Syl Interlude Discussion

[Pathfinder]

So readily admit it is in no way confirmation, but I feel Syl and Dalinar's conversation is another feather in the cap of my theory that Dalinar will have a hand in Adolin reviving Maya. His powers can literally affect the bonds between radiant and spren. I think this is foreshadowing of him restoring what was lost to those spren that were killed. Fingers crossed I am right!

[thejopen27 he/him]

2 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

Guys, Stormfather has the power but not the ability to deepen the bond on his own. Does this mean that the Nightwatcher could do this? 

Or Dalinar uses his power to do it

[Hen she/her]

Sorry I messed up. I put the Shardplate quote in another Topic, cause I got really excited. I hid it now, so don't worry, but i'm sorry about that . 

37 minutes ago, R J said:

Welp, Shardplate made of minor spren confirmed

It mentions the Shardplate is Content. Would that be because Shardplate is used to protect rather then kill? Or because they are lesser spren, and as such don't completely understand what happened? Or something else entirely.  

Edited July 7, 2020 by Hentient

[Honorless he/him]

Just now, Hentient said:

It mentions the shardplate is Contempt. Would that be because Shardplate is used to protect rather then kill? Or because they are lesser spren, and as such dont completely understand what happened? Or something else entirely.  

I think they're just happy to be fulfilling their purpose

[+Q10fanatic]

15 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

So readily admit it is in no way confirmation, but I feel Syl and Dalinar's conversation is another feather in the cap of my theory that Dalinar will have a hand in Adolin reviving Maya. His powers can literally affect the bonds between radiant and spren. I think this is foreshadowing of him restoring what was lost to those spren that were killed. Fingers crossed I am right!

I half expect that RoW's plot will revolve around twin diplomatic missions: one to the spren, to show that humans are worth supporting; one to the singers, to try to pull hosts away from the Fused.

The first could be led by Adolin and Shallan in the Cognitive realm. The second could involve Venli and R'lain interacting with the radiants and finding the lost Listeners.

[anna she/her]

15 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

Guys, Stormfather has the power but not the ability to deepen the bond on his own. Does this mean that the Nightwatcher could do this? 

I'm half expecting the answer to be that the Nightwatcher has the ability but not the power

[Master Silver]

So... I found that chapter super interesting. A bond smith made the heralds immortal. Does that mean Dalinar can do the same? Would be crazy if he can make himself younger. Why find a new champion when you can do the job fine yourself. A dash of youth For him and Navani, and immortality for top ten Radiants. Surely the heralds are just wasted investiture at this point (I know that sounds super harsh, but thinking about it like a chess game). Anyway, I love the chapter. I'm guessing this takes place after the first chapter with Kaladin, who likely had to kill a lot of Singers to get out of there. 

[thejopen27 he/him]

4 minutes ago, Master Silver said:

So... I found that chapter super interesting. A bond smith made the heralds immortal. Does that mean Dalinar can do the same? Would be crazy if he can make himself younger. Why find a new champion when you can do the job fine yourself. A dash of youth For him and Navani, and immortality for top ten Radiants. Surely the heralds are just wasted investiture at this point (I know that sounds super harsh, but thinking about it like a chess game). Anyway, I love the chapter. I'm guessing this takes place after the first chapter with Kaladin, who likely had to kill a lot of Singers to get out of there. 

I think some theorize that our ten main characters (Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Venli, Szeth /break/ Lift, Renarin, Taln, Ash, and Jasnah) are the new ten members of the oathpact with Taln reprizing his role and Ash moving from Lightweaver to Dustbringer.

Edited July 7, 2020 by thejopen27

[Honorless he/him]

Awww! See? No romantic subplot necessary, Syl's got his back! 

Edited July 7, 2020 by R J

[+Q10fanatic]

6 minutes ago, R J said:

Awww! See? No romantic subplot necessary, Syl's got his back! 

I fully expected a throwaway line line "Kaladin sleeps so much better with Tarah in the room" or something.

[thejopen27 he/him]

Is Kaladin Michael Jordan-ing? After Michael Jordan's father died, he quit basketball for a time to play baseball, the sport his father always wanted him to play. Eventually he came back to basketball. 
Has Lirin died and in his guilt and grief has Kaladin abandoned fighting to become a surgeon as he thinks he needs to make amends to his father? This could all be part of his journey to the fourth Ideal. He failed to protect his father and he's still struggling with his failure here.

