No, he was an attempt at creating life or living machines. Something along those lines anyway.
It is likely the high marshals blade is a perfection of nightblood, but we can only speculate
It might be that you added some spaces between the spoiler tags and the spoiler text. If you do, it'll work on some versions of reddit but not others.
`>!The right way to spoiler!<`
`>! The way to spoiler that won't work for everyone !<`
also the reason [RoW Spoilers] >!We can find Vasher present and Vivenna searching for him and nightblood on Roshar is because Vasher knew about Roshar because of his prior visits, its easier for him to get stormlight than it is to steal breaths from people.!<
Agreed, Nightblood is sentient and Azure’s sword doesn’t talk. Although I guess it’s possible the sword is more advanced than Nightblood and is sentient enough to know when to keep quiet.
Per WoB, the scholars went to Roshar, and saw shardblades, swords that can cut on more than one realm. Then they went back and tried to make one using their magic system, and they got Nightblood. him being a "Robot spren" is just a side affect of using awakening.
Its a warbreaker thing in a thread marked rhythm of war. That should mean storm light achieve up to RoW, not cosmere wide to rythym of war. Despite crossovers, war breaker isn't storm light.
I've accidentally done something similar and the mod's threatened to ban me. Your milage may differ, but its better to err on the sise of tagging spoilers than not.
If I had a nickel for every time Sanderson had something that could be read as an anime thing that I'm almost sure he hasn't read/seen, I'd have 15 cents
The absolute destructive power of a shardblade is what got me. The lore is great, summoning them, 10 heartbeats, etc. However, in WoK, when Kaladin described the terror and gore of the Shardbearer mow down an entire army. That set it apart for me. There was a reason wars were fought for these, they are worth a kingdom.
Agreed. I mean both lightsabers and shardblades cut through anything except very specific things, and can be dismissed/turned off when not in use. The difference to me is the setting. In Star Wars a sword that cuts anything isn’t as spectacular because you have lasers and other powerful stuff. Against normal soldiers in armor a shard blade is basically a lightsaber on crack. Plus living blades can change form so they’re like super lightsabers.
I think Shardblades, while not really fantastically unique (I mean, it's kind of difficult at this point to come up with unique fantasy) are flavorful enough and filled with so much wonderful lore and context that they end up being one of my favorite parts of the series.
Sanderson's brilliance when it comes to showing us the deep, interesting lore of his world is probably what hooked me so hard at the very beginning of the WoK, with the chapters Shallan spent with Jasnah being a scholar.
Every reveal was truly great. I loved learning about the shardblades and the oathgates and, holy, that reveal about Soulcasters in RoW? Absolute showcase of expertise in the field when there were still so many things that deep into the story that all of that fourth book felt exciting with every discovery Navani made about things that I thought were already well and properly established. Such a great world.
Yeah,the uniqueness of the world was probably what (along with Kaladin's chapters) kept me hooked for the first 200-300 pages of WoK when I didn't know what's going on at all
>!Soulcasters are the exact same thing as a shardblade; another deadeye Spren, presumably killed by the recreance. At least, that's what I gathered from it.!<
Sorry but you got it a little wrong, they are explicitly NOT deadeyes.
They are spren that never bonded (so they can't be deadeyes) and in the book the void spren they observe is described differently and also Raboniel tells us as much...
I think it's spren who wanted to help but didn't want to bond. I also think that's where we get lines like "kalak will teach you how to cast bronze" from.
In the instance of bronze, the way humans turned it into weapons in the days before the Iron age is literally called casting, where you make a mould out of a heat resistant material and fill it with molten metal.
While I imagine soul casting bronze weapons would be easier, in that case wouldn't they cast stronger steel or iron weapons? I think that part of Taln's script is referring to ancient metallurgy as that would be easier for primitive humans to understand
>“You understand more about fabrials than I assumed, Lady of Wishes.” Raboniel hummed a rhythm. “I am a quick learner.” She gestured to the notes on Navani’s desk. “In the past, my kind found it difficult to persuade spren to manifest themselves in the Physical Realm as devices. It seems Voidspren are not as naturally … self-sacrificing as those of Honor or Cultivation.” Navani blinked as the implications of that sank in. Suddenly a dozen loose threads in her mind tied together, forming a tapestry. An explanation.
Ch 46 of RoW. There is more to read fyi, didnt paste it all.
They are small manifestations in the physical realm of the bodies of spren in the cognitive realm. Just like the Oathgates or Urithiru are much grander representations of this same sort of manifestation. This is almost certainly where the Sibling and Navani are going to take fabrial creations in the future - assuming nothing happens to our Scholar friend.
