Argent

Wait, what?

It's starting to feel like Honorspren and Cultivationspren are not real spren in the way that flamespren, or rotspren, or musicspren are. It feels more like they are a... rank. So you can be a windspren, and you choose your Radiant based on his leadership and desire to protect. He starts displaying impressive sense of honor, however, and you level up. Congratulations, you are now an Honospren. Nohadon's comment about Honorspren being discerning (and more specifically, Brandon's comment that "there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves honorspren") suggests that the situation is almost like "Okay, this Radiant has reached Honor level 9000. One more and his windspren gets to be Honorspren!" Similarly, the other end of the spectrum would depend not on being honorable, but on having a desire to cultivate, to develop, to improve things. I definitely see issues with the specifics of this theory, but the general idea sounds mostly alright to me.

Incidentally, Stormfather's reply is very similar to a theory that had been brewing in my head. Of course I took my sweet time putting it together and he beat me to it

I've been meaning to post something about this every since I first read Lift's interlude from Words of Radiance. The key observation I wanted to make is that Wyndle's... first encounters with Lift seem very different from Syl's ones with Kaladin. While Syl was attracted by Kaladin's leadership, desire to protect, and sense of honor and slowly bonded with him, gaining heightened consciousness, Wyndle treats his bond more like a... job. He seems to have already been quite knowledgeable about realmatics in general and applications of Investiture on Roshar in particular. Looking at the other spren that seem to have either bonded or be in the process of bonding with their candidate-Radiants, it seems like Wyndle is an exception. We might be seeing the results of Jasnah's spren's playfulness in the Words of Radiance prologue. Ym's spren is really shy. Shallan is in... a strange position. She definitely sees multiple Cryptics, so we don't know what's going on with her. Originally I was going to make the pseudo-random claim that spren with higher "concentration" of Honor in them are more lost, and it is their Nahel bond that allows them to achieve higher thinking and knowledge; this on behalf of Honor being Splintered. On the other hand, I was going to argue, spren that are more of Cultivation would already be in a state of higher functioning and would probably form their bond much more quickly, as they would be able to teach their Radiants-to-be much faster. Actually, I think I'll still make this argument (I just erased a paragraph full of shaky arguments against this). Pretty much all of the spren that have formed or are forming a bond seem to follow the pattern. So I'll make the following claim. The reason Syl - and presumably the other four "male" Orders' bondingspren - shows so much less knowledge than Wyndle is because she is not in her "normal" state due to Honor's Splintering. I claim that all (bonding?) spren are supposed to be as knowing and functioning as Wyndle, but Odium effectively crippled half of them.

"GODS BELOW, SO MUCH INFORMATIONZ!" was pretty much my reaction to Lift's chapter too. Juicy, exciting information... Many implications. I naturally find myself wanting to see more of her - though I confess it's mostly because I now associated Lift with realmatic knowledge. She is a fun and interesting character to read about, but I am selfish and I want her for her brains I am guilty at not being as thrilled about the other unlockables. Legion was, as I expected, a colossal amount of fun. Sixth of the Dusk... I feel weird about it. I think I need to see more cosmere from it before I say I like it. Shadows of Self did contain the seeds of an interesting theory - one I must credit @Krazeemee for. His (?) first PM to me outlines it quite nicely: Ultimately, I was persuaded that there is at a decent chance that there is a kandra roaming the streets of Elendel, doing... seemingly random things.

I misspoke. I meant to imply that you can't ask for anything specific - or, well, you can but it's irrelevant. Here's a supporting quote from Interlude 7: Baxil. @WeiryWriter, agree that we mean (almost?) the same thing?

You enclose the text you would like to hide with spoiler tags, like so: On the note of the Heralds knowing fabrial science - I am not convinced. Fabrial science is a very... human invention. Depending on how the Heralds came to be Heralds, I find it very possible that Surgebinding came so naturally to them, they didn't have to bother learning the laws behind it. They wouldn't need to practice, or learn, or even think about it. It would be like taking a dolphin and trying to explain swimming to it. Swimming - the techniques, the styles, the movements - all of this is our human way of conquering what the dolphins already do naturally. So maybe the Heralds can do everything and anything a fabrial can - only it comes naturally to them.

I wouldn't say that most spren are the magical offspring of the two Shards. We know some are of Honor, some are of Cultivation, some are of both, and some apparently are of Adonalsium itself. Nothing I've seen suggests ratios.

