CaptainRyan

I always assumed the 10 Fools was either a cultural teaching device based on the antithesis of the Heralds or that it, somehow, reflects an understanding that the 10 Heralds have gone insane and become 10 fools.

*fixed

I was reading through the excel spreadsheet of Reddit WoB's that was compiled by Pagerunner here and came across this one (#437): Q: Do you plan to write the stormlight archive books with the same POV characters throughout the series (like WoT) or do you think that you give other characters POV (aSoIaF) as the series continues? A: Most of the main POV characters have been introduced. Each book will take one major character (Kaladin, Dalinar, Adolin, Jasnah, Shallan, Navani, Szeth, Taln) and give them 'flashback' sequences in the same way Kaladin got flashbacks in the first book. There are some open spots for which I'm toying with other characters being used. Other characters will get viewpoints now and then, but I feel that one of the ways that big series get off track is by changing the focus to side characters. (Note that I will continue doing the Interludes to give some other voices and perspectives screen time. Few of these will be main characters.) ADOLIN is mentioned as a PoV character who will get his own book. This quote is from August 2015. Is this a typo and should read "Renarin" or has some change occurred and none of us have followed up with Brandon about it? @maxal, you would probably be interested in this. Also, notice this : It seems the chosen 10 are not as set in stone as we might think, eh?

Hey @DustBringer94, no worries about the location of your post. It has already been moved by a moderator. Generally, they are very good about that sort of thing. As to your statement about Heralds being probably being bonded to powerful spren initially, I think @Calderis covered that quite well. I hope that helps clear things up!

Hi @DustBringer94! Welcome to the Forums! Always great to have another Sanderfan join us. Good question! I will address it below within spoilers tags as this post is, currently, not in a spoiler free subforum. Response to the question about spren blades: Also, just an fyi as you seem to be new to the forums, this kind of post would be better placed in the "Stormlight Archive" subforum. I am sure a moderator will be able to move it to the appropriate area. Perhaps @WeiryWriter can do that?

@Soulcast: I'm with you - the future Mistborn books are going to be fantastic. I trust Brandon to make the Cosmere story one of the greatest literary accomplishments of this generation!

This is close but not quite right. I am arguing that someone within the Knights Radiant organization, probably the Bondsmiths, discovered how to break the entire bonding process in some fashion - i.e. the process by which Knights bond with spren, by which Parshendi bond with spren, etc. My speculation is that the Knights knew this would destroy their bonds with their spren but they were willing to make that sacrifice in order to prevent the Parshendi from bonding with Voidspren again. Something, I don't know what, went wrong and it ended up only being partially successful - 9 out of 10 Orders lost their bonds as did most of the Parshendi (they became Parshmen) but Eshonai's people retained their bonds. The first clue is the epigraph of chapter 41 in Words of Radiance. I believe there are some WoBs (words of Brandon) floating around that provide more evidence to the idea that one Order of Radiants kept their oaths.

The obvious choice for the database is: "the Book of Endless Pages" Also, this sounds absolutely fantastic! I am excited to see the code when it goes open source in... github I assume? Congratulations to everyone who made this possible! What a wonderful achievement!

It is mentioned that one of the previous God-kings had a daughter first and then a son later and the son inherited. I think the Hallandren must prefer Kings to Queens. I do not remember if it mentions whether the daughter was a Returned infant or not.

Yes, Brandon has said it is possible, though difficult, to bond more than one spren. One of the big issues is trying to remain true to the oaths you swear to each spren; the more oaths you swear the harder it becomes to remain true to all of them when you have more than one spren you are swearing to.

My guess? Relis was bonded to the blade so he heard it more clearly.

Citation needed.

Nothing had to change - the attempt by the Knights failed. We know one Order of Knights persisted after the Recreance and it is plausible that a group of Parshendi, Eshonai's people, have also been around for a long time. Whatever the Knights attempted at the Recreance to break the bonding process was unsuccessful.

I would imagine that most people would reject Hemalurgy as an option as the priests said that Susebron would be allowed to live his life in peace after passing on the Breath. In nearly all cases Hemalurgy is fatal for the person who has something spiked from them. Also, if I recall correctly, Vasher states that there are ways to use commands mentally without needing to speak them but Susebron would have had to been trained by the priests how to do it. With those pieces of information I think it was generally assumed that the priests teach the God-king how to mentally pass on the breath to the Returned infant and then the God-king "retires".

I think the screams might be words - from Words of Radiance page 672 (kindle first edition) when Kaladin performs the "last clap" on Relis' Shardblade during Adolin's duel (emphasis mine): "Relis dropped the blade as if bitten. He backed away, raising his hands to his head. 'What is it? What is it! No, I didn't kill you!" He shrieked as if in great pain [...]" Why would Relis say that if he only heard wordless screaming? My conjecture is the spren is screaming "YOU KILLED ME!" or something like that.

Proto-Radiants and, presumably, full Radiants certainly hear the spren speak when they touch a "dead" Shardblade. One might say that the breaking of the bonds that "killed" the spren left them in a state very similar to the Hoed (from Elantris). Edit: I responded to another poster below showing that in the climactic Words of Radiance duel, when Kaladin performed a "last clap" on Relis' Shardblade that Relis heard the screaming of a dead spren. Relis then when on to say "No, I didn't kill you!" which leads me to believe that Relis heard the spren screaming something along the lines of "YOU KILLED ME!" (page 672 of the first edition on the Kindle)

@alexriceboyy I saw a Facebook post today where Adam, Brandon's assistant, replied to someone that team Sanderson was doing another printing and that it would be available sometime this summer. I think it was in the thread where they posted the FAQ answer about the man who calls himself Taln's Shard/Honorblade.

