skaa

Oh, I hadn't considered if the Fifth Heightening could actually prevent/freeze Atium Feruchemy. I assumed it only prevented natural aging. Now that I think about it, whenever we encounter two opposite Realmatic effects interacting with each other, the more powerful one wins out. If the powers involved in producing the effects are equal, they just cancel each other out. So, this gives us three possible scenarios: If the Fifth Heightening and Atium Feruchemy are equally powerful, using them at the same time would cancel both powers, leading to the super-accelerated aging phenomenon. A person would have to stop tapping his Atiumminds the very instant he receives the Breaths to avoid as much aging as possible. Not a very good scenario, in my opinion. If the Fifth Heightening is stronger than Atium Feruchemy, the user will be stuck in the youth level he last received from Atium Feruchemy. The user will be unable to store Youth (except by Compounding), and trying to tap Youth will simply waste it. This is a better scenario than the first because there's no danger of accidentally triggering accelerated aging while wearing Atiumminds.Note that for the first two scenarios, there's still a way for a person to use Atium Feruchemy even after receiving the Breaths: He could release some of his Breaths into some object, immediately tap or store Youth as desired, then retrieve his Breaths. Having to release your Breaths every time you change your age might be a slight hassle, but a Feruchemist should find the concept very familiar. If Atium Feruchemy is stronger than the Fifth Heightening, then a person would be able to change his age at will, storing and tapping Youth as desired without having to release his Breaths temporarily. If the person stops storing or tapping, the Fifth Heigthening's age-freezing effect takes over. This is the scenario I assumed at first. Definitely the best scenario. Edit: I would of course prefer it if Atium Feruchemy (with Compounding) is stronger, but I really don't know. What do you guys think?

Ah. I'm sorry if I didn't understand at first, Shardlet. I see that you were just trying to be open-minded about Syl's true nature. In the same interview I linked to, Brandon also said that "you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation." The wording leaves room for exceptions, but I think it implies that the Shard/s a spren is aligned to should usually be easy to spot. Their names are the easiest clues, in my opinion. So, Honor's spren would be named after virtues (and possibly achievements, which is another definition for "honor"), Cultivation's spren would be named after concepts related to life and growth, and the rest would be a mixture of the two (unless there's an outlier spren that is of Odium).

Well, Thunderclasts can apparently be fought using hammers (though of course a Shardblade would be of an immense help). Also, we don't know yet if Dawnshards can transform non-living matter into living matter (e.g. golems). All we know is that they bind creatures, "voidish or mortal".

Oh my! How could I forget about fabrials! >_< Edited that post again. Thanks, blackmagic3! Another connection is that creationspren can appear to look like man-made objects just as Shardblades appear as swords, so I've added that there as well. Edit: I edited the thread-starter post to link to my various speculations and arguments, as well as to the notable counter-evidence presented. Also, I just remembered about Cusicesh the Protector, who appears at exactly the same time everyday. This means that a spren's appearance can be linked to the measurement of time, just like Shardblades. Added that as well. You know what? I now realize that if ever Brandon says that Shardblades are not even spren at all, I'd be bummed out for several days. I think I'm starting to get too attached to this theory.

Oh, sorry, I was just assuming that cryptics could affect the Physical realms even when invisible since they are responsible for Soulcasting ability. Or are they? Hmmm... alright, I'll edit that part. Thanks, Azul!

I think you would be able to stop tapping youth and remain at the level of youth that atium gave you. The Fifth Heightening stops aging, so the accelerated aging that Rashek experienced when he lost his Atiumminds in The Final Empire shouldn't occur. I personally would reserve my Atiumminds for when I want to be at a certain age. If I wanted to change my age every year (e.g. look like a centenarian this year, look like a teenager next year, etc.), I would only have to store/tap youth once a year instead of tapping constantly. This is a cool idea, Kadrok!

Yep, they're just common nouns. On Scadrial, atium isn't capitalized even though it has Ati's name in it.