People don't ask the Nightwatcher for anything. You go there, and if you strike her fancy, she gives you a boon and a curse - of her own choosing. She gives you what she thinks you deserve. It is perhaps a minor distinction, but it could explain how Lift could have gotten something she couldn't possibly think of. This being said, I don't like how we try to explain everything that's not a direct form of Surgebinding with the Old Magic. I don't have anything better to offer as an answer, but I think many of our theories will crumble because of this.

Cultivationspren is what I've been thinking about too, for reasons similar to the ones Shardlet listed. He seems to be much closer to Cultivation than to Honor on the C-H spectrum; so much closer, in fact, that there may be no Honor Investiture in him. He is obviously related to and interested in plants, and Cultivation kind of goes hand-in-hand with the implied "of plant life" after her name. He also almost certainly refers to her as "mother."

Obviously there is very little we know about this, so theory we come up with will likely be more than a little baseless. Still, let me approach this as logically as I can. We do know one thing for certain - they were the cause Wyndle was bound to Lift. Three options come to mind here: The Ring is the sole deciding factor when it comes to deciding which humans and spren are to be bound. There may be a restriction on the number and/or type of spren the Ring has control over. More on that a little later. The Ring has strong influence over the decision process. We know that Wyndle hoped for "a distinguished Iriali matron" or a "grandmother, and an accomplished gardener." It's possible that this Ring persuaded him that Lift would be a better choice in the long run, and he grudgingly accepted. Note that both in this and in the case before, Wyndle could have been a part of this Ring. The Ring has control/influence only over Wyndle. This feels less likely than the other two options, but it is possible that the following scenario is true. Only some spren - either specific individual spren, or specific types of spren - can form Nahel bonds. If only certain individual spren can form bonds, then maybe each one of those has a Ring associated with it - perhaps the other spren of the same type. To illustrate, imagine that Syl is the only Honorspren or windspren (whatever she and the relationship between the two is) is the only Honor- / windspren (at the moment?) that can form a Nahel bond. The other spren of her type - say, the other Honorspren - are her Ring, and they collectively decide which candidate-Radiant Syl should bind to. The other hypothetical option here, the one where only certain types of spren can form bonds (e.g. all Honorspren could, in theory, form a bond with a candidate-Radiant; flamespren, on the other hand, can't bond at all), is very similar. Except I imagine the Ring her would be more like a council of members of different spren types - maybe all types, maybe only a defined subset. Alright. I can't think of anything else the Ring could be. I am almost completely certain it's a group of spren - and the options above are all the ones I can think of. Those options touched on the problem of the extent of this Ring's influence. Do they control only Wyndle? All spren of his type? Multiple types of spren? All spren? The only hint here comes from knowing that Lift has visited the Old Magic, the Nightwatcher herself. There are three key ideas I want to combine here: The Nightwatcher is probably Cultivation Many spren (though most likely not all of them) are at least in part of Cultivation. Wyndle strongly suggests that it was her visit to the Old Magic, or the Nightwatcher, that had made Lift such a prime candidate. She had been "blessed" by Wyndle's (figurative or literal) mother. Given Wyndle's nature-y... nature... it isn't difficult to imagine that that his (and the Ring's) mother - very likely Cultivation - and the Nightwatcher are the same being. This is more of an offtopic reinforcement of that theory. Those things in mind, I find it plausible to assume that the Ring consists of either spren that are exclusively of Cultivation, or of spren that are at least partially of her (though I'd bet they would have to be more Cultivation and less Honor). It's possible that Honorspren and Cultivationspren have "rulers" of some sort. The Ring could be them. Finally, I am left to wonder - what does this Ring want to mold Lift into? Do they have an agenda of their own, or do they simply want to mold her into a "proper" Radiant, one that lives in harmony with the Ideals of her (future / hypothetical?) order?

I apologize, of course. But my point was moot anyway. The question (and answer) about the Pits of Hathsin convinced me that the Shards / the Shards's bodies / the Shards' power / any raw Investiture are Spiritual entities above all else. If atium is Ruin's body, and we know that a Shard's body and their power are synonymous, then the fact that atium "oozes" from the Spiritual into the Physical Realm is pretty much definite proof that the power of the Shards comes from the Spiritual Realm. And since Investiture is essentially Shardic power, it must also come from there. EDIT: @Meg, yes, I meant "body". Those forms will be the end of you, eh? But I am not sure that not discarding your body, as a Shard(holder), is even an option. I doubt any living thing is capable of containing the power of an entire Shard.

