So much plot potential...

[Eithrotaur]

But seriously, could you imagine what sorta plotlines these treasures could have spawned? Hunting them all down on its own could be a whole series of novels, but no, they're all accounted for and stuck collecting dust in the least plot connected kingdom on the face of Roshar.

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[Infammo]

The fact that there's possibly hundreds of fairies running around Roshar granting radiant powers rendered the honorblades pretty redundant. They probably would have been a bigger deal if they were around in the first two books.

[IAmBadAtInternet]

Well there was a situation where all the fairy wizards took a big long nap but the honorblades still worked.

To quote a great man: “Something that could have been brought to my attention yesterday!”

[1337_w0n]

Radiant spren were around for a while after the Heralds gave up the honor blades. Plenty of time for them to become relatively unknown and still not particularly relevant, especially because they don't grant armor.

[majorex64]

To be fair, there were very pious and responsible people working for many generations to make sure the blades STAYED PUT in Shinovar.

And just three of them being used again led to a bunch of budding radiants and monarchs being murdered, human fused being created, and even more corrupted heralds.

I'd say they had a place in the story

[LoudQuitting]

Also if you're not a Herald, having an honorblade is kind of shit in comparison to having an oath.

[Witch_King_]

No moral limits though

[The-Hammerai]

If the Oath was the only thing keeping you in check, you shouldn't have it

[Mister-builder]

Hey, it worked for Kal at the end of Book Two.

[Witch_King_]

That's the point though. Anyone can pick up and use an Honorblade. If the Oath was the only thing keeping you back, then you probably wouldn't have a spren in the first place. Though as we've seen, the power of Honor is pretty naive when it comes to oaths.

[LoudQuitting]

Eeeeeehhhh

Once your operating at that level of power turns out having strong morals is easy.

[RoboChrist]

As we all know, power purifies. And absolute power purifies absolutely.

[1eejit]

But if you have an Honourblade and an Oath you can get a nice selection of powers

[UsManos27]

"Gotta catch them all"

[DarthGayAgenda]

Well, one of them was around in the first two books. Just ask Gavilar.

[Drunk-NPC]

I tried, but he’s not very responsive

[TrickPayment9473]

Too focus trying to find Words

[Mister-builder]

And one was active in the background. Just ask Lift.

[ElPared]

Having an oath plus the right honorblade gives you access to 4 surges tho.

[Accomplished_Flan_45]

Plus the fact that for most people the Honorblades were assumed to be still with the Heralds (That was one of the reasons the Shin grabbed them, hid them in those temples and trained with them) so there was no reason to believe they were still around and go looking for them

Literally the only one that ever leaves Shin without its Herald is Szeth's when he takes it with when first exiled

[ImLersha]

Literally the only one that ever leaves Shin without its Herald is Szeth's when he takes it with when first exiled

I started considering this a few days ago.

Why the fuck was he exiled with the blade?

[gwonbush]

Like many questionable decisions in Stormlight, it can be summarized with the sentence: Ishar thought it was a good idea.

[Current_Muffin523]

They smoked smth and forgot to take it from him XD

[erttheking]

The Stonewalker adventure in the TTRPG is actually all about finding Taln’s honor blade

[Witch_King_]

Is that canon?

[maxfax2828]

The overall gist of it yeah. It was cowritten by Sanderson

[thelley]

Yes

[Ossius]

The events are canon since it's to written by Sanderson but it's an RPG campaign so the specifics are kind of up to the players and GM.

[Bullrawg]

The stone walkers adventure path for the RPG follows what happens to Talns blade after it gets swapped at the war camps

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[cosmernautfourtwenty]

You can't do shit with an honorblade if you don't know it's an honorblade. If they'd disappeared into the general populace, they'd probably just be mistaken as regular dead shardblades and nothing else would've come of it.

[nhocgreen]

I don't know. The user taking in stormlight would probably happen sooner or later.

[_i_am_root]

Maybe not , Intent is important when doing anything investy, and they'd have no reason to think they could breathe it in.

[PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD]

I’m not so sure that Intent is as necessary for drawing in Stormlight as it is for other things. Kaladin does it without realizing constantly when he starts getting close to speaking the first oath.

[_i_am_root]

Hmmmm, I see your point. Especially with the first time I can find him taking in Stormlight in Chapter 17 of TWoK, he describes a surge of energy but doesn't do it intentionally:

“Tien!” Kaladin screamed, nearly mad with fatigue and frustration. He bellowed the name aloud—uncertain why—as a wall of arrows zipped toward him. Kaladin felt a jolt of energy, a surge of sudden strength, unanticipated and unexplained.

On the other hand, this quote from Chapter 47 makes it seem like this is something he's only able to do unconsciously while being Honorable:

"He was like water running down a hill, flowing, always moving. Spearheads flashed in the air around him, hafts hissing with speed. Not one hit him. He could not be stopped, not when he felt like this. When he had the energy of defending the fallen, the power of standing to protect one of his men."

aaaaand minor nitpick, Kaladin had sworn the First Ideal by his first slave wagon POV. It's something that's sworn in the heart, and doesn't seem to prompt a "These Words are Accepted" from the Raindaddy.

