[OB] Theory: The Shin have the most

[Leyrann]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

I have also wondered why the KRs in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance forswore their oaths in the way that they did, by summoning their Blades before breaking their oaths. When Kaladin "killed" Syl in Words of Radiance, she just kind of faded away and got locked, broken-minded, in the Cognitive Realm. Combined with Dalinar's vision, I always thought that implied the Radiants of the Recreance intentionally left their Shards behind for anyone to grab, summoning them as Blades in the Physical Realm and THEN killing them, instead of just leaving them broken in the Cognitive Realm.... Like they WANTED to unleash unbounded Shardblades on the world.

That ties in to the "The spren were in on it" thread that was hovering around this subforum a few weeks ago as well (and might still be somewhere on page 1 or 2? not sure...).

[Calderis he/him]

@robardin I believe that in order to break their oaths, the Radiants had to do something. It wasn't enough to just decide "we're done now."

I think that Feverstone keep was the way that the Windrunners and Stonewards accomplished this. They intentionally created a situation where others would take the weapons and use them. The opposite of protecting for the Windrunners, and a symbol of giving up for the Stonewards.

I think similar events were happening elsewhere, tailored to counter the Oaths of each particular order. 

My only real question, is how exactly do the Lightweavers act in concert to break their oaths? 

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

 

Dang, I skimmed a bunch of WoBs a few months back, and these somehow didn't stick in my head. Great stuff.

So Szeth was made Truthless BEFORE Taravangian's brainbending blitz? Then what was all the musing about in the Diagram about CanWeMakeToUseATruthless and CanWeCraftAWeapon, especially in connection with musing about strongly appears to be the Honorblades?

I mean, he sent a Diagramite (just what is the proper term for one of them?) to get Szeth's oathstone, who eventually found him, so he definitely did know Szeth was the Assassin in White, a Shin Truthless with the Windrunner Honorblade. I could see how Brainiac-T could easily realize that from what he already knew about Shin, Truthless, and how Gavilar died (if that happened before his Day of Briliance), plus his deductions about the Honorblades... So he was musing about "making to use" an extant Truthless, "crafting a weapon" meaning to transpose him from being a menial servant and sometime sideshow into, well, the Assassin In White?

 

[RShara she/her]

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

That ties in to the "The spren were in on it" thread that was hovering around this subforum a few weeks ago as well (and might still be somewhere on page 1 or 2? not sure...).

Yep, that was my thread! 

 

[Stark he/him]

18 hours ago, robardin said:

On the other hand, Kal hadn't advanced enough yet to summon her as a Blade. Maybe it's just something that would happen to a spren whose Radiant is past the Third Ideal and breaks their vows.

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

If after speaking the Third Ideal, Kaladin were to betray his oaths, would Syl turn into a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

source

From the WOB, the Ideal progression of a given Radiant order seems to determine whether the spren is crippled or dead-eyed when the Oaths are broken.  2dn Oath Windrunner cripples, third and beyond deadeyes.  Other orders that get their shardblades at earlier, or later Oaths, would have potentially different results for Oathbreaking at 2nd and 3rd ideals, respectively.

[Yata he/him]

45 minutes ago, Stark said:

From the WOB, the Ideal progression of a given Radiant order seems to determine whether the spren is crippled or dead-eyed when the Oaths are broken.  2dn Oath Windrunner cripples, third and beyond deadeyes.  Other orders that get their shardblades at earlier, or later Oaths, would have potentially different results for Oathbreaking at 2nd and 3rd ideals, respectively.

I disagree with that, I think Syl was already a deadeye. She simply left no physical manifestation because the bond wasn't deep enough

[Calderis he/him]

Just now, Yata said:

I disagree with that, I think Syl was already a deadeye. She simply left no physical manifestation because the bond wasn't deep enough

I was arguing this in discord just the other day and I agree completely. 

The Stormfather tells Kaladin that he killed Syl. She was dead. 

In my mind, the Spren that were in a low level bond were placed into an even more hopeless situation than the others. A physical blade means that there is a miniscule chance that some day they may be healed. Without that...

[Stark he/him]

No doubt that Kaladin killed Syl. Stormfather cannot lie.  He killed her.  But being killed and being a Deadeye are not the same, necessarily.  They are very, very highly overlapping portions of a Ven diagram.  But in WoR, we hear Syl talking to the Stormfather when Kal was getting close to the third Ideal, and then swore it.  We have yet to hear a Deadeye speak.

 

Arguably, yes, Maya told Adolin her name.  But that is still nowhere as coherent as the argument Syl was having with Stormfather, and was described more as a feeling than a spoken word.  

 

So for me, I do not think a spren becomes a deadeye when killed by broken oaths, unless the Oaths progress to the point of the Radiant being able to summon a blade.  But I have about as much proof for my view as I think you do (I could be wrong, you could have tons of proof)

 

So, absent proof on either side, we will have to agree to disagree until we get a WOB, or it gets addressed in book four when Kaladin asks Syl if she became one of those Deadeye things when he accidentally killed her in the chasms, and she gives him lip for inappropriate questions before confirming one way or the other.

 

Edit: @Calderis if you do have proof, I'd be happy to read it and admit my error, or continue to disagree amicably.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Stark
Edits

[Leyrann]

1 hour ago, Stark said:

Arguably, yes, Maya told Adolin her name.  But that is still nowhere as coherent as the argument Syl was having with Stormfather, and was described more as a feeling than a spoken word.  

The argument with Syl and the Stormfather occured when Kaladin had already realized his mistakes and was about to say the Third Ideal, and he was already living it at that moment. I would argue she was far more alive than Maya is at the end of Oathbringer. And, obviously, Maya was able to rudimentarily communicate with Adolin.

[Calderis he/him]

@Stark it's just my opinion, but Leyrann summed up my feelings for that moment between Syl and the Stormfather rather well. All Kal had left to do was say the words. 

[Stark he/him]

@Calderis And it is a good opinion, that may be entirely correct.  I'm just not convinced, but cannot disprove you.  We can add it to the list of things to ask Brandon:  When Kaladin killed Syl in WOR, was she a Deadeyes, or is that form of Spren Death only for Radiant spren that have reached the Ideal with their partners that allows blades?

 

Or some other format that is shorter to ask that question.

[+robardin he/him]

33 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

The argument with Syl and the Stormfather occured when Kaladin had already realized his mistakes and was about to say the Third Ideal, and he was already living it at that moment. I would argue she was far more alive than Maya is at the end of Oathbringer. And, obviously, Maya was able to rudimentarily communicate with Adolin.

Also Syl was (last) bonded with Kaladin; part of her "soul" had been used as spiritual caulk for Kaladin, so to speak. It'd be hard for Maya to fully revive without having the KR who killed her around to restore the bits she'd lost due to the Recreance.

The WoB is interesting, though - it strongly suggests, without saying so in so many words, that Syl "would have turned into a Shardblade" had Kaladin broken his oaths after the Third Ideal means that she would have formed into a "deadeye" Shardblade like Maya and all the others, but doesn't actually say she'd take that physical form even if she hadn't been summoned as a Blade first. That's really the crux of the "spren were in on it" question, isn't it? Did the vision of the Recreance imply a willful act to create a repository of unrestricted Shardblades?

I guess it's moot, actually. Such a mass gathering of Radiants, summoning their Blades and then oathbreaking en masse, had to have been a conscious group effort to gather and then to leave the Shards all in one place - instead of simply doing an "everybody go rogue wherever you happen to be" type of thing, where the Blades might physically form (even unsummoned, due to the oathbreaking, if that would happen) in a more distributed way. And no doubt, it was a very dramatic gesture.