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This all goes back to my ghost analogy. If a ghost can affect the physical world, he can make it so that people can "touch" him by exerting a repelling force around the area that is "part" of him. But our theoretical ghost can't (or doesn't want to) perfectly mimic physical things, so we sometimes catch him doing ghostly things, like walking through walls. I'm saying that I think Shardblades are like that, non-Physical entities that can affect the Physical realm and that temporarily and imperfectly mimic physical objects when being summoned. I think that's a simpler explanation than saying Shardblades are physical objects that selectively choose which physical laws to break depending on whether it's cutting living flesh or not, and then vanish unless you do something about it. A Cognitive entity would be able to break physical laws easier, is what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Shardblades can't be physical entities (we don't know enough about Roshar's magic systems to say what isn't possible). I'm just speculating that they aren't. Is that alright with you?

They have a presence in all three realms, but most only "live" in one realm. Hence the need to have special abilities to access Shadesmar. This is getting ridiculous. One minute you're arguing that Shardblades can't be spren because spren aren't Physical like Shardblades are. Then the next you're saying that spren are in all three realms. What exactly is your position, Phantom?

Okay, reading that interview Phantom just quoted, I just remembered something that confused me about Syl appearing as a windspren at the start. Can everyone on Roshar see windspren? If yes, then could everyone see Syl's windspren form? Anyway, back on topic, I think the word "presence" is a bit ambiguous here. In real life, people who think they could sense paranormal phenomenon would sometimes talk of "feeling the presence of a spirit". That "presence" doesn't make the spirit (assuming it actually exists) a physical entity. It would just be a spiritual entity affecting the physical world. In the case of Syl and the cryptics (and my theorized odiumspren, the Shardblades), and perhaps even all spren, they are Cognitive entities that sometimes manifest a sort of presence in the Physical realm. Sometimes the presence is only a visual one (like in most spren we've seen so far). But sometimes the presence is stronger. The stronger their presence, the more they could affect Physical objects. Sometimes there is a strong Physical presence but without a visual component (e.g. cryptics during Soulcasting). Note that everything in the last paragraph is just speculation.

They affect the sense of hearing. I'm not sure if there's a separation between mental and physical properties in the Rithmatist magic system (this isn't Cosmere, after all, so the Cognitive Realm isn't a thing), but that would help fit the lines of silencing in Morsk's theory.

That would be so cool if it was true! I would also like to see a novel (Sanderson or not) with that premise: a man trying to outwit his future evil self without the option of immediate suicide, knowing that his future self would be aware of the plan.

Ah, I see what you mean. I think "sinew" in this case doesn't refer to the Essence, because "Stonesinew" implies a body made of stone (metaphorically speaking in the case of Taln, I'm sure), while the Essence of Sinew would be associated specifically with bodies made of meat/flesh. Of course, under my model, Taln's Order would be able to bond with "Talus-Sinew" spren, so it actually can accommodate your interpretation of that moniker.

That would be the implication, yes. Syl could somehow affect the Physical realm while still being a Cognitive entity. (Somehow I sense a WoB about to be unleashed upon me by Phantom Monstrosity. *shivers* )

I'm sorry to be all Sciency in a discussion about magic, guys, but when a person sees or feels something that other people can't see or feel, that thing isn't in the Physical realm. In real life, that thing would be called a hallucination. In the Cosmere, that thing would be called a Cognitive entity. Remember that Shadesmar is a sort of mirror image of the Physical realm (sans the areas bereft of thinking creatures). The reason why Shallan and Elhokar can sense the Cryptics (Shallan unconsciously at first) could be because (and this is just speculation) the Physical and Cognitive realms share the same "space", being reflections of each other, and so it would make sense that people who have the potential ability to be in both realms would sometimes sense both realms at the same time. This of course requires that Elhokar be able to enter Shadesmar, but it still makes more sense to me than "there are Physical entities that nobody else can sense other than Shallan and a few others". Ah. Sorry for the misunderstanding. What I meant was that the cryptics only exist in Shadesmar. Shallan has the special ability to interact with them even while still in the Physical realm, and the cryptics have the special ability to affect the Physical realm from Shadesmar.

Hi, cem! Thanks for creating this thread. It could be a nice place for future discussion about the Surges used by each Order of the Knights Radiant. Allow me to give my comments on your take. Assuming this table is correct, Wise would be number 7 (Battar's Order). I do agree that Creative=Shallan and Wise=Jasnah. I'd speculate that the Surge shared by Shalash and Battar's Orders is the Surge of Transformation, while the Surge shared by Shalash and Palah's Orders is the Surge of Perception. Awesome find! Yes, that does make sense. I wonder if Stonewards need to be stepping on stone in order to Travel. That could be a nice limitation. It's interesting that you connected the Surge of Time to Kalak's Order. Kalak is associated with the Essence of Foil, or metal. We know that there are Temporal powers in the Metallic Arts of Scadrial, and we know that Roshar already shares one magic system with another planet (Lightweaving, with Yolen). This is probably just coincidence, though... just a random connection I found. That's also a problem of mine, writing huge posts way into the night when my brain is no longer functioning properly. Sometimes the results can be pretty special, if you know what I mean.

