Would it make sense for each of the Heralds (except maybe Taln) to bond one-to-one with the Unmade?

[Ripheus23]

I tried looking for other threads on this kind of idea, I seemed to mainly find tangents about how the Unmade don't correspond to Radiant Orders. Anyway, those threads would've all been outside this subforum, so here goes...

Outside thematic argument: one of the best scenes in The Wheel of Time was 

Spoiler

the cleansing of the One power, which process (and its defense) required two intertwined magic-users, using two subsystems of magic (well, and Shadar Logoth's special power).

Having reread the second WoT book not too long ago, I couldn't help but be struck by how much of a good, solid "Jordanlanche" the ending to that was. The style was hyper-reminiscent of Sanderson. Since he wrote, well, the ending of WoT anyway, I think the sheer coolness factor in the end to Winter's Heart gives him a reason to be inspired by that scene. So, a set of scenes that would work for a corresponding thematic reason, in the back half of The Stormlight Archive, would be to have nine of the Heralds bond to the Unmade. I will assume that Taln, in honor of never breaking, would be exempt from this process in direct terms but would symbolically participate in it, in some other way.

Person-by-person argument (NOT complete!)

1. Shallan: Re-Shephir? First, why would Shallan even end up a Herald? I think there could be a reason for her to do so in the sense of (A) wanting to fight alongside her mother (I know, I know, she could do that anyway, but c'mon, we gotta believe in the power of family and friendship sometimes, storm it!), and (B) because of Shallan's and Ash's being artists. Moreover, I think I've seen this theory proposed before. So anyway, Re-Shephir was imprisoned by a Lightweaver before, and interacted significantly with Shallan in WoR, after all. Also, might be a former creationspren, so the same type as Shallan's armor.
2. Chanarach: Chemoarish? Because Chemoarish is the Dustmother, and Chana is Shallan's mother after all, and anyway Chana is also the patron of the Dustbringers. And the names have a little good symmetry.
3. Ishar: Mishram? Ishar is a Bondsmith, Mishram is basically on the same kind of level as the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, and the Sibling. And they've both partaken of Odium's well. Also, his name is off by only one letter from being directly inside of her personable name ("personable" meaning "a way of saying her name, using just the last set of syllables, that indicates some kind of fondness/familiarity").
4. Kaladin: Yelig-nar? This is my favorite argument for this crem that I've come up with. Basically, Yelig-nar is the Unmade that most resembles the Everstorm in terms of its (the storm's) being the gateway for the Fused and so on. It's even known as the Blightwind, and Kaladin is the Herald of the Windrunners. And Kaladin fought Amaram, of all people, in juxtaposition with Yelig-nar.
5. Absurd guess: Nale: Nergaoul? Absurd because I'm going just off a vague name similarity again. On the other hand, it would be fun to see Mr. Uptight start hyperventilating under the influence of the Thrill.
6. No clue about Vedel, Kelek, Battar, or Pralla, or then Moelach, Dai-gonarthis, Sja-anat, or Ashertmarn.

"What's the point???" First off, if the Heralds would bond the Unmade as spren, maybe they could make Splinterblades akin to the Honorblades but in a way that could be combined with the power of the Honorblades like 

Spoiler

the two halves of the One Power were combined in Winter's Heart, along with the power of Shadar Logoth.

As for why they'd need to do that, I haven't come up with an explanation as to why it might be possibly useful overall. I have a sense for why it might help Kaladin specifically, but other than that, who knows... It makes "visual" sense, maybe, like eighteen people/spren wielding eighteen divine swords would seem like it would have to be able to cause something plot-altering?

So anyway, I'm guessing there'd be a scene at the end, where Ishar, Mishram, et al. are at Odium's well, using the alloy of Honor and Odium's godmetals in the process of manifesting the Voidblades(???)/Warblades(???). (I'm fluctuating between an image of the Unmade themselves having Splinterblade forms, vs. crafting entirely new such Blades in conjunction with the power of the Unmade or whatever.)

Now, I think it might not make sense for Kaladin to be anywhere besides the Godforge, with Sylphrena, at that point, though. I mean, it wouldn't make sense in the context of this theory (there's a zillion other ways this all could go down, I can't storming believe we have to wait twenty more years to know how it turns out!). And I'm guessing this along with a guess that the Godforge is the Cognitive site of the Origin, and Kaladin and Sylphrena are trying to regenerate the highstorm. So, this is where Kaladin getting Yelig-nar might be exactly helpful, as (part of) a critical way for Kaladin to interact with the Everstorm during the process.

So my endgame prediction is currently:

• Jasnah in Spiritual Kharbranth
• Kaladin, Sylphrena, and Yelig-nar at the Godforge
• Shallan, Ishar, and Mishram, and the others, at the evil Well

Random point: for some reason, and for what it's worth, the more I think about it, the more Shallan reminds me of Nynaeve.

[Sophrosyne He/any]

Short Version: I don't think it makes sense.

Maybe because I never read Wheel, I just don't see what this accomplishes. Heralds are already super powered matches for the unmade, why double up on them? To what end?
Merging two halves of a magic system sounds nice but they aren't that. The Unmade are mini god spren that seem tailored for specific purposes. the heralds are generals and chain t bind a god. Surgebinding and void binding have Parrales because their two methods for the same powers, but issue is the Unmade have nothing to do with voidbinding so we're not bring anything together.

TBH it's a cool idea, and feels like the sort of thing that could be extremely meaningful, but you can have allied spren without bonding them, see Notum.

[Ripheus23]

5 hours ago, Sophrosyne said:

Heralds are already super powered matches for the unmade, why double up on them? To what end?

To undermine the Intent of War? I mean, like...

