02ranger

8 hours ago, Calderis said:

In my opinion, the majority of the blades were lost between the Recreance, and the addition of gems to the blades. 

Without the ability to dismiss the blade, you either hide it, or you carry a big storming blade all the time. Accidental deaths mean lost blades to be buried in crem, and carrying a large blade that can cut through literally anything but a ridiculously rare metal would provide plenty of opportunity for accidents. 

But more importantly is murder and theft. All blades are recognizably distinct. If you manage to kill someone and take their blade, or find it and steal it, you now are walking around with a huge banner that proclaims your guilt. Plate shouldn't be usable yet as without gems, it's an extremely heavy statue at best. So what do you do? You hide the blade. And you don't tell anyone where you hid that blade... And with no bond, when you die the blade remains hidden instead of dropping next to your body. 

So between accidental losses, and intentionally hidden blades, I think there's a ton of blades that are out there, in buried buildings, or clefts of stone, or hidden boxes, all lost to time and crem. 

Add in the many blades, like Heleran's and Liss' that there's no record of, and the inevitable collectors and secret societies... 

Many blades lost, even more plate lost due to negligence before it was worth keeping as more than an ornament, and a good number kept in secret...

The only possible issue I can see with that theory is that we have absolutely no stories of people randomly finding blades, not even some fanciful sword-in-the-stone type of stories. It seems like if there were any number of blades just hidden throughout the world that at least a small percentage would have been randomly found by now, and a percentage of those would have at least rumors attached that they were found rather than won. I don't really have a good alternative for where they're all at, though. I don't believe the Shin could have gathered all the shardblades that aren't currently owned by somebody. I suppose other groups could have searched out unclaimed blades in the past and stockpiled them someplace.....

22 hours ago, Calderis said:

@02ranger the problem there, is that in completely disassociatinf the plate from the Radiant, you create the Identity issue that is still my main problem.

The plate is keyed to the Radiants Identity. That is why it will allow their Surges to pass, and only their Surges. We've seen this phenomena in other magics.

If there is no shared Identity with the Radiant, then plate should block all Surges, or none. And if there is shared Identity... That should mean either the Radiant themselves are somehow the source of the plates Investiture, or the thing that makes it is so interconnected with the Radiant that their Investiture and the radiants are indistinguishable... Neither of those should be the case with unbonded lesser spren. 

I'm not sure there's an issue with Identity with either of my first two theories because the lesser spren would be controlled by either the Bladespren (theory 1) or the Radiant (theory 2) and that should be enough to key the Plate into their identity. Again, it's been a while since I read Oathbringer and I've only read it once so I very well could be forgetting something.

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

I'm in no way denying that Spren are involved in the plates creation. Rat seems obvious. I just disagree that the plate s composed of Spren. 

Between the identity issue, ad the points brought up in this thread, I just don't see how to reconcile the plate being made from spren without them having been completely destroyed to create something else... And if that's the case, when you see both Pattern and the Stormfather react negatively to the way that Spren are enslaved for Fabrials, I can't imagine them treating plate as completely inert as they do. 

My thoughts on this issue are that the lesser spren are essentially being controlled by the greater spren to form plate and to facilitate the automatic communication and control of Shardplate through the Radiant's bonded spren. However the lesser spren never formed any bonds with the Radiant so when the Radiant breaks his/her oaths it doesn't kill the Platespren the same way the Bladespren die. Instead the Platespren get locked into the Plate form because the Bladespren can't release them from that form, but they're still alive. It's not a perfect theory because I would imagine the Stormfather and Syl would have a problem with the windspren (and other Platespren) being locked into a specific form for all eternity just like they do with the dead Bladespren, but maybe they really don't see it as the same thing. It could also be that the Platespren are seen more like animals in the eyes of the Stormfather and other Bladespren because they aren't sentient. It's been over a year since I read Oathbringer so if there's something in there that contradicts what I'm saying then please remind me. I'm about halfway through WoK on a reread now.

Another thought that addresses Child of Hodor's point about the Platespren helping automatically, perhaps the Radiant has to learn to seize control of the Platespren to form Shardplate when needed, but it's only because of the Nahel bond that they're able to mentally control them and when they break the oaths and lose that bond they can't release the Platespren back into the world and they're stuck as Shardplate. Makes me wonder why none of the Radiants dismissed their armor before breaking their oaths, though. And for a darker theory, maybe the Platespren never return to their original forms. Maybe once they become Shardplate they're consumed........

There was a thread I started a while back about the major/minor spren Shardplate theory. Click below to check it out. Of course I personally subscribe to this theory, but don't have a LOT of evidence to support it....

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/39972-possible-origin-of-shardplate-spoilers-wor/?hl=%20possible%20%20origin%20%20of%20%20shardplate

I don't think I deserve all that credit. The theory was based off of a question some one else asked Brandon after all. 

 

As far as how I think of how its evolved, well, I (obviously) subscribe to the major/minor spren theory. I think I called them sister spree, but yours makes more sense. The WoB about the gemstones being added later gives this more credibility, I think. 

 

I guess it could also be solid stormlight, we just haven't seen any evidence of solid stormlight in the books though.

 

I don't think at all that they are fabrials (sp?) or created by the Bondsmiths. The WoB about the gems being added later, disproves the fabrial theory. Bondsmiths have the surges adhesion and tension. Adhesion we've seen Seth and Kaladin use, so we know how that one works, and WoB says that tension is making things ridged, e.g. making a scarf act like a sword. I don't see how those two surges could be used to make something like shardplate.

 

No, but this is great. I'm going to make this my first espoused theory, once I figure out how to do that.

By all the credit I meant between the two of us you deserve the credit. I just piggy-backed off your Reddit post. I'm pretty much on the same page as you as far as how it's all developed. I could possibly see the solid stormlight thing being true, but definitely not fabrials. And of course I believe the spren theory is the most likely.

Ayo that was my post!

My name on Reddit is Wyndle, If you want to check to make sure

Yep, that's the post I saw! That's awesome! Great theory man and you deserve most of the credit for this, if not all. What do you think of how its evolved here?

If shardplate and the oathgate slot are locked spren, then I wonder where they wrote down the measurements for them.

And how those things can morph to fit around whatever you put in them despite being locked in.

Shardplate adjusts to the wearer's size too, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe the Oathgates can do the same if they're made from the same "materials". Although I'm not sure what to say about who is defining them. None of my ideas right now really make sense.....

I actually saw a recommendation for Way of Kings on a forum I read, and after I'd read that and WoR, I had to check out what else he'd written.

OK, so the title is pretty self-explanatory, and I know they aren't "always" opposite, but in each case we have a spren that sought out a person, they are opposite genders. Kaladin and Syl, Shallan and Pattern, Jasnah and Ivory, Lift and Wyndle, Ym and his spren (which was said to have a female voice). The only exception I can think of right now is Dalinar and the Stormfather, but in that case Dalinar bonded the Stormfather rather than the Stormfather searching out Dalinar. Is there a WoB about this or is it covered in the books somewhere and I missed it? Is it maybe just a quirk of Brandon's writing? Does it have any significance? Of course, there's also the question of whether gender means the same thing to a spren as a human, and I don't believe it does, but that still raises questions. If spren don't care about or have a gender and are just choosing forms for the physical realm, why are they choosing opposite gender forms? 

Technically, they aren't Asian either: they are some weird mixed blood blend. The eyes are Asian, but the rest of their features do not look Asian. The hair, for instance, are not Asian. Asian have thick, coarse, very straight hair, whereas many Alethi are described as having curls or natural waves into their hair, which Asian don't naturally have (I am referring to the typical Asian hair, if there are other kinds, then I do not know about it). They are described as being tanned skin and they can have sunburns (Wit comments on one lord having dressed to match his sunburn...), which means they aren't dark skinned as Indian, but lighter. The darker skin color range do not sunburn, but tanned skin can, if you are not careful. Tan is also a color which is found in many ethnicity, including devilish Caucasian and it is not overly dark. In fact, tan skin color can pass for white in many case, worst many "white" skin people have in fact "tan" skin color. Frankly, it just becomes a label at some point. Also, there are many Asian who are paler than many Caucasian in terms of skin color... some Asian are very, very, very pale skin. For instance, I am darker skinned than my Chinese colleague... She definitely does not have the "tan skin color" (she's as white as a pint of milk) and she is 100% pure blooded Asian.

 

All in all, pure Asian is not a valid representation either, except for the eyes. It is not perfect. 

 

As for the Shin, I could be wrong, but I think Brandon did state their eyes would be Caucasian, but a bit bigger, though hardly perceptible. I'm going from memory here, so sorry if I misquote. I do see them as milky white, but I do not think it was explicitly stated as such.

I didn't really mean they look exactly asian, I was mostly referencing the eye shape. I've always been bad at interpreting skin color from a book, so I originally just assumed the tan color meant they were literally just tanned. After realizing their eyes have the epicanthic folds, I started thinking of tan as a typical chinese person's skin color, although I do know there is a wide range of skin colors in every ethnicity....

Oh thanks. I was worried. Though I do picture Szeth as small, wiry, milky white (not just white, but the palest possible skin color because white skin just does not come in one hue). His head looks too big for his body and his eyes are larger than normal eyes, though not by much.

 

Also, he is not handsome, not ugly, but not handsome either.

 

I also think Sadeas, in his youth, looked like Lando Calrissian... many women though he was handsome, but he aged quite badly. He became red faced and portly.

That's exactly how I see Szeth also. His head is almost grey-alien in its proprotions in my mind, but not so far as to look deformed. I think part of that is because on my first reading of both books, I didn't realize that the Alethi were asian in appearance, with that color of skin and eye shape, so I always saw the Alethi as normal caucasian unless otherwise described and when Szeth was described as being pale with large eyes, I came up with alien head. lol

The evidence is inconclusive. What we do know if the spren needs cracks within the soul in order to kick-start the bonding process. It would thus makes sense the bonding cannot truly start until these cracks appear. Please note the use of word "cracks" as opposed to "breaking" as a complete breakdown does not seem to be a requirement. Whereas it is entirely possible sprens may have looked at potential knights with intact souls, the bonding can't happen until the cracks occur. Syl may have very well "spotted" Kaladin while he was still in Heartstnone, but she did not start bonding him until after Tien's death and without a bond, no stormlight enhancement and no surges.

 

In the specific case of Jasnah, since her "bond" was formed enough to drag her into Shadesmar, I have to assume she was not merely being trailed by Ivory, she was actively bonding him: in the same way Kaladin was bonding Syl while being with the slavers. Based on these clues, I am assuming her "breaking event" occurred before her father's death.

 

The same goes for Shallan. 

 

As I said, the evidence is not entirely convincing or complete, but there is enough for me to be reasonably sure Jasnah's "cracks" were not caused by Galivar's death.

What about Dalinar? He showed signs of using stormlight unconsciously before he bonded the Stormfather. As for Jasnah, when I read the prologue again I just did not see anything to indicate she was broken yet, but I know that's far from conclusive. As for Shallan, didn't she have access to Pattern from a very young age? IIRC, the reason her mother tried to kill her was that she was doing "unnatural" things, things relating to the Heralds. But wasn't her breaking event supposed to be when her mother died? It just seems like we've got two clear examples of surgebinding before the person breaks or bonds, one example of somebody I think is whole being trailed by her future spren, and one who was fully broken to pieces before his spren appeared. Seems inconclusive at best, which I guess is what you said. lol

These are actually a few really good points I hadn't considered before. After all, we saw in one of Kaladin's flashbacks that Syl was hanging around before Kaladin was made a slave, even if she was still acting like a windspren at the time. I do still wonder if characters like Shallan and Jasnah would have had to have a stronger bond than spren just hanging around would provide, though. Then again, we don't know too much about their orders at the moment, so maybe I'm wrong.

Actually I think Kaladin is a clear example of breaking then the spren shows up. Pretty much everybody agrees his breaking point was when Tien died and that was years before Syl ever appeared. I think everything that happened as a slave was just the pieces getting stomped, so to speak. He was definitely broken by Tien's death.

One of the reasons I believe a potential Nahel bond did not cause the rift between Jasnah and her mother is the timeline... Navani stated Jasnah grew cold on her during her teenage years, which means 20 years ago. All the spren bonds we have seen started, to the farthest, 6 years ago. To think a spren may have been looking for a knight 20 years ago is a stretch which contradicts our current knowledge: sprens are starting to bond again because of the incoming Desolation. Signs started to appear, to the farthest 10 years ago. Jasnah only started to notice Ivory's presence 6 years ago: I seriously doubt she has been bonding him for 15 years prior to that....

I thus think it heavily unlikely Jasnah bonded Ivory during her teen years. The most plausible answer is she started bonding him shortly before Galivar died which implies the event leading her to be a recipient for the bond occurred before.

As for Navani and scholarship... She states she is unable, right now, to make diagrams as evolve as their, but she does also state she may have been able to, in another life. In other words, Navani did have potential, once upon a time, but it was left unused. She does seem bitter about it which may have led to the break-up with Jasnah who, as a teenager, would have start to notice these things.

