Lightspine

It's definitely probable that Honor's death has had an effect on the Nahel bond. Some stuff that Nale mentions points to this, and I've seen it discussed that perhaps five oaths is no longer a limit. However, I think there might be a different explanation for how Soulcasting has changed; Shadesmar has become more dangerous. The spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation, so this WoB makes it very likely Honor's death lead to an explosion in their numbers. Syl mentions that intelligent spren are much more common now than they were before the Recreance, so we at least know for sure that their members have increased. And we also know that some spren, such as angerspren, are extremely dangerous in the Cognitive Realm. In addition, the Oathgates no longer facilitate travel between Realms, so it's easier to get trapped in the Cognitive Realm—with Cultivation's perpendicularity being the only escape (although this is more of a danger for Elsecallers than it is for Lightweavers, who can't fully enter the Cognitive on their own). Since Transformation involves partially entering Shadesmar, as we see Shallan do at the end of WoK, the more dangerous nature of the Cognitive Realm could very likely be the reason behind Jasnah's quote.

Possible, but it would be immensely disappointing for an important character whose literally been built up since the prologue of WoK.

I don't think the traitor feeding Dalinar's info to the SoH is among the upper ranks. They're able to inform them about his plans, but obviously Shallan's offer of fabrial diagrams was outside of their reach. This means they're almost definitely not one of the scholars/ardents who works with Navani, so we can rule out that contingent of people. Taravangian is an option, but he's such a higher-up in the coalition that I'm pretty sure he could have provided the fabrial technology the SoH. Could be one of the Highprinces, though. Restares is suspiciously missing, but I think it would be an interesting twist if Ialai was Restares all along. (Cue astronaut meme?) One last thing I have on my mind is that Honorspren which hasn't bonded anyone. I saw somebody else here suggesting it's Phendorana trying to claim Kaladin because she's more "senior" than Syl. I like that idea, but there's another possibility on my mind: Somebody had to have experienced being stabbed by one of those spears the first time, right? As the number of Windrunners grows, the chances of one of them dying increases as well. I think it's possible that a Bridge 4 Windrunner died and left behind the unbonded spren Kaladin mentions, and that's one of the things weighing heavily on Kaladin. As for the theory that they're after Rock, I don't think that's the case. His beliefs might keep him from combat, but he obviously has no problem with surgebinding, so I'm more inclined to the idea that he belongs to another order. He would fit the Edgedancers (interaction with Rlain during Oathbringer POV) or Stonewards (can't think of someone more dependable) quite well.

Ah, perhaps they need the investure in order to make up the loss of leaving behind a body, instead of perfectly converting that body's investure to spren form? Building off what you said, maybe being a Cognitive Shadow stapled to a body is what impedes the full "phase change" of investure.

I was heavily considering this description when I crafted the original post, but I wasn't sure how it could lead to the corpse left behind each time. I'm wondering if you have any insight on this. How Radiant spren --> shardblades works (or at least my interpretation, this could be more up to debate than I realize) is that the investure that makes up the spren is of Honor and it can make a "phase change" from their spren form to solid Tanavastium metal. This process is completely reversible (much like phase changes of matter in real life). For the Fused, this should mean that their physical body is built by some "phase change" converting the investure that makes up their soul from the red-light-spren-thing form into flesh and blood. I don't have a problem with this part since investure, energy, and all matter are the same in the cosmere. However, this should allow for the reverse "phase change" of investure from physical body to spren-ish form without leaving anything behind, right?

Thanks for the praise! I'm just a little confused by what you mean here. We haven't seen spren needing investure to remain in the Physical Realm once they're already there, have we?

That's a really cool idea, and I think it's totally possible that the crumbling body is being soulcasted. However, I don't think they're soulcasting the new body. First of all, that would allow for clothes (although not invested spheres, I guess). More importantly though, I think soulcasting a biologically functional body is kind of impossibly difficult. It's just too intricate, and far beyond the abilities of any soulcasters we've ever seen. So, even if they're soulcasting, the new body is probably being formed by their coginitive or spiritual aspects being reflected into the Physical.

