Story Impressions

[deddinty]

I don't think it will be in this book certainly, but I can see a future where they find and train those with Radiant abilities to truly rebuild the orders as they once were.

 

I doubt she'd ever be a main character of course, but because of her abilities and the fact she has Darkness' attention, I wouldn't be surprised to see her in another interlude. 

[cem he/him]

I don't think it will be in this book certainly, but I can see a future where they find and train those with Radiant abilities to truly rebuild the orders as they once were.

I think this'll happen at the end of the first 5-book arc. Then they'll go around recruiting more members. And the second 5 books will deal with the Desolation.

[marianmi]

If Darkness is Nalan, why shouldn't he wield his Honorblade? The Heralds themselves know where they left their Honorblades and -- feeling the advent of a Desolation (oh, not "a" Desolation, the True Desolation, the Everstorm) -- they (or some of them) might have felt the need (to try) to avert the world's ending.

 

 

I imagine by the time they figured out the Everstorm was coming - if, indeed, they are aware - their Honorblades were gone. 

 

Not only that, but abandoning the honorblades means abandoning the pact. Picking them up would mean resuming their functions. I'm sure they did not get their blades back - they "have no honour" now by breaking the oaths, so it's normal they would not have "honourblades".

 

I must say the things are still murky. Here's different conflicting theories that can all make sense:

 

1) dawnshards are objects of investiture created by all shards (that's why they are called dawnshards and not honourblades). So you have honourblades invested by Honour, but also other shards invested by Odium and maybe Cultivation. This was the oathpact - the shards intentionally "weakened" themselves by heavily investing some objects, and let the minions fight using these objects of power. So Szeth's sword may be an odium-blade for example.

    1a) The black sphere may be a dawnshard - you don't have to invest a sword, you can invest any object... The idea is that Honor's power is still trapped in the swords, and releasing Odium's power would make him stronger.

    1b) "Without the dawnshards..." quote from Honour - Honor's dawnshards (the honourblades) are lost/corrupted since the heralds left them.

 

 

2) On the other hand, I think there was some reading where Honor said he created the heralds, in a way I understood as heralds being splinters - so the heralds themselves are invested, that's why they are immortal. So heralds are some kind of spren, living in some other realm (spiritual?), and transported in the physical when the desolation starts.

 

These 2 actually don't necessarly contradict eachother... you can have splinters having invested objects... hmmm.... What do you think?

[Gloom he/him]

Okay, first thing, Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar and were an item. We have WoB on this. Odium came later.

 

Roshar is a planet that was invested by Adonalsium, or at least a planet in which power was left behind. This could be the origin of the Dawnshards. At the very least it may be a planet which has unaspected investiture that, should Odium prevail, could make him more powerful than the other Shards.

 

I don't think Cultivation can touch something that is heavily invested with honors power without being changed by that power. So if the Honorblades have been removed from where they were left, that would have been done by men.

 

The Heralds aren't quite Splinters, but they are heavily invested. The Lord Ruler was a Splinter, and he wasn't a spren.

[Windrunner he/him]

I disagree a bit with the last bit of your post. The Lord Ruler was a Sliver, due to him holding the power of Preservation at the Well. There are no Splinters of Ruin and Preservation. I don't think it's accurate to say that the Heralds were nearly Splinters because they are people, not a fragment of a Shard. They could be invested with an amount of power that isn't quite enough to be considered a Splinter, but they themselves are not Splinters.

[marianmi]

Yes, TLR is a sliver not a splinter.

Sprens are similar to seons, which are splinters.

Based on BS's comment, who said heralds were "created" by Honor in a similar way to sprens => heralds are not exactly human.

Maybe they have a dual component (like Honor/Tanavast) and that would be the honorblade/herald human, but I am not that sure. That would imply that they are mortal w/o their swords, which does not seem to be true.

[Gloom he/him]

Sorry, got those mixed up. So the LR was a Sliver. The Heralds are not Slivers, but they were people, and they did volunteer for their position, maybe even competed for the honor. If I recall correctly, a Splinter is something of a Shard that becomes sentient, and a Sliver is a piece of a Shard inside a sentient creature. In other words, a Splinter was never a living thinking being prior to becoming a Splinter, and a SLiver was a living thinking being prior to becoming a Sliver.

