Do and can the Bondsmiths have squires?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

To persuade them to increase their number above three was seen as treasonous.

So, they can, but they are not allowed to? How else can this be interpreted? The "3" is so important that even suggesting the impossible is treason? Or are there other spren that could potentially make a Bondsmith?

[Quantus he/him]

The short answer is we dont know yet.  WOB says that "For most orders, squire were knights radiant potentially in training", but not all of them and "Many stayed squires forever and that was okay"  And that "Some orders dont have them".  

 

As far as how it was "seditious" rather than impossible for there to be more than Three Bondsmiths, the most popular theory as far as Im aware is that there are only three normal Godspren of a level that can make a Bondsmith, but that an UnMade might also be able to serve that role, making a Voidbinder Bondsmitth (which would be crazy powerful and scary).  Personally I think there are even odd that Sja-Anat might go this route, if she is sincere about defecting to Dalinar's side.  

[Honorless he/him]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Do and can the Bondsmiths have squires?

 

To persuade them to increase their number above three was seen as treasonous.

So, they can, but they are not allowed to? How else can this be interpreted? The "3" is so important that even suggesting the impossible is treason? Or are there other spren that could potentially make a Bondsmith?

Perhaps spren on the level of Cusicesh the Protector, the Storm Striders or Storm Walkers (whatever they may be), the Caretaker of Laughter, Smolderbrand, etc also allow something similar. There's no shortage of one-of-a-kind spren on Roshar, and one can bind spren other than the ten Nahel Bond capable ones, as we see the native life of Roshar frequently do and confirmed by by Brandon. Why doing so might be considered seditious (rather than treasonous).....

In theory all Orders should be able to have Squires, as there the Bond is between the Knight and the Squires, a single Knight should be able to have multiple Squires, that shouldn't have been limited by the number of Bondsmith spren but apparently some Orders didn't have squires, we don't understand why, so we can't really say which Orders would have them and which one wouldn't, that would just be arbitrary speculation. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by Dreamer

[Quantus he/him]

12 minutes ago, Dreamer said:

Perhaps spren on the level of Cusicesh the Protector, the Storm Striders or Storm Walkers (whatever they may be), the Caretaker of Laughter, Smolderbrand, etc also allow something similar. There's no shortage of one-of-a-kind spren on Roshar, and one can bind spren other than the ten Nahel Bond capable ones, as we see the native life of Roshar frequently do and confirmed by by Brandon. Why doing so might be considered seditious (rather than treasonous).....

There are plenty of relatively unique spren, the argument could be made that ll sapient spren are unique, but even Cusiceshis specifically of a lower tier than the godspren:

 

Quote

 

Questioner

Speaking of the Stormfather, would the Nightwatcher and the giant water spren be on the same level of spren as the Stormfather?

Brandon Sanderson

...The Nightwatcher, yes. Um... There are, I would say, a level below the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher who are also much-- a much bigger deal than something like one of the sapient spren, and that's what Cusicesh is.

Questioner

So the Nightwatcher is a spren you'd say?

Brandon Sanderson

The Nightwatcher-- I mean, they call the Nightwatcher a spren. Everyone in the books thinks the Nightwatcher is a spren. That's what they would call-- that's what they would call, if they knew what Honor was, they would call Honor a spren. A spren is Investiture that is alive.

[snip for length]

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Dreamer said:

In theory all Orders should be able to have Squires, as there the Bond is between the Knight and the Squires, a single Knight should be able to have multiple Squires, that shouldn't have been limited by the number of Bondsmith spren but apparently some Orders didn't have squires, we don't understand why, so we can't really say which Orders would have them and which one wouldn't, that would just be arbitrary speculation. 

Per the WOB I linked, they do not all have squires:

 

Quote

 

Argent

There is a person on the forums who noticed that Shallan has this awesome Memory thing going on, Jasnah seems to have a really powerful, kind of, geolocation thing going on, Kaladin is a really good fighter - are those just their traits, or is there something supernatural going on?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something supernatural going on. Each Order... Well, how about this. If you look at the scholar interpretations, there are some scholars who think that these things are not supernatural, in the past, and some who said they definitely are. But many, if you look, many Lightweavers had powerful mnemonic abilities.

Argent

So it's definitely tied to the Orders?