I guess that could make sense, even it's not my intuitive interpretation of what's going on. That's essentially what my theory is saying, although I'm claiming Transportation is needed to get their "spren form"/cognitive shadow into the Physical Realm. My explanation for the body crumbling is that this process separates the cognitive shadow, which is the Fused's cognitive aspect, from their physical body. Sorry if that wasn't clear!

I see, that makes a lot more sense than how I originally interpreted you. However, I do still think the process you describe would make distance irrelevant: moving a hundred meters shouldn't take any longer than moving ten. This is not the impression I got from the description: In addition, I don't see why your explanation would involve the "red-violet light" zipping around at all. Especially since it doesn't seem to be simply moving in a straight line between locations:

That makes sense when it comes to the body-forming bit, but I'm a bit confused by what it means to "move" the spiritual self. As you said, all places (and times too) are one in the Spiritual realm, and I don't think we've actually ever seen an instance of such movement. Also, shouldn't this allow for more instantaneous movement? If the Fused is moving spiritually, distances shouldn't matter and I don't see why Kaladin would outspeed him with Lashings. If anything, I think this might better explain Oathgates than the Fused.

In the most recent chapters, we just saw that "teleporting" Fused doing some extremely weird stuff. His method of movement is clearly different from the instances of Transportation we have already seen. Just a short summary of differences: No rotating column of light (seen with Oathgates and WoR epilogue) Leaves a crumbling body behind The Fused can't take its clothing or possessions with it. It's clear that it isn't just popping back and forth from the Cognitive Realm. When people enter the Cognitive, they are able to take their body with them as well as their possessions. (WoB spoilered for length): Rather, the fact that the Fused forms a new body with every appearance is more reminiscent of the principle behind stormlight/feruchemical gold healing; using investure to change your body to match your perception of self. It could also be related to what @Scriptorian points out here. First of all, however, I think I actually have an explanation for what's going on with that crumbling body. It would be one thing if the body left behind were flesh and blood, but this one turns to soft stone (crem?) and then disintegrates away. We see that stuff like bodies can change the material they are composed of through Soulcasting, which alters the cognitive aspect of objects and has repercussions in the Physical Realm. But what would happen if an object (or body) somehow had its cognitive Identity ripped away? All matter in the Cosmere must have a cognitive aspect born from how it is perceived by sentient beings, so I believe that an object that loses its identity would fade away. But first, its appearance in the Physical Realm would be influenced by perception. And on Roshar, I think that the general consensus is that crem is the most bland, boring, nothing stuff in existence. Thus, when something on Roshar has a cognitive aspect of "nothing," perception leads to it manifesting as crem. Thus, the Fused is operating by moving its cognitive self independently from its physical self, thus robbing its physical body of a cognitive aspect. I think whatever surge it's using—most likely Transportation, but maybe we're getting tricked—is critical to this. Here is my proposal on the sequence of events: First, the Fused uses Transportation to create a "mini perpendicularity" and moves its cognitive shadow into the Physical Realm. It moves as a spren can, since spren and cognitive shadows are pretty much the same thing realmatically speaking, and then creates another "mini perpendicularity" to re-enter the Cognitive Realm. (Note: in case you're confused, spren like Syl and windspren are completely in the Physical Realm and can fly around anyway) Since it does not perceive itself as "dead," the physical reflection of its cognitive aspect manifests, forming a body. Basically, the opposite of Jasnah transferring her physical self into the Cognitive Realm and back. I hope my theory doesn't seem too ridiculous or overly complicated. Maybe there's a simpler explanation for what's going on here!

Nice catch! Fixed?! (sorry for poor editing skills)

Made this a couple days ago but realized i probably couldn't put it in cremposting. Thank you so much for creating a meme page where RoW spoilers are fine!

One of the reasons I was proposing the Connection theory is that the Fused don't operate through bonds, as they haven't bonded the spiritweb of the singer whose body they are inhabited but rather completely replaced that spiritweb with their own. However, I really like your coppercloud idea. It has some merit, although we would still have to explain why the Fused could use Transportation. That said, wearing an aluminum helmet would definitely not protect against a coppercloud's effects. If anything, wearing aluminum mimics a coppercloud. Aviars work in pretty much the same way.

