Shardwielding

[Timothy]

This is the WoK backcover text:

"

I long for the days before the Last Desolation.

The age before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. A time when there was still magic in the world and honor in the hearts of men.

The world became ours, and we lost it. Nothing, it appears, is more challenging to the souls of men than victory itself.

Or was that victory an illusion all along? Did our enemies realize that the harder they fought, the stronger we resisted? Perhaps they saw that the heat and the hammer only make for a better grade of sword. But ignore the steel long enough, and it will eventually rust away.

There are four whom we watch. The first is the surgeon, forced to put aside healing to become a soldier in the most brutal war of our time. The second is the assassin, a murderer who weeps as he kills. The third is the liar, a young woman who wears a scholar's mantle over the heart of a thief. The last is the highprince, a warlord whose eyes have opened to the past as his thirst for battle wanes.

The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days can become ours again. These four people are key.

One of them may redeem us.

And one of them will destroy us."

 

While it might seem obvious at first glance that this means using shardblades and shardplate that doens't make too much sense in the context of the first book, considering shardblades are known by everyone and common among the extremely wealthy. It's true that this extends mostly to Alethkar and that other countries don't have many blade, but I still don't think that's reason enough to call blades "magics of ancient days".

I propose that what the Aimians really meant is that the use of the Dawnshards will return, since it's the only magic we know that is both lost and involves the word shard.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Timothy

[+Invocation]

I think Shardwielding would refer to either Honor having a Vessel again or living Shardblades.

[I think I am here. he/him]

Ignore this. It was incorrect, as further research shows.

Edited February 3, 2019 by I think I am here.

[Scion of the Mists]

I think it's more likely to mean sprenblades, which would definitely count as "ancient magic" given that nobody has them prior to the events of the book (with a couple of spoilery exceptions).  

[Lightblood]

Uhhhhh... Yeah the whole dawnshards is a very unlikely option here. This was at the begining and we just barely have any information about Dawnshards now. It is most likely referring to sprenblades as they are functioning forms of investure rather then the broken forms of the shards used in modern day Roshar. Since they are living shards this could be reffered to as the magic of old days as they haven't seen the nahel bond since the recreance. (This is excluding Nin-son God and his band of merry men  )

[Kramerfarve]

10 hours ago, Lightblood said:

This is excluding Nin-son God and his band of merry men

This is the precise reason why I believe it cannot be sprenblades. The back blurb has been confirmed to have been written by a sleepless, who are known to be at the very pinnacle of information gathering. They surely would have known that sprenblades still exist and are being used by every generation of skybreakers. Further just because “it was at the beginning” does not mean it couldn’t be something we’ve never seen before (ala dawnshards) as we’ve seen this type of twist before, particularly in another prophecy-esque way (See Mistborn Era 1).

[CalaCrisp88]

On 2/4/2019 at 8:38 PM, Kramerfarve said:

This is the precise reason why I believe it cannot be sprenblades. The back blurb has been confirmed to have been written by a sleepless, who are known to be at the very pinnacle of information gathering. They surely would have known that sprenblades still exist and are being used by every generation of skybreakers. Further just because “it was at the beginning” does not mean it couldn’t be something we’ve never seen before (ala dawnshards) as we’ve seen this type of twist before, particularly in another prophecy-esque way (See Mistborn Era 1).

But Surgebinding still existed too... In fact, those who who had sprenblades were all Surgebinders. The blurb probably means that they will become more commonplace rather than hidden, which doesn't exclude sprenblades.

I like the Dawnshard idea, but we know too little to say for sure.