Bonding two spren - how???

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

Okay, so imagine a protoradiant was simply hellbent on bonding two spren. I would think it would be conceptually easiest for a Skybreaker initiate to wrap their head around simply because they have the nature, order, and quantity of oaths explicitly explained to them upfront, meaning they would be well positioned to intuitively understand other Order's oaths.

 

So my question is: what would be the best way to go about doing it?

Would it be easier to progress through oath number 5 then loop back around and start at number 1 with a new order? Or would progressing through the first 2 or 3 oaths in parallel with eachother with two non-fully-aware baby-spren be fundamentally more achievable?

What orders would pair well with eachother and allow the spren to get along well enough to not tear their radiants mind apart with contradictions and competing priorities??

Asking for a friend...

[alder24]

19 hours ago, hwiles said:

Okay, so imagine a protoradiant was simply hellbent on bonding two spren. I would think it would be conceptually easiest for a Skybreaker initiate to wrap their head around simply because they have the nature, order, and quantity of oaths explicitly explained to them upfront, meaning they would be well positioned to intuitively understand other Order's oaths.

 

So my question is: what would be the best way to go about doing it?

Would it be easier to progress through oath number 5 then loop back around and start at number 1 with a new order? Or would progressing through the first 2 or 3 oaths in parallel with eachother with two non-fully-aware baby-spren be fundamentally more achievable?

What orders would pair well with eachother and allow the spren to get along well enough to not tear their radiants mind apart with contradictions and competing priorities??

Asking for a friend...

Once you are a Radiant go to Shadesmar and just talk to other True Spren, trying to find a one that is willing to bond, but also fits your personality. Make sure your spren and that willing new spren are on good terms (and that your spren is willing to share you at all) and try to persuade the new True Spren to bond with you, explaining the benefits of this for them - they don't have to lose their mind in transition to that extent, they can just immediately anchor themselves to you which would ease their mental degradations, you have a fitting personality, you already know a lot about progressing as a Radiant, so while you on a different path now, you know you shouldn't be doing to not harm the spren and stuff like that. The best chances you will have if you find a friend of your spren - they already like each other, they might be willing to work together more than with some unknown spren. A Highspren and a Honorspren are unlikely to bond the same person, the same goes basically for any Cryptic (although one Inkspren was a friend to Testament so Cryptics aren't that isolated) and Honorspren as they both have a bad reputation in CR and other spren just don't like them. Lightspren and Peakspren are both travelers and sailors, so they seem to be a better fit to each other, but Willshapers and Edgedancers seem to be more in line personality wise - one cares about those imprisoned, the other about those who are forgotten and those often are the same people.

Overall I think there are many good pairs of Orders whose personality would fit together, but the hardest part is to convince spren to bond you and share you. You need to find two spren that can accept to be in crowded Nahel Bond and if your first spren is unwilling to share you at all, you have no chances of becoming a dual Radiant (you don't choose your spren, they chose you). Once you are a Radiant, the best way to find a new spren to bond is to talk to meet as many spren as possible in CR and persuading them the benefits of choosing you. You are unlikely to attract a spren by just waiting, you have to talk to them. I don't think it matters that much if you are an Ideal 3 or 5 Radiant, as long as you are officially a knight, you've proven yourself enough.

[+robardin he/him]

14 minutes ago, hwiles said:

This makes a lot of intuitive sense. Seems like a double-Radiant would need to be a pretty damaged individual with more heart than head in order to wind up with a pair of extremely understanding spren both feeding their power simultaneously.

Still though...it seems to me that swearing six mid-range oaths to two spren might still be easier than swearing all five to one in some cases. 

But see, the cracks are the cracks - they are part of the Surgebinder's personal growth.

The two different spren, representing different Ideals, would then be competing, so to speak, to fill that crack with their respective interpretations of how to fill it.

For example, Kaladin's angst over the Moash plot could have been resolved differently with a different type of spren, right? It was because he was bonded to Syl, an honorspren, that meant he had to realize/bridge his soul-crack by resolving to "protect even those I hate".

Supposing he had bonded a highspren, where the Third Ideal is of Dedication, and the "resolution" a highspren might seek is "follow Dalinar's or Nalan's guidance on what constitutes Justice (the Second Ideal)" - if he was OK with it or commanded it, then so be it.

