Potential alternate application of living plate

[CtrlAltDepressed]

Hi All. 

 

I had a thought. In ROW, we see that Kaladin can lend his living shardplate to someone else who needs protecting. 

 

The plate melds to that persons form - which prompted the thought - does it have to?

 

We have seen that living blades are able to morph into any shape that the Radiant can think of, even including chain, typewriter, watch, gun, etc. 

 

Could Kaladin theoretically project his shardplate into the shape of a wall, or around a vehicle? Does it have to form the shape of armor?

 

If he can do that, lets take it a step further. Shardplate is extremely resistant material. What is preventing Kaladin from sending his plate into a wall like a battering ram? Or better yet, hitting his enemies with it like an invisible hammer?

 

Another tangentially related question - can he separate it into pieces? For instance, if he is fighting someone but sees someone else that needs it at the same time, could he keep the chestpiece and helm for himself, and convert his legs and feet into chestpiece and helm for someone else? 

 

I dont see any reason these arent possible other than Brandon not wanting it to work that way. From the lore we have, this feels possible. 

 

As I was typing this I had another theory, though this one is admittedly wacko. 

 

In the Emberdark preview, we see a ShardGun. There has been lots of speculation about what the ammunition / battery pack contained. What if it is their armor spren? Windrunners have several (do we have a number?) windspren that make up their armor. The shardgun could be ejecting a single windspren manifested physically as the ammunition. Once it hits the target or reaches the range limit of the bond, it would poof back to the Radiant as their armor. 

[listerfeend]

I imagine it's the lack of sentience of the Armor Spren. I think that Radiant Spren are able to do that because they can actually interpret the Intent from their bonded Knight. Whereas, I suspect, the Armor Spren aren't really able to interpret that.

Now, a counter point to that would be: well why can they take the shape of the armor? And...I don't have a great answer for that, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they have to have had that imprinted on them somehow.

The ability to shrink or grow really seems to still be a maintaining of that original imprint of the armor. They have a seemingly set "this is what armor looks like" ideal, and they are able to make small changes to the size of the pieces to make it fit whomever it is intended to fit. 

I'm not sure if all of the Orders can send their armor to protect others, I seem to recall that being discussed as a Windrunner only thing as it fits within their "Protect" ideal structure. 

That all being said, I don't think we have any real in world explanation or evidence that this is or is not impossible and could definitely open up some very interesting interactions on the battle field. Shooting an entire set of Shardplate at someone at high rates of speed would be terrifying...

 

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

This is a fun topic. Here's another wild plate question: Shallan has two Nahel bonds. When she reaches sufficient Ideal level with both of them, will she have TWO set of plate?!

What could you do with this - could you have one on top of the other? Could you put one on and use the other on someone else? Can the Lightweaver anchor their Lightweaving to the other armor or put the 2nd armor on a substantiated lightweaving?

[Master Silver]

what about a Rhyshadium in living plate. Seems like a good use for a spare set

[Michael Portz he/him]

I think the projected shard shield wall is a Kaladin thing, not a windrunner one. 

[Isilel]

6 hours ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

Could you put one on and use the other on someone else?

 

I strongly suspect that Shallan is going to lend Adolin her plate very soon. He is good enough to win against the Fused, but he is squishy and doesn't have stormlight-enhanced endurance. Plate would help with both these things, living plate even more so than dead one. Even if lending plate is normally a Windrunner thing, I bet that the strong Connection with Adolin will still allow Shallan to do this and the armor will stay even if she moves far away.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

7 hours ago, Michael Portz said:

I think the projected shard shield wall is a Kaladin thing, not a windrunner one. 

19 hours ago, listerfeend said:

I'm not sure if all of the Orders can send their armor to protect others, I seem to recall that being discussed as a Windrunner only thing as it fits within their "Protect" ideal structure. 

We know from the RPG (apparently, I have not seen the source) that all orders are able to lend their plate to others. 

 

9 hours ago, Master Silver said:

what about a Rhyshadium in living plate. Seems like a good use for a spare set

What a great idea. 

 

4 hours ago, Isilel said:

I strongly suspect that Shallan is going to lend Adolin her plate very soon. He is good enough to win against the Fused, but he is squishy and doesn't have stormlight-enhanced endurance. Plate would help with both these things, living plate even more so than dead one.

I would love to see this. 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

11 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

(apparently, I have not seen the source)

Here ya go (green guy = employee):

Spoiler

[Longshot97 he/him]

Sad...but it makes sense. Dalinar's perspective as the Edgedancer in the Starfall vision mentions a "quartermaster" in conjunction with handing out Plate, I believe.

[Isilel]

On 9/7/2024 at 4:20 PM, Longshot97 said:

Starfall vision mentions a "quartermaster" in conjunction with handing out Plate

So the non-Windrunner Radiant  in the vision may have been wearing borrowed Plate? From what we have seen so far, with an own Plate a quartermaster's involvement should have been superfluous.

That would mean that a borrowed Plate could be dismissed and re-summoned by the borrower, not just the owner. Which is potentially very interesting.

[Darvys]

I don't recall any mention of a quartermaster, when Dalinar pretended there was a problem with his helm he was told to talk to his spren or some named unknown person, I assumed it would be one of the Bondsmiths of that time, which would be the person you go to if there's something strange with your spren bond.

I'm also not convinced that Kaladin's interactions with windspren are related to his shardplate or common to his order, what he did in the storm when saving those people in Oathbringer and after swearing the 4th ideal, I think that's separate from his armor spren forming around other people which is what the RPG canonizes as a standard radiant ability.

But those interactions tell us that even the lesser spren can interpret and respond to a Radiant's Intent, which is what Syl believes would allow her to manifest even as a non metallic object, Kaladin visualizing and herself believing, so maybe armor spren can actually do more than just form armor, it's just that like with the weapons, ancient Radiants just never had the leisure to experiment.

[BinarySecond]

Given today's chapter there is a lot that can be done with plate.

 

Shallan's didn't even fit properly at first!

[CtrlAltDepressed]

32 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

Given today's chapter there is a lot that can be done with plate.

 

Shallan's didn't even fit properly at first!

Not completely confirmed IMO (since shallan was joking around), though its very fun for me that I had this theory and literally the next chapter talks about it!