Investiture Consuming Investiture

[Moogle]

This is half a theory topic, half a "I'm looking for help making a theory" topic. This thread is meant to explore:

• Why some Investiture (Divine Breaths/Nightblood) consumes other Investiture
• Whether or not the Unmade might consume Investiture
• Whether this Investiture-consuming property might be linked to why some magic systems consume a fuel.

 

Returned and Nightblood

One thing that has so far been relatively unique to Nalthis is the idea of things "eating" Investiture.

 

The Returned must consume a Breath each week, else they consume their Divine Breath and die. Nightblood, in his own special way, consumes any and all Investiture (including the spark of life, which kills anyone who holds him too long). This is fairly straightforward.

 

Honorblades

Honorblades are less efficient at using Stormlight; it is said that they "feed" on Stormlight, hence why Szeth can't heal his wounds in record time like Kaladin (he's less efficient with a constant drain on him). Seems like Nightblood to me. I wonder, do they do anything with this Stormlight? The weapons are supposed to be even more powerful than Shardblades.

 

“So the assassin wasn’t a Radiant.”

“No. But Kaladin, you have to understand. With this sword, someone can do what you can, but without the . . . checks a spren requires.” She touched it, then shivered visibly, her form blurring for a second. “This sword gave the assassin power to use Lashings, but it also fed upon his Stormlight. A person who uses this will need far, far more Light than you will. Dangerous levels of it.”

 

Unmade

Well, I think the Unmade are similar to both Nightblood and Returned. Here's some quotes:

 

“Yelignar, called Blightwind, was one that could speak like a man, though often his voice was accompanied by the wails of those he consumed.”

 

Hopefully, Moelach hadn’t decided to slumber again. The Death Rattles had, so far, offered them the best way that they’d found to augment the Diagram.

 

There is one you will watch. Though all of them have some relevance to precognition, Moelach is one of the most powerful in this regard. His touch seeps into a soul as it breaks apart from the body, creating manifestations powered by the spark of death itself.

 

This "spark of death" business is interesting, because we have this WoB in regards to Nightblood:

Q:  Does Nightblood rip souls out of bodies, by chance?
A:  Nightblood consumes Investiture, including the spark of life.

(source)

 

I think that the Unmade are much like the Returned, and have to feed on some Investiture every so often or else they die. But, like Nightblood when sheathed, they can "turn this off" and go into hibernation mode to conserve energy until a Desolation happens.

 

My theory is similar here to Feather's theory, though she goes more for "there is something wrong with people attempting to pass to the afterlife on Roshar" and I go for "the Unmade suck in the souls of anyone who dies in a quarter-continent radius (which may or may not have effects on their afterlife)".

 

For example, the Thrill, caused by Nergaoul, causes death, which is something Nergaoul could feed off of.

 

Why don't the Unmade just feed on highstorms? Perhaps the highstorms contain high doses of Honor, and so the two Investitures react violently. Or, perhaps, the Unmade just prefer to kill people. Ideas on this would be appreciated.

 

Feruchemy

Feruchemy has an interesting property: when you attempt to tap large amounts of your stored attribute, you get diminishing returns. You can get 2x speed for an hour, but you can't get 4x speed for a half hour. You'd get 4x speed for maybe 20 minutes. In this regard, it seems like something is feeding on the Investiture, or perhaps the link from the metalmind to you is "leaky" and the higher pressure in the conduit means more leaks. I think you might be able to work this into a relationship in general with the idea of Investiture-filled things consuming Investiture, though.

 

Similar to the Returned

Heralds, as "Taln" shows, appear to have super-speed/strength like the Returned. However, unlike the Returned, Heralds do not need to consume Investiture regularly. (Unless they do in highstorms?)

 

From this, we can make a guess as to the Intent of the Investiture mattering. A Splinter of Preservation will never consume itself, but a Splinter of Ruin will consume itself (or more likely, demand you consume other Investiture to feed it). Honor may not feed on itself, though this is at odds with Stormlight not being able to be perfectly contained... so perhaps Heralds do regularly feast on highstorms.

 

A Common Cause

There's a couple of things that we can notice:

• It's only when there's a high concentration of Investiture is around that there's Investiture-draining effects. (Could it be that more Investiture = more Intent, and the Intent of Endowment to give itself away finally activates, causing the Divine Breath to want to use itself up?)
• A lot of Investiture seems to use up a fuel to move from where it "wants" to be. Want to move Breath? Use up some color. Allomancy? Metals. Feruchemy possibly seems to feed on the stored Investiture to move itself, rather than use a fuel. Want to use Stormlight? Oops, some heat was used and now you've got frost all over your nice clothing. (Surgebinder clothing should be specially treated to be water-resistant.)
  
