Lirins hand

It seems to me that the Honorblades being "a masterly work of art, flowing in design, inscribed with glyphs and patterns" does not necessarily mean they are ornate or ornamented, as the Shardblades are described usually. The ornateness of the Shardblades seems to be in the things added on to make them individually unique. These seem to me to be described as what you'd typically see as the Fantasy version of the two-handed greatsword with flare and bling added, making it functionally unusable except for the fact that they are much lighter than they should be. The Honorblades would make much more sense to be more utilitarian, in my mind. The traditional katana is a masterly work of art per most sword-smiths but is elegant in its simplicity, even when inscribed and decorated. The Shardblades were based on the idea of the honor blades but that doesn't mean they looked alike. The way they are consistently described makes me think they are like the bionic man (or spren in this case): "we can make it bigger, faster, better."

I've always read that Hoid comment not as "I don't care what happens here, this planet can die for all I care" but as very much important to him, "I would be willing to destroy this planet rather than let a bad result endanger my plans". That the end result of Roshar's conflict can affect his plans, whatever they are, speaks more to their importance cosmerically than their lack of importance. I do think it is most likely an on-planet voice, but I wouldn't be shocked if it turns out not to be. Different idea: who is most removed from everyday life on Roshar but seems to be in the know from snippets we've seen/heard? Could this be a Shin observing what is happening in the outside world?

WoK: ".... There are four whom we watch. ........... The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardweilding can return; the magic of the ancient days can become ours again. These four people are key. One of them may redeem us, And one of them will destroy us." WoR: "......... The ancient oaths have at last been spoken; the spren return. Men seek that which was lost. I fear the struggle will destroy them. ......... It is past time for them to awaken, for the Everstorm looms. And the Assassin has arrived." I think it is interesting how everything is written from a plural viewpoint and in the present tense. I don't think this is someone writing about the past, that just doesn't make sense to me with the writing style. Whether it is prophecy or not, I don't know. It has a sense of future sight but also current interpretation that is very accurate. Most prophecies are of the past to the future, not of today (current events) to the future. Along the lines of "someday one of 4 possible people will rise and save us", not "one of these four currently alive people will rise and save us in the future" To me, it definitely reads as an outsider (will destroy THEM) from the situation but for whom the outcome has definite consequences (redeem/destroy US). Do we even know if both are written by the same character/group? "The spren return" sounds like an outsider-type comment, different from the WE/OURS/US in the first blurb. So, then the question becomes: how much do the events (in SA) on Roshar affect life in the cosmere? If the SA is internal to Roshar only (and the random worldhoppers there), then it only makes sense to me that the writer is a spren that is aware of pre-recreance life. If the SA has cosmere wide consequences, then the writer could also be from any worldhopping organization, or all the way up to the shards, who may be affected by the outcome of this conflict. *Edited to add the question.

Anyone think perhaps Taln being the only one to die wasn't an accident? Just re-read the prologue and I got the feeling that maybe the decision had been made earlier, not after the battle. It's a little convenient that all 9 of them came to the same conclusion at the same time. Wouldn't it have taken a little more discussion to convince all 9? Wouldn't even one other one of them have wanted to wait for Kalak? Jezrien seems to be waiting only because it's his duty, not because he wants to. The fact that they had to choose someone says something also. Are or were the 10 ever friends/comrades? Or has the cycle of desolations literally burned that out of them (if it was ever there)? What if the Heralds working for Honor was penitence? Not the way for 10 good people to save the world but for 10 bad people to repay a debt? Or to win something in the end - a sliver or the shard itself? Where does the idea that the Heralds were good come from? Is it just because ending the desolations is a good thing therefore they must be good? The fact that they break is also a cause of the desolations, so you could argue their "failure" actually is keeping Roshar in a perpetual bronze/iron age. Is there any WoB on the relative goodness of the Heralds? Or just our/in-book assumptions?

