Shardlet

Falconite is referring to the organization headed up by Nalan into which Szeth was just inducted. However, I doubt this organization comprises surgebinders but is rather a vigilante group based on the twisted ideals of a Herald with a broken mind.

Paradox, Settle down. Your posts make it sound like you are personally offended by people suggesting that Szeth is a Skybreaker. But, in answer to your post I would point out that Szeth was following the laws of and directives given to him by his people to the letter in spite of his personal feelings. Remember that intent plays a lot into this stuff. That being said, I see no indication that Szeth has attracted a highspren and has entered into a nahel bond. Until he does, he should not be listed as a KR Skybreaker. The Skybreaker organization that Nalan is leading is by all appearances a vigilante group. The Heralds do not likely have the power to command and direct spren to bond to someone.

We have all been there. Don't feel discouraged. There is a lot to pick up on, but I am sure you'll be up to speed soon.

I am pretty sure though that the masked man indicates a worldhopper rather than just Hoid/Wit specifically.

Personally, I wonder whether they belonged to Mraize. Shallan made the assumption that Mraize was in charge, but he is not. The masked woman is Mraize's boss. Why then would not such a collection belong to her rather than Mraize? I got the sense that she was a worldhopper. I also found it intriguing that she wears a mask that seemed similar to the one on the Hoid/worldhopper arch icon.

Hi, Lift. Welcome to 17S. The Reshi isles definitely are bonded with a spren. If I am not much mistaken, Brandion indicated that this bond coupled with the lower gravity on Roshar (0.7 G) is what enables greatshells to grow to their massive size. Particularly so in the case of the chasmfiends and the Reshi floating isles. It also appears that these creatures are still driven primarily by instinct although the spren boded to the isles seems to be fairly cognizant in the physical realm and seems to be able to consciously direct effort and communication. It is also my understanding that each of these greatshells is a living creature in a symbiotic relationship with a spren whereas thunderclasts are essentially corrupt spren wearing stone bodies. So I think that there is a substantial difference between the Reshi isles and thunderclasts. Also, no apologies for overdoing theorizing. That is what these forums are for.

Hoid does seem to be the likely possessor of Taln's blade. I would note though, that it seemed pretty clear in the Amaram confrontation that Dalinar did not have Taln's blade. The blade Dalinar had was described as being like a giant cleaver whereas the WoK epilogue described Taln's blade as long and thin resembling a giant spike.

Hi Veil. Glad to count you among us. Welcome to 17S.

I think you are reading too much into Szeth's prologue comments, Blood. I think it is more likely that Szeth's surgebinding would drain the stormlight from the plate's gemstones and thus quickly immobilizing him if he used the plate. Also, it could interfere with physical contact for his lashings. I did not see anything though that would indicate that it would it would interfere with stormlight inhalation. I think you are right Rlain. Dalinar glowed when he caught the chasmfiend claw. That suggests to me stormlight inhalation. As to the healing and the scars. It is possible that his body only took in enough stormlight to give him the edge in healing rather than fully healing him. I would expect that this would still result in scars.

I think she was definitely part of one of the secret societies. Her goal was to prevent radiants from coming. That suggests the skybreakers. But, I don't think Nalan's current skybreakers are KR. We have not seen any evidence of them surgebinding. Nalan has his shadow thing going on, buthow division and gravity would play into that, I don't know. And that is only if Nalan has his Honorblade, which I am uncertain about that. As to Shallan, it seems that she was fairly progressed since Pattern formed into a shardblade so long ago. She also had greater range of ability with her lightweaving since was incorporating sound before her mother's death according to Pattern. Seems to me that she had previously reached at least level 3 (i.e., where Kaladin currently is).

The impression I got was that he was protecting Shallan in order to keep her for his own ends. Shallan's mother was part of one of our lovely secret societies. I think Lin was as well (even before Luesh's arrival). I think he knew what Shallan was and sought to prevent others from finding out. She was a prize to him and he showed her off like a trophy. Yet, she was discouraged from talking to others. She was isolated and made to be dependant upon her father. So I say he was unequivocably a villain.

Brandon very well could have been using tricky-speak with his answer. We did see live-spren radiant blades in the Starfalls vision in WoK (the blue and amber KR both had shardblades and these would have been live-spren blades. As to an awakened sword, Wit is the only person in WoK that could have had one. In WoR though, we did see Nightblood. Dalinar's blade at the end was not an Honorblade. If you read the description when he is facing down Amaram and the WoK epilogue description of Taln's blade, you can see that the swords are different. Add to that the screaming he hears. I agree with your question. It is a good one to help shed light on this question.

Except that it used to glow and the KR used surgebinding in their plate (see Starfalls in WoK where the Windrunner obviously is using lashings to arrive at and leave the scene).

Couldn't have changed his answer in the way you suggested. The quote was from last week at one of the WoR signings.