The cryptics live in the Cognitive realm. That's why they can't be seen in the Physical realm. They were the ones who gave Shallan access to Shadesmar, remember? See my previous response to the claim that Shardblades are Physical objects. Right. The spren we've seen have so far been lacking in the wet appearance department. Hence Shardblades are not spren. You got me there, shardbearer. Excellent counter evidence! If Shardblades are fabrials, then I agree that they can't be spren. But the fabrials section of the Ars Arcanum never mentioned them. Anyway, I'll include this in the counter evidence list, but I'll still wait to read Words of Radiance first before deciding whether or not to abandon this theory.

It's okay. I guess I really need to practice clarity in my writing. Allow me to be demonstrate what I did, then. Please look at the table of the Ten Essences, particularly the Gemstone column. Then see if I matched each Essence to each Order in the above chart properly: Zephyr: Top right. Sapphire. Blue, the color of the sky. Symbol of Windrunners. Vapor: Smokestone. Smoky symbol. Spark: Ruby. Fiery red symbol. Lucentia: Bottom right. Diamond. Pulp: Emerald. Leafy symbol. Blood: Bottom left. Garnet. Blood-Red symbol. Tallow: Blue Zircon. Foil: Amethyst. Talus: Top left. Topaz. Sinew: Heliodor. Anyway, just for reference, here's all the 17 Essence-pairs in the chart (including their Divine Attributes): Zephyr-Vapor (Protecting, Just, Leading, Confident) Zephyr-Lucentia (Protecting, Loving, Leading, Healing) Zephyr-Blood (Protecting, Creative, Leading, Honest) Zephyr-Sinew (Protecting, Pious, Leading, Guiding) Vapor-Spark (Just, Brave, Confident, Obedient) Vapor-Tallow (Just, Wise, Confident, Careful) Spark-Lucentia (Brave, Loving, Obedient, Healing) Spark-Foil (Brave, Resolute, Obedient, Builder) Lucentia-Pulp (Loving, Learned, Healing, Giving) Lucentia-Talus (Loving, Dependable, Healing, Resourceful) Pulp-Blood (Learned, Creative, Giving, Honest) Pulp-Sinew (Learned, Pious, Giving, Guiding) Blood-Tallow (Creative, Wise, Honest, Careful) Blood-Talus (Creative, Dependable, Honest, Resourceful) Tallow-Foil (Wise, Resolute, Careful, Builder) Foil-Talus (Resolute, Dependable, Builder, Resourceful) Talus-Sinew (Dependable, Pious, Resourceful, Guiding) The attributes would be the things that each "bondspren" looks for in its host. Perhaps we can look for characters that match one of those 17 sets of attributes. Do any of these sound like someone we've already met in WoK?

As I said, each line represents a spren with two Essences. I wasn't ignoring those lines at all! I said that if my theory was correct, each Order might be associated to more than one spren. That's because there are more than one line connecting an Order to other Orders.

That got my imagination going! What if the holder of Endowment wasn't very nice at first? When I first read Warbreaker, I thought the concept of selling part of your own soul and buying others' was slightly disturbing. Perhaps the holder of Endowment just became more compassionate over time.

I don't know if the metal contents would be considered pure enough. They might be. I think it's an interesting concept.

