Daishi5

Looking at TWoK, it seems pretty clear that Gavilar died.  The new information does make it look like the king might have survived somehow, but if he survived there are a lot of really big questions that would need to be answered.

 

The main witness to the king's death in TWoK was Szeth, who didn't even know what the king looked like.  If Jasnah hadn't been above them and seen the man in the king's plate die, I would be betting money on Gavilar being alive.  However, with Jasnah as a first hand witness, I have a hard time believing that Gavilar is alive.  

I made this point in another thread, but something has bothered me about shardblades.

 

Syl describes her self as an honorspren, who binds things.  As an honorspren, before all her memories came back, all of her pranks were about holding things together.  

 

In comparison shardblade separates everything it touches, when it touches a person it separates the connection between the physical and the cognitive and/or spirtual.   The shardblade doesn't just cut, it passes right through things, and where it passes, there is no longer any connection.  

 

Considering that the Heralds carry blades that do the same thing, I don't think its proof that the blades are somehow bad, but they just don't seem to be related to honor.   

I wonder how much time Honor, Cultivation, and Odium spent working together.  Was it forced on them by circumstance, or did they have a reason to work together.  

 

I just can't imagine why Honor would want to work with Odium.  

One thing kind of bothers me about the shardblades.  Syl says she is an Honorspren, and she says that she binds things.  Her pranks were always about making things stick together.

 

Shardblades sever things.  They sever whatever bonds any material, and when they hit a person they sever the bond between the physical and the spirtual. 

 

The way a shardblade behaves seems completely the opposite of what Syl says Honorspren do.

Why does it say 3 of sixteen ruled?  Did Honor, Cultivation, and Odium have a time of peace on the planet where Odium behaved himself?  I wonder what the hell must have happened for all three to have ruled for a time.  Odium seems like a  shard you know you can't just be buddies with.  

I don't see enough evidence to strongly believe that Gaz is a herald.  However, if he turns out to be one, it won't be completely out of the blue.  

I never really considered why the heralds might have become broken twisted interpretations of some form of ideal before.  This theory shows me something weird going on that I missed, and then nicely finds a cause, I like it.

That might be a good little twist on their weird racism.

I think Hoid's story about the people who killed because their "ruler commanded them to" also applies to Szeth.  Szeth is truly the one responsible for the deaths because his owner does not actually control him, and one day he will have to face that no one else actually made him kill those people.

Syl says she feels drawn to follow the other "something" spren that follow the wind of the storms to the west.  Uthiru(however its spelled) was to be placed in the west nearest to honor (or something like that).  

 

I think that the modern windspren are following the storms toward honor.  The storm has the face and it renews stormlight.  I wonder if they are following the storm, or just heading west.  If they are following the storm, than it might have a lot of honor or honor's power bound up into the storms.  If they are just heading west, what happens when they get there?  If were still seeing them heading west, are they not arriving, or are they arriving and then starting again for some reason?

Right..... so an honorspren Honorspren that looks like a windspren because they all look like windspren,---- or an honorspren Honorspren that Kaladin mistakes for a windspren even though he has seen them his whole life?

 

I wonder if all of the "windspren" are actually honorspren, and that is why he made the mistake.  Syl was playing a lot of jokes by making things stick to his hands or people's feet, and he realized who did it.  A windspren making jokes by making things stick to each other doesn't make much sense.  Once you know Syl is an honorspren and she binds things, then all the "making stuff stick" pranks make more sense.  

 

So there are a few questions.  Do all windspren play pranks by making stuff stick to people and other things?  Do some of the windspren blow things around, and other make stuff stick?  Or, was Kaladin's windspren different from all the other windspren, and Kaladin just didn't notice that none of her pranks were about wind.  

So what evidence do we have that Szeth carries an Honorblade?

 

The quote above, obviously.

 

The fact that Szeths eyes only change when he summons his blade as seen below.

 

The fact that Szeths eyes change to a completely different color than his natural color, and that this color is the Windrunners color.

 

The fact that Szeth can surgebind without spren.

 

The fact that Szeths blade is unique in several ways. It is smaller than a normal Shardblade, and has the unique effect noted in the quote above.

