mind, a highprincess among the enemy forces, their commander during some of the Desolations. I do not know how this relates to the ancient god of the enemy, named Odium."

Mishram is also named in Listener's songs and the Last Legion abandoned Odium most likely before Aharietiam. That means she existed in previous Desolations. RoW ch 73:

Quote

“Perhaps they knew what Ba-Ado-Mishram was going to do, and so they attuned Wisdom, not Betrayal, in their actions.”
She knew the name, of course. As a keeper of songs, she knew the names of all nine Unmade—who were among the gods her people swore to never follow again.

 

8 hours ago, Etedbert said:

Re-Shephir = Ambition (I feel like there’s a WOB somwhere where Brandon got tight lipped after someone asked about R-S being connected to Ambition in some way. R-S also has this drive to mimic human violence, possibility mimicking violent ambition)

This WoB:

Spoiler

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

We have now seen Midnight Essence on Lumar and as part of the Unmade on Roshar, should we assume that all the other Unmade have connections to Odium’s other conquests like maybe Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Midnight Essence is more like Lightweaving in that multiple magic systems will reach the same conclusion. When something is done to the magic to corrupt it, it becomes like Midnight Essence. So while there are similarities between the two and they work the same they may not have the same point of origin.

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

So there is no meaningful connection between Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You weren’t going to let me off the hook. You are theorizing in a very interesting direction. RAFO!

Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 (July 28, 2023)

 

8 hours ago, Etedbert said:

Yelig-Nar = Devotion (I mean eating a storming sphere has got to be a pretty hefty show of devotion to whoever’s asking you to do it. Otherwise I don’t have a lot of evidence for this one. Y-N is a weird one since he has two names but we never hear him really talk on his own or hear his thoughts or anything)

Another interesting connection is that Devotion's invested art is Dakhor and Dakhor monks' bodies are twisted to gain power - just like hosts of Yelig-Nar have their body twisted. 

8 hours ago, Etedbert said:

anyways please poke holes in this, and again, I’m happy to find quotes or WOBs if anyone is curious about my wild conjecture

It's an interesting theory. While the timeline of BAM doesn't fit I still think this reasoning is worth following - maybe the length of their names reflects how much investiture of other Shards are combined in that Unmade? Re-Shephir would be made out of 2 Shards+Odium, BAM out of 3+Odium and the last one to get added to Mishram was part of Honor's investiture, just before the False Desolation? This explains both why she existed before Aharietiam and why she suddenly was able to start a new Desolation - because she got an infusion of Honor's investiture. But the problem with that is that Venli knows her from Listener's songs as Ba-Ado-Mishram, so that was her name long before the False Desolation - so maybe Honor is totally unrelated to Unmades and they are all made out of Splinters of Dominion, Devotion and Ambition, and all 9 came with him on Roshar in the form we know them today?

Either way I think you might be onto something. 

[Etedbert]

22 minutes ago, alder24 said:

It's an interesting theory. While the timeline of BAM doesn't fit I still think this reasoning is worth following - maybe the length of their names reflects how much investiture of other Shards are combined in that Unmade? Re-Shephir would be made out of 2 Shards+Odium, BAM out of 3+Odium and the last one to get added to Mishram was part of Honor's investiture, just before the False Desolation? This explains both why she existed before Aharietiam and why she suddenly was able to start a new Desolation - because she got an infusion of Honor's investiture. But the problem with that is that Venli knows her from Listener's songs as Ba-Ado-Mishram, so that was her name long before the False Desolation - so maybe Honor is totally unrelated to Unmades and they are all made out of Splinters of Dominion, Devotion and Ambition, and all 9 came with him on Roshar in the form we know them today?

Either way I think you might be onto something. 

If Ba-Ado-Mishram was created before Honor’s splintering and then given a splinter of his investiture, it could explain how she had such strong connection to all the Spren of Roshar. Almost like hijacking Honor’s connection to the world, let her form connections planet wide to the singers and Spren.

Your point about the names possibly being tied to how many different shards investiture constitutes them could explain the WOB here bringing up the linguistics of BAMs name.

Quote

LewsTherinTelescope

Does "Ba-Ado-Mishram" mean "child of the light of Cultivation and Honor"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, but you're doing a pretty good job picking apart the linguistics of that.

