Halyo_Alex

Doesn't Glys show Dalinar one of his visions somewhere in RoW? I think. But it takes effort. Ohh nevermind I misinterpreted what you meant. Yeah like projecting their PoV like a camera they're carrying on them. I could see that.

I definitely think it's possible to bond with an Unmade. Even if making a meaningful, radiant-like, capital-C Connection requires a Bondsmith's power rather than just being an innate ability like a Radiant Spren. As for the ability the Person would gain from the bond, I think it's a safe bet to lean on the side of Voidbinding, given the quote of Voidbinding "usually" originating with the Unmade. Exceptions to that would be stuff like Glys giving Void Illumination, although Yelig-nar definitely seems to be the other kind of exception, but on steroids. With that in mind... Hmm. I feel like Ba-Ado-Mishram definitely has access to the same sort of "Bondsmithing powers" that Dalinar has. Not the exact same powers, but the same category, just for Voidlight and stuff instead of Stormlight. Also, the Forms of Power thing is weird. Did she give Singers access to Regal-Spren or just... "Declare" that their Form was one of the forms of power using Connection magic and stuff to "spoof" the Voidspren being in their gemhearts herself? I'm leaning towards the latter option because of her capture in a gemstone causing such damage to the Singers. The capturing ripped her out of them and took pieces with her, leading to Slaveform. Hmm. I could see Re-Shephir having the Void equivalent of Progression to "grow" Midnight Essence. to Cultivate it, actually. ...Oof, if that's anything close to what Thornspren would be like, that could be absurd... (context: "Thornlight" is the most common good-sounding name I've heard for Voidlight+Lifelight mixed like how Warlight is, so a hypothetical Thornspren would be a spren specifically made of a blend of Cultivation and Odium, like a "dark" Cultivationspren.) Sja-Anat having Void Transformation sounds right to me, perhaps her bond-mate would gain the ability to Enlighten lesser spren as long as they had Voidlight on hand to infuse into them, and then use them as spies like Sja-Anat does. "Seeing" in that way does really sound like a Truthwatcher-like thing, and she has so far only Enlightened Mistspren, so there's probably something to that.

But then wouldn't every kid telling lies have attracted Cryptics? Maybe some of them wouldn't be well-suited to long-term Lightweaver radiancy (if we had known Shallan had Deadeyed Testament sooner, maybe that would be the consensus for her too), but... That seems like way too commonplace of an event for me, personally.

Just for sheer comedy, take my storming upvote.

Thank you for putting my feelings into coherent thought when I couldn't. I really need to learn to chill out about these sorts of debates, I'm way too sensitive...

I mean I used a calculator for it. So.

100 divided by 9.

Calculator Noises Intensifies 11.11111 (repeating) percent of radiants for the 9 non-bondsmith orders would be "typical" order size.

1 out of every 10 radiants... wait no cause there's only 3 bondsmiths. Dang.

Okay. I... Should not say these words. But that mentality just feels so fundementally wrong to me that it confuses and disturbs me. I don't know how to respond to someone who believes that.

Well at this point I think it's safe to say we just fundementally disagree on multiple philosophical matters, and we can never have a meaningful debate about whether or not Spren are alive. ...Go have fun in your sad little meaningless world all alone in a universe where no other being besides yourself can be proven to actually have a consciousness and be alive, rather than just being a very good approximation of life.

*Visible Confusion* I just... What... Whaaaaaa...???

Notice that I said "the presence or absence of a soul is not the be-all-end-all arbiter of 'life'". That is not the same as saying it's irrelevant. Yes, I initially said "I don't give a damn if you have a soul or not", but I admit, that was out of frustration. (insert punchline here) EDIT: Also, the Slaveform singers and Deadeyes are not their natural state of being, they've been damaged/harmed to put them in that position. That's what's different as well.

To be quite blunt, I don't give a damn if you (or any other being that meets the criteria I listed for why Spren lives matter) have a soul or not. The presence or absence of a soul is not the be-all-end-all arbiter of "life". Even in a fictional setting. Especially in BRANDON'S fictional settings, where moral questions like this are meant to be complex and potentially ambiguous, not cut-and-dry like you're making this out to be.

Skybreakers are good when their goals are aligned with humanity's at large; like an artificial general intelligence. They do what you tell them to, not strictly what you want them to. As we can see with Nale and the modern Skybreaker order (except Szeth).

Okay, so. List of Reasons Why Spren Lives Matter: All Spren: Feel Pain/Discomfort (Lesser Spren trapped in Fabrial gems against their will, Radiant Spren being physically attacked in Shadesmar) Radiant Spren: Can feel emotions Can form memories Can learn to do new things Can communicate meaningfully with humans (who are definitely sentient/sapient) Can have complex goals (e.g. "protect Roshar from being destroyed") Can make high-quality plans to pursue those potentially complex goals I'm sure there's more. @Frustration

Yeah. Spren have feelings. It's the same sort of basis that people use for their choice to be vegetarian or vegan, but instead of animals, it's cognitive entities. Some of which are explicitly self-aware and capable of feeling pain and dislike feeling pain. Computers don't do that.

I would also like to add "Does it have the ability to make high-quality plans for the future" as another indicator, with better planning being a stronger indication (when present with at least some of your original three). This is something that we expect real Artificial General Intelligences to have when we make them, and is typically the thing that we expect to make an AGI cause problems if their plans are formulated to achieve a goal that is misaligned with humanity's goals, like having the goal of maximizing the number of stamps, so it turns the whole world into stamps, people and all, through a complex plan that involves all sorts of machinery and horrible things. Or the intelligence IS aligned with humanity and thinks of (and creates) all the things humanity could ever want, everyone is happy forever in a non-dystopian way, huzzah. So yeah TL;DR if an intelligence can make high-quality plans for the future in pursuit of its goals, that's an important part of being "sentient". Not strictly mandatory, but important.

You can hurt a Spren. They feel pain, both in the emotional sense and the "physical" sense. (for the latter, see: Captain Notum getting assaulted in Shadesmar with the intent to drive him mad from pain, etc). At the very least, the 10 (or, well, 9 plus the Godspren) varieties of Radiant Spren are as "living" as a regular human. They're just life that originated from the cognitive realm rather than the physical one. Investiture itself seeks to be self-aware and intelligent. A dropped, vessel-less Shard would develop its own free will.

WAIT WAIT WAIT. WHAT?! EXPLAIN THIS. The storms do you mean, "sprens' lives have no value"????

Change him to Passion like Rayse said he is.

Actually, there's a WoB that you could get a better accent by tapping Connection AND storing Identity (aluminum), so we know it doesn't truly wipe accents just by tapping duralumin.

...You know, you made me think of something funny. A child Elantrian who just doodles made-up Aons for fun and eventually makes one that actually does something just by chance.

That soulcasting fabrial shield sounds like a potential mechanism... Obviously tweaking it to fit the need. ...Ha, it would literally be a meat shield.

I feel like the Rhythms are an audio equivalent to the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) that we have irl, which is the light from when the universe first became transparent (hydrogen and helium atoms as opposed to subatomic particles whizzing around as a plasma, as if it was the sun everywhere at once). It might be that each Rhythm is an echo of the Shattering.