Master Silver

Someone else had mentioned that the anti-voidlight and anti-stormlight, is really just those substances at a different harmonic frequency. Thinking of light as a wave, they combine in such a way to cancel eachother out. Someone else also said something about canceling out the Shard's intent. With mistborn stuff, when they burn metal they are turning it into a form that can be used. Stormlight is already in that form. As far as I know Nightblood is the only weapon that acts in this way. Do we have any words of Sanderson on what happens to the stormlight Nightblood drinks and if he will ever be full (like full forever).

I mentioned this on another thread but this is certainly the place for it. I was saying that investiture has different state (solid, liquid, gas, plasma). What we saw happen with anti-stormlight, was the result of the anti-stormlight (which was in a gemstone) being channeled and interacting with investiture in the same state. Syl is often described as a ribbon of light. So Radiant spren when not a shard blade are in some form of light. I would imagine that the only thing that can hurt a spren blade is Nightblood. We saw him chip an Honor Blade and of course what we saw him do to Odium. I imagine Radiant spren as a blade would be safe from this type of attack. Otherwise, Sanderson just rendered Shardblades as useless. We saw several of these blades (raydium daggers I think) towards the end of the book.

Does that energy eventually return two investiture. Or does that make it a net loss of investiture for the Cosmere or Shard? Also, (and I've only listened to the book once), but in order for the anti-stormlight or anti-voidlight to work, does it need to be interacting with its counterpart in the same physical state (solid, liquid, gas, plasma)? The void light running through the body of the Fused resides in their gem-heart, but it is in the normal state of void light. When a spren turns into a blade they change states, from light to a solid. I really don't want to dive into the wave-particle duality, and not sure if that would be useful for this particular discussion.

Ok, so SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER, don't read if you haven't finished the book. Everyone was extremely sad with another loss to Bridge Four, and the way it happened, heart wrenching. I imagine though, killing spren is going to be far harder than the fuse think because.... shard blade/shard shields. Now that the Radiants know about this, their spren just need to make sure they manifest in their shard blade form if someone is trying to stab them. Thinking of that made me take a deep breath. Side note, can someone explain to me how this will allow conservation of investiture to be maintained?

wait that works? Monday is my day off soo....

I hadn't thought about the burst of power being a result of connection to the Stromfather. I just thought it was a very brief connection to the spiritual realm.

This could have something to do with the cognitive shadow of Tanavast merging with the Stormfather.

I theorize that my work productivity will be going down substantially starting on Tuesday Nov. 17, 2020

I don't believe bonds can be broken after reaching the fifth ideal without killing the spren. If the Radiant dies while keeping their oaths the spren doesn't die. But if they break their oaths you get a dead eye. We also have no idea how close the bond becomes at the fifth ideal. For all we know the spren can read the radiants mind.

As long as RoW ends with Dalinar burning Big Bad T's eyes out with Oathbringer (thus reviviig the dead eye ;-) ) I will be happy, nay, elated. As they say in the Army, five days and a wake up left.

I agree, that the Radiants and their spren reached the same conclusions. I think they broke the bond because they thought they were going to destroy the world. @Sbs I found your initial post interesting. To our Knowledge, Adolin has been the only shard bearer to meet his dead-eye spren in the cognitive realm. Spending extensive time with her their may have allowed for some healing by way of the formation of a bond. Also the merging of the three realms may have (somehow allowed some of her cognitive aspect that her former Radiant took with her escape from the spiritual realm. Investiture is neither created nor destroyed, but transferred. We will find out in 6 days I guess.

So the Fused think that they are gonna walk into Urithiru and have most of the fighting Radiants gone.. It will be a cake walk right.. But Szeth will be around hopefully (I see Lift going and getting him), Kaladin being epic swearing the 4th ideal, new bondsmith (Navani) shows up and if the heralds' madness is mostly magical and the Sibling can fix it somehow, you are going to have a couple of Heralds who show up in not a great mood. Not to mention, I'm hoping Adoline and Shallan with a bunch of Honor Spren... so the Fused may end up getting slaughtered. And Renarin will be there too. That is how I hope it goes down. I really don't want Dalinar and Jasinah to die. I have no idea what to do with Taravangian. The only way to deal with a snake safely is to kill it. What happens if Taravangian's troops do what Amarains did?

