[OB] Black Sphere Brandon Trolling

[ScavellTane]

I would hazard that they are digging towards the cities gemheart core. 

[+Child of Hodor]

5 hours ago, Yvainnie said:

How do we know that Galivar’s sphere was not a perfect gem? Navani said she saw something smaller but where does it say that perfect gems have to be large? They have to be perfectly cut but size should not matter and besides even if it was not perfect gem it could be some sort of temporary prison for Unmade or may be not a prison at all but some sort of ship or storage.

I think this is a key point. The important aspect of a perfect gem is that it is cut flawlessly so that it doesn't leak, not necessarily it's size. The Unmade are spren and the size of a spren is mutable in the physical realm. 

Honor's Drop was large, but still could be carried with one hand. The Thrill was MASSIVE, it covered an entire battle field and yet it "fit" into a gem Dalinar could hold with one hand. 

From a storytelling perspective, why set up this Chekov's black sphere and have Szeth hide it away like if it's not going to be used later in a significant way? If it's not a perfect gem and just contains Voidlight it's not going to be that useful to anybody. I guess if Szeth retrieves it and Navani studies it they might learn significant things about what Gavilar was up to and that might be it's story purpose. 

[Rhapsody she/her]

31 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

I guess if Szeth retrieves it and Navani studies it they might learn significant things about what Gavilar was up to and that might be it's story purpose. 

I don't think so. That would be far to anticlimatic for the forshadowing that has been happening with those spheres.

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

I think this is a key point. The important aspect of a perfect gem is that it is cut flawlessly so that it doesn't leak, not necessarily it's size. The Unmade are spren and the size of a spren is mutable in the physical realm.

Cut Flawlessly? I thought the special thing with those gems was that they were naturally perfect at the crystalline matrix level so they didnt "leak" storlinght through he flaws, that tey were rare because they were a natural occurrence rather than something that could be crafted. 

[+Child of Hodor]

26 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Cut Flawlessly? I thought the special thing with those gems was that they were naturally perfect at the crystalline matrix level so they didnt "leak" storlinght through he flaws, that tey were rare because they were a natural occurrence rather than something that could be crafted. 

Agreed, I guess I was thinking someone could screw it up when cutting it into a shape. My point was that the sphere could be a perfect gem despite being smaller than Honor' Drop.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[Quantus he/him]

43 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Agreed, I guess I was thinking someone could screw it up when cutting it into a shape. My point was that the sphere could be a perfect gem despite being smaller than Honor' Drop.

Oh, that's what you were pushing at, I get you now.  I agree that size alone doesnt sound to be at all indicative of a Perfect Gem (the larger Greatshells certainly give huge but standard ones).  I do think they are distinguishable from standard gems in ways other than the obvious test how long they hold stormlight, but Size and shape alone are not the deciding traits.

[Andy92]

I still think it’s an Unmade. Like some others have said, I don’t think we have a reason to believe the black sphere Gavilar had wasn’t a perfect cut. Does the book ever say it’s an imperfect gem? 

The King’s Drop is still “small” in comparison to the spren it holds. So I don’t see how the size of the gem really makes that much of a difference.

[ScavellTane]

I don't think the gems were even cut. If the gems are investiture cant they just shape it like they shape shardplate?

[Quantus he/him]

Do we have know they were Created at all?  I thought it was simply a rare natural occurrence, not something that could be manufactured even by the old Radiants.

 

At this point I dont think Im actually opposed to it being an Unmade and a small Perfect Gem, and at the moment it's the only thing I can think of that fits all the vague WoB's folks have posted on it being what people think it was at the end of OB; Id tend to think if it was just voidlight he would have been able to just say so without spoiling anything, but it /would/ have spoiled the whole trapping an UnMade in a perfect gem reveal. 

[Yvainnie she/her]

Honestly, if it would be voidlight then why woud they look for it under the palace? And besides what purpose would there be for Galivr to have sphere of voidlight without any means of using it. 

Being it Unmade or at least Voidspren is most logical way and again why would they look for sphere with regular spren?

And whether perfect gems are made or find somewhere, there is not a single word in book that says there should be big but it is true that they have not been explore in depth. Besides I wonder if the sphere with Yelig-nar was perfect gem or not? May be this sphere has similar purpose in temporary holding Unmade and making it that he would not be too noticeable.

[RShara she/her]

11 hours ago, Yvainnie said:

Besides I wonder if the sphere with Yelig-nar was perfect gem or not? May be this sphere has similar purpose in temporary holding Unmade and making it that he would not be too noticeable.

I don't think Yelig-nar was in the gemstone. The gemstone just had to be swallowed to imitate a gemheart, that Yelig-nar could then "possess" like the Fused and the voidspren do with the Singers. When Kaladin and Shallan reach Thaylenah in Shadesmar, they see a smoky form standing near the rest of the armies. That was Yelig-nar, so he wasn't in the gemstone prior to it being swallowed.

I think I'm trying to say that if the spren is in there more-or-less willingly, then you don't need a perfect gemstone to contain it.

Edited July 28, 2018 by RShara

[Yvainnie she/her]

6 hours ago, RShara said:

I don't think Yelig-nar was in the gemstone. The gemstone just had to be swallowed to imitate a gemheart, that Yelig-nar could then "possess" like the Fused and the voidspren do with the Singers. When Kaladin and Shallan reach Thaylenah in Shadesmar, they see a smoky form standing near the rest of the armies. That was Yelig-nar, so he wasn't in the gemstone prior to it being swallowed.

