Shallan Honorblade?

[Lai She/Her]

Sorry if this has already been covered, I couldn't find anything on it.

I've had this theory for a while now actually, but never thought to post about it on here.

Spoiler for RoW

Spoiler

1. She killed her first spren. This is told to us, but wouldn't she need to re-bond the dead blade? (Or is that not how it works, I don't actually know)

Spoiler for WoR

Spoiler

2. I think somewhere hear she mentions that she thinks her powers functioned somewhat between killing her first spren and bonding pattern. Does this not seem a little suspicious?

3. There is a general theory that Shallan's mother was a herald. I think I've heard that before, at least.

4. The main issue with this is that Szeth is certain that the rest of the honorblades are still in Shinovar.

With all this considered, what if she inherited the honorblade and bonded it before killing her mother?

I don't know when she would have done this, but it makes sense to me. I think the first time she actually summons pattern as a blade is when using an oathgate for the first time. I think the blade she uses to kill the ghostblood con artist (I don't remember her name) and the blade she summoned for Kaladin was the honorblade. Kaladin would have been too stressed to noticed the lack of gem, probably, and we know (from the medallions in Wax and Wayne) that you need to know what an invested object is to be able to use it. So he wouldn't have noticed that he could use lightweaving or anything.

I don't know how plausible this actually is but I've been thinking about it for a while. I guess we'll probably get confirmation in the 5th book since they go to Shinovar. 

If anyone has anything to add or can disprove this please do I am curious. I also have an old document of all my old theories that if I find I will probably make threads about.

[Lai She/Her]

SORRY this should have probably been in Stormlight discussion!!!! I don't know how to move it, though...

[alder24]

Hello, welcome to the Shard. No need for spoiler boxes in this part of the forum. Check out Sharder FAQ for some useful tips.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Lai said:

1. She killed her first spren. This is told to us, but wouldn't she need to re-bond the dead blade? (Or is that not how it works, I don't actually know)

Testament is still bonded to Shallan. She already started to re-bond Testament. In WoK 46 she swore the Truth "I'm terrified" to Testament. This is because she started to summon Testament (without which she would be unable to Soulcast) and then she heard the voice - that wasn't Pattern, that was Testament. This also means that somewhere in the past Shallan started to recreate her broken oaths and resworn the First Ideal to Testament. Moreover, despite breaking her bond with Testament, Shallan never abandoned it. There must have been some left over of Nahel Bond, connecting them together, allowing Shallan to use Testament as a deadeye blade, or maybe even possibly access some Surges. WoK ch 46:

Quote

She began the process anyway. Ten heartbeats, to bring forth the fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act. She was interrupted midway through by a voice, uncanny yet distinct:
What are you?
[...]
“What am I?” she whispered. “I’m terrified.”
This is true.
The bedroom transformed around her.

 

Spoiler

Havoc (paraphrased)

In Way of Kings, Shallan is being chased by Cryptics. She begins to summon her Shardblade, stops and then Soulcasts for the first time. We know from Words of Radiance that it's her bond to Pattern, her Shardblade that allows her to Soulcast. So my question is, if Shallan had not begun to summon her Blade, would she have been able to Soulcast?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

She would not have been able to. Good question! Wow. No one has ever asked me that before.

GollanczFest London (Oct. 17, 2015)

 

Spoiler

enceladus_47

Does Shallan's "I killed my spren" count as a truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna leave up to theorizing, figuring out the timeline that's going on with Shallan. What we can say is that Shallan is reconstructing, in many cases, oaths she has said before. And it is working slightly differently than someone who is saying new oaths. And indeed, saying she killed her spren is one of those steps. I'll leave it to you to try and parse through that. It's actually pretty complicated. We have a nice big page explaining all of this stuff internally, to make sure that we're keeping it all straight. Because she has violated oaths and reconstructed them, is basically what's happening. And she is regressing, and she's doing a... 1.1 steps forward, 1 step back, sort of thing, kind of frequently.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

14 minutes ago, Lai said:

2. I think somewhere hear she mentions that she thinks her powers functioned somewhat between killing her first spren and bonding pattern. Does this not seem a little suspicious?

