banestar

Thanks! I've also added a little general info about the Unmade, given the new reports that there may not be ten of them, and that there's been some reference to them being spren or a spren/listener or spren/human combination.

For what it's worth, when Shallan interacts with Pattern in Shadesmar, he's described in the same way the "symbolheads" were described in WoK ... too-stiff clothing, head made up of impossible lines. So it appears pretty clear that the "symbolheads" are, in fact, Cryptics. That doesn't mean that they're there because Elkohar is a Lightweaver-elect or whatever, or necessarily because Elhokar is a mover in world events. We don't know *why* they're there for sure. We do know that Honorspren and Cryptics don't really seem to get along, so it's possible that Syl and Kaladin are just off-putting to them.

This whole thing makes a lot of sense. The Unmade as the Parshendi "gods" ... and those "gods" being the fusion of listener bonded with high-level Odium spren ... yep. Seems supported by the text you quoted. I wonder this, though ... are the Unmade the spren themselves, or the fusion of these "advanced" spren and their listener. It may not be the same thing as the Nahel bond, which gives something to both sides, but rather something more parasitic ... but I'd think being attached to a listener (and not, uh, trapped in a sphere held by a nutbar) might give this Unmade kind of a power boost. ... this keeps me thinking about the nature of symbiosis in the first two books of the Stormlight Archive. From the way the Nahel bond works, to even the stuff early in the book about the santhid and it's fish, to Szeth and his blade(s). Just seems like there's a lot going on there, and a real focus on symbiotic relationships.

Yay! Then happily ignore me, which you probably did already!

Do we have a really great reason to think that Mraize is the worldhopper and not Iyatil?

It's probably a silly thing to ask, given how close we've come on assumptions, but perhaps it would be worth asking if, say, Willshapers have / had access to the surge of Transportation ... or if Truthwatchers have / had access to the surge of Illumination or Progression ... or if Bondsmiths have / had access to the surge of Adhesion. Almost any of these would confirm, without a shred of doubt, where they fit on the great collection of orders / surges. I know we think we're clear on all of those, but it would be great to have WoB confirmation. (Unless we've gotten it already, and I've missed it. In which case, woo!)

For what it's worth, I really think that the simplest / best explanation for whether or not Nin / Nalan / Darkness is really the Herald of the Skybreakers is "yes he is." And the main reason why is the discussion between someone presumed to be him, and another potential Herald during the prologue. During that scene, we have someone who fits Nin's description, conversing with someone (presumed to be a Herald) about Ash (presumed to be a Herald) and the Honorblade, talking about how "they" are getting "worse". I know it's circumstantial, but it does indicate that the person who we know as Darkness / Nin is the same person as the Herald. Interestingly, they (presumably) discuss whether they should have allowed Szeth to keep the Honorblade ... the man presumed to be Darkness / Nin doesn't argue against Szeth having the blade ... and then, presumably, re-arms Szeth after he loses the Honorblade. I just think it's simple and logical that Nin really is the Nin of the Skybreakers / Heralds. Whether or not his "getting worse" has changed him from a force for good to a force for who-knows-what is up in the air, but if this is a facade being put on by a non-Herald, it doesn't seem to make much sense.

Yep, you're totally right. Added, especially considering how well Sja-anat may fit with Elsecallers.