 

The point I was trying to make is that the Heralds aren't Slivers, and that they couldn't be Splinters. I believe we have WoB somewhere that says since the Heralds never held a Shard they can't be considered Slivers.

[marianmi]

A sliver is a person that HAD a full-on Ado shard and then let it go. So it's not "a piece of shard", it's a person that was a God and is no more.

[Gloom he/him]

And another person nitpicks at the post while ignoring the content. Thank you for your contribution.

 

2) On the other hand, I think there was some reading where Honor said he created the heralds, in a way I understood as heralds being splinters - so the heralds themselves are invested, that's why they are immortal. So heralds are some kind of spren, living in some other realm (spiritual?), and transported in the physical when the desolation starts.

 

These 2 actually don't necessarly contradict eachother... you can have splinters having invested objects... hmmm.... What do you think?

 

All the while you ignore that this theory was completely faulty. Spen are splinters. People can't be Splinters.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Gloom

[marianmi]

Slivers apparently do not retain any powers, so heralds are not slivers because they lived thousands of years.

Your point was that heralds were people, I was trying to make a point that they were not. However, reading the prologue, it is implied that Jezrien was a king before being a herald. So they were people.

[steeleyes]

WoB is here: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=622#93

For the Heralds aren't slivers thing.

 

We know that Honorspren are splinters:

 

Q: Are Honorspren Splinters, or do they hold Splinters?

A: Honorspren would be termed Splinters.

 

and we know that the Divine Breath that the Returned hold is a splinter of Endowment and that Aons inside of Seons are splinters of Devotion. The intent of the shard seems to influence how their splinter manifests (Endowment's splinters endow the dead with new life and Devotion's splinters are completely devoted automatons). So it makes sense that honor which binds would have splinters that manifest in terms of binding a human and a spren. As for the Heralds and how they fit into things one of the recent readings apparently suggested that the spren surprised Honor and that they had formed in a similar way that he had formed the Heralds. This lends credence to the idea that the heralds were something like spren. They spent the vast majority of there time in the cognitive or spiritual realms being tortured but were (like spren) able to manifest themselves on the physical plane. Although I think it's more likely that Honor and Cultivation handpicked 10 humans and then shoved splinters (spren) into them like the Divine Breath. Thereby permanently granting the powers and abilities that they got and making them immortal like the Returned. Of course that's just speculation and intuition.

 

edit: the Honor created the Heralds topic is here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4222-spoiler-new-purelake-reading-info/

Edited October 24, 2013 by steeleyes

[marianmi]

I think they were solely Honor's creation.

But yeah, I agree with you that heralds hold splinters.

Edited October 24, 2013 by marianmi

[Gloom he/him]

WoB is here: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=622#93

For the Heralds aren't slivers thing.

 

We know that Honorspren are splinters:

 

 

and we know that the Divine Breath that the Returned hold is a splinter of Endowment and that Aons inside of Seons are splinters of Devotion. The intent of the shard seems to influence how their splinter manifests (Endowment's splinters endow the dead with new life and Devotion's splinters are completely devoted automatons). So it makes sense that honor which binds would have splinters that manifest in terms of binding a human and a spren. As for the Heralds and how they fit into things one of the recent readings apparently suggested that the spren surprised Honor and that they had formed in a similar way that he had formed the Heralds. This lends credence to the idea that the heralds were something like spren. They spent the vast majority of there time in the cognitive or spiritual realms being tortured but were (like spren) able to manifest themselves on the physical plane. Although I think it's more likely that Honor and Cultivation handpicked 10 humans and then shoved splinters (spren) into them like the Divine Breath. Thereby permanently granting the powers and abilities that they got and making them immortal like the Returned. Of course that's just speculation and intuition.

 

edit: the Honor created the Heralds topic is here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4222-spoiler-new-purelake-reading-info/

 

I don't agree. Heralds were men. They were invested with power by a Shard, but they are not Splinters, and they are not Slivers. Spren were created by Adonalsium, and invested with power by Shards (or I suppose it could be argued that bonding spren were created by the Shards and modeled off of existing spren). This additional investiture made them Splinters. Regardless of how Honor invested the Heralds, they aren't like spren, they are men and women who can make their own decisions. Spren are bound to act in accordance with the intent of their Shards, or in the case of wild spren, the intent left behind by Adonalsium.

