Anybody understand what this means

[Passion he/him]

Q:  And, how were the Radiants able to summon their Shardblades at the Recreance if they'd already decided to break their oaths?
A:  Their Shardblades are part of what brought them to--part of the Oathpact--but breaking the Oathpact did not affect their ability to bond or unbond Shardblades.

 

hey I was scrolling through wob when I stumbled across this anybody now what he means when he says shardblades are only part of oathpact and breaking it doesn't stop u from summoning it??

[StormblessDave]

I believe they were dead shardblades, the ones prevalent in roshar after the recreance, for example Dalinar's shardblade oathbringer, Adolin's etc. They differ from Kal and Shallan's which are the blades the radiants must have had before the recreance.

[Passion he/him]

Ok so they could still call them but what's he saying that they are only part of the iathpact that's still a question right?

[Velvet Thunder he/him]

So I think what you want to know is:

 

Brandon is confirming that yes, the blades were part of the oathpact (more the oaths you took to your order/spren to become a radiant rather than the oathpact between Honor and the heralds), which might lead you to believe that if you broke your oaths you would lose them. However, what happened is the spren (blade) 'died', however a dead blade can still be summoned. Perhaps it can no longer do something we haven't seen yet, but we don't know. 

So;

1) Yes they broke their oaths

2) Yes the blades were part of the oaths

3) The spren (blades) are now 'dead' but can still be summoned.

Hope that clears it up!

Edited August 3, 2017 by Velvet Thunder

[Passion he/him]

Yah your right I see now that that's all his saying though I'm kind of bummed cuz I thought for a sec he was saying something more. Tell me you've made mistakes like that to it'll make me feel better

 

oh and I'm also annoyed to have to go back to combing won hoping and praying for a tiny morsel of anything new

[StormblessDave]

37 minutes ago, Passion said:

A:  Their Shardblades are part of what brought them to--part of the Oathpact--but breaking the Oathpact did not affect their ability to bond or unbond Shardblades

This could have quite a few interpretations, imo this is what this means, spren, being broken, having the right characteristics etc are the reasons they became radiants, shardbalde is something the spren could become for the radiants, so since spren aare a part of the reason they became radiants, shardblade are part of the reason they became radiants.

Sounds weird but its clear in my head lol

Edited August 3, 2017 by StormblessDave

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

1 hour ago, Velvet Thunder said:

Perhaps it can no longer do something we haven't seen yet, but we don't know. 

Actually, we do know several differences between living Shardblades and dead ones:

1. The living Blades do not require ten heartbeats in order to be summoned.

2. The living Blades can shapeshift into other weapons (or things). Syl changed into a hammer, and a spear for Kaladin, and (Edgedancer spoiler):

Spoiler

Wyndle became a Shardfork for Lift.

3. The living ones glow. 

In addition, there might be some differences in wether they disappear when dropped or not (I believe living Shardblades stay in weapon form as long as their Radiant wants them too, but I am not sure).

[Azul he/him]

My guess would be that their spren were still alive before they abandoned their blades,  that the bonds may have been weakened by them deciding beforehand but it took an actual act to finally break them.  Dalinar notices the glow fade from both blade and plate after they discard them.

[Calderis he/him]

13 minutes ago, Azul said:

My guess would be that their spren were still alive before they abandoned their blades,  that the bonds may have been weakened by them deciding beforehand but it took an actual act to finally break them.  Dalinar notices the glow fade from both blade and plate after they discard them.

I agree completely. The bond couldn't have been broken before that point. Not only did we see the glow of the blades, but half the Windrunners arrived via Gravitation. If the bond had already been broken, not just weakened, they couldn't have been surgebinding. 

[Oversleep]

10 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I agree completely. The bond couldn't have been broken before that point. Not only did we see the glow of the blades, but half the Windrunners arrived via Gravitation. If the bond had already been broken, not just weakened, they couldn't have been surgebinding. 

My point exactly.

[FrogKnight]

On 8/3/2017 at 7:43 AM, Calderis said:

I agree completely. The bond couldn't have been broken before that point. Not only did we see the glow of the blades, but half the Windrunners arrived via Gravitation. If the bond had already been broken, not just weakened, they couldn't have been surgebinding. 

Also, dead shardblades require a gemstone to be summoned. I believe the oaths were not broken until they disarmed themselves.

[Contessa she/her]

12 hours ago, FrogKnight said:

Also, dead shardblades require a gemstone to be summoned. 

The gemstones are there to bond with the Blades, not necessarily to summon them. If you are already bonded with the Blade, then technically there would be no need for a gemstone. I think the bonds breaking and the oaths breaking happened in one conscious decision when they drove their blades into the ground and walked away. That said, there was a lot of lead up, in my opinion, to the oaths breaking.  

[Secret Ardent Man]

On 8/3/2017 at 10:27 AM, Azul said:

My guess would be that their spren were still alive before they abandoned their blades,  that the bonds may have been weakened by them deciding beforehand but it took an actual act to finally break them.  Dalinar notices the glow fade from both blade and plate after they discard them.