I've been thinking a lot about the Unmade and their nature, given at how consistently they've been hinted at. They're assumed to have quite the connection with Odium / Rayse, and that makes me think they'll be a major factor in the lead up and eventual conflict between the Knights Radiant and the Voidbringers ... in some fashion or another. With that having been said, I wanted to document a few of the facts we have about the Unmade, as well as some theories or logical assumptions about each of the presumed Unmade. Oh, I'm also of the opinion that each of the Unmade either corresponds to one of the orders of Knights Radiant, or one of the Heralds, as symmetry is WAY TOO IMPORTANT on Roshar. As such, for many of the Unmade, I've got an educated guess as to where they might fall on the old double-eye diagram. I'd say this is pure theory at this point, so feel free to disregard as you see fit. General Unmade Knowledge We have some record / reference from Taravingian (an awesome source of Unmade factoids) that one of the Unmade is an "ancient, evil spren", I believe. A current theory that I subscribe to is that the Unmade are, for lack of a better term, powerful Odiumspren. I'm not sure if these spren need to bond to a person (listener or human) to be a "fully powered" Unmade, but it stands to reason that they may. I also believe that we have some recent Word of Brandon that there aren't necessarily ten Unmade. That would throw a monkeywrench into my Unmade-tie-to-KR-orders theory, but hey, that's okay. Yelig-nar (aka Blightwind) Yelig-nar is the only absolutely, positively, confirmed Unmade at this time. I mean if you can't trust Nohadon, who can you trust? Abilities: Yelig-nar apparently has the ability to kill, somewhat directly. It is the Unmade that is most personified, having broken into Nohadon's chancery (sounds like personification) and killed his wordsmen. Yelig-nar is also reportedly able to speak, though he "consumed" people and their wails accompanied him. Yikes. Association: As we'll discuss in some of the later sections of Unmade, Yelig-nar appears to be the most personified of the Unmade we currently know of, as well as one of them with the most direction and personal agency. So, given that and his nickname of "Blightwind", I'd say he's a good candidate to correspond to the Windrunners or Jezerien. Yelig-nar may not necessarily be the leader of the Unmade (if they have one), but it appears to be one of the more combat-focused Unmade at this time. Given what little we know about the Radiants still, this certainly could allow it to match up with the Radiants we know the most about. Moelach Thanks to Taravingian and his Diagram, we can say with almost complete certainty that Moelach is also an Unmade. Epigraphs 81 and 82 in Words of Radiance are two back-to-back paragraphs. While 81 talks about the nature of the Unmade, 82 talks specifically about one of them: Moelach. It's fair to say he's an Unmade. Abilities: Given what Taravingian has said, it appears that Moelach is responsible for the Death Rattles, which appear to be both precognitive and past-cognitive (wordsmith!) visions that take place at the moment before death. Interestingly, this doesn't necessarily appear to be a *bad* thing for the Radiants, etc. Where the abilities of many of the other Unmade (or projected Unmade) seem to be "evil" or "harmful" ... this one, not so much. It leads me to think that there's something else going on here that we're not aware of yet, or an additional ability. Also, Moelach is referred to as one of the Unmade with the most powerful precognitive abilities, which are shared by nearly all Unmade / Voidbringers. Interesting. Association: Welp, the precognition / visions aspect of this pretty clearly draws a line between Moelach and the Truthwatchers or Pailiah. We don't know much about the Truthwatchers (or anyone, really), but this seems to be a pretty seamless fit. Both focus very, very strongly on visions of the future. Nergaoul Again, due to Taravingian's meddling exposition, we learn of a potential Unmade. Nergaoul is referred to in the context of the Alethi Thrill, and that finding where the Thrill is strongest might help pinpoint Nergaoul. With that in mind, the way the Thrill can be seen as similar to the Death Rattles, and even the similarities in name composition between Nergaoul and Moelach (compounded vowels), we're not crazy to consider this another of the Unmade. Abilities: Nergaoul appears be responsible for, or at least have some connection to, the Thrill. The Thrill appears to be a feeling of battle-lust, or a drive to kill. WHAT A JERK. That pretty heavily smacks of Odium, and those whom we most closely align to Honor (Dalinar, Kaladin, etc.) seem to reject the Thrill, while Eshonai seems to embrace it with her stormform. Association: The first thing that came to me is how the Thrill seems to be the innate opposite of the dispassionate judgement of "Darkness". I'm inclined to place Nergaoul as linked to the Skybreakers or Nalan. Where the killing / judgement handed out by the Skybreakers appears to be logical, lawful, and in the best cases, just ... the Thrill's killing is wanton, indiscriminate, and furious. No thanks. Re-Shephir (aka the Midnight Mother) Watch, as we move from the realm of informed speculation to the realm of slightly-less-informed speculation. Re-Shephir is mentioned briefly in Epigraph 58 of WoK as the Midnight Mother ... but the Death Rattles have shared information (we think) about the Unmade in the past. Between that and the naming similarities between Yelig-nar, I think we have another Unmade here. Abilities: Re-Shephir's abilities are an open question still. The epigraph mentions giving birth to abominations, using her "essence", so it seems fairly logical to assume that Re-Shephir is responsible for creating the Midnight Essence. These strange, monstrous creatures are some that Dalinar fought during his visions of the past, and appear to be core enemies of the earlier Knights Radiant. Association: My first inclination is that the Midnight Mother's ability to create, albeit in a relatively non-creative fashion (the Midnight Essence appear to be roughly all the same), and create something totally black (as in, without light), makes me think of the Lightweavers or Shallash. Though, to be fair, a void-spun Progression surge might make sense here too. Again, knowing precious little about the Unmade, the Radiants, basically everything, this is only an informed guess. Dai-gonarthis (aka the Black Fisher) Again, we're using hints to assume that Dai-gonarthis is an Unmade, nothing more. It's name sounds like that of Yelig-nar and Re-Shephir. It is referred to in the Death Rattles, much like Re-Shephir. And that's all we've really got. Abilities: Oh, we know so very little. Something about holding sorrow and consuming it. Someone asking to "let me hurt, let me weep". Dai-gonarthis may do something to the emotions of a person, suppressing them, feeding off of them, something. It's all wild speculation, really. Association: Seriously, I've got nothing here. We simply don't know enough. I'm not convinced it holds any association with a few of the orders we seem to know the most about ... I'd be surprised if it's associated with the Windrunners, Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, or Edgedancers. But who really knows. If I had to hazard a rough guess, it may be associated with the Willshapers or Kalak. And that's mostly because the Willshapers order name seems to indicate something to do with an emotion / thought. Also, I don't know a thing about them either. So that matches up nice. Sja-anat Sja-anat is referenced in another of Dalinar's visions, mentioned by a soldier and a Radiant prior to the Thunderclast battle at the Purelake. Like Dai-gonarthis and Re-Shephir, this name has the unique dashes, and appears to be involved with Odium. Hence, it's a reasonable guess that we've got another of the Unmade here. Abilities: We don't know much about Sja-anat, Here's what we know: "Once Sja-anat touches a spren, it acts strange." The spren spotted by Dalinar had red eyes, and was referred to as "Sja-anat's spy". Ostensibly, this means that Sja-anat has the ability to change a spren by "touch", perhaps corrupting it. On a side note, the Thunderclast that appeared didn't have any direct reference to Sja-anat, it was more of a guardian, so I'm not taking it to mean anything directly associated to Sja-anat ... yet. Association: When we talk about changing things by touch, we're talking about Soulcasting, right? So perhaps Sja-anat associates to the Elsecallers or Battar. This actually makes a lot of sense ... the Elsecallers were the foremost intermediaries between man and spren, so changing spren through touch sounds very, very close to something a voidish relation to an Elsecaller might do. So that leaves us with, at this time, five six presumed Unmade. There are hints at others that may be possible, but not mentioned yet by name. For example, is Venli influenced by one of the Unmade? Are Thunderclasts associated with the Unmade? How about Gavilar's sphere? Is the "black piper" an Unmade as well? But as for right now, I think this is about all that we know about the specific Unmade. (Edited to add Sja-anat.) (Later edited to add general info.)