 

I don't know where you're getting your information about where the Heralds are sent. Please provide a quote that is cannon. From what I understood, they return to the Tranquiline Halls. I don't recall any information that stated the location of where these halls are except for the doctrine of the Vorin religion, which also claims that the KR betrayed mankind and are evil.

[marianmi]

"As the Radiant charges to attack the Thunderclast Dalinar turns and helps a man up to back away from the beast, the man then talks in a 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.

He then continues and tells Dalinar that it is to reform the Radiants that the Almighty has been showing him these visions."

[Gloom he/him]

Yeah, not cannon. Not even a direct quote, just a summary of what someone remembered from a reading.

[steeleyes]

We know that people can have splinters inside of them. This has been confirmed by the Divine Breath (splinters of Endowment) that exist inside the Returned from Warbreaker. Given that we know the Heralds aren't slivers and we're just shy of confirmation that the Heralds are still alive and walking around today and therefore immortal it makes the most sense that Heralds have a splinter in them. This would grant them immortality as well as a fair amount of power with regards to the magic system while still preserving their ability to make their own choices (though arguably they might be influenced by the intent of the splinter they hold). Now looking at spren we have confirmation that they are splinters (what they're splinters of is up for debate but doesn't really matter the point is that they're splinters). It has been made clear that the spren exist primarily at least in the cognitive realm and likely in the spiritual realm as well. This can likely be attributed to the fact that splinters exist primarily in the spiritual and cognitive realms. I think it's an easy assumption to make that just as one can compare the Returned from Warbreaker and the Seons from Elantris one can also compare the spren and the Heralds. While the Returned never apparently traveled between the realms it has been shown to be possible by Shallan and Jasnah that those on Roshar can at least go to the cognitive realm. Following all this logic I don't think it's too far of a leap to think that the Herald's torture exists in the spiritual or cognitive realms and that when they die they automatically return there and when they don't die they're supposed to return to that realm themselves. However, like I said before that's just speculation and and intuitive leap.

 

Wetlander: Did we see Palah?

 

A: 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.

 

A: 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.

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=979#68

For where splinters primarily exist

 

edit: I'd have quoted the http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4222-spoiler-new-purelake-reading-info/ again but I agree that it's too vague to make a clear and concise argument with.

Edited October 24, 2013 by steeleyes

[Gloom he/him]

I will agree that bonding spren are splinters. They fit the definition and we have WoB that this is so. I would be careful about saying a flamespren is a splinter though because a flame spren is, as far as we know, not sentient. If it isn't sentient, it isn't, by Brandons own definition a Splinter. 

 

I will grant you that it's possible that the Heralds have splinters inside them. I personally don't think that the evidence point to this, but it isn't clear either way. I will say that Hoid has been around at least as long as the Heralds. I will say that the Awakened were dead before they were embedded with splinters, and I will also say that their are quite a few world hoppers around.

 

I will also agree that it is possible that the Tranquiline Halls are in the spiritual or cognitive realms. I don't personally subscribe to this theory but it's possible. It's just as possible that they are on another planet in the same system as Roshar. Since the Heralds are immortal, this isn't exactly any more of a stretch than your theory. When asked if this was the case, the question was RAFOed.

[Windrunner he/him]

Brandon's actually seems to have contradicted himself on whether or not Splinters must be conscious. He's called a Divine Breath a Splinter, and yet we've seen no apparent consciousness from that.

[marianmi]

I think the Return is the splinter, divine breath being the shard "power" he's invested with.

But he might have referred several times the splinter's "power" and the splinter with the same word. So you might end up saying that heralds are splinters or "contain" splinters ... and mean the same thing. 

 

I don't know if anyone talked about the similarities between Nightblood and shards - Nighblood can destroy stone (turn it to smoke), and a scratch will kill the person.

