Honor's Radiance

Granted, but now it's the only thing you're able to eat without being sick.

I wish to stop getting bronchitis when I have papers due.

I'm liking this topic for the topic title because it's excellent.

I love this idea so much. I mean, maybe it's too straightforward for the Flanderson, as my fiancée calls him, but I think it sounds very plausible.

4 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

This is a gem among gems! I'll have to try this out as a poet myself

Aww, thanks, Wyndlerunner!

On 5/27/2018 at 11:47 PM, Ishar said:

Personally, I kinda like this idea. Just to get it straight you are saying that because for example Ati helped shatter Adonalsium because he wanted to ruin him, whereas Leris maybe wanted to shatter Ado to preserve something. I think it could make sense, but I kinda doubt it is correct, simply because, it is too simple.

Yep, that's my intent here, to go for the obvious pun. You're probably right that it's too simple for Brandon xD.

On 5/28/2018 at 4:02 AM, Calderis said:

The intents were something specifically that was taken from Adonalsium. Not something imparted by the Vessels.

I've read that WoB a few times now, and I'm still not certain I'm convinced it contradicts my theory. Perhaps a better way of wording what I'm thinking is that the aspects of Adonalsium's personality which manifested in the sixteen Shards were determined, at least in part, by the intents of the shatterers. Obviously, if the Shards are pieces of Adonalsium, there's some level at which they're determined by aspects of his personality or nature. I'm just arguing that of the possible options (these being elements of Adonalsium's personality), those chosen were those most closely corresponding to the intents of some or all of the shatterers.

Granted, but it's a terrible wish that means benefits you little, while you spend the rest of your life unable to do any action unless another person confirms that you are permitted to do so.

I wish for the ability to Invest according to all the magic systems.

Not sure if this has been put forth already, so apologies if so, but...

We know from WoBs that Adonalsium was Shattered deliberately, not directly by its own hand, in the presence of the 16 Vessels and Hoid, and into sixteen pieces because of the specific details of the Shattering which happened, not because of the nature of Adonalsium. (It has been stated it is possible the Shattering could have produced other Shards.)

My impression is that the usual assumption is simply that the Shards are attributes of Adonalsium, and the source of their intents is within Adonalsium. However, what if the intents result from the intents of the Shattering, not the intents of Adonalsium?

I'm trying to remember whether we have confirmation that the original Vessels were for sure the cause of the Shattering, but if they were, it would make sense that the intents of those 16 people would affect how the Shattering manifested if indeed (as has been said) Adonalsium Shattered as it did for specific reasons. Now, we know that Ati's personality was different than that of his Shard, so presumably it isn't directly personality-based so much as related to the sixteen's particular relationships to Adonalsium or opinions on why the Shattering was necessary.

I've only read SA and Warbreaker, so this is hard to flesh out with all the unknowns, but if someone buys the idea and knows more, feel free to offer the data from the rest of the Cosmere.

On 12/9/2017 at 3:55 PM, NotBurtReynolds said:

Instead of echo, I was going to say a Remainder of some sort after the Division(Shattering) of Adonalsium.

What if Hoid is effectively the cognitive shadow of Adonalsium, but somehow has a more complete physical form than, say, the Stormfather? It'd theoretically be possible since he existed before the Shattering.

On 12/21/2017 at 5:11 AM, dgenio8 said:

I can't read it like that. Every time I read an Hoid/Wit section in any Cosmere book I get this distinct feeling that becoming the vessel of Adonalsium is not is goal. Is he trying to reforge it? Rebuild a major shard after realizing the mess that powerful beings drivien by pure intents are doing to the Cosmere? Yes, that feels correct to me. But I think Hoid doesn't want to hold the power, doesn't want the responsibility and ultimately, I not even sure someone will need to.

Yeah, I have to say it doesn't seem in-character for Hoid to actually take up the mantle of Adonalsium himself rather than slyly groom someone else to do so and do all the work to make the mechanics possible. I would be more surprised if he weren't trying to reforge Adonalsium or something similar than if he were, but I'm not certain it's as simple as a power grab, else why would he have not taken a Shard to begin with? (Especially if, as someone suggested, it were possible for him to take and hide it without exactly bonding to it and becoming influenced by its intent.)

