hoser

And, while dying (in WoK), Gavilar tells Szeth that it is too late, so he apparently has done something. Not what I said. I would love to know myself. Kiwi, I'm confused. I was explicitly responding to your second question, which included "If bonding with Spren was such a common occurrence, why is it not now?" So when you say, "I'm referring to the time period when the Radiants would be considered "in their prime". Before any possible corruption started to set in, which I believe would have began after the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact." my brain explodes.

Syl remembers helping men kill before, so I believe that she was an honorspren with the original radiants. Did she start out as an windspren before that? I wonder about dragonwasps and splinters. There were Radiants when the Heralds packed it in, and it is confirmed that Honor was still around then, so Honor wasn't splintered for part of the Radiant time, at least. As for the second question. I think the Radiants discouraged dishonorable surgebinding and few people knew how when they packed it in. Maybe whatever Gavilar did enabled surgebinding again. Spren seem to generally be annoyances that people are trained to ignore. People mostly weren't as honorable as Kaladin.

Is there any evidence that Gavilar received visions? His wife, Navani, doesn't seem to indicate it, and if he were raving and having fits during highstorms, she would presumably have known.

I hate to throw cold water on creative thinking, but ... If Dalinar was bound to his Shardblade, how could he give it away? And how could Elhokar yield his Shardblade for duels if he was bound? It seems that Shardblades are bound to people, but not vice versa. Doesn't Sadeas speak of the Thrill before he has a Shardblade? I don't agree with either of these assertions. People can be bound to Shards, but I don't see Shardblades as binding people. Kaladin's two surges are known to be gravity and pressure. He uses gravity to attract arrows to objects he is in contact with (shield, bridge, etc) pressure to stick things together, land when falling from height (when placing the makeshift armor under the bridge) and amplify his voice (yelling at Adolin in the Tower battle). It's been outright stated that we have seen post-pupation Chasmfiends, but not pre-pupation Chasmfiends. I am not aware of any hints that the Chasmfiend we saw was not fully developed. Please correct me if I am missing something. Semi-relevant quotes: Interview: Dec 25th, 2010 Stormblessed.com Interview with Brandon Sanderson (Verbatim)

After predicting the future, punning is closest to the essence of voidbringing.

I assume the head of lines refers to what we used to call truthspren and we now call Cryptics. It is interesting that the dying person can see the Cryptic. I wonder if seeing Shadesmar is due to the presence of the Cryptic, which we know can connect people to Shadesmar. Dying people who do not have a cryptic around might not be able to see Shadesmar. So: as PM's brilliant idea above suggests Kaladin is getting information from the Deathspren, the Shadesmar death rattler could be getting information from the Cryptic. Following on: would the deathspren have been the same ones that were present at the death of the bridgeman from Bridge 2 (which would have been days before). Generalizing: Are the death rattles coming from an expansion of consciousness, which is affected by the near environment? Sort of a merging with the nearest minds?

No. The stormlight is available at only one specific instant which is described. The gem gets charged, but Kaladin doesn't get infused or healed directly. If he could draw from the storm directly over a duration of time or the gem repeatedly charge, he would have been more healed at the end of the storm. From Chapter 35: This is the heart of the storm: I believe a partial rift to the spiritual realm.

So even though the Windrunners are quitting, by leaving the weapons and armor behind, they are keeping the second oath. With the Shardblades and Shardplate those left behind can protect themselves. Maybe the Stonewarders have a comparable oath that they can only fulfill by abandoning their weapons similarly. The other eight orders may have similar equipment but not oaths that constrain them similarly, so they could do something else with their weapons and armor. Is this what you are implying? I like it! They apparently feel forsaken. It has been suggested that this is after Tanavast/Honor was killed.

In the Prelude the Heralds have Honorblades, which we know from a herald viewpoint. At the end, Taln shows up with a Shardblade that is likely an Honorblade, as it behaves differently than Radiantblades and the Szethblade. Neither of the quotes you offer connects the Heralds with Dawnshards directly.

