Daishi5

I believe that was Syl in the Physical for a very long time, but Wyndle put a seed of doubt in my mind when he mentioned that the Ring helped protect his memories when he was crossing over from the Cognitive to the Physical. If Honor spren don't have that kind of protection, then when they arrive in the Physical they will be memory impaired after leaving their home realm. I still believe that Syl was little more than a windspren since the Recreance, but I would no longer be willing to bet on it.

I don't think Syl was ever a windspren, she was just mistaken for one.  All of her pranks were making things stick to other things.  It seems implied that she was making the spheres stick to Kaladin when he was giving them to the surgeon, and his bowl when he was in the slave caravan.  She was basically bonding things the whole time.

Sudden though: I wonder if Syl was mistaken for a windspren because a lot of windspren bind things.  Maybe the windspren are honorspren that have been called windspren because they follow the winds of the highstorms.  Or in other words, the honorspren are following what is left of Honor, but the people of Roshar only see the winds so they mistake honorspren for windspren.  

I like the idea that Elokhar shattered his own spheres in the fight, and I re-read the chasmfiend fight twice to try to find any evidence, but I couldn't find anything that hints he was using any power.   I think it happened, but I don't know when he actually might have used stormlight to shatter the spheres.  

The characters are interesting.  

Brandon's plots have twists that feel like they are there because people make mistakes or didn't understand things, not just because the plot needed a twist.  

I also absolutely love the theme of gaining power through actions.  I get so annoyed with stories where someone who was born with super abilities also just happened to be a great person willing to go through great personal struggles to save everyone else.  Imagine if Superman had grown up to be like your average frat boy instead of the paragon of virtue that he is.  

I don't think you could get Cryptics to confirm anything that doesn't relate to yourself:

 

 

The Cryptic doesn't reveal truth or falsehood about Jasnah's soulcaster.  It only responds that it needs to know something about Shallan.

I love these boards, you guys help me see so many things that I would miss otherwise.  I hadn't noticed that the cryptic was seeking truths about shallan, I thought they were just interested in truth in general.  That changes a bit of my idea about what they are seeking.  

Wow, I really like that idea.  I have no idea if anything contradicts it, but it seems so simple in retrospect.

It's possible, but it's not necessarily the best explanation. I find it much more likely that Soulcasting fabrials really exist, and the ardentia really has most of them. Jasnah is, in my opinion, a fluke - the only one, or one of the few, who pretends to be using a real Soulcaster.

I think the fabrials exist, but I bet there are no real fabrials that can soulcast into anything.  

I know I am making an assumption, but I just think that since they seem to be taking trips to the cognitive realm, that they probably also know how it connects to the magic system that they are supposedly in control of.  

Remember the ardents who were studying spren?  They talked about whether or not people had tried eating in Shadesmar.  I think that at least some of the soulcasters amongst the ardents are doing so through Shadesmar. 

If surgebinding and soulcasting are the same, are the ardents hiding surgebinders amongst their ranks?

We know magic is based of actions/behavior on Roshar.  Kaladin attracted an Honorspren from acting honorably.  How has Gaz been acting, what type of spren might his actions attract?  I want to add more, but I think it comes from spoilers.  

I would like to steal that theory and claim that I was the one smart enough to realize that please!

I think there is something here, in the "I can't believe I missed that" kind of way.  The thing is, I don't know what to make of it.  But, I need to try to pay attention to how spren appear in my next re-read.  

Doing a re-read of the WoT, I could see that the clues about his killer were actually there.  

As for Gaz, I think the clue I noticed is that Kaladin's spheres were important to him because he owed money to someone.  It may have been a tiny bribe, but he wasn't going to keep up without it.  

It is interesting that Kaladin seems to be holding small amounts of stormlight most of the time now.  

I just want to say that I hope Taln gets to do an infodump and saves us from several books of main characters being afraid to talk about whats going on.  However, somehow I doubt Taln will be able to force everyone to sit down and have a KR committee meeting.  

*facepalm*  I forgot all about the stuff that started happening when Gavilar was investigating the shattered plains.  