You can't resolve the same soul-crack in a way that satisfies both Ideals at the same time.

That's probably why the spren won't even enter the bond in the first place with another one lodged there, i.e. the First Ideal, because they instinctively want to avoid such a clash of orientation.

Shallan, of course, is a very special case - her bonds are both to Cryptics, and her crack to bond with Pattern was based on lying to herself/suppressing the memory that she had ever had a bond with Testament earlier. (Pretty messed up, right? That's Shallan to a T. Pretty, and messed up. LOL)

Edited April 9, 2024 by robardin

[+robardin he/him]

That Moash scenario made we wonder, though: supposing Kaladin had gotten recruited by the Skybreakers right after “killing” Syl (no longer holding an active Nahel bond), upon emerging from the chasms with Shallan, and something causes Moash’s plot to be delayed by a few weeks.

Imagine if he progresses rapidly as Szeth did, and then does in fact swear the Third Ideal of the Skyhbreakers to follow Dalinar’s vision of justice (which results in protecting Elhokar, but for a different reason).

He then swears to pursue a Crusade against Amaram, Roshone, and other “lying lighteyes” who have abused their station…

…and then somewhere along the way, feels compelled to protect Roshone against Moash despite his Crusade, after finding him doing his best to help the people of Hearthstone deal with the singer occupation.

I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right.

I was only as dead as your oaths, Kaladin.

Could he revive his “dead” bond with Syl at that point, and become a Windrunner and a Skybreaker of the Third Ideal? It would certainly mess up his pursuit of his Crussde, though!

And what would you call him? A Skyrunner? Windbreaker? LOL

Edited April 9, 2024 by robardin

[Treamayne]

40 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Okay, so imagine a protoradiant was simply hellbent on bonding two spren. I would think it would be conceptually easiest for a Skybreaker initiate to wrap their head around simply because they have the nature, order, and quantity of oaths explicitly explained to them upfront, meaning they would be well positioned to intuitively understand other Order's oaths.

 

So my question is: what would be the best way to go about doing it?

Would it be easier to progress through oath number 5 then loop back around and start at number 1 with a new order? Or would progressing through the first 2 or 3 oaths in parallel with eachother with two non-fully-aware baby-spren be fundamentally more achievable?

What orders would pair well with eachother and allow the spren to get along well enough to not tear their radiants mind apart with contradictions and competing priorities??

Asking for a friend...

It is possible (theoretically) to bond two spren (and technically it has already been done - details RoW Spoilers). WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

Could someone bond with two spren and wield two swords?

Brandon Sanderson

It is theoretically possible, but the spren aren't going to like it.  So you are not going to see it very often.

Firefight Seattle Public Library signing (Jan. 7, 2015)

Quote

Macen

You've pretty much implied yes [to bonding more than one spren].

Brandon Sanderson

I did not say yes.

Questioner

You implied.  <What about> more than one type of spren?  Different types of spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see what happens.  This is not impossible.  

Footnote: Brandon has also stated humans can theoretically bond multiple spren.
Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

Quote

Questioner

Is someone limited to how many Nahel bonds they can form, or could someone go play Pokéspren and catch them all, getting access to all Surges?

Brandon Sanderson

There are limits to what a soul can handle. These limits are soft caps, not hard caps. Pokéspren is theoretically possible, but there would be hoops, not just the normal "I want to bond two spren" hoop, which is already a pretty big one.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

Most likely, if it were to happen, it would have to happen early in the Oaths, I think the Bond with the first spren would be too much at 4th or 5th oath to then try to bond a different order's spren at 1st oath. TSM Spoilers:

Spoiler

Or, like in Nomad's case, Bond a different order after you have lost your bond with the first order (which I realize is not what you are asking - which seems to be about two separate simultaneous bonds - like Shallan but for different orders.

 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Whatever way you slice it, it'd make for a very interesting story. A Radiant doing the (Perceived in-world) impossible and join two separate orders at once. Then trying to balance both sets of Oaths and progressing them. That'd make for quite a story indeed.

