Zibus

An interesting thought. I'll have to go back and read the Maya scene again to see if there are parallels to the oaths.

Is Auxiliary a windspren? If not, what kind of spren/entity are they?

Recall they have some sort of invested power source that seems to give off a lot of heat. Could probably be used to fuel smelting technology of some kind. Lots of people might already live there and have pushed them out? Also, the foodstock plants might not grow there well if they have to compete with all the trees and have less access to invested sunlight.

Quite possible... but then why don't we see Hoid use this same method? He seems to need perpendicularities to worldhop like everyone else. At least he did in Mistborn Era 1. But yeah, like you mentioned the surges work differently for each order, basically depending on what other surge they're paired with. This is why Dalinar can't fly around with adhesion the same way Kaladin can.

Possible. i think the fan consensus is that this refers to Adonalsium, since he had all of the shardic powers he could truly be said to "know everything" (or at least as close as you can get in the Cosmere). Any shard, while powerful, must be at least 1/16th of his power/knowledge.

Who knows? I doubt he'll be able to spring something like this again, but man. The more Cosmere the better, I feel. As long as he finishes it.

He also talked about his reaction to Princess Bride on the podcast, one of his inspirations for SP 1. He's definitely been seeding stuff. I wonder if they released any of them out of order to make sure they got out before the SPs were revealed.

Intriguing. I'll check it out.

Alternatively, he could being sarcastic. That's the tone I got from Auxiliary. More like Syl and less like Pattern.

We've seen some weirdness like this with Shallan, but she bonded two Cryptics, so I imagine it would be quite different with different types of spren. I think it makes a bit more sense timeline/logistics wise if he "bonds" Aux after losing his first spren, but could be completely wrong.

Ah. I interpreted that more as the shades being super dangerous in the CR, but I could be totally off.

What specifically are you referring to? I don't recall that bit.

Ooo! Hadn't thought of that angle! Since Sigzil is now highly Invested himself from the Dawnshard, perhaps he could serve as the source of the bond? Doesn't quite clear everything up... but its intriguing. I still think Aux is not a Windspren even if the bond is sort of reversed like this. Makes the "What Oaths?" question from Aux more interesting.

Good points. Still, Sigzil is a particularly analytically minded Rosharan and even in these chapters uses terms like shade and Awakening to specifically refer to other invested entities/arts. I think Sigzil at least would use the correct term. Also, a Cognitive Shadow able to form as a physical shardblade/tool would be completely out of left field. I could buy something like a Seon doing it perhaps, but a Cognitive Shadow would be a hard sell. But yeah, could definitely be a completely different thing from the Nahel bond we've seen so far.

I hadn't connected that. Good thoughts!

So "Connection" proper isn't a surge. It's associated with Adhesion at least for Bondsmiths, but Windrunners definitely don't get it from Adhesion - at least not being able to access languages. That certainly seems to be the implication of some of Aux's statements, but they're vague enough I'm wondering if they're intentionally misdirection from Brandon.

I think so.