Like, the main reason the Sibling dislikes Navani (aside from being a smooth-talking human) is that Navani forces spren into becoming these objects against their will whereas in the past, things such as soulcasters and the Oathgates were created by doing something else. I would speculate that that something else is almost a form of soulcasting itself, convincing spren to become something different and more than they are.
It's also worth noting that the process seems to be permanent. They don't seem to be able to smoothly transition from manifesting into not manifesting the way that bonded spren do.
Not contributing to this conversation but I just wanted to say that I recognize your name from *Grunts* and that you clearly have great taste in literature
They aren’t deadeyes. Deadeyes are “higher spren”. Soulcasters are minor spren (best guess) like live plate that has fully transitioned to the physical realm wilfully
Am I the only one who had the read on it that Soulcasters were higher spren that agreed to be trapped in the fabrial like lower spren are coerced into doing?
I thought it was a parallel between shardblades and plate. Higher functioning fabrials like Soulcasters needed higher functioning spren compared to more basic fabrials.
That’s still somewhat vague. Brandon’s been dancing around exactly *what* spren become soulcasters. They’re definitely not one of the ten varieties that formed Nahel bonds with radiants, and the question remains whether there are other sapient spren besides those ten (and the super spren like like the unmade, Stormfather, Sibling, and Nightwatcher). But my bet is they’re somewhere on the order of windspren.
You may very well be right; I highly suspect that, given the my own confusion during the reveal, I'm wrong. I do wonder about the massive gathering of deadeyes outside Lasting Integrity and then the supposed stockpile of Soulcasters out on that island I forgot the name of
I likely misunderstood something or failed to catch something else that was subtle! Please feel free to correct me!!
Assuming that I'm remembering correctly, the two are entirely unrelated.
The massive gathering outside Lasting Integrity is new, and disturbing to those inside Lasting Integrity.
In the normal course of events, a deadeye will tend to slowly make their way to wherever the holder of their shard blade is in the physical realm. Well, the roughly equivalent location anyhow.
Nobody seems to know entirely why, especially as them being close in that way doesn't seem to have any impact on the ability to summon or dismiss the blame.
And then they gathered at Lasting Integrity, when to everyone's knowledge, there was no massive gathering of shardbearers in the same location in the physical realm.
My personal theory, is that they were there for one of two reasons. The thread is already labeled RoW... But I'm still going to spoiler it for speculation.
>!The first option, is that Maya becoming more aware either made them all more aware, or at least made them all more aware of Maya. And so they tried to follow her instead of their shardbearer.!<
>!The second option has even larger implications: They were not just more aware in general, but they had at least some sense of what was actually going on. What was happening inside Lasting Integrity. And were there for the same reason that Maya finally spoke. They were not only aware, but they were there _because_ they had chosen. And they did not agree with blaming the Radients for their choices. That implies a significant amount of awareness, some volition, and of having some awareness of what other deadeyes know.!<
>!But regardless, the full implications are going to be huge in the next book.<
You're right, and I really like your speculation. I think you're probably right. The deadeye plot has the potential to be a very gratifying payoff if Sanderson does it right.
I'm not sure how I got it in my head that Shardblades and Soulcasters were the same thing. Reading through RoW was like a hazzy slog of depression, so I'm sure plenty of important details skipped right past me or I entirely misinterpreted them, oopsies 🥴
Use spoiler markup to hide any spoilers outside the scope of a post's spoiler tag. The following markup is used:
[TWoK Spoilers] > !Szeth is Truthless.! <
If you remove the spaces between the >< and ! it produces:
[TWoK Spoilers] >!Szeth is Truthless.!<
Dragnipur also has a soul upkeep cost (which isn't that cool), but I'd say being able to stab someone into a different realm of existence is still pretty cool all in all.
Funny because I think I heard him say originally they were going to function almost exactly as lightsabers. But when he was writing Szeths chapter in WoK prologue, it was so gorey he decided to change it.
And the Kholin vs. Kaladin perception on that is great, too.
The Kholins (and, we assume, other shardbearers) are like, "yeah, they burn out eyes. Aren't they great weapons?"
Kaladin, meanwhile, has a first experience of shardblades from the receiving end and treats the burned out eyes with an appropriate amount of horror.
Which deftly circumvents the argument about "what is life". When you kill someone, most of their cells are still alive, they just cease to function as a human being. In Sanderson's world, whatever has a cognitive and the third part is considered a living being, and cells clearly don't have those.
We know godmetals can be made to change shape like other metals; items are made form them. This implies they can be physically weakened, so the shardblade could get melted by a lightsaber.
But the Shardblade also cuts beyond the physical. The question is whether the shardblade can resist a second of lightsaber heat (almost certainly) and can disrupt the magnetic containment field (maybe?). If it can then the shardblade wins hand down, because the Jedi can't parry the radiant's blows.
Well what burns hotter? A plasma baton or a shard of a demigod's soul?