I've always pictured them as draft horses in comparison to riding horses. A few hands taller and much broader all around. For the US folks - compare a Budweiser Clydesdale to your average cowboy 1/4 horse. Actually, in my mind they are Friesians, all the size but nimbler than most other draft horses. Back in the old days, most knights in full armor would have ridden draft-type horses because of all the weight they carried. Shardplate being what it is, I assume they are similar. As far as investiture, my guess is it's a spren thing: Shardplate wearers who can't fly still need to move fast so how can we help? I know, let's help their regular ride grow bigger and stronger. Similar to how squires get some of the benefits of their (liege?/KR). But with the horses it somehow became part of their DNA and they bred true instead of reverting back to "normal horsiness" when having foals. So I think it was a conscious spren-initiated change to horses but I don't know if that is still the case today (i.e. I think the Ryshadium may have spren bonds today like the fiends and isles, but not like the KR).

Isn't there WoB out there that the storms precede everything from the three shards? With the only thing that has changed there being the addition of the Stormlight. So, if the investiture wasn't always part of the highstorms, how did people get stormlight before that change was made? Is that also why they always went back to the stone age after a desolation? It seems like the Stormlight allows them to keep up their current levels of civilization and the fact that there is a steady recharge at regular intervals makes it common enough for everyone to use (as opposed to a precious resource that must be hoarded). Just to add another theory in here - What if the water leaving the Purelake before every highstorm is tied into how Stormlight gets into the highstorms? It doesn't seem natural in that no other body of water is affected that way, as they would be if it was simple gravitational pull. And the name "Purelake" - what makes it pure? How is this water different from all the other water? When it is that large and that shallow with no visible exits, it shouldn't be pure, unless their definition of "pure" is very different from ours.

I think once you get to the end of Book 3, the inner struggles of Vin and her mood swings make more sense. Not all of her struggles are natural to her/her personality/her hard life/etc. There is a bit of a pattern to it and, for me at least, an "aha!" moment when it became clear. Some of it is definitely her growing from a life of being unseen (or trying to) to being the king's consort and hero of the land. I think maybe we're used to the hero "just doing it" in most other books/series, but in real life people don't make a world-change so easily and a lot of it played "real" to me.

I'm confused how the nobility would run them, unless they were surge binders as well. The dependent factor seems to be the spren bond, so it would have to be a surge binder (pre-oaths imposed) or KR (post-oaths imposed). Or am I missing something? (entirely possible - happens all the time) side question - do we have any time frame for how long surge binders were in existence before the oaths were imposed on them? I don't remember any, so perhaps they went through multiple desolations before the KR structure was imposed.

Just had a thought about the Recreance, Oathgates, and overuse of Stormlight. I have a feeling the Oathgates were not made to be the Interstate Highway system of Roshar but an emergency transport only, whether to (refugees) or from (surgebinders/KR) Urithuru and areas of conflict. If the overuse of Stormlight causes some kind of imbalance, and the Oathgates are being used for daily travel, the "real" cost (not what the people pay but the effect it has on the planet/people/shard balance) may very well have been a contributing factor to the Recreance. Multiple daily runs to all destinations would add up very quickly and could be the major cause of Stormlight overusage. Perhaps the only way to prevent more Stormlight usage is to release all the bonds. The reason to leave the shardblades? So the people would have a way to defend themselves next Desolation. Why not tell anyone? Because surgebinders will be needed again next Desolation and telling the people what surgebinding leads to or can cause will lead to the new batch of surgebinders to be outcast, despised, hunted down - something worse than what leaving them in ignorance will do. (Do the Shin know what surgebinding causes and that is part of why they are in denial of Szeth's claims and send him away "Truthless"? {head buried firmly in sand})

At the end of their use, the KR were in charge of running them but that doesn't mean they always were. "In the beginning" couldn't any surgebinder have run an oathgate by virtue of their nahel bond? I thought it only took a live spren to be the "key", not necessarily a KR-oath bound spren? Just to tie into other threads here - what if the oathgates are supposed to only be "emergency exits"? Maybe the reason the price to travel by oathgate was expensive was to discourage their frivolous use? It sounds from the complaints that people are using the oathgates for regular business as opposed to emergencies. If too much surgebinding causes an imbalance, and the oathgates use a lot of stormlight, their overuse could also be part of the Recreance. No more surgebinders, no more oathgate use. This could also result in the "KR betrayed us!" theme: No more oathgate use, commerce takes a huge hit, causing financial ruin across the nations, probably including food issues.

