Stormlight 2 Title

[Windrunner he/him]

That's not a great argument. It doesn't just effect the holder's clothes. Anything or anyone Hoid was standing near would have its colors deepened.

[Kurkistan he/him]

^I think it's theoretically possible, though. There is the possibility that not all Awakened swords are Nightblood-class, i.e. as powerful as Nightblood. Hoid could have a much weaker blade that would still be "orders of magnitude more invested" than a shardblade. If Hoid kept a (very) polite social distance from people, he might be able to get away with it. Combine that with no one looking for such an affect and you get a plausible narrative.

[Windrunner he/him]

No one was looking for Nightblood to have a BioChromatic aura on Nalthis either...

Anyway, as I said in my initial post on the topic, this is all assuming any Awakened sword Hoid has was constructed via the same process and at the same power level as Nightblood.

[Yemeth]

Thanks for digging up those quotes Cheese Ninja. I think I'll go read that whole Q&A now.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

No one was looking for Nightblood to have a BioChromatic aura on Nalthis either...

True, but they *are* looking for auras in general...

though, come to think of it, the only scene I remember that in is the one where Vivenna is in the court and sees Vasher from behind... IIRC, she had already gotten Breath at that point.

I can't find a normal breath level PoV where anyone notices it.

There's Old Chapps' PoV

His net struck something. He grumbled, yanking it. Sometimes it got caught on debris or coral. It was heavy. Too heavy. He pulled the net back up over the side, then opened the shield on his lantern, risking a bit of light.

Tangled in the net, a sword lay in the bottom of his boat. Silvery, with a black handle.

Lap, lap, lap.

Ah, very nice, the voice said, much clearer now. I hate the water. So wet and icky down there.

Transfixed, Old Chapps reached out, picking up the weapon. It felt heavy in his hand.

I don’t suppose you’d want to go destroy some evil, would you? the voice said. I’m not really sure what that means, to be honest. I’ll just trust you to decide.

Old Chapps smiled.

Oh, all right, the sword said. You can admire me a little bit longer, if you must. After that, though, we really need to get back to shore.

But he doesn't seem to see anything special about nightblood's aura... then again, it's at night...

Both Hoid's sword and Nightblood are described as being 'silver', but that isn't exactly conclusive.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Cheese Ninja he/him]

Options:

1. I'm completely wrong. There will be no fight between an Awakener and a Shardbearer. Or if there is one, the Awakener won't be Hoid.

2. I'm slightly wrong, any Breaths Hoid has are either in normal objects on him or hidden away in his base.

3a. Despite being a 'Nightblood-type' sword, it either doesn't have its own Biochroma, or it's not as strong as Nightblood's Biochroma, so it's a lot harder to notice. It might not even be sentient. Over the centuries that Nightblood has been 'alive', its sentience has grown slightly, and it's possible that is true of its power as well.

3b. Hoid uses Lightweaving to make the sword appear normal. I'm not sure if that's actually possible, but it seems like Lightweaving should have some illusion abilities from its name alone.

Even if it's a Nightblood-type sword, there's no way to be sure if would look or behave exactly the same as Nightblood. It's more likely that it would be at least a bit different.

Wit picked his way through the groups of attendants, holding a cup of wine in one hand, silver sword belted at his side.

Wit sat on a raised stool at the end of the bridge leading onto the island. Wit actually dressed as a lighteyes should—he wore a stiff black uniform, silver sword at his waist.

A small fire of rockbud shell burned in front of him. The man’s hair was short and black, his face angular. He wore a thin, black-sheathed sword at his waist.

The sword isn't even described as being sheathed until Kaladin sees him with it. It may have been a different sword, one solely for appearances.

[Windrunner he/him]

I don't see why it would be more likely that any other Awakened sword would be significantly different. Considering that we have zero evidence either way, it could be true, but I'm failing to see any evidence for more likely. Nightblood is literally the only example we have of a Type IV BioChromatic entity, so it's hard to say what is characteristic of just him, or Type IV entities in general.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

For the Jasnah/Shallan orders debate, I think Shallan, at least is in #6, Shalash's because to Soulcast, she needed to say something honest, and so, if Jasnah isn't also in 6 but is in 5, maybe she has to say something she is confident in.

[Nemuri he/him]

For the Jasnah/Shallan orders debate, I think Shallan, at least is in #6, Shalash's because to Soulcast, she needed to say something honest, and so, if Jasnah isn't also in 6 but is in 5, maybe she has to say something she is confident in.

