theory The Unmade and cousin spren

[KandraAllomancer]

To put it shortly: this is yet another attempt at matching the Unmade with corresponding KR Orders based on the cousin spren of these Orders (an idea very similar to the one originally presented in this thread). I based my analysis on two assumptions, which I believe lead to some interesting results:

• The powers that the Unmade grant when bonding with humans/Singers might match the original KR Order, but it's not 100% reliable, as Odium might have tweaked these powers for his own purpose
• We should rather look at the characteristics of cousin spren (how they behave, what are they attracted to, how they look and sound) and search for similar patterns amongst the Unmade

Here is what I was able to find. Please note that the list will become more and more speculative as we go, and (because we know only a few cousin spren) I tried to search for similarities between lesser spren as well:

Re-Shephir – Lightweavers, obviously. Shallan states that explicitly and there are clear similarities between how Re-Shehir and the creationspren act

Yelig-Nar – Windrunners, once again quite obvious. The windspren are rather mischievous and often play pranks on people (e.g. sticking shoes to stone) and they can mimic people's voices. Once you look past things like growing crystals from the host's body and granting all ten Surges, you can see that Yelig-Nar is essentially an extremely malicious and powerful version of a windspren – for example, he broke into Nohadon's chancery and killed all the scribes (probably burning books as well) and he is apparently “accompanied by the wails of those he consumed” (vocal mimicry)

As for the Edgedancers, it seems that their cousin spren are the lifespren. Is there an Unmade that would match them? The only candidate I can think of is Chemoarish. She is actually often conflated with the Nightwatcher (a connection with Cultivation and cultivationspren) and is called Dustmother – and the lifespren look like motes of glowing green dust or swarms of tiny, translucent insects. This is very speculative, obviously, but I think that (instead of typical Dustbringer associations) Chemoarish might represent something like a swarm of locusts. Devouring plants (which attract the lifespren) and causing famine (not all lands have access to Soulcasters, after all) seems like a fitting ability for an Edgedancer Unmade (and the biblical plague connotations fit the overall mythology of Roshar as well)

We know only one more type if cousin spren (glorypspren) and it's useless because it is the one for Bondsmiths. However, the official Herald portraits show them with the cousin spren and we now have a portrait for Taln. He is surrounded by yellow-orange spren, which are unfortunately pictured as rather formless. Could these be flamespren or painspren? The latter would really work well thematically for Taln and Stonewards in general. If that is the case, the best fitting Unmade would probably be Nergaoul

I'm really waiting for the three remaining Herald portraits from RoW, but in the meantime I can think of some lesser spren that could potentially be cousin spren and match some of the Unmade:

Moelach, for example, seems to work in a way that reminds me of the deathspren. Both are attracted to death, obviously, and the voices of the deathspren are “whispers, scratchy sounds like paper being torn” which shows some similarity to the quote from Jezrien: “Moelach is close. I can hear his wheezing, his scratching, his scraping at time like a rat breaking through walls.”. If deathspren are indeed cousin spren, my best guess for the Order would be the Dustbringers. It would provide a nice contrast to the Edgedancers and their lifespren, plus deathspren work well linguistically with the whole Dustbringer/Ashspren terminology (“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”). Not to mention that the Dustbringers might be, on average, the deadliest Order of the KR

I've seen theories on the forum suggesting that the rainspren might be the cousin spren for Skybreakers (based on the contrast with Windrunners). They are associated with the Weeping and w know from Puuli's interlude that the fishermen work especially hard during that time. That might be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but if the line “Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it!” offers some hidden clue, that might be it

The Inkspren value logic greatly, and I would assume that the cousin spren of Elsecallers might be related to that (logicspren maybe?). Ba-Ado-Mishram was “said to have been keen of mind, a highprincess among the enemy forces, their commander during some of the Desolations” and I believe she would fit here quite well

Sja-anat seems to have so many clues linking her to Truthwatchers that I would be surprised if she matched any other Order, which leaves us with Ashertmarn corresponding to the Order of Willshapers

[Innovation]

I agree with all of these. However, Ba-Ado-Mishram was said to have “Connected with the Parsh people.” Connection is a Bondsmith ability, and Ba-Ado-Mishram “provided the enemy with voidlight.” Dalinar can provide stormlight to his radiants. As for cousinspren, this could actually be a voidspren of some kind, considering the BAM seems to be associated with voidlight and forms of power. 

Edited July 11, 2020 by Innovation

[KandraAllomancer]

19 minutes ago, Innovation said:

I agree with all of these. However, Ba-Ado-Mishram was said to have “Connected with the Parsh people.” Connection is a Bondsmith ability, and Ba-Ado-Mishram “provided the enemy with voidlight.” Dalinar can provide stormlight to his radiants. As for cousinspren, this could actually be a voidspren of some kind, considering the BAM seems to be associated with voidlight and forms of power. 

