[OB] Dalinar and the nature of shardblades

[Malzera]

Dalinar heard the voice of the ancient temple begging to be made hole again. The voice was the spren of the temple. Did he heal the temple and there by heal the spren or did he heal the spren causing the physical effect of restoring the temple. 

 

If the later is what is actually going on as I believe it is could this be how we restore shardblades. Make them like they once were. 

 

We know of 2 shardblades that aren’t quite as broken as the others and both have been treated as more of a companion rather then an object for most of the last few years by their respective owners. oathbringer and adolin’s blade maya. Both of these blades have been held for long periods of time by men who have both proven to be honorable for the most of the last few years leading up to this realization. 

 

I think that if you can treat a blade as more of a companion in some way rather than solely a weapon you can the heal them with the power of the bondsmiths. 

 

Evidence for this is in the nature of soul casting and Stormlight healing and what we have seen from dalinars “healing” of the ancient temple.

Soul casting has a lot to do with persuasion. Convincing an object that they are/want to be something else. Stormlight healing is also about perception. If you accept something as natural or a a part of you then it cannot be healed. This is in evidence with Kaladin and his scares not healing and the tattoos not staying. With renarin’s mental disorder not healing while his sight was. And there was an explanation given at some point (I can’t remember by who at the moment) where, if an old vase is broken the individual pieces will still think of themselves as a collective vase but damaged. The thing is, when it remains broken for long enough it begins to think of it’s self as broken. Pieces of what was. Then givin more time it thinks of itself as whatever material the pieces were make of. 

 

This might also explain why there are less shardblades than Dalinar’s visions imply there should be.

 

The ones that weren’t ornamented (and thus trapped) with a gem heart eventually became part of the shattered collective that is honor to be molded into a different idea or concept. I think this was touched upon when Kaladin, Shallan and adolin was trapped in shadesmar

[Calderis he/him]

I don't think that the "spren" of the temple, and a Shardblade can be compared. 

The "spren" of inanimate objects is not a true mind. It is a construct created by the perception of living minds, and Connections to the things around it. It is not a living thing, it is just an echo of what others think of it. 

A Spren on the other hand, is a truly living being. Far more Investiture is involved in it than in a normally living being, let alone an inanimate object. 

Investiture resists Investiture. Soulcasting, or Bondsmith abilities are going to work easiest on nonliving things, as they aren't invested. Living things will be harder to effect, as the innate Investiture they contain will resist being changed. 

Spren are splinters. They are living pieces of Investiture. Changing them is going to take a much higher amount of Investiture to overcome that resistance. 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Calderis

[Malzera]

As we saw at the end of OB Dalinar is not your average bond Smith. He made honors perpendicularly, investing himself so strongly that he could touch all 3 realms.  We saw similarly extreme or stretched ideology’s of investiture in Mistborn with vin. She proves that if invested strongly enough you can lessen the “rules” restrictions. 

Spoiler

This is shown most closely when she killed the lord ruler by pushing on metal that was not only invested with Feruchemy but in his body and again when she fought the inquisitors befor her ascension. 

I think what Dalinar did was similar to but a less complete version of what vin was doing in this fight.

also as far as “It is a construct created by the perception of living minds, and Connections to the things around it. It is not a living thing, it is just an echo of what others think of it.” I believe syl calls herself something similar to this and ends the statement calling it gobbledyblarky 

being bonded to the spren of god helps too

Edited March 20, 2018 by Malzera

[MountainKing]

I like the theory, and it would explain what happened to the physical shard blades, but not the cognitive spren that go with them. I would like to believe that Dalinar can let Edgedancers and Truthwatchers access Spiritual Regrowth and can heal the shardblades

 

[Zelly]

I think maybe Dalinar helped the temple regain it's Identity?  It was slowly moving from "temple" to many individual "stone" and was in a crisis.

The simple souls of objects retain some memory of their being something else (whatever their identity from people was).

I gotta agree with with @Calderis. The temple had a soul, yes, but was dead before and after, unlike a spren which are living beings in Shadesmar.

 

Edited March 21, 2018 by Zellyia

[MountainKing]

But these dead spren can become alive with enough time or investiture.

[Zelly]

29 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

But these dead spren can become alive with enough time or investiture.

I think it's the bonds and Oaths that make them able to live.  When Syl returned after Kaladin lost her in WoR, she says something like "I was only as dead as your Oaths."  We don't know if Syl was a deadeye during that time or not.  If so, I'd like to think that it was Kaladin's speaking his next oath that prompted her return.

All the other shardblade spren's who abandoned their oaths are long dead so we really don't have anyone to compare it to.  

But then again it's true that the Bondsmiths do have strange effects on other Radiant's powers (like Dalinar and Shallan's joint effort to make a lightweaved map).  Maybe Dalinar + Renarin's regrowth (perception/spiritual healing?) could push Maya along to life again.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Zellyia

[MountainKing]

36 minutes ago, Zellyia said:

But then again it's true that the Bondsmiths do have strange effects on other Radiant's powers (like Dalinar and Shallan's joint effort to make a lightweaved map).  Maybe Dalinar + Renarin's regrowth (perception/spiritual healing?) could push Maya along to life again.

There's actually a recent topic on the OAthbringer Forum about bringing back dead spren.

And in my earlier post I was referring to object spren and how they can become sentient, by waiting long enough or giving them more investiture. Remember some spren of objects are actually sentient, like mouuntain sprens and river sprens are sentient.(We know that due to Horneaters' Peaks Creation Story)

[Calderis he/him]

37 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Remember some spren of objects are actually sentient, like mouuntain sprens and river sprens are sentient.(We know that due to Horneaters' Peaks Creation Story)

There are riverspren that are known to speak, though mimicry and not true speech, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were mountainspren as well, but these would be like windspren. 

The mythology/religion of the horneaters is not something that I would take as proof of this. 

Rivers, as water, would manifest in the Cognitive Realm as an obsidian pathway of land. The mountain, like a castle, should have a bead that represents it in its entirety. Beads are not truly spren though. To quote my original post in this thread. 

On 3/19/2018 at 8:00 PM, Calderis said:

The "spren" of inanimate objects is not a true mind. It is a construct created by the perception of living minds, and Connections to the things around it. It is not a living thing, it is just an echo of what others think of it.