  Maybe we can use this property to explain why the Returned need to feed on Breath every week: the Divine Breath isn't "bound" to them, and so it needs a constant pressure on it (analogy: Kaladin constantly breathing in and never out so he doesn't lose Stormlight). The pressure can be applied by the usage of Investiture perhaps.

I'm searching for help here specifically - what sort of mechanism makes it so Investiture would feed on other Investiture? Why do you need a fuel to use magic in a lot of cases when the Investiture itself provides the power?

 

What Came Before

I've been thinking on this for months, and a few threads have touched on this.

• Terisen's Caustic Investiture theory.
• My magic fuel discussion thread.
• Many others I can't actually find right now.

 

General discussion on the property of Investiture eating other Investiture things would be welcome. Please rip apart my ideas, too - some of them feel a bit shaky.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Moogle

[Tempus]

The Unmade part of this is very solid, and I think very likely to come about. I'll be keeping my eye open for it.

[The Mad Reader she/her]

You referenced some ideas here that I hadn't heard before. Could you link to your sources about the Unmade? Also, what do you mean about the splinters of Preservation and Ruin? And I'm pretty sure Returned feed on a breath weekly, not daily.

[Moogle]

You referenced some ideas here that I hadn't heard before. Could you link to your sources about the Unmade? Also, what do you mean about the splinters of Preservation and Ruin? And I'm pretty sure Returned feed on a breath weekly, not daily.

 

The information on the Unmade comes from the Diagram epigraphs and the Taravangian interlude. Some of it is rampant speculation, but the quotes I provided on Moelach and Nergaoul are all in Words of Radiance. Blightwind is from The Way of Kings' epigraphs. If you can tell me what specifically you want a source on, I'll grab you a specific page number or WoB source.

 

Edit: Here's the Nergaoul bit.

“The Thrill?” he whispered to Adrotagia as they left the latest group of men. “They fought through the night as their capital burned . It must have been in force.”

“I agree ,” she said. “It gives us a further reference point. The Thrill is at least as strong here as it is in Alethkar. Maybe stronger. I will speak to our scholars. Perhaps this will help pinpoint Nergaoul.”

“Do not spend too much effort on that,” Taravangian said, approaching another group of Veden soldiers. “I’m not sure what we would even do if we found the thing.” An ancient, evil spren was not something he had the resources to tackle. Not yet at least. “I would rather know where Moelach is moving.”

 

Splinters of Preservation and Ruin don't exist as far as we know; I'm just saying that if we had one, Preservation might not require other Investiture to avoid poofing away, and Ruin might require a constant source of Investiture to go with his Intent of 'ruining' things (in this case, other Investiture).

 

And yes, you're right on the Divine Breath needing a new Breath every week. I'll fix that error. Funnily enough, I actually referred to it as a week earlier in the post. I need a nap or something.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Moogle

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

Returned and Nightblood

One thing that has so far been relatively unique to Nalthis is the idea of things "eating" Investiture.

 

The Returned must consume a Breath each week, else they consume their Divine Breath and die. Nightblood, in his own special way, consumes any and all Investiture (including the spark of life, which kills anyone who holds him too long). This is fairly straightforward.

 

Honorblades

Honorblades are less efficient at using Stormlight; it is said that they "feed" on Stormlight, hence why Szeth can't heal his wounds in record time like Kaladin (he's less efficient with a constant drain on him). Seems like Nightblood to me. I wonder, do they do anything with this Stormlight? The weapons are supposed to be even more powerful than Shardblades.

 

Unmade

Well, I think the Unmade are similar to both Nightblood and Returned. Here's some quotes:

 

This "spark of death" business is interesting, because we have this WoB in regards to Nightblood:

I think that the Unmade are much like the Returned, and have to feed on some Investiture every so often or else they die. But, like Nightblood when sheathed, they can "turn this off" and go into hibernation mode to conserve energy until a Desolation happens.

 

My theory is similar here to Feather's theory, though she goes more for "there is something wrong with people attempting to pass to the afterlife on Roshar" and I go for "the Unmade suck in the souls of anyone who dies in a quarter-continent radius (which may or may not have effects on their afterlife)".

 

For example, the Thrill, caused by Nergaoul, causes death, which is something Nergaoul could feed off of.

