Old Stormlight Ideas

[Karger he/him]

Remember your old ideas and completely dead threads about SA magic systems that don't exist and crazy theories about shardblades?  Hindsight is 20/20 and many of these theories were wrong but if we examine our processes last time perhaps we can prevent ourselves from making the same mistakes.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

My busted theory? That Ideals were situational and thus could be said out of order after the 1st. The oaths were based on the divine attributes and there'd be 2 for each attribute. For instance, Kaladin already spoke his two for protection, his other 2 would deal with leadership. Another Windrunner, one not so leadership inclined, would hit his leadership ideals first and protection oaths second. Or maybe alternate between the 2 up until the 5th.

[Karger he/him]

11 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

My busted theory? That Ideals were situational and thus could be said out of order after the 1st. The oaths were based on the divine attributes and there'd be 2 for each attribute. For instance, Kaladin already spoke his two for protection, his other 2 would deal with leadership. Another Windrunner, one not so leadership inclined, would hit his leadership ideals first and protection oaths second. Or maybe alternate between the 2 up until the 5th.

What busted your idea?

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

A WOB saying all the oaths progress in order. I was kinda upset about it until I saw it in action. The mechanics of the Ideals mollified me somewhat and I have a new theory regarding Oath progression.

[Karger he/him]

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

A WOB saying all the oaths progress in order. I was kinda upset about it until I saw it in action. The mechanics of the Ideals mollified me somewhat and I have a new theory regarding Oath progression.

Was your original theory based on wishful thinking or did you have evidence?

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

No real evidence, just speculation based on narrative clues. I believe this was just after WoR when we had hardly any information, where up to that point all we'd ever seen as far as true oath progression was Kaladin. 

[Elegy he/him]

It's more of a general Cosmere idea, but I suspected it to be hinted at in a Stormlight book, so I guess it works: Based on "Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns", I thought there were three Shards that (maybe elected by the others) had some politically/hierarchically higher position than the others, and I guessed those would be Honor, Ambition and Dominion, since all of their Intents basically portray different aspects of rulership. Odium specifically hunted them (and killing Aona was just a by-product of attacking Sel for Dominion) to dethrone them, in which he succeeded (but was trapped in the system, so it didn't earn him much). I believed that from Arcanum Unbouded until Oathbringer, when it was revealed that the Shards aren't officially allowed to meet, so it didn't make sense for three of them to rule over the rest in one way or another. Now it seems very clear that the three of the sixteen refered to are the three Shards Invested in Roshar.

[Karger he/him]

@Elegy So what why were you wrong?  Or rather was it just wishful thinking or did you have real evidence.

[Elegy he/him]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

@Elegy So what why were you wrong?  Or rather was it just wishful thinking or did you have real evidence.

Like I said, there's that one information in Oathbringer that makes it very unlikely. I let go of theories once they seem unreasonably unlikely. I don't like the thought of being stubborn about these things. But I still like the idea and think that it was more or less backed by one possible interpretation of that line, at that time.

[galendo]

My old "busted" theory was that there were going to be ten Radiant Oath progression levels, not just five (or that there were ten Oaths total, and each Order chose a subset, so that, e.g., Windrunners, Edgedancers, and Stonewards would all at some point in their progression swear to protect those who couldn't protect themselves).  My idea was based around the fact that 10 was the "magic" number (ten Orders, ten Surges, ten gemstones, etc.), and I still stand by the fact that it seems really weird for there to be only five Oaths.

Ten Oaths also makes a lot of narrative sense, as so far we've been burning up one Oath progression per book.  Since Oath speculation accounts for probably about half of all posts on this forum, it's pretty clearly one of the main draws of SA.  I'm not at all convinced that Brandon will be able to keep the excitement up for the back five without more Oath progression to be had.

Will there be Voidish Oaths, maybe?  A bit hard to imagine how that might work, but I suppose it's one possibility.  The Stormlight Archive wouldn't be nearly as attractive without all the moral conflicts/issues brought on by the Oaths, though.

