Renen

11 minutes ago, Karger said:

I am fairly certain this is what they are doing but spren seem pretty hard to kill.  They are ideas composed of pure investiture I don't think you can just hit them.

Yeh I meant that as spren-kill. Obviously they are pretty durable but they can be broken up hard enough to be functionally dead. (Actually, is that what Kaladin does when he uses Sil to stab a voidspren?)

15 minutes ago, Karger said:

Sure but you don't have to be capable of using something personally to know that it is valuable and worth protecting.  Evi was important enough to marry Dalinar due to her plate even if she did not know how to wear it herself.

True. But we also know that unbonded spren arent very intelligent (in some aspects). So could be due to that?

17 minutes ago, Karger said:

Lift was chosen for several reasons that Wyndle lists if you pay attention.  He was given the responsibility by the ring

Yeh I know. I was more trying to point out that we have all sorts of spren making bonds. 

17 minutes ago, Karger said:

Cryptic government would allow a rebellious teenager access to the equivalent of nukes or would leave him unsupervised long enough for him to sneak away

Fair enough. Then again, this is the Cosmere. We have all sorts of folks getting access to all sorts of world shattering rust. I think w/o knowing what the dawnshards are though its nearly impossible to discuss them as we dont even know if they are pocket sized or skyscraper sized (granted highly unlikely but you know what I mean)

1 minute ago, Karger said:

I think the fused would work quite hard to hunt down a potential Radiant.

A spren capable of the Nahel bond you mean. But then they'd better spend their time going to the cognitive realm and murdering several cities worth of them. 

3 minutes ago, Karger said:

Also why would a supercryptic go on a dangerous mission to bond Elhokar?

Well, simply having a dawnshard wouldnt make it a supercryptic. Its possible spren cant even do anything with them by themselves. Though I think we can freely assume that any type of spren can decide to go bond. By type I mean their err... position I guess? You can have a gardener go bond Lift, you can have "the last daughter" go bond some depressed bridge man, and I imagine you can have some super important spren also decide to go bond a king. If some spren royalty decided to go form a bond, who would stop them right?

19 minutes ago, RShara said:

Nah, the Cryptic is the one that was trying to bond with Elhokar before he was killed

Yeh I know that. But as Sanderson says theres generally more to every individual. It may not be a powerful cryptic, but it may be one that has/knows location of the dawnshard. Because as much as the fused hate un-corrupted spren I doubt they'd be spending this much effort to hunt down one single cryptic. Though I do admit, my idea is very much out there.

While a veeeery remote possibility, I have the following theory:

Given that seeing the future is possible and in some instances in the cosmere that future gets seen reeeeeeeeally far in advance (Hero of ages prophecy), perhaps this quote can be talking about someone in the present. At the very end of Oathbringer we have Hoid walk into the ruined palace in Kholinar and rescue an unknown cryptic. Could the cryptic be the one with the dawn shard? It is certainly being looked for hard enough, and it'd be small enough that a normal staircase would look quite big to it (not sure about ten strides but...)

But wait... didnt we have frost appear on Szeth too? When he held the honor blade? So perhaps its instead in both of those cases they were using one of the surges (maybe not even specifically adhesion) on an object and the frost was like... not all investiture fitting into it and some is left on the outside as a residue?

Right. But how does a bunch of parshmen help him kill cultivation? Not like enough pasrhmen bumrushing a shard would work. Presumably whatever he is working towards is still ultimately his escape, but I wonder if we have anything hinting at a direction? Assuming he 100% wins and all humans die and theres only parshmen on Roshar. Then what? Does he maybe need to kill all the heralds? And why cant that be accomplished via getting some top tier fused to stealthily do them in? They arent unkillable. They are separated. And some too mad to even resist much. Why start a noticeable desolation? 

With what we see of the blade draining the color from folks, could it have been made to be a breath extractor? As in, you don't get a choice (or have to say rust) your breath is getting extracted (and you get dead). So perhaps with it having some breath capacity maybe it's actually just visually... more? With how odium is described as adonalsium's divine wrath (that is not being dpened by other attributes like preservation) I think Endowment is basically adonalsium's divine glory? It saturate colors, makes things seem more rich. It could be that in book 4/5 someone just gets that the reason they count the sword on the same level as the very impressive radiant shard blades, is because it has this aura of just looking better than a normal sword somehow? 

On 26/06/2019 at 1:01 AM, John Flamesinger said:

She was at least the 3rd ideal, since that was when Radiants get Shardblades. I suspect what you asked happened, but I don't think she ever got past the 3rd. For example, where is her armor? I think that was something Jahsna asked.

Storms. I misspelled Jahsna, didn't I? I'm a horrible fan.  