 

Why don't the Unmade just feed on highstorms? Perhaps the highstorms contain high doses of Honor, and so the two Investitures react violently. Or, perhaps, the Unmade just prefer to kill people. Ideas on this would be appreciated.

This bit is very interesting, and I agree that there are likely similarities going on here. However, I wouldn't call this Investiture consuming Investiture.

Skyler

If a returned gives away his/her breath they die right? So why doesn't Vasher die after he gives his to Denth?

Brandon Sanderson

They will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest. Once a week their body needs a breath in order to survive. Each Returned has one single superpowered breath. Imagine it as one breath that propels them up through the Heightenings, but it is only a single breath. It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter. And when the seventh day comes, if a Returned does not have another breath for his body to consume to keep him alive, his body will actually eat his divine breath and kill him. So they don't die immediately after they get rid of the breath, they're sort of put into a state of limbo where if they don't find more breath by the time that their feast day comes, then they will die. (Vasher did not give his Returned breath to Denth, just a number of normal breaths.)

Their body consumes the Investiture. It's not the Divine Breath, the Investiture, that eats it all up. Instead, the Divine Breath is what gets eaten. Same with Nightblood, Honorblades, Unmade. I don't think the Breaths inside Nightblood are the consumers here: it's Nightblood itself, the Nalthisian Destroyevilspren, the Cognitive being housed inside the sword, that is the consumer here.

Feruchemy

Feruchemy has an interesting property: when you attempt to tap large amounts of your stored attribute, you get diminishing returns. You can get 2x speed for an hour, but you can't get 4x speed for a half hour. You'd get 4x speed for maybe 20 minutes. In this regard, it seems like something is feeding on the Investiture, or perhaps the link from the metalmind to you is "leaky" and the higher pressure in the conduit means more leaks. I think you might be able to work this into a relationship in general with the idea of Investiture-filled things consuming Investiture, though.

This doesn't really seem to be the same phenomenon as what's going on with the Returned, IMO. It's just another example of a reactant (not fuel, I hate calling it that) for a magic system. Awakening drains the Cognitive concept of color, Surgebinding heat, Allomancy metals, Feruchemy the stored attributes through decreasing returns. With Returned and your earlier examples, there's an Invested being/object actively taking in Investiture in order to survive, feeding off Investiture like we eat food. With reactants, it's more of a natural consequence of the magical reaction. Perform x magical reaction, and y gets consumed in the process. It's not a major energy source like it is for Returned.

[*]A lot of Investiture seems to use up a fuel to move from where it "wants" to be. Want to move Breath? Use up some color. Allomancy? Metals. Feruchemy possibly seems to feed on the stored Investiture to move itself, rather than use a fuel. Want to use Stormlight? Oops, some heat was used and now you've got frost all over your nice clothing. (Surgebinder clothing should be specially treated to be water-resistant.)

Maybe we can use this property to explain why the Returned need to feed on Breath every week: the Divine Breath isn't "bound" to them, and so it needs a constant pressure on it (analogy: Kaladin constantly breathing in and never out so he doesn't lose Stormlight). The pressure can be applied by the usage of Investiture perhaps.

I'm searching for help here specifically - what sort of mechanism makes it so Investiture would feed on other Investiture? Why do you need a fuel to use magic in a lot of cases when the Investiture itself provides the power?

I'm not sure you really need help with explaining reactants, here. The movement explanation you've given works pretty well: Investiture doesn't like moving, so use some energy to give it a shove. Move more Investiture, you have to give a bigger shove.

It's the second bit that's harder to figure out. I don't quite think the reason Returned/Nightblood/Honorblades/Unmade eat Investiture is as simple as maintaining bonds to their physical aspects. If that was so, Nightblood and Honorblades would be constantly draining Investiture, not just when unsheathed/being used to surgebind.

[Tempus]

Their body consumes the Investiture. It's not the Divine Breath, the Investiture, that eats it all up. Instead, the Divine Breath is what gets eaten. Same with Nightblood, Honorblades, Unmade. I don't think the Breaths inside Nightblood are the consumers here: it's Nightblood itself, the Nalthisian Destroyevilspren, the Cognitive being housed inside the sword, that is the consumer here.

 

This is a very interesting point.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

...

 

The very topic name blew my mind..

 

Where did you get those Yelignar quotes?

 

Very good theory, Moogle (and very nice account picture).

 

Hmm... I wonder if the "spark of life" is some sort of investiture we haven't seen yet?