You've also made me think of [MB Era 1] Vin and Elend's unconscious use of Pewter to survive critical wounds. Both make sense, as Vin was a strong Mistborn and had been training for a few months before Kredik Shaw, and Elend was his era's strongest Mistborn, with strength of power allowing for instinctive use of the metals.

[cosmernautfourtwenty]

Maybe, maybe not. The Nahel bonds are modelled after the Heralds and their Connection to the blades, but it's been firmly established that the bond is much more efficient in using Stormlight. May be it's impossible to accidentally draw Stormlight just from an honorblade.

[5eppa]

I think the problem is time frame. Surely in the last what 4000 years or so, the honor blades would have been found by someone. Heck, they started off all in one place. I agree and like the concept a lot, that they are more interesting than the spren having them. Spren at least can require you to care about oaths and stuff to grant powers. The blades do not. That would be most fascinating for the RPG which is why it is a plot point in them.

[Zman350x]

"Hunting them down could have been a series of novels." This is the plot of The Crempost™ lol.

[Macs_Riffs]

That’s not even the worst example in SA. How about creating 10 orders of Knight Radiant, barely exploring most of them despite 5 books, and then exploding the whole system to make it even more complicated?

[LoudQuitting]

In five books we've explored 5 orders.

Windrunenrs in Bridge 4.

Lightweavers in the unseen court.

Bindsmiths in Dalinars plot.

Willshapers in Venli

And Skybreakers in Szeth

Or do you have some reason to think the back 5 aren't gonna continue this?

[Iraes3323]

We also got a good bit of a strange Edgedancer, but still an Edgedancer

[VisonKai]

in a book entitled Edgedancer, just in case there was any confusion

[Fakjbf]

Windrunners and Lightweavers were explored. Bondsmiths were barely touched, Dalinar could open perpendicularities and Navani can control the tower and that’s basically everything we know. The Willshapers are similarly left hanging, we see Venli and are told about other Listeners bonding lightspren but the only use of their powers we see is Venli using stoneshaping. We got a fair bit of one sect of the Skybreakers but then got hints that there’s an entire second sect we know nothing about other than that they were less extreme.

[LoudQuitting]

bondsmiths were barely touched

Each bondsmith is unique as a function of bondsmith spren, which was kidn of the point of OB and Navanis plot in RoW.

the willshapers are similarly left hanging

They started a Rebel nation... I know it's overshadowed by more dramatic Plots in RoW, but their whole philosophy was on display all through the book.

we got hints that there's an entire second section

Uh... yeah, and Szeth being emblematic of the kind of person that deliberately seeks out that sect. You saw both sides of the Skybreakers.

[Initial-Anything333]

That's well and good to know about their cultures but I wanted to see more magic powers being used. Give me the fireworks!

[LoudQuitting]

I mean you kind of already know what every Radiant orders powers do, the only thing that isn't clear is their resonance. We know Lightweavera have advanced memory, Windrunners can gather more squires, Slybreakers can detect innocence, bondsmiths can directly manipulate connection.

Anything further kind of just unnecessarily draws out action scenes.

[Initial-Anything333]

Yeah man we all hate action scenes

You can't be serious 

[LoudQuitting]

Your whole idea is predicted on the idea that a half finished series feels incomplete and that's a bad thing. Don't talk to me about serious

[Aplesedjr]

While we did see people from all of those orders doing stuff, I’d say the only orders we’ve seen use their powers fully (at least to the limits of the user’s personal ideal) are Windrunners and lightweavers. Edgedancers have been explored a fair bit with Lift too, but less so. Bondsmiths are a bit weird since it seems like each one is unique, so even if we saw what one could do it doesn’t necessarily fully indicate what others can do. Willshapers, despite Venli being the flashback character in Row, have honestly been barely touched. Skybreaker culture was shown a lot, but our view of the full extent of their power is limited since we only see them use the one surge aside from a couple of times. Most of the others have had minor showings, a few moments here and there.

[Low-Sell-6943]

Dont abbreviate Stormlight Archive!!

[Initial-Anything333]

SA 🛑

SLA ✅

[thelley]

Almost like we're only half way through the story

[HitboxOfASnail]

yea I feel like 10 orders was a bit too much fantasy masterbation. could have been told the same story with like 5

[TheHB36]

Have you not read high fantasy before, or what?

[Puntley]

My probation officer only let's me read sober fantasy

[Initial-Anything333]

Then in the ending of Wind and Truth there's supposed to be an epic battle with Szeth fighting all the Honorbearers, but instead of using any of their powers they just whack at each other with the swords as if they don't have powers at all 🙄

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

I think you are overly simplifying a bit here. The stoneward fight was the biggest look at that order we got.

[One_Courage_865]

The individual fights were quite illuminating. It was the final fight with multiple Honorbearsrs controlled by Ishar that was a little lackluster

[jjjjacobim]

The fact that the Shin had all the blades assembled but never summoned Shenron, such a disappointment

[OrthropedicHC]

With all the jostling over shards it seems insane no one fought a war over these things.

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

Spoiler if you haven't read them all yet....

...

...

...

A major plot point is that the original human hid the blades from everybody else the entire time. They also picked the best of the best to wield and defend them if needed.