02ranger

And regardless of whether he truly believes or not, he would not want to tell people he's seeing the future just because of how everybody else would react.

Bonded to which spren? That's the part that's confusing me on your post. Do you mean the Shardplate is somehow bonded to the spren that is bonded to the radiant? Like if Kaladin is able to form Plate somewhere down the line, are you saying it will be bonded to Syl somehow or are you saying it's bonded to windspren somehow? Other than that, I think either of the two main theories in this thread cover all your points pretty well. Stormlight or minor spren. Edit: Actually I just thought of something. Dalinar's Shardplate is unpainted and unornamented, and is described as being a slate-grey color. I take that as a point in favor of it being made, at least partially, out of spren since the Blades are all that color as well (I think). Although it does make you wonder if the Plate we see in Dalinar's flashbacks was painted or if they created it as a specific color and maybe Dalinar just happens to have Plate that is the same color as the Blades? I'm starting to think we just don't have enough information yet......

Well, that settles that. lol I never would have picked up on it. That actually makes Renarin make much more sense to me now, though. I thought some of the things he does and the way he acts seemed so odd or childish at times, but autism, even mild autism, would explain that to a degree.

Is there a WoB that says Renarin is autistic? This is the first I've heard of it and from the books I always just thought he was a mild epileptic, which made him feel different and weak which in turn made him awkward around others.

Going with this theory and considering the research Jasnah is doing, maybe her father wasn't abusive, maybe just the discovery that her father was trying to end the world would be enough to break her. For all we know she worshipped her father as a child and found out about his "extra-curricular" activities, which could have broken her.

IDK, I think it could conceivably crack and leak if you look at it like the cracks are where the hardened portion has weakened, and the non-hardened stormlight used to fuel it isn't regenerating quickly enough. A problem with it being just concentrated stormlight that just came to me is the regrowth part. Why would stormlight be able to naturally repair itself into armor? Wouldn't it need something to direct the repair and regrowth? I just reread the first of Dalinar's flashback chapters in WoK yesterday, and I feel like there's some important information there on the Shardplate. Specifically the glyphs that show up on the male shardbearer's Plate while he's fighting, but they disappear after the fight all except for the main glyph of the KR. It reminds me of when Kaladin is fighting Moash in WoR and Syl comes back to him and he sucks in a huge amount of stormlight and all of a sudden theres a glyph behind him on the ground. Those glyphs feel like clues somehow......... I could see the origin of Shardplate going a lot of different ways, but the one I really don't see is the Plate being made of the same bonded spren as the Blades. Is that what you meant by your last point?

That's interesting. I'm gonna watch for other spren/stormlight connections on this reread. I wonder if it could be a combination of the two things. Maybe the stormlight is actually how you control the spren who make up the Shardplate rather than needing the "high" spren to facilitate. The stormlight would be a sort of bribe. Something I didn't think about earlier is the fact that the radiants lost their ability to manipulate stormlight when they broke their oaths. I kept trying to come up with a reason for the Shardplate to still be around if it's made of spren, and the death of the bonded spren was a convenient reason, but what if the real reason the Plate is still around is that when the radiant broke their oaths they were incapable of sucking the stormlight back in and freeing the spren? I think somebody else mentioned this part in this thread, but I couldn't find the sentence I was looking for......... The reason I'm kinda sticking to the idea of Shardplate being made of spren in some way is that we haven't really seen any evidence that stormlight can be anything besides fuel, but we have seen evidence that spren can change into a ton of different solid forms, and the idea of Shardplate being able to block Shardblades makes me think they have to be connected on a deeper level, although maybe it's just the investiture thing that FidesFortuna mentioned.

I didn't know that about investiture. I'm still relatively new to the Cosmere and still learning. I'll have to read up more on that. I actually really like this theory. I'm now torn between my idea and this idea. I'm actually starting to lean more towards the stormlight theory cause it fits better with what we know so far. My spren idea would require Brandon to reveal some things we haven't seen yet, but stormlight almost feels like a natural progression from the story as it is now.