On 5/8/2018 at 0:37 AM, Llarimar said:

I have always thought (since reading Oathbringer) that Dalinar will become the new Adonalsium, as part of his "Unite Them" calling.  I think he will first unite all of Roshar, and then unite all the Rosharan shards (taking up Honor, Cultivation and maybe also Odium), and then will eventually unite all the shards in the cosmere and reform Adonalsium.

...

I am not sure if Hoid wanted to reforge Adonalsium from the beginning, although it's an interesting idea.  I have always imagined Hoid trying to talk all the other Shards out of murdering Adonalsium, and then sort of shaking his head shamefully in the background as he watches them ignore his advice.

Dalinar is an interesting speculation. Certainly if some Rosharan human were to become the next Adonalsium, a Bondsmith would make sense. Or perhaps, at the very least, a Bondsmith's power is necessary for the process. We have, after all, seen in Oathbringer

I agree that I would find Hoid participating in the Shattering unlikely. He seems so far to be the type of person to give advice and then roll his eyes when no one takes it. I suppose that'd be an altogether appropriate personality for a god figure, but I still don't think he wants to be Adonalsium. The one way I'd buy him participating would be if the Shattering were in part Adonalsium's idea, even if it was not a self-caused event.

On 5/8/2018 at 0:21 PM, Thunderclast said:

I remember reading a summary of the Liar of Partinel, so if I get this wrong please forgive me, but I remember it states that he lost his master, and took his name. I think it's possible that Wit's master may have been the "Vessel" (not sure how the labeling for Adonalsium goes) for Adonalsium.

Oooooh it would be so fascinating if Adonalsium were the original Hoid.

It occurs to me that this form would be especially effective in Semitic languages where nearly everything is a form of a verb, and the poetry already relies on wordplay through parallelism (at least in Hebrew).

Here's one:

Once Tanavast was God and Almighty, sang Honor to creation growing. Now grows creation, to Honor sings. And Almighty God was Tanavast once.

31 minutes ago, Slimy_Slider said:

I think the Stormfather in Oathbringer told Dalinar that the reason Odium would accept the challenge was because he was a Shard and that places some limitations on his actions. What they are exactly is not clear, but I seem to remember something along the lines of the fact that Odium doesn't want to take risks. If he uses another method to destroy Roshar/Escape his confinement he would most likely succeed, but it would take a significant amount of his power to do so. By using a champion, he may be less likely to win, but the price of losing is only time, not a weakening of his power (Which would make the splintering of other Shards more difficult down the line).

Right. My understanding of the implications of the challenge were that Odium may not let on that he is afraid he might lose--or even entirely believe that he can lose--but he does fear losing. Supposing the other side had somehow managed to access other Shards--forge an alliance with Cultivation, for example--or restore the sanity of the Heralds (and, now, replace Jezrien), or something, it would be possible that Odium would actually be at a disadvantage since he refuses to actually take up the power of any of the other Shards. A challenge of champions would ensure that he face only one opponent and thus diminish the possibility for his opposition to have secretly acquired more power than he expected (supposedly). In fact, perhaps part of why Dalinar is so able to resist Odium where most humans have shrunk from him (presumably besides the humans who originally ran from Odium to Honor) is precisely because he sought out the Nightwatcher and became something of a weapon of Cultivation while at the same time being a Radiant under Honor's power.

On 3/28/2018 at 6:27 PM, platy21 said:

I'm still not through the whole thread, but in case nobody has added this - the audiobook is read in Sazed's voice

o.O The number of details Sanderson has orchestrated in these books blows my mind every time.

On 3/29/2018 at 7:57 AM, thorongil said:

I read certain segments again and find myself aghast at how I could have failed to grasp the utter grandeur of what has been happening throughout this book. I find myself nearly weeping at Evi's death. I find myself brimming with excitement because I have realized what Dalinar has done during the confrontation with Odium. I find myself amazed at how intricately Cultivation has spun her webs and planted her seeds.

On 4/8/2018 at 11:00 AM, Yvainnie said:

Dalinar and Odium were awesome. And: "I am unity." was my favorite part. Just perfect. I hope there will be more of that.

...

I cried when Dalinar took that book and went to stand up to Odium.

Me. Too. God, that whole Odium plotline was just...so many feels. I think I hyperventilated through the entire scene where he appears for the first time. It was such an eerie description to read because I tend to think of passion as one of my more prominent attributes, and so I found myself resonating uncomfortably deeply with one line he would say or one description, and then in a moment it would be twisted into something so incredibly manipulative. It was a strange sort of whiplash. He's a delightful character, and I'm fascinated by the different sides of himself he shows to Dalinar, Venli, and Taravangian. My skin crawls every time he speaks or appears, so he must be written well...