Note, the death rattles started when Gavilar was on the shattered plains.  Which means whatever he did there could have allowed Jasnah to start forming her bond.  He might have done something then that caused all of this.

Why would Cultivation screw with his head? She has more reason than most to oppose Odium. For her, it's personal because of Tanavast. Darkness is enough of a nutjob on his own.

It is just a possibility.  We don't know a whole lot about what Cultivation is doing or why.  

I think we know two of the oaths.  "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves" and "I will remember those who have been forgotten."  So, one group could abandon the weak while another group might have run around destroying memorials and the like.  I wonder what the others might have done. 

That is good point about the reliability of Darkness as a source.  I was kind of joking about his authority when I said he might be a comic book supervillian.  But, the truth is, were only guessing at who he is.  Even if we are right, Cultivation may have screwed with his head.

Desolations, the big bad time of lots of death, how do they work?

First off, we have the Word of God.  Or, to be more accurate in this case, the voicemail recording of Honor.  It doesn't tell us much about desolations, but it does seem to hint that Odium has some choice in when to bring about desolations: 

 

He's realized that you, given time, will become your own enemies.  That he doesn't need to fight you.  Not if he can make you forget, make you turn against one another.

While that doesn't actually say that Odium is delaying the desolations, it does seem to hint that Odium has just decided to sit back and wait till everyone forgets about him and gets busy killing each other.  So, theory one, Odium gets to start the Desolations on his schedule.

Next, the prologue and the epilogue.  Not much to go on, just two quotes with almost no detail:

 

Ishar believes that so long as there is one of us still bound to the Oathpact, it may be enough.  There is a chance we might end the cycle of Desolations.  

 

I... I am Talenel'Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of the Almighty.  The Desolation has come.  Oh, God... it has come.  And I have failed.

The Heralds seem have some control or influence on Desolations, even to the point they think they might be able to stop them.   Taln has failed at something related to the Desolation.  It looks like he may be saying he failed to stop it, but it is ambiguous enough that he might have failed at something else related to the Desolations.  Second theory, the Heralds hold the Desolations at bay, this does not really contradict the first theory.  However, this one is a bit confusing.  The prologue seems like the Heralds might be able to stop the desolation by not going back?  If they might be able to stop the cycle of Desolations by abandoning Taln, why in the world were they going back before, what are they doing in the realm of nightmares?

Finally, we have Darkness, who may be a Herald, or just a random surgebinder-hunting-nut-job with a shardblade and minions with shardblades. (Maybe he is just like a comic book supervillian, you just have to pretend it makes sense.)  One quote seems to be the big one here:

 

“Others may be detestable, but they do not dabble in arts that could return Desolation to this world.” His words were so cold. “What you are must be stopped.”

So, we have someone who is probably a Herald who seems to think that surgebinding can return the Desolations?  Third theory:  Surgebinding causes desolations?  Some issues with this idea, especially how it can merge with the other two.  

It might be possible to combine all three, but I don't actually think that is right, or at least not complete.  

So, for a combined theory that is probably wrong in some way:  Odium strives to cause desolations, the Heralds hold him back somehow, and surgebinders somehow either weaken the heralds or strengthen Odiums attempts at bringing Desolations.  

Issues that I can think of with this combined theory:

• For some reason Odium has let this last Desolation wait for a long time, so he probably isn't pushing for it very hard.
• Only one Herald went back, but the Desolation is taking a long time.  This could be because Odium isn't pushing hard.
• Honor seems to be telling Dalinar that the KR need to stand again, but why would he do that if it Surgebinding brings about Desolations.
• If the combined theory is right, then every single person seems to be working against their own interests, Odium is not pushing for this Desolation, the Heralds only have one person trying to stop it, and Honor left a voicemail for someone to revive the KR and thus bring about a Desolation.

This last issue is interesting to me.  If those three different ideas about Desolations form one coherent theory, then something more complex may be going on with Desolations than just a big fight that Odium might win.  

