MagnusMuses

I posted this idea on tor.com on sunday but I prefer a focused forum discussion to the sprawling comment sections over there so I wanted to post this idea here and hopefully get some reaction. I think Shardplate and Shardblades are in some way fundamentally different. I have seen that many people who speculate on the nature of Shardplate suggest or even assume that Syl is directly responsible for the shardplate. I don't think so. the plate and blades left behind by the Radiants behave completely differently in several fundamental ways. Also Kaladin doesn't hear screaming from touching plate. Some have suggested that the plate might be formed from a second spren bond but I dislike this suggestion, bringing a third person into a close personal relationship between two people is hard (and would be harder to write believably, not that Brandon wouldn't be able to do it). It also doesn't address the lack of screaming. My hypothesis is that the answer lies in the connection of the bond forming spren to a different kind of spren, f.ex. honorspren - windspren. It is a connection that has constantly been reinforced with Syl and I think it was mentioned in general for bond forming spren (I don't remember where and might be completely wrong on this). It seems like too much for just a casual connection, windrunner - windspren (wind being caused by pressure differences in the atmosphere). When Kaladin performs the greatest displays of his power (flying) he is surrounded by huge numbers of windspren (greater than any we have seen or heard of before). I think that is where the plate comes from. It would explain the lack of screaming, the screaming being caused by the betrayal which the windspren are incapable of comprehending thus making the plate merely distasteful. Also, cryptics - creationspren? We see Shallan being surrounded by creationspren in similarly huge numbers when she draws Pattern in her cabin on the ship (Chapter 3). It is obvious that to use lightweaving to anything approaching it's full potential requires a great deal of creativity. The link is far more tenuous than with pressure and wind but unless we see lightspren the It's as good a connection as I can think of. We have seen no indication of any other possible connections with cryptics (that I can remember at least) and I don't see why honorspren should be special in this regard. I hope I am not reposting. If I am, sorry.

Another thing to remember is the general strange behavior of Darkness, specifically with regards to the law. Maybe he needed the right situation?

I'm a bit disappointed that Sigzil's attempt at doing some proper science was interrupted. I suppose it had to be sacrificed for story pacing.

One of the mysteries presented to the reader in the prelude to the Stormlight Archive is the nature of the Oathpact that is broken by the Heralds. A possible reason behind this pact occurred to me recently and it relates to a particular well known story from the Bible, the story of Job. To those not familiar with said story: Job is a very prosperous man who is both righteous and pious. God is very proud of Job but Satan claims that Job is only righteous because he is so sheltered. Satan wagers with God that if he were to take everything away from Job then he would not be so pious. God takes the wager and allows Satan to do what he wants short of taking Job's life. Satan tries everything but fails to get Job to curse God. The possible parallel with the Oathpact lies in the deal between two deities with people caught in the middle. In the Almighty's last message to Dalinar he says that it might be possible to get Odium to choose a champion. This implies that it is possible in some circumstances to make deals with Odium and so it might not be ridiculous to conjecture that deals have been struck in the past. There is also precedent for deals between two opposing Shards in Brandon's other Cosmere books. If the Almighty is Honor as many suspect then maybe Honor and Odium made a wager on whether humans could be broken and made to discard their honor for selfish reasons. This would explain why the Heralds had to endure torment between desolations, this was a test of how long they could last. Furthermore, if Honor and Odium made this deal then, presumably, a lot rode on the outcome. Possibly even the fate of the Shards and of Roshar itself. If this was the case then that would mean that 9 out of 10 Heralds forsaking the Oathpact would deal a crushing, possibly fatal, blow to Honor. I have seen it noted that, curiously enough, the Heralds don't mention Honor and only mention the Almighty in passing. Comparing this to the story of Job then this might mean that the Heralds were unaware of this wager and only thought that they were defending humanity from the desolations when the real battle was for their virtue. This only just occurred to me and I couldn't find any mention of this parallel being drawn anywhere so I decided to post it. I hope I'm not just reposting something that has already been discussed.