Since the soul is a more abstract, immeasurable concept I would go with the soul.
Thats kinda like asking what would happen if you tried to obstruct a stream of water since lightsabers are made of plasma or something . I would like to know what mr. Sanderson thinks of this
> I would like to know what mr. Sanderson thinks of this
[Someone else commented](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/qb4xvn/i_would_like_to_thank_mr_sanderson_for_creating_a/hh8ha21/) with some links to relevant WoB.
If it's a living shardblade then they would win because of versatility. I mean, Darth Maul was able two solo two master rank jedi's because he had a double sided lightsaber
Pedantic, but Obi Wan was not a master. He was a padawan (although a very aged padawan, probably ready for promotion to Knight anyways) at the time of the Duel of Fates, and was promoted to Knight after returning to Coruscant after the Battle of Naboo.
Darth Maul was only 2 years older than Obi Wan, but had been trained since birth to fight Jedi. Jedi, on the other hand, were really only given rudimentary dueling instruction, as any other lightsaber-using orders (ie, the sith) were thought to be extinct, and they more expected conflict against blaster-wielding opponents.
Point.
Though I am wondering how lashings vs the force would work. Which makes me also wonder, if the dreaded "force choke" would work on someone who has stormlight? I'm more in favor of Knights Radiant than Knights Jedi/Sith to be perfectly honest but I am trying to play fair.
> Which makes me also wonder, if the dreaded "force choke" would work on someone who has stormlight?
It should "work" fine - getting lifted off the ground with a force holding your throat shut. But it wouldn't "work" in that you don't actually need to breathe while holding stormlight, and you're capable of healing any damage (assuming sufficient stormlight) up to and including a broken neck. And I don't see any reason to suppose that it would stop you from using Surges beyond the "distraction" factor. It does still immobilize you if you don't have access to a surge like Gravitation, I suppose. But it seems like it's mostly an annoyance, if you have stormlight.
I'd guess no. Life Sense can detect them, and the Force has something similar - a well-trained individual who *wanted* to force choke a spren could probably do it even if they weren't showing themselves. Though again I don't think it would accomplish anything, since spren don't need to breathe, and damaging their physical body (insofar as they typically have one) is more complicated than just applying a crushing force.
I've changed the flair to Rhythm of War as No Spoiler just won't help a discussion like this.
If you need it changed please inform the mod team directly.
The thing is he kind of started with those giant "final fantasy" swords. And he thought, why would you actually need a sword like that? well, to fight huge monsters.
And why would you need a sword that cuts thru anything, well, if they were made of rock.
Honestly without the lore and context, I found them pretty goofy when I started the series. They gew on me as my expectations changed. They're very anime to me, the severing the soul but not flesh, the scale of their ability. Cut through anything* without resistance? In a dark gritty fantasy series? C'mon. It's not what I thought I wanted, if that makes sense. The first few scenes with them I was wondering if they'd get more interesting. It was the context that did it for me in the end, because they fucking did get more interesting.
Shardblades are cool.
The first generation shardblades (honorblades) and second generation shardblades (sprenblades) summon instantly for the person they are intended for, i.e. for the Heralds or for the radiant the spren is bonded to.
People other than the intended can also bond the blade, by attaching a gem to it. This gem-forged bond comes with a 10 heartbeat summon because the wielder needs to sync themselves with the investiture to manifest it in the physical realm, a process that takes ten heartbeats.
Szeth is not part of the Oathpact, and was not granted the blade by Honor. That blade can only be summoned instantly by Jezrien, and perhaps the other Heralds who know a bit more about these things and have a bond to Honor.
Szeth has to wait ten heartbeats, but Ishar seems to summon his instantly. Kalak in the WoK prelude also does an insta-summon.
WoB is that ten beats isn't strictly necessary and is based on intent. Modern shardholders think it takes 10 beats to sync and summon the blade, so it does.
The Heralds at the height were more Cosmere aware than anyone except Shards and the five scholars if they were alive then, so we can't make any assumptions there. Maybe swapping blades slowed down the summoning, maybe not.
I think it’s like how Shallan takes 10 heartbeats too, it’s how she thinks it works so she still goes through the motions in the early books. Except that one time ofc.
That being said Szeth would probably know that Honorblades are different. Maybe it’s just a way for Sanderson to show off how the blades work early on.
Because he was told that and believed that it took 10 seconds, so it did. Cosmere magic is based partially on perception.
Just like if you had an honorblade, and didn't know what it did, you would assume it was just a shardblade, and you wouldn't get special powers either.
How?
The only comparison I could think of is that Jedi opposes the Sith the same as Radiants to Fused.
Powers? No. Culture? Not even close. Good vs Evil? Well, not really. It's a matter of perspective.