Because it's just a horse! Now, if it was a Ryshadium, however ......

Could Urithuru have been moved at some point? It was built in one sentence, then placed in the next. Sounds awkward to me, the way that was worded. It is a synonym for "located" but "placed" just feels like it was set in place as a whole, not built in that location. My other thought is that in a place where one force can shatter an entire plain, it is conceivable that a similar force could push up a mountain under a city. Maybe it wasn't always on top of a mountain, or at least as inaccessible a one as it is now. “Though many wished Urithiru to be built in Alethela, it was obvious that it could not be. And so it was that we asked for it to be placed westward, in the place nearest to Honor.” Perhaps the oldest surviving original source mentioning the city, requoted in The Vavibrar, line 1804. What I wouldn’t give for a way to translate the Dawnchant.

The Tor reading from the next book has a quote Edit: Thanks Weiry - had not figured out how to do that yet. Was trying to be circumspect and not give away too much.

Unhallowed is also "unblessed". So to me both quotes are saying the same thing: You can not tread on holy/blessed ground (rock). Since the rock of Urithuru is not blessed, Szeth CAN walk on it, the only place in the world where he can do so without being profane. There are several examples of that in our religions as well, where the holy/blessed place/item is not to be touched. But Ali is basically saying that their Oathgate can be their only way out of Shin at times. So at times, Shinovar is entirely surrounded by exposed rock. yet the country has two coastlines where they could conceivably launch ships. Can the Shin walk on crem? How much crem is enough of a crust? How deep does dirt have to be for them to walk on it? Is gravel still rock (at which point does a rock's size become soil and not holy?)

To follow the Scadrian idea, Ruin could influence those who were mentally ill more strongly. (sorry, don't know how to do the spoiler thing) We know that a KR needs to be broken in some way in order to attract Spren, so the spren can fill the break. What if the spren do not actually fill the break but wedge it open which actually allows Odium access to exert influence over them. Add on to this the idea that the more Stormlight is consumed, either 1) Honor becomes weaker, 2) Odium becomes stronger, or 3) Desolation comes sooner. Maybe Surgebinding is not a zero sum equation, as opposed to the regular use of Stormlight (infusing gems, etc) Now everyone has to question their motives for everything they do and have done. The only way to prevent Odium from influencing you anymore is to stop using Stormlight altogether. In this light, the spren might see the "betrayal" as inevitable because at some point the surgebinders will realize what is happening and have to break the bond to prevent themselves from using Stormlight even subconsciously. But if the spren are aware of this, they are not as innocent as it would seem or they are willfully self destructive/self sacrificing.

Frosted Flakes, on 15 Feb 2015 - 3:46 PM, said: These doors are what made me think of what Ashir and Geranid are doing - Is this not just a list but the actual written/notated/limiting/binding item that created the 10 orders/10 nahel spren and brought order to the nahel bonds? And then the mention of other hidden places with similar stores of knowledge: "But the third...well, the Planaeum has the finest collection of tomes and scrolls on Roshar. More, even, than the Holy Enclave in Valath." To me it makes sense that these collections of knowledge from ancient times have ties to the thing that brought order to the Nahel bonds and thus created the KR.

Thanks Shlee, I think I combined that epigraph with the Nohadon vision in my head. To me it reads that before Ishi'Elin's "organization" bonding with spren was a big free-for-all - anyone could bond almost any spren (as long as they had the pre-requisite "break" for the spren to fill). Ishi'Elin found a way to codify/quantify which spren could bond with humans that would stick through the ages and I think that Ashir and Geranid are on step 1 of recovering his methods. So, if this type of thing has to be written for it to stick, where could it be written that it would not disappear or be subject to change? Books can be burned and changed from one edition to the next. Even stone weathers away, especially on Roshar. Urithuru or Kharbranth's library come to mind. Or, what would happen to physical items brought and left in Shadesmar? Would they last forever? Or are there corrosive/destructive forces there that would prevent leaving a book/imprinted tablet there for safekeeping?

