TheFoxQR

I hadn't seen that WoB. Thanks!

Hmmm. Yeah I can see how that would work. These spren literally could have a whole in their spiritweb where they attached to their Radiants. And the Gem allows you to patch in a particular portion of it using your own spiritweb.

Stormlight is just a form of investiture, like Breath. My guess is, you'd need a lot of Stormlight to make Spren-level chunks of investiture. Impossibly huge amounts. Now that you ask though, which shard does Stormlight come from? Yes, but you have to admit the gems are weird. Do they facilitate connection? If yes, then why do the Shardblade holders not gain surges? Or do they do get the surges, but simply do not know they do, just like you need to be told or self realise if something is an Identity-unkeyed metalmind before you can use it? Perhaps the surges come from the Nahel bond, whereas the gemstones just allow the holder to initiate a Connection with the Spren, which the Spren then uses to jump in and out of the physical Realm. It is interesting to note that for the Radiants that we have seen, the ability to summon their own shardblades comes after they get access to surges, although this could simply be tied to the maturity of the spren. As in, the spren needs to form the Nahel Bond to be capable enough to manifest in the PR, but once it is there, and stuck there at that, they do not need the entire Nahel bond to go back and forth?

Theory: Ishar, possibly with the help of some other heralds and spren, created the first Shardblades and laid the foundation for the Nahel Bond, Ideals, and the Knights Radiant. Basically, I think that the Heralds were looking into better tools, weapons, and tech to help their people survive the desolations. Someone had the bright idea of mimicking the Honorblades (because its not like someone trying to imitate soulcutting powergiving indestructible swords hasn't happened before in known Cosmere history - looking at you, Vasher). Ishar either knew how Honorblades worked or he figured it out, and realised that if certain spren could theoretically manifest in the physical realm, it could work (Why these spren, though? Maybe because Honorblades were made up of a chunk of Honor's investiture. If this new weapon was to be made in some sizeable quantity, then such chunks would need to be found in nature like any other resource. Cue, sapient spren.) But since said spren were actual, living, thinking, sapient beings whom Ishar had to convince to become tools of mass destruction, Ishar had to devise a method by which they themselves would choose who they bond with, with this chosen person then being their pathway into the physical realm. Also, such power was too much to simply give away to anyone, since it is implied that the humans destroyed their previous home with surgebinding, and the Heralds being privy to this information meant that they would input some sort of check. One more thing to note is that since much was lost in the desolations, the Heralds would also be looking to pass on some sort of law or codex through between desolations, if only to keep the Humans firmly following Honor and Cultivation, and not fall under Odium's influence again. All of this culminated into the founding of the Radiant Orders. Perhaps it was also Ishar who made the spren promise not to bond with the Parsh, since this would give the strength of Honorblades to the enemy as well. I like this because it requires Ishar to have certain characteristics that he is implied to have in the books anyway, and the implications are vast. For example, it means that the Surges and surge pairs are actually seperate from the Knight Radiant concept. As in, there are other ways to access the surges, which the Humans once knew about and probably used to destroy Ashyn. Also, since WoB states the Honorblades were prototypes, it could be that it was Ishar and the Heralds who actually created or proposed creating Honorblades to Honor. The theory is also corraborated by the fact that atleast one other Herald (Nale), considered Ishar the authority on Knight Radiants and the Final Desolation. If this theory is true, it means that the Knights Radiant were an answer/solution by the Heralds to multiple problems at the same time. They were a weapon against the enemy, a means to make the people aspire to Honorable ideals, an extension of the Herald's reach across Roshar and even between desolations, and a knot that tied mankind and sprenkind together against Odium. It also explains why the Parsh would think the Humans could give something to the spren that they couldn't. They were aware of the fact that changing forms involves attracting spren. From what they could see, the Humans were also attracting spren and gaining something in the process. Since these spren were expressly forbidden from going to the Parsh, and given the differences in their physiology and capability (like how the humans couldn't hear the Rhythms), and given how the Human-spren bonds manifested differently compared to Parsh-spren bonds, it would not be a big leap to assume that the spren got something from the humans that the Parsh simply could not give. Some questions: How much does Jasnah know of this, since she has spent time in the cryptic homecity? Are there leaders among the 9 radiant spren types (discounting the Bondsmith Godspren) who have a list of symptoms to look out for to recognise an approaching desolation and send out their people to look for and bond with prospects? And how does the Oathpact factor into this? Sources: Edit: I'm going to try and explain how this works in my head in a different way. My guess is that the Honorblades were made by Honor making a connection to the Heralds, and then pushing a chunk of his Investiture through this connection into the physical realm, manifesting it as a blade. One part in the design of this blade is that it can "connect" to the spiritweb of individual people, and through this connection grant them the ability to use the Surge-pairs. Another important aspect is that these blades do not always exist in the physical realm, but are held in the cognitive/spiritual and can use their connection to this individual to enter the physical realm at the individual's behest. So when trying to imitate this design, one needed a chunk of investiture, preferably of Honor, and make it form a bond with an individual of a similar kind to that of an Honorblade. My guess is that certain communities of sapient spren already existed in the Cognitive realm, and Ishar went to them, and designed a method by which these spren could from bonds. And since becoming a shardblade was the spren putting themselves at risk of death, Ishar also gave them the power to choose whom to bond. Perhaps the Ideals came from this requirement. Perhaps the individual needed to be "broken" in the first place for the spren to be able to bond with them. And in this inital pact, perhaps Ishar also put in a requirement that the Spren not bond with the Parsh in this manner, as at this time, the Parsh were an enemy of Mankind.

