dvoraen

Regarding Mr. T telling Szeth, I was always under the impression that it was a lie he concocted for the sole purpose of preventing Szeth from questioning how someone -- Kaladin, in this case -- was Surgebinding that was not Szeth. "It is the only explanation." /jedihandwave

While I personally agree with this thread's subject line, that the Bondsmiths had to do with how the Listeners ended up in 'slaveform', we aren't given much information as to exactly how this came about. There may be an implication that the tertiary ability the Bondsmiths get is the ability to rapidly undo if not also form bonds (I'm referring to Dalinar sensing the Shardblade he gave up was unbound 'instantly' when it was supposed to take concentration and focus on just that). The next major question is how they were able to accomplish this on a presumably worldwide basis -- though this may not necessarily be the case, as the death toll in a Desolation is extremely large. It also makes me wonder if the Bondsmiths oversaw inauguration of individuals into the Radiant Orders if they were eligible to be squire material, by "bonding" them to a given Knight so that they could serve as a squire immediately.

Deadpool. *drops mic*

RE: Odium's champion. Remember that Nightblood is on Roshar, so I think it's very much within the realm of possibility that Nightblood could "kill"/devour/depower the Unmade. This would be a huge setback to the point of possibly convincing Odium he could lose, especially if his Splinters (the Unmade) are permanently removed from events because Nightblood is a hungry hungry hippo.

So is this where I try, to a likely low degree of success, to convince you that being conditioned to think a way doesn't count as "the magic making you this way"? (I'm implying this is what was going on with Shallan's father. He was being nudged by the Unmade until he no longer needed the prompting to be a murderous bastard. The part I don't get is whether he really drew their eyes to him or if it's more a symptom of the closest Unmade's influence, which I still contend was Nergaoul acting upon him the entire time.)

Progression.

There needs to be more people like Dalinar, so seeing his struggle in attaining a -- dare I say -- Honor-filled* life is something our world could use a bit more of. And why I voted for him. * (Capital intentional. winkwink)

Don't make me get the chromium out.

I'm just saying that not all Surgebinders had to be, or necessarily could force their way to be royalty. Those with the Truthwatcher Surges, for example, aren't exactly the kind of Surgebinders who could force minions into line -- though note that I'm not saying ALL Surgebinders then with this pair would bend the neck to a ruler -- but this is just one example of a Surgebinder who could very easily be a chief advisor to a ruler. I think you read too much into what I was saying, or I was unclear, specifically the point where I said not all Surgebinders were necessarily royalty. Some could have been, or made people accept them as a ruler. My point was simply that of those who were royalty/warlords/top-dog, the percentage that were Surgebinders was less than 100%, in addition to the fact that not all the Surge pairs (let alone the spren that provided them) were necessarily conducive to elevating your position in society. I do agree that the lighteyes gradually took over after the Recreance, on account of "we have light eyes like Radiants, bow to us". I'm sure the Hierocracy and/or the Sunmaker helped here too.

Honestly, Investiture seems to have quite a few parallels to radiation poisoning (with addiction factors added in). Brandon has more than hinted at this.

I don't see how Surgebinders, pre-KR, were necessarily royalty. For one, we know very little of the state of the world when Nohadon was alive, let alone how many kingdoms even existed then. I think it's pretty clear the Silver Kingdoms came about after his time. Warlords who thought themselves rulers, and/or were Surgebinders, could very well be the situation as with Alakavish. I could easily see a Surgebinder with a Releaser's powers be a quick way to cause mischief. I don't include Skybreakers, despite Gravitation+Division, on account of the fact that they'd hypothetically have to attract a highspren to bond, which seems counterproductive to becoming a warmongering warlord/"ruler".

I'll wager the answer is word-of-mouth from the Heralds, previously (implied to be the case for Aharietiam). They seemed to know when they were supposed to go back, so there's clearly a condition for success/winning that they know.

And to throw in something else into the mix: If Nohadon really had walked to Urithiru, who's to say he didn't have a Gravitation fabrial (emulating a Windrunner Lashing) to literally walk up the cliff, because the face of it was down? It's a simple thing that could easily explain both the fact he had calloused feet (from his long travel plus stone traversal), in addition to 'walking to' Urithiru. In other words, he knew where it was geographically, because the maps Pattern was deducing the text on, were clear that Nohadon-Bajerden wanted the world cartographed.

Honestly, I'm thinking Nohadon had a substantially higher influence on Rosharan culture and development than in-world books and studies say. He was given a symmetrical name, implying that he was a "holy" man. Why would he be effectively christened as the equivalent of a Saint unless he made considerable contributions? To summarize what I'm suspicious of: Nohadon founded the Knights Radiant, and/or was instrumental in doing so. I say this because while "Taln" calls them "Ishar's Knights," that doesn't mean Ishar founded them single-handedly so much as acted as the Herald that kept an eye on them, in addition to limiting the spren via the Words their Surgebinder has to say, to prevent powerful Surgebinding from running rampant from the start (in other words, Ishar "nerfed" the Nahel bond). Nohadon ALSO founded Vorinism; he seemed bitter about Roshar forgetting about the Heralds yet again, implying they may well have said as such in his hearing or towards him. Vorinism would be a means of reminding Roshar's people that they really exist. Additionally, there has been substantial tampering to Vorinism over the years, and the subject of its founder doesn't really rear its head, that I recall. Most people probably assume the Heralds did, but (iirc) we are never explicitly told who founded it, only that the Heralds legitimized its "authority." The fact that the book he wrote survived to present day, despite being well over 4500 years old. Someone was deliberately making sure it did, which means that this individual or group venerated Nohadon's methodology.