Yes, that, too. I'm still not sure why Shardlet thinks capitalization is important, since in either case honorspren are still related to both the concept of honor and the Shard Honor (which is itself related to the concept of honor), being mostly/fully of that particular Shard. Edit: The idea that multiple types of spren can be called honorspren makes me wonder if the cryptics call themselves honorspren as well. I'm starting to think cryptics, Syl, and other spren that are "of Honor" may have different names but are all under the same umbrella term "honorspren". So perhaps we can call Syl "integrityspren", the cryptics "honestyspren", etc.

I can sort of understand the lack of capitalization. They aren't capitalized for the same reason atium isn't capitalized in Mistborn novels: Those are in-universe names, and to the people inhabiting those planets, they are just common nouns referring to certain magical things. I think we're forgetting that all sixteen Shards are named after concepts themselves, and are very strongly attached to the concept they are named after. If one may be slightly flippant, one might almost say that the Shards themselves are just god-level spren, so to speak. If Ati and Leras came to Roshar instead of Scadrial, there might be entities called ruinspren and preservationspren, and we'd be debating on whether those entities referred only to the concepts of ruin and preservation or to the Shards themselves. But I think the answer is obvious: they would refer to both.

Ah, yes, I'm guilty of capitalizing that as well. I'll start calling them honorspren from now on. But I'm still not sure I see any difficulty in linking honorspren to the Shard Honor. I mean, how would you imagine Honorspren (capital H) to be like, exactly? Would they not also give a high importance to oaths and promises, given Honor's Shardic Intent? Also, we know that several types of spren can be called honorspren: I think the different types of spren that are mostly or fully of Honor can bind themselves to different kinds of Surgebinders.

Nah, it's alright. After all, it's still not a closed case until Brandon says outright that Odiumspren don't exist. I'm willing to bet that Sanderson just didn't want to reveal the existence of Odiumspren yet so he didn't mention them in that interview. The fact that Honor and Cultivation arrived in Roshar first would mean that virtually all the spren came from them. That would be the general rule, but there could be an exception.I became so much more attached to my theory after that post above where I showed shardbearer that the behavior of Shardblades isn't too different from what other spren already do. I actually just came up with that argument on the spot, so it was quite a pleasant surprise for me, and made me like my theory even more.

This kind of reminds me of Harry Potter magic. In that magic system, non-verbal spells are a thing, but they are considered advanced and requires a high level of skill. The better you could visualize the spell in your head, the less you need to rely on the verbal aspect of it. I think a similar thing is happening in Awakening. The focus of Investiture is the Cognitive aspect of the Command, but most people's minds are not capable of grokking Commands without speaking the words. Verbalizing helps them see their Commands more clearly in their heads. Getting more Breaths heightens awareness, right? I think the Tenth Heightening (~50,000 Breaths) allows the Awakener to be so aware of his own thought processes that he instinctively forms Commands at will without having to say anything at all.

Yes. And they're not Shardplate either since you seem to have to hold them in your hands. I'm guessing they were some sort of wand or instrument that can be used to (among other things) bind people to their oaths. Perhaps their disappearance is connected to why the nine Heralds abandoned the Oathpact and how Rayse was able to finally kill Tanavast. Edit: I wonder if Brandon named the Dawnshards and the Dawnsingers after the real life Order of the Golden Dawn? If so, the answer to their purpose might lie in Hermeticism and theurgy. *goes to research further*

I think both that and the quote Phantom gave are good counter-evidence to my theory, though I wouldn't call them conclusive just yet. I certainly wouldn't have wasted time typing the second and third parts of the theory if I'd seen both quotes first.