Agreed. Dalinar also thought he heard screaming when we ran among the fading blades and plate. I similarly believe that this was a point of no return for the Bond...either repair or break...and in this instance, the scales tipped the wrong way. 

[Nathrangking he/him]

As the others have said the spren did not die until the act was done. The abandoning of their oaths is what killed the spren of the knights as for the heralds they don't have spren to kill their blades most probably came from honor himself and are bound to them.

[ccstat he/him]

The replies so far could be right, but I interpret this as case where Brandon misheard the question. It looks to me like he's actually trying to say something about the Heralds, rather than the Radiants. 

Could you provide a link to the WoB so I can look at the context? The preceding questions might help shed some light.

[+Extesian he/him]

43 minutes ago, ccstat said:

The replies so far could be right, but I interpret this as case where Brandon misheard the question. It looks to me like he's actually trying to say something about the Heralds, rather than the Radiants. 

Could you provide a link to the WoB so I can look at the context? The preceding questions might help shed some light.

That was my impression. It's such a strange response but it's a verbatim transcript and it actually sounds like it is. It doesn't make sense applying to the Heralds or Radiants, or any combination of the two I can think of. I figured he was distracted in some way. 

Quote

INTERVIEW: Mar 21st, 2014

WOR Signing Table Q&A (Verbatim)

EHYDE

And, how were the Radiants able to summon their Shardblades at the Recreance if they'd already decided to break their oaths?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Their Shardblades are part of what brought them to--part of the Oathpact--but breaking the Oathpact did not affect their ability to bond or unbond Shardblades.

Forum

Theoryland

 

[Contessa she/her]

Okay, now that I read it again, it doesn't make much sense. I guess what I was thinking was that they're still bonded with their Blades even though the Spren are dead, but then the glow fading when it did wouldn't make much sense. I guess I agree that he probably misunderstood the question. 

[Nathrangking he/him]

The blades....

Spoiler

Were basically an act of a separate agreement between the spren and KR than the oathpact between the heralds and the almighty. While the Heralds walking away was virtually meaningless as to a large extent they are still bound. With the KR it was less simple they could still summon the blades because the spren who made of the blades were only killed when they walked away and violate their oaths to protect. It would not stop them from summoning them even after the fact because when they bond with someone a spar of life returns which is the reason behind the 10 heart beats before summoning.

@Contessa thank you for setting me straight.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Nathrangking

[Contessa she/her]

@Nathrangking well that doesn't make much sense either because the person asking the question clearly says Radiants. 

[cultivationspren]

Well, if the topic of conversation is the Herald's shardblades, they are special because they are Honor blades. I don't know that they even require a spren, as the assassin in white carried an honor blade, which if I remember correctly doesn't scream when Kalladin holds it.  The honor blades seem to all be in Shinovar (except the assassin's, which he took with him, and Talenel's because died before he could give his up.

One interesting thing is that the blade that Dalinar bonded to him (presumably Talenel's shardblade) may not have been the honor blade, as two separate descriptions of that blade describe very different objects.  It is possible that Dalinar's blade was a dead spren shardblade, and that Talenel still has his honor blade.

Anyway, the difference may come from the fact that though they broke the Oathpact, their swords were special and therefore they may not follow the same rules.

[Calderis he/him]

@cultivationspren Brandon did a FAQ Friday answer specifically addressing the blade at the end of WoR as not being the Honorblades, and the subject of where that blade is and who made the switch have been a topic of discussion here since... Well, shortly after WoR. Good job catching that on your own. 

Honorblades are not spren, but they are what the Spren based the Nahel bond on. They were made specifically for the Heralds, Presumably by Honor as part of the Oathpact. 

The WoB at the start of this thread is interesting, because the answer specifically mentions the Oathpact. 

Either Brandon misunderstood the question and thought that this was about the Heralds breaking their oaths. Or that WoB lends some substantial weight to some theories about why the Radiants abandoned their oaths... 

 

[Ammanas]

51 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@cultivationspren Either Brandon misunderstood the question and thought that this was about the Heralds breaking their oaths. 

 

I have noticed while reading some WoB that he does misunderstand questions at times. I always imagine Brandon a little like the BBC Sherlock when he has this exchange of words:

Sherlock Holmes: Oh, John, I envy you so much.

Dr. John Watson: You envy me?

Sherlock Holmes: Your mind. it's so placid, straightforward, barely used. Mine's like an engine, racing out of control. A rocket, t-tearing itself to pieces, trapped on the launch pad.

[Calderis he/him]

@Ammanas I love Sherlock, that's fairly apt. 

I've noticed too. He catches himself a lot in the Reddit style Q&A's cause he can reread the question and his response. 

The number of times he's caught himself though means there have to be times that he doesn't, and I'm inclined to think that answer was about the Heralds walking away from the Oathpact and not the Recreance. 

The answer either doesn't fit the question, or it implies things about a topic that he's consistently RAFO'd for reasons that are pretty obviously going to impact the story later. 

So yeah... I think this WoB is largely useless... Just my opinion though.