Gavilar's "crystalline sphere"

[Argent]

Hmm, yes. But I think it was either said or implied that they did that through their spies in the warcamps.

[taxilian]

“The listeners had learned that capturing spren was possible from the humans, then had figured out the process on their own.”

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Stormlight 2: Words of Radiance.”

I don't see anything there (and there is nothing in the context around it either that indicates that it was learned by spies, though that would be an easy assumption to make. It's in I-4 maybe 2 or 3 pages in (I'm looking in the ebook) if you want to look at it yourself.

Further, I can only see two possible areas where the Alethi might be capturing spren: 1) fabrials, though I'm not sure the humans realize that they are capturing spren for those and I'm not 100% sure that's what's happening anyway, I just suspect it, and 2) Gavilar's black sphere.

Hard to say if either of those is for sure an example of capturing spren, but I can't see anything else that could be.

Edited March 11, 2014 by taxilian

[name_here]

Didn't Navani's notebook explicitly discuss the form of spren captured by fabrials?

[Argent]

It had some notes on the topic. We don't know how extensive she was in recording those things - though "very" is probably a good guess.

[Pattern]

About spren is gemstones: It is in WoK, Navanis Notebook. Since Harakeke translated it, here the link.

So it is absolutely possible, that Gavilars sphere contains some spren. Whether its a specific voidspren or some

other kind of evil spren (where is written, that the Unmade are voidish?) I don't know.

 

The other thing is: Enslaved spren in gemstones are used in fabrials, so they have an outward effect, e.g. transform stormlight to heat in heater-fabrials.

 

If there is a voidspren in Gavilar's sphere, does it also have an effect? Something like sucking away stormlight, like the animal in the Lift interlude....

[Releaser]

"Smokeform for hiding and slipping between men. / A form of power, like human Surges. / Bring it ’round again. / Though crafted of gods, / It was by Unmade hand. / Leaves its force to be but one of foe or friend."

- Song of Histories, 127th stanza

"Smokeform for hiding and slipping ’tween men. / A form of power—like Surges of spren. / Do we dare to wear this form again? It spies. / Crafted of gods, this form we fear. / By Unmade touch its curse to bear, / Formed from shadow—and death is near. It lies."

- Song of Secrets, 51st stanza

They seem the same but very slightly different. From two different epigraphs in WoR.

These epigraph's seem to support the smokestone = unmade spren ready to take over a Parshendi.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Releaser

[Releaser]

Taravangain talks about how the Thrill was so strong in Yah Kaved. This was probably because that was where Szeth hid the sphere that probablly contained 'Nergaoul' one of the unmade that he took from Gavilar in the form of that sphere.

Is this how Gavilar won the Reunification wars, by having the trill on his side for his soldiers because he carried that sphere with him?

Could that Unmade's influence also be felt all the way to the Shattered Plains?

Thoughts?

Edited April 1, 2014 by Releaser

[kaellok]

They feel the Thrill on the Shattered Plains, in Jah Keved and in Alethkar.  What seems to vary is the strength of its influence.  Sadeas pointedly asks Dalinar if he still feels the Thrill in WoK.  Fast forward to WoR, and in every POV from Sadeas his internal dialogue mentions how week it is compared to his youth, how fleeting it is, not lasting long at all.  If Nergaoul is solely responsible for the Thrill, then we have absolute proof that it can be felt at those wide, drastic distances.

 

However, in one of Dalinar's visions from WoK, he specifically mentions how the Thrill makes him a better fighter, strengthening and invigorating him, but without maddening him as it does some.  So, it's possible that the Thrill is something that exists naturally (similar to how stormlight is natural) and is perverted or 'enhanced' by Nergaoul's influence.  I don't think this is the case, but there is no denying how the Thrill can affect two different people in very similar, and yet drastically different, ways.

Edited April 1, 2014 by kaellok

[Patrick Star]

In my opinion, Gavilar did NOT actually trap an unmade in the sphere.

 

Instead, I think that the sphere is a sort of "Unmade-bait" that will attract the unmade to its location.

 

This explains why the unmade have been slowly moving towards the sphere.