So along with living plate, does the 4th oath in anyway help mend the Radiant's spirit web as it is called. We know that the spren some how needs to get in, and that bond helps mend the cracks and acts in some ways as a merger. We also see that oaths left unchecked cause issues. We see this in the madness of Nale, and in some ways in Kaladin protect everyone from everything. So does the 4th oath mend this? Do the cousin spren help in more than just forming shiny plate, but somehow help the healing process. It also seems to me that it is dangerous for Radiants to remain at the third ideal. For some reason it seems like both Kaladin and Shallan are getting worse because they cannot progress.

So the one person that I can see having a strong enough influence to get Kaladin to let her go or sacrifice herself is Kaladin's mother. As others have said, I think Kaladin will be with his family when the attack happens and he will be fighting desperately to save them, but it is either them or the tower. His mom says, Kaladin let us go, go save the the tower. With tears flowing down his face he let's them go, and swears the fourth ideal. Saves the Tower, and (if Brandon wants to be kind to us for a change), Learin and Hesinah both swear the first ideal (of different orders of course) and they all live happily ever after.

The Wind Runners are known for protecting AND leading. All of the oaths thus far have dealt with protecting. I think all of us agree, and the text supports that Kaladin's oaths are in some way effecting him the way Odium said the shards of Honor and Cultivation were effecting their vessels. Tanavast (Honor) of course was aware of this flaw, and very likely build into the oaths checks, that would balance the impulse. Accepting loss (that you cannot protect everyone) and forgiving yourself for failures would certainly balance the first three oaths. But there has not been anything about leading yet, which is the other attribute of the WInd Runners. Of course we have seen Kaladin lead, but he has not been bound to do it because of any oath. What we have seen, is that be paralyzed by his fear of losing someone has stopped him from leading. So rather than a redundancy in the 4th oath about continuing to protect, what about an oath promising to continue to lead when even when you fail. That would reinforce the first ideal too, "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." I will forgive myself for those I fail. Save the ones I can and continue to lead. Looking at that chapter title "The one You can Save"... it could simply be talking about Kaladin. His battle shock has nearly gotten him killed. Moash tried to get him to commit suicide. At the end of the day, Kaladin can really only save himself. So, here is another option. I will forgive myself. I will protect myself. I will lead others. Or, "When I cannot save others I will save myself and continue to lead."

So is the next chapter the Syl interlude or do we learn about Shinovar? Also, if the mechanic to reverse the madness of the heralds is for them to take up their honor blades, why hasn't Nale been healed yet. Or has he? It seemed like he got somewhat better during Edge Dancer, and his training Szeth also is further evidence of his healing (maybe). But it seems like it needs to be more than just taking up your honor blades, but fulfilling the oath pack. Perhaps all the heralds need to return to the correct intent for the madness to be cured. Wasn't there a death rattle saying, "why must I carry the madness of all ten" Does vast amounts of stormlight combat madness, the way it helped Kaladin combat depression. I would postulate though, that, humans that are not cognitive shadows, do lasting harm when they form a stormlight dependency. Whereas cognitive shadows are doing what they were designed to do. Holding lots of investiture, like our favorite thief from Mistborn.

Along with what you have said, it also seemed like Kaladin needed to be willing to lose Dalinar in order to swear the 4th ideal. And Kaladin came to the conclusion that he wasn't strong enough. to do that. I think it would be really cool and break the formula if Kaladin, calmly swears the 4th ideal while in the surgery room with his dad. Hugs him and thanks him for teaching him to grow calluses and then says, "now back to work" (or something far cooler) as he goes to repel the enemy that are attacking. Also hoping leading is found somewhere in the 4th ideal. Wanting to save everyone is in some ways crippling Kaladin

Unless the heralds access to extra stormlight allows them to do different things with the surges, some sets of surges would be far stronger than others. For example, a Wind Runner of the 5th ideal, is likely not disadvantaged facing Jezrian (outside of experience and running out of stormlight). On the other hand, soul casting takes a lot of time, so Jasinah facing her herald counterpart would be much more limited because of her lack of stormlight

Brandon said that the oath pact isn't as broken as they think, but I have a hard time knowing what that means. Do all Honor blades need to be used to make the mechanism work again. Also in terms of the honor blades, with Dalinar picking up the largest part of Honor that remains (I feel like the Storm Father is more invested than in the past and he is also the cognitive shadow of Tanavast in part now) that may allow the honor blades to function somewhat. I'm still bothered that Dalinar doesn't have a blade and plate.