It's okay. I was going to ignore your first comment completely, but then I figured I could just incorporate my response into a summary of things that the theory could explain. Of course, just because a theory explains many things doesn't mean it's necessarily correct. I'm aware that my speculations here were a bit wild. I mean, you can see that I repeatedly acknowledged that fact in my posts. I waited a whole day in between typing each part of my theory to give people time to show me where I was completely and utterly wrong. Every day I was anticipating someone to point some WoB or some passage in WoK that contradicted one of my main assertions, so that I wouldn't have to think of what to type next. In fact, if Phantom posted that "Szeth isn't bound to a spren" right after my first post, I doubt if I would have continued with the rest of it. Okay, so Shardblades being spren is odd. I agree. But wouldn't you say that a hypothetical Odiumspren would have to be on at least the same level of power and "oddness" as Cryptics (who, by the way, are invisible in the Physical Realm) and Honorspren? Here are things that we know spren can do: Appear out of nowhere (most spren) Act weirdly when interacting with flesh (From Chapter 7: "...if she moved her arm through one, its figure would smear like scattered sand, then reform.") Affect the Physical Realm (Honorspren... possibly Cryptics... Edit: or really, any spren that could be put in a fabrial) Have forms visible only in Shadesmar (Cryptics) Have forms that mimic man-made objects (creationspren) Exhibit a sort of "wavefunction collapse" when numbers are assigned to them (flamespren) Have its "wavefunction collapse" linked to the measurement of time (Cusicesh the Protector) Note that all those things apply for my theoretical Odiumspren (i.e. Shardblades). So if you think about it, the theory that Shardblades are spren only seems odd when you've gotten used to seeing spren as just whispy, harmless little floating critters. But the fact is that spren can be so much more complex than that. You're measuring the time it takes for it to appear. I know it's a weird thing to measure about a spren, but I think it's valid. After all, there's Cusicesh the Protector, who also appears at a predictable time. Measuring the time for the Odiumspren's wavefunction to collapse would collapse the wavefunction of the Odiumspren in the time measured. (Whoa, that's almost like a ketek right there! )

Ah, that makes perfect sense. Thanks!

This reminds me of something I've wondered about before. Did Brandon ever say what the focus of Investiture was on Nalthis? Is it Breath, or is it color/pigmentation? Or both? (Edit: It's neither. The Investiture focuses on the Command, idiot skaa!) I'd like to think of giving and taking BioChromatic Breath as one kind of Investiture transaction, while the actual Awakening via giving of Command as another. It's two systems in one, is what I'm saying. I think Awakening is definitely end-positive, but I'm not quite sure about BioChromatic Breath. I think it's more of an end-neutral system. Of course, if we consider BioChroma and Awakening as a single system, then yes, it's ultimately end-positive. I think any system that uses fuel that is separate from sentient creatures like humans and spren can be considered end-positive. That means Awakening (fuel: color), Allomancy (fuel: metal, which is also incidentally the focus of Investiture), AonDor (fuel: the Dor), and Surgebinding (fuel: Stormlight) are all end-positive. Under this definition, Szeth's Surgebinding is still end-positive even though he wastes a lot of Stormlight when they leak away unused. Aluminum Allomancy is also end-positive under this definition even though it destroys the metal reserves of an Allomancer. Distinguishing between end-neutral and end-negative is a lot trickier since they both involve something being taken from a person instead of from nature. Things like Feruchemy and the Honorspren-Surgebinder bond are easy to mark as end-neutral because all the persons involved in the Investiture transaction can gain something just as they lose something. BioChromatic Breath (especially Divine Breath) seems a bit more debatable. In one definition, becoming a Drab (or dying, as in the case of the Returned) by giving away your last Breath to someone seems like an end-negative thing. In another definition, the amount of Breaths in the system are still balanced, so it's end-neutral. I think I'm going to go with the "BioChroma is end-neutral" camp, simply because BioChroma doesn't lower the amount of Investiture the same way Hemalurgy does, even if it takes away something from a person. Which leads us to the Dakhor Teleportation of Death. Killing people to gain power is morally bad, but that's not really the measure of whether the magic system is end-negative or not. If the amount of Investiture inside the victims upon before death is the same as the amount of Investiture required by the spell, then it's end-neutral. If part of the victims' Investiture is wasted (like in Hemalurgy), then it's end-negative.

Ah, yes, that might be possible. I wonder if this also has something to do with the third magic system mentioned in the Ars Arcanum of WoK: I hope Dalinar has a vision where he sees an actual Voidbringer in battle. Or better yet, one of the Heralds fighting a Voidbringer!