I am assuming this is a WoB? Also, passing a bond is a bit different than completely ending it, no? Elantris, as an example, shows Seon bonds can be passed from person to person but breaking the bond has serious consequences for the Seon. I would imagine that spren react similarly to unplanned breaks. I believe this is before he says any Oaths though.

Hi @Yata, I am happy to see you commenting! You are a knowledgeable Sharder and I am glad to have your help in either making this theory stronger or your help in revealing its weaknesses. I addressed the fact that there are still Parshendi despite the efforts of the Knights Radiant in my initial post (see emphasis). The Knights Radiant may have been unsuccessful due to the one Order that kept their oaths, perhaps they simply failed at correctly disabling the underlying principle, or maybe, for a completely unknown reason, their gambit was simply failed. First thought: is it possible for a Knight Radiant, who has sworn the Oaths/Ideals, to simply release their bond? I cannot think of any in-book evidence of this off-hand and I do not recall any WoBs to this effect but I am also aware that I lack a perfect memory haha. Second: The mechanics of how the Knights Radiant changed/damaged the underlying principle (see assumption 2) is unknown. It might have required the Knights to break their oaths. Maybe. I know it is a stretch but we do have evidence that the Knights broke their oaths and killed all of the bonded spren. Perhaps this was done with the consent of their spren to hide the knowledge of what had happened so that people could not undo it. The Knights simply vanished into history and the spren were locked into their "dead" state meaning no one could reveal how to "fix" the broken magic. Basically, while I realize some of these thoughts are a stretch we have evidence that nearly every single Knight broke their oath around the same time - what could possibly convince all of the Knights Radiant to do such a thing? I figure this theory is at least somewhat credible at answering this question.

As far as I am aware, we do not know if the Skybreakers are the Order that secretly kept their Oaths though it some evidence does point that way. That is why I said "possibly".

This is Honor's world and the Radiant's are chosen by Honor (and Cultivation). I think it is entirely plausible and I think Brandon would write it that way. Also, as we know, One Order, despite agreeing to the Recreance, secretly did not participate. What could have possibly convinced 9 out of 10 Orders of the Knights Radiant to murder their spren and forsake their vows? A chance to save their world perhaps? What do you think could cause those Knights to willing give up @galendo?

Perhaps I was not clear. It is not that breaking Radiant bonds somehow also breaks Parshendi bonds but rather that the underlying principle of bonding itself was broken. Whatever magical properties allow sentient humanoids to bond with spren was disrupted somehow. If the Radiants firmly believed they could stop the Voidbringers by giving up their oaths then I think that would be a decision they would support. Especially if there was some sort of "divine" sanction on the idea - either a Herald or a Shard giving their approval. Maybe Ishar is even more to blame than we suspect?

Hey 17th Shard, My best friend shared with me an interesting theory that I wanted to run past you. He is not much for the forums but he did say he would be OK if I shared it here. I took his idea and built up a quick assumption list to help solidify his insight. Assumptions: 1. Bondsmiths can make and break Nahel, and other, bonds between a person and a spren. This assumption is not, necessarily, pivotal to the theory but perhaps the Bondsmiths are the ones who figured out what to do. 2. There is some sort of fundamental, underlying principles that dictate how these bonds are formed. Perhaps it is the innate system of the Rosharan system that makes the rule, perhaps Honor/Cultivation have a hand in it, perhaps it is a mix of those two, or perhaps it is something else altogether. Whatever the reason is, I do not think it is too big of a stretch to say that Brandon would create governing principles for the Rosharan magic systems. 3. The Knights Radiant of old (pre-Recreance) knew that Parshendi (or Parshmen) were Voidbringers. Or, since there is some debate about what a Voidbringer actually is, we might say that the Knights Radiant of old were aware that Parshendi/Parshmen were involved, somehow, with Desolations and Voidbringers. Theory: The Knights Radiant, knowing that Parshendi were related to the Desolations/Voidbringers (see assumption 3), discovered a way to break (see assumption 1) the underlying magical principle (see assumption 2) that allowed Parshendi to bond with Voidspren. In doing so, however, they also had to break their own bonds as well because the underlying principle applied to both their Nahel bond and the Parshendi bond. The Recreance was a direct result of the Knights Radiant deciding to give up their bonds because they thought it would forever prevent the Voidspren from bonding with the Parshendi again. We know that one Order of Radiants (possibly the Skybreakers) secretly kept their bonds which means that whatever a Bondsmith (see assumption 1) did to break the underlying principle (see assumption 2) was not completely successful - either due to the Order that secretly refused or perhaps because the Bondsmith just did something wrong. This mistake/accident/betrayal meant that some of the Parshendi remained Parshendi (Eshonai's people) and most turned into the Parshmen. This also means that the line in the Diagram about Taravangian possibly reusing the secret that broke the Radiants before could be referring to this. If the current Radiants were told that they could break all of the Voidspren's bonds with Parshendi by sacrificing their spren what would Kaladin, Shallan, and the others do? Could they justify to themselves not doing this? If they could save the world by sacrificing their spren... well, I think it would be hard for them to refuse. What say you Sharders? Is it possible that the Recreance was caused by the Knights Radiant delibrately trying to break the bonding process so that Parshendi could never again join with a Voidspren?

Shardplate enhances the wearer's speed somewhat. Dalinar could've subconsciously drawn in Stormlight in his rush to go protect Elhokar from the Chasmfiend, and the enhanced speed provided by Stormlight added to the boost provided by Plate(which makes sense for KR to have yet another thing going for them against Thunderclasts) Came here to say this but @The One Who Connects already did. So, uh, ditto.

Hi @Gudbrand, is there a WoB that states Hoid can do that or are you extrapolating from known information?