Spren, Plates and Blades

[Guck]

So while reading through Way of Kings again, I devised two theories, and would love some input:

Thought number 1: Spren make up shardblades once the surgebinders have said the right words. In Dalinar's visions, the Radiants also have plate, but Szeth has said he can't wear plate or it will effect his powers. I believe, once more words have been said, the Spren will also be able to make up plate, eventually uniting man with Spren.

Thought number 2: During an interlude chapter in The Way of Kings, we find out that spren, once measured and written down, cannot change that measurement. What if, someone, during the day of Recreance, the spren that made up the knghts Radiants Plate and Blades were somehow measured, freezing them in their current state. The Knights Radiants could no longer hear or interact with their spren, probably even suffering from touching them, as Kaladin would suffer touching a shardblade, and this is why the abandoned them. Also, now frozen, regular men could use them. If this is true, I am thinking a major plot of the series will be to rescue these spren. To find where they have been recorded, and erase that, freeing all trapped spren in the Plates and Blades, perhaps allowing even more members to join the Knights Radiant. 

[soulcastJam he/him]

That is an interesting theory. Thought 1 has been discussed somewhat extensively, but this is the first time I have seen Thought 2.

I was under the impression that the measurement freezing was something that affected flame-spren and their usual semi-random size. I hadn't imagined that it would work for spren in general. It's possible that the 'measurement' refers to measuring different things about the spren, such as their psyche. That would probably require the KR bonded to the spren to be the one who 'measured' it. It's a very interesting thought. 

Your theory doesn't really address the motivation though. Why would the KR want to bind the spren in that form? So they could give up the fight and leave the weapons for other men to take up?

And welcome to the forums. I should offer you a cookie before someone else does...

Edited April 10, 2017 by soulcastJam

[Guck]

I was thinking it would be more like Odium or another Shard. Now that I've reread some of the intermission chapters, it just doesn't make sense for Brandon to mention them without them being important. We know spren make up shardblades, and that something happened to them so they can't change and are trapped. We know spren can be trapped in their current state by writing down their measurements. Maybe the Knights Radiants did it to themselves on accident, they were curious and started writing down the properties of their blades and plates to compare, and accidentally trapped them. That doesn't seem as likely as an outside force doing it since all of them were effected, and I would imagine once one of them was effected all the rest wouldn't continue to document their spren. Maybe it was just scholars, and they didn't realize what they were doing to the KR. I feel like there has to be a connection somewhere.

[Amanuensis he/him]

I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen thought #2 mentioned before. Specifically, the part about measuring. My thought is that it's unlikely radiant spren are used to make the Plate like they are the Blades. If they were, I believe screams would have been mentioned when Kaladin took a pauldron and used it as a gauntlet in the arena battle of WoR. My guess is that if the theory is true, the Radiants used the mundane spren to accomplish it. One problem we'd need to address is how they made the spren solid like the Blades. Maybe it would require some kind of combination with freezing a ton of spren and then using either words or pictures to bond them together into Plate? Making them solid might just be an issue of density, or perhaps, a matter of literally drawing them into the Physical Realm from the Cognitive.

Good thinking, Guck. Have an upvote, and a welcome.

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by Amanuensis

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

 

1 hour ago, Guck said:

Thought number 2: During an interlude chapter in The Way of Kings, we find out that spren, once measured and written down, cannot change that measurement. What if, someone, during the day of Recreance, the spren that made up the knghts Radiants Plate and Blades were somehow measured, freezing them in their current state. The Knights Radiants could no longer hear or interact with their spren, probably even suffering from touching them, as Kaladin would suffer touching a shardblade, and this is why the abandoned them. Also, now frozen, regular men could use them. If this is true, I am thinking a major plot of the series will be to rescue these spren. To find where they have been recorded, and erase that, freeing all trapped spren in the Plates and Blades, perhaps allowing even more members to join the Knights Radiant. 

I like you're thoughts on measuring... That could be something. On the other hand, I'm not sure if measurement applies to these spren.

Normal spren change predictably. They follow fixed laws, and when measured, they don't change.

Not all spren are normal. Humans gain the surges from the nahel bond... Spren gain sapience. That lets them change in ways that aren't predictable. I doubt that measuring Syl would affect her in any way, but probably measuring a windspren would affect it.

I suspect the change in the spren came as their loss of sapience. Their sapience depends on the bond, and the bond was broken.

The only way to save the dead spren would be to give them a new bond. It is possible that they are beyond help because the radiants who initially bonded them are now dead... But I suspect that with some effort, a dead shardblade could be revived. Someone would probably need to figure out what order the dead blade belonged to, and take the oaths of that order.

So, yes, I believe someone might save one of the spren in a shardblade sometime (it's been theorized Adolin will do this, and that seems possible if by no means certain). But seeing that on a large scale might prove difficult, because most of the people currently in possession of a dead shardblade probably wouldn't make very good radiants.

