How did Ishar...

[Parzival]

Ok, so in RoW we see Dalinar find Ishar's creepy experiments of forcing spren into physical bodies in the physical realm. But how was he doing this? Whenever spren have entered the physical realm in the past, even through perpendicularities and the oathgates, they always reverted to their manifested form, like Pattern as his dimple on the ground and Syl as a ribbon of light. So is it some application of his Bondsmith abilities that allowed him to force the spren to manifest physical bodies or some sort of twisted power we don't know about yet?

[apepi]

Well, we know that they were beating the crap out of spren. I always imagined they were beating them then going to somehow capture them and then go through an oathgate and take them with them.

Pattern and Syl might be different as they have a bond with being in the realm that they are with, so maybe spren normally going through an oathgate is wierd? We haven't heard the spren using them right?

I always thought spren could kind of almost switch from the cognitive realm and the physical at will.

Or maybe beating the rust out of them isn't to capture them, but the method? We know for both allomancy and the radiant bond, your spiritual mind kind of has to be broken/hurt to allow investiture in, maybe they were doing something similar to spren, trying to make their cognitive selves make a physical body?

[Parzival]

That,s true, we haven't seen none radiant spren tranition, that could be the case.  I also thought the could just switch back and forth, tho I think it is hard ot remain intelligent without a radiant. it could be that Ishar somehow forced them through a perpendicularity or oathgate while they were injured and maybe used some sort of connection manipulation to tie them to the physical realm and caus ehtem to manifest bodies. 

[apepi]

I am not sure there is any connection thing that is happening...unless they are beating them up, forcing them to go to a certain place, then Ishar is there with the Honorblade to mess with their connection to make them physical?

The people that beat them up didn't seem to have the honorblade or any way to make them be able to use connection like Ishar does.

[Chaos he/him]

Hi, you can't have spoilers in topic titles, I'm afraid, see 

I edited this, but unfortunately that will make this topic title much more vague.

[RedBlue]

The fact that Ishar retrieved his honorblade just about when he started experimenting - after all this time - does suggest to me that the honorblade plays an important part in whatever Ishar is doing to make the spren manifest like that.

The idea that it may involve Oathgates is interesting - the problem is that, unless I’m forgetting something, there are no Oathgates close to Ishar’s base in Tukar. He could be transporting the spren from some other country’s Oathgate, but that would be both a logistical nightmare given the spren’s conditions, and also it would be really difficult to keep secret. Ditto with using Cultivation’s Perpednicularity.

I’m leaning toward the theory that he’s using Connection manipulation to do it. Maybe severing the spren’s Connection to the Cognitive Realm and/or forging a Connection between them and the Physical Realm. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by RedBlue
Grammar

[Parzival]

I agree, that sounds liek the sort of connection trick that he could pull off and that could bring those results. Also, he's probably using honors perpendicularity to transition them, just changing their connection wouldn't bring the spren into the physical realm.

[TheOneEyedFox]

Wouldn’t this be done the same way a bondsmith links a person to a land causing them to be subject to the laws of that world? Which is why some work better than others because of their natural alignment to that realm and the ones requiring severe changes not so much.

Edited March 27, 2021 by TheOneEyedFox

[Kitch]

My thought was that this was Ishars version of what Raboniel was attempting to do. To bring a permanent end to things by being able to kill spren

I mean...if he can bring a spren of Honor or Cultivation over, why not one of Odium?

 

 

[apepi]

Was the spren in the physical form bodies damaged in some way?(besides the effects of them being in the physical realm) If there is then they haven't had time to heal.

[spaidapig he/him]

Normally, when a spren transitions into the PR they still remain mostly in the CR. It's more like they are peaking into the PR.

Even Radiant Spren are not completely in the PR, I think. Only when they are summoned as a Shardblade their full essence is manifested in the PR and they gain a Body. 

As spren are basically Investiture, and the fact that most physical reprenentatian of Imvestiture is Metal, their appearance is some kind of weapon, tool or something similar.

 

What Ishar did, was pulling their Cognitive aspect into the PR. And I think, that is the problem here. 

When we look at the appearance of investiture in the PR it is either solid in the form of some kind of metal, liqiud in a Perpendicularity oder gaseous as Storm/Voidlight or the Mists.

Solid Investiture can remain in the PR.

But gaseous Investiture dissipates unless it is captured, and even then, it is mostly unstable. As the body of a spren is definitly not made of metal. And the problem is, what I believe, that their Investiture is partly used up in forming organs, etc. and the rest goes kinetic and disappears into the SR.

