KandraAllomancer

Maybe, though in Dalinar's case his power and reputation turned out to be both a boon and a curse The Sibling wouldn't even probably understand the concept of lighteyeys/darkeyes in the beginning and their Bondsmith would reside in Urithiru anyway, so they seem far less susceptible to choosing an established person of authority. As for the Nightwatcher - Yanagawn maybe? He's literally the middle ground in that regard and watching him grow as a ruler as the NW grows to understand human relations would be extremely interesting

Kind of, yeah Although it could also mean that the sugar or the process of metabolizing stuff into sugar is the gateway, not the food itself

Not related to personality, but I would find it very weird if all Bondsmiths turned out to be human lighteyes (or people with high social status in Azir's case)

We actually also have conflicting (or at least very confusing) WoBs on Lift, but the latter explicitly confirms the analogy with Allomantic metals:

Dalinar definitely became... something. Any question about Unity gets RAFOed, so we don't really know what that was, but his perspective changed (e.g. seeing Odium as small) and whatever he was at that moment, it was enough to scare Odium Yeah, you're right. I was always assuming that they were meant to hurt/bind Odium, but maybe they could be used to save humanity in the aftermath of the conflict. Thanks

I'm treating atium shadows as a low-end futuresight here, given that atium+duraluminium gives people that particular ability Edit: Sorry, I just realized you meant the Valley thing.... Dalinar got a vision of the future where he conquered the continent there Odium called what Dalinar did Ascending. Also, I'm not sure if Vin's body disappeared when she used the Well. Anyway, if Dalinar isn't a Sliver, he's bonded to one, as the Stormfather openly calls himself that They can apparently bind any creature and, per Honor's word, can hurt Odium. That seem to go beyond just weapons To create the Well as a prison, so semantics I guess I'm fairly sure that some of them are random connections, particularly the ones under open questions. But the overall amount of connections made me wonder, hence this thread. I think Investiture from any Shard could exist in gaseous form (and other states of matter), but color-coded, magically inert mist is something more specific and rare

OK, this isn't a theory per se, more like an observation. The basic idea is this – there seem to be many parallels between Cultivation's magic and the Metallic Arts. I have no idea why or what to do with it, so I'm looking for suggestions Here is what I came up with so far: Artificial creation. The Metallic Arts come from an artificially created planet, Old Magic comes from an artificially created godspren Form on Investiture. Cultivation's gaseous Investiture is explicitly called mist and it's green color seems to match the Shard's symbolism, just like on Scadrial. Unlike Breath or Stormlight, it doesn't seem to be directly usable by regular magic users, which again matches the character of Preservation's mists and Ruin's black smoke The effects of the Scadrian godmetals. Allomantic Lerasium and Hemalurgic Atium allow for very general spiritweb modification, and so does the Old Magic. A person burning atium and duraluminium gets pulled into the Spritual Realm, so the regular atium users seem to exist there at least partially, just like Lift exists partially in the Cognitive Realm. Burning atium allows you to see the future, which is an occasional side effect of visiting the Nightwatcher's Valley Cultivation's boons. We have a confirmation that Dalinar and Taravangian got their boons and curses directly from Cultivation. Lift is also a very likely candidate, based on the “Act of Cultivation” WoB. The boons of these three characters actually share some similarities with the three Metallic Arts, and each character also seems to provide a different look at famous users of said magic from Scadrial: Lift – her boon (using food as a gateway for Investiture) is clearly based on the same principle as Allomancy. She also happens to be a young, very Preservation-minded thief with strange, incomprehensible powers given her by a Shard. Unlike Vin, however, Lift is a skilled healer, not an assassin Taravangian – his cognitive abilities (intelligence and compassion) can be increased/decreased at the cost of the other attribute, which bears some similarity to Feruchemy. Like Sazed, he figures a plan o save the world in a moment (OK, more like a day) of transcendence. He doesn't use knowledge gathered by other people though, he uses people as a resource to get knowledge Dalinar – when his boons wears off, he mentions that his pain seems like “tiny spikes in his soul” and he hears a mysterious voice talking to him, a known side effect of Hemalurgy. He's a Sliver (I think he counts after the ending of Oathbringer?) that tries to keep a hostile Shard imprisoned, but unlike Rashek he didn't end up conquering the world There are also some open questions: The Well of Ascension was used to contain a Shard and dramatically change a planet – something very similar to what the Dawnshards are supposed to do. It was also used to create the mistwraiths (and by extension kandra) and had a great effect on Preservation's sanity. We have the kandra-like Siah Aimians on Roshar and Honor wasn't very coherent in his final days... Are these all connected to each other and to Cultivation somehow? The ettmetal is crucial for developing Scadrian technology. Is Cultivation's magic somehow necessary for creating fabrials? Just like the previous question, it points to Aimia If this cool theory turns out to be true, Cultivation's magic helped to create the Nightblood, which contains Ruin's Investiture – another potential link to Scadrial

This particular part of the analogy doesn't work in 100%, I admit. To be fair, however, we don't know to what extent the NW is interested in broader implications of Rosharan culture and human actions, for now she mostly tries to figure out humans by trial and error. As for being a squire - the way I understand it, it's mostly about his Connection to Kaladin and gaining powers in his vicinity. I don't think it's that much different from the relation between Dalinar and Nergaoul, which didn't interfere with him becoming a Bondsmith They are currently the splinters of Odium. We have the outright statement by Sja-anat and some additional clues (red eyes, Shallan's comments on Re-Shephir) that they used to be something else before being unmade/corrupted

I'm not sure if that's just foreshadowing of Moash's affiliation with the Fused or a hint at future events, but it's a great theory anyway