These quotes do not disapprove my theory.

Is there any evidence, WoB or in the books, that says the bond HAS to start or spren have to appear after the breaking event? I posted last night a theory, in this thread, that the spren are attracted to their people before the person is broken and have a little evidence of that in Dalinar and Jasnah, possibly Shallan as well. It would explain why Jasnah apparently had just started experiencing effects from Ivory's presence in the prologue but there is little evidence of her being already broken.

I just reread the Jasnah WoR prologue, and I actually think she did break when her father died. She was obviously hurt by it and didn't seem broken to me before, although I know that's not concrete. I know the biggest argument against this is the belief she had already bonded Ivory, but this was clearly the first time she'd visited Shadesmar and the first time she saw the spren, but not the first time her shadow started acting up. The problem with that is she visited Shadesmar just before Gavilar's death, not after. But I'm wondering if the spren are attracted to their people before they're broken. Maybe they're there when the person breaks, ready to bond, and that's how Jasnah visited Shadesmar when she did. This doesn't seem to hold true for Kaladin but there is evidence that Shallan, Jasnah, and Dalinar either had experiences with their spren before breaking or exhibited symptoms of the bond before they were clearly bonded.

Shallan had access to Pattern at a very young age and I "think" the thing that broke her was accomplished with Pattern, but that may not hold true. I don't remember the sequence of events that well.

Jasnah visited Shadesmar before breaking, "if" I end up being right. That ones a big if.

Dalinar experienced quite a few symptoms of the bond before bonding the Stormfather, such as aversion to Blades and using Stormlight to heal during battle before bonding the Stormfather, and one post said losing the Thrill was a symptom of that as well. Dalinar is my strongest example for this theory.

This is only a sort of half theory right now. I wanted to post my thoughts while they're fresh so I don't forget. Any thoughts in support or against?

He was scribing numbers. All zeroes. After asking the almighty why he was cursed with seeing the future itself. And throught the book he was one of the characters that seemed more worried about the little time they had. He saw the everstorm would blow in the wrong direction just a little before pattern said the same thing in a clearer way.

I am surprised so many people didn't notice it.

I guess I just didn't get the connection with the writing on the walls, though. I'm not sure why it didn't click, but like I said, I'm gonna watch Renarin more closely on this reading and I'm sure I'll catch things I missed the first time around. I think maybe part of why I missed so much of Renarin's plot in WoR is because he was pretty minor in WoK and I guess I expected him to remain that way.

Wait, what?  I didn't get that at all, first time I've seen it mentioned…

 

jW

I don't think it was here that I saw it either. I'm sure it was discussed when WoR came out, but I think I saw it on reddit. I don't think there was really enough that pointed to Renarin for most people to catch it. From what I read, the only evidence was the fact that he started scribbling stuff in the Oathgate and that was supposed to indicate he'd been writing it all along. There may have been more that the person I saw post it didn't catch, though. I'm about to start on WoR for my first reread, so I'm gonna watch Renarin a lot closer.

I always thought Moash was an old bald man, until I just started rereading WoK a week ago and saw he was Kaladin's age.

So... I wouldn't presume to tell someone like Brandon Sanderson how to write a book better...seeing as I struggle with coherent messages on these boards lol.

However! One small complaint...Syl's ability to change into any weapon felt too over powered and too much. It took away from all the skill Kaladin has worked on cultivating and the battle became to frenetic. Also.... This is so small and petty. But Syl had been predisposed to a certain type of speech and when she said "stretch out thy hand" the thy just came out as disingenuous.

That's trying to come up with something though. The scene where Kaladin jumps in and helps Adolin is so amazing to read. This is an awesome series

OK so IDK what happened, I thought I quoted you and thekingofpillowland but it completely deleted my response to you. Anyway, my head-canon for Syl's phrasing there is that since the Stormfather was watching at the time, maybe she spoke differently to impress him or because that's how they talk to each other at times. I know there's not really evidence for it, but that was the best I could come up with.

thekingofpillowland

 

Firstly, Renarin's reveal as KR just seemed badly handled to me. On my first read through, it seemed to come out of nowhere, like "Hey guys, I'm a radiant, too!" On my second, I did notice the hints and thought that it was well foreshadowed, but the timing seemed all wrong. Personally, I think that it would have been better for him to reveal the he was KR partway through book 3, after he has had time to see what the other KR's have been able to do, and gain some development from trying to decide if he could be equal to the others.