[Darkness he/him]

This is a pretty big post, so

It might be fun to theorize a bit on

why measuring spren locks their dimensions (remember that only the height of the firespren was locked once measured; they were still able to change luminosity and width). Also, the Radiant armor slowly lost its glow as they walked away during the Recreance. Why would they still be glowing and slowly fade if someone had measured and recorded their dimensions (en masse)?

Pertaining to the first: the only other times we see a spren get locked into a specific form is in the cases of Shardblades, possibly Shardplates, and possibly Cusicesh (I like that theory, and its mine, so I'm using it haha). In the case of Shardblades, the 'form stasis' is a result of the Nahel Bond being broken (and probably not through death, but in spirit), likely this results in a separation between the essence of the spren in the SR, its perception of itself in the CR, and its manifestation in the PR. In other words, the spren 'dies'. The PR is cut from the CR is cut from the SR; the part of the spren remaining in the PR is the blade, but it lacks soul and thought. The mind of the spren is left in the CR, but separated from its soul and in agony (likely with major trauma, considering that spren are basically self-aware investiture... once the SR/CR connection is severed, I can only imagine what happens to the mind). The essence of the spren is likely the most preserved, especially when the Nahel Bond is still young and the spren isn't so connected to the PR. But still, there may be some 'snap-back' effect from the severing of the connections.

TL;DR I think dead Shardblades are locked in form because of dissonance or separation between the physical part of the spren and the cognitive and spiritual parts.

Likewise, the firespren likely sees itself as constantly fluctuating; fairly random and wild, like a real fire should be. But because it has a weaker self-awareness (not as developed as a Nahel Bonded spren) and only a very minor connection to the PR (no Nahel Bond); once a person interferes through measurement and recording (= 'drawing a connection' between CR and PR) its Physical form is overridden; being more subject to the perceptions of men than its own perceptions of itself. I would suspect that a spren can modulate its own Physical manifestation (Syl, even as a 'windspren' constantly chose forms that 'made sense' according to her motion; like falling rocks, blowing leaves, a young woman 'walking' on walls, a ribbon, etc) as long as it still falls within an acceptable range of 'normal' seeming behavior.

So for the locked firespren, what I think is happening is the following: The weak PR connection of the spren is overridden by the connection Geranid draws for it, locking it into the form she recorded, but only to the precision that she recorded (ie. 6.0 cm could be anywhere from 5.95 to 6.04 cm; and would only affect height, not luminosity or width). For dead shardblades, the PR connections have been completely severed, so the shardblades are mostly locked in form as the spren can't modulate itself. They can change form slightly over time in response to the bearers' perceptions, but that's it, especially since they have been seen as swords for so long now.

For living shardblades, they have a much stronger connection to the PR, so they can modulate themselves much better (shardforks and weapons instantly as needed). They likely don't even need the input of their Radiant, though it may help as a guide or trigger when in battle. I think that recording the shape of a radiantspren would not lock it nearly so well if at all, as the connection would be much harder to overwrite.

I have to add this in: As for Cusicesh - some Unmade seem mindless... Cusicesh I think may be Dai-gonarthis aka the Black Fisher... it may have had its activities recorded somewhere very precisely, and is now locked into a daily routine. Likely this wouldn't happen unless Cusicesh had a fairly weak connection to the PR, so I figure recordings won't be so useful in dealing with many other spren as the desolation progresses.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

I'd agree that the act of a human perceiving the spren fundamentally alters the spren, because spren are fundamentally beings created by human perception.

But when a spren is in the nahel bond, that actually gives it some level of sapience. So... I would like to suggest that a spren with a strong nahel bond is actually fully capable of perceiving itself, and thus measuring it won't really affect it. Not very much, anyway.

A dead spren however... Well the measurement theory may have some merit in this case. Since the spren are no longer self aware (being effectively "dead"), they are much more influenced by external measurements then they were prior to the bond being broken. I'd guess that's why a dead shardblade always has a single shape, where a bonded spren can choose to manifest in any shape they choose.

Once they are dead, people see them as a sword, and so they can only ever be a sword. If the spren were alive, it could consciously alter itself to become a spear or a shield or something else, but since its dead, it can only be a sword.

It wonder... If my conjectures are correct, that implies that it is theoretically possible for someone who carries a dead shardblade to force it to transform into a spear or something. If they somehow willed it to transform into a shard spear instead of a shard blade, it might transform. I'm guessing nobody discovered this simply because they don't understand how shadblades work (after all, for most of the post-recreance timeline, people believed that the gemstone on a shardblade was an integral part).