 

Sudden irrelevant thought. What if the Shard that Brandon says we've seen but didn't recognize was Life? Hmm... 

[skaa he/him]

I agree with PorridgeBrick that it is the Invested objects that consume Investiture, but perhaps it is their initial Investiture that is making them automatically consume more Investiture, like if it's part of their Intent or something. I'll get back to this later.

 

Why don't the Unmade just feed on highstorms? Perhaps the highstorms contain high doses of Honor, and so the two Investitures react violently. Or, perhaps, the Unmade just prefer to kill people. Ideas on this would be appreciated.

 
I can't seem to find the WoB I saw that sort of suggested there's an alternative source of Investiture on Roshar, something connected to the black orb Gavilar gave Szeth. I'll edit this if I do find it. Anyway, if I'm not just hallucinating about that WoB, then maybe the Unmade prefer that source over Stormlight. My tentative theory is that the Unmade require access to the Voids, which might not be easy (if not impossible) to do via Stormlight, so they use some other source of Investiture (the spark of life? the Innate Investiture of humans?).
 

I wonder if Nightblood, the Honorblades, and the Unmade are also in danger of losing their own Investiture unless they consume the Investiture of others, just like the Returned. If they are not in such danger, then their consumption is probably either an explicit part or a side-effect of the Intent of Investiture.

 

If, however, they do lose Investiture on a regular basis, then I'd like to propose that non-Innate Investiture just naturally tends to dissipate from its host, and that these entities are simply replenishing their stores. I think an object's Cognitive aspect will have to accept the Investiture as part of its Identity (thus making it Innate Investiture) before it actually sticks for good. This seems consistent with everything we've seen so far, unless I'm missing something. For example, Nightblood is made of metal, which is not naturally receptive to Awakening (hence the number of Breaths required to Awaken metal), and so would never view Breaths as Innate.

Edited June 12, 2014 by skaa

[Argent he/him]

I always figured the Honorblades use the Investiture - Stormlight - to power the Surges they grant to their current wielder, much like how Nightblood needs Breaths to do his turn-things-into-smoke act.

[Darkarma he/him]

I always figured the Honorblades use the Investiture - Stormlight - to power the Surges they grant to their current wielder, much like how Nightblood needs Breaths to do his turn-things-into-smoke act.

 I have to wonder though, maybe the command that Nightblood was given may have something to do with how it treats investiture? There might be a hidden duality in the "Destroy evil" and Nightblood's inability to really understand what evil is. What if Nightblood considers what human's evil is their ability to use investiture and their spark of life/soul? If Nightblood's command had been "Protect life" then its very existence would have been a contradiction to its method of killing. And I believe one of the potential commands that was being considered for it was to protect rather than destroy. Would the command to protect affect how it feeds? The simple fact that people who aren't evil are repulsed by it may just be the safety for it.

 

Destroy by its very nature seems to be the anti-thesis to investiture in a lot of ways. Investiture often is used to produce some effect of some kind at the cost of its energy. Nightblood simply makes things not exist any more with that as its sole purpose. If that makes any sense.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Darkarma

[Moogle]

Their body consumes the Investiture. It's not the Divine Breath, the Investiture, that eats it all up. Instead, the Divine Breath is what gets eaten. Same with Nightblood, Honorblades, Unmade. I don't think the Breaths inside Nightblood are the consumers here: it's Nightblood itself, the Nalthisian Destroyevilspren, the Cognitive being housed inside the sword, that is the consumer here.

 

I don't disagree that the "body" of a Returned eats the Divine Breath, but we need a mechanism to explain why this is. What is it about the Returned that requires a constant stream of Investiture? Are they constantly using up Investiture to get an effect akin to burning pewter? If so, why does Vasher still need a Breath while concealing his Divine Breath? Vasher only turns into an eight foot paragon of man when he has his Divine Breath "on".

 

I think the easiest explanation is that the Divine Breath itself is consuming Investiture to "stay" where it is. Unlike regular Breath, it is not "endowed" permanently like Innate Investiture and is leaky like Stormlight. Regular Breath has this idea that "I am owned by X", but Divine Breath still thinks it belongs to Endowment. The power wants to return to Endowment, and so it does... unless you expend power to keep it there. This is, unfortunately, at odds with the annotations, which mention the body eating the Divine Breath. However, even the annotations have a problem there - if the Returned eats a Divine Breath, shouldn't they get another week to live, but this time without being an eight foot tall paragon of man/woman?

 

I'd like to know what the effects would be if a Returned gave away their Divine Breath without trying to heal someone with it. Just, a simple transfer. Or is that not possible?