Well, there's the possibility that it refers to how spren need to be captured in some way in order to access the different forms. For the first stormform, Eshonai needed to break the gem with the trapped stormform voidspren in order to make the change.

Mmm Dawnchant?

Willshaper is *likely* Resolute / Builder, but it's not *for sure* Resolute / Builder. The thing for me, and this took a little bit of thinking, is that Resolute doesn't necessarily mean that someone is unreliable. A person may be erratic in action, but steadfast in belief. Adolin, for example, is pretty resolute in thinking that Sadeas needs to pay for what he'd done. He wouldn't let anything sway him from that line of thinking. But his behavior would still be considered a bit "erratic". Releaser *does* seem to be a bit appropriate for Adolin, but I'm not sure I'd say his defining characteristic is bravery, especially in the same way that Kaladin's was Protecting and Shallan's was Creative. Adolin seems like the type of person who points himself in a direction, and then gives everything he has in that direction ... until something changes. I'm not sure that follows as "Resolute" ... in fact I'm not sure Adolin jives with any of the ten divine attributes completely in the same way as any of the KR do. At the same time, I'm not convinced that Dalinar's primary attribute is Pious, but the tenth order *really* fits him otherwise. Eh, maybe none of these are completely perfect?

Good point. I think it becomes pretty obvious that your soul is *not* destroyed when you're killed by a shardblade. Though Nalan says that it was "cut through" Szeth's words and the fact that he had (somewhat) emotional reactions to what was said seem to indicate an intact, but damaged soul.

The question "why would Jasnah decide to play dead?" seems pretty easy to answer -- at least generally. She's playing a lot of things close to the vest, she's part of a secret organization (or two, or three), and deception seems to come pretty easily to her. If someone's trying very hard to kill you, a better option just might be to let them think they succeeded rather than to give them an impetus to try, try again.

Jasnah's good at Soulcasting blood, right? So, I think it'd be possible for her to -- if she's as B.A. as we think she is -- soulcast part of a dagger as it hits her into, well, blood. That'd make for a nice fake-out. I mean, who says you *have* to lay hands on something to soulcast it?