Well we already have example of her taking 10 seconds to summon a blade just because oh how she thought of it. I doubt it's a stretch to assume she's lying to herself about having the plate. 

P. S. While discussion strayed a tiny bit from ideal and into shard plate possession, it's still a fascinating read. I can see where both sides are coming from! 

Reading the part where the fused tell Venli about fighting to make a world for parshmen, I got thinking... Why on earth is odium even bothering with the parshmen? I mean we know he is strapped. Presumably his #1 goal is to not be trapped. So how is he trying to accomplish that? Does murdering all humans somehow free him (doubtful)? Is he just doing it for the lulz(that sounds like a silly reason)? What is his goal for helping these random humanoids with gemhearts murder some other humanoids? It is highly unlikely he just gave up on leaving the system and just decided that mads murder is a fun time waster. 

I think the way you have to look at is is like this:

Think of shardblades as those unrealistic anime swords. While yes regular shard blades are stupidly big and do some other things, Azure's is smaller but looks just as unrealistically anime. Just without being overwhelmingly big. 

I'd say it'd be like a comparison between a sword like this, and a regular steel sword you'd see in history. 

Going over Oathbringer yet again, and a few things stand out at me (forgive me for lack of direct quotes I can try go looking if need be).

I think Shallan could have always been on her 4th (maybe even 5th?) ideal the whole time. 

From the very beginning she is noted to be very good at suppressing stormlight. Something theorized to be a skill of voidbringers/high ideal radiants (As Nale mentions that new skybreaker leak too much stormlight). This could be due to her being a lightweaver, as a special skill they possess being prone to espionage and subterfuge. However it could also be due to her always being above other radiants. 

 She was the radiant for far longer than any of the others currently alive (bar heralds), and as a child likely had much less issues about speaking truths than any adult is. 

While we see her progressing through her oaths again, it could just be her getting back in touch with who she is rather than speaking them for the first time. She already had the sword even as a child after all. If the skybreaker's 5th ideal is "I am law", then it is possible that the 5th ideal for a lightweaver is "I am Shallan" (or similar). Given what we see of her, she is clearly all about denying who she is, actively running from her past and memories, and trying to hide behind façades. 

We are told that the bond cannot be broken after the 5th ideal is spoken. And we see that a radiant who's ideals are about acknowledging the truth about themselves manages to lie to themselves sooooo hard she forgets she's a radiant. It could be that she simply didn't lie to herself hard enough, but I suspect it could have been the 5th ideal that held the bond together. Even with her lying to herself as hard as she did, she still knows she is Shallan, and it's still the strongest level of a bond. 

We also have several instances where Pattern tries to remind her of her oaths. As far as I understand her 2nd and 3rd ideals are widely thought of as admitting that she is the one responsible for her parent's deaths. But there's no point to remind her of that. She is no longer lying to herself about them, and bringing them up doesn't really help her in any situation. However trying to get her to remember something like "I am Shallan" would actually be useful, given her split personality disorder that we know Pattern is concerned about. 

Anyone has any input? 

And what's the deal with the last legion? What did they do for the past... forever? The Alethi seem to only learn of them recently. 

Is lift a minor character? On one hand you barely see her. On the other she has her own short book... 

But yeh Lift is a darling. 11/10 would discuss old man butts with her again

But they supposedly messed it up by surge binding too much right? Did they lose the surge binding upon coming to Roshar? 

What's the scouring again? 

And I have a question about 2. Where did the humans show up from and why? 

P. S. Amazing summary. 10/10!

Can anyone explain the order of various ancient historical events? I'm trying to get properly placed what happened early on thousands of years ago (from as early in the planet's history as possible) 

In the scene right after Adolin is proposing to teach Shallan swordplay, Shallan and pattern are discussing her panic attacks. Feeling guilty about being used to kill Shallan's mother pattern says "I can die Shallan. I can go. They will send you another one to bond." (not direct quote, listening to audiobook atm) 

Is pattern claiming that in the even he is dead and gone, the Cryptics would send Shallan a replacement? Would they be so desperate to have just one more radiant in the fight as to send a replacement to someone who killed their previous spren? 

I have a feeling that the destruction of the planet might be a red herring. It just feels off that basically being "eco friendly" is what made radiants murder their BFFs. 

I think now that spren are coming back, Spark was like "storm this, I'll risk bonding and dying if it helps me get back at those evil humans". Because he's an ashspren, it seems reasonable that destruction in the name of revenge would make it worth potentially dying. Just like pattern takes the risk for the knowledge. 