Yep, Nohadon, that's who I was thinking of, and the person he was talking to. As to the spren ethics, I don't think ethics is the word I'm looking for. More limitations or restrictions. As to the types/numbers of bondable spren, the KR have 10. The Parshendi have 12 we know of already and I thought it was in their songs that they had hundreds. What limits humans to only 10?

I keep thinking this is how Tanavast or his friend (good ol' what's his name) got the KR started. From one of Dalinar's visions where Tanavast talks about some Spren not being discerning enough. It seems to me that there were surgebinders but they were not KR (as defined by Nahel bond w/oaths formed into 10 orders). Someone found a way to quantify/codify the Nahel bond so only certain spren could bond w/ people and only after certain conditions were met. Essentially, each additional condition (oath) providing more access to the symbiotic link. So what happens if 1) that document/item is discovered and destroyed? 2) those limits/restrictions are found out to be part of the reasons behind the Recreance, i.e. unfortunate unknown side-effects?

So if the Heralds have familial relationships, is it really that surprising that there is one family that seems to be more strongly attractive to spren than the average? Do the Kholins have some direct lineage to the Heralds? (I know there was one place that specifically did NOT have heredity as an aspect of the magic system, can't remember if that was Roshar or not - If that is not Roshar:) could all the original KR have been "war babies" of the Heralds? (If I throw enough stuff against the wall, something's got to stick, right?)

Old Magic: shards, oathpact, heralds, nightwatcher New Magic: Knights Radiant, (controlled?) nahel bonds, spren based magic, fabrials Old and new are relative only to each other, not necessarily to any specific date/occurrence. Thinking of the old/new churches in Amsterdam - the Nieuwe Kerk (1408) is only new in comparison to the Oude Kerk (1213). In relative terms they are the "old" and "oldest" churches since more than a few have been built since then. I like this idea, actually, that the "new magic" was everything built around the KR and the nahel bonds. When that one guy came up with a new and different idea overnight (measuring/binding the spren to the oaths so each KR order is consistent within itself?).

Somehow I pictured Clod more along the lines of Danny Trejo. To be honest I didn't (and don't) picture any of them as stereotypical scientists - skinny, glasses, white lab coats - but much more renaissance folk - jack of all trades and master of some. And a master swordsman in a physically demanding world is much more likely to be fit/athletic and probably a bit larger than average.

Something like this?

If measuring/defining a spren contains/restricts it (the two ardents in tWoK) and If surge binding is potentially more destructive than the unmade (Nohadon in tWoK) and If Nohadon was looking for a way to control or minimize the danger of the surgebinders after the last desolation (Dalinar vision in tWoK), Could he have created the KR by defining/restricting the spren that enable the surgebinding? In one fell swoop limiting the danger of the renegade surgebinders as well as creating the 10 orders to support the Heralds and the squires to support them? Before he codified the KR, did a surgebinder have to speak any oaths? Or could they just accept a bond and off they go "being awesome"? I thought WoB was that spren have changed over time. Did all these types of spren exist when people first got to Roshar? Are spren gaining something from human bonding that they don't get from bonding the native species (parshendi)? Is it as innocent as we think it is or is there a hidden dimension to it that we don't know (Tara's secret to break the KR again)? The Recreance was humanity ridding itself of the vampiric spren? (Don't like that one so much) So the other side of that is, if by defining a concept (spren) you are containing it, can you create new concepts (spren) for specific purposes by getting others to accept the idea? Cognitive belief creating a change in the physical? Could "I believe the sky is down so I fly" not lead to "I believe only a certain type of spren called honor spren can bond with windrunners and only if they hold to these ideals"? And if I write it down and everyone accepts the definition, it eventually becomes true. I had about 20 other thoughts that all swirled around to Nohadon creating new spren by defining the surgebinders or just limiting the existing spren and how they can interact with their bond partners. But now I can't remember the rest. I will add this: history is written by the winners but it is also constantly being re-written - Jasnah's frustration - so the only true history we have is contained in Dalinar's visions . Everything else presented as fact is suspect, I think.