(Edit: According to Senior Feesh, Kiwi, and shardbearer, the original post was difficult to understand. So I revised a lot of things to improve clarity and added a list of the 17 Essence-pairs to help explain the theory. I hope it's clearer now.) So, I was reading the WoK Ars Arcanum this morning, specifically the table of the Ten Essences, and I was trying to link each Essence to the different kinds of spren that we've seen. Note that at the start, it was all just for fun; at the time I didn't really think spren had any connection to the Essences. Anyway, so I started with Zephyr. It obviously reminded me of windspren and Sylphrena's windspren-like form. Then there's Vapor, which could be linked to the smokespren we've seen on chasmfiends since smoke is linked to Vapor. Next, Spark reminded me of flamespren. Then I came upon Lucentia (a.k.a. light)... and then I suddenly remembered Syl's other form: the "Radiant" swordsman (swordswoman?) who fought the Deathspren around Kaladin. It was interesting that Syl seems to be related to two of the Essences (Zephyr and Lucentia), but at first I thought it was just coincidence. Then I looked at the Divine Attributes linked to each Essence and found another coincidence: Zephyr is linked to Protecting and Leading, and Lucentia to Loving and Healing. All those things can be attributed to Kaladin, the person that Syl decided to bond to. It is also noteworthy that Syl was in her "Lucentia form" when Kaladin was in need of healing (fighting the spren associated with death), and in "Zephyr form" when he needed to protect and lead. This made me wonder if other spren who bonded with Surgebinders showed a similar double connection to the Essences. We only know of one other such spren (unfortunately), so I decided to check them out. I'm talking about the Cryptics that bonded to Shallan, of course. We know that Shallan is dependable and resourceful, which are the attributes of Talus. And Shallan was asked by the Cryptics to say something true, meaning they value honesty, which is linked to Blood. So, the Cryptics might be linked to the Talus and Blood Essences, although I admit that it's not as convincing as Sylphrena's case. To cut to the chase, here's my theory: The spren that bonded to the Knights Radiant were each connected to two Essences. Let us look at the Knights Radiant chart: If you notice, the colors for each Order symbol are actually based on a gemstone associated to an Essence: Zephyr: Top right. Sapphire. Blue, the color of the sky. Symbol of Windrunners. Vapor: Smokestone. Smoky symbol. Spark: Below Vapor. Ruby. Fiery red symbol. Lucentia: Bottom right. Diamond. Pulp: Bottom center. Emerald. Leafy symbol. Blood: Bottom left. Garnet. Blood-red symbol. Tallow: Blue Zircon. Foil: Above Tallow. Amethyst. Talus: Top left. Topaz. Sinew: Top center, above Pulp. Heliodor. I'm theorizing that each line connecting two Orders/Essences represents a kind of spren that has two Essences. You'll see a line connecting Zephyr and Lucentia, and a line connecting Talus and Blood, so that neatly ties in to my previous speculations regarding Syl and the Cryptics. There are 17 lines connecting each Essence all in all. Here they are, including their Divine Attributes and the possible spren connected to them: (Edit: Added the spren revealed in WoR) Zephyr-Vapor (Protecting, Just, Leading, Confident) Zephyr-Lucentia (Protecting, Loving, Leading, Healing) - Honorspren Zephyr-Blood (Protecting, Creative, Leading, Honest) Zephyr-Sinew (Protecting, Pious, Leading, Guiding) - Stormfather? Vapor-Spark (Just, Brave, Confident, Obedient) Vapor-Tallow (Just, Wise, Confident, Careful) - Ivory? Spark-Lucentia (Brave, Loving, Obedient, Healing) Spark-Foil (Brave, Resolute, Obedient, Builder) Lucentia-Pulp (Loving, Learned, Healing, Giving) - Wyndle Lucentia-Talus (Loving, Dependable, Healing, Resourceful) Pulp-Blood (Learned, Creative, Giving, Honest) Pulp-Sinew (Learned, Pious, Giving, Guiding) Blood-Tallow (Creative, Wise, Honest, Careful) Blood-Talus (Creative, Dependable, Honest, Resourceful) - Cryptics Tallow-Foil (Wise, Resolute, Careful, Builder) Foil-Talus (Resolute, Dependable, Builder, Resourceful) Talus-Sinew (Dependable, Pious, Resourceful, Guiding) Have we met people who seem to match any of the above attributes? Anyway, if my theory is correct, each Order might be related to more than one type of spren. Perhaps each Order has subgroups bonded to different types of spren. It could also mean that each spren can be associated to more than one Order (but probably not). I would also like to speculate that all the spren that bonded with Surgebinders see themselves as honorspren, though they may have other names. So Cryptics might call themselves honorspren as well as truthspren, etc. Update: Wrong, as per Lift's Interlude. What do you guys think? Update: We now have plenty of spren-related info from Words of Radiance as well as from interviews with Brandon, and some of it provides support for my theory. One obvious example is Wyndle, who exhibits both Pulp and Lucentia properties by having an appearance of a crawling vine with crystals attached. Wyndle implied that honorspren and cryptics are separate things, so I'll have to rename this theory to fix the terminology. Jasnah's spren Ivory is described as oily, which fits the Tallow Essence. It's kind of tricky to pinpoint a second Essence (too bad there's no Essence linked to shadows), but I'm guessing that it is Vapor. Why? Because Jasnah's spren remind me of Midnight Essence and those creatures bleed smoke (a Vapor substance). Also, Nalan (the Vapor Herald) is referred to as "Darkness" by Lift. Anyway, I think people would agree that "just, wise, confident, and careful" fits Jasnah perfectly. We also know that Cryptics wear stiff robes, which reminds me of the Tension Surge's ability to make soft things rigid. Tension is associated with Talus and Sinew, and so this fits my Blood-Talus assignment for Cryptics.