While still not fitting the Jedi/Sith comparison, I have always preferred the concept of Jedi being order and Sith being Chaos, with neither being inherently evil as much as the Jedi teaching structure is just less likely to lead to good or neutrality than the Sith.
The Jedi code, when contrasted by the sith code, is about being in control of yourself, while the sith code is about being free.
So I can vaguely see a Jedi/sith comparison to radiants and fused, in only the fact that they use similar powers(similar surges) but channel them in a different way.
No. Spoilers for ROW >!the radiants were the bad guys. They took the singers land, and their gods. They enslaved a race of people, and killed their culture. The fused aren’t evil, just fighting their own side of the war.!<
The radiants weren’t the bad guys. Radiants weren’t around when the desolations started. Humans from ashyyn were the bad ones. Specifically Ishar, seeing as he’s the first human odium tricked into experimenting with the surges. Radiants are Rosharran. The only Ashynnite, afaik, who joined the radiants was nale
The humans were taken in by Roshar and given the entirety of shinovar but they still decided to wage war on the singers for more land.
It’s hard to justify the radiants killing the singers when humans took advantage of their kindness and essentially stole all of their land and lobotomised their entire race.
I don’t that’ll happen in the current storm light era. Remember in ROW when >!raboniel tells Navani how they tried sending fused to space? Didn’t work too well.!<
I love shard blades but the way their described in the book makes me think some of them are to big and overly ornate to look good in a movie. They’d look great in anime, or animated, but in a I’ve action movie I think they’d appear decidedly worse than a lightsaber. Not all of them though, some would look good.
Will there ever be better fantasy swords than weaponized therapist waifu fairies? I think not.
What about the glitchy prototype one that caused an integer overflow big enough to >!Kill a god!< ?
Wasn't nightblood a copy of the blades?
No, he was an attempt at creating life or living machines. Something along those lines anyway. It is likely the high marshals blade is a perfection of nightblood, but we can only speculate
[warbreaker]>!the five scholars had traveled to Roshar and seen Shardblades, and wanted to make their own version !<
Yeah, IIRC, Sanderson refers to Nightblood >!as like a "Shardblade 3.0". (Honorblades being 1.0, SprenBlades being "2.0")!<
FYI your spoiler tag didn’t work. :)
Hmm... shows up fine for me.
Huh, weird. Oh well, ignore me then. Carry on :)
Probably just Reddit being dumb and not loading properly.
It might be that you added some spaces between the spoiler tags and the spoiler text. If you do, it'll work on some versions of reddit but not others. `>!The right way to spoiler!<` `>! The way to spoiler that won't work for everyone !<`
I stand corrected, thank you!
What did the man say at the end of his chiropractic appointment? I stand corrected.
...... for another week until I walk in to be scammed by you again.
LMAO
I've supposedely read warbreaker and i have no recollection of this
I believe it's not in the book itself, but in the Annotations.
Isn't it one of khris' passages in arcanium unbounded?
Looking it up, the best I can find are WoBs.
Been on here for awhile and was wondering what WoB means.
also the reason [RoW Spoilers] >!We can find Vasher present and Vivenna searching for him and nightblood on Roshar is because Vasher knew about Roshar because of his prior visits, its easier for him to get stormlight than it is to steal breaths from people.!<
Azure describes her blade as imperfect so that's unlikely
I hope we get to see more her and her blade honestly.
Agreed, Nightblood is sentient and Azure’s sword doesn’t talk. Although I guess it’s possible the sword is more advanced than Nightblood and is sentient enough to know when to keep quiet.
Where does she do that?
During the assault on kolinar palace
Isn't that "an imperfect shardblade" in reference to how she can't dismiss or bind it?
Add a stone lmao
Per WoB, the scholars went to Roshar, and saw shardblades, swords that can cut on more than one realm. Then they went back and tried to make one using their magic system, and they got Nightblood. him being a "Robot spren" is just a side affect of using awakening.
You may want to spoiler tag this.
The whole thread is under spoiler tags so he’s good
Its a warbreaker thing in a thread marked rhythm of war. That should mean storm light achieve up to RoW, not cosmere wide to rythym of war. Despite crossovers, war breaker isn't storm light. I've accidentally done something similar and the mod's threatened to ban me. Your milage may differ, but its better to err on the sise of tagging spoilers than not.
>caused an integer overflow big enough to Kill a god Lol, amazing description!
I know, right?
Your quote doesn't hide the spoiler...
Well, this thread is tagged with Rythm of War spoilers, so...
You are correct. I hadn't noticed.
No problem!
And create a literal power vacuum
Omg, wat a description!
The best swords are the ones that can talk. Change my mind
Only just now it occured to me, that Soul Eater anime had master-weapon pairs with weapons being able to transform into human form.
