The Fallen Heralds

[steeleyes]

As far as Darkness is concerned I can understand him acquiring a shardblade. What I have an issue with are his powers. I had assumed that by breaking the oathpact and his bond with his honor blade that Nalan would have broken his bond with his spren as well and even if that didn't happen what little evidence we have so far points to spren having an aversion to shardblades. The only example we have of someone who actively uses both stormlight and a shardblade is Szeth which makes me wonder if there isn't some kind of connection there.

[hoser he/him]

Steeleyes, please consider how little we know about the Heralds and the following quote from here:

voice he recognizes from his vision saying that the radiants were a surprise to him that the spren had formed in a way similar to the way he himself, (the Almighty,) had formed the Heralds.

I consider this evidence in support of the notion that the Heralds predate Honor's arrival on Roshar. 

It strongly suggests to me that Heralds do not have bonding spren.  

It further suggests that the Heralds may inherently have some of the Radiant powersets, rather than just in conjunction with their swords. 

[Gloom he/him]

We actually do have a nearly verified Nahel bond holder in possession of a Shardblade. Her name is Shallan. In regards to Darkness, we suspect he is a Herald, we strongly suspect he is a Herald, but it isn't cannon. If he isn't a Herald, then he could be like Shallan. If he is a Herald, then what do we have to base his level of power off of? We've seen three verified Heralds in TWoKs. We Saw Kalak and Jezrien in the Prequel, and we've seen Taln in the Epilog. Of these, the only one who exhibited an unusual ability was Taln by speaking native Alethi without an accent.

 

I don't think we can base the reactions of spren to Shards based on Syl alone. I don't think we have seen another spren that was even close to being like her. So far as spren go, she is unique and may see things differently from other spren.

 

Steeleyes, please consider how little we know about the Heralds and the following quote from here:

I consider this evidence in support of the notion that the Heralds predate Honor's arrival on Roshar. 

It strongly suggests to me that Heralds do not have bonding spren.  

It further suggests that the Heralds may inherently have some of the Radiant powersets, rather than just in conjunction with their swords. 

 

I believe that the Heralds predate Roshar as well. as I stated here

[marianmi]

Honor "formed" the heralds. I don't think it was *before* he came to Roshar.

They also don't have a bonding spren - they are some kind of spren themselves i.e. they are splinters. They are not necessarly of "physical" - they spent most of their time in another realm being tortured. I would assume they can go in all realms.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Um... The Heralds are not spren, hey are Physical entities, not Cognitive ones.  Also where do you get them being splinters?  They are certainly invested but as far as I know "humans" can't be splinters.
 

I also do not believe they predate H+C's arrival on Roshar.  I believe H+C either brought humans with them or recreated them on Roshar, since the Heralds are "human" they couldn't have been on Roshar before H+C.

[hoser he/him]

Um... The Heralds are not spren, hey are Physical entities, not Cognitive ones.  Also where do you get them being splinters?  They are certainly invested but as far as I know "humans" can't be splinters.

 

I also do not believe they predate H+C's arrival on Roshar.  I believe H+C either brought humans with them or recreated them on Roshar, since the Heralds are "human" they couldn't have been on Roshar before H+C.

I think (and maybe Gloom also) that the heralds predate H+C's arrival on Roshar, but they weren't on Roshar before H+C.  So the heralds were among the people that H+C brought with them.  As spren seem to be a Roshar thing, that might mean they are not spren unless there are also spren in the Tranquilline Halls.

[Gloom he/him]

Yeah, three habitable planets in the system. I think Honor set his humans up on a neighboring planet. I think that the planet was the basis for the legend about the Tranquiline Halls.

 

My thoughts on the matter have been laid out here

 

I am firmly on board with the Heralds not being spren or splinters though.

[Walker]

Looking at the released readings, I think that there is some evidence that the corruption of the Heralds is actually related to Cultivation.

 

First, in Jasnah's prologue

 

“She’s getting worse,” the voice continued. “We weren’t supposed to get worse. Am I getting worse? I think I feel worse.”

 

We believe this is either from Nalan or his partner.  At first glance, this might be about Shallash.  However, the implication that they are getting worse as a result of this woman getting worse.

 

Second, in Lift's interlude:

 

Wyndle moved along beside Lift. “Mother has given up on your kind,” he said. “I can feel it. She doesn’t care any longer. Now that He’s gone . . .”

 

Because Honor declares himself the Almighty in the visions, we have often assumed that they are of Honor.  But perhaps they are of both Honor and Cultivation, and as she pulls away they become more corrupted.

[Urithiru]

I have a question about the face/god/person that Kaladin speaks to when he has his highstorm vision of Roshar. Who is this?? If Honor is dead, how could it be him, unless it as another ghost recording thing. But doesn't he call Kaladin "Child of Tanavast" or something? It would be weird to call Kaladin "Child of Tanavast" if the face was Tanavast (even in death). And we are told repeatedly that Cultivation is female, so probably not her. And "Odium reigns" makes it unlikely, I think, that the face is Odium… So who? Could it be a herald? Could it be Jezrien ("Stormfather")? 