On 5/22/2018 at 9:48 AM, gandalfgreyheme said:

WTF is going on in Shinovar. I'd love to explore the place given the importance it has on the Human occupation of Roshar

YES. Shinovar is such a mystery! I want to know how much they knew all along about the origin of humans and their relationships with Odium, Honor, and the singers. And I want to know what world the humans left destroyed--was it Braize itself? Or Yolen? Or something else? How many times has this happened before they reached Roshar? Plus, the parallel between the breaking of the Oathpact, the Recreance, and the Shattering of Adonalsium fascinates me. I want to know if the Shattering was for a similar genre of reason to the first two: the Heralds take a gamble that Taln will be able to hold and so vanish, the KR find out about the origins of humans and walk away from the wars--what about Adonalsium? What was happening with the humans, with Rayse perhaps, with whoever was opposing Adonalsium, that Shattering was the strategic decision that seems now to have been a tragic or at least unfortunate event?

Other responses to the book:

- Dalinar's confrontation with the Nightwatcher & Cultivation was perfect.
- I've been waiting for mysterious Renarin to become interesting, and this was excellent.
- I cried my eyes out during Dalinar's entire confrontation with Odium. I'm a little more Windrunner than Bondsmith, but ahhh that one got me on a deep, deep level.
- I want to kill Moash myself. And I am so angry at how much of a doormat Taravangian lets himself be (to the authority of his own self) when he thinks he can get something out of it at the end (which never seems to succeed, and he never seems to notice).
- Jezriennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn *insert numerous crying emojis*
- I missed more Jasnah as well, but I'm thrilled they gave her the throne.
- And spren in their own realm!!

Nonstop from Hamilton

Breathe from In the Heights

Defying Gravity from Wicked

Finishing the Hat from Sunday in the Park With George

I'm gonna stop now before this gets out of hand...

Granted, but the eyebrow grows uncontrollably until it is so large it cannot in fact fully occupy a single dimension at a time and begins to take over the space in the universe, pushing everything else aside and causing a dramatic change in the physics I just made up as the cosmos begins to collapse.

I wish to hate cooking for myself less.

On 1/14/2018 at 11:59 PM, Mr. Staccato said:

@Curiousity's Splinter thank you for the earnest opinion. In terms of balancing the scales I'm pretty sure I have the bases covered but yes I'll admit that the questions may be skewed to certain KR orders (or more likely it is extremely difficult to find a sharder who checks the more warrior-esque orders because everybody in the shard is a scholar or an intellectual in some manner or the other XD)

Oh, I am 100% warrior. I've always loved school and for the longest time couldn't tell whether I was more Gryffindor or Ravenclaw until I finally realized I even approach school with a warrior's spirit. So I was a bit surprised to get:

59%   Elsecaller

33%   Willshaper

32%   Windrunner

29%   Lightweaver

28%   Skybreaker

21%   Truthwatcher

18%   Bondsmith

11%   Dustbringer

11%   Stoneward

6%     Dustbringer

Admittedly, I do have something of Jasnah's personality in a number of respects, so perhaps I should be less surprised by Elsecaller than I am. I don't think I'm much of a Willshaper, though, and certainly not a Lightweaver. I'd say my top two should be Windrunner and Bondsmith, followed by probably Elsecaller, then maybe Stoneward and Skybreaker? It's tough to go past the top three for me, and I oscillate a bit between whether I'm more Windrunner or Bondsmith on a given day, though I think I'm ultimately a Windrunner.

Ooh, I like these. I still want to see the Rock as Rock, though... And 100% Idris Elba for Nale. He's got the perfect presence for it. I also like Zendaya or Lupita Nyong'o for Shalash, and I'm having trouble deciding which.

If they do open casting, I'm trying out for Syl.

...

Most of this makes sense, I think--my only question is how the Stormfather fits into this. I'm willing to say most of the humans and even many of the spren currently around might believe the betrayal concept by hearsay (it's quite plausible, given how much time has passed since the Recreance), but we know the Stormfather was around when it happened, and further that he is enough analogous to an honorspren that I would assume he would be just as inclined to prefer death over inevitable corruption. What's your take on his role in the perception of the Recreance as a mass betrayal of the spren? 

I find this very interesting.  The Recreance seems planned and coordinated to me.  So planning the Recreance did not violate the Oaths, but actually going through with it did. 