To the point about the spren not being able to stop their radiants, while that may be true, I have a few issues with that line of thought (though I may be wrong):

1) They still would have told other spren. There's no way the Radiants planned the recreance in such a way that their spren knew, disagreed, but weren't able to tell anyone. 

2) The synchronized breaking of oaths we see in the vision is is strange. Did they really have several hundred radiants simply break their oaths at the same time? Each one would have had individual oaths, each one would have had to storm up that bond in a somewhat unique way, all in the span of a few seconds. Perhaps they came up with some more universal "rip out the nahel bond" trick rather than breaking oaths? 

4 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

And like human society, keeping absolute secrecy on something so large is almost impossible. Someone would find out, and given the immortal nature of the spren, that information would get around in the years after the recreance. Conversely even if the spren found out the radiant's were about to kill them, the spren couldn't flee because as per Brandon, breaking the oaths without killing the spren requires both sides to agree. 

Maybe? Totally get the idea works for you. Just doesn't feel right to me. I feel they could have accomplished the same thing by mutually ending the bond. They would theoretically be more successful in my mind with stopping further bonding because the spren could keep an eye on other spren and the humans an eye on the humans. If a budding radiant is discovered, have people show up with larkin to drain stormlight, and then forcibly break the bond early like how the honorspren on the boat says they can do, keeping both alive. 

 

I think there are two main ways it could have happened:

1) The radiant spren were in on it

2) They weren't in on it

But if they weren't in on it, it would imply that the Radiants were able to coordinate murdering all their spren (in some cases hundreds of radiants at once) without their spren raising the alarm. I think it'd be impossible to make such plans when you have invisible nosy fairies all around you. 

And there's also the fact that all radiants agreed. So either there was 0 discussion and everyone was instantly on board with murdering their BFF and not saying a single word to anyone, or they have already talked about this with their spren and got everyone on board eventually. 

I imagine when dealing with spren and being this hung up on oaths, there were ways to say "Hey let's have this secret conversation, but you have to promise not to say anything to anyone" 

15 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

 how could all the other spren not know that their compatriots were planning to sacrifice themselves?

Since it's mentioned that spren society is somewhat similar to human one (they have leaders, they have general labourers etc) it's possible that the spren of the Radiants either didn't tell anyone or only told the spren equivalent of kings. 

As for why they wanted to break the bond this way, it's possible they did it specifically as a grand gesture (like some people who self immolate to send a message). They wanted to make it a big event that will horrify the other spren, and they wanted the shards to be left on Roshar for general use so other spren see humans swinging around the corpses of their own kind and be that much more hesitant to bond. 

Basically I think it could have been a mass suicide to send a message. And the message being "No more radiants" 

Having been reading the following thread, and was hoping to start up some more discussion. 

One possible way to look at it would be that the Radiants and their spren (likely without telling any of the other spren, or at most telling only some top tier elite) decided that the order or radiants must stop existing. When ivory mentions that the skybreakers chose to live in death, its possible he is talking about them choosing to go along with the plan without breaking their oaths, making them just hide and do such a good job, no one even remembers that one order sorta skipped dying. 

The rest (a long with their spren) seems to have decided that the absolute best way to make sure there are no more radiants like at all, was to make the humans out to be spren murdering monsters. Also monsters that betrayed humanity. Now 99% of spren want nothing to do with humans, and even the 1% like Syl are being forcibly held back. And humans now hate the Radiants wanting nothing to do with anything even remotely related to them, let alone wanting to become them. 

One possibility I'm thinking of is that maybe the sons of honour (and Nale) are into something, and more radiants does have the voidbringers return. Maybe that was the trigger strong enough to make them all agree to do something this bad? Or maybe some benefit to suddenly dropping the radiant population into (at best) low double digits?

Adolin Kaladin you say? O.o

Personally I'm holding out hope for Kaladin/Syl. 

I think I remember a bit in OB where Stormfather explains that impressed with Honour's mixtape of visions (Was Dalenar not the 1st time he showed them?) . Plus with how he did it with Dalenar, he just picks a person, shows them the mixtape and offers no explanation. I don't see a religious movement start up fro. The way he does it. More likely the ardent would try to quietly murder anyone who mentiones the visions to them. 

Having been re-reading the series I was hoping to get some feedback from the community... 

We have Hierocracy doing their best to erase knowledge of the knights radiant, having visions that were not sent by Honour (though I don't think we are told if they were proven 100% fake or just "not visions the almighty would send"), we have the latest "followers" being the sons of honour trying to bring back the voidbringers, and we have Honour admitting to Dalenar at the end of WoK that Odium has figured out a new plan: having people forget. 

What else to we know about the Hierocracy? Because it seems an awful lot like they were being manipulated if not by Odium (somehow) but by the unmade?