Voidblades

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Do we have any idea whether voidspren can be materialized as "voidblades"? I cannot see a reason why not, but if it would be possible, why don't Odium's forces use the possibility?

[+Ark1002]

I don't think the godmetal would have anything to do with it.

I'm not sure whether it is because the Voidspren they bond with are lesser spren, or because Odium wants it that way.

Corrupted spren like Glys can still be shardblades, so if Odium made full Voidspren knights, I wouldn't be surprised if a shardblade could be formed.

[Karger he/him]

Good question.  I actually have never thought of this.  Perhaps Odium's godmetal is to brittle to make a good blade or perhaps it is because Odium desires all of his investiture to remain free and solidifying any of it risks it falling into enemy hands and leaving him in the same position as Ruin was with atium.

[Karger he/him]

27 minutes ago, Ax's Boyfriend said:

I'm not sure whether it is because the Voidspren they bond with are lesser spren, or because Odium wants it that way.

There are fully sapient voidspren.

[Dunkum he/him]

i mean we basically see voidspren bondings in 2 scenarios - the first is when they bond Singers, in which case i suspect that that is just a different kind of bond than the Nahel bond - they seem to be almost physically conjoined to the host, and probably can't manifest outside of them as a blade, or if they did, i bet they'd lose some of their influence over the hosts' minds.  For the end when they bond with humans, again I'd guess that that is just a different kind of bond than the Nahel bond and doesn't allow that sort of manifestation; but it is also possible that it is simply not strong enough to allow them to manifest as a balde.  remember Syl can't do it until Kaladin swears the 3rd oath, and those soldiers probably wouldn't be at whatever the equivalent of that is even if that bond did eventually allow for it; and there is also still the mind influence piece.  been a while sicne i read Oathbringer, but I seem to recall that bonding the soldiers changed their personalities, at least somewhat, so again i'd suspect that manifesting as a blade would require giving up some of that influence.

[+Ark1002]

24 minutes ago, Karger said:

There are fully sapient voidspren.

But those aren't the ones that bond.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

18 minutes ago, Ax's Boyfriend said:

But those aren't the ones that bond.

That shifts the questions. Why don't they bond can't they or won't they?

[Karger he/him]

22 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

That shifts the questions. Why don't they bond can't they or won't they?

I personally think that this is because Odium wants to be able to recall them latter.  Remember, his MO is to keep as much of his investiture free as possible.  Perhaps we would have trouble recalling his spren into himself if they are bonded.

[Weltall]

In theory it should be possible for at least some kinds of voidspren to manifest as blades. We know that Seons and Skaze could do it because they work on similar principles, but they'd need something to pull them more into the Physical Realm. With Nahel Bond spren, the pulling method is built into the way the bond functions. With other forms of sapient Investiture that we've seen so far it isn't, so you'd need to figure out how to do that.

1 hour ago, Karger said:

Perhaps Odium's godmetal is to brittle to make a good blade or perhaps it is because Odium desires all of his investiture to remain free and solidifying any of it risks it falling into enemy hands and leaving him in the same position as Ruin was with atium.

Moash's knife is implied to be godmetal and it worked pretty well. As to the other point, this would depend on what sort of control Odium is able to exert over which voidspren bond. Ignoring the Nahel spren that Sja-anat corrupts for now, if the ones that form bonds with humans aren't fully sapient then it's probably a non-issue because they'll just do whatever thing they were meant to. On the other hand, if a sapient voidspren forms a bond and the pair does whatever's needed to pull the spren into the Physical gets done, it's possible for it to choose to do so even if Odium doesn't want that to happen. Recall that Honor didn't teach the spren how to bond humans and become blades, they did that on their own by copying what they'd observed of the Honorblades. A sapient voidspren should be able to do the same thing.

But to go with @Dunkum's point, the voidspren we've seen bonding both humans and singers so far appear to be less than fully sapient and are probably not compatable with manifesting as a blade. We don't know enough about the ones that bonded Amaram's soldiers but we see through Venlii what the voidspren bonds do to the singers. With Timbre containing the voidspren, Venlii's free to think and act entirely for herself while still getting the benefits of Envoyform. I don't think the spren involved in Regal bonds are intelligent enough to do more than their nature dictates and Odium certainly wouldn't want to place himself in a position where that could happen since it would badly hamper his control over his forces.