 

 

This doesn't really seem to be the same phenomenon as what's going on with the Returned, IMO. It's just another example of a reactant (not fuel, I hate calling it that) for a magic system. Awakening drains the Cognitive concept of color, Surgebinding heat, Allomancy metals, Feruchemy the stored attributes through decreasing returns. With Returned and your earlier examples, there's an Invested being/object actively taking in Investiture in order to survive, feeding off Investiture like we eat food. With reactants, it's more of a natural consequence of the magical reaction. Perform x magical reaction, and y gets consumed in the process. It's not a major energy source like it is for Returned.

 

I'm not sure saying that Investiture is an energy source for Returned is true. If Vasher were to run 24/7 for years, while lifting weights and sleeping as necessary, would he need more than one Breath per week to live? Here's how Lightsong feels:

 

Lightsong hesitated, but his weakness was coming to a head. He felt dizzy. Cursing himself quietly, he knelt down on one knee, taking the girl’s face in his oversized hands. She began to cry, but she said the words, clear and distinct as she had been taught. “My life to yours. My Breath become yours.”

Her Breath flowed out, puffing in the air. It traveled along Lightsong’s arm--the touch was necessary--and he drew it in. His weakness vanished, the dizziness evaporated. Both were replaced with crisp clarity. He felt invigorated, revitalized, alive.

 

It seems like there's something else the Breath is being used for other than sustaining the body. Lifeless don't need to eat, after all, and they don't get tired - can't be that.

 

 

This doesn't really seem to be the same phenomenon as what's going on with the Returned, IMO. It's just another example of a reactant (not fuel, I hate calling it that) for a magic system. Awakening drains the Cognitive concept of color, Surgebinding heat, Allomancy metals, Feruchemy the stored attributes through decreasing returns. With Returned and your earlier examples, there's an Invested being/object actively taking in Investiture in order to survive, feeding off Investiture like we eat food. With reactants, it's more of a natural consequence of the magical reaction. Perform x magical reaction, and y gets consumed in the process. It's not a major energy source like it is for Returned.

 

I don't disagree that it could be different phenomenon, since there are huge differences, but I'm not convinced either way and remain suspicious.

 

As a possibility for Feruchemy: perhaps taking in large amounts of Investiture makes you resistant to taking in even more Investiture? If so, would storing a bunch of different attributes while tapping one at a high rate cause you to lose less to the diminishing returns? If this is the case, where does the Feruchemical charge go, and why is there no little flash of light from leaked Investiture when a metalmind is drained in half a second?

 

Where did you get those Yelignar quotes?

 

They're from The Way of Kings' epigraphs. Jasnah was taking notes on folklore around the Voidbringers, and Yelig-nar came up.

 

 

I can't seem to find the WoB I saw that sort of suggested there's an alternative source of Investiture on Roshar, something connected to the black orb Gavilar gave Szeth. I'll edit this if I do find it. Anyway, if I'm not just hallucinating about that WoB, then maybe the Unmade prefer that source over Stormlight. My tentative theory is that the Unmade require access to the Voids, which might not be easy (if not impossible) to do via Stormlight, so they use some other source of Investiture (the spark of life? the Innate Investiture of humans?).

 

Here's the WoB (sorry, no source, since I pulled it from these forums, but it is on Theoryland):

Q: As far as I can tell, in SA, we have seen three different lights: the stormlight, the amberlight in the flashbacks, and the dark light in the stone.  Do those correspond to the three Shards?

 

A: No, the amberlight is more a function of...it’s no different than the stormlight.

 

Q: So, you see that in a storm?  Like when gems gather that in the storm?

 

A: That amberlight is more related to…so, no…you are not seeing something other than stormlight.  That is like saying that stormlight in a topaz is a different color than stormlight in a sapphire.  It’s not different colors; you’re just seeing it filtered through something. The dark light of the, um, the gemstone that Szeth was given is indeed something different and distinct.

 

Q: Voooiidlight?

 

A: Yes, it is related to a different shard.  How about that?  (clearly not a confirmation of “voidlight”)

 

It's possible that by standing outside during an Everstorm, all the Unmade get fed for a week or whatever. In fact, this may be what originally causes a Desolation - all the Unmade wake up in an Everstorm equivalent. Though, the Everstorm is apparently something new, so perhaps not.

 

I wonder if Nightblood, the Honorblades, and the Unmade are also in danger of losing their own Investiture unless they consume the Investiture of others, just like the Returned. If they are not in such danger, then their consumption is probably either an explicit part or a side-effect of the Intent of Investiture.