I imagine it'd have been easier during the Desolations, where knowledge of Surgebinding was more common and Spren would be much keener in looking for humans to Bond with, maybe being more willing to share since the population is routinely decimated by nine-tenths.

Plus the interactions between 4 Surges would be interesting, like would a Windrunner gain new types of Lashings with the right extra Surges? So many possibilities.

[+robardin he/him]

The way the Nahel bond has been described to work, by analogy, is that the spren "fills in the cracks" in a person's soul. Which requires "cracking" the soul in the first place, with pain, conflict, doubt, etc. And each advancement in Ideal represents a further, deeper "soul cracking".

When Kaladin is struggling to reach the Third Ideal, to reconcile and to overcome his feeling that he's betrayed his Second Ideal in agreeing to stand by and let Moash proceed with his plot with Graves to murder Elhokar, he complains to Syl that she's asking too much of him, that he's not like the Radiants of old, "some glorious knight of ancient days". That he's a broken man.

And she replies, "That's what they all were, silly."

To bond different kinds of living, sentient spren at the same time seems very difficult, then. As we saw in RoW, spren can even decline to engage in an otherwise possible bond because the person is already "spoken for" by another one.

I think to do this might require some force. As in, something on the level of Crazy Unchained Ishar Doing Nahel Bond Manipulation, as he nearly did in RoW with Dalinar/SF.

Edited April 9, 2024 by robardin

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

1 minute ago, robardin said:

The way the Nahel bond has been described to work, by analogy, is that the spren "fills in the cracks" in a person's soul. Which requires "cracking" the soul in the first place, with pain, conflict, doubt, etc.

When Kaladin is struggling to reach the Third Ideal, to reconcile and to overcome his feeling that he's betrayed in Second Ideal in agreeing to stand by and let Moash proceed with his plot with Graves to murder Elhokar, he complains to Syl that she's asking too much of him, that he's not like the Radiants of old, "some glorious knight of ancient days". That he's a broken man.

And she replies, "That's what they all were, silly."

To bond different kinds of living, sentient spren at the same time seems very difficult, then. As we saw in RoW, spren can even decline to engage in an otherwise possible bond because the person is already "spoken for" by another one.

I think to do this might require some force. As in, something on the level of Crazy Unchained Ishar Doing Nahel Bond Manipulation, as he nearly did in RoW with Dalinar/SF.

This makes a lot of intuitive sense. Seems like a double-Radiant would need to be a pretty damaged individual with more heart than head in order to wind up with a pair of extremely understanding spren both feeding their power simultaneously.

Still though...it seems to me that swearing six mid-range oaths to two spren might still be easier than swearing all five to one in some cases. 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

37 minutes ago, robardin said:

But see, the cracks are the cracks - they are part of the Surgebinder's personal growth.

The two different spren, representing different Ideals, would then be competing, so to speak, to fill that crack with their respective interpretations of how to fill it.

For example, Kaladin's angst over the Moash plot could have been resolved differently with a different type of spren, right? It was because he was bonded to Syl, an honorspren, that meant he had to realize/bridge his soul-crack by resolving to "protect even those I hate".

Supposing he had bonded a highspren, where the Third Ideal is of Dedication, and the "resolution" a highspren might seek is "follow Dalinar's or Nalan's guidance on what constitutes Justice (the Second Ideal)" - if he was OK with it or commanded it, then so be it.

You can't resolve the same soul-crack in a way that satisfies both Ideals at the same time.

That's probably why the spren won't even enter the bond in the first place with another one lodged there, i.e. the First Ideal, because they instinctively want to avoid such a clash of orientation.

Shallan, of course, is a very special case - her bonds are both to Cryptics, and her crack to bond with Pattern was based on lying to herself/suppressing the memory that she had ever had a bond with Testament earlier. (Pretty messed up, right? That's Shallan to a T. Pretty, and messed up. LOL)

Haha, exactly! They'll just have to break their soul incurably in two places at once to give both spren room to grow and invest! 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

10 hours ago, robardin said:

...

I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right.

I was only as dead as your oaths, Kaladin.

Could he revive his “dead” bond with Syl at that point, and become a Windrunner and a Skybreaker of the Third Ideal? It would certainly mess up his pursuit of his Crussde, though!