I think I'm trying to say that if the spren is in there more-or-less willingly, then you don't need a perfect gemstone to contain it.

Though I did not think about idea of Yelig-nar not being directly in gemstone up until, I totally agree with what you are trying to say about not needing perfect gemstone. That is exactly what I meant but I probably said it not clearly enough. 

[Crucible of Shards he/him]

When Taravangian visits Vedenar in the second half of WoR, he muses on capturing Unmade, and concludes he doe not at that time have the resources to tackle either Moelach or Nergaoul (IIRC). So Taravangian at least has the knowledge of how to capture them. It's not too much of a stretch of the imagination that this was shared with Gavilar at some point.

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, Crucible of Shards said:

When Taravangian visits Vedenar in the second half of WoR, he muses on capturing Unmade, and concludes he doe not at that time have the resources to tackle either Moelach or Nergaoul (IIRC). So Taravangian at least has the knowledge of how to capture them. It's not too much of a stretch of the imagination that this was shared with Gavilar at some point.

I strongly doubt this. Taravangian did not visit the Nightwatcher until after Gavilar's death. If either of them were to have taught this to one another, I think it would have been in the opposite direction 

[Crucible of Shards he/him]

13 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I strongly doubt this. Taravangian did not visit the Nightwatcher until after Gavilar's death. If either of them were to have taught this to one another, I think it would have been in the opposite direction 

My bad. That's what I get for going by memory alone.

[garlick]

Just a crazy idea I had. Maybe BAM is trapped in a perfect gem below kholinar and galivar was able to use it to charge gem stones with voidlight. We do know supplying void light was one of BAMa abilities.

[Yvainnie she/her]

13 hours ago, garlick said:

Just a crazy idea I had. Maybe BAM is trapped in a perfect gem below kholinar and galivar was able to use it to charge gem stones with voidlight. We do know supplying void light was one of BAMa abilities.

Question is if voidlight without Everstorm and singers binded with Voidspren would be of any use to anyone.

[Quantus he/him]

Well, Galivar&Co's apparent goal was to revive the Everstorm et. al. We saw a way for that to come about, but I would expect that it could have fallen out much differently, especially since Galivar was expecting the Singers to support his goal and help him. 

 

With all the discussion of BAM, I find myself thinking that maybe that one is the counter/equivalent to the Sibling; the Sibling seems to have been associated with thegiant fabrial machine at Urithiru, and BAM seems like a being that would do well serving a similar function to a giant Voidlight machine.

[Lightspine]

15 hours ago, garlick said:

Just a crazy idea I had. Maybe BAM is trapped in a perfect gem below kholinar and galivar was able to use it to charge gem stones with voidlight. We do know supplying void light was one of BAMa abilities.

This makes sense to me, Gavilar’s plan could have been to ask the Listeners to reconnect with Ba Ado Mishram, starting a new false desolation.

[Subvisual Haze]

19 hours ago, garlick said:

Just a crazy idea I had. Maybe BAM is trapped in a perfect gem below kholinar and galivar was able to use it to charge gem stones with voidlight. We do know supplying void light was one of BAMa abilities.

I think the part about Gavilar using the BAM gem to fill other gems with voidlight or voidspren is correct. 

The actual gem containing BAM itself though probably isn't still in Kholinar though.  I think that gem was the one Gavilar gave to Szeth, who in turn hid it...somewhere in Jah Khaved?

[StrikerEZ he/him]

9 hours ago, Quantus said:

Well, Galivar&Co's apparent goal was to revive the Everstorm et. al. We saw a way for that to come about, but I would expect that it could have fallen out much differently, especially since Galivar was expecting the Singers to support his goal and help him. 

Gavilar's plan wasn't supposed to bring about the everstorm. It was just supposed to bring the next Desolation, or some threat, to help unite the world.

[Quantus he/him]

9 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Gavilar's plan wasn't supposed to bring about the everstorm. It was just supposed to bring the next Desolation, or some threat, to help unite the world.

He knew enough to know that he was talking about reviving old Gods from the Singer's history, so Id want specific evidence before I assume he was unaware that to bring about a Desolation would require the Everstorm. 

[Calderis he/him]

4 minutes ago, Quantus said:

He knew enough to know that he was talking about reviving old Gods from the Singer's history, so Id want specific evidence before I assume he was unaware that to bring about a Desolation would require the Everstorm. 

There's never been an Everstorm before. How would he know anything about it, other than from a vague warning in the visions that it's going to come? 

We have evidence that the Sons of Honor planned to start a desolation to bring the return of the Heralds. We have absolutely no evidence that they knew anything about how to bring about something that had never happened. 

[Quantus he/him]

21 minutes ago, Calderis said:

There's never been an Everstorm before. How would he know anything about it, other than from a vague warning in the visions that it's going to come? 

We have evidence that the Sons of Honor planned to start a desolation to bring the return of the Heralds. We have absolutely no evidence that they knew anything about how to bring about something that had never happened. 

Wait, I thought the Everstorm was a staple element of the previous desolations, how else were odium's forces fueling their Voidbinding?  BAM alone couldnt funnel enough, right?

[CrazyRioter she/her]

Odium was fueling them directly. There's even an epigraph that says as much, that in the False Desolation, BAM was just doing something that Odium had done previously.

Edited July 31, 2018 by CrazyRioter