[Rushu42 she/her]

I was previously convinced that the original three Shards on Roshar did not include Odium- meaning that there would be a third Shard running around, that we know little about. After all, the phrase "3 of 16 ruled, but now the Broken One reigns" does seem to imply that the Broken One was not one of the original three. That also would mean that the Sibling is not Odium's Spren, but instead a third that would have no relation to Voidbinding, and could therefore be bonded as a Radiant Spren.

Unfortunately, I think that Oathbringer and several WoBs have made it pretty clear that Odium is, in fact, the third Shard. It was hard to let go of this one.

[Inky]

On 5/11/2019 at 1:14 PM, galendo said:

My old "busted" theory was that there were going to be ten Radiant Oath progression levels, not just five (or that there were ten Oaths total, and each Order chose a subset, so that, e.g., Windrunners, Edgedancers, and Stonewards would all at some point in their progression swear to protect those who couldn't protect themselves).  My idea was based around the fact that 10 was the "magic" number (ten Orders, ten Surges, ten gemstones, etc.), and I still stand by the fact that it seems really weird for there to be only five Oaths.

Ten Oaths also makes a lot of narrative sense, as so far we've been burning up one Oath progression per book.  Since Oath speculation accounts for probably about half of all posts on this forum, it's pretty clearly one of the main draws of SA.  I'm not at all convinced that Brandon will be able to keep the excitement up for the back five without more Oath progression to be had.

Will there be Voidish Oaths, maybe?  A bit hard to imagine how that might work, but I suppose it's one possibility.  The Stormlight Archive wouldn't be nearly as attractive without all the moral conflicts/issues brought on by the Oaths, though.

There's other, more interesting mysteries to be entirely honest 

[Rushu42 she/her]

On 5/11/2019 at 1:14 PM, galendo said:

My old "busted" theory was that there were going to be ten Radiant Oath progression levels, not just five (or that there were ten Oaths total, and each Order chose a subset, so that, e.g., Windrunners, Edgedancers, and Stonewards would all at some point in their progression swear to protect those who couldn't protect themselves).  My idea was based around the fact that 10 was the "magic" number (ten Orders, ten Surges, ten gemstones, etc.), and I still stand by the fact that it seems really weird for there to be only five Oaths.

Ten Oaths also makes a lot of narrative sense, as so far we've been burning up one Oath progression per book.  Since Oath speculation accounts for probably about half of all posts on this forum, it's pretty clearly one of the main draws of SA.  I'm not at all convinced that Brandon will be able to keep the excitement up for the back five without more Oath progression to be had.

Will there be Voidish Oaths, maybe?  A bit hard to imagine how that might work, but I suppose it's one possibility.  The Stormlight Archive wouldn't be nearly as attractive without all the moral conflicts/issues brought on by the Oaths, though.

5 minutes ago, Inky said:

There's other, more interesting mysteries to be entirely honest 

I like the Oaths, myself. However, the back 5 books are about the Heralds, so Oath prgression doesn't make nearly so much sense. I'm sure there'll be plenty to keep us involved, regardless.

[Rainier]

3 hours ago, Rushu42 said:

the back 5 books are about the Heralds, so Oath prgression doesn't make nearly so much sense.

The back five books are about five of the Radiants. Two of them seem to be (former) Heralds, but the other three are just normal people.

Plus, as we know from Nale, just because you're a Herald doesn't mean you're a Radiant. You still have to speak the oaths and bond a spren to become a Radiant. Nale is the only Herald so far who has become a Radiant in his own order. Taln could become the second, but he's still going to have to speak oaths.

And even though there are two Heralds, one of them is Shalash, who is the inspiration for Lightweavers, and we've already got one of those. It's much more likely that she fits our missing Dustbringer role, which also aligns with the fact that she's spent her time destroying things and breaking them apart.

[Inky]

@Rainier No, Brandon has sad they will focus on the Heralds more, flashback characters regardless