And what would you call him? A Skyrunner? Windbreaker? LOL

Lol. No yeah, I think that would've worked just as suggested and, unfortunately, yes, that would've made Kaladin a holy knight of the Windbreakers 

I'd gladly take that curse in exchange for the boon of two spren at the same time though!

[alder24]

21 hours ago, robardin said:

The way the Nahel bond has been described to work, by analogy, is that the spren "fills in the cracks" in a person's soul. Which requires "cracking" the soul in the first place, with pain, conflict, doubt, etc. And each advancement in Ideal represents a further, deeper "soul cracking".

When Kaladin is struggling to reach the Third Ideal, to reconcile and to overcome his feeling that he's betrayed his Second Ideal in agreeing to stand by and let Moash proceed with his plot with Graves to murder Elhokar, he complains to Syl that she's asking too much of him, that he's not like the Radiants of old, "some glorious knight of ancient days". That he's a broken man.

And she replies, "That's what they all were, silly."

To bond different kinds of living, sentient spren at the same time seems very difficult, then. As we saw in RoW, spren can even decline to engage in an otherwise possible bond because the person is already "spoken for" by another one.

I think to do this might require some force. As in, something on the level of Crazy Unchained Ishar Doing Nahel Bond Manipulation, as he nearly did in RoW with Dalinar/SF.

Just to point out, having a broken soul isn't required to become a Knight Radiant - the Nahel Bond bypasses this requirement and allows the power to seep into the soul of the knight. It helps, but it isn't needed as a sapient entity is also involved who can choose - a spren. 

Spoiler

AndrewStirlingMacDonald (paraphrased)

Is being a little bit crazy a prerequisite to becoming a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, so, for many of the cosmere magics to work, you have to... it has to get into the soul somehow. Right? Sometimes you ram it in by spiking someone else's soul and ripping off a piece and sticking it into yours. Sometimes, it just seeps in the cracks. Sometimes the bond allows it to kind of bypass some of this, but it's usually traumatic experience. So crazy is not required, but there's got to be a place for the magic to go, to get in.

Shadows of Self Boston signing (Oct. 14, 2015)

 

13 hours ago, robardin said:

That Moash scenario made we wonder, though: supposing Kaladin had gotten recruited by the Skybreakers right after “killing” Syl (no longer holding an active Nahel bond), upon emerging from the chasms with Shallan, and something causes Moash’s plot to be delayed by a few weeks.

Imagine if he progresses rapidly as Szeth did, and then does in fact swear the Third Ideal of the Skyhbreakers to follow Dalinar’s vision of justice (which results in protecting Elhokar, but for a different reason).

He then swears to pursue a Crusade against Amaram, Roshone, and other “lying lighteyes” who have abused their station…

…and then somewhere along the way, feels compelled to protect Roshone against Moash despite his Crusade, after finding him doing his best to help the people of Hearthstone deal with the singer occupation.

I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right.

I was only as dead as your oaths, Kaladin.

Could he revive his “dead” bond with Syl at that point, and become a Windrunner and a Skybreaker of the Third Ideal? It would certainly mess up his pursuit of his Crussde, though!

And what would you call him? A Skyrunner? Windbreaker? LOL

I am not 100$ sure Kaladin has fully broken his Ideals at this point. He was close, but not there yet, he didn't do what Shallan did when she fully broke her bond. Kaladin had sworn two conflicting oaths to two different people, but he still wanted to protect people. That's why he had to just swear the 3rd Ideal and his bond and Syl were back working. If he were to follow and assist in assassination of Elhokar, then his bond with Syl would have been fully broken, just like Shallan's bond with Testament - swearing the 3rd Ideal would not work anymore, Syl would be a deadeye. At least that's what I think was happening. In that case, if Kaladin were to fully break his bond with Syl, he would have to reswear all of his Ideals to bring her back to life. 

Spoiler

Questioner

The dead Shardblades, could you possibly get Stormlight into them to reawaken them?

Brandon Sanderson

Dead Shardblade, could you pump enough Stormlight into them? That alone would not be enough.

Questioner

So you would have to find someone to re-swear with oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something broken on the Spiritual Realm because of the broken oath and simple Stormlight will not fix that.

Questioner

So say--

Brandon Sanderson

If the person were still alive and could re-swear the oath then yes.