Brandon Sanderson

It's tied to the Orders. Now, I am not going to say that you've got them all 100% correct, but each Order, there are things that come with Order, things that do not add up from simple the "you get this power plus this power," there is something else going on. And I would say that for Windrunners, watch the number of squires and the power of the squires... is abnormal for the Windrunners.

Argent

And each Order's squires are somehow different from the other Orders'?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeeeaaaah... some Orders don't have them, [that] is the difference.

Argent

 But some have more?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

 

 

[Honorless he/him]

53 minutes ago, Quantus said:

There are plenty of relatively unique spren, the argument could be made that ll sapient spren are unique, but even Cusiceshis specifically of a lower tier than the godspren:

Then perhaps it's only the Godspren that can create a Bondsmith, which the Unmade qualify as but on the other hand, there are nine Unmade because they're missing a Bondsmith analogue

Quote

XS-Terrain

Also, does each of the Unmade have a corresponding order of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Eh... Kind of.

XS-Terrain

Ok. So there are nine Unmade right, so which one is left out?

Brandon Sanderson

Bondsmith. But it's not as one to one, there's some fuzziness in there.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

53 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Per the WOB I linked, they do not all have squires:

Quote

Yeeeaaaah... some Orders don't have them, [that] is the difference.

 

I do acknowledge that, the point I'm raising is that there shouldn't  be any Realmatic mechanical reason why certain Orders wouldn't have had Squires, except maybe a thematic one

Edited April 7, 2020 by Dreamer

[Quantus he/him]

11 minutes ago, Dreamer said:

I do acknowledge that, the point I'm raising is that there shouldn't  be any Realmatic mechanical reason why certain Orders wouldn't have had Squires, except maybe a thematic one

I kind of think of it in the opposite direction, that there is no reason that they would all get them, since the Orders are based on the Heralds and the none of the heralds got Squires even when their associated Order does.  And there is similar precedent, as in the case of the Bondsmiths where they have never gotten Shardblades: 

 

Quote

 

Questioner

And there's one last question if I may: I'm really into swords and such. I couldn't help but notice king Elhokar's Blade. It's just... All the others are ornamented, and they may have some glyphs, but it is the only one where it is explicitly it is told that there are ten fundamental glyphs on it which are the glyphs of the orders. I read some of the chapters from Dalinar from Unfettered II, and I know how he got it for Elhokar. Is there also some more backstory to this Blade?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a backstory to every Blade and every one of them is special, that's the problem. But I will be exploring the origins of some of the Blades. Eventually. Not a ton, but a little bit.

Questioner

As it is ornamented in such a way... Could it be related to a Bondsmith?

Brandon Sanderson

Bondsmiths didn't have Blades.

Questioner

All of them? It's just... Maybe it was just the Stormfather...

Brandon Sanderson

No. That's a really good guess. Really good guess. I'm gonna RAFO Bondsmiths because you gonna learn a lot about them in the next book because it's the Bondsmith's book. That's a really good theory, but it's not true. 

Questioner

But maybe there is at least something to it.

Brandon Sanderson

But there's a reason to it, why it has all the 10 orders.

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

 

 

[Honorless he/him]

41 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I kind of think of it in the opposite direction, that there is no reason that they would all get them, since the Orders are based on the Heralds and the none of the heralds got Squires even when their associated Order does.  And there is similar precedent, as in the case of the Bondsmiths where they have never gotten Shardblades

The Orders are based on the Honorblades, to be exact and yes, historically the Bondsmiths didn't have Blades but in OB we see Dalinar forcing the Stormfather into Shardblade form to open the Vedenar Oathgate. The statement could very well be a historical truth, not a law

[Ripheus23]

I know I'm not actually contributing but at a glance the title almost looked like, "Do and can Bondsmiths have squirrels?"

[NiceBleach]

On 4/9/2020 at 1:29 PM, Ripheus23 said:

I know I'm not actually contributing but at a glance the title almost looked like, "Do and can Bondsmiths have squirrels?"

That's actually still an interesting question to think about. The "can" portion, at least. I think it's likely that squirrels were brought over from Ashyn. The real question is if Bondsmiths would be able to use their surges to manipulate Connection to enable their squirrel(s) to be able to talk Alethi or Veden or whatever.