Yes, she said this in RoW ch 115:

Quote

For example, she was certain that, during the years between killing Testament and finding Pattern, her powers had still functioned in some small ways.
Some of this, Kelek said, had to do with the nature of deadeyes. Before the Recreance, they had never existed.

This is because she had Testament with her all the time and a deadblade with their original knight might function a little differently (after all, an original knight who broke their bond can revive his deadblade after reswearing their Oaths). Somewhere before WoK, she started to reconstruct her Oaths with Testament and that allowed her to regain some of her former Radiant powers. 

Spoiler

Questioner

The dead Shardblades, could you possibly get Stormlight into them to reawaken them?

Brandon Sanderson

Dead Shardblade, could you pump enough Stormlight into them? That alone would not be enough.

Questioner

So you would have to find someone to re-swear with oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something broken on the Spiritual Realm because of the broken oath and simple Stormlight will not fix that.

Questioner

So say--

Brandon Sanderson

If the person were still alive and could re-swear the oath then yes.

Questioner

But someone like [...] could go [...] the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not outside of reason but it would be very, very, very difficult.

Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

 

16 minutes ago, Lai said:

4. The main issue with this is that Szeth is certain that the rest of the honorblades are still in Shinovar.

With all this considered, what if she inherited the honorblade and bonded it before killing her mother?

Unlikely, because of your point 4. Chana didn't have her Honorblade with her. She had broken her bond with it and abandoned it during Recreance. She would have to reclaim it and rebond it to have it with her and because Szeth knew it was still in Shinovar when he was named Truthless, it's highly unlikely that she did it, especially considering the fact that Shins didn’t plan to return Honorblades to Heralds at all. Also, you can't inherit an Honorblade, you need to bond it. And because this Honorblade was in Shinovar, it's almost impossible for Chana, or Shallan to have it. The simplest explanation is that it was just because of Testament, which Kalak confirmed (quoted above).

There is also another problem with Shallan having an Honorblade. Whenever she would have summoned it, her eyes should have changed to pale reddish (ruby), just as the Dustbringer glyph color. Honorblades change their owner's eye color when held. Szeth's eyes were changed to pale sapphire whenever he summoned Jezrien's blade. Shallan's should have changed as well, yet nobody ever noticed this and her eyes remained blue. The same would go for Kaladin's eyes in the chasms, if he was given an Honorblade. Just holding it changes your eye color. Someone would have spotted that Kaladin's eyes turned to bright red after returning from chasms. OB ch 64:

Quote

“Airsick lowlanders,” Rock the Horneater said, shoving forward and taking the weapon. “Your soup is cold. That is idiom for ‘You are all stupid.’ ” The Horneater hefted it, curious, and his eyes bled to a glassy blue.

 

32 minutes ago, Lai said:

I don't know when she would have done this, but it makes sense to me. I think the first time she actually summons pattern as a blade is when using an oathgate for the first time. I think the blade she uses to kill the ghostblood con artist (I don't remember her name) and the blade she summoned for Kaladin was the honorblade. Kaladin would have been too stressed to noticed the lack of gem, probably, and we know (from the medallions in Wax and Wayne) that you need to know what an invested object is to be able to use it. So he wouldn't have noticed that he could use lightweaving or anything.

Most likely, every time when Shallan summoned her Shardblade in WoK and WoR, she summoned Testament - that includes the Oathgate scene. All other Radiants can summon their blades after swearing the 3rd Ideal and while Brandon stated long years ago in a WoB that "it differs from Order to Order," except for Shallan, we haven't seen anyone gaining the blade before the 3rd Ideal. So most likely this WoB was a red herring, to turn away our attention from the fact that Shallan shouldn't be able to summon her Shardblade before saying that she killed her mother. 