1) Are the mechanics behind how the Parshendi, the Chasmfiends, and other native Rosharran life forms capture and draw on non-sapient spren in their Gemhearts similar to how Fabrials draw power/effects from captured spren? In other words: Are the native Rosharran lifeforms organic fabrials? In even more other words: Are Fabrials a synthetic imitation of native Rosharran life forms? 2) Shardblades and Honorblades - What significance do glyphs or patterns on the blade have? I ask this because we have two seperate descriptions of Honorblades in two different time periods - In the WoK prelude, they are described as having inscribed glyphs and patterns, where as in the current time period both Taln's and Jezrein's Honorblades are described as being plain. Even the artwork reflects this. Similarly, multiple dead spren shardblades have been described as having some inscriptions, while I don't recall Sylblade or Patternblade as ever being described as having any ornamentation of this kind. 3) What do Honorblades look like in the Cognitive realm? We know that the shardblades are spren manifested in the physical realm, and these spren look like people in the cognitive realm when not summoned as a blade. What about Honorblades? What do they look like when they are not in the physical realm in blade form? Are they held in the Cognitive realm? Do they retreat way back into the spiritual?

I think that just because Brandon said the Bondsmiths don't have an Unmade parallel doesn't imply that Ishar has no corresponding Unmade. Remember, no one other than Nale joined their own Order, so if Ishar joined an Order other than the Bondsmiths, he could still have an Unmade equivalent. Also, this could be why there's fuzziness between the Radiant Orders and corresponding Unmade, since each Patron Herald might theoretically represent more than one Order - the one they are a patron of and the one they will eventually join. There could be overlaps here, and Bondsmiths, with their high standards and tough entrance requirements, could easily end up being the least represented.

As has been pointed out before, each "breaking" of a Herald need not be associated with the creation of an Unmade. Rather, I think each time a Herald broke, a part of their soul was ripped and given to their corresponding Unmade. I'm not sure how much I agree with the Hyphen-in-the-name indicating the break count because it would mean that at the beginning of each Desolation, everyone had to scramble to figure out which Unmade had just changed and gotten stronger, and I doubt Odium would have let his creations be studied that closely. And there's just too much hard information about the Unmade, and not any mention of this inherent growing capability of theirs for it to be that overt. But it's definitely interesting. What's also interesting is that Odium seemingly only went after (the rest of) Jezrein's soul after the Thrill giving Unmade got captured. Throwing another curveball: What if this is related to Honor dying? As in, with each breaking, Odium took away some part of that Herald's own soul, forcing Honor to invest more in that Herald to fill in the gap. Eventually, Honor had invested enough in the Heralds that their breaking the Oathpact and acting honorlessly had an impact back on Honor.

Let me begin with a story that Hoid tells Shallan in OB:- My personal theory is Hoid is being alluding to the three Shards on Roshar here. From what we know of Honor, he tried to hold Odium back. Perhaps he formed the Oathpact for that very reason. And he is dead. He tried to stop what was happening by directly working in contradiction to it, and this possibly consumed him. That could be the first person in the story. Later on in the book, when Odium is trying to convert/corrupt Dalinar, he says these: Very similar to the second person in the story. If this is true, then it gives us a hint about both Cultivation and the way she is fighting Odium. I remember Mr. Sanderson implying that Cultivation is very good at seeing the future. Could she have predicted the role of Dalinar in Odiums's invasion? If so, is the boon she granted him specifically granted to counter Odium? If this is true, what about Taravangian's gift? Could she have intervened there as well? Is she, like the third person in the story, trying to cause only slight deviations in the events that are happening so that she can achieve the outcome she wants (Odium losing, or maybe Rayse dying and giving up the Shard to someone else)?