This would be similar to how Syl died--except that happened more when Kaladin decided to go through with the plan because Syl was gone by the time they were actually trying to assassinate Elhokar. (Am I remembering this correctly?) Maybe the difference has something to do with the bond having progressed to default-sword-form for the KR.

Also: Radiants existed pre-Splintering. Spren were less numerous, but they still existed before Honor kicked the bucket, as Pattern says here:

Stormfather. Shallan pulled the blanket around her closer. “An entire people, all killed?”

“Not just one people,” Pattern said, solemn. “Many. Spren with minds were less plentiful then, and the majorities of several spren peoples were all bonded. There were very few survivors. The one you call Stormfather lived. Some others. The rest, thousands of us, were killed when the event happened. You call it the Recreance.”

This makes me very curious what other spren survived the Recreance. I suppose the "very few survivors" could be the few spren of certain groups that weren't bonded, but I took this as implying that Pattern was talking about bonded spren specifically. Presumably, if the Stormfather had been bonded to a Bondsmith before, then whichever other spren (if it wasn't the Stormfather for all of them) were bonded to Bondsmiths might have survived, by analogy. But "some" would suggest more than three to me--I wonder what kind of spren are capable of surviving the Recreance, and why? Were their Knights less inclined to participate, thus not fully breaking their oaths? Were they stronger somehow than other spren?

First, I don't think this change is intended to make Kaladin look better morally, nor to make him unresponsible for Szeth's 'death'. I think he comes off as approximately equally responsible, and I don't think that's an accident. I think the intent of the change is more to show a moment of second-guessing or wishing it didn't need to be done.

Second, I agree with whoever mentioned that it almost looks like Kaladin did intend to go after Szeth until Syl stopped him.

No matter how much she forgets or remembers, it is unusual for Syl to flat out tell Kaladin what to do.

Point taken, and I thought this was odd in the first version as well. I'm really curious as to what made her so certain to a degree she doesn't usually attain. Or perhaps the increased bond has changed her assertiveness? I think this is setting up some character development for Syl more than it is for Kaladin. I'm interested to find out what she knows of the Honorblades and why retrieving it is so very important.

I have a greater problem with Szeth doing suicide when he said that he could not, even though he wanted to.

The suicide thing actually makes sense to me.  Suicide was forbidden as part of Szeth's sentence, but his sentence was invalid.  With the sentence being invalid, his murders can no longer even be excused as part of his sentence.

This is the piece I have the most questions about as well. My first reaction is that Szeth determines his sentence invalid, but Nale credits him with following rules for the sake of following rules even when he wasn't sure he deserved the sentence anymore, so I think there's an inconsistency there. I'm curious to see how Brandon resolves this one.

Reminds me of how in Jasnah's POV from the Stormlight 3 excerpt on tor, (tagged in case anyone hasn't read it)

the cognitive manifestation of the lives of the people on board manifest as bright lights.

Maybe he's seeing the lives of the people around Szeth, then.

And light is a wave, of course, so it's not surprising that there are analogies between the behaviour of Stormlight and other manifestations of Investiture through sound. I'd assumed the Light was like fire, and the flickering of fire was what Kaladin was seeing in the gemstones, but I suppose he could be more sensitive to the E/M waves as a Radiant and be able to see them.

Replacement:

“Not if it is done before the brain dies. Like a drowned man restored to life with the proper ministrations, you could be restored with the right fabrial Surgebinding. If I had waited seconds longer, of course, it would have been too late. But surely you know this. Two of the Blades held by your people allow Regrowth. I suspect you have already seen the newly dead restored to life.”

Well, there goes my theory. So, general healing of oneself must be a unique property of the Nahel bond, while Regrowth, as a Surge, could be used by any bearer of those two Honorblades.

Having his big on-panel killing retcon'd out though... hat bothers me. In some ways, I find Kaladin a bit too... perfect. Which I realize is a strange comment to make, considering he's bad-tempered and somewhat racist. I need to get around to making a Kaladin post/commentary, but my point is that...

As with Amaram being revealed to, in fact. be evil, Kaladin now hasn't killed a main character. It's still early in the Archive, true, but I want Kaladin to be wrong at some point. As is, I kind of get the feeling that Brandon wants everything he does to be the "right" decision, which I find kind of annoying. 