 

If, however, they do lose Investiture on a regular basis, then I'd like to propose that non-Innate Investiture just naturally tends to dissipate from its host, and that these entities are simply replenishing their stores. I think an object's Cognitive aspect will have to accept the Investiture as part of its Identity (thus making it Innate Investiture) before it actually sticks for good. This seems consistent with everything we've seen so far, unless I'm missing something. For example, Nightblood is made of metal, which is not naturally receptive to Awakening (hence the number of Breaths required to Awaken metal), and so would never view Breaths as Innate.

 

This is an interesting thought, though I'm not sure it's right. Why would a Radiant be unable to accept Investiture as part of their identity? Kaladin tries to keep a little bit in him 24/7. I'm leery of the idea that with enough mental trickery, someone could hold Stormlight perfectly.

 

I always figured the Honorblades use the Investiture - Stormlight - to power the Surges they grant to their current wielder, much like how Nightblood needs Breaths to do his turn-things-into-smoke act.

 

If this were the case, why would Kalak refer to Honorblades as weapons of power "beyond even Shardblades"? Shardblades are spren, which provide Surges to men just like the Honorblades... so if the Honorblades suck at this simple job (reduced efficiency) when spren don't, why are they more powerful than Shardblades?

[Argent he/him]

I am willing to go with the implied reasoning from the book - Honorblades are powerful because they don't have the "safety checks" that come with spren. But this is an explanation that, while acceptable to me, is not necessarily satisfactory. It feels like there was too much hype about the Honorblades for their power to be explained away so... casually.

[The Mad Reader she/her]

 

If this were the case, why would Kalak refer to Honorblades as weapons of power "beyond even Shardblades"? Shardblades are spren, which provide Surges to men just like the Honorblades... so if the Honorblades suck at this simple job (reduced efficiency) when spren don't, why are they more powerful than Shardblades?

 

Aren't Honorblades beyond Shardblades because they grant surges? Requiring extra energy to do provide something so powerful doesn't seem less efficient to me.

[Moogle]

Aren't Honorblades beyond Shardblades because they grant surges? Requiring extra energy to do provide something so powerful doesn't seem less efficient to me.

 

Spren themselves grant Surges. There's no real difference between the two, I think?

[The Mad Reader she/her]

Oh. I see that we're talking about the nahel bond/live spren shardblades, not the dead shardblades, which was how I was initially thinking about it. So nevermind my last comment.

[skaa he/him]

Moogle, on 13 Jun 2014 - 12:14 AM, said:

Here's the WoB (sorry, no source, since I pulled it from these forums, but it is on Theoryland):

Awesome, thanks!

Moogle said:

This is an interesting thought, though I'm not sure it's right. Why would a Radiant be unable to accept Investiture as part of their identity? Kaladin tries to keep a little bit in him 24/7. I'm leery of the idea that with enough mental trickery, someone could hold Stormlight perfectly.

I think Shai's Forgery lessons have taught us that no amount of "mental trickery" will make Investiture stick if the target's Identity doesn't accept it. You'll need to convince the soul first.

It's kind of like Soulcasting, really. Pai (and perhaps other truly devout ardents) talk of transforming one's soul, which reminds me of the real life religious concept of metanoia. I think that's what the Radiant Ideals are for. I think when a Radiant speaks an Oath (or a Truth, if he's a Lightweaver), he is Soulcasting himself into something a little bit more receptive to Stormlight, like when a rough gemstone is cut and polished for better infusion. I think that at some point, when all his Ideals have been said, Kaladin will be able to hold Stormlight perfectly, as it will already become Innate to him.

Edited June 13, 2014 by skaa

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Here's the WoB (sorry, no source, since I pulled it from these forums, but it is on Theoryland):

 

Well that's strangely prophetic... It *is* on Theoryland, but I am literally in the middle of adding that interview... (So it wasn't on Theoryland when you made your post, but it is now)

[Chaos he/him]

I am willing to go with the implied reasoning from the book - Honorblades are powerful because they don't have the "safety checks" that come with spren. But this is an explanation that, while acceptable to me, is not necessarily satisfactory. It feels like there was too much hype about the Honorblades for their power to be explained away so... casually.

It still seems pretty lame. The Heralds themselves must have had a lot of inherent abilities besides these, because it doesn't seem quite right for the Heralds to train Radiants for Desolations when the Radiants are so superior in their Surgebinding ability.