I'm on my first reread right now, so I may have missed some things, but I've always had trouble keeping the Heralds and KR separate. Did the Hearlds use Shardplate? I don't remember seeing it mentioned in the Hearld scene in WoK. As for the stormlight thing, I'm not really sure how to explain that. Possibly a function of the lack of a "high" spren to control the lesser spren? The biggest thing I think that supports the idea of the Shardplate being made from spren is the fact that a Shardblade can cut anything except Shardplate. Seems like an odd connection if they aren't made from the same thing. Also the helmet being dismissed in the flashback lends itself to the idea of being made from spren, since the Shardblades can be dismissed the same way. There are too many similarities between the two for them not to be made from similar sources, although my theory on the control aspect could be off. I'm gonna read with an eye towards any spren that seem to be overly excited around stormlight. Maybe I'll find something to support the theory........ Edit: What if Stormlight is the fuel for the lesser spren to be able to transform and regenerate? There is obviously some sort of connection between Stormlight and spren since the nahel bond grants the ability to absorb and use Stormlight.

I agree they're not alive in the same sense, but I know the theory I read said the problem with the theory is that the helmet didn't cause Kaladin to hear screaming so it "can't" be made of spren, and that's really the biggest reason for mentioning whether they're alive or not in my post. What I was thinking is that when they become Shardplate they come under the control of the Honorspren (using Windrunners in this post for my example) so that if the Radiant needs the Plate to do something he doesn't talk to a bunch of trickster spren with very little ability to think or interact, but instead talks to his Honorspren, with whom he'll already have a good working relationship. That Honorspren then "translates" (for lack of a better term) the command for the winspren, like making the helmet disappear when not needed. During this time, because the windspren have come under the control of the Honorspren (willingly or not) they are incapable of doing what they want to, but rather do what the Honorspren commands which is to be Shardplate. If that Honorspren then dies because of broken oaths while the windspren are in Plateform they would be incapable of changing back to their normal form because the controlling entity is no longer able to allow them to change. Meaning the windspren never died, but instead are stuck in their Plateform. BTW, my name on reddit is 02ranger as well. Check your thread and see if I replied, it very well might be yours I saw. Edit: Went crazy with the commas.......

OK, so I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this, but I've got a sort of combination theory on the origin of Shardplate that I want to throw out there. I say combination cause its part my idea, and part of it comes from a thread I read on the SA subreddit. The reddit guy mentioned that he believed the scene with the windspren circling Kaladin during his fight with Szeth at the end of WoR was a sort of proto-Plate. His theory is that each order has their normal spren, like Honor-spren for Windrunners, and then a sort of secondary spren that can be called on to form Shardplate. In the case of Windrunners this would be windspren. I'm thinking that, once Kaladin reaches a certain level, Syl will be able to call windspren together to form Plate for Kaladin, and she will be the link that facilitates control of the Plate for Kaladin. This would explain how the Plate could be dismissed in Dalinar's flashback, cause it's made of living spren and being controlled by a living "major" spren. The problem with spren-Plate that was mentioned on reddit is that Kaladin held that helmet and didn't hear screaming from the dead spren that form it, meaning (apparently) that Shardplate can't be made of spren. But what if the spren that make up the Plate that's still around are actually still alive, but locked into their Shardplate form because their control "major" spren died when the oaths were broken. This would explain a few things about Shardplate, such as how it can change shape to fit different people, how it can regrow from even small pieces, and why you can't take two pieces of the same Shardplate and regrow two separate suits. It also explains why certain functions of the Plate are gone now, because that controlling party is gone, meaning all the spren-Plate knows to do is the "standard" functions. If Shardplate is indeed formed from lower spren, there's no reason to believe breaking the oaths would cause them to die and lock into Shardplate form, unless the death of the "major" spren caused them to be unable to change back to themselves. So, anybody agree with me or have anything to add? Edit: Changed "high" spren to "major" spren to avoid confusion with actual highspren. Thanks ansalem!

Sorry, I was still reading HoA when I posted this thread, and realized just how much religion and faith plays into that book. I knew it would be a lot, but I just didn't expect quite that much. I decided to finish the book before coming back to this thread. I don't really mind spoilers for the most part, otherwise I wouldn't have come here at all until I was finished, but I wanted to read the rest without learning anything new. I have glanced through it just a little bit, I'm going to read it more in-depth later when I get a chance. Looks very interesting. Thanks! Yeah, Brandon's own religious views really don't show through in Mistborn. I think that's part of what surprised me so much about the parallels. It's really not that odd to find similarities to real-world religion in fiction, but for a Christian author to write a crisis of faith and questioning of religion like he did, not to mention the clear borrowing from Christianity, was surprising to me. I think a lot of authors would have either been afraid of offending somebody or possibly found it offensive themselves. If I hadn't known he was Mormon from the start, my guess would've been agnostic too. I'm continually surprised how good of an author he is. Now I have to find something else to read, probably Alloy of Law next......