[Karger he/him]

2 minutes ago, Weltall said:

On the other hand, if a sapient voidspren forms a bond and the pair does whatever's needed to pull the spren into the Physical gets don

Perhaps that is the answer.  Spren cannot break oaths no matter which shard created them.  Spren in bonds gain the capability to grow and change.  Odium is rather single minded in his goals and any voidspren going rogue is one less ounce of investiture that he has at his disposal.  Perhaps when he creates a sapient spren he makes them swear to forgo bonding and to obey him in all things.  This deprives his soldiers of blades but it means that Odium retains all of his investiture in free form.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 minutes ago, Karger said:

Perhaps that is the answer.  Spren cannot break oaths no matter which shard created them.  Spren in bonds gain the capability to grow and change.  Odium is rather single minded in his goals and any voidspren going rogue is one less ounce of investiture that he has at his disposal.  Perhaps when he creates a sapient spren he makes them swear to forgo bonding and to obey him in all things.  This deprives his soldiers of blades but it means that Odium retains all of his investiture in free form.

Then why not just use the Fused? If he can cancel their immortality at will, he can break the bonds the hard way.

[Karger he/him]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Then why not just use the Fused? If he can cancel their immortality at will, he can break the bonds the hard way.

I am not sure if the fused can bond spren like that.  At this point the fused themselves are basically spren and we have scene nothing like a spren being bonded to another spren.  Also, killing the fused would not deprive the spren of its experiences or goals.  It may be traumatic for the spren but Syl says they usually get over it.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

12 hours ago, Karger said:

I am not sure if the fused can bond spren like that.  At this point the fused themselves are basically spren and we have scene nothing like a spren being bonded to another spren.

Nale has no problem with his bond.

12 hours ago, Karger said:

  Also, killing the fused would not deprive the spren of its experiences or goals.  It may be traumatic for the spren but Syl says they usually get over it.

Two questions:

1. Can Odium just recycle a spren?
2. Why did he leave the Unmade so much autonomy then?

[Karger he/him]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why did he leave the Unmade so much autonomy then?

This one is fairly easy actually.  We don't really know what the Unmade are or how they were created.  Odium's MO is to corrupt existing systems not make his own from scratch so I always assumed that the Unmade were something else before being Unmade.  I could be wrong but this grasps the concept fairly well.  I also expect that Odium put in some kind of safeguards to prevent the Unmade acting against him(we may not know what they are but Odium would be stupid not to have them).  Also Odium had basically no choice but to give them autonomy.  He is trapped.  He can't always direct things personally.

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Can Odium just recycle a spren?

He threatens to take back his investiture from a disobedient soldier so I am going to say yes.

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Nale has no problem with his bond.

The fused are not the same as Heralds.  They may be similar but assuming identical mechanics is a fallacy of analogy.

[Dunkum he/him]

4 hours ago, Karger said:

Also Odium had basically no choice but to give them autonomy.  He is trapped.  He can't always direct things personally.

He also may simply have needed to give some of them autonomy in order for them to be able to fulfill whatever their intended purpose was.  sometimes a mindless drone following orders exactly is the best tool for the job, sometimes you need someone/thing smart enough to thik for itslef and be creative in how it achieves its goal.

[Karger he/him]

On 6/7/2019 at 4:49 PM, Dunkum said:

He also may simply have needed to give some of them autonomy in order for them to be able to fulfill whatever their intended purpose was.  sometimes a mindless drone following orders exactly is the best tool for the job, sometimes you need someone/thing smart enough to thik for itslef and be creative in how it achieves its goal.

Exactly. 

[Jondesu he/him]

On 6/7/2019 at 0:11 PM, Karger said:

This one is fairly easy actually.  We don't really know what the Unmade are or how they were created.  Odium's MO is to corrupt existing systems not make his own from scratch so I always assumed that the Unmade were something else before being Unmade.  I could be wrong but this grasps the concept fairly well.  I also expect that Odium put in some kind of safeguards to prevent the Unmade acting against him(we may not know what they are but Odium would be stupid not to have them).  Also Odium had basically no choice but to give them autonomy.  He is trapped.  He can't always direct things personally.

More specifically, it's possible Odium didn't intentionally create the Unmade.  My personal head-canon is that the Unmade are at least part of what is trapping Odium; that he somehow got stuck in the Roshar system long enough some of his power splintered off through a mechanism he couldn't control and became the Unmade.  They may have had some direction from him once he realized what was happening, and of course there's some amount of his Intent that drives them (they're all related to hatred, Odium, in some way, though somewhat tangentially in some cases), but he possibly didn't intend for them to exist in the first place.

[Karger he/him]

1 minute ago, Jondesu said:

More specifically, it's possible Odium didn't intentionally create the Unmade.  My personal head-canon is that the Unmade are at least part of what is trapping Odium; that he somehow got stuck in the Roshar system long enough some of his power splintered off through a mechanism he couldn't control and became the Unmade.  They may have had some direction from him once he realized what was happening, and of course there's some amount of his Intent that drives them (they're all related to hatred, Odium, in some way, though somewhat tangentially in some cases), but he possibly didn't intend for them to exist in the first place.

Interesting theory.  I too wonder if Odium's long stay on Braize has had consequences that he did not anticipate or want.