Tortellini Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 So, with the book out, it occurred to me that with what we've seen of Kaladin and Syl towards the end, Shardblades are waaaay more powerful than we even knew. They can change shape. We've seen Syl not just change from Sword to Spear, but also to a Shield - very useful for defense - and even a big hammer, strong enough to break bones. If you get creative, what else can you do? Can Syl change shape while in bladeform or does she have to disappear and reapper? Does that last part even matter? Because... She disappears and reforms instantaneously. Incredibly powerful - already we see Kaladin basically fighting with blade and shield by switching whenever needed. Your blade can appear anywhere! And not just that it... Appears with momentum! We have several moments where a blade is created mid-thrust or swing, and it is adapting to the movement of the hand. Shallan also does this with Tyn. With all of these, what can't you do? A list of options I see: Block a swing from a shardbearer with your blade-shield, pushing back against the blade to move it away from yourself. Disappear shield, use forward momentum of your arm to form your blade and stab while the other sword is still pushed away, severing the spine. Swing at a shardbearer, disappear your sword mid-swing when he tries to block and reappear it afterwards to continue the swing, severing the spine. Form a Shard-Trident to catch an opposing shardbearer's blade, push back and re-form a blade to sever spine. Form your blade as a full encircling ring with a pole to hold on to, around the blade of your opponent. Do this in a good moment, then twist to rip the weapon out of opponent's hand. It will either fall to the ground, or more likely disappear into mist. Use 10 heartbeats to stop the heartbeat. Form shardblade as a long sickle behind opponent, and step backwards while pulling, severing the spine - from behind. Shardplate edition: Form your blade with the tip already lined up within the viewslit of the opponent's helmet and simply push, severing... the brain I guess? We don't know if you can actually just have your sword appear within the spine already - which would make it even more crazily overpowered. At first, shardplate seems to help somewhat, but soon enough you find that it doesn't do anything either. Any Knight Radiant is a one-man god of death to any normal human, even with a "dead" shardblade and -plate. This is not sooo surprising, given that Szeth was that already with a blade that had the normal limitations. But the KR versions are incredibly more powerful still. Which leads me to: What can be the enemy for them? Even stormform Parshendi are useless fodder against even a normal shardbearer... What can stop a Radiant knowing what is possible? Normally, their oaths should not allow them mass slaughter of random people I would think, but now that Nalan has gone a bit bonkers, what exactly can we expect from his Radiants? So, will we see everyone becoming Knights Radiant? Or will everyone else simply become completely irrelevant combat-wise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Aletus he/him Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 Nalan's radiants would first have to prove that they are radiants. I can go gather up some homies and start a gang called the Skybreakers, just the same as you could. Shardblades, themselves, prove nothing. Szeth was inducted into the group, but as far as I can tell, he still has no spren. The oath's are important, and Nalan's twisted views may make that hard, given the type of follower he gravitates, for the members of the Skybreakers to find the words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonardus he/him Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 If the Knights are this powerful, I don't even want to know how powerful the unmade or the ten deaths are, remember that the knights radiant used to number in the hundreds and they still got pretty much decimated by the forces of odium. Most likely the knights radiants had to be super strong to cope against the monstrosity's we will be seeing soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgedancer he/him Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 (edited) Which leads me to: What can be the enemy for them? Even stormform Parshendi are useless fodder against even a normal shardbearer... What can stop a Radiant knowing what is possible? Normally, their oaths should not allow them mass slaughter of random people I would think, but now that Nalan has gone a bit bonkers, what exactly can we expect from his Radiants? Stormform Voidbringer weren´t a reall combat form from what we know. They had one purpose, to start the Everstorm. Now that it will spread itself over the land more combat oriented forms can show themself. Most likely there are 9 more Voidbringerforms we do not know and potentially even more forms that can have a wide array of skills at their disposale. Still living Shardblades are very deadly. Edited March 5, 2014 by Edgedancer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly he/him Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 I wonder why none of Dal's visions from tWoK had KR using that tactic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marianmi Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 * I think they can only appear in the radiant's hand * all of the things above are assumed against a human-like opponent... so a radiant with a shard can easily kill a human or a human with a dead shard, so? he can easily kill one without, look at szeth killing many shardbearers. Since radiants can heal shardblade wounds, probably voidbringers can too. Let's see what the other voidbringers do, stormform is really not a combat form... plus, forms like smokeform are more ... stealth, and there are many ways to kill/destroy a radiant, not just by brute force. I'm curios how the ghostbloods - shallan relationship goes, she's right now the candidate to "destroy the world"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daishi5 Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 I wonder why none of Dal's visions from tWoK had KR using that tactic? We didn't really see them fight in the tWoK. They only really fought with the creatures made of smoke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Aletus he/him Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 It's also very likely that the Knights who used Shardblades back in the day were trained in and thus more comfortable with the long-reaching blade form of shardblades, as it was mentioned that they were large for the purpose of killing great big things. The spear might not have been natural for them as they were likely trained in the sword more so than the spear - Kaladin is different because of his upbringing. Sure, Dalinar could kick decent chull with a spear-form, but all of them express comfort and familiarity with blades - as they are lighteyes. Who knows if Voidbringers had shards in the past, so the shield function might not have been completely necessary aside from Knights fighting without plate. Also, as it was said - we haven't seen enough from flashbacks to rule it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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