[Argent he/him]

We don't actually know how Divine Breaths work. From the limited information we have, it does seem like the Returned display a personality similar, but also vastly different from the one they had before their death. This change or addition of personality could be attributed to the Divine Breath. A symbiosis of sorts, where two "souls" reside in the same body. Either that, or any resemblance between the pre- and post-Return personalities of the Returned is literally a byproduct of their physiology. In other words, Lightsong can juggle not because Stennimar still lives inside him, but because his body, his muscles, his brain still retain the muscle memory to do so. It's a fuzzy territory, but I think one can make the argument that Lightsong is the Divine Breath, and Stennimar's body is the host for it. 

[marianmi]

There is also a different way of investing returned / heralds / sprens / seons ... and each particular way of doing it has its own sides effects. Semantics aside, the idea is that heralds are splinters

Edited October 25, 2013 by marianmi

[steeleyes]

Before I forget and in order to get out ahead of any objections that splinters are supposed to follow shardic intent much closer than the Heralds appear to I have the following quote:

 

Josh: Do Splinters have their own Intent, in addition to the Shards’?

Splinters often have their own intent

 

I should also note that when I was talking about spren in my previous post I was think of the types of sentient spren that we're currently aware of. Also I should point out that I don't think the actual location of damnation is all that important (at least it isn't to me) I was just looking for a good foundation for an argument that the Heralds have/are splinters. If that's where their power stems from (and not from their blades, the oathpact, or some sort of bond to spren) then I think a much better case can be made for Darkness being Nalan (I haven't seen an adequate explanation for his use of stormlight). Then again maybe Darkness isn't Nalan or maybe the Herald's power comes from something else. It's still a bit early to tell.

[Meg]

Yes, TLR is a sliver not a splinter.

Sprens are similar to seons, which are splinters.

Based on BS's comment, who said heralds were "created" by Honor in a similar way to sprens => heralds are not exactly human.

 

I'm sorry to be a nitpicker.

 

1. Not the Seons are Splinters, the Aons inside the Seons are the Splinters.

 

2. Can you give the reference where he said that the Heralds "were created by Honor in a similar way to spren"?

 

I think they were solely Honor's creation.

But yeah, I agree with you that heralds hold splinters.

 

3. As long as we don't have any evidence for this speculation I'd say: I don't believe this.

 

Sure, something happened to the ten people who became the Heralds. Part of their deal with Honor was that they were granted Immortality (for the purpose of not dying by age; they can be killed, and if that happens they must return to Damnation).

 

In my understanding it's more likely that Honor provided his ten Heralds with kind of a "Tanavast"-bead, that rewrote their sDNA. Apparently the Honorblades are not the reason for their immortality (otherwise they wouldn't be around in TWoK). 

 

I think the Return is the splinter, divine breath being the shard "power" he's invested with.

But he might have referred several times the splinter's "power" and the splinter with the same word. So you might end up saying that heralds are splinters or "contain" splinters ... and mean the same thing. 

 

BS outright said:

 

Each Returned has one single superpowered breath. ... It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter.

source

 

Then there's that about Splinters and Slivers:

 

Puck

"How is a Splinter different from a Sliver?

Brandon Sanderson

"Let me see... You have met splinters in Elantris, Warbreaker, and in Way of Kings. You have not met them in Mistborn."

PUCK

"I feel like we know that. So, qualitatively, what's the difference?"

BRANDON SANDERSON

"Qualitatively, they're reverses of one another. A Sliver is a human intelligence who has held the power and released it. A Splinter has never been human."

PUCK

"But it derives from a Shard's power."

BRANDON SANDERSON

"Yes. That's not it completely, but there's at least something to think about."

source

 

emphasizes mine

 

WoB is that the Divine Breath is a Splinter of Endowment. So: Not the Returned is a Splinter.

[marianmi]

Meg, great post. Thanks. Most of what you are saying make sense.

Then, there is something spren have and heralds have, the splinter, since then spren themselves are not splinters. The bond? Who is actually bonded? A human and a spren. Are all spren splinters? I think not. So the bond is with the splinter, not the spren. So the heralds have a different kind of bond with a different kind of splinter. Since splinter spren unbounded lose their wits, is it possible to somehow hamper the heralds bond? Is the splinter spren voluntary or not? I think seons were not voluntary.

[Argent he/him]

I think spren, by definition, are all Splinters. They are are sentient, they have never been alive, and they seem to be "made" of Investiture. Until Roshar we had only seen single-Shard Splinters, but I suppose we now know of dual-Shard Splinters.