 

Maybe feeding them huge amounts of Stormlight can help keeping them alive.

 

[Gemnation]

Could they use a fabrial in the form of a body to better help them transition to the PR?

[metal get in my tummy he/him]

I was thinking it works in a similar fashion to a cognitive shadow controlling a vessel. Since spren are just investiture, they should theoretically be indistinguishable from cognitive shadows. As we see with Radiant healing, a person's view of themselves alters the way they appear (e.g Kaladin's brand, Reshi king transformation). We also know from the BoM Kelsier memory that his new body bore his old scars. So my suspicion is this: Ishar forces spren into vessels (humans) and then they start to take the shape of the spren, however it's pretty hard for a human skull to morph into a cryptic one, so the most successful attempts are with those resembling humans the most (honorspren) as the change isn't too drastic. 

 

 

[Kranse]

On 6/13/2021 at 6:52 AM, Telantes said:

I was thinking it works in a similar fashion to a cognitive shadow controlling a vessel. Since spren are just investiture, they should theoretically be indistinguishable from cognitive shadows. As we see with Radiant healing, a person's view of themselves alters the way they appear (e.g Kaladin's brand, Reshi king transformation). We also know from the BoM Kelsier memory that his new body bore his old scars. So my suspicion is this: Ishar forces spren into vessels (humans) and then they start to take the shape of the spren, however it's pretty hard for a human skull to morph into a cryptic one, so the most successful attempts are with those resembling humans the most (honorspren) as the change isn't too drastic. 

So he's trying to replicate what the Fused do when they take over a Singer body? That makes his experiments even more heinous, killing two people per attempt.

[Waffles]

It seems like if he was fusing cognitive beings to physical ones it create a combined creature with a cognitive spren and physical body maybe similar to the "unmade radiants" under the queen in Kolinar or like the Tukari whose eyes were darkened. This would be an invert of the fused, who have the physical aspects of spren and the cognitive/spiritual aspect of singers.

It seems like Ishar's experiments are more like spren are being soulcast into flesh or connected to dead bodies or something. Something is turning their cognitive aspects into flesh in addition to a perpindicularity. Its also not clear if these spren were deadeyes or not (unlikely given the tukari kidnap attempt)

Edited June 23, 2021 by Waffles

[The roamer he/him]

question so we can all agree with the fact that bondsmiths can make honors perpendicularity by merging spiritual, physical and cognitive realms together what if there was a partial Version of this so instead of opening a pathway between all 3 open up a direct path between physical and cognitive 

[RedBlue]

17 hours ago, The roamer said:

question so we can all agree with the fact that bondsmiths can make honors perpendicularity by merging spiritual, physical and cognitive realms together

Yes, I’m pretty sure this is how it works, at least for Bondsmiths bonded to the Stormfather. Other Bondsmiths’ abilities remain unclear. They probably can open up some kind of perpendicularity.

17 hours ago, The roamer said:

what if there was a partial Version of this so instead of opening a pathway between all 3 open up a direct path between physical and cognitive 

I assume you’re suggesting that Ishar has been opening a pathway from the Cognitive to the Physical Realm using his honorblade and pulling spren through that way? 

I think it’s quite likely that he’s doing this, as he needs to transport the spren (and the human kidnappers) somehow and he doesn’t have easy access to Radiants or Oathgates. I think he must also be doing some Connection manipulation on the spren themselves, not just physically moving them. Otherwise, I don’t see why the spren wouldn’t manifest naturally as they do when transported by an Oathgate.

[CygnusRising]

 

On 3/16/2021 at 10:01 AM, RedBlue said:

I’m leaning toward the theory that he’s using Connection manipulation to do it. Maybe severing the spren’s Connection to the Cognitive Realm and/or forging a Connection between them and the Physical Realm. 

That's where my mind went.  He's fiddling with their Connections somehow.  Whether or not he needs to Oathblade is up in the air in my mind, but could be part of it.  We have no idea the extent of a Bondsmith's full power, and if Kaladin is any measuring stick, the gulf between power levels as each Ideal is sworn grows significantly (ie, the difference between Kaladin after swearing the third Ideal and and fourth Ideal is clearly wider than between his first and second or second and third.)  It's reasonable to assume that Ishar has the abilities of a Bondsmith who has sworn the Fifth Ideal, and is also a Herald, so it would track that not only is the raw power gap between Ishar and Dalinar enormous, but Ishar just understands his powers better.  You see this in their little sparring match where technique that Knights are just starting to toy with is childsplay for Ishar, and he concedes he's not even that good.  It would track that he is the most highly skilled Bondsmith in existence...