 

I may have missed a few, feel free to add to the list. I'm aware that other theories have been put forth on why these things happen.

 

Most of those are not actually evidence of an honorblade, they are only evidence that something is different with Szeth.  Only the eye change and the size of the blade can be conclusively linked to the blade.  

 

Oh, and one other "kinda proof."  Szeth says that part of his punishment is to be tortured for eternity rather than just cease to exist, we know Heralds also get to spend hundreds of years being tortured.  If Szeth is right about being tortured after he dies, the similarity of his fate to the Heralds can also be blamed on his blade.  

 

What we do know is that there are 3 kinds of blades, we have seen honorblades and shardblades, and Szeth says his is different than the current day blades.  

 

I like your theory that the Recreance changed the blades somehow, and the blades of modern Roshar are not the same as the blades of the KR.  (Syl dislikes Dalinar's blade, the quote about "returning to men the shards they once bore," and the description of the Recreance when the KR gave up their blades.)  

 

If your theory is true (and again, I like your theory a lot, but it could be wrong), then we have 3 types of blades identified, KR shardblades, current day blades, and honorblades.  Since Szeth says that his blade is different than modern day blades, it would have to either be a true KR blade, or an honorblade.  We know KR bonded with spren but Szeth has no spren, and Szeth is not on the KR path, so I think we can pretty confidently say that Szeth does not have an oldstyle KR blade.  That leaves us with honorblade.

 

If he doesn't have a blade, we have to figure out A. where the blade comes from, D. how he can surge bind, C. why spren don't seem to be attracted to him, D. why his blade only changes his eyes temporarily, E. where he learned to fight, F. why he thinks he will be tortured after death 

 

If he has an honorblade, we get a nice occams razor type of solution of "it all happened because of the blade" and we are left with A. where did it come from

When darkness says that "that creature has my lords own blade," maybe he is talking about Eshonai? It would make more sense with the word "creature," but to be honest that quote is really open to many different interpretations.

My only biggest issue with this is that I believe Elkohar loans out his blade for duels.  If Honorblades are different from shardblades, then loaning it out seems to make it likely to be noticed.  If only Elkohar used his blade, it would be possible he didn't notice any difference because he never had a shardblade to compare it to.  However, during the duels, you would have someone who had trained with a normal shardblade using an honorblade against another shardbearer in an arena that was carefully watched.  (I am assuming that a high ranked lighteyes with no blade could receive training with a real shardblade, because otherwise dueling with shardblades when you have never held one before seems silly.)  I would expect either the duelist to notice that the kings blade is different, or the crowd to notice something.  

 

I still like Szeth has an honorblade theory (even without evidence, I just like it).  Anyone who may have noticed any differences either died, or was probably so terrified that they didn't take time to compare it to the behavior of other blades.  

 

Edit: there are probably other things, but the fact that the king loans out his blade seems to be a problem with this theory.  Unless Honorblades are really close to normal shardblades most of the time, or in normal mortal hands.  

I'd like to restate what Vortaan said. Something should  be attracted to him: angerspren, painspren, etc. but they aren't. As far as we know, most spren can't choose to be invisible. They can't choose in general. Only spren that have bonded with someone have shown any kind of ability to choose whether or not to appear. Szeth should have spren exploding around him with the emotional trauma and pain he feels as he kills, yet he doesn't.

 

This really does seem important.  

 

Do we ever see other spren repulsed by Szeth?  Does his presence drive them away, or do they just completely fail to notice him?

 

Did we see any Spren around the other Shin when the traders visited Shinovar?  I seem to recall there were almost no spren at all.  Unfortunately that leaves me with the question of whether or not all Shin would be without spren when they wander the world, or if this is something unique to Szeth.  Have we seen other Shin going through strong emotions outside of Shinovar?

Renarin may be well on his way to being a Radiant then with all that he has suffered from his blood weakness, and he doesn't have a shard blade to prevent a bond. Adolin, who hasn't really suffered yet, probably doesn't have the "broken soul" to fill with surge binding.

That and preservation was acting to preserve things just as they are.  

 

I also had a wild thought about how the oathpact came about which follows on the same concept, some of Honor's and Odium's behavior could be caused by a need to follow their shard's intent that may not be in their own best interest.  How that fits into this, I am not sure.