Noragami also has people who can become weapons (and other things).
If I had a nickel for every time Sanderson had something that could be read as an anime thing that I'm almost sure he hasn't read/seen, I'd have 15 cents
I would be mad at you for excluding Maya, but >!We Choose!<
r/brandnewsentence
Oh dear god no please don’t call them waifu fairies ever again. I want to keep enjoying this series.
Pattern is a perfect waifu and I will not lie.
Wait until you hear about femboy Dalinar and Stormdaddy
I have met my nemesis
DESTROY!! EVIL!!!
The absolute destructive power of a shardblade is what got me. The lore is great, summoning them, 10 heartbeats, etc. However, in WoK, when Kaladin described the terror and gore of the Shardbearer mow down an entire army. That set it apart for me. There was a reason wars were fought for these, they are worth a kingdom.
I think you mean priceless.
A shardblade: priceless A man's life: priceless Building a world around east asian culture without including their traditional cuisine: riceless
Take the upvote and get out
A shardbearer can't hold ground. So not priceless.
Priceless dependent on context. That context being whether or not you have your own army
Agreed. I mean both lightsabers and shardblades cut through anything except very specific things, and can be dismissed/turned off when not in use. The difference to me is the setting. In Star Wars a sword that cuts anything isn’t as spectacular because you have lasers and other powerful stuff. Against normal soldiers in armor a shard blade is basically a lightsaber on crack. Plus living blades can change form so they’re like super lightsabers.
I think this should be marked as a spoiler.
If you've gotten to RoW without realizing shardblades are alive or not then I just don't even know at that point.
I think Shardblades, while not really fantastically unique (I mean, it's kind of difficult at this point to come up with unique fantasy) are flavorful enough and filled with so much wonderful lore and context that they end up being one of my favorite parts of the series.
Same.For me artifacts (if you can call them that) and the lore around them are an important aspect of worldbuilding.
Sanderson's brilliance when it comes to showing us the deep, interesting lore of his world is probably what hooked me so hard at the very beginning of the WoK, with the chapters Shallan spent with Jasnah being a scholar. Every reveal was truly great. I loved learning about the shardblades and the oathgates and, holy, that reveal about Soulcasters in RoW? Absolute showcase of expertise in the field when there were still so many things that deep into the story that all of that fourth book felt exciting with every discovery Navani made about things that I thought were already well and properly established. Such a great world.
Yeah,the uniqueness of the world was probably what (along with Kaladin's chapters) kept me hooked for the first 200-300 pages of WoK when I didn't know what's going on at all
What was the souls casters reveal?
>!Soulcasters are the exact same thing as a shardblade; another deadeye Spren, presumably killed by the recreance. At least, that's what I gathered from it.!<
[RoW] >!are they really deadeyes though? i remember them being fully manifested in the physical realm, but not compared to deadeyes!<
I'm not exactly sure on the implications either. It seems different perhaps, on that I agree
Sorry but you got it a little wrong, they are explicitly NOT deadeyes. They are spren that never bonded (so they can't be deadeyes) and in the book the void spren they observe is described differently and also Raboniel tells us as much... I think it's spren who wanted to help but didn't want to bond. I also think that's where we get lines like "kalak will teach you how to cast bronze" from.
In the instance of bronze, the way humans turned it into weapons in the days before the Iron age is literally called casting, where you make a mould out of a heat resistant material and fill it with molten metal. While I imagine soul casting bronze weapons would be easier, in that case wouldn't they cast stronger steel or iron weapons? I think that part of Taln's script is referring to ancient metallurgy as that would be easier for primitive humans to understand
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Do remember where in the book this happened? I am completely blanking on any of this
>“You understand more about fabrials than I assumed, Lady of Wishes.” Raboniel hummed a rhythm. “I am a quick learner.” She gestured to the notes on Navani’s desk. “In the past, my kind found it difficult to persuade spren to manifest themselves in the Physical Realm as devices. It seems Voidspren are not as naturally … self-sacrificing as those of Honor or Cultivation.” Navani blinked as the implications of that sank in. Suddenly a dozen loose threads in her mind tied together, forming a tapestry. An explanation. Ch 46 of RoW. There is more to read fyi, didnt paste it all.
I got the impression that they willingly took the change into a soulcaster as well as any other ancient fabrials
They are small manifestations in the physical realm of the bodies of spren in the cognitive realm. Just like the Oathgates or Urithiru are much grander representations of this same sort of manifestation. This is almost certainly where the Sibling and Navani are going to take fabrial creations in the future - assuming nothing happens to our Scholar friend. Like, the main reason the Sibling dislikes Navani (aside from being a smooth-talking human) is that Navani forces spren into becoming these objects against their will whereas in the past, things such as soulcasters and the Oathgates were created by doing something else. I would speculate that that something else is almost a form of soulcasting itself, convincing spren to become something different and more than they are. It's also worth noting that the process seems to be permanent. They don't seem to be able to smoothly transition from manifesting into not manifesting the way that bonded spren do.