General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 22, 2020)

BAM could maybe be a splinter of Cultivation, like an earlier Nightwatcher, who Odium corrupts with his own investiture, making Ba-Ado (or whatever else the name would be) then when Honor is splintered, Odium gives Ba-Ado a splinter, or maybe she takes one herself, becoming Ba-Ado-Mishram, gaining quick connection to Singers and Spren. BAM is then of enough prominence in the False Desolation that everyone on both sides adopts the name change quickly, possibly assuming that’s who she always was.

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, Etedbert said:

BAM is then of enough prominence in the False Desolation that everyone on both sides adopts the name change quickly, possibly assuming that’s who she always was.

Again, the name change doesn't work because Listeners knew her as BAM in their songs and because they abandoned Odium before Aharietiam, she must have had her full name even back then. 

[Etedbert]

26 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Again, the name change doesn't work because Listeners knew her as BAM in their songs and because they abandoned Odium before Aharietiam, she must have had her full name even back then. 

Unless BAM gets the name change before False Desolation, which puts it before Aharietam. It gives the listeners a period of time to know her by the longer name before the songs are created

[Treamayne]

32 minutes ago, Etedbert said:

Unless BAM gets the name change before False Desolation, which puts it before Aharietam. It gives the listeners a period of time to know her by the longer name before the songs are created

I think you have the timeline confused. Aharietiam was 4.5k years ago (the Prelude to SA in WoK - showing the Heralds leaving their swords). The False desolation was 2k years ago (which led to the Recreance). The Listeners have (likely) been separated from other Singers since before the events in the WoK Prelude. 

1 hour ago, Etedbert said:

making Ba-Ado (or whatever else the name would be) then when Honor is splintered

The linguistics to which that WoB Refers is picking out the "Ado" syllable, based on (Oathbringer Ch 49):

Spoiler

But this boy … he could rule the princedom, support his cousin the king, and live a life of honor.

“His name, Brightlord?” asked Ishal, an aged ardent from the Devotary of Purity. “I would burn the proper glyphwards, if it pleases you.”

“Name…” Dalinar said. “Adoda.” Light. He glanced toward Evi, who nodded in agreement.

“Without a suffix, my lord? Adodan? Adodal?”

“Lin,” Dalinar whispered. Born unto. “Adolin.” A good name, traditional, full of meaning.

Adolin = Born unto Light. We don't have references for Ba (except, maybe, Babatharnam, or possibly some Thaylen prefixes), and the closest we get to Mishram is Mishim (the Moon). 

Edited March 24 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Etedbert]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

I think you have the timeline confused. Aharietiam was 4.5k years ago (the Prelude to SA in WoK - showing the Heralds leaving their swords). The False desolation was 2k years ago (which led to the Recreance). The Listeners have (likely) been separated from other Singers since before the events in the WoK Prelude. 

 

That’s my bad! I mixed up Aharietiam and the Recreance. You’re right about the timeline, BAM would had to have that name before the point where Honor got splintered.

[Rorzikel]

I'm very strongly of the opinion that the Unmade were created from nine Radiant spren from every order except Bondsmith because it was too difficult for Odium to pull off when both H and C were alive. Gives a good reason for why they see to have specific polestones that are necessary for each to be captured in, and a reason for why the wob says they mostly parallel nine of the orders except for bondsmith.

[+Child of Hodor]

 

Quote

 

Questioner

Are all of the Unmade native to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are. Eh… yes, I’m gonna say the Unmade all count as being native to Roshar, yeah.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

 

 

I think the one that has another origin is Re-Shephir because she has/is made of midnight essence which is an Aether. Aether's aren't native to Roshar, but whatever Re-Shephir was Unmade from she was probably on Roshar before she got was changed. 

 

8 hours ago, Rorzikel said:

I'm very strongly of the opinion that the Unmade were created from nine Radiant spren from every order except Bondsmith because it was too difficult for Odium to pull off when both H and C were alive. Gives a good reason for why they see to have specific polestones that are necessary for each to be captured in, and a reason for why the wob says they mostly parallel nine of the orders except for bondsmith.

BAM seems like a Bondsmith spren to me. She was connected to thousands of Singers at once, giving them forms when she was captured damaging all those Singers' spiritweb. She seems really powerful and connecting or uniting things is the Bondsmiths main thing.  I see where you are coming from and in RoW they are trying to add the Sibling to the Unmade. I just think that's because they are trying to turn the Tower to their favor permanently and not to complete their collection of 10 types of radiant Spren. 

The other thing is some of these Unmade are real dumb and the radiant spren are not. The Thrill is a big dummy gleefully walking into Dalinar's trap at the end of Oathbringer.  We see in an "enlightened" radiant spren in Renarin's spren and it isn't dumb or any more powerful than other Radiant spren, just different. 

 

[Arkangel]

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

I think the one that has another origin is Re-Shephir because she has/is made of midnight essence which is an Aether. Aether's aren't native to Roshar, but whatever Re-Shephir was Unmade from she was probably on Roshar before she got was changed.

Brandon addressed this last July at TBCC and in his interview with Shardcast.

Quote

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

We have now seen Midnight Essence on Lumar and as part of the Unmade on Roshar, should we assume that all the other Unmade have connections to Odium’s other conquests like maybe Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Midnight Essence is more like Lightweaving in that multiple magic systems will reach the same conclusion. When something is done to the magic to corrupt it, it becomes like Midnight Essence. So while there are similarities between the two and they work the same they may not have the same point of origin.

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

So there is no meaningful connection between Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You weren’t going to let me off the hook. You are theorizing in a very interesting direction. RAFO!

Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 (July 28, 2023)

Quote

Comatose

Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things.

Brandon Sanderson

So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense.

Yumi is a little distinct from that. It's feeling similar; I would not call it true Midnight Essence. It's an awful lot more like a Lightweaving that has--because Lightweavings can have mass to them, because investiture can have mass to it--so you're looking a little bit more like... imagine a bunch of Stormlight becoming tangible, you can touch it, because of a powerful Lightweaving or something like that. Of course, these things all bleed together because I'm using the same fundamental principles to make them. But, for me, Midnight Essence has this personality that comes prefixed. What the Midnight Mother is making, what you're seeing in the Midnight Sea and things like this, you're gonna get some similar personalities to these things, and not necessarily the same with the nightmares.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

At first glance, Brandon appears to be giving answers that ride the line of confirmation one way or another on the off-world Unmade question. Midnight Essence, either by midnight spores or Re-Shephir, or the Shroud are all manifestations of corrupted Investiture. Re-Shephir might not necessarily be aether-related (I still think she is) but just a similar-looking corruption.

Brandon's reaction, in the first WoB, to the meaningful connection between Sja-anat and Ambition makes me think we can have our cake and eat it too. That Odium somehow corrupted native Rosharan spren with the Splintered Investiture of his conquests. 

TSM spoilers:

Spoiler

I'll have to take a closer look at the powers of the Charred to see if there is any hint of abilities related to another magic system that could have come from the "special Investiture" that was used to corrupt the sunhearts. I'm assuming it's Scadrian in origin.

 

[Treach]

So just a few things to add here.

1) We have WOB saying the unmade would be considered "native"; however, this could just mean they were unmade on Roshar. That being said, the way BAM's imprisonment affected all of Roshar leads me to believe she at least is possibly more foundational to the planet than the others.

2) We do not know where Ambition was finally splintered. IIRC we do know Ambition fled Threnody and was eventually finally shattered elsewhere. 

3) Yelig-Nar and Ba-Ado-Mishram specifically take naming convention from a different inspiration than the others. (Lovecraft rather than Semitic god/godesses.)

4) There is a good bit of interplay between Threnody, Ashyn, and Roshar through use of the word "Silence". Could be coincidence, but nonetheless. 

5) Brandon has been coy enough with answers that we we can speculate the earthquake on Sel may have been a result of something that happened on Roshar. I don't think we have a precise enough timeline on the events of Elantris to pin point what it could have been, but the imprisonment of BAM could fit I think? If that were the case, we could probably speculate further on Yelig-Nar and Ba-Ado-Mishram having connections to Dominion and Devotion.

 

I think him taking shards of other conquered foes and making them "unmade" can make a lot of sense. We know he has kind of struggled to finding a good way to keep the investiture from being picked up or gaining sentience on its own, unmaking them and effectively making bargain bin avatars seems like a good solution for his needs. However, we also know that Roshar was made not long before the shattering. History repeating, time is a flat circle, etc... We see how Honor strategically made splinters of himself before he finally was shattered completely. Maybe Adonalsium did the same before his shattering, seems very plausible that Roshar could have held one or more splinters of Adonalsium before the shattering even happened. So that could be a source for some/all of the unmade as well.

Edited March 25 by Treach

[Leuthie]

It's clear at this point that the Unmade are mostly off-world Investiture. If they were corrupted bondspren, we'd have more information about them in the front 5. Their explanations are being held back for the back 5 because of their wider cosmere implications. Front 5 is (mostly) Roshar only. Back 5 will most likely be more cross world, allowing room for non-Roshar origins to make more sense.

At least, that's how I see it.

[Elite01]

I think being splinters of shards is the most likely outcome but for the sake of discussion the other popular theory is that each unmade has some aspect of one of the heralds that sets them apart from spren. Generally, it comes from this quote in ch 88 of Oathbringer from Jezrien

"I used to think it wasn’t my fault. But you know, we can’t escape what we did? We let them in. We attracted them, befriended them, took them out to dance and courted them. It is our fault. You open yourself to it, and you pay the price. They ripped my brain out and made it dance! I watched." 

Mostly the line "they ripped me brain out and made it dance" Could just be the torture they did on Braize but they could have ripped chunks of their souls off and Odium could have made minions out of them. I feel like we don't really have any evidence besides this quote. No unmade draws connections to Ishar or Nale for example. 

[Isilel]

On 3/24/2024 at 3:35 PM, alder24 said:

they abandoned Odium before Aharietiam, she must have had her full name even back then. 

 

What evidence is there that they abandoned him so early and not during the False Desolation, shortly before BAM's imprisonment? I don't remember seeing anything in the text - is there a WoB?

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

What evidence is there that they abandoned him so early and not during the False Desolation, shortly before BAM's imprisonment? I don't remember seeing anything in the text - is there a WoB?

It's in the text - they fled the Fused. Since there were no Fused during the False Desolation (only Forms of Power - supplied by BAM), the Last Legion had to have left before Aharietiam when Fused were still on Roshar (References WoR I-4, RoW Ch 48).

[Rorzikel]

11 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

BAM seems like a Bondsmith spren to me. She was connected to thousands of Singers at once, giving them forms when she was captured damaging all those Singers' spiritweb. She seems really powerful and connecting or uniting things is the Bondsmiths main thing.  I see where you are coming from and in RoW they are trying to add the Sibling to the Unmade. I just think that's because they are trying to turn the Tower to their favor permanently and not to complete their collection of 10 types of radiant Spren. 

The other thing is some of these Unmade are real dumb and the radiant spren are not. The Thrill is a big dummy gleefully walking into Dalinar's trap at the end of Oathbringer.  We see in an "enlightened" radiant spren in Renarin's spren and it isn't dumb or any more powerful than other Radiant spren, just different. 

Brandon's said that they have some correspondence to every order except Bondsmith though:

Quote

XS-Terrain

Also, does each of the Unmade have a corresponding order of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Eh... Kind of.

XS-Terrain

Ok. So there are nine Unmade right, so which one is left out?

Brandon Sanderson

Bondsmith. But it's not as one to one, there's some fuzziness in there.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

I think BAM relates to the Windrunners.

[Argenti]

16 hours ago, Rorzikel said:

Brandon's said that they have some correspondence to every order except Bondsmith though:

I think BAM relates to the Windrunners.

Well, the WOB says kinda. Re-Shephir has a connection to light weavers, but probably Sja-anat does too; As the Taker of Secrets, who else deceives her master like she does? If they all have one, who is Nergaoul connected to? Moelach? 

[Etedbert]

5 hours ago, Argenti said:

Well, the WOB says kinda. Re-Shephir has a connection to light weavers, but probably Sja-anat does too; As the Taker of Secrets, who else deceives her master like she does? If they all have one, who is Nergaoul connected to? Moelach? 

I’ve noticed that there’s some physical resemblance between some of the True Spren and the Unmade, notably:

Re-Shephir’s constant shifting form is sort of reminiscent of a Cryptic, especially in Shallan’s drawing of the midnight essence.

Ashertmarn grows vein like tendrils into the ground almost like vines, like the Cultivation Spren

Chemoarish is quite literally called the dustmother, so that’s close enough to the Ashspren/ the Releasers for me to draw a connection

the last three we know the appreance of are where these comparisons fall apart

Yelig-Nar grows creepy red crystals in his host’s body, closest comparison would be peakspren, or maybe  mistspren because Glys is made of red crystalline structures

Nergaoul manifests in a red mist, and that seems as close to mistspren as you can get

And Sja-Anat is probably closest to Highspren or Inkspren, but given her wonky relationship with light, you could also argue mistspren

 

(Can you tell I love mistspren?)