All of this to say... We don't even know the extent of Dalinar's powers at the Third Ideal and his understanding, and Ishar is orders of magnitude beyond Dalinar's in both measures...  There's a lot of room for Ishar to do all sorts of things we don't understand with Bondsmith powers.

Edited June 29, 2021 by CygnusRising
I will correct my mistakes when I know I have made them.

[RedBlue]

10 minutes ago, CygnusRising said:

Ishar has obviously not only sworn the Fifth Ideal, but is also a Herald, so it would track that not only is the raw power gap between Ishar and Dalinar enormous, but Ishar just understands his powers better. 

Minor correction: Ishar hasn’t sworn any Ideals that we know of. He hasn’t bonded a spren, and isn’t a Radiant. What he does have is unfettered access to Bondsmith Surgebinding via the honorblade, and many years of experience more than Dalinar.

But yeah, I expect he has many tricks up his sleeve that Dalinar hasn’t even thought of. 

[CygnusRising]

1 minute ago, RedBlue said:

Minor correction: Ishar hasn’t sworn any Ideals that we know of. He hasn’t bonded a spren, and isn’t a Radiant. What he does have is unfettered access to Bondsmith Surgebinding via the honorblade, and many years of experience more than Dalinar.

But yeah, I expect he has many tricks up his sleeve that Dalinar hasn’t even thought of. 

That's not a minor correction, that's a huge correction, and a big error on my part.  I should have said, "Ishar would reasonably have the powers of a Radiant who had sworn the Fifth Ideal."

[Use the Falchion]

On 6/13/2021 at 6:52 AM, Telantes said:

I was thinking it works in a similar fashion to a cognitive shadow controlling a vessel. Since spren are just investiture, they should theoretically be indistinguishable from cognitive shadows. As we see with Radiant healing, a person's view of themselves alters the way they appear (e.g Kaladin's brand, Reshi king transformation). We also know from the BoM Kelsier memory that his new body bore his old scars. So my suspicion is this: Ishar forces spren into vessels (humans) and then they start to take the shape of the spren, however it's pretty hard for a human skull to morph into a cryptic one, so the most successful attempts are with those resembling humans the most (honorspren) as the change isn't too drastic. 

 

 

I think I agree with other posters in that Ishar using Connection and Adhesion is probably the correct answer, but I like your answer a lot more. It gives a terrible weight to what Ishar is doing, but it could also make sense with his warped view of the Desolations. In his mind, if Ishar could make this work, then maybe he could find a way to undo it, and use that way to kill the Fused. (Or make himself and the rest of the Heralds something that can get off Roshar) 

It reminds me of a scene in Fast Five. (I saw F9 on Saturday, so the franchise is on my mind.) At the beginning of the movie, our protagonists were involved with a heist that ended with a car that a corrupt politician wanted. Our heroes ended up taking the car apart to find out what made it special. When a third party antagonist (played by The Rock) was hunting our heroes - and after snuffing them out of their first hideout - he ended up having his team put the car back together in order to find out what the protagonists were after. Maybe the same can be said for Ishar in your case. He knows what the Fused do. He may even know how they do it. But he needs to replicate it with something that inherently doesn't work that way. Yet, if he can make it work, then he can figure out how to unmake the other thing. 

[CygnusRising]

14 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

Ishar could make this work, then maybe he could find a way to undo it, and use that way to kill the Fused.

Or, just... bear with me for a second...  He's completely insane.

Joking aside, Ishar strikes me as a very driven, 'ends justify the means' kind of person.  I think it's likely that Odium did Odium things and manipulated Ishar's natural proclivities into tinkering with Surges that allowed Odium to bring about the destruction of Ashyn, that otherwise could not have happened had Ishar not be tempted.  It seems like his MO while Rayse was the Vessel; I didn't particularly like the flashbacks in RoW as much as other books, but it really reinforces that Rayse as Odium loved to manipulate natural aspects of sapience to his means... To brand it a bit more closely to home, you might say that he... manipulates a person's passions? 

Ishar probably really wanted to discover new and exciting things, and Odium was like, "Hey man, you wanna see something really cool?  Check this out!"  Like giving a curious kid who doesn't really care about rules a pack of Red Bull and a big red button and telling them not to push it.  Now he's just insane, and that insanity is driving that same passion.  Ishar probably has some measures of perfectionism where his mind refuses to concede failure; it just means he has to keep trying to fix it, and storms, he's going to fix it right this time... this time... this... time... It's okay if some spren have to give up their lives, right?  Right?