Metal, and the chosen of Shards

[coinbinder the awakener]

So first off, lets talk about the chosen of the shards. I do not mean just people who can use in vesture, because the shards don't always consciously choose them. I'm talking about the next level of magic users... And so far, that consists of the Returned(Warbreaker) and the Heralds(StormLight). we know these guys were conscious decisions because Honor refers to them as "My heralds" and Lightsong remembers Endowment giving him life. So the question remains... What exactly are the Heralds and Returned? How do they differ from other magic Users?

Edited December 25, 2016 by coinbinder the awakener

[coinbinder the awakener]

if the topic above does not interest you, try this. Why is metal so important? Is it somehow connected to life in the Cosmere? When Kelsier held the shard of Preservation, he saw people as he did metal. It happened again when Wax held the bands of mourning. To his eyes, metal and the souls of men were the same thing. Is this hint BS gave us just for Scadrial? Or the entire Cosmere? Nightblood is the equivalent of a shardblade, but what if the bands of mourning are the misborn version? They are all made of metal.

[Blightsong he/him]

5 minutes ago, coinbinder the awakener said:

if the topic above does not interest you, try this. Why is metal so important? Is it somehow connected to life in the Cosmere? When Kelsier held the shard of Preservation, he saw people as he did metal. It happened again when Wax held the bands of mourning. To his eyes, metal and the souls of men were the same thing. Is this hint BS gave us just for Scadrial? Or the entire Cosmere? Nightblood is the equivalent of a shardblade, but what if the bands of mourning are the misborn version? They are all made of metal.

Brandon has confirmed that this happened because metals are keys to investiture. What wax and Kel saw glowing were invested objects.

 

Also, Brandon has said that the Bands of Mourning are magnitudes less invested than Nightblood.

[Spoolofwhool]

The Bands of Mourning are nowhere near the level of invested object as Nightblood or other shardblades. This can be easily shown by the fact that Nightblood, sprenblades and honorblades all qualify as "shardblade-class objects", meaning that they are heavily invested magical objects. On the other hand, the Bands of Mourning have been directly stated to not be "shardblade-class", due to not being invested enough. 

Regarding Heralds and Returned. We know both types of entities are in fact cognitive shadows attached to a physical body, likely using a large amount of investiture. With Returned, their cognitive shadow is reattached to their original body pre-death using the divine breath, while with Heralds, they are apparently being reborn, which indicates to me that they as a cognitive shadow are being attached to a new body every time. As to how they are chosen... Endowment has a system I believe. The Heralds, well that's something which will likely be revealed in upcoming SA books, probably the one where Ash is the primary character, though that's a ways away. My personal opinion is that the Heralds were ten people who asked Honor for power so that they could protect and guide the Rosharans, which lead to their immortalization by the Oathpact.

[SpeakoftheDeval]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

My personal opinion is that the Heralds were ten people who asked Honor for power so that they could protect and guide the Rosharans, which lead to their immortalization by the Oathpact.

Cough taravangian cough

Imagine if because of mr t's NW boon he becomes almost a herald 

[Spoolofwhool]

48 minutes ago, MadhavDeval said:

Cough taravangian cough

Imagine if because of mr t's NW boon he becomes almost a herald 

I doubt it. Nothing indicates to me that he is really being directed towards any sort of greatness other than being king of the world. He didn't ask the Nightwatcher for the power to guide and protect people, he asked for the power to ensure the survival of humanity at the sacrifice of however many people it took.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Yata he/him]

10 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

As to how they are chosen... Endowment has a system I believe.

I think Endowment has less options than we commonly think.

It's possible She simply track down the Cognitive Shadows that "naturally" born among the Nalthian and selects among them the usefull and willing to a Return

Edited December 26, 2016 by Yata

[cometaryorbit]

On 12/25/2016 at 5:48 PM, MadhavDeval said:

Cough taravangian cough

Imagine if because of mr t's NW boon he becomes almost a herald 

I favor the theory (not mine originally) that T is essentially Cultivation's representative / agent / champion.

I don't think he is directly the equivalent of a Herald though - they seem to have been pretty crazy powerful before they turned their backs on the Oathpact: Ishar apparently thought he could kill all the mortal Surgebinders combined if they didn't agree to his rules.

That might be just a difference of Cultivation's methods vs Honor's though - maybe Cultivation is subtler, sees ways to get things done without massive expenditure of power.

[Ciridae]

On 12/26/2016 at 10:06 AM, Yata said:

I think Endowment has less options than we commonly think.

It's possible She simply track down the Cognitive Shadows that "naturally" born among the Nalthian and selects among them the usefull and willing to a Return

What is a naturally born Cognitive Shadow? It's been a while since I read Warbreaker but I thought Endowment gave individuals who died a quick look into a possible future and the oportunity to return and prevent a disaster instead of passing on into the Beyond.

[Yata he/him]

53 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

What is a naturally born Cognitive Shadow? It's been a while since I read Warbreaker but I thought Endowment gave individuals who died a quick look into a possible future and the oportunity to return and prevent a disaster instead of passing on into the Beyond.

We have no actual informations, it's just an idea of mine. We know only the Returned are Cognitive Shadows linked to their former body by the Divine Breath.

Now Speculation time:

The Returned to be Cognitive Shadow remained in the Realms once their ties to the physical are no more. We know the Breath may carry Cognitive (it's what we see with the Awakening), so my idea is: "The Breath someone has, may remain imprint of the Cognitive Self of the owner and when He dies, They may become a Cognitive Shadow of their former owner....Endowment reclutes among this Cognitive Shadow her Returned".

This may explain why A Drab can't Return

[CodeMnke she/her]

On 12/27/2016 at 8:10 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think he is directly the equivalent of a Herald though - they seem to have been pretty crazy powerful before they turned their backs on the Oathpact: Ishar apparently thought he could kill all the mortal Surgebinders combined if they didn't agree to his rules.

I don't think the timeline matters here. 

Spoiler

This is basically what Nale (convinced by Ishar) has been doing, I could see Ishar assuming he could wipe them out, oathpact or not. 

 

[cometaryorbit]

3 hours ago, CodeMnke said:

I don't think the timeline matters here. 

  Hide contents

This is basically what Nale (convinced by Ishar) has been doing, I could see Ishar assuming he could wipe them out, oathpact or not. 

 

(Why spoilers? This is Cosmere Theories...)

The difference IMO is that Nale is attacking Surgebinders who don't know much about their powers yet and don't know any other Surgebinders. Ym and Lift in WOR were pretty early on the path and thus not very powerful; no Shardblade. So it entirely makes sense that a very experienced Herald with Surgebinding and a Shardblade could defeat inexperienced people with Surgebinding but no Shardblade, one on one.

I don't think Nale, as we see him in the current era, could reliably beat two Surgebinders with Shardblades, even relatively inexperienced ones, though. (Post-WOR Kaladin and Shallan would have a better than even chance, IMO. Even Kaladin alone might have a decent chance, despite the huge gap in experience, since Nale's current Honorblade has a less combat-oriented set of powers than Kaladin has.) Four or five would just crush him unless he has massive unrevealed powers.

And I don't think Ishar could have reasonably expected to catch every Surgebinder in the world alone, in an era when the powers were established and known ... nor even to win every one-on-one fight against those with better combat powers than him - Windrunners, Skybreakers, Dustbringers.