I'd give a great deal to know Jasnah's true feelings about her brother, especially with respect to assassination attempts made against him.

Here's a weird(?) thought. Suppose the Unmade are Splinters in the sense that Divine Breaths are (it's more or less a special power Invested directly by the Shard's holder). However, since we're on Roshar, we know these Splinters generally take the form of spren. In other words, a Listener host completely consumed by an overwhelming force (the spren-Splinter) to the point that the body is all but a vessel for the Splinter which is what is really acting. So... possession, I guess is what that summarizes into? Alternatively, the ones that "can think" are just sentient forms of Splinters, given thought and "life" by personification from men in the same way the Stormfather is.

@Moogle: Plus the implication (in the songs) that the Unmade transformed the Listeners to better be able to exploit them; I'm not referring to how they can presumably force various (Void?) forms on the Listeners, but changed them to be able to do that. (Hmm, "unmade" the Listener race somewhat? ...)

Here's a completely from-nowhere thought that just struck me: Why not go for the archaic spelling of it? I'm not good with archaic Spanish by any metric, but using it in that form would also convey their considerable age, I would think. It's not a form that native speakers would necessarily know, but it is an easter egg that also distinguishes the Unmade as "ancient, evil spren", as Taravangian terms them. I also kind of like how (roughly) "Sinfacer" (or possibly "Sinfazer"*) sounds in place of "Sinhacer", so I'm biased. It MAY BE (>_>) a coincidence that it looks like "sin facer" too. A second thought I was wondering about: what was Unmade translated to in the Way of Kings epigraphs? I just suddenly realized that there is exactly one mention of them (Yelig-nar's epigraph), so that would have been translated there. * I skimmed Wikipedia on the subject of Old Castilian phonics, so by no means am I asserting this as correct.

There's also the fact that we don't know what the difference between Szeth and a Herald are, when it concerns using an Honorblade (assuming said Herald was properly bound to their Honorblade). It's been implied that the Heralds could do more with them, but exactly what we don't know. I do think it's safe to say that he was using Jezrien's Honorblade imperfectly, much as a Radiant's use of Stormlight is inefficient in the early stages of the Nahel bond's deployment.

This assumes Shardplate doesn't have special properties to allow easy maneuvering through water (it hasn't come up, to my knowledge). After all, it assists somewhat in preventing blindness from stormform lightning that isn't directly observable, and can presumably absorb that released energy. That said, it could be simply a use of Abrasion as you said.

I highly doubt Sadeas's wife will be passive, or pacifistic, on the matter. She's hypothetically made a number of waves behind the scenes without it pointing to her (and was likely the one that guided the alterations to Dalinar's visions with her husband helping). She's probably in a position where she has considerable clout with the ladies of the court.

I didn't want to use phonaesthetics as my primary argument, but I also think calling the Unmade "Los Deshechos" sounds feo to my ears. Nothing's coming to mind yet as a real suggestion for a proper noun via destruir, though. The closest idea I've had to one is a vague "bastardization" of destruir much as "hay" derives from haber. "Destruyos" and "Destruidos" sounds bleh to me also, to say nothing of the implication in the latter (that they destroyed themselves or were destroyed and no longer exist). EDIT: After thinking about it a little, and browsing a dictionary, I would lean towards "Los Devastadores". Or, if you want to go crazy, "Los Destruyadores," which isn't a real word in Spanish I believe. I don't like "Los Destructores" for some reason; I kept thinking some combination of destruir and words such as matador and conquistador (hence the suffix spliced onto the not-quite present participle of destruir: destruyendo).

With Elhokar, I really think it's hard to say, particularly since a trial would implicitly suggest the other highprinces become involved, and some of them would undoubtedly want to undermine Dalinar by pressuring Elhokar into a conviction. This also doesn't account for Team Diagram -- I keep wanting to call its members Architects -- getting involved in manipulating events too.

Personally, since the English is clear that the Unmade are variants of destructive forces, I'd lean towards some creative licensing with "destruir". It'd be a kind of catch-all between the (arguably more literal) translations of "unmade" in Spanish, while conveying the intention that the Unmade are nasty critters that want to mess things up.

Based on the hints we've gotten -- that they're Splinters of Odium, and Rlain's comments about them -- I think the safer choice for translating "Unmade" is in the sense of "destruir", or maybe "Los Deshechos"? This is strictly my opinion, though. As you said, it really depends on whether Peter or Brandon will provide tidbits and context on how the Unmade came into existence, really, whether it was because Honor basically forced it to happen (causing Odium to be Invested in Roshar via the Unmade) or because Odium had to effectively create them in order to later be unopposed to leaving Roshar.