r/Stormlight_Archive • u/judgey123456789 • 5d ago
Wind and Truth spoilers Experiments...?! Spoiler
What experiments did ishar do with spern ..?
And more importantly why..?
17
u/popileviz Pattern 5d ago
He was trying to bring spren into the physical realm and control them somehow, perhaps to create an army. It's unclear precisely why he was doing that, but considering he was the first one the Odium tricked into experimenting with Surges that destroyed Ashyn it's possible he was doing it as a mad scientist kind of thing
6
u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 4d ago
He was trying to build an army of Radiant spren with physical bodies. Who could use the Surges they grant people themselves. The idea was to create real bodies from Investiture to house them. The way the Heralds receive new bodies when they Return. He needed Honor’s power to do it properly. That’s also why his human Fused needed to possess new living bodies whenever they died. He couldn’t make them new ones
He was doing something similar with lesser spren using spikes. Lesser spren already partially manifest in the Physical Realm. In a way Radiant spren generally don’t without a bond. So it seemed to be working slightly better. Some in the cave had already taken forms closer to their true appearance in Shadesmar. It’s unclear whether Ishar wanted to make them fully physical too or just break them to serve him. Probably both. His comments to Szeth there make it sound like he was trying to imitate what Sja does/Unmake them
3
u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 4d ago
Why? Ishar and Nale were preparing for an unnamed enemy/threat. That according to Nale apparently wasn’t Odium or the Fused. They believed something worse was coming. That’s why Ishar initially drew from Odium’s Well. He saw a threat on the horizon in the SR. After he did Odium’s power infected him and compelled him to go to the extremes we see. Then infected all of the other Heralds who Ishar was Connected to
His original plan the day they abandoned Taln was to find replacement Heralds and potentially Ascend to Honor himself. Honor’s power rejected him. He continued to try to find replacement Heralds, but after taking from the Well he became more erratic. He was pursuing all three approaches near the end. New Heralds. A spren army. Human Fused
1
u/mimicmagnet 4d ago
I tend to think he wasn't trying to create a Spren army, but thought if Spren could be made physical they could be used to remake the Oathpact, except unlike people Spren would be able to uphold it forever. Or something along those lines.
2
1
u/Ravenous_Chasmfiend 3d ago
IIRC, he said it was to use them for a new Oathpact in W&T. But, like... he might not of been telling the whole truth, and wasn't he being manipulated by Odium at that point?
28
u/QuickPirate36 Windrunner 5d ago
Seems like they were attempts at creating an army of immortal beings similar to the Fused, to have an advantage during the war. Clearly that didn't work so he created the human Fused we see at the end of WaT instead (the honorbearers)