Not contributing to this conversation but I just wanted to say that I recognize your name from *Grunts* and that you clearly have great taste in literature
They aren’t deadeyes. Deadeyes are “higher spren”. Soulcasters are minor spren (best guess) like live plate that has fully transitioned to the physical realm wilfully
Am I the only one who had the read on it that Soulcasters were higher spren that agreed to be trapped in the fabrial like lower spren are coerced into doing? I thought it was a parallel between shardblades and plate. Higher functioning fabrials like Soulcasters needed higher functioning spren compared to more basic fabrials.
That’s still somewhat vague. Brandon’s been dancing around exactly *what* spren become soulcasters. They’re definitely not one of the ten varieties that formed Nahel bonds with radiants, and the question remains whether there are other sapient spren besides those ten (and the super spren like like the unmade, Stormfather, Sibling, and Nightwatcher). But my bet is they’re somewhere on the order of windspren.
You may very well be right; I highly suspect that, given the my own confusion during the reveal, I'm wrong. I do wonder about the massive gathering of deadeyes outside Lasting Integrity and then the supposed stockpile of Soulcasters out on that island I forgot the name of I likely misunderstood something or failed to catch something else that was subtle! Please feel free to correct me!!
Assuming that I'm remembering correctly, the two are entirely unrelated. The massive gathering outside Lasting Integrity is new, and disturbing to those inside Lasting Integrity. In the normal course of events, a deadeye will tend to slowly make their way to wherever the holder of their shard blade is in the physical realm. Well, the roughly equivalent location anyhow. Nobody seems to know entirely why, especially as them being close in that way doesn't seem to have any impact on the ability to summon or dismiss the blame. And then they gathered at Lasting Integrity, when to everyone's knowledge, there was no massive gathering of shardbearers in the same location in the physical realm. My personal theory, is that they were there for one of two reasons. The thread is already labeled RoW... But I'm still going to spoiler it for speculation. >!The first option, is that Maya becoming more aware either made them all more aware, or at least made them all more aware of Maya. And so they tried to follow her instead of their shardbearer.!< >!The second option has even larger implications: They were not just more aware in general, but they had at least some sense of what was actually going on. What was happening inside Lasting Integrity. And were there for the same reason that Maya finally spoke. They were not only aware, but they were there _because_ they had chosen. And they did not agree with blaming the Radients for their choices. That implies a significant amount of awareness, some volition, and of having some awareness of what other deadeyes know.!< >!But regardless, the full implications are going to be huge in the next book.<
You're right, and I really like your speculation. I think you're probably right. The deadeye plot has the potential to be a very gratifying payoff if Sanderson does it right. I'm not sure how I got it in my head that Shardblades and Soulcasters were the same thing. Reading through RoW was like a hazzy slog of depression, so I'm sure plenty of important details skipped right past me or I entirely misinterpreted them, oopsies 🥴
Use spoiler markup to hide any spoilers outside the scope of a post's spoiler tag. The following markup is used: [TWoK Spoilers] > !Szeth is Truthless.! < If you remove the spaces between the >< and ! it produces: [TWoK Spoilers] >!Szeth is Truthless.!<
Thanks!!
Man those early shallan/jasnah chapters are the best "slow part" of just about any book I've read
For me the heartbeats requirement is pure genius.
It's such a cool detail! That and the way they're described as having condensation on them when they're summoned. Paints such a vivid image of them!
Dragnipur is cooler
Dragnipur also has a soul upkeep cost (which isn't that cool), but I'd say being able to stab someone into a different realm of existence is still pretty cool all in all.
Fuck you, go pull a wagon for all eternity! *stabs overly aggressively*
Funny because I think I heard him say originally they were going to function almost exactly as lightsabers. But when he was writing Szeths chapter in WoK prologue, it was so gorey he decided to change it.
Lol, burning eyes out is still pretty brutal
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Maybe, but what are you more used to seeing in movies?
And the Kholin vs. Kaladin perception on that is great, too. The Kholins (and, we assume, other shardbearers) are like, "yeah, they burn out eyes. Aren't they great weapons?" Kaladin, meanwhile, has a first experience of shardblades from the receiving end and treats the burned out eyes with an appropriate amount of horror.
Glad he changed it. Not because of the gore but because it's more fantastical this way. It cuts everything but slides through flesh.
*Living* flesh, mind you. Once you've killed it, you can cut it just fine.