Okay, obviously some strange stuff is going on with Auxiliary, but here's what we know for sure. 1.) Aux is a spren. 2.) Aux is "dead." 3.) Sigzil broke his Oaths. From the above it seems clear that Auxiliary is now a deadeye... but they are definitely a very strange deadeye. They can communicate extremely articulately in full thoughts and sentences, something that only just happened with Maya. They can not only become a full blade but also basically any other tool Sigzil can imagine, rather than being stuck in one form. They also can allow Sigzil access to a whole bunch of extra "surges" - most notably Connection and Transportation. So what's going on? Question: Is this Sigzil's currently bonded honorspren? We're never given a name for the spren Sigzil has bonded, but we do know they're an honorspren. Auxiliary does not seem like a very honorspren name to me, though it does allow for shortening into a convenient nickname like many of the other honorspren. Still, its honorspren names are usually quite fanciful and fantasy feeling, not tied to some specific concept like inkspren or Cryptics. So this might not be an honorspren, explaining the access to different surges than the typical Windrunner. But then what type of spren could it be? Looking at the KR chart, the orders with Transportation are the Elsecallers and Willshapers. Elsecallers also get Transformation which does not relate to Connection at all, so that wouldn't make much sense, not does Auxiliary match with the names of inkspren we've learned already. Willshapers get Cohesion rather than Adhesion (which is at least part of the reason why Dalinar can Connect things a people together), so I don't know if Cohesion would allow Sigzil to Connect to the planet and learn the language or not. Perhaps combined with Transportation it would? Sop that the Willshaper can communicate in the new places they visit? If it is a Willshaper spren, that would make Auxiliary a lightspren/Reacher. We only have two examples of Reacher names and they don't seem to have strong theme to them, so maybe Auxiliary is a Reacher? But then what happened to Sgizil's honorspren? Alright, given all of the above, here is my theory - In Stormlight 5 Sigzil is forced/tricked into holding/becoming a Dawnshard. After he loses it he breaks his oaths killing whatever current spren his bonded too. However, because he held the Dawnshard he is now an extremely Invested individual - hence why we see him taking so much pain even while very low on power and see him able to use other kinds of Investiture. This also allows him to still get power/access the surges of Auxiliary even though they are a deadeye. BUT I don't think Auxiliary is his original honorspren, for the reasons mentioned above. I think Sigzil found the shardblade of a deadeye Reacher and "bonded" to them to get access to Willshaper abilities in order to escape Roshar and try to outrun the Night Brigade. This could be why Auxiliary can transform, because Sigzil can use Cohesion to manipulate the physical form of things (like we see Venli doing with stone). It would also explain why we don't see him try to use any Windrunner surges especially lashings when he's getting pulled around behind the ships. I could totally be wrong and Auxiliary is in fact his honorspren, but that's the theory I'm going with right now. It doesn't quite make sense with some of Auxiliary's lines, but it does explain quite a few other puzzles. Thoughts? Counter points?

Okay, just didn't read far enough. It was definitely the Dawnshard and this is definite Sigzil. Dang, Brandon's going all out with this one. At the end in his inspirations sections Brandon says we'll know how Sigzil got this way after Stormlight 5, which has me super excited. My big question from that and from this - - is which Dawnshard was it? Hoid seems to have forced/tricked Sigzil into taking a Dawnshard, and is also somehow connected to it. Perhaps he is the current holder/host? From WoBs we know Hoid is not currently in the recent books a Dawnshard and the only one we know where it is is with Ryzn on Roshar. So is this Ryzn's DS or the one Hoid used to hold? Did Sigzil somehow serve as a link passing the DS from Ryzn to Hoid? Or did he somehow get Hoid's og DS? But Hoid has this quote - So Hoid is still experiencing the aftereffects of the DS, so most likely he is not currently holding it. So here's my theory - unless another DS gets introduced in SLA 5, Sigzil did in fact become/hold the Dawnshard of Change either given it or taking it from Rysn AND Change was Hoid's original DS. Hence why it's connected to him. If this theory is correct, and it makes the most sense to me given our current knowledge, I'm guessing we're going to get some crazy looks into what DS are and how they operate from Hoid in SLA 5.

For sure. This is obviously pretty far future. He's been to many worlds and hover bikes are "found on many planets," as well as firearms and all sorts of other tools.

Alright, so Nomad/Sigzil (pretty sure its Sigzil from context), has a Torment that specifically doesn't let him hurt others. He can act in violence defensively and only as long as he specifically isn't thinking about harming those around him. Sounds pretty familiar. This quote specifically says he'd once carried a burden. Did he get a hold of/become a Dawshard? Perhaps even the same one Hoid held/was at some point?

That would be rad as heck.

Fair point, I suppose. At least it doesn't seem like its become common practice.

True. I wonder if people get to hang coats on his middle finger.

Also, do we know their origin point is not counted in the 7 land path? Is there specific evidence for that in the text or WoBs somewhere? I had kind of assumed it was included.