There are two proposed reasons why it didn't scream in Kaladin's hands. First one is that by this point, Kaladin's bond with Syl was nearly broken and it's the bond that allows a Radiant to hear deadeye scream. Secondly is that Testament was most likely content with his state. That's a weird statement to make, but that's the reason why dead Shardplate don't scream - they are content, not in pain (RoW I-1). Why would Testament be content with her death? Because she knew what she's getting herself into. She knew she would be most likely killed by Shallan at some point - just like Pattern knew this. Cryptics were willing to send new spren to Shallan no matter how many of them Shallan would have killed - and that says a lot. If they were willing to die trying and keep trying even more, Testament would most likely not hold any grudge and not scream. She knew very well what she was risking and she accepted that price when she decided to bond Shallan.

And the Testamentblade might be able to open an Oathgate because Shallan already started to reconstruct her Ideals with her - I'm terrified. Because of that Testament would function differently than a normal deadblade. 

 

4 minutes ago, Lai said:

SORRY this should have probably been in Stormlight discussion!!!! I don't know how to move it, though...

It's fine here, but you can just report your first post and ask mods in the message box that will appear to move this thread to the Stormlight section (three dots menu in the upper right corner of your post).

[Lai She/Her]

Thank you very very much for your response I appreciate it! And thank you for all your points, I think you're probably right!

 

14 hours ago, alder24 said:

Most likely, every time when Shallan summoned her Shardblade in WoK and WoR, she summoned Testament - that includes the Oathgate scene

I didn't think a dead blade, even if bonded to the radiant still, would be able to open an oathgate, but I see your point.

14 hours ago, alder24 said:

And the Testamentblade might be able to open an Oathgate because Shallan already started to reconstruct her Ideals with her - I'm terrified. Because of that Testament would function differently than a normal deadblade.

That's interesting!

14 hours ago, alder24 said:

There is also another problem with Shallan having an Honorblade. Whenever she would have summoned it, her eyes should have changed to pale reddish (ruby)

I actually forgot about this detail, thank you! But also, couldn't she have theoretically lightweaved to cover this up? That's very much a stretch and I doubt that's the case. Also, would she have commented on Kaladin's eyes changing?

14 hours ago, alder24 said:

Szeth knew it was still in Shinovar when he was named Truthless

I was a littel confused about the timeline honestly, I didn't know if Szeth became truthless before or after Shallan's mother's death.

 

Thank you so so much for responding, I really appreciate it. I used to be too scared to post here because what if I was wrong, but after entering college I kinda realized that someone offering insight when I'm wrong just helps me get a better understanding.

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, Lai said:

I actually forgot about this detail, thank you! But also, couldn't she have theoretically lightweaved to cover this up? That's very much a stretch and I doubt that's the case. Also, would she have commented on Kaladin's eyes changing?

She could have done it to herself subconsciously, but that's why I brought up Kaladin. He was surrounded by the Bridge Four after climbing out of the chasms just a few hours after killing a Chasmfiend and Dalinar looked directly into his eyes from very close - they would have spotted a change in his eyes color. 

15 minutes ago, Lai said:

I was a littel confused about the timeline honestly, I didn't know if Szeth became truthless before or after Shallan's mother's death.

He became Truthless around 2 years before Gavilar's assassination and Shallan's mother died around the same time as Gavilar. 

17 minutes ago, Lai said:

Thank you so so much for responding, I really appreciate it. I used to be too scared to post here because what if I was wrong, but after entering college I kinda realized that someone offering insight when I'm wrong just helps me get a better understanding.

It's always fun to discuss new theories  Don't be scared of being wrong, it's part of the fun and learning experience and with theories like this it's quite hard to say with 100% certainty that it's true or false, yet it always provides a new insight and perspective, which can spark a new idea.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

15 hours ago, Lai said:

SORRY this should have probably been in Stormlight discussion!!!! I don't know how to move it, though...

Just moved it for you.