It isn't just that strength would be enhanced (I mean that can't hurt right, think of two Allamacers fighting), but the Honor Blade gives Nale access to as much stormlight as he wants right? Somewhere it said they act as a direct line to Honor's perpendicularity when used by a Herald correct? So, if holding both an Honor blade and being a Radiant of the 5th Ideals compounds how well you heal and store stormlight those are two more huge advantages. It just seems like Singers try to go around radiants of the fourth ideal and not through them. I wouldn't want to be the guy given the task to remove Nale from the battle field

So, not this chapter but the last one with Vynle, I believe there was some discussion about getting Jasinah and Dalinar out of the Tower since they are two strongest Radiants at the moment, and she is the only one with plate. There is also the fact that, plate seems to negate many of the Fused fabrial weapons. So how had is it to kill a Radiant in living plate? Kaladin had an extremely hard time taking out Shard Bearers in regular plate with a dead eye shard blade. What is more, how would you kill a herald like Nale in living Plate. Outside of Odium, Cultivation, Dalinar, Night Blood, and Hoid, I think Nale is the most heavily invested character on Roshar. Harder to kill than just about anyone. Side note, haas a Radiant of the third ideal died yet?

So Moash's knife is interesting in that no one has ever done that to a herald before, but given what @Leuthie and @Honorless have said it makes perfect sense, that if you can suppress Radiant powers, store stormlight, suck stormlight into things, and capture spren, that it can also be done with cognitive shadows. For the humans, dead Shardblades might be a step in the right direction of figuring out how to do this. To my knowledge dead Shardeblades are the only weapons the humans use with gemstones that do something interesting (I'm not counting half shards which simply strengthen materials). Shardblades already sever the soul of the living thing they cut, they just need to find a way to have the soul stored in the gem in the pommel of the blade. The only other solution to fused is to have Night Blood kill them all. Has Brandon said whether or not Fused killed by Night Blood are reborn in the Everstorm?

Also, Jasnah being wise and able to think ahead, realizes that all of the parshman now being freed and able to think and also not being kept around, makes a huge market for slavery because many light eyes will want to replace their parshmen slaves. The issue with replacing docile slaves with bitter angry ones is that the amount of ugliness and brutality required to keep slaves from a) rebelling, b ) running away, or c ) trying to take someone with them would ultimately prove to be a drain on Alethi manpower, and also do substantial harm to Alethi society making it even harsher. Therefore, getting rid of slavery and the slave trade while the rich and powerful are for the most part already learning to live without is a extremely smart move by Jasnah in my humble opinion. And then of course, it is just the right thing to do, which I think Dalinar and Navani recognize. Side note, slaves becoming Radiants like Skybreakers or Dust Bringers could end very poorly for their former masters. And in Alethi society, having a shard blade would automatically make many slaves a higher rank than their masters (which they could then just duel and burn out their former masters eyes). In conclusion.... Good for Jasinah

I think the point Kingsdaughter was trying to make is that for a moment their was lucidity when the three realms came together. Honor/Tanavast (the shard) may have been able to do something to directly combat their madness. We see the Fused slowly being destroyed and driven mad by constantly dying over and over again. The Fused aren't tortured between Desolations, but you have to think they die a lot more (or maybe not, perhaps the Heralds after being captured die and respawn every day.) One thing to note from Way of Kings is that they were all sane at Aharietiam. So they were no longer being tortured.Their wills were broken, but you would imagine they would get better not worse over the next 4,500 years. Unless laying down their Honor Blades did something to their cognitive shadows or spirit webs

So, this chapter, which emphasizes the brokenness of the Heralds, made me wonder. Can the Heralds ever be healed. Did they lose something more than honor when they walked away from the Oath back, perhaps they lost Honor himself, who was keeping them from falling apart. It is curious that Ash mentions losing their swords. Where on earth is Tal's honor blade. AND just had a thought. Remember how during the merging the the realms Tal seemed to recover? Well don't their Honor blades serve as mini-perpendicularities? Wasn't Kaladin using stormlight in a similar way so he could keep going? Perhaps their honor blades served that purpose. The question is, can they (the heralds) be healed? How would it be done. My assumption here is that their madness is at least in part magically based, and the heralds (not radiants) can be healed or recover with magic too. This thread is meant to discuss how they might be healed. What tactical and strategic significance that would have, how the story might change. I really don't want to get into "they have done enough" etc. not what this thread is about.