I didn't deeply research my theory last night about how the fabrial might be using Connection since I was about to sleep, but I've now found some pretty compelling evidence surrounding it today. I did a bit of digging and found this WoB: I think this pretty solidly backs the idea that the fabrial could somehow work by suppressing Connection. It's solidified by what Syl says to Dalinar in her interlude: Here, Syl is asking Dalinar to strengthen her bond with Kaladin, and pretty strongly implies that he might be able to do this because he can manipulate Connection. This explains why the ability he used to speak Azish strongly resembles the Connection Feruchemy we see in Mistborn Era 2. However, this quote from Syl's interlude mentions Connection and might make things a bit tricky: If the fabrial had reduced Syl's Connection to Kaladin, which is providing her Connection to the Physical Realm, shouldn't that have lead to her mind weakening? Syl doesn't seem to experience this, so I could be off the mark. This is where the theorizing gets a bit rocky. I'm completely convinced that the Nahel bond comes from Connection, but it's hard to say what the effects of lessening that Connection should be—Sanderson basically RAFO's that part of the question—and if it could line up with what we see the fabrial doing. My gut instinct is to say that Connection strengthens as one progresses through the oaths, and therefore the consequences of reducing Connection should look a lot like reverting back a few oaths. This would line up with being unable to summon Syl as a shardblade, something Kaladin couldn't do until his last oath. However, Kaladin has been able to use surgebinding even before he swore his first oath. In addition, we see Godeki (? spelling unknown) unable to take in stormlight while the fabrial is active, another thing that Radiants are able to do before their oaths. However, we don't know which oath Godeki is on—if he's just first or second oath, maybe his Connection was weaker to begin with and the weakening effect of the fabrial was more profound. There's a lot of room for speculation.

I haven't seen anyone point this out yet, but the fact that Shallan is a Lightweaver certainly makes this decision mysterious. Cryptics and honorspren do NOT like each other, so it seems like a very odd choice. Maybe it has something to do with @KandraAllomancer's point? What if Shallan has to disguise Pattern as an Inkspren for the mission?

Fair point, I guess we don't know anything for sure. That said, I think that as assumptions go, it wasn't a bad one. We know for sure that Abrasion and Gravitation weren't accessible, but there's reason to believe that it extends further than that. First of all, Syl can't manifest as a shardblade. And secondly, the other Edgedancer (Godeki? Anyone know the spelling?) seems to have been unable to draw in stormlight. Um, I wasn't trying to imply that his bond was broken, just that he shouldn't have been able to use Adhesion during this time.

That's always been my thought about this up until the chapter 7 reading, when it happens while the fabrial is suppressing surgebinding.

I think you've got a cool theory, but I believe you may have gotten this part a bit backwards. It's been my belief ever since we learned about spren "betraying" the singers in favor of humans that the Nahel bond brings a spren more fully into the physical realm than a bond with a singer. Singers are closer to the cognitive realm than humans and thus have less to provide, so to speak, to the spren through their bond. (I thought there was a WoB on this, but can't find it. Perhaps I'm wrong!) This is why (might be paraphrasing, just reciting this from memory) "though broth are we, their meat is men." (referring to spren, spoken from point of view of a Listener) To me, this is basically confirmed in Oathbringer when Syl describes leaving the Cognitive Realm. When Syl decided to to seek a bond with Kaladin, she had to enter the physical realm completely and lost a great deal of her memories and intelligence. @Pagerunner already cited the relevant quotes in his earlier reply. From what we can tell, she is still in the Physical realm even when she is not being summoned as a Shardblade. Some other evidence for this is that windspren are some of the few spren that can interact with objects physically, just as Syl does (bringing Kaladin a leaf), and we know that they in particular exist far more in the Physical than the Cognitive. Edit: Originally I didn't have much of an alternative theory of my own, but I thought of something now. I like your theory because I do believe that the fabrial must somehow be targetting the Nahel bond. The Nahel bond, however, isn't Cognitive but Spiritual; Syl and Kaladin's spiritwebs are connected, and Syl's spiritweb will be damaged if Kaladin breaks the bond by breaking his oaths. This is different from the Fused. As @Isilel pointed out, the Fused aren't necessarily operating with a "bond." It's clear that the singer who originally inhabited the body of the Fused is dead. Thus, I believe that the spiritweb has been replaced entirely with that of the Fused, rather than "bonded" to the cognitive shadow. The fabrial could work, therefore, if it weakens spiritual connections. So, maybe Connection? It sounds right in my head, but there's some problems with this. We don't understand Connection entirely, and when we see it used in the Mistborn series it's towards the land/culture and not towards other spiritwebs. Could this fabrial make you forget how to speak your native language? Hopefully one of you has a better grasp of how Connection works, and if it's even the same thing as the spiritual Nahel bond. I would really love to learn more/be corrected if I'm wrong.

My take on this is that he might have been involved with Ulim. It's strongly suspected that Ulim is the voice in the Rhythms telling Klade to buy Szeth, because of Venli's presence. I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened in Kholinar, and that we know Gavilar could transport something between Roshar and Braize. This could explain how Ulim escaped Braize. Also, as far as we know, Ulim only began working with Venli after this event. What this would mean is that Ulim backstabbed Gavilar by providing the Listeners with the tool they used to assassinate him.

I think we've also seen the Progression Fused as well: they're the big, bulky ones which grow their carapace. Kaladin fights several of them during his battle with Amaram. I just checked, and they aren't listed on Coppermind, but I'm pretty confident in my identification.

You're right, and this is one of the reasons I was hesitant about this theory. However, I don't believe it nullifies the theory because I'm not sure how strict the definition of "splinter" is. Every Shard's investure permeates the Cosmere, whether or not the Shardholders controlling them actively handles that investure. This, for example, is why Nightblood is said to contain some of Ruin's investure, despite seeming as if he should be a splinter of pure Endowment. His nature is to destroy, so some of the character (perhaps the best term here is Intent?) of his investure is that of Ruin. (At least, that's my interpretation of that.) The same could apply to the Heralds. If the Unmade were created out of their malice during torture, Odium does not need to necessarily give the investure in order for them to manifest as investure with the Intent of Odium. So, the real question is, would this be considered a splinter of Odium? Is any being of Odium's investure a splinter, or do they need to "break off" from him as the imagery of the term "splinter" seems to imply?

Thank you!

My theory doesn't involve Hessi knowing that the Unmade were involved in the Herald's torture. She was able to scrounge up the names of Unmade such as Re-Shephir and Ba-Ado-Mishram despite the fact that they have been trapped or missing for millennia, so I don't think it's a terrible stretch to say that she could have found the name of an Unmade who has been missing since Aharietiam. However, Hessi doesn't know that Chemoarish is missing, and instead tried to piece together her lore from stories that had been mismatched with the Nightwatcher and maybe Chanarach. Wow, I had completely forgotten about Dilaf's wife and had to pick up Elantris again. I'm not sure what this means for my theory, as its hard to rule out Dilaf's experiences with Dakhor as a contributing factor to hearing his voice. I thought the special closeness of Realms on Roshar might have some affect, and the state of Sel's Realms aren't exactly normal either. Looking back at my interpretation of Jezrien's suffering, perhaps breaking away from the influence of one of the Unmade is simply one way of many to regret having done terrible things. They drive people to do acts that they would be unlikely to do otherwise, so maybe all they're doing is making it easier to fulfill the circumstances needed to hear the voices. I'm not sure how that would relate to Nale's comment on Szeth's torment being tied to his power. Dilaf also gains a very different motivation from his voice. Instead of being directed at him, his wife's fervor for revenge is pointed at Elantris. Although I agree that they are likely to also be echoes from the Spiritual Realm, the mechanism behind their occurrence may be completely different.

Wow, I wish I had known about that. I seem to remember Dalinar noticing the corpses of a Dysian Aimian in his vision of Aharietiam, so that would corroborate this idea. Thanks for sharing this info! If I may ask, how do you find WoBs outside of Arcanum?