Date: 2016-06-11
Type: Paraphrased
Location: Orem, UT
Reporter: Patillian
Brandon disabused me of my little theory about a herald.
He said the shalebark gardener working in the night when Dalinar and Navani walk by was just a gardener. He was purposefully trying to show “regular” Alethi alongside the more prominent soldiers and leaders.
Another interesting thing I heard was when he was explaining a little about the secret organizations to a young lady who was a fairly new fan.
I didn’t hear the exact question, but Brandon spoke with certainty when he said that Amaram and Gavilar were Sons of Honor. I had taken Gavilar’s involvement with a grain of salt to this point. He also said that we know the most about their purpose–to return the Voidbringers as a means of making the Heralds return–and they they were the “most wrong.” He said that we can pretty much infer the purposes of the diagram group through the epigraphs and text. He said we basically don’t know anything about the Ghostbloods’ purposes. (which matches what Mraize told Shallan. I am very excited to find out more about them and if they know Hoid)
I asked “Was the wicked thing of eminence an action of spren, of men, or both?” I didn’t go into this with him in a line, but my theory is about the spren.
Finally, Brandon RAFO’d me on my question about “the wicked thing of eminence” that Alice theorized about.
We’ve heard from the Stormfather, who is a completely unreliable witness, and Syl, who doesn’t even remember, that it was men’s fault. Pattern is certain that Shallan will choose to kill him in the future, but I don’t remember him saying the Radiants were “wicked.” That doesn’t really fit with what we know of cryptics anyway. He went dormant when Shallan ignored him, but why would he think she would go even further and “kill” him when his standards are much different than honorspren? Also, the big troop of Radiants who abandoned their swords in Dalinar’s vision all did it at once. Their swords and armor were glowing and functioning when they arrived, so not oathbroken yet, and they do it in mass right then. Why would they choose that? (And weren’t many of them Windrunners?) I think the Listener verse about the Parshendi being milk to the spren as opposed to the meat provided by bonds to men hints at the answer. We know that the spren imitated what the heralds could do and initiated the bonds on their own. I think that there is a cost to the Nahel bond that is undisclosed–the spren are somehow feeding/draining something–life, magic, etc. from their partners. They have good intentions and/or view short human live through a different lens of priorities in perspective of the millenia long struggle with Odium, but the humans pay a steep cost in exchange for their increased abilities. Maybe they eventually drain and become spren themselves?
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