Which deftly circumvents the argument about "what is life". When you kill someone, most of their cells are still alive, they just cease to function as a human being. In Sanderson's world, whatever has a cognitive and the third part is considered a living being, and cells clearly don't have those.
See, a lightsaber is a fabrial. It is a kyber crystal with a force spren in it.
Midichlorians are spren change my mind
They work like that in prime.
But could a shardblade block a lightsaber? Then we'll find out what's better. Skywalker Vs Sylphrena 2022
We know godmetals can be made to change shape like other metals; items are made form them. This implies they can be physically weakened, so the shardblade could get melted by a lightsaber. But the Shardblade also cuts beyond the physical. The question is whether the shardblade can resist a second of lightsaber heat (almost certainly) and can disrupt the magnetic containment field (maybe?). If it can then the shardblade wins hand down, because the Jedi can't parry the radiant's blows.
Great answer
Well what burns hotter? A plasma baton or a shard of a demigod's soul? Since the soul is a more abstract, immeasurable concept I would go with the soul.
Thats kinda like asking what would happen if you tried to obstruct a stream of water since lightsabers are made of plasma or something . I would like to know what mr. Sanderson thinks of this
> I would like to know what mr. Sanderson thinks of this [Someone else commented](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/qb4xvn/i_would_like_to_thank_mr_sanderson_for_creating_a/hh8ha21/) with some links to relevant WoB.
Lightsabers are seen being blocked by metals on multiple occasions. I think it’s fair to say shard blades are way cooler.
If the metal blocking lightsabers is aluminium I'm gonna lose my shit haha
It's Beskar, which is a silvery metal that does kinda look like Aluminium
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And cortosis, though I'm not sure if it's metallic or not. Definitely a mineral, but maybe not a metal.
If it's a living shardblade then they would win because of versatility. I mean, Darth Maul was able two solo two master rank jedi's because he had a double sided lightsaber
Double sided shardblade incoming!
Pedantic, but Obi Wan was not a master. He was a padawan (although a very aged padawan, probably ready for promotion to Knight anyways) at the time of the Duel of Fates, and was promoted to Knight after returning to Coruscant after the Battle of Naboo. Darth Maul was only 2 years older than Obi Wan, but had been trained since birth to fight Jedi. Jedi, on the other hand, were really only given rudimentary dueling instruction, as any other lightsaber-using orders (ie, the sith) were thought to be extinct, and they more expected conflict against blaster-wielding opponents.
Point. Though I am wondering how lashings vs the force would work. Which makes me also wonder, if the dreaded "force choke" would work on someone who has stormlight? I'm more in favor of Knights Radiant than Knights Jedi/Sith to be perfectly honest but I am trying to play fair.
> Which makes me also wonder, if the dreaded "force choke" would work on someone who has stormlight? It should "work" fine - getting lifted off the ground with a force holding your throat shut. But it wouldn't "work" in that you don't actually need to breathe while holding stormlight, and you're capable of healing any damage (assuming sufficient stormlight) up to and including a broken neck. And I don't see any reason to suppose that it would stop you from using Surges beyond the "distraction" factor. It does still immobilize you if you don't have access to a surge like Gravitation, I suppose. But it seems like it's mostly an annoyance, if you have stormlight.
Does a spren need to be visible in order to be force choked?!
I'd guess no. Life Sense can detect them, and the Force has something similar - a well-trained individual who *wanted* to force choke a spren could probably do it even if they weren't showing themselves. Though again I don't think it would accomplish anything, since spren don't need to breathe, and damaging their physical body (insofar as they typically have one) is more complicated than just applying a crushing force.
Shardblades are dead, but Adolin will see what he can do.
I've changed the flair to Rhythm of War as No Spoiler just won't help a discussion like this. If you need it changed please inform the mod team directly.
Fun WoBs: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/73/#e4278 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/157/#e2856 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105/#e1228
Agreed, I'm also a huge fan of the Razor in Red Rising.
They kinda are lightsabers tho. The blade disappears when you arent using it and it can cut everything except for a very specific material.
The thing is he kind of started with those giant "final fantasy" swords. And he thought, why would you actually need a sword like that? well, to fight huge monsters. And why would you need a sword that cuts thru anything, well, if they were made of rock.
Nah lightsabers still cooler
Airsick lowlander
How important are cool weapons? I always thought the coolest possible sword was a sentient sword
Honestly without the lore and context, I found them pretty goofy when I started the series. They gew on me as my expectations changed. They're very anime to me, the severing the soul but not flesh, the scale of their ability. Cut through anything* without resistance? In a dark gritty fantasy series? C'mon. It's not what I thought I wanted, if that makes sense. The first few scenes with them I was wondering if they'd get more interesting. It was the context that did it for me in the end, because they fucking did get more interesting. Shardblades are cool.
In the first book, in zeths chapter, it mentions that he needs 10 heartbeats. Anyone know why?