[Darkness he/him]

Exactly, but the bearer would probably have to be utterly convinced that the shardblade was, in fact, a different weapon type. And that would have to override everyone else's belief that it was a sword. Also, we have no confirmed idea where shardblades go when they disappear (though I think it is the spiritual realm, since they have condensation on them when they are summoned - moisture pulled from the air because of the thermodynamics involved in transferring from realm to realm most likely, just like frost crystallizes on Szeth and Kaladin when they use large quantities of stormlight - pulling investiture from the spiritual realm and giving it a physical directive/form). Aaaanyway, long tangent. The point is, it's possible that over the centuries the blades have developed new identities as swords, and therefore developed new essences as 'shardblades' in the spiritual realm and it might be as hard to convince them as it would be for Shallan to convince a highly invested stick to turn to fire.

Guess I have another set of questions for Brandon now: Would a dead shardblade appear as a bead in Shadesmar? Or what else would it look like? Would it even have a manifestation in shadesmar? Does it depends on how long it's been dead?

[Guck]

I don't think the blades 'go' anywhere. The spren are the blades, so basically based on need and a strong bond the spren are able to define themselves as a blade, or spear, or baton, or fork, or whatever it is that the Radiant needs.

[soulcastJam he/him]

But they do go somewhere. They disappear when dismissed. 

[Jondesu he/him]

22 hours ago, Guck said:

Thought number 2: During an interlude chapter in The Way of Kings, we find out that spren, once measured and written down, cannot change that measurement. What if, someone, during the day of Recreance, the spren that made up the knghts Radiants Plate and Blades were somehow measured, freezing them in their current state. The Knights Radiants could no longer hear or interact with their spren, probably even suffering from touching them, as Kaladin would suffer touching a shardblade, and this is why the abandoned them. Also, now frozen, regular men could use them. If this is true, I am thinking a major plot of the series will be to rescue these spren. To find where they have been recorded, and erase that, freeing all trapped spren in the Plates and Blades, perhaps allowing even more members to join the Knights Radiant. 

I was starting to think this was an idea I'd seen before (though rarely) about a difficultly in trying to revive a dead blade, but this is far more interesting.  You think the Radiants were basically forced into the Recreance because someone locked their spren, rather than them choosing to abandon their Oaths?  That's actually really intriguing, and in fact fits better with the emotions and behavior of the Knights in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance, in my mind.  They hadn't lost their powers completely, hence being able to fly (the Windrunners he saw, at least), but the spren had been locked away, and the Radiants he saw seemed…dejected and numb, perhaps feeling betrayed themselves rather than having betrayed the world.  If their spren had essentially been murdered, en masse, and them left with only the dead bodies of their closest friends, I could see them simply walking away and abandoning everything, if they felt or knew the betrayal had come from within in some way (either within the Radiants, or just within Alethkar, rather than the Voidbringers).

[Guck]

2 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I was starting to think this was an idea I'd seen before (though rarely) about a difficultly in trying to revive a dead blade, but this is far more interesting.  You think the Radiants were basically forced into the Recreance because someone locked their spren, rather than them choosing to abandon their Oaths?  That's actually really intriguing, and in fact fits better with the emotions and behavior of the Knights in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance, in my mind.  They hadn't lost their powers completely, hence being able to fly (the Windrunners he saw, at least), but the spren had been locked away, and the Radiants he saw seemed…dejected and numb, perhaps feeling betrayed themselves rather than having betrayed the world.  If their spren had essentially been murdered, en masse, and them left with only the dead bodies of their closest friends, I could see them simply walking away and abandoning everything, if they felt or knew the betrayal had come from within in some way (either within the Radiants, or just within Alethkar, rather than the Voidbringers).

I can't see every single Knights Radiant deciding to abandon their oaths at the same time. If freewill was involved, there would have to be some hold outs, which there wasn't. Somehow, they were forced to abandon their oaths, it's the only thing that makes sense, and losing their spren in some way, be it them getting locked into their current state, or the bond being broken by some outside force, all at once, is the only logical conclusion I can make.

[Jondesu he/him]

Just now, Guck said:

I can't see every single Knights Radiant deciding to abandon their oaths at the same time. If freewill was involved, there would have to be some hold outs, which there wasn't. Somehow, they were forced to abandon their oaths, it's the only thing that makes sense, and losing their spren in some way, be it them getting locked into their current state, or the bond being broken by some outside force, all at once, is the only logical conclusion I can make.

Yep, that's been my biggest issue with the theory that the Recreance was voluntary (as the Vorin church claims), but I hadn't seen a good explanation that I liked as to why and how they were forced into it.  Yours is the first that I really like for that.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Reddit WoB that during the Recreance scene in Dalinar's vision: "Oaths were being broken, bonds were being severed"

[Jondesu he/him]

31 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Reddit WoB that during the Recreance scene in Dalinar's vision: "Oaths were being broken, bonds were being severed"

That's an interesting one, though not surprising. I don't think it rules out the Oaths and bonds being forcibly broken by some outside force, though. In fact, I can't yet imagine any way it wouldn't have been forced upon them, since as noted there should have been at least a few who refused, even if it would cost them their lives or something even more precious.