So, for the TLDR:  Theory: Odium is the driver behind desolations, and he has held this one back for a long time for some reason.  Heralds have some way of holding back Desolations, but it seems that they might do it better when they are not in the realm of nightmares, which makes me wonder why they had to go back there in the first place.  Surgebinding either weakens the Heralds ability to hold back Desolations, strengthens Odiums push for Desolations, or in some other way makes Desolations happen.  However, Honor's voicemail seems to be pushing people to bring back surgebinding and thus Desolations.

(If this seems rambling and confused, it is because I am confused.  What we seem to know does not make much sense; combined with the actors we know and their assumed goals seem contrary to their actions given what I think is happening.)

I wonder why honor couldn't just best odium. He would have had cultivation's help considering they were so close. Why would two shards versus one go so poorly?

They were being tortured, the fact they went back more than once would be amazing. Taln didn't get a choice, he died. If honor set up the oath pact and knew his heralds had to willingly go back to be tortured 100 times in order for him to win that would be the official Worst Plan Ever.

I think the torture could not have been part of the original pact, its just too unbelievably stupid for honor to have agreed to that. Which means the heralds abandoned a pact that was not what they signed up for, but only after they tried their best.

Random thought.  

We know that Kaladin is protected from feeling the Thrill, and I think we know that this is because of his bond with Syl.

Perhaps the bond extended to protect not only the KR, but also his plate and blade. 

Perhaps, the Recreance was just the severing of the bonds, which left both the plate and the blade vulnerable to corruption.  Odium may have just corrupted the blades because the blades can be used to kill people, and he wanted the maximum gain in killing for the minimum investure.  

So, both plate and blade could be vulnerable because of the Recreance, but the plate is still fine just because Odium wasn't interested in something that didn't harm people.  (Although, Adolins punching Parshendi at the Tower shows that plate can be deadly too.)

You forget that Szeth: 

 

* hates killing innocents, he only wants his target. he would be glad to be killed, but by his target

* kills everyone who sees him surgebinding (he hated the king of jah kaved cause he forced him to kill all those witnesses there at the party)

 

he always tries to get his target alone, to minimize casualties.

 

Besides, in his entire fight with gavilar, where were the others? where was jasnah? where was navani? why did they not jump to help Gavilar then? And I don't see Szeth attacking like a bull, whoever is there. He will try to get Dalinar when he's alone.

I don't doubt that whoever is with him will engage Szeth - the spearmen, Kaladin, Adolin, even the women. IF THEY ARE THERE. But since Szeth will try to avoid bloodshed I doubt he will go after Dalinar when he's with them.

 

Btw, I wonder how a spearman will react to Szeth, given that they have seen Kaladin surgebinding.

Remember that the reason Dalinar started following the codes is because he failed to protect his brother because he was too drunk.  The codes dictate that during a war, officers and soldiers should always be ready and sober.  By making everyone follow the codes in his camp, Dalinar has set things up so that what happened with Gavilar will not happen again.

The glow completely failed when people started killing each other with them. I think it's really that simple.

That could be it, the glow starts to fade when the blades are abandoned, but it says the glow is completely gone right after the first person is killed.  It isn't clear that they are directly related, but it given that it says they killed the first person, and the very next sentence says the glow was completely gone it not a giant leap of logic.  

Is it a huge difference that the blade does the actual killing while the plate only makes the killing easier.  If magic on Roshar is based on intent, and shardplate wearers like Sadeas are running around slaughtering soldiers left and right while wearing their plate, would the plate be unaffected by the horrible things they were doing?

First off, let me say that that theory wasn't mine. I don't know who originally came up with the theory. I have adopted it because it makes sense to me, but I'm not going to claim credit for it.

 

I will say that I believe that the Shardblades are obtained by each individual Knight Radiant through the Nahel Bond. I don't believe this is necessarily the case with the Plate. If the plate was created by Bondsmiths, which was theorized by someone else as well, then the Plate may not have been affected when the Knights Radiant rejected their Nahel Bonds and forsook their oaths. If the Blade alone was a part of the bond, and the Plate was designed to function best by someone who was a full Knight Radiant, then the Plate would be similar to an engine that isn't running on all cylinders. It would still run, but it wouldn't be as efficient, or as effective as it is when running at one hundred percent capacity. I do believe that the Plate was incorporated into the Nahel Bond, but that it was done as an addition.