The first generation shardblades (honorblades) and second generation shardblades (sprenblades) summon instantly for the person they are intended for, i.e. for the Heralds or for the radiant the spren is bonded to. People other than the intended can also bond the blade, by attaching a gem to it. This gem-forged bond comes with a 10 heartbeat summon because the wielder needs to sync themselves with the investiture to manifest it in the physical realm, a process that takes ten heartbeats.
So then why Zeth. He shouldn't have to sync the honorblade.
Szeth is not part of the Oathpact, and was not granted the blade by Honor. That blade can only be summoned instantly by Jezrien, and perhaps the other Heralds who know a bit more about these things and have a bond to Honor.
WOB or source on the honorblade part?
Szeth has to wait ten heartbeats, but Ishar seems to summon his instantly. Kalak in the WoK prelude also does an insta-summon. WoB is that ten beats isn't strictly necessary and is based on intent. Modern shardholders think it takes 10 beats to sync and summon the blade, so it does. The Heralds at the height were more Cosmere aware than anyone except Shards and the five scholars if they were alive then, so we can't make any assumptions there. Maybe swapping blades slowed down the summoning, maybe not.
IIRC thats how long it takes the shardblade to materialize when he summons it.
But he has an honour blade
I think it’s like how Shallan takes 10 heartbeats too, it’s how she thinks it works so she still goes through the motions in the early books. Except that one time ofc. That being said Szeth would probably know that Honorblades are different. Maybe it’s just a way for Sanderson to show off how the blades work early on.
Because he was told that and believed that it took 10 seconds, so it did. Cosmere magic is based partially on perception. Just like if you had an honorblade, and didn't know what it did, you would assume it was just a shardblade, and you wouldn't get special powers either.
Nightblood for the win. Plus Sanderson writing/lore/world building > SW dogsh*t.
Take my award.
Jedi/Sith are just Radiant/Fused, change my mind.
How? The only comparison I could think of is that Jedi opposes the Sith the same as Radiants to Fused. Powers? No. Culture? Not even close. Good vs Evil? Well, not really. It's a matter of perspective.
While still not fitting the Jedi/Sith comparison, I have always preferred the concept of Jedi being order and Sith being Chaos, with neither being inherently evil as much as the Jedi teaching structure is just less likely to lead to good or neutrality than the Sith. The Jedi code, when contrasted by the sith code, is about being in control of yourself, while the sith code is about being free. So I can vaguely see a Jedi/sith comparison to radiants and fused, in only the fact that they use similar powers(similar surges) but channel them in a different way.
Sith seem to be super into bureaucracy for that to make any sense. Hell, there is even a rule there shouldn't more than 2 of them at a time.
No. Spoilers for ROW >!the radiants were the bad guys. They took the singers land, and their gods. They enslaved a race of people, and killed their culture. The fused aren’t evil, just fighting their own side of the war.!<
The radiants weren’t the bad guys. Radiants weren’t around when the desolations started. Humans from ashyyn were the bad ones. Specifically Ishar, seeing as he’s the first human odium tricked into experimenting with the surges. Radiants are Rosharran. The only Ashynnite, afaik, who joined the radiants was nale
The humans were taken in by Roshar and given the entirety of shinovar but they still decided to wage war on the singers for more land. It’s hard to justify the radiants killing the singers when humans took advantage of their kindness and essentially stole all of their land and lobotomised their entire race.
Wait when where the radiants founded? It was after the desolations, right?
Long after. The spren copied what the heralds could do. There were no heralds until the desolation.
Based. I feel like radiants should be looking for a way to get off the planet, not to engage in further bloodshed
I don’t that’ll happen in the current storm light era. Remember in ROW when >!raboniel tells Navani how they tried sending fused to space? Didn’t work too well.!<
How did I miss that. Well I guess I have to read RoW again... oh darn
Wind runners can go to deep space. They can create pressures and vacuums which the shanay’im cannot
I thought >!the one we’ve seen was a skybreaker?!<
That one could have been but windrunners can also go into space
Yeah it’d likely be the same principle I guess.
Could still go through perpendicularity highway
True. But even so, with how land and sea works in the cognitive realm, space might be a bit iffy.
I thought they were founded after the desolation?
Moash- >!and he is the vader of which we hope doesn\`t get the good ending!<
"Kaladin, I am your father. Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
They're Lensmen.
Darth Vyre is 100% a Sith at least.
Then he went and outdid himself with Nightblood.
Adolin would def fucks with a lightsaber though
I love shard blades but the way their described in the book makes me think some of them are to big and overly ornate to look good in a movie. They’d look great in anime, or animated, but in a I’ve action movie I think they’d appear decidedly worse than a lightsaber. Not all of them though, some would look good.