I'm gonna have to search for that. That's too funny if he did it unintentionally. When I read it I literally did a double-take and then started laughing. I hadn't considered the extra symbolism you mentioned, that's pretty good. I was just thinking about the weapon-that-killed-him part. Edit: I'm guessing that what you're talking about is in the annotations. This is the first I've looked at any of them, since I haven't finished the series yet. I don't mind spoilers, but I do limit myself a little bit.

I don't really mean anything remotely religious, I meant more like elements of religions in the books that parallel real-world beliefs. Do some of the religions Sazed mentions have themes in common with specific real-world religions? Are there other similarities between the Church of the Survivor and Christianity? What about the roles of Vin and Kelsier in that church and how they mirror Christ and other Christian figures? I know I've picked up on other things in the book like this, but the thing with the spear pin just really stood out to me and made me start thinking about it a lot harder.

Just something I noticed reading HoA, Vin sees somebody, Demoux I think, wearing a spear pin for the Church of the Survivor and she thinks how odd it is that the Church has chosen the instrument of the Survivor's death for their symbol. Made me think of Christianity and the Cross, which was probably intentional since Brandon is christian himself. That made me wonder, what other parallels to major religions are there in the Mistborn series? Has Brandon discussed it very much? I'm sure I've missed some of them. I imagine a lot of authors would hesitate to so blatantly imitate their own religion in this way, but I think it's pretty cool and gives you an opportunity to see things from a different perspective than you might normally.

That's true, this is something you "should" pick up reading but its not really a spoiler or plot point right now. I say should cause I completely missed it and I'm sure I'm not alone. Time for a reread when I finish HoA and AoL.

Oh cool! Learn something new everyday I guess. lol I wonder how they ended up with Parshendi/Human hybrids? Means relations between the two races weren't always what they are now...... Time to spend some time in the other forum now. Thanks!

What did you mean about the crossbreeding on Roshar? I've read both SA books but I'm not sure what you're referring to. Can you PM me if its unwise to post here behind spoiler tags?

I can definitely see that. I've actually given a lot of thought to a Mistborn cast lately. Maybe I oughta share in the cast thread someday...... It's funny, she really doesn't look like Selma Blair at all, but that haircut kept making me think of her for some reason. Anyway, at least that little mystery has been solved.

I finally figured out who I was thinking of. I posted this on Reddit and somebody mentioned Selma Blair. I was seeing her the way she looks in the Hellboy movies in my head. She doesn't look a whole lot like the Vin on the cover, but something about that hairstyle made me think of her. Thanks for the suggestions here, and now I can finally read in peace. lol

Has she ever had that hairstyle that you can remember? The picture I'm remembering is dark black hair and similarly styled to the cover. I don't remember Jennifer Lawrence with that hairstyle but its very possible.

I know this sounds like a weird question but it's been driving me nuts. I just finished FE and started WoA not long ago, and the whole time I've read both books the cover has bugged me cause Vin looks familiar. Was she drawn to appear like some actress or model, or was she pulled out of the artist's imaginiation? She looks VERY familiar, and the face I keep seeing is just a little sharper than the one on FE and it's always the same image. A kinda profile shot from the side, with short black hair cut to fall around the level of her chin, curled just slightly forward at the bottom (pretty much like Cover-Vin). Does anybody else know what I'm talking about? I KNOW she looks like somebody famous and it is driving me nuts cause I can't figure out who it is. Usually this stuff comes to me pretty quickly........ BTW, I'm talking about this cover in particular.

I've been reading 17th Shard for about a week now, finally decided to create an account. Just thought I'd say hi and I've really enjoyed being a silent part of the community and I look forward to becoming an active part now. I came to Sanderson's books by way of Stormlight Archive, then started Mistborn, reading Well of Ascension now, and I'll be checking out his other works soon.