Honor's Radiance

I hadn't thought to connect it to the death of Honor, but that might make sense, especially if the Bondsmiths were bonded to spren directly related to Honor, like the Stormfather (or even to Honor himself?). I'm inclined agree that they had to have rationalized it somehow. It seems unlikely (and terrifying) that they might have all suddenly decided their oaths were worthless simultaneously. How they rationalized is the question, and I think a key factor is whether they knew that breaking their oaths and stepping away from their Orders would kill their spren? If so, why did they do it anyway? Were the spren involved in the decision, or were they tossed aside? Did the spren know they would die? It's possible it's something inherent to the way in which the humans and spren are bonded. If, for instance, the KR tended to take their powers for granted and take advantage of their spren, it might lead them to stop listening to their spren, who provide reminders of their oaths. And, as we've already seen, this kills the spren. More to the point, we've already seen even Kaladin taking his powers for granted and starting to take advantage of Syl. Certainly, the spren left in the Cognitive Realm, and the Stormfather especially, are under the impression that it is the natural course of the bond that it will eventually end in betrayal. So I wonder what they know that we don't, and did they have the same opinion of what was happening on Roshar around the time of the Recreance as the spren bonded to Radiants had? I hope it's something like that, and not something more nefarious. This is a plausible possibility, though I'm not convinced the spren would necessarily consider that a betrayal; I'd almost be inclined to think at least some of them might consider it worth dying to try to avert petty wars among various kings, etc.

This does remind me that the Stormfather refers to Syl as his daughter. Can someone remind me whether it's all spren that are referred to as his children, or just honorspren? Because I think this notion that he has some sort of authority over some or all normal spren would be useful to trying to categorize him as spren or not and what kind. Actually, come to think of it, the Stormfather refers to humans as 'children of Honor'. So, if Syl and other (honor)spren are his children, then that further supports the analogy of him being Honor's spren--which it was rightly pointed out was acknowledged in the book as an only semi-accurate classification. Nevertheless, it does suggest the possibility (which someone mentioned at least tangentially) that the Stormfather serves a similar role for the spren as does Honor for the humans. Which leaves me to wonder--who or what is the Adonalsium of spren?

You've ruined my masterful time management (let's be real, that never existed to begin with)

I actually don't think that follows. I think what Pattern is saying there is that very few of the spren who were bonded to the Radiants survived, and the Stormfather was one of them. So, there may be others like the Stormfather who were bonded (and most likely to Bondsmiths if it can be concluded that their ability to survive correlates to a similarity to the Stormfather). As for the term "godspren," I don't feel it's as inaccurate as a lot of people are maintaining--though perhaps now that we know the Stormfather is a splinter of Honor, we ought to call them "Shardspren." I think the defining feature of a spren is not that it is attracted to a certain genre of things in the physical world, but that it is a representation of a certain idea (tables have spren, etc.). Spren live in the cognitive realm, so their primary attribute is that of being a cognitive thing. Honestly, the very fact that we can conceive of a category which could be called godspren should support their existence. If there is a conception of gods, then it follows that there could possibly be godspren. Plus, the Stormfather outright says he is effectively Honor's spren when he speaks to ...Kaladin? Dalinar? I can't remember where in WoR...

Yes! It's very nicely done, the way there are just subtle hints of each language. And they're very accurate, linguistically (at least given the amount of linguistics I know). I was also interested in deciphering the codes and such, but I noticed people have already decoded Navani's writing and most of the glyphs. I'm particularly impressed by the people who've figured out the glyphs; the stylization of so many of them must have made that quite difficult.

Not yet, but as soon as I get through the next few books I'd planned to read, I'll start Warbreaker and then work my way through the rest of them.

I'm a native English speaker, and the list of languages I know and want to know consists largely of dead languages, which makes it difficult to gain any true fluency. My Latin is rusty because it's been several years, but I'll be picking it back up again for a class I'm currently taking. I've got a basic reading proficiency in Koine Greek and nearly that in Biblical Hebrew (can you tell what I study? ). I can stumble through Biblical Aramaic, and I've got an unreasonably small amount of Sanskrit for the year I spent learning it (don't do independent studies when you have eight other classes; heaven only knows what I was thinking when I made that schedule). My to-learn list, approximately in order of priority is: (aside from finishing the ones currently in progress) Mongolian, ASL, Attic Greek, Arabic, Persian (I mean Middle Ages Persian, not Farsi), Syriac, Old English, Sindarin & Quenya, Syriac, Ugaritic, Russian, German, French...the list goes on.

Greetings, Sanderson fans! My name is Honor's Radiance. It's been some time since I frequented a thriving forum community, and I have to say I miss it greatly. I look forward to meeting you all. I suppose here is where I tell you about myself and how I came to enter the Sanderson fandom. A close friend of mine has a knack for book recommendations. Not an I-always-like-what-she-tells-me-to-read sort of knack, but more of a my-entire-worldview-and-life-purpose-are-refined-by-what-she-tells-me-to-read sort of knack. It happened once when she had me read Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings books (Assassin's Apprentice and so on), and it happened again when she had me read The Stormlight Archive. People, these books are my soul. Like, if I had a spren and it wrote books, it would write these books, so much do they speak my soul. So I joined the forum. I am an academic, a philologist, a warrior, a gymnast, an artist, and a musician with a penchant for puzzles, personality quizzes, wordplay, strategy games, and extensive lists of hobbies. I've a foot in the world of the Windrunners and a foot in the world of the Bondsmiths. I've a hunch which I truly belong with, but I won't commit myself until we learn a little more about the character of the various orders. I suppose that's all for now. Life before death, Radiants.