Don't latch on the numbers, I believe Brandon is using it as a way of saying "a large fraction of all Soulcasters are limited." I shared the quote because it shows that either there are Soulcasters (the fabrials) capable of performing any transformation, or there is a bunch of ardents who are Soulcasters (the Surgebinders).

You could, as an inferior substitute, watch video recordings of his lectures though

@bloodfalcon2, another unwritten rule of theorycrafting, however, is Occam's Razor. Anyone can come up with a convoluted theory about how any two events, actions, or people from the book are related. That's easy. The hallmark of a good theory is the ability to show the relationship between your subjects in a very simple, yet strikingly truthful (or at least plausible) way. Which is why I was excited about the part of your theory that explained how the Shin (or their ancestors) could've found the sacred Blades in the stone, and that gave birth to the whole concept of the sacredness of stone. It's simple, it's elegant, it's very possible, but most importantly - it is rooted in what we know about the Blades (unique, beautiful, sacred, set in stone), the Shin (consider stone holy and walking on it - bad mojo), and how the passage of time warps history. "Honorblades have two levels of bonding" is nothing like that @Gamma Fiend, it's possible that the last battle from the last Desolation took place in the Shattered Plains. The only things we know are "the plain was a place of misshapen rock and stone, natural pillars rising around him." The irregularities of the plain are attributed to the Thunderclasts - which may or may not be chasmfiends. Moreover, I seem to recall that either Dalinar or Kaladin described the Plains as "unnatural." Kaladin, during his night out in the highstorm, thinks that "they looked as if something very large had hit them at the center, sending rippling breaks outward." Furthermore, Eshonai's interlude (I think?) suggests that there once was a civilization underneath the Plains, with the Tower plateau itself possibly being an actual tower covered in crem (and other things); the prelude doesn't mention civilization or structures - just corpses, people, and rock. Corpses and people are obviously irrelevant for determining location (unless we find a chunk of stone that looks like a Thunderclast), and rock covers all of Roshar (except for Shinnovar and some coastal regions). So, in the end, I'll vote against the Shattered Plains being the site of the last Desolation

We don't actually know whether all of Nightwatcher's curses are neurological. You are probably referring to the question here, but it's becoming widely accepted that Brandon's response was only to the actual question, not the assumption/supposition before it. So he is saying "Yes, boons are limited in a particular matter."

I don't see why Honorblades would have two levels of bonding. Szeth Whoever findss themselves in possession of one of the Honorblades will almost certainly be able to summon, control, and send the Blade away. For all intents and purposes, the Blade will be bound to them. There is no reason to believe that an even deeper bond exists - other than to fit your theory, of course

Except it doesn't. Because you are essentially saying "I assume that my assumption that the mists are Spiritual is correct, therefore the mists are Spiritual." Yes, they probably are. Yes, Investiture also probably is. But I'll need more in terms of evidence - or logical proofs - to move past the "probably."

Well, regarding your last point - we know that Honorblades can be taken by other people. On the rest... there is certain elegance I see in this theory. Mundane actions and words turning into legends is something Brandon likes to toy with. The thing is, for this to work, Shinnovar would've had to literally grow around those Blades in the millenia after the last Desolation.

Ah - it would appear that I had taken his words out of context. I apologize.

I had forgotten about this particular detail. Very well then. Though I think Taravangian's issue is more with Dalinar uniting the Alethi armies (and this maybe finally ending the war?) than with his visions which he can't know about.

That's a curious thing to say, Shardlet. The closest thing we have to power left unattended are probably the Shards' pools throughout the different Shardworlds, and those don't do any "powerful bad things." In fact, they just kind of sit there... The next best thing are the Splinters, and those haven't been too bad either. We are yet to see how Skaze behave, but Aons, Divine Breaths, and Honorspren have all been in line with their Shard's Intent. Not exactly mighty evil, unless the Shard itself was...

I am not sure if we know that Investiture is mostly a Spiritual entity. It sounds like it could be, but there is so little know about it or the Spiritual Realm, that we should be very careful with those leaps of logic. Still, that's kind of why I said that I'd argued myself into a corner

At least the Alethi ones. Which, of course, makes sense - everything we've seen suggests that the one thing men in Alethkar are good for is physical activity

Warning: links point to fan and Words of Radiance art! Having recently looked at Way of Kings fan art, I don't trust myself with descriptions, but I'll mention something that (really shouldn't have...) surprised me. Turns out Kaladin's "hair was shoulder-length" - turns out Rambo Kaladin got that one right. I always imagined him more like Botanica Xu's or exmakina's sketches. Straight, unkempt, shaggy, barely maintained.