Edited March 26 by Etedbert
Forgot a word, lmao

[Rorzikel]

4 hours ago, Argenti said:

Well, the WOB says kinda. Re-Shephir has a connection to light weavers, but probably Sja-anat does too; As the Taker of Secrets, who else deceives her master like she does? If they all have one, who is Nergaoul connected to? Moelach? 

Re-shephir was previously trapped by a Lightweaver and has interactions with them as you say, as well as being compared to being a big creationspren when Shallan puzzles through possible interpretations. Under my theory, she would be a former cryptic and roughly a correspondence to the Lightweavers.

Sja-anat herself in RoW describes her Enlightening as being an aspect of the surge of Transformation. She would be an analogue to the Elsecallers and originally an Inkspren under my theory. I do not regard her capability to lie as strong evidence that she is a stronger comparison to the Lightweavers in the text than Re-Shephir or that two of the Unmade are both equally related to the Lightweavers because of deception.

Nergaoul would relate to the Dustbringers as a perfect ruby was used to capture him. He also works as an inversion of the Dustbringer oath given in the official listing on the ten orders on Dragonsteel's page, "I will seek self-mastery" through the reckless and uncontrollable state the Thrill creates.

Moelach, I don't have a strong opinion yet. Possibly the Truthwatcher analogue, but that intuition is formed only off the fact that the Truthwatchers may have a relation to Fortune. I'm not terribly attached to the placement.

Yelig-nar, whose gemstone given to Amaram in an earlier release was originally smokestone that became amethyst crystal and later in a revised rerelease had being amethyst to start with as well, I regard as a Willshaper analog. I've seen some attempts to categorize him as the WR due to his surge granting, but I feel those theories are based in the assumption that only Adhesion has relevance to Connection. That can be seen to be untrue with Venli in RoW speaking to the stones using cohesion.

Ba-Ado-Mishram, being immensely connective and yet the Unmade are explicitly stated by Brandon twice to not have a Bondsmith equivalent, would be corresponding to the Windrunners and originally an Honorspren.

[Dofurion]

On 3/26/2024 at 5:22 PM, Rorzikel said:

Yelig-nar, whose gemstone given to Amaram in an earlier release was originally smokestone that became amethyst crystal and later in a revised rerelease had being amethyst to start with as well, I regard as a Willshaper analog. I've seen some attempts to categorize him as the WR due to his surge granting, but I feel those theories are based in the assumption that only Adhesion has relevance to Connection. That can be seen to be untrue with Venli in RoW speaking to the stones using cohesion.

One thing that my friends and I have talked about a lot is that it is very interesting that her stone is an amethyst. In fabrial mechanics, amethyst reverses the functioning of even fabrials, so could that be affecting the abilities it grants? Could I give access to the void versions if another gem were used?

[Treach]

On 3/26/2024 at 4:22 PM, Rorzikel said:

Re-shephir was previously trapped by a Lightweaver and has interactions with them as you say, as well as being compared to being a big creationspren when Shallan puzzles through possible interpretations. Under my theory, she would be a former cryptic and roughly a correspondence to the Lightweavers.

Sja-anat herself in RoW describes her Enlightening as being an aspect of the surge of Transformation. She would be an analogue to the Elsecallers and originally an Inkspren under my theory. I do not regard her capability to lie as strong evidence that she is a stronger comparison to the Lightweavers in the text than Re-Shephir or that two of the Unmade are both equally related to the Lightweavers because of deception.

Nergaoul would relate to the Dustbringers as a perfect ruby was used to capture him. He also works as an inversion of the Dustbringer oath given in the official listing on the ten orders on Dragonsteel's page, "I will seek self-mastery" through the reckless and uncontrollable state the Thrill creates.

Moelach, I don't have a strong opinion yet. Possibly the Truthwatcher analogue, but that intuition is formed only off the fact that the Truthwatchers may have a relation to Fortune. I'm not terribly attached to the placement.

