Shardblade Gemstones

[Chinsukolo]

I tried the search function and by the 8th page was losing my mind.

I'm aware that dead-spren shardblades need a gemstone on the pommel to be bonded/summonable.

But do we know / have we seen whether the type of gemstone has to match the type of shardblade in order to bond it?  

I.e. a Windrunners blade needs a Sapphire, and Edgedancer needs Diamond and so forth.

 

Edited June 11, 2017 by Chinsukolo
To clarify based on Claderis post

[+hwiles He/Him]

On 6/11/2017 at 2:46 PM, Chinsukolo said:

I tried the search function and by the 8th page was losing my mind.

I'm aware that dead-spren shardblades need a gemstone on the pommel to be bonded/summonable.

But do we know / have we seen whether the type of gemstone has to match the type of shardblade in order to bond it?  

I.e. a Windrunners blade needs a Sapphire, and Edgedancer needs Diamond and so forth.

 

The gemstones were originally added as ornaments, and it was only by accident that Shardbearers realized they could "bond" a gem-studded blade by maintaining constant (or near-constant) proximity/contact with it for a week.  Considering the context in which this is revealed in-book, by Jasnah to Shallan IIRC (EDIT: It was pointed out that it was actually Navani), I feel like it would've been a very odd omission for Sanderson to leave out that each blade requires a specific type of gemstone.  This tidbit would've been interesting, thought-provoking, not detracted from the narrative, and would've been somewhat relevant to Jasnah's investigation into the KR and the Voidbringers at the time.

Sanderson's style generally makes expert use of these short idle-conversations between characters to deliberately insert small world-building elements, which is what this would probably be classified as.  I would posit that since the perfect opportunity to make this reveal in an organic and logical manner wasn't utilized, it isn't going to be made in-book, even if it is a requirement.  It might be an interesting question to approach Sanderson with, and he might be willing to cannonize it, but I wouldn't expect it to ever be addressed onscreen.

Edited June 15, 2017 by hwiles

[Calderis he/him]

21 minutes ago, DocHoliday said:

Adolin removed a ruby to sever the bond between the previous holder of Renarin's Blade. I can't find a description for the blade any where though.

The person had to release the bond themselves. Smashing the gem was Adolin being dramatic, but it's not necessary. 

I'm failing to find the WoB currently, but there's one that talks about how originally he wanted shattering the gem to sever the bond, but this was removed because it caused to many in story problems, so the only way to break the bond is to have the holder release it, or to kill them. 

[+Extesian he/him]

8 hours ago, Calderis said:

The person had to release the bond themselves. Smashing the gem was Adolin being dramatic, but it's not necessary. 

I'm failing to find the WoB currently, but there's one that talks about how originally he wanted shattering the gem to sever the bond, but this was removed because it caused to many in story problems, so the only way to break the bond is to have the holder release it, or to kill them. 

Here's the WoB

Quote

Q: I've always wondered, how do you determine where the line between "Word of Brandon" and "Read and Find Out" is? Has it ever caused issues where you've said something, but later that thing changed when it went into a book making your first statement now false?
 
A: Boy, this one is an art, not a science.
I've several times said something that I later decided to change in a book. I've always got this idea in the back of my head that the books are canon, and things I say at signing aren't 100% canon. This is part because of a habit I have of falling back on things I decided years ago, then revised in notes after I realized they didn't work. My off-the-cuff instinct is still to go with what I had in my head for years, even when it's no longer canon.
An example of this are Shardblades. In the first draft of TWoK in 2002, I had the mechanics of the weapons work in a specific way. (If you wanted to steal one from someone, you knock off the bonding gemstone, and it breaks the bond.) I later decided it was more dramatic if you couldn't steal a Shardblade that way--you had to kill the person or force them to relinquish the bond. It worked far better.
But in Oathbringer, Peter had to remind me of that change, as I just kind of nonchalantly wrote into a scene a comment about knocking off a gemstone to steal a Shardblade. These things leak back in, as you might expect for a series I've been working on for some twenty years now--with lore being revised all along.
So...short answer...yes, I've contradicted myself a number of times. I try very, very hard to let the books be the canon however. So you can default to them.
As for what I answer and what I RAFO...it depends on how much I want to reveal at the moment, if I'm trying to preserve specific surprises, or if I just want people to focus on other things at the moment. Like I said, art and not science.

Source

 

[Calderis he/him]

I've seen nothing in book either way. 

And I'm assuming by "be used" you mean bonded. You can hit things with them just fine without a gemstone. 

[DocHoliday he/him]

Adolin removed a ruby to sever the bond between the previous holder of Renarin's Blade. I can't find a description for the blade any where though.

[Weltall]

I don't think we know anything about what Orders the various dead Blades belonged to with the exception of Adolin's being a former Edgedancer's and I don't think we know what sort of gemstone his is set with.

However, we can assume that the gemstone type almost certainly has no bearing on whether or not one can form a bond with the Blade by maths; If you needed the gemstone type associated with the Order the original Radiant belonged to, you'd have only about a ten percent chance of it working for any given Blade (well, maybe not depending on how many blades are out there from each Order and preference/availability on gemstone types, but let's assume even distribution to make this easier) but this is never brought up by Navani when she talks about this and no mention is made of needing to find the same gemstone types for newly-won Blades after Adolin goes smash-happy on their gemstones. It seems any polestone will do. So far the only thing we know where the type of gemstone is actually important is in Soulcasting.

[+hwiles He/Him]

@Calderis You're probably right, thanks for the save, just edited.

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Here's the WoB

 

Thanks as always 

[DocHoliday he/him]

On 6/15/2017 at 0:20 PM, Calderis said:

The person had to release the bond themselves. Smashing the gem was Adolin being dramatic, but it's not necessary. 

I was pointing out the gemstone specifically. As far as I'm aware, it's the only time we've been told what gem is in a Shardblade hilt. If we had a description of Renarin's Blade we'd be able to make some kind of correlation possibly; sadly that description is lacking

[Calderis he/him]

@hwilesI was sure that info came from Navani... I suppose it doesn't matter though as her work as an artifabrian means all of your points apply either way. 

[maxal she/her]

On 6/15/2017 at 0:20 PM, Calderis said:

The person had to release the bond themselves. Smashing the gem was Adolin being dramatic, but it's not necessary. 

I'm failing to find the WoB currently, but there's one that talks about how originally he wanted shattering the gem to sever the bond, but this was removed because it caused to many in story problems, so the only way to break the bond is to have the holder release it, or to kill them. 

They say it is tradition to smash the gemstones based on a superstition the former bearer could re-summon his Blade if the gemstone is intact even if the bond is broken. I had always wondered about it... Are we going to see someone succeed at recalling an unbonded Blade? What if tradition had some truth in it?