Questioner

But someone like [...] could go [...] the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not outside of reason but it would be very, very, very difficult.

Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

 

Edited April 10, 2024 by alder24

[+robardin he/him]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Just to point out, having a broken soul isn't required to become a Knight Radiant - the Nahel Bond bypasses this requirement and allows the power to seep into the soul of the knight. It helps, but it isn't needed as a sapient entity is also involved who can choose - a spren.  ...

I am not 100$ sure Kaladin has fully broken his Ideals at this point. ... If he were to follow and assist in assassination of Elhokar, then his bond with Syl would have been fully broken, just like Shallan's bond with Testament - swearing the 3rd Ideal would not work anymore, Syl would be a deadeye. At least that's what I think was happening. In that case, if Kaladin were to fully break his bond with Syl, he would have to reswear all of his Ideals to bring her back to live. 

Well it depends what you mean by "broken soul" versus "cracks" in the soul. As that WoB says, " it's usually traumatic experience. So crazy is not required, but there's got to be a place for the magic to go, to get in."

"Usually" traumatic experience, but not necessarily, and "crazy is not required", sure - but there still has to be "a place for the magic to go" in the soul. It could be something positive or happy - as per other WoBs as to ways that "Snapping" can happen for an Allomancer - and I think "seeping in" is a way of saying, it would take longer, eh?

As for whether or not Kaladin counted as having "broken his ideals" in WoR in the same way that Shallan had done with her first Cryptic, that's an interesting question. You might say he went FURTHER along than Shallan in doing so: she was still able to summon her "Testamentblade" and to soulcast the goblet into blood and so on, while Kaladin couldn't do any Surgebinding or even to draw in Stormlight.

Then again, he had only reached the Second Ideal with Syl up to that point, while clearly Shallan had gotten to at least the Third Ideal with Testament as a child (maybe even further, as her first-ever imagining of herself as "Radiant" at Thaylen Fields included being in glowing garnet armor.)

Either way, the statement "I was only as dead as your oaths", and the repeated theme in WoBs about reviving deadeyes as being nigh impossible without their original bonded Radiant, suggests that the "cabling" of the bond is still there, just dormant/blocked and not severed.

(Also that deadeyes were not a thing until the Recreance, hmmm.)

[alder24]

Just now, robardin said:

Well it depends what you mean by "broken soul" versus "cracks" in the soul. As that WoB says, " it's usually traumatic experience. So crazy is not required, but there's got to be a place for the magic to go, to get in."

 

"Usually" traumatic experience, but not necessarily, and "crazy is not required", sure - but there still has to be "a place for the magic to go" in the soul. It could be something positive or happy - as per other WoBs as to ways that "Snapping" can happen for an Allomancer - and I think "seeping in" is a way of saying, it would take longer, eh?

I mean this part: "Sometimes the bond allows it to kind of bypass some of this." The bond does allow the magic to get into your soul, no matter if it's cracked or not. That's why "crazy is not required." Broken soul and cracks are the same in my mind. You don't need to have any cracks in your soul to bond an Aviar, you don't need anything to Awaken or hold Breaths etc - in general cracks in soul aren't always needed, for Radiants what matters the most is the will of a spren as the Nahel Bond allows the power to get into your soul even with no cracks in it. 

5 minutes ago, robardin said:

As for whether or not Kaladin counted as having "broken his ideals" in WoR in the same way that Shallan had done with her first Cryptic, that's an interesting question. You might say he went FURTHER along than Shallan in doing so: she was still able to summon her "Testamentblade" and to soulcast the goblet into blood and so on, while Kaladin couldn't do any Surgebinding or even to draw in Stormlight.

I think Kaladin couldn't do anything not only because of the state in which his bond was, but also because after he had fallen into chasms, the Stormfather took Syl and prevented her from going back to Kaladin. 

7 minutes ago, robardin said:

Either way, the statement "I was only as dead as your oaths", and the repeated theme in WoBs about reviving deadeyes as being nigh impossible without their original bonded Radiant, suggests that the "cabling" of the bond is still there, just dormant/blocked and not severed.

(Also that deadeyes were not a thing until the Recreance, hmmm.)

Agreed.