Arguably, Kaladin's already made some wrong decisions--letting Moash and co. try to take out Elhokar was wrong enough that his bond with Syl was broken. I'd be willing to bet this isn't going to be treated as "the better option," just that Kaladin might second-guess his decisions in the short time since he renewed his bond with Syl. Everyone, including Kaladin, knows that Szeth needed to be killed, and I don't think Kaladin is so naive as to think this absolves him of responsibility; he may want to believe that, and may convince himself of that, but I don't think he's actually that naive. In the moment, maybe he was hoping to leave Szeth to the Stormfather's judgement, assuming he would probably die but could be saved. One of the edits (talking with the bridgemen afterward) reveals Kaladin suspects Szeth could have survived.

I'm also interested about the shardblades.  His wording makes it a little ambiguous.  I think he means that you cannot be healed from a wound inflicted by a dead shardblade but you can be healed from one inflicted by a living blade.  But his wording suggests that the living shardblades actually have spiritually healing properties.  Anyone else wondering about this?

I think it's dependent on the Blade you wield rather than the one to whom you are bonded.

Theory: Brandon has said, referring to the original sequence: "...dead shardblades cannot heal the soul, while living ones can." Kaladin has healed himself from Blade wounds because Syl is alive. In the original sequence, Kaladin kills Szeth with Syl, and Szeth cannot heal himself. Szeth wields an Honorblade. The Honorblade must be equivalent to a dead Shardblade.

The easiest explanation is that the Honorblade is not a spren and thus does not have the same properties for healing the soul. But, why call it dead if it is simply inanimate? We've already see that the Stormfather calls himself the Almighty's "spren, you might say"--what if there are multiple of these "spren, you might say"s, larger Splinters of Honor that function exactly like Shardblades because they are exactly like Shardblades? We know the Shardblades originally had no fabrials attached with which they were bonded, just like Szeth's doesn't.

What if they died when the Oathpact was broken, just like the spren died during the Recreance? And if so, is Taln's still alive? Or if they died when Honor died since (if my chronology is right) that happened after the Oathpact was broken, and they wouldn't have had something like the highstorms to tie them to the physical realm and preserve their life in the same way. (And we already know the Stormfather is nuts. Syl implies that whatever killed the spren broke him as well in some way, that he wasn't always like this. So there's precedent for the larger Splinters of Honor being endangered by this sort of situation, as well as precedent for them being Nahel bonded--see Dalinar.)

No, the way I interpret the whole thing is that as a Surgebinder, your ability to heal comes from your spren - who is also your Shardblade, once you progress far enough. So if you have a living Shardblade, you are "Radiant enough" to be able to heal yourself from Blade-inflicted wounds, you can heal your soul. Szeth couldn't do that - the Honorblade he wielded gave him the ability to Surgebind, and also allowed him some basic healing, but something as advanced as restoring his Spiritweb, it couldn't do. 

This is essentially what I was going to say, though I think I'm more inclined to say that the agency for the healing comes directly from the spren rather than from the Radiant's use of Light. Come to think of it, I wonder what the Recreance/mass murder of the spren did to the Radiants' souls? If a living spren, or at least a Nahel bond with one, can effect healing of the soul, can the interaction go the opposite direction? Would killing a spren have some injurious effect on a Radiant's soul? After all, it's already been stated that a Radiant can revive a spren to whom s/he was bonded.

So he definitely healed wounds made by a shardblade (or Kaladin was mistaken somehow I guess?). The blow to the shoulder from the hammer appears to have just broken bones so that's well enough to heal. But the other injuries were definitely cuts with Syl. So what are we supposed to think here? Can stormlight used through honorblades heal flesh wounds caused by a shardblade but not limbs that have been cut through? That seems a little inconsistent to me but also seems to fit with what he said. Except that the part that was changed doesn't really relate to that. This healing is still in the new edition. The only difference is whether Szeth was stabbed through the wrist or through the spine.

My guess is that the flesh wounds can be healed like any other flesh wound--it's the wounds to the soul that require a living spren to mend. I think this is going to be very, very related to the idea that a Nahel bond has the potential either to heal or to widen the cracks in a broken person. Whatever makes it capable of that is likely what makes it capable of the physical manifestation of that (literally healing wounds to the soul).

So 1337 Hoid Can't Compete is still my favorite.

Odium's spren weren't around until after Odium had been around Roshar for awhile. As per WoB, Odium doesn't like investing himself into a particular world, and he's done it on Roshar partially because he's been trapped in the system for so long and couldn't prevent the natural leak of power.