Except that one of the 10 best authorities on Honorblades and their capabilities tells Szeth that his bond to the blade is now broken. For it to be broken, it must ipso facto have existed. All of which, save Taravangian, I have mentioned. Again, I did not say or imply that Szeth's blade was a dead-blade. It most certainly was not. I agree that they may be multiple kinds of bonding. Though, it is hard to make a comparison between radiantblades and Honoblades in terms of bondings since we know that the blades are fundamentally different (unless the Heralds have some type of spren analog). Nevertheless, he was bonded to it in some fashion. Note: please recognize that I'm pretty sure that it is an Honorblade as I stated in the OP. However, I like to play devil's advocate with responses to ideas like this because I think they deserve a vigorous defense in order to flesh out the idea. As I said in the OP. My suspicion is that it was a communication error. I just find it compelling; especially so in the case of KR abilities v. Herald abilities. I find it fishy that so far, the Heralds seem to be underpowered as compared to a KR with plate and blade. Edit: @Zenith. Precisely. Since the plate that we see in modern Roshar is powered by gemstones, KR could not use it while substantially surgebinding because they would drain the gemstones. This begs the question, since we know the KR used surgebinding and plate together and we see that current plate and surgebinding are largely incompatible (some surgebinding would be able to be done, but only carefully), how was the plate originally powered? It can be summoned and dismissed at will much like a KR 's blade. Seems likely that the Nahel bond or the spren itself played an integral role. That being the case where does it come from? If not, then how did the creators of the plate imbue it with power, particularly the ability to summon and dismiss it? The key thing is that there was no indication of plate in the prelude. If they had plate, would they not have likewise abandoned it with their blades?

I agree that it is most certainly not a dead-spren blade. I am certainly not implying that Szeth's blade was a regular shardblade. I also doubt that the Heralds would need to level up like the KR did. They were chosen by Honor and were thrown into the mix. The leveling up seems to me be a construct of the Spren. Yes, Syl does think this, but she clearly does not know. She does not have any experience with the Heralds and Szeth's blade is likely the only Honorblade she has encountered. Szeth obviously would have been taught/trained that it was an Honorblade and the shamans have shown themselves to be fallible. So far there has been nothing to indicate that he would have any intrinsic ability to discern whether or not it was an Honorblade beyond what he has been told about Honorblades. And, seems fairly likely that the bonding would be different. But, the quote doe not compare bonds it indicates no bonding. Yet Szeth could clearly summon and dismiss his blade.

So, as I expect most of you did, I concluded fairly solidly as I read that Szeth held an Honorblade (likely Jezrien's) and that was the source of his surgebinding ability. There are a number of passages to put that on a pretty strong foundation. Perhaps most notably, Syl tells Kaladin that she "thinks" that Szeth's former blade is an Honorblade and that it was the source of his abilitries. And then I read this WoB from the San Diego signing: source Then I recalled reading where Nalan told Szeth that he had died long enough to break the bond to his blade. I thought to myself: I have arrived at a few possibilities here: 1) Brandon misunderstood the question and/or mispoke/tricky-spoke. 2) Talenelat misunderstood Brandon's answer. or 3) Szeth actually did not have an Honorblade and Syl was/is mistaken. While I am leaning towards door number 1) or 2), I find door number three rather compelling. Here's why: 1) Szeth leaked Stormlight like a sieve. He needed to consume far more Stormlight than Kaladin. 2) We never saw Szeth's blade shift to better suit his situation. 3) So far, we have no indication that the Heralds had shardplate and Szeth indicated that he could not use plate and effectively surgebind (seems pretty obvious that he would suck out all the Stormlight from his gemstones that powered the plate). For at least those three reasons, it seems that each KR (at least modestly progressed in the ideals) was more powerful than the Herald associated with their order. Now, could perhaps the proper Herald wield their Honorblade in a more Stormlight efficient manner? Could they actually have a form of plate which pops in and out fairly instantaneously? Could Jezrien's Honorblade change shape according to Jezrien's desires/needs while using it? Sure. It is quite possible that we simply have not had the opportunity yet to see these things. But I find it compelling nonetheless. Even if all these things were in play for the Heralds, is the only functional difference between the Heralds and the KR then the Heralds' funky immortality? Let's hash this out a bit. Could there still be some life in the idea that Szeth's blade may actually have been the third type? Parting thought, if Szeth's blade is an Honorblade: Could the three types of blades be the Honorblades, the dead KR blades, and the vital KR blades?

The blade Dalinar had was described as a giant cleaver, whereas Taln's blade was described as being long and thin resembling a giant spike. Dalinar was not using Taln's blade. By all appearances, Szeth was given his blade by the shamans. Especially since he indicated that they would retrieve it upon his death. Ooh, we should be seeing an "envoy" from Shinovar in the next book then.

What I wonder is that if the other Shardworld-Cognitive realm correlates have the same representational makeup as Shadesmar. I.e., sea of beads with a land sea inversion.

Nazh is indisputably a worldhopper. He produced the notations on the Elendel map in AoL. It was cool to see not only more notations from him, but also to see him on screen in WoR.

Glad to have you with us Falconite. Welcome to 17S.

Welcome, Rezier. Bask in the knowledge, raw information, and camaraderie that is to be found on this site and in this community. I look forward to your contributions.

I don't know that it would be a straight-up countdown (and thus the date of the next desolation be calculable). I would lean more to a gauge sort of operation. Conceptually, kind of like the doomsday clock. As to the desolation being held off, Honor's words in "In the Top Room" suggest to me that Odium sat back and waited rather than the delay resulting from anyone's or any group's efforts to stave off the arrival of the desolation.

If it is already Tues. for you, then I would expect the book to not be released until the local release date (Since it is still Mon. everywhere in the US). Even so, I'm sure it is not already 8 PM (20:00). For me, Amazon says by 8 PM Tues. Mar. 4.

Welcome, Falcon777. Glad to have you here with us. Hope to hear some of your ideas soon.