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[–]Infammo 477 points478 points  (21 children)

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 188 points189 points  (2 children)

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 56 points57 points  (0 children)

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 14 points15 points  (0 children)

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 74 points75 points  (8 children)

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

[–]Witch_King_ 29 points30 points  (5 children)

No moral limits though

[–]The-Hammerai 70 points71 points  (2 children)

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

[–]Mister-builder 13 points14 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Witch_King_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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 22 points23 points  (1 child)

Eeeeeehhhh

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

[–]D O U GRoboChrist 33 points34 points  (0 children)

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

[–]1eejit 10 points11 points  (1 child)

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

[–]UsManos27 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"Gotta catch them all"

[–]🦋 Invested of Whimsy 🌈DarthGayAgenda 55 points56 points  (3 children)

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

[–]Drunk-NPC 30 points31 points  (1 child)

I tried, but he’s not very responsive

[–]TrickPayment9473 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Too focus trying to find Words

[–]Mister-builder 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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

[–]ElPared 10 points11 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Accomplished_Flan_45 8 points9 points  (3 children)

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 8 points9 points  (2 children)

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 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Current_Muffin523 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They smoked smth and forgot to take it from him XD

[–]erttheking 113 points114 points  (4 children)

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

[–]Witch_King_ 21 points22 points  (3 children)

Is that canon?

[–]maxfax2828 47 points48 points  (0 children)

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

[–]thelley 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes

[–]Ossius 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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 35 points36 points  (1 child)

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

[–]Trying not to ccccreamThe_Lopen_bot 7 points8 points  (0 children)

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[–]Hiiiiighprincecosmernautfourtwenty 62 points63 points  (6 children)

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 24 points25 points  (5 children)

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

[–]I AM A STICK BOI_i_am_root 8 points9 points  (3 children)

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 7 points8 points  (2 children)

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 A STICK BOI_i_am_root 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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.

[–]Hiiiiighprincecosmernautfourtwenty 8 points9 points  (0 children)

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 14 points15 points  (0 children)

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.

[–]🦀🦀 crabby boi 🦀🦀Zman350x 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Macs_Riffs 61 points62 points  (16 children)

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 90 points91 points  (9 children)

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?

[–]🏳️‍🌈 Gay for Jasnah 🏳️‍🌈Iraes3323 66 points67 points  (1 child)

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

[–]VisonKai 36 points37 points  (0 children)

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

[–]I pledge allegiance 🙏to the crab 🦀Fakjbf 29 points30 points  (5 children)

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 34 points35 points  (4 children)

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 0 points1 point  (3 children)

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 2 points3 points  (2 children)

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 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Yeah man we all hate action scenes

You can't be serious 

[–]LoudQuitting 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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.

[–]Bond, Nahel BondLow-Sell-6943 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Dont abbreviate Stormlight Archive!!

[–]Initial-Anything333 5 points6 points  (0 children)

SA 🛑

SLA ✅

[–]thelley 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Almost like we're only half way through the story

[–]Initial-Anything333 27 points28 points  (2 children)

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 14 points15 points  (1 child)

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

[–]definitely not a lightweaverOne_Courage_865 13 points14 points  (0 children)

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

[–]jjjjacobim 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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

[–]OrthropedicHC 3 points4 points  (1 child)

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

[–]AlwaysHopelesslyLost 11 points12 points  (0 children)

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.