 

I would say that the Day of Recreance was a blow to Honor, I wouldn't necessarily say it was a death blow. I'm tending to think He died during the Sunmaker war.

Noted, I was trying to give credit where credit was due, but I hadn't looked deep enough, oops!

I don't really have a theory, it just seems that something is different between what happened the blades and plate on Roshar.  I think that if we pay attention to how they are different we might be able to come up with a few more crazy and completely wrong theories (and maybe something thats right!)

I like Gloom's theory that the shardblades of today are different than the shardblades before the recreance, and that event is what created our third type of blade (honorblade, radiant shardblade, modern shardblade).  Stealing his quote, this is from the recreance:

 

 

A terrible feeling struck him. A sense of immense tragedy, of pain and betrayal. Stopping where he stood, he gasped, hand to chest. What was happening? What was that dreadful feeling, that screaming he swore he could almost hear?

This also helps explain why Syl seems to hate a weapon that probably used to belong to a Knight Radiant.  

Shardblades seem to be "off" in modern Roshar, however no one seems to question shardplate.

Looking back at Dalinar's flashbacks, modern shardplate seems to be less capable than the radiant's shardplate. The radiant's plate was covered in glowing glyphs and the helms at least seemed to disappear and reappear whenever the radiant wanted.  During the chasmfiend fight it seems that Dalinar's plate may have glowed a bit.  

Szeth thinks he can't use his lashings while wearing plate because he thinks it will interfere with the gemstones in the plate.  In Dalinar's vision, one of the radiants "falls upward" back to the town.  It seems like he is lashing himself in order to fly.  

I think there was a theory that only people in plate felt the "Thrill" but I think that was debunked as not being only limited to plate.  

Looking over the Recreance vision again, the swords were glowing and faded, but there is no mention of armor glow or any change.

Kaladin didn't just reject a blade, but also the plate.  However, he only thinks about the blade.  

So, is anything up with shardplate?

If something is wrong with shardblades, and it was caused by the Recreance, would it have also affected the plate? Maybe the Recreance only corrupted (or allowed a certain odius presence to corrupt) shardblades.  

We don't seem to have any indication that shardplate is bad in any way, no recreations or revulsion to it.  But, if it doesn't elicit the same reactions as the shardblades, can we assume that whatever causes Syl and Kaladin to hate the blade did not happen to the plate (IE, if Syl and Kaladin hate blades, but not plate, can we assume the Recreance didn't cause the issue with shardblades?)

I thought that maybe shardplate was just not working because no one in modern Roshar seems to be able to make it glow or disappear, so its corruption just wasn't seen.  However, when Kaladin kills the shardbearer, Amaram states that the shardbearer is dead:

 

"If he were still alive, his Blade would have vanished.  His armor is falling off of him.  He is dead..."

It looks like shardplate is bonded to its wearer in some form, and when the wearer dies, it just falls off.  So, it seems that shardplate is still working, at least in some minimal form.  

We also have Dalinar, who seems to almost glow when protecting Elhokar from the chasmfiend, so the shardplate seems like it might still be connected to the ideals of honor, and it might still work if worn by a KR.

Where does that leave my ideas when it comes to shardplate?  Confused!

The quote from the Recreance makes it seem like something really bad happened there, but it doesn't seem to have done anything to shardplate, and I like the idea that it is the cause of modern shardblades being disturbing to Syl.  I also like the idea that shardplate and shardblades are related to the oaths of the KR, but modern shardplate seems to be just waiting for honorable people to pick it up and put it on, while the shardblades are being rejected by our two main honorable characters.  

It would make more sense if both plate and blade were corrupted, or if both plate and blade could be made to work properly by an honorable person.  

Am I missing something that might imply plate is also bad in some way?  Could the difference between the two mean something important?