From the text I emphasized, it looks like neither the shadow-like, red-eyed spren nor the larger spren that came after it were Odiumspren, but rather spren that were "touched" by whoever (a name) is. I think an Unmade was using Odium-based magic (Voidbinding? Something else?) to make various spren do his/her bidding.

You could do that, but be forewarned that sucking in stormlight leaked from another person is a valid marriage ceremony in certain parts of Roshar. I mean, really, aren't you afraid of cootiespren? Kidding aside, Kaladin might have to be pretty close to Szeth to get to his leaking stormlight. At that point, why not just stab him? The time it would take to extract the stormlight might be enough for Szeth's normally unblockable Shardblade to hit Kaladin (unless he's already a Shardbearer by this point).

The magic drug (Gaaah! I still can't think of a cool name for it!) works by interacting with the person's pineal gland, which would then start giving "false" signals to the rest of the body. If an assassin wanted his target not to see the magic but still be affected by it, he'd have to prevent the target's visual cortex from receiving magic-related signals. I suppose someone could have the power to make other magic users lose their visual connection to the magic world. That should work. I'll put that in my notes and see what I can do with it later. Thanks! You can't telekinetically lift physical bodies in the air, not even those of other magic users. That's the limitation of the magic system. Nonmagics will only ever see magic users do statistically impossible things (e.g. predict the future), not physically impossible things. If nonmagics see a person die after you make a stabbing motion ten meters away (because you had a magic sword that could change its length), they could examine the body and conclude that the person died because the drug did something bad to him, not because of anything you did. They'd just call your stabbing motion a coincidence, and your experience a hallucination. There could be a power to telekinetically lift spirit beings around, but nonmagics won't see them anyway.

Well, I suppose creating a magic system that incorporates both your powers (e.g. Feruchemy for Ati and Leras) isn't really that romantic (I mean, just look at Ati and Leras!), but I guess it's a start. Especially if the magic system involves creating little spirit-like things that like to play around like little kids. Phantom has a point. If I were to merge with my loved one to become a single entity, I wouldn't be able to love her like before, coz she'll be me. *shudder*

If I am devoted to someone, I could say that I'm bound to her. Yet... she might not feel bound to me. She might not even like me at all, much less feel devoted to me. She could leave me for someone else if she wanted to, leave me heartbroken and all alone... *sob* Wait, what are we talking about again? Well, thanks for giving me your honest opinion. But for something that doesn't make sense, it conveniently explains quite a few things: Why the Heralds had to go through prolonged periods of torture Why the Heralds return to the Physical Realm when Desolations are about to arrive Why the Honorblades disappear when their owners die Why the Voidbringers' descendants can't perform Voidbinding (yet) Syl's hatred for Shardblades The "good reason" for letting Lighteyes rule How Shardblades can bind to owners like spren do How Szeth can Surgebind even without an Honorspren Now, I'm pretty sure some details and certain wordings I used (especially the actual details of the Oathpact) will be shown to be wrong. I'm alright with that. I can't read Brandon's mind, after all. But despite your devastating critique, shardbearer, I think I'm going to stick to this theory for a little while longer.

I'm glad my wild ramblings were somehow able to inspire creative thought. I have one question, though. Why did you think the Heralds take the Honorblades in the first place, if they knew Shardblades were Odium's tools? I'm curious because I extended my theory to handle that issue, and you said you only agreed with the "Shardblades are from Odium" part. Rayse created them to destroy anything. He doesn't particularly love his own creatures because, if you remember, he's the personification of odium. Though... Shardblades are immune to each other, so there's that. I suppose Odium might love weapons more than he loves creatures...

Aw, I wish I'd seen that earlier, Phantom. Well, I suppose you could say that being bound to the Physical aspect (i.e. the Shardblade) doesn't automatically bind the person to the spren in the same way that Syl bound to Kaladin and that the theoretical Odiumspren bound to ancient Voidbringers. But... yeah. I was kinda hoping that the Odiumspren was powering Szeth's Surgebinding somehow. I guess that isn't possible now. Edit: hoser said something in Kiwi's thread that, if true, might salvage the Shardblades are spren theory: Perhaps we need to re-word Viper's question for Brandon: Is a spren bound to Szeth?