There was a typo in the Ars Arcanum. Just/Confident are the attributes of #2 while Learned/Giving are the attributes of #5. If you take Shallan's first soulcasting being blood as an indicator of her Order, Jasnah being in #5 doesn't make much sense. She stated she isn't good at soulcasting organic material, or something like that, and the essence and soulcasting properties of that Order are all organic/plant-based. I kind of think Jasnah might be in #2. We see her soulcast things into smoke more often than anything else, and the time she uses that stream of stormlight in the alley to cast that thug into smoke the smokestone gem on her soulcaster cracks. It's more of a crack!theory because it messes up the Shallan&Jasnah shared surge of soulcasting, unless there are two surges: one for organic material and one for inorganic.

[Yados]

Trying to cram both Shallan and Jasnah into the Radiant Orders for Soulcasting is no doubt meant to be confusing. 

 

But then, I don't think that Shallan is a radiant. I also don't think that Jasnah believes her to be. 

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Trying to cram both Shallan and Jasnah into the Radiant Orders for Soulcasting is no doubt meant to be confusing. 

 

But then, I don't think that Shallan is a radiant. I also don't think that Jasnah believes her to be. 

Because Shallan has an honorblade like Szeth (probably) does?

 

I dunno, she seems to use a spren bond.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Krelian]

Because Shallan has an honorblade like Szeth (probably) does?

 

I dunno, she seems to use a spren bond.

Hard to argue one way or another for Shallan, but if Szeth's blade is an Honorblade, what was the third type of blade we saw in WoK?

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Hard to argue one way or another for Shallan, but if Szeth's blade is an Honorblade, what was the third type of blade we saw in WoK?

The kind that the parshmen were using?

[Yados]

Because Shallan has an honorblade like Szeth (probably) does?

 

I dunno, she seems to use a spren bond.

 

She does talk to/use Spren, but it seems to work differently than Kaladin does. For one, the Spren Shallan sees already appear sentient. There's also more than one. 

 

I think Shallan (and maybe also Szeth) gets her power from Cultivation, not Honor. 

 

Jasnah is probably a Radiant. I can't pull the quote right now at work, but when Shallan shows Jasnah her drawings of the Symbolheads, she looks confused and then says something like "I thought... but no. Obviously not."

 

While some have cited that as the two being of different orders. I think Jasnah has been hiding a Nathal Bond like what Kaladin has and what Shallan (and Elhokar) have going on is something of a different Shard. 

[Krelian]

The kind that the parshmen were using?

Seems like a stretch to me. The simplest explanation is Honorblade, regular Shardblades, and Szeth's blade, in my opinion. But yeah, it's possible. 

[hoser he/him]

The kind that the parshmen were using?

I don't think that fits.  Dalinar has captured parshmen blades and found nothing noteworthy about them. 

 

We know that there are 3 kinds of blades and we have blades that behave in three different ways:

1. Honorblade: dark eyes when bearing, disappear when Herald (or other bearer?) dies
2. Radiantblade: permanently makes eyes light after having been borne, single-edged, artistic designs, appears when bearer dies
3. Szethblade: unique, eyes change color to light blue temporarily only while bearing, long, small, double-edged, possibly grants windrunner abilities

 

If Shallan's blade were an Honorblade, people would likely have known that it was different.  If she killed her father while he was bearing it, it might have disappeared. 

 

I don't know of any evidence supporting the notion that Szeth's or Shallan's blades are Honorblades.  There are blades that behave in three different ways with respect to the eyes.  I believe the eye changes indicate spiritweb or spiritual DNA changes.  (The link to spirit may also be why shardblades burn out the eyes.)  It seems logical to me that the differing eye effects define the three blade types. 

[BlairJ he/him]

Just read this entire thread. I find it hilarious that the announcement of the name of the book turned into all of this! :-)

[Alatar he/him]

She does talk to/use Spren, but it seems to work differently than Kaladin does. For one, the Spren Shallan sees already appear sentient. There's also more than one. 

 

I think Shallan (and maybe also Szeth) gets her power from Cultivation, not Honor. 

 

Good point, the spren being sentient might mean that its Shard is whole, and the sprens which seem erratic may be from the Splintered one. I think it fits.

[Malim he/him]

I would argue that Shallan's powers won't belong to the Lightweaver order for 2 reasons.

1. I hold that Shallan's 2 powers are Transformation, and her memory-type ability that she uses for drawing (though I'm sure there is more to it)

 

 

 

 

I actually see this as evidence for Shallan being a lightweaver.  From what we have seen of lightweaving, it involves creating illusions, etc.  Bending or translating light if you will.  Shallan's artisic ability strikes me as another form of this.  She takes a "Memory" ie a mental photograph, and translates it into an exact drawing.  Interestingly it seems to work on things that cannot normally be seen (the truthspren).  While this might simply be transformation, it seems to me that the Lightweaving we have seen also involves transformation: Hoid's fire became a picture show.

 

Also, Hello all from a long time lurker