 

Another possibility is that Jezrien is that confused ("have you seen me") guy in the WoK prologue, and he is confused because he invested his consciousness in the highstorms to keep them going (or even to start them) after Honor's death. Maybe his wits return during the highstorm just like Dalinar falls into visionary hallucinations, and maybe Taravangian's mental state comes and goes. We know from Mistborn that power and investiture and consciousness are somehow related, that Preservation sacrificed awareness to add a little more of herself into the world. Maybe that is what one of the Heralds did? Could Taravangian be one of the heralds? What's going on with his fluctuating genius?

[Gloom he/him]

I would venture to say that the face in the sky could indeed be Jezriens consciousness. That Jezrien is trapped in that state, and his body lies comatose (drooling). I know that this would contradict a lot of other theories about where exactly Jezrien is so I'll leave it at that and let people pick it apart for a while.

[Argent he/him]

I support the idea that it is Jezrien's consciousness that rides the highstorms - it could explain our drooling friend in the TWoK prologue, and I obviously support that idea. Maybe if Shards - e.g. Preservation - can pull this trick with their awareness, then humans (or at least ones containing Splinters, if the Heralds match that profile) can too.

[deddinty]

There are several possibilities I can see, some are much more plausible than others.

 

1) Jezrien -> Plausible, my personal opinion leans this way.  It makes the most sense, and I can imagine it would be possible for a herald to have this type of power.  He may even "ride" the storms in the way Kaladin did. 

2) Honor/Tanavast -> An imprint of some sort perhaps, not very high on my plausible list.

3) Odium -> Plausible, but I don't really see Odium bothering to warn a future Radiant about the Everstorm.  Still possible though. 

4) Cultivation -> Possible, but unlikely.  Besides being female, I don't really see anything Cultivation like in the message or the storms themselves.  Still possible as she is a Shard and could potentially have the power to make an illusion or control the storms.

5) Adolnasium -> well we know he left some power there (as seen in the spren quote), he may even have something to do with the creation of highstorms.  Not likely, but a possibility.

6) Hoid -> what can he do with lightweaving/all his powers ;p ? Highly unlikely, he had his part in WoK elsewhere.

Edited October 26, 2013 by deddinty

[Sasukerinnegan he/him]

I think the highstorms aren't just storms............... they're some kind of spren(maybe) or some other kind of being which spans both the physical and cognitive realms....... Remember, Lift had the power of converting food into Stormlight and she was spread across both the realms ........... the same is true of the highstorm i.e it is converting "something" into Stormlight.....and I suspect it has nothing whatsoever to do with Jezrien since the highstorms were present even between desolations..... the Windrunners are described as riding the Storms...... and what exactly is Yelignar or Blightwind anyway - something similar??? They're definitely not one of the Shards..... i'm sure of that, considering the way it spoke. Also consider the fact that Jezrien had that much power something like a Thunderclast couldn't even scratch him but Kelek describes himself as having been killed by a Thunderclast several times although he too was a Herald.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Sasukerinnegan

[Argent he/him]

Jezrien could be a recent addition to the highstorms'... content. It's possible that before the last Desolation the highstorms were just that - extremely powerful storms. And sometime after that Jezrien chose them for his new home.

 

Yelig-nar was probably one of the Unmade - which are probably the opposites of the Ten Heralds. We don't know much more than that.

 

Also, even if any one of the Heralds could laugh in the face of a single Thunderclast, a dozen, or a hundred probably would've been a problem. It's similar to how Shattered Plains warfare works, really - a single full Shardbearer could plow through the Parshendi lines like they are wheat, but all it takes is a single lucky hit in the visor and he would be taken down; or he could even be pushed into a chasm, overwhelmed by numbers. Kelek dying to a Thunderclast doesn't imply he was fighting against a single Thunderclast.

[Alterodent he/him]

This may be a little off topic, but do you think that Taln might reunite/restore the other Heralds? He alone represents the Oathpact now, and I think they would obey him out of guilt/hope for salvation. 

[Argent he/him]

It's possible. He should be able to guilt trip them, if nothing else.

[Sasukerinnegan he/him]

I thought the Ten Fools were the heraldic equivalents of Odium. So are they same as or different from the Unmade?? Also if the Dawnshards weren't created for the Heralds, who were they created for? Since the Heralds already have their Honorblades.............

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I thought the Ten Fools were the heraldic equivalents of Odium. So are they same as or different from the Unmade?? Also if the Dawnshards weren't created for the Heralds, who were they created for? Since the Heralds already have their Honorblades.............

 

We don't really know.  One theory, which I agree with, is that the Unmade are the actual, "real" world, equivalent of the Heralds while the Ten Fools are religious constructs loosely based on them.  (i.e. they have been designed to emphasize Vorin teachings)

 

On the Dawnshards, again we don't know.  We don't even know whether they are even weapons.  (I actually kind of doubt that)

[dungeonfood he/him]

I haven't seen anything about this, but Shalash seems to destroy art in places that Szeth visits. She destroyed the statue in the prologue before Szeth killed the king, and she's also destroyed one in Azir where the two Primes were assassinated. There's a possibility she just goes to places with great troves of art, which would correspond with the important people Szeth is sent to kill, but I don't think so. Elhokar's 10 statues of the Heralds on the shattered plains are left in tact, for example.