 

I'll bet that the everstorm was enough to pull them away from its attraction in order to put their eyes on the ParshendiVoidbringers

[Chlehrma]

Perhaps it is an unmade in a bottle and he planned on feeding it to a parshendi during a highstorm. I would kill him for that.

Blah, someone posted this already.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Chlehrma

[shinintendo]

Nice catch DoctorWh0m It could be it what Hoid is looking for, another possibility is this:

That chunk of pale pink crystal looked like it might be some kind of gemstone, but why was it so delicate? Bits of it had flaked off in its case, as if simply setting it down had almost crushed it.

Maybe this pink crystal is what he's looking for since it's dying (or dead). and a presumably worldhopper has it in his collection.

Maybe one of Hoid objectives in coming to Roshar is tracking the thieving worldhopper and getting it back.

Edited April 1, 2014 by shinintendo

[PrimeGawx]

I do like the idea of this being Neragaoul or something similarly Unmade. I am not sure in terms of the influence but it is clear that it has a greater influence on those open to it, those with little respect for life. Adolin no longer feeling it does seem like possible foreshadowing on his path towards becoming a radiant.

[Argent]

Taravangain talks about how the Thrill was so strong in Yah Kaved. This was probably because that was where Szeth hid the sphere that probablly contained 'Nergaoul' one of the unmade that he took from Gavilar in the form of that sphere.

Is this how Gavilar won the Reunification wars, by having the trill on his side for his soldiers because he carried that sphere with him?

Could that Unmade's influence also be felt all the way to the Shattered Plains?

Thoughts?

 

I actually thought the exactly same thing a few days ago, and I liked it, but things didn't add up for me. Szeth moved the sphere to Jah Kaved about 6 years ago, while the Alethi started experiencing a weakening in the Thrill on in the last year or so. And even that is a flimsy guess, as we've only really seen Dalinar and Adolin lose it, which is something we could attribute to the formation of a Nahel bond. 

 

Plus, about half of Jah Kaved isn't that much farther away from the Shattered Plains than Kholinar is. If Gavilar's voidsphere* is, indeed, Neorgaul's prison, then I would've expected other nations to experience the Thrill as well - Herdaz is closer to most of Alethkar than the Shattered Plains are to Jah Kaved, but you never hear about an army of angry Herdazians going apestorm.

 

 * Forum members familiar with my writing will notice that I am really partial to prepending the word "void" to everything even remotely bad (voids, voidorders, voidforms, voidspren, voidsphere). This is me admitting I have a problem and need to seek professional help...

[PrimeGawx]

Another possibility is that it could be the smokeform voidspren as forrementioned. One of the few things that is black but gives out light is smoke, not without fire of course but just thinking out loud!

[Argent]

I don't think so, it's described differently. The gem holding Eshonai's stormspren is described as "smoky" while Gavilar's sphere is black, glowing with dark light.

[PrimeGawx]

I don't think so, it's described differently. The gem holding Eshonai's stormspren is described as "smoky" while Gavilar's sphere is black, glowing with dark light.

 

I guess you are right. There would not be such ambiguity with the stormspren if that was the case. Maybe this is what I was confusing.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 387973120 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 490514736 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

 

[BaarZel]

I don't see anything there (and there is nothing in the context around it either that indicates that it was learned by spies, though that would be an easy assumption to make. It's in I-4 maybe 2 or 3 pages in (I'm looking in the ebook) if you want to look at it yourself.

Further, I can only see two possible areas where the Alethi might be capturing spren: 1) fabrials, though I'm not sure the humans realize that they are capturing spren for those and I'm not 100% sure that's what's happening anyway, I just suspect it, and 2) Gavilar's black sphere.

Hard to say if either of those is for sure an example of capturing spren, but I can't see anything else that could be.

 

I think it's quite possible that what the Listeners perceive as humans "capturing" spren, could easily be the manifestation of the Nahel bond. To the Listeners it would just look like a bunch of humans control some spren and can turn them into weapons and do magic and possibly make armor(?) I'd say that's pretty similar to what the Listeners ended up being able do with the different forms and such.