Maybe. There is a quote below where it is clear that they considered placing Urithiru in Alethela, but ended up placing it to the west of Alethela and nearer Honor. Jasnah could be using that and other historical quotes to conclude that since Natanatan is to the east of Alethela, Urithiru is not there. I cannot imagine putting a city in Shadesmar and describing it as to the west of Alethela even if the locations corresponded. There is also an epigraph where someone takes up a Dawnshard and climbs steps toward temples dedicated to the heralds. I think this is in Urithiru and it doesn't seem like Shadesmar. Likewise, the Oathgate tariff quote suggests to me that Urithiru is a mundane location. Shadesmar seems too weird to avoid being commented on. If Nohadon walked to the foot of the mountain that he couldn't climb by foot which had Urithiru at the top, who would be wrong? A windrunner could fly him to the top once he got there or a traveling order could teleport him (assuming he can't do one of these things himself). 'The Way of Kings pg. 485' said 'The Way of Kings pg. 524' said 'The Way of Kings pg. 592' said 'The Way of Kings pg. 519' said Not-random quotes borrowed from Windrunner's Urithiru thread. Edited: added quotes

If Shallan is Shallash's order and Jezrien is obviously Kaladin's order, then, assuming the herald from the last book is of the order matched to the book, we don't have a ton of Heralds/orders left that we've met. There is Kelek in the prelude, possibly drunk Ishii in the prologue, we can narrow this down ...

The Parshendi killed Gavilar to keep him from doing something that he had already done. This act of Gavilar's may have triggered the final desolation. Why didn't they just explain to him why he shouldn't do it? Where have the Parshendi been? When was Szeth's sword made? Who made it? Does Szeth's windrunning come from the sword? What do the Parshendi know of their history? Why did the Radiants quit? What did they do afterwards? Is there a big stash of weapons and armor in Urithiru? What shattered Natanatan?

A minor point is that, as discussed above: Alethi squads are numerically equivalent to a modern platoon, Alethi subsquads are numerically equivalent to a modern squad Alethi squadleaders outrank sergeants, making them like lieutenants/platoonleaders

Or, given the way they work, they could be linked to a realm (I guess spiritual) that allows them to draw stormlight directly.

Are you referring to the quote from your post #6 above? If so, I find it significantly more ambiguous than you do. Or is there another quote where he explicitly says that voidbinding does not use fabrials?

I think that in the absence of the Nahel bond, Syl forgot herself. When the original radiants renounced their oaths, the bond would have dissolved and the Honorspren presumably all forgot themselves. Syl gets cognitive abilities from Kaladin through the bond. I also assume that this varies by spren type. The Cryptics are presumably more inherently cognitive, and remember more/retain more personality. Jasnah might even be able get information from her spren, assuming it is more cognitively strong. My underlying assumption is that Syl is spiritually strong and cognitively weak. There may also be a physical element involved in comparing spren.

As others point out, Odium's magic is another significant hole. If Odium's magic involves corrupting Honor and Cultivation's magic, trapping spren in fabrials seems like a possible mechanism. This! Fabrial magic as the modern Alethi (such as Navani) perform involves "trapping" spren. This seems odious rather than cultivation-linked. Yeah. OK. But do we know what voidbinding is? It seems to me that Cultivation's magic must be based on living things. The dragonwasps (larkin?) that form the backdrop of the radiant surge picture are very intriguing to me in that regard. WoR spoiler: Elsewhere there is a thread discussing the idea of windspren becoming honorspren. Could the dragonwasps be involved in that process and would that be part of Cultivation's involvement? The gem at the center of the alternate surge diagram would correspond to the fabrial based magic system, which could be voidbinding. If Radiantblades and Shardplate were partially powered by spren voluntarily engaging with them, then when the Radiants abandoned them and renounced their oaths at the Recreance (assuming that's what happened), the spren could have voluntarily fled, hence the glowing stopping. Alternately, Odium could have trapped the spren inside. Szeth's blade could have a trapped Honorspren in it and be a fabrial. As Szeth is bound to perform heinous crimes that he hates, the spren in the sword/fabrial could be compelled to act against it's nature. What could be more Odious? Mistborn spoiler

Yay! Violent agreement. And from someone who really knows more than how to look things up on Wikipedia. Thanks for sharing your expertise.