Accordingly, I believe the Oathpact to have been made after Odium started trying to wipe Roshar clean, but before Odium was significantly invested in the world. When the Oathpact was formed (and the Heralds called), it could have been a way to temper Odium's relentless attacks on Roshar, and the initial desolations didn't end themselves, but now the game has changed a little. I would agree that void binding and especially the Everstorm would draw power away from the main body of Odium.

 

...

 

To your point about the visions:

Again, the game has changed. Tanavast sent that message to broadcast on the event of his death. The Oathpact was failing, Honor was dying, and he had to be getting desperate. He actually refined his message a bit when he said something to the effect of, "I can't see into the future as well as Cultivation can, but you may be able to succeed if you get Odium to appoint a champion, and then defeat the champion."

So Honor was probably planning a last stand scenario. A prolonged war would favour Odium since Honor is dead, and so the best option would be a show of force (Knights Radiant) to manoeuvre Odium into appointing a champion. Odium, for his part, probably wants to be done with Roshar once and for all, since he hates investing portions of himself, and wants to regather himself, so he may take the bait to hurry the pace of the game a bit. I see Honor risking it all by re-founding the Knights Radiant as part of a post-humous last-ditch effort.

This makes a lot of sense, I think. (And I do wonder if, as you mentioned, Odium might be in this for the Tranquiline Halls as much as any of the worlds.)

Main question: Why did the K.R. abandon their oaths?

Potential answer: The K.R. patterned themselves on the Heralds, who they considered some sort of demigods.  Upon discovering that the Heralds had actually abandoned their oaths, leaving their blades behind, the K.R. followed in their footsteps and also abandoned their oaths, leaving their blades behind.  Basically, they're just doing what the Heralds did -- isn't that what a good Knight Radiant is supposed to do?  Surely the Heralds must have had a good reason for it.

..

Question: Why did the Knights Radiant become corrupt?  We know, for instance, that they became greedy and started charging usurious tolls to use their portals.  But why?  Aren't the K.R. supposed to be ultra-honorable?

A: My best guess?  Passage of time, mostly, and power attracting people willing to jump through hoops for it.  The original K.R. would have been moral people, much like the batch of upcoming K.R. in the present day.  But as time goes on, and as it becomes widely known that in order to gain super powers you have to follow a particular moral code, you get people following the code not because it's the right thing to do, but because they want super powers.

...

Question: Are there really only five oaths?  Ten seems to be the magic number for this series.  Just sayin'.

...

Even wilder speculation: Swear a few oaths, and your spren becomes a Shardblade.  Swear a few more, and your Shardblade becomes an Honorblade.  Congratulations, you've just joined the Oathpact!

This is an interesting theory, and I think a fair amount of it makes some sense. My first reaction to the KR leaving their blades behind was noticing the echo of the Heralds' breaking the Oathpact. I'm not sure if it's as conscious as what you're proposing, but I do agree that there's probably an element of that at least subconsciously, or within the natural cycles of history.

My first question--and maybe this has been answered somewhere in WoB that I haven't read yet--is which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do the spren locate people who have innate potential to become Surgebinders and actualize those powers through the Nahel bond, or do they choose people somewhat at a whim and turn them into Surgebinders? Because the impression I got from Syl speaking of Kaladin was much closer to the former. So, in response to your second question quoted above, would just anyone really be able to act moral for the sake of superpowers? Or are you suggesting more that potential Radiants may have started out moral for the sake of morality, but eventually focused entirely on the superpowers? I wonder what the spren's role in this process would have been. I find it difficult to imagine that not a single spren would have noticed the shift in their Knight's motives, especially not the honorspren; we have evidence of Syl noticing shifts in Kaladin's motives, after all.

I'm not sure the Shardblade-->Honorblade development necessarily follows, but I do love the idea that there are more oaths. You're right--ten is far more prevalent in the series, and more to the point, it would make for an excellent way to redeem the KR and not fall into the same pattern of behavior that led to the Recreance if the original KR had had still more Oaths that they neglected that the new KR actually do speak.

Not so much tricking the spren, as doing what the spren want for less-than-noble reasons.  Like someone might follow the law in order to join the Skybreakers.  He's actually following the law, so his spren is happy.  But the reason he's following the law isn't because he thinks that following the law is the right thing to do, it's because he wants to be a Skybreaker.  He's doing it for selfish reasons.