Yelig-nar, whose gemstone given to Amaram in an earlier release was originally smokestone that became amethyst crystal and later in a revised rerelease had being amethyst to start with as well, I regard as a Willshaper analog. I've seen some attempts to categorize him as the WR due to his surge granting, but I feel those theories are based in the assumption that only Adhesion has relevance to Connection. That can be seen to be untrue with Venli in RoW speaking to the stones using cohesion.

Ba-Ado-Mishram, being immensely connective and yet the Unmade are explicitly stated by Brandon twice to not have a Bondsmith equivalent, would be corresponding to the Windrunners and originally an Honorspren.

Not to be pedantic or go on a tangent, but I'm not sure there were Honorspren when the Unmade came about. The SF only made 5 initially, and Syl bonded (her only other radiant as far as we know) close enough to the recreance that she was "asleep" and missed/was saved from it. It seems like he may have created her and the other four sometime between Aharietiam and the Recreance? Also, we know the mural in Urithiru depicts a Windspren instead of an Honorspren in the 10, which seems it would have reasoning behind it.

Largely though I agree, there are obvious parallels and Re-Shephir specifically has a strong connection to Shallan. However, Shallan also speculates that she may have been a Creationspren. But later speculates she may be searching for humanity that she lost, implying that she may have once been human. 

[Dofurion]

1 hour ago, Treach said:

Not to be pedantic or go on a tangent, but I'm not sure there were Honorspren when the Unmade came about. The SF only made 5 initially, and Syl bonded (her only other radiant as far as we know) close enough to the recreance that she was "asleep" and missed/was saved from it. It seems like he may have created her and the other four sometime between Aharietiam and the Recreance? Also, we know the mural in Urithiru depicts a Windspren instead of an Honorspren in the 10, which seems it would have reasoning behind it.

Largely though I agree, there are obvious parallels and Re-Shephir specifically has a strong connection to Shallan. However, Shallan also speculates that she may have been a Creationspren. But later speculates she may be searching for humanity that she lost, implying that she may have once been human. 

Remember that there are three "strains" of Honorspren

• The first created by Honor until her death.
• The second created by SF (among them Sylphena) until the betrayal
• Finally the third (only 10) created by the SF after recovering some of the betrayal trauma.
  • These in turn took responsibility for creating more of them.

[alder24]

20 hours ago, Treach said:

Not to be pedantic or go on a tangent, but I'm not sure there were Honorspren when the Unmade came about. The SF only made 5 initially, and Syl bonded (her only other radiant as far as we know) close enough to the recreance that she was "asleep" and missed/was saved from it. It seems like he may have created her and the other four sometime between Aharietiam and the Recreance? Also, we know the mural in Urithiru depicts a Windspren instead of an Honorspren in the 10, which seems it would have reasoning behind it.

Honorspren existed before Aharietiam, they were created directly by Honor. There were around 2000 Honorspren killed in Recreance, all created by Honor except for Syl and her generation that was the first created by the Stormfather as Honor was dying, shortly before the False Desolation. OB ch 108:

Quote

The captain sighed. “The honorspren were created by Honor himself, many thousands of years ago. You call him the Almighty, and … I’m afraid he’s dead.”
[...]
“Well, sometime before his death, Honor stopped creating honorspren. We don’t know why, but he asked the Stormfather to do it instead.”
[...]
“The Stormfather created only a handful of children. All of these, save Sylphrena, were destroyed in the Recreance, becoming deadeyes. This loss stung the Stormfather, who didn’t create again for centuries. When he was finally moved to remake the honorspren, he created only ten more. My greatgrandmother was among them; she created my grandfather, who created my father, who eventually created me.

RoW ch 87:

Quote

“In total? We have some twenty deadeyed honorspren in the fortress now, though there were some two thousand honorspren alive at the time of your betrayal. A single one survived.”
“Syl,” Adolin said.
“The Ancient Daughter was in a catatonic state,” Amuna said, “and was spared. But every other honorspren—every single one—had answered the call of the Radiants during the False Desolation."

Windspren are the plate spren of Windrunners and that's also the form Honorspren often take when they are in the Physical Realm.

Edited March 29 by alder24

[Argenti]

Also, the unmade were probably unique spren before Odium got to them. The unmade are significantly more invested than a normal Truespren, and if Odium was trying to avoid heavily investing, he likely wouldn't have elevated a Truespren to it. They're only slightly weaker than Bondsmith spren, which means they're much stronger than a true spren.