I'll have to strongly disagree. Most of them vanish when let go. They slice almost anything as if the physical properties of objects don't matter, but they can't even slice living flesh properly. That's not a "nice solid physical presence". That's a freakish imitation of a semblance of being solid. Imagine a ghost who has the power to magically affect the physical world. He attempts to act like a normal living person, "moving" things with his hands, "walking" on the floor, but he just can't seem to do anything right. He casually "lifts" boulders the same way he "lifts" rocks, as if he doesn't know the concept of weight. His footsteps produce no sound. And occasionally you catch him walking through walls. That's what Shardblades are like. I'm sure Syl (who can affect the Physical realm as well) could also pretend to be a physical entity if she wanted to, but she wouldn't be very good at it, either. I would say they're tied to division, but I have a feeling you wouldn't accept that. At any rate, there are entities that are called spren but have conceptual ties that we don't yet know about (e.g. Cusicesh, the "smokespren" found in chasmfiends), so it's not too big a deal, really. Anyway, I showed seven similarities between Shardblades and spren, but apparently that's not good enough. Would "Shardblades are just made of sprenstuff" at least be more appealing to you?

Could be. I'd like to thank Leuthie for mentioning Syl's "radiant" form. It inspired another theory regarding honorspren, which I will now proceed to describe in a separate thread. By the way, to the detractors of the "Shardblades are Odiumspren" theory, would you settle for "Shardblades are spren"? Or perhaps even "Shardblades are made of sprenstuff"? I think I've already gathered enough evidence to at least link Shardblades and spren.

Whoa. Um... since the effect is the same, may I request my status to be lowered from "very very wrong" to simply... I dunno... "unacceptable"? I agree. It's in the text of the novel, after all. The thing is, "snapping back" Rashek's age would cause a very accelerated rate of aging, the same way a stretched rubber band accelerates when let go. Accelerated aging is how I've been describing it all along! Removing Atiumminds of Atium Compounders accelerates aging. Receiving Breaths decelerates aging. Opposite effects. Does that make sense to you now?

Either Syl has an actual miniaturized Shardblade, or it's just her shapeshifting powers at work. That was a cool scene, by the way. The Knights Radiant were able to use Shardblades for good, just as Elend was able to defeat Ati's army with atium. I don't see how that undermines my theory.

Perhaps because Pewter, Steel, and Tin are not opposites. Now try Pushing and Pulling on the same coin at the same time.

You're right, I should have realized you were just speculating. I'm sorry. I guess I was just focusing too much on the "voidish or mortal" part, since spren don't seem to be either of those. I wasn't able to consider the possibility that the Dawnshards might be able to affect them as well.

Yep. Since each consecutive Breath slows down aging a bit, obviously there's going to be a point where aging reaches 0 seconds per second and there's nothing left to slow down. For Nalthians at least, that point is reached at ~2000 Breaths, and that's what makes them ageless. This is still technically just speculation, of course, but that's where the evidence leads. Now, imagine a person who grows old so fast that the combined aging-resistance strength of ~2000 Breaths still isn't enough to stop his aging. In that case, he'd just need to get even more Breaths, enough to finally make even him ageless. What I'm really trying to get at here is that since each Breath slows down aging, it could be theoretically possible to give someone like Rashek enough Breaths to counter the accelerated aging caused by removing his Atiumminds. It might take two thousand Breaths, or it might take fifty million, or whatever, but I'm thinking it's something that could work. Edit: It all comes back to my previous point: when two opposite Realmatic effects interact, the stronger one wins out.

For those who like quotes, here is the source for what Leuthie said (from the Warbreaker Ars Arcanum): This is something I've completely forgotten. Thanks, Leuthie! I would like to speculate, given the above passage, that the age-freezing granted by the Fifth Heightening to a person with ~2000 Breaths is just a side effect of the fact that the person's aging has already slowed so much that there is nothing more left to slow down. A regular person would age by 1 second per second. If he starts receiving Breaths continuously, he'd age at a slower and slower pace until, at around 2000 Breaths, people can no longer notice him aging at all. But what if the person's aging isn't 1 second per second before he receives the Breaths? When Rashek's Atiumminds were taken from him, he started aging at a rate of approximately a thousand years over perhaps several minutes. That's tens of millions of seconds of aging per second. Even if he received those ~2000 Breaths the instant his Atiumminds were taken, would that be able to slow his super-accelerated aging down enough for him to survive that fight? Or will he still be doomed? On a slightly different note, what would happen if a Feruchemist-Mistborn with Breath infuses an Allomantic metal with part of his Breath and then attempts to burn a piece of that metal?

Well, Cadmium and Bendalloy time bubbles is one. The point is that "Age Freezing" and "Age Changing" are opposite Realmatic effects, so we have to decide which effect will win out.

I'm not sure if the "looking as young as you feel" thing is part of the Fifth Heightening or if it's an just another thing endowed to the Returned. Would someone who reached the Fifth Heightening without being Returned suddenly look as young as he feels before the age-freezing effect kicks in?