The result would be a group of K.R. who don't care so much about doing the right thing as they do about keeping their spren satisfied.  They're in it for themselves, not for some greater good.

I could see this happening with some of the orders, but I have a lot of trouble thinking this would apply to, for instance, the Windrunners. Do you think enough other Radiants started to fall that eventually they dragged the Windrunners into their plan? I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which the Windrunners would not have had to be explicitly dishonourable prior to the Recreance moment itself, thus breaking their oaths and killing their spren before they could plant their Blades in the ground with the rest of the Knights'.

As a side note, Nalan is not hunting the other Heralds to prevent the Desolations. They left their Honorblades. He is only hunting actively Surgebinding individuals. Szeth is not a threat because Szeth is not a Surgebinder without an Honorblade.

Also, the Knights Radiant could have been the Heralds' attempt at managing the use of Surgebinding, and making Surgebinders more efficient at using Stormlight, draining the Oathpact in safe, controlled levels. Nalan could have anticipated the eventually failure of the system, and thus been hesitant to sponsor an order. The Knights may have eventually realized that Odium's forces (like the stone-animating spren) were growing more powerful as there were more Knights/Surgebinders and initiated the Recreance as a means of countering the drain on Honor.

But presumably Szeth will get powers of some sort from Nalan and/or the sword Nalan gave him?

This theory makes some sense, although I wonder what you make of Odium's spren? Especially once the listeners go into stormform, which basically makes them Voidbringers (Has it been confirmed as fact that stormform = Voidbringers?). So presumably, that bond is similar enough to Surgebinding to have the same effect of draining Odium's power in the way that Surgebinding drains Honor's. Which, if true, would almost imply that the Desolations end themselves and you don't actually need anyone to stop them, which sort of defeats the purpose of the Heralds (though it might explain why the Radiants disappeared if they realized this and decided they didn't actually need to do anything).

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.

True--it has been explicitly stated (on the back of WoR, I believe) that Surgebinding abilities can just as easily drive a wedge into the breaks within a person as it can fill them. But, that does imply that it isn't a necessary effect of Surgebinding that the fissures grow worse; maybe it depends on the person? Or perhaps the powers begin to take over, much in the way Shards take over, and it doesn't end up mattering.

I've always thought that the Stormfather didn't exist until after Honor was Splintered, and that Dalinar was the first Surgebinder to Bind him. 

I've actually been wondering recently if the Bondsmiths didn't originally bond the Shards themselves somehow. I'm not sure how, because they're not spren (unless they could in some way be classified as creationspren?). But if the original Bondsmiths bonded something else, that would account for it.

The Stormfather claims he won't be a Blade for Dalinar. Perhaps that was a restriction all Bondsmiths shared? That may explain why. The Stormfather never went into the Physical like Syl and the other spren do, so he couldn't have been trapped there.

This sort of makes sense, although wasn't the Stormfather always the one creating the highstorms? So he had some sort of physical presence, even if it wasn't connected to the Radiants. Or maybe that's actually the key--that he did have a physical presence other than that which was related to the Radiants, and thus survived being betrayed.

That's possible, If Bondsmith spren can't become blades then when his knight abandoned his/her oath then the Stormfather would have just lost his mind and become a mindless spren, with no purpose other than blowing the winds as he always has. But then you have the question of what happened to snap him back to sentience. Although that could have something to do with people seeing him as the personification of honor.

Or maybe it has something to do with his relationship to the listeners? Because the other spren are personifications of things before they become sentient, and they become sentient when they take physical form and begin talking to people. It depends entirely on when the listeners lost track of all the forms and had to start discovering them from scratch. Because if that happened before the Recreance, then their interaction with the Stormfather can't have been what preserved his sentience.

I don't think its out of the realm of possibility for those more sentient/powerful spren to not "break" in the exact same way. Since these particular spren are sentient without the bond, I don't necessarily think that losing the bond means losing their sentience, like it does for the others. So instead of losing his form and becoming trapped in the physical realm "dead" like the shardblade spren, I think he just broke his mind some, and now is kind of mentally unstable. Perhaps before the Recreance he had more powers than just being part of the highstorm and now he's "trapped" as the highstorm spren. Who knows. But, like I said, this is purely my personal speculation

This makes a lot of sense. There's definitely an element of crazy in the Stormfather now, and a spectacular level of disdain and disregard for the humans that I'm inclined to think wasn't there before the Recreance.