Thanks, Shardbearer. You are right, and I am wrrrrrr ... not right. Kaladin is a squadleader. Enjoy an upvote! He leads "about thirty men". He has a sergeant as his second in command. His squad has subsquads Two and Three, so presumably there are at least three subsquads. His Alethi squad is numerically a platoon, his subsquads are numerically squads and his second in command is a sergeant, so I claim that he is effectively what we would call a platoon leader and in the modern US Army would hold one of the lieutenant ranks. If I had to guess, I would say that the point Brandon is making is that lighteyes are scarcer than medieval nobility or that the Alethi armies are proportionately larger, so there aren't enough lighteyes to lead all the squad/platoons. I don't think this really applies, but apparently in both medieval and modern times plebian soldiers could become commissioned officers as described below: Now humiliate me with whatever else I'm missing!

Interesting. I've been assuming, with no supporting evidence, that Shards could set up parts of the Spiritual Realm to suit themselves. So I thought Odium had furnished an area of the Spiritual Realm as Damnation. I assumed that was also how Honor did his projections with Dalinar. As for the Heralds, I assume that they have the same surges as the corresponding Radiant orders, at least. I doubt they have spren, though.

No. Kaladin was a darkeyed platoon leader. A platoon is a platoon (a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 26 to 50 soldiers. ... A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the platoon leader or platoon commander, usually a lieutenant.). Kaladin was already the equivalent of a darkeyed commissioned officer (a lieutenant) back in Alethkar. Darkeyes leading platoons seems to be reasonably common. Please show me a quote where it indicates that darkeyes can't be commissioned officers (second lieutenant rank or above here, platoonleader role here or there). If there is no such quote then it makes sense for captain to mean captain, not master sergeant.

So: Heralds compare to Unmade including Yelig-nar and Re-Shephir Surgebinders (Radiants) compare to voidbringers who do voidbinding Like that? Do unmade also do voidbinding?

A big question is what the relationship between voidbringer and voidbinding is. Are there only 10 voidbringers (sort of anti-heralds) who are the only voidbinders? Are there voidbinders who are not voidbringers, sort of anti-Radiants? I would start with all the "hints" in the text plus WOB like the one about foretelling. One of the bridgemen suggests that the Voidbringers can do possession. Apparently they can summon Midnight Essence, one of the ten deaths, which may be asssociated with Re-Shephir the midnight mother. They can animate stone to create thunderclasts, perhaps another of the ten deaths. Yelig-nar (Blightwind) is supposedly accompanied by screams. Szeth is hearing screams also. He irrationally hates. Is he becoming a voidbringer? A voidbinder? Odium's champion? Some of them could hold stormlight perfectly, according to Szeth. Jasnah has a picture of a Chasmfiend as a voidbringer. Do the Voidbinders or Voidbringers possess greatshells? Axies is said to have a voidbringer shadow that goes toward the light. Does that mean a different spiritual relationship with light? Is it similar to v-binders or v-bringers? If we collect all this stuff, maybe somebody will make a brilliant theory.

Actually, the Alethi are only on one side. The difficulties I see are who do they trade with and how do they manage the supply lines? That's why I say it's unlikely. I just know so little about the world ... Mainly, I don't think they have a form for Soulcasting yet, so they are relying on fabrials or something else entirely. Did I say that I know next to nothing about this world?

Given the limited forms they seem to have, I would have to go with: PM's neither - meaning Brandon has another surprise Fabrials Trade the gems (but with who? doesn't seem likely) Until they figure out how to bind with Cryptics, Jasnahspren or the like, I would say not the surgebinding, but that could change.