Quote

Rayse and I had been in an arms race. First his Fused, then my Heralds, then his Unmade, then my Radiants-which were not my conscious creation, but formed by pieces of me working independently. I crafted their oaths to maximize their abilities, per Kor's contract and Ishar's advice.

Tanavast talks in militaristic terms, of an "arms race." So, the cycle, which was a predestination-shadow of Retribution, featured the development of the Heralds and the Unmade as the development of weapons systems in the War. Reconciling the Heralds and the Unmade would be a key component in resisting the Intent of Retribution, for this would be to Physically stop a major part of the war.

Now what I wonder, though, is why the cycle was like that? For some reason, I think that I assumed beforehand that the Unmade preceded the Fused, and were simultaneous with the Heralds. So the Unmade were a response to the Heralds, they were designed to match the Heralds in a way that the Fused could not. Then the Knights were made  to match the Unmade, with Sja-anat becoming the most feared by the Knights even so? I mean "qualitatively" nor "quantitatively" matched, to some extent: it doesn't seem like just any Knight could be equal in power-level to any of the Unmade, but groups of them might've been the "arms race" logic that Honor and Ishar were going with. For an awful alternative analogy, though: the Fused are like the first nuclear weapons systems, the early fission bombs; the Heralds are like the higher end of those; the Unmade are like the first fusion weapons systems; the Knights are like the nuclear submarine networks.

But so does it make more sense to try to specifically reconcile the Knights with the Unmade, then? Granted, Nale and Kaladin for example can express being a Knight and a Herald as one. On a higher spiritual level of the story, maybe there'd be a reason for the Intent of War to be defied not only in the area of the Heralds and the Unmade, but in the other areas, too. And in ketek terms, there's a special pairing of the Fused and the Knights, thematically, anyway, like if the "arms race" were a ketek, the Fused and the Knights would be the outer mirror terms, while the Heralds and the Unmade would be the reflection at the center.

[Master Silver]

To me, the only thing that would make sense with the unmade, is remaking them somehow. Sorta like the reverse of what was being done to the Sibling. If the new Oath pact does not protect void spren, I can see the unmade, hiding and then wanting their investiture changed to Honor's or Cultivations so that they are not destroyed. The Heralds and the Radiants also may not have the same sort of limitations now that Dalinar removed all the checks upon them by dissolving all oaths. But just because Dalinar did that while holding Honor's shard doesn't mean that the Radiant spren will not require oaths (aside from the former deadeyes that are the Unoathed). In order to do this though, I think they will need Nivanee. And she is currently in hibernation.

[Ripheus23]

1 hour ago, Master Silver said:

To me, the only thing that would make sense with the unmade, is remaking them somehow.

Hmm... OK, so the names of the ten gas giants correspond to the names of the Heralds.

Beforehand, in terms of the Honorblades and the Oathpact, the Heralds bound Odium to Braize especially. So, a way to bind a Shard is to bind it to a celestial body.

What if, and hear me out  but what if they have to crash Braize into one of the gas giants, to trigger it to become a second star in the Rosharan system, a star that Retribution has to Invest in? Or, then, by the duality of the Heralds and the Unmade, they can crystallize a massive amount of Warlight contrary to Retribution's desires, infuse Braize with this mass, and that's why they can use it to ignite a new star among the gas giants?

Now in Earth's solar system, for example, gas giants are helpful at gravitationally waylaying/intercepting asteroids/etc. Roshar's only known such impact event was before Honor got there, when one of the moons fell. The site of the fall coincides with Odium's/Retribution's Well on Roshar. That moon had something greater than aluminum in it, maybe its unique characteristics have an exotic mirror in the metal at Braize's core. Like, maybe a conduit can be formed on some level, between the hyper-aluminum, Retribution's godmetal, and the metal in Braize. Something to where Ishar and Co. (or whoever) can move Braize like the Lord Ruler moved Scadrial, say, I guess in part by using the power of a Shard's Well?

But so as far as remaking the Unmade goes, it feels almost like the Unmade are cosmere expressions of the concept of being "undead." I have a weird suspicion that the Evil on Threnody is some kind of manifestation of something similar to Midnight Essence (some effluence from Odium, mixed with Ambition??? I did find a thread discussing this idea), and so then Threnody is a planet with a huge "undead" theme (the Shades) anyway. So, maybe it would make sense to want to more fully resurrect them? I mean, like, Kaladin and Co. might be thinking, "Let's atone for the sin of what Rayse did in making the Unmade," and bonding with the Unmade helps accomplish that.

EDIT: the Coppermind says something about how the Rosharan system has 16 major celestial bodies: thirteen planets and three moons. But there'd have been 17 originally, before the fall of the ancient moon. I wonder if the 17th Shard organization has anything to do with that moon then???

Edited January 4, 2025 by Ripheus23

[RedBlue]

I could definitely see some Unmade ending up bonded to some Heralds.

A powerful spren without a Nahel bond is a bit of a Chekov’s gun, given how the magic system works. Having one or more Unmade break away from Retribution, be ‘remade’ or otherwise develop into a new form, and then bond with someone on Team Radiant would be pretty epic.

Most of the current major characters already have their own spren and their own things going on, so aren’t likely to bond a new spren. But the Heralds (minus Kaladin and Nale) are available, and we can expect the focus to shift towards them in the back half, which makes them good candidates for an Unmade bond.

However, I don’t think pairing the Heralds one-to-one with Unmade would be very satisfying. It would get old if all of them did it. Also, there are other interesting candidates for spren bonds. Gavinor is shaping up to be important. Szeth has a spren vacancy.

And what about the villains? If we start seeing Unmade forming bonds, why not expect some of them to side with Retribution? El could bond an Unmade. Or even Moash.