 

 

I agree that Renarin's reveal was kinda poor. I didn't even realize he was the one writing the countdown until I saw it posted online after I finished the book. I went back and reread his reveal and still don't get it. I know he's the one that wrote it, but I NEVER would have gotten that on my own.

True, fear of death was the alternative in that particular approach, but it does seem to be emotional extremes.  I wonder, though, is there something more specific, perhaps tied to Preservation's Intent, that might be part of that, beyond just being extreme emotions?

 

jW

Maybe it's more an extreme desire to save someone or something. Your own life, Kelsier's wife, that sort of thing. Something you desperately want to protect, or preserve.

Just a thought to bolster the theory that shardplate is live spren stuck in the form of shardplate.  Remember the interlude with the researchers studying flamespren?  They specifically point out that once measured or recorded the flame spren remained in the same shape.  Once they destroyed the figures they wrote down the flamespren returned to it's baseline changyness (that's a technical term, you understand).

 

I'm not married to a particular method of plate being created.  Perhaps it was a completely natural evolution of the Nahel bond.  Perhaps it was an engineered creation by one group like the Bondsmiths (though given that there were apparently only three Bondsmiths and a lot of KR with plate they might find themselves a bit busy).  Perhaps it was a collaboration between the Highspren and some engineering.

 

The point I come to is if part of the process of creating the shardplate (whatever that process might be) involved defining how the spren would act as shardplate...... "you will adjust to fit your wearer, you will absorb stormlight to fit yourself", etc....... then the plate could still be living spren which was defined into a specific shape/purpose. 

 

I'm assuming the more esoteric functions of the plate seen in the flashbacks were because of the Nahel bonded spren interfacing with the defined spren of the plate.  So while bonded spren may have been involved in the making, and the increased awesomeness of "old" plate, the plate's continued existence wasn't dependent on the bonded spren continuing to live.  Think of it like a car.  The plate is the body, the suspension, the wheels, the seats, etc.  The bonded spren is the engine.  Take the engine out and the car still exists, but now it needs a different form of propulsion.  In the case of the plate it's the infused gemstones, vs the KR themselves fueling it with stormlight.

 

And that makes me wonder about something else.  Did the modern users of the plate somehow add the gem slots inside the plate in order to power it, or were they already there?  We know Kaladin can power plate directly based on the duel scene, however just powering even a helmet drained him completely in a few minutes.  Perhaps the KR ran the plate with the gemstones, and they topped them off as needed.  Just a thought.

This makes a lot of sense. Its funny, I just read that portion of WoK and this didn't even occur to me, but Brandon doesn't include anything just to fill pages. The defined spren thing is definitely important somehow, and I really like this application of it. And since the major spren doesn't cease to exist entirely when the oaths are broken, maybe their "definition" of the Platespren would remain and that's how the spren got locked into Plate form. I really like this idea.

As for the gemstones, I have no proof but I really believe they were added after the Radiants. I think eventually we'll see Kaladin get to a level where he's so efficient at holding in Stormlight that he doesn't have to worry about Plate draining him of it but he'll still be able to power the Plate. In fact, it could be as simple as the fact the helmet wasn't "his". Maybe if and when he is capable of generating his own Shardplate, it will interface better with him than others' Plate does. Or it could also be the fact that he wasn't wearing an entire suit, so maybe it isn't "sealed" until he is wearing a complete suit, although I kinda doubt this is the case.

Bah I'm sure there are plenty of people who wrongly assume the false gender. I've been called Dude quite often, which usually makes me smile. Makes me want to say "Dude, I'm a Dudess  ;)", but I never felt as if it were important enough.

Wait, you're a woman too? Is this the forum all the women on the internet come to? I keep hearing they're online somewhere but have yet to encounter any.......

Kind of a silly question:

 

While rereading WoK when I reached chapter "Errorgance". In this single chapter the sentence "Jasnah sniffed." is present 3 times in a fairly short chapter. Was she cold? Or is there some hidden meaning to this sniffing?

I've noticed people are constantly sniffing, snorting, frowning, and raising an eyebrow in both Mistborn and Stormlight Archive. Might make a good drinking game, at least for as long as you can focus enough to read.......

That line about being "beholden to another, particularly a man" is interesting. I hope we get some answers about her in this next book.