[Kobold King]

Odd thought... could Gavilar's sphere have something to do with the same effect that corrupted Nightblood? The two objects are described in an oddly similar manner.

[taxilian]

Odd thought... could Gavilar's sphere have something to do with the same effect that corrupted Nightblood? The two objects are described in an oddly similar manner.

Corrupted nightblood? Where do we have any evidence that nightblood has been corrupted?

[Kobold King]

Q:  If Nightblood were on Roshar would he be a Shardblade?

A:  Yes, they are exactly the same thing. He is a Shardblade that is twisted and is a lot more powerful than normal.

 

That quote comes from a San Francisco book signing. Not corrupted per se, but Nightblood is apparently a "twisted" Shardblade.

[taxilian]

That quote comes from a San Francisco book signing. Not corrupted per se, but Nightblood is apparently a "twisted" Shardblade.

I see. I don't think that what he means is that there was an external, Rosharen (or otherwise) influence that "twisted" nightblood, I think it's more due to the way that nightblood was created. We know that he was created with a Command, or a purpose -- "Destroy Evil". The part that makes him twisted I think is that he is a metal, inanimate object given power and sentience. He knows what his goal is, but doesn't have the point of reference to understand what "evil" actually is. We see a lot of evidence of this in Warbreaker.

[BaarZel]

So I just had a rush of a few thoughts. Namely, Nightblood's personality is oddly similar to that of Syl as she just gains her individuality, and even that of Pattern I suppose.
That kind of gets me thinking that nightblood is kind of like an artificial spren, which definitely fits with the Shardblade characteristic.

Moreover, What if nightblood is actually a shardblade that's been awakened. OR what if it's the missing Honorblade?

 

Crazy, yes. Unlikely, yes. Crazy unlikely, you bet. But that's why the forums are here i guess.

[taxilian]

So I just had a rush of a few thoughts. Namely, Nightblood's personality is oddly similar to that of Syl as she just gains her individuality, and even that of Pattern I suppose.

That kind of gets me thinking that nightblood is kind of like an artificial spren, which definitely fits with the Shardblade characteristic.

Moreover, What if nightblood is actually a shardblade that's been awakened. OR what if it's the missing Honorblade?

 

Crazy, yes. Unlikely, yes. Crazy unlikely, you bet. But that's why the forums are here i guess.

Honor spren are splinters -- presumably of Honor -- and nightblood is a splinter (presumably a much larger splinter) of Endowment. It would make sense that there would be some shared characteristics.

Nightblood can't be the "missing honorblade" because the honorblades predate Nightblood by a good bit, unless my understanding of the timeline is way off. In I-6 Vasher Zahel indicates that he hasn't heard a voice as he drifts off to sleep "in years", but I definitely don't think he meant "thousands of years".

 

Nightblood definitely *is* a "shardblade" that has been awakened, we know that Vasher and whats-her-bucket awakened him with 1000 Breaths, but keep in mind that what just because he's a shardblade doesn't mean he is exactly like the shardblades on Roshar.  My understanding of the term "shardblade" is "blade that is made of a splinter of a Shard".

 

We know that honorspren are splinters, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that all spren capable of the nahel bond are likely also splinters of one form or another, so what makes them shardblades is actually that they carry the power of a shard, not the way they look, behave, or cut things.

[DoctorWh0m]

Nightblood's a Shardblade because he has enough pieces of Endowment (Breaths) to count as a Splinter.

[PrimeGawx]

I think it's quite possible that what the Listeners perceive as humans "capturing" spren, could easily be the manifestation of the Nahel bond. To the Listeners it would just look like a bunch of humans control some spren and can turn them into weapons and do magic and possibly make armor(?) I'd say that's pretty similar to what the Listeners ended up being able do with the different forms and such.

 

That indeed might be their perception but the nahel bond is definitely as more than that from a human point of view and more importantly from the spren point of view. I wish I could quote from the book directly but spren, especially Syl do seem to think the risk of being ultimately betrayed is worth taking in order to experience the sentience that the bond allows them. Both parties get a lot.