Yeah, he abilities are surprisingly similar to Dalinar's even though there is supposed to be no Bondsmith Unmade. Given recent information from Syl's Interlude, I think there's another explanation for this (discussed here, RoW spoilers). This is actually the reason why I decided to look past the Unmade abilities and concentrate on their behavior

[+Bzhydack]

We know for sure that Bondsmith dont have maching Unmade.

@Lightspine has interesting theory and with those combine, we can have better maches Unmade-Herald/Radiand Order.

Re-Sephir - Shalash/Lightweavers of course.

Ba-Ado-Mishram - This one i see as mach for Jezrien/Windrunners. She was Odium General, practicly rule over Parsh, and Jezrien is Herald od Kings.

Moellach - source of the Death Rattles. Palilah/Truthwachers for me. Paliah is associeted with Wisdom, and Truthwatchers can have futuresight.

Nergaoul - Thrill. Chah/Dustbringers for me. Chah is associeted with Bravery - and we all know what Thrill can do.

Sia-Anat - for me Battar/Ellsecallers. Most carefull and least evil from Unmade, and their powers are Shadesmar-related. Also can reflect Care atribute.

Ashertmarn - for me Vedel/Edgedancers. Mostly because of twisted Love atribute. But Vedel maches also Sia-Anat.

Yelig-Nar - probably Skybreakers.

Dai-Gonarthis - only Kalak/WIllshapers left.

Chemoarish - in Lightspine Theory he maches Taln.

[Darkfinder]

Yelig-nar doesn't just grant one surge he grants all of them at once by the way.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Darkfinder

[KandraAllomancer]

18 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

We know for sure that Bondsmith dont have maching Unmade.

Yes, but we know from Syl's Interlude (RoW spoilers) that

Spoiler

Bondsmiths existed on Ashyn long before Nahel Bond was discovered and it seems that their powers came from the Dawnshards

That, I believe, could be the explanation behind BAM's sudden overpowered Bondsmith abilities.

As for the classification - I think that, in a way, several different Unmade/Order matches could be correct, as Odium might have given a corrupted spren of one type a power associated with another Order or even give a power of one Order to several Unmade. We don't really know, I was focusing on an attempt to discover the original corrupted spren here.

I would still argue that Sja-anat corresponds to Truthwatchers though Her power is about spiritweb modification (Progression) and she calls it Enlightening (which invokes Illumination)

[KandraAllomancer]

Since we now have some new Herald portraits it's time to update the theory.

Kalak seems to be surrounded be laughterspren (at least they seem very similar to the depiction from this fan art) which works quite well with my original idea that Ashertmarn would correspond to the Willshaper Order.

Dustbringer cousin spren seem to be flamespren, so the match would probably be Chemoarish, in which case Moelach would be likely matched with Edgedancers, only attracted to death rather than life due to its corruption. It seems that the simplest solution was true in the end and I was overcomplicating things here.

The Truthwatcher cousin spren seem to be logicspren, attracted to well-thought-out arguments - in other ways, uncovering truth. That works with Sja-anat being the Taker of Secrets, I guess. I have no idea about Elsecaller spren, but I'm willing to keep my idea that they would correspond to Ba-Ado-Mishram intact.

Which leads me to the most exciting new potential result - Dai-gonarthis. Nale is surrounded by blue spren whose shape is hard to determine. Color and behavior could indicate joyspren, but that just doesn't work with the character of the Order and its Herald. The best candidate I can think of are the luckspren (Mandras). They seem to have a symbiotic relationship with skyeels (connection to flight and gravity) and greatshells. The latter offer an extremely interesting possibility. What if Dai-gonarthis is attracted to Rosharan fauna and can take control of them in a way similar to what Nergaoul and BAM can do with humans and singers? Dai-gonarthis being essentially a Kaiju Unmade would easily explain how Aimia was scoured, given how many lanceryns  lived there (and their remains are lying all over the place, as seen in Kaza's interude). It would also mean that this picture from TWoK might have been more than just Vorin imagination:

Spoiler

 

Edited October 31, 2020 by KandraAllomancer

[Halyo_Alex]

5 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Nale is surrounded by blue spren whose shape is hard to determine. The best candidate I can think of are the luckspren (Mandras). They seem to have a symbiotic relationship with skyeels (connection to flight and gravity) and greatshells.

I similarly thought of this due to their connection with Gravitation, and since those spren in the art don't resemble Starspren (connecting to the Highspren's appeance as a rift with a starry sky beyond it), I'm inclined to agree moreso now.