[thejopen27 he/him]

2 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

I fully expected a throwaway line line "Kaladin sleeps so much better with Tarah in the room" or something.

Something that could have easily been edited out for this special release to avoid spoilers...

[GoWibble he/him]

53 minutes ago, Karger said:

So we are going with the lessor spren theory.  I suppose that is cool.  It seems odd that Brandon would make it so obvious so early.  Kaladin really needs to get his mojo back. 

Yeah, but what attracts / is able to bond the lesser spren? I think that the 4th Ideal is going to allow for the spren to attract lesser spren and bond that. 

 

That was great! It was good to have a spren perspective.

 Thoughts: (spoilered for length)

Spoiler

1. This is an interlude, so the things in it could happen in at least the first part of RoW

2. Syl can hear a music in the Highstorm. This might be something like the Rhythms 

3. Chord got Plate, maybe the same one that Amaram had. Or she stole Jasnahs'

4. Plate is made up of many corpses, and seems 'content' to a spren

5. The tower is described as dead

6. Syl's old Radiant used his Shardblade to cut cisterns and aqueducts for people and visited Urithiru

7. The tower had a strange kind of light. Cultivationlight?

8. Kaladin seems to be more of a surgeon now

9. The Windspren are described as cousins

10. Peakspren. At least a Truespren, but is described in a list with other Radiant spren. It doesn't really seem to fit the description of the Truthwatcher spren, and peak refers to stone, which the Stonewards spren seem to emulate.

11. A huge amount of Investiture can slow time (functionally) like a black hole. This helps explain how rashek was able to do so much in an instant

12. The power in the middle of the highstorm seems to be where the Stormfather can make spren

13. The world belongs to the spren in the Stormfather's mind

14. For some reason, Syl thinks that Kal might be Dalinar's champion

15. The Stormfather has the power to change spren, but not the ability

16. Syl changes her mind about how she feels about the Windspren

17. She has to stay near Kal, or she goes back to a lesser state

18. Syl is able to extrapolate and make new patterns like snowflakes. She doesn't have to imitate things. 

19. The highstorm is now high enough to hit parts of Urithiru. Maybe somehow it gets turned on by the highstorm going over all of it?

20. Dalinar still sees himself as Kaladin's commander. Maybe he ordered him to become a surgeon again?

21. Syl thinks that a Bondsmith connected the Heralds to Ashyn. This has to be Ishar. She also says that a Bondsmith bound other surges and brought humans to Roshar and created / discovered the Nahel bond. All of this has to be Ishar, or somehow a Surgebinder with Bondsmith powers from Ashyn. 

22. Syl's old Knight was named Relador and Dalinar offers counseling

 

[GoWibble he/him]

24 minutes ago, Hentient said:

It mentions the Shardplate is Contempt

Slightly different spelling, but a huge difference. 

Content, not contempt

[Master Silver]

Yeah, would be sad for all the characters that we grow to love (and because the series is so long, it is really a life time, 20+ years of stormlight) to die off due to age and time skips. Also, in terms of romance between Syl and Kaladin, she is doing exactly what a wonderful wife does when her husband comes back with PTSD. The Greeks always broke love into three categories, agape, phillio, and eros. Agape is love towards a diety, or int eh Christian case, His love toward us. But marriage always has a combination of brotherly love (or the love between friends) and romantic love. Anyway, just saying love can take more than one form. And in terms of strengthening connections, yes Maya and Oathbriger getting revived and along with Syl helping revive the Tower would be great

[Honorless he/him]

The Bondsmith that Sylphrena mentions bringing people to Roshar from Ashyn: perhaps the wielder of the Dawnshard that could "bind all creatures- mortal or Voidish"

It was mentioned by The Stormfather that the Oathpact was Ishar's work, for which he was called the Binder of Gods. Though it's surprising that he's also responsible for Heralds' immortality.

So the Surges were "bound" by a Bondsmith. The Honorblades weren't the first to harness the power... but then again, it was mentioned multiple times that Ashyn was destroyed by the Surges (Dawnshards and/or Voidbinding) but still quite an interesting statement

Edited July 7, 2020 by R J

[+Q10fanatic]

8 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

Has Lirin died and in his guilt and grief has Kaladin abandoned fighting to become a surgeon as he thinks he needs to make amends to his father? This could all be part of his journey to the fourth Ideal. He failed to protect his father and he's still struggling with his failure here.