Not that this is anything for sure, but I found it very interesting that Part Three -- the part with the epigraphs from in-world Words of Radiance -- had chapter titles that didn't exactly refer to the epigraphs, but rather to the actions within each chapter ... but there was one exception that jumped out at me right away. Chapter 50 is called "Uncut Gems" -- which is a bit odd. It's a direct reference to the epigraph as well as a minor action in the chapter (Sadeas shows off a few uncut emeralds on his clothing). The epigraph associated with this chapter describes the Willshapers, an Order of the Knights Radiant, as an "uncut gem" among the Radiants. I just find it a bit interesting that this Adolin-focused chapter, which does a lot to set up / bookend what's arguably Adolin's most important act in the book (you know, that bit at the end with Sadeas), has such a strong through-line with the epigraph, title, etc. In addition, the Willshapers are described with these words: "erratic," "capricious," "frustrating," "unreliable," and the phrase "general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity." Adolin does resemble an uncut gem to me at this point ... he hasn't fully come into his own yet. Though I'm not certain this would've described Adolin before the release of Words of Radiance, his actions during the book kind of lead me to think that if he does find a place as a Radiant, perhaps it will be as a Willshaper. Considering Adolin's dating habits (erratic, at best), his love of adventure (dueling, etc.), the way he's fascinated by Shallan (an absolute oddity) ... I'm inclined to think that as he stands right now, he pretty well fits the category. It's certainly possible that this is an example of someone reading JUST A BIT TOO MUCH into the book, but hey, it's a theory, right?

I really like the idea that the Parshendi are of Cultivation, given the way that they seem to consistently be striving to "grow" themselves from a base form to something more perfect or more advanced. We've got no confirmation that the Parshendi use the same spren as we've seen in the Nahel bond, etc. to move from form to form, just the hint that Voidspren (or something like them) can fill a Parshendi and turn it to a Voidbringer / stormform. Perhaps Cultivation's spren are the ones who *should* be filling the Parshendi, and allow them to turn to the forms they used to in the old days? Perhaps given the Parshendi's time spent in the Shattered Plains, warring, has taken them away from the nature of Cultivation (they're not growing or building anything -- they're in a holding pattern of battle) is keeping them from internalizing the spren they're "supposed" to bond.

Is it crazy just to think that shardblades aren't forged by the KR for any nefarious purpose? It seems to me that a Knight Radiant used the Nahel bond to bond a spren -- and that spren became the Knight's Radiantblade (let's call it that for now). After the Recreance, the Knights Radiant abandoned their oaths, following the lead of the Heralds. Many of the Windrunners, etc. broke their oaths when they threw down their Radiantblades, and in doing, they "killed" their spren much like how Kaladin "killed" Syl. The dead spren didn't disappear, but the Radiantblades became the flawed shardblades that exist today. I just find it tough to imagine that one of the secret societies would go through the trouble of creating shardblades in the hopes that they would prevent the use of surgebinding. It seems like too long of a walk.

I think it makes a lot of sense that Truthwatchers would be 5, Willshapers would be 8, and Bondsmiths would be 10. REASONING From WoR ... "... the Lightweavers and Willshapers also had an affinity to the same ..." -- this quote is in reference to visiting the "far realm of spren". (Page 617). It would stand to reason that Willshapers would be 8, which has Transportation as a surge. I also think it's fair to assume that the domain of "Resolute / Builder" could fit well with this item, though it could fall under Bondsmiths as well. Truthwatchers at 5 would have access to the Illumination surge, which makes sense given their ability to "see". They'd also align with "Learned / Giving" in the Ars Arcanum, which seems to fit given what we know about the one confirmed Truthwatcher. Of course, Bondsmiths then would reflect "Pious / Guiding" -- which fits well with the Bondsmith we know, but truthfully could possibly apply to our Truthwatcher. However, the surges of Tension / Adhesion seem to fit better with the Bondsmith than the surges of Progression and Illumination -- given that they both have an interconnection / adhesion property. The tough part for me is separating Bondsmiths from Truthwatchers. It appears as if both known examples have dabbled a bit in prophecy (something that seems to fit with Illumination) and you could squint and see a way in which either could work. It's really the surges that stand out and make me think that Bondsmiths hit #10, and Truthwatchers hit #5 -- especially since the Truthwatchers and the Lightshapers, which seem to be awfully similar / opposites -- would lay on the chart next to one another.