I used to think that the soulcaster was damaged by the shardblade, but something occurred to me.  Shallan's shardblade seems to be a complete secret.  If the soulcaster was cut by a shardblade, I would expect the damage to be "unique"

 

So, I have two things I think are true.  A.  No one knows about Shallan's blade.  B.  Shallan cut the soulcaster with her blade, which "broke" it. 

 

Now that I think about what a soulcaster cut by a shardblade would look like, I don't believe that both A and B can be true.  I suspect that B is more likely to be false, but I don't have any idea how the soulcaster did get damaged if B is false.  

One thing that bothered me about the Shin was that if farming is the most noble goal, then the high nobility in Shinovar would be made up of a large fraction of the population.  Before industrialization and fertilizer, farming was hard work that required a very large portion of the populace.  

 

That means in Shinovar, your upper class might be made up of 50% of the population.  Normally the "elite" of a society are going to be a very small portion of the population.

 

I still think this means that the "farmers" of Shinovar are mostly the landowners, who have a lot of labor, like southern plantation owners (hopefully without the slavery).  But, shardplate or using stormlight for the growth surge, might allow a small elite number of farmers to feed the enitre population.

The easiest way to ask this question is to pose a hypothetical question:  Suppose that Odium has found something in the Cosmere that is capable of and actively trying to kill him.  Odium is not able to defend himself against it, but with the help of Honor and Cultivation, the three of them could fight off whatever the threat is. However, Honor knows Odium is a bad guy who is not trustworthy.  

 

If Odium came to Honor in desperate need of help in order to survive, would Honor need to help him because part of being honorable is "protecting those who can't protect themselves?"  Or in other words, does Honor have to always be honorable, even when doing so is obviously a stupid thing to do?

 

If Honor finds himself very strongly compelled to do something like this even though he knows Odium is not very trustworthy, it might be one reason that they would both enter into the pact.  Honor may find himself compelled to help Odium, but he could try to bind Odium with the pact to protect himself. 

 

And of course, if Odium joined the Oathpact for his own protection, his own need to be a hateful bastard might have driven him to kill Honor when he had the chance even though he is not safe yet.  

 

The ideals of the KR and the intent of the shard of Honor are so closely related that it is kind of hard to be clear exactly what I meant.  I tried, but alas, I am not a great word-smith, maybe more of an apprentice word-mangler.  

That's quote possible. I was picking on the specific wording about how his armor seems to glow when he is protecting those who cannot protect themselves. This is very specific behavior in the Stormlight Archive.

I know, but the way I see it, each of the ideals is going to be a portion of what it means to be honor (and maybe cultivation).  I think plate responds to acting honorably, and it is related to the quote about "act with honor and honor will aide you." I would expect that by the end Kaladin and Dalinar will probably both be following all of the ideals in some way.  They will have a main focus on a certain set of those ideals, but they will respect and follow all of the ideals in some way.  

Only, this can't be the case. Not literally. Dalinar is not a Windrunner, his pseudo-powers (if he does, in fact, display them) lie in a different direction. So his Second Ideal would be different.

I think it is more related to the intent of the shard of honor "act with honor and honor will aide you"  than it is related to a set of ideals.  

I think that Dalinar's glow is simple.  He glows when he is protecting those who can't protect themselves.  The first case, Elhokar was going to be killed, it states that his mind was suddenly clear and only one thing was important, protecting his brother's son.  In the second case, the bridgemen are about to be cut down and they have no defense against the archers.  

 

I think there was something wrong with his blade, but in those two instances he was acting with purely honorable intentions to protect people, and something about that enabled him to access his plate better.  I think the visions also said something like "act with honor and honor will aid you."  

 

I remember the first scene really well because I was not new to Brandon's work when I read it the first time, so I was looking for the way magic was driven in this system.  At first I thought Dalinar was glowing because he really cared.  I feared that Roshar was going to be the care-bear magic system of the Cosmere.  

I don't think it's just the value, but also the act of measuring that counts.

 I wish they would have tried just estimating the size.  I wonder if it happens because of the act of measurement, or the intent to record a property.