 

Note: I tried to find evidence that Szeth killed somebody in Emul, since that's where Shalash was smashing things up in the Baxil chapter, but couldn't locate the proper list of people he killed. I know Kaladin flies over Emul in his chapter where he follows the stormwall (when he asks for clarification if the place he flew over actually exists), but I don't think that's the same place where he sees Szeth killing people. If anyone can dig up something about somebody in Emul being assassinated, that would go a long way.

[FirstSelector]

What if the "Dawnshards" are ten Splinters of Honor that were originally given to the Heralds?  But maybe this power came with the various requirements (returning to Damnation, etc) and by abandoning those the Heralds lost access to their power.  That is to say, they are still Invested in some sense, but unable to access or use the power.  This would explain any lack of binding spren since they wield the power directly without having to conform to the system specifics, just as

Vin could fuel Allomancy without the person having metals in their stomach.

 
Why, then, does Tanavast in the vision seem to imply all of them were gone?  Well, perhaps he thought that with the fall of the Knights Radiant and the general loss of Surgebinding in the populace that Taln was doomed to stay (with his Dawnshard) in Damnation for all eternity.  Then, the nine fallen Heralds and Taln would all be unavailable for whatever Honor feared Odium had up his sleeve.

 

Of course, if Nalan (Darkness, almost certainly) and Shalash have access to some of their powers, one has to wonder exactly how much they have lost.  Maybe they lost the greater part of their powers when they abandoned the Oathpact and the slow decay of the rest as they slip more and more has driven more than a few of them mad.

[Oudeis he/him]

While reading the Kalak theory I was reminded of the crazy beggar that Axies the Collector encountered during his interlude. He'd built a town out of rotting vegetables and was playing god over it I think. I'll have to go back and check the passage but I think he'd be a much more amusing fit for Kalak simply because he was firm in his delusions (a perversion of resolute) and still building things even if it was out of trash and easily destroyed (perversion of builder). Of course I have absolutely no proof for that idea it just made me chuckle.

 

Interestingly, that crazy old man asked Axies, "Are you a Herald?".

 

Um... The Heralds are not spren, hey are Physical entities, not Cognitive ones.  Also where do you get them being splinters?  They are certainly invested but as far as I know "humans" can't be splinters.

 

The Divine Breath of Returned are Splinters... I agree that the Returned themselves are technically not Splinters but it's the next best thing.

[FidesFortuna he/him]

Out of curiosity has anyone considered that all of the herald aren't human? Perhaps a parshendi or aimian??

[natc]

Well the ones we've seen look human enough.

There's got to be nearly 10 species of "human" out there anyway. I think by the biological definition alone being on separate planets is probably enough to deny the necessary gene flow to prevent speciation . . .

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Seeing as we're necroing; i found a WoB that might indicate Paliah's location, along with an insightful bit of info which as i read back, has already been stated. (derp)

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27heralds%27 number 16

 

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 14th, 2013

Steelheart Signing Report - Shardlet (Verbatim)

QUESTION

Is the Palanaeum named for Palah?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes. In fact, it was named based on—it was Greek in our world—the Athenaeum? It was based off of that.

WETLANDER

Did we see Palah?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I believe every one of the Heralds is mentioned or shown somewhere in the first book.

WETLANDER

Someone was wondering whether the old woman who was wandering around the Palanaeum was her.

BRANDON SANDERSON

That is a very good guess. I won't say specifically, because some of them are intended to be more obvious and some of them are intended to be red herrings. So, that was a very good guess.

 

The exact passage is in Chapter 33, page 553 in the Gollancz edition. 'A light flickering through the bookcases startled he, and she tucked away her folio. It turned out to be just an old, berobed female ardent, shuffling with a lantern and followed by a parshman servant. She didn't look in Shallan's direction as she turned between two rows of shelves, her lantern's light shining out through the spaces between the books. Lit that way - with her figure hidden but the light streaming between the shelves - it looked as if one of the Heralds themselves were walking through the stacks.'

 

Depending on how you extrapolate from/interpret that; seeing as Pali is the Herald of the Truthwatchers whose Surges are Progression and Illumination, and given the way the lantern's light is being described and how she is walking, you could say she is illuminating her path as she progresses through the shelves. (ok, I know this is hilariously clutching at chullstraws, but it still could happen) 

Edited August 29, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[CJ Feboris]

I didn't see the topic posed in this thread, but I think that "Taln" is not Taln, but rather Jezrien. He is trying lead against the desolation, but failing miserably because he is not right in the head. (Nin's comment about him drooling in the Lift interlude). The person who Dalinar and later Amaraam has is clearly gifted beyond normal mortals based on catching the darts at the end of WoR. Some have thought that uniting Jezrien with his blade at Urithiru will help fix things, but I think that this is just wishful thinking since Darkness has his blade (he is awesome too...and he can't be awesome without a spren or his blade).