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Topics - vandalh

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I'm pretty new to