This makes complete sense to me. Oh no...

[PiedPiper she/her]

1 hour ago, radiantAlThor said:

Is it just me or does it feel like Syl has some form on ADD/ADHD? I wonder if that is a character trait or something which came from her experiences?

Quite possibly. As someone with ADD, I can tell you that Syl has a lot of the same symptoms that I did: fidgety (her tendency to take different form fits this based on her thought process when deciding to do it), lack of impulse control, and easily distracted/sidetracked from her goal.

I am, of course, not a doctor, so I'd be the wrong person to give a definite diagnosis, but in my completely unprofessional opinion, she probably does have some kind of attention disorder. The other disclaimer I'll put here is that we have no idea how spren work. The symptoms Syl exhibits could mean something totally different for her since she's a "tiny piece of [a god]."

[+Q10fanatic]

We (or at least I) always thought that Syl was a decent baseline for other Honorspren. That her excitability and the parallels to windspren would be present in other Honorspren. This excerpt implies that she is different somehow. This is so cool, it tells us that spren have much more personality variation than we could prove before. We knew that Syl was different from the Honorspren captain in the Cognitive Realm, but we didn't know if we could extrapolate from that.

[Honorless he/him]

Huh, wouldn't The Nightwatcher's Bondsmith be able to leave Roshar, unlike The Stormfather, who's bound to the Highstorm, or the Sibling, who's necessary for Urithiru to function.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Honorless

[SanderFan69]

When Syl says that a bondsmith created a herald and that the bondsmith already had the power that immediately made think of Ishar. I just looked him up on the coppermind and under the Binder of Gods part it says that he "is sometimes described as having powers even before he came to be known as a herald" so I think it was Ishar who created the heralds.

Also begs the question of where he got the power from? Was it something from Ashyn or did Ishar bond a spren. Nale says that he is the only one to join his own order, but maybe Nale just never knew or maybe Ishar was bonded but never joined the radiants because that would have been well before the beginning of the radiants. Also could be why the Sibling withdrew possibly? Maybe the sibling was his spren and he used the power from it to create the radiants and then undbonded it. And then when the radiants abonded their oaths that is why the sibling retreated because it was directly connected to oaths so the breaking of the oaths hurt it a lot.

 

Sorry for the rambling I am excited.

[thejopen27 he/him]

1 minute ago, Q10fanatic said:

We (or at least I) always thought that Syl was a decent baseline for other Honorspren. That her excitability and the parallels to windspren would be present in other Honorspren. This excerpt implies that she is different somehow. This is so cool, it tells us that spren have much more personality variation than we could prove before. We knew that Syl was different from the Honorspren captain in the Cognitive Realm, but we didn't know if we could extrapolate from that.

Was she always like this, is it due to her being too young, or is it from her long years spent living as a windspren?

[thejopen27 he/him]

21 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

This makes complete sense to me. Oh no...

It's also possible Dalinar has secretly suspended Kaladin from fighting for gambling on battles (;

[menacekop]

45 minutes ago, R J said:

I think they're just happy to be fulfilling their purpose

I think the same.  also the blades are higher spren which means they have sentience that gives them an identity, I suspect the pain comes from the pull of human thought of what they are working against their own identity.

[+honorblades he/him]

This was a great chapter, what a lovely surprise to get a spren viewpoint! A couple thoughts. 

1. Everyone here and on Discord seems sort of put-off by Plate being made up of lesser spren. I am not sure why, that always seemed very well-foreshadowed to me, and it makes sense in my head.. Oh well. I, for one, am happy that we finally got confirmation of that. 

2. Man so much Bondsmith stuff. A Bondsmith (or someone with the same powers) brought over the people from Ashyn, discovered the Nahel bond, etc. This messes with the already-messy First Desolation timetable a lot, I think. 

3. Kaladin as a surgeon again.... Hmm. I really hope he finds his stride and gets less mopey this book. I am also wondering why Urithiru needs very many surgeons when they have people with Regrowth like Lift and Renarin? In any case, I hope that the Windrunners can still fulfill their typical purpose as scouts and such even with Kaladin taking his doctor sabbatical, or whatever this turns out to be.