The Stormfather goes from simply a destructive, natural force to the force of Honor thanks to Tanavast's influence. Dalinar's journey from Blackthorn to Bondsmith seems to mirror that. I think we can find good candidates that mirror the history and specific features of the other two godspren as well. Nightwatcher's magic is mostly about spiritweb modification, which can alter a person's biology, physiology etc. in very non-standard ways. She lives in a remote, Cultivation-related place and doesn't fully understand mainstream Rosharan culture. Lift's abilities (which are a hint about broader scope Cultivation magic) are about food and affinity for the Cognitive Realm. We actually have a person that can unite people and ticks all the boxes - Rock. The Sibling is harder, as we know very little about them. My personal theory is that he was initially the same type of spren as the Unmade, but was never corrupted and became Rosharan godspren instead (which explains the lack of Bondsmith Unmade and why the Sibling turned away from humanity after BAM was captured). If so, the perfect candidate would be Rlain, given that most of the Listeners were taken over by Odium. Also, Singers as a whole are kind of organic fabrials and were (metaphorically speaking) slumbering for a long time

Interesting idea, but the basic problem I see here is that (based on what Nale says) Skybreakers seem to seek an external source of guiding principles and that's rather internal Once again, based on the conversations between Syl and Kaladin, the Oaths are based on internal perception, not some external, unchanging truth. Elsecallers might be even harder for Highspren to accept, based on the Machiavellian interpretation of the First Ideal. Nale, however, can make up his own laws, so maybe there is some possibility here. But then again, Nale is crazy and has reached the Fifth Ideal

Another vote for Elsecallers - great for gathering information, make logistics much easier and (given enough Stormlight) are absolute terror on the battlefield. Also, the Machiavellian interpretation of the First Ideal can come in handy in certain situations

I'm fairly sure he wouldn't. Besides the WoB you cited, we have this line from Frost's letter in WoR:

We know she did Enlighten him, but if there was a probable danger of developing red eyes, she took a real risk here. And unless her power to corrupt true spren is something new, she kept it a secret for millenia That's even worse, I assume Fair point

Yeah, but most of them are rather hard to come by, I assume, and therefore not very probable. The probability argument can be applied to Renarin as well. In order for him not to have red eyes you have to assume that: A. Glys was willing to undergo his transformation B. Renarin doesn't reject Glys spiritually, even though he's not very happy about his newly found Voidish powers C. Sja-anat took a huge risk of revealing her ability to corrupt true spen by Enlightening Glys Also, based on the gem archive in Urithiru, it seems that Sja-anat might have corrupted Trithwacther spren before. Once again, huge risk and no mention of red eyes whatsoever. Nothing I mentioned above is impossible, but I wouldn't call these circumstances very probable either

We cannot be 100% sure, that's true, but the options are rather limited:

Possibly, but we have seen another example of a cognitive shadow possessing a (likely dead) body (it's amazing how useful Mistborn is for this discussion):

I like the analogy, but I don't know if it can be applied to the Fused. After the possession, the original Singer is dead, which would mean that the Fused are (spiritually or cognitively speaking) seeing themselves as something deeply unnatural and somehow reject their own nature. That might be true, but I'm not sure if we have any evidence for it Just to clarify my position - I think that the Voidspren are themselves corrupted because of two reasons: A. That seems to be Odium's modus operandi and that's how the Fused and the Unmade came to be B. It's easy to reclaim Investiture that way. Odium explicitly says to Turash that he can always take away his everlasting life, so after Roshar is destroyed, he can simply get his power back and get rid of his no longer necessary minions. I assume that typical splinters would be much harder to gather back, based on the example of (Mistborn spoilers again)

OK, I can mostly agree with that, but there is still a question of I think this case might actually fall under mixing rather than corruption, based on the WoB you cited. That's why I have problems seeing bonding a Voidspren by Singers as full-on corruption, actually. Why isn't it mixing of different Shards' powers? It seems like a natural outgrowth of Singers' biology. If that's corruption, then bonding a seon in a gemheart, for example, should result in red eyes and that's something I find rather hard to imagine

That's a valid point, but it doesn't seem to explain why Renarin doesn't have red eyes. Neither has Zahel, who uses Stormlight to power his immortality coming from another magic system... and I recall nothing red about Nightblood, even though he contains Ruin Investiture and feeds off pretty much anything. Also (Mistborn spoilers): Red eyes on Roshar (besides Regals) are definitely associated with the Unmade and the Fused, which were both something else before being completely taken over by Odium's Investiture

We really don't know. My personal theory is that they (as well as the Unmade) used to be the spren from Ashyn

There are different levels of corruption. What Sja-anat does to spren seems similar to the Old Magic - simply a spiritweb modification. On the other end of the spectrum you have the Unmade, literally unmade and rebuilt using Odium's Investiture. The Voidspren you mentioned seem closer to the latter

I was pretty much 100% convinced that it was the case until today, but after a quick look at the Coppermind article it seems that (based on Azure's account in Oathbringer chapter 93) these two are not correlated. Maybe it has something to do with the Origin?

As @Karger pointed out, we don't know the details, but we have some clues. As far as I can tell, the initial support for humans didn't come from H+C, but from the spren. While Honor is clearly benevolent, his splinters don't necessarily need to be (just look at Spark, Malata's vengeful Ashspren) and might have backed humans out of selfish (but still technically lawful) reasons, as described in the Song of Spren (9th stanza): Then the Fused were created and Honor and Cultivation didn't have much choice but get involved The Fused were specifically turned into cognitive shadows / spren by Odium, probably because of how easy they could possess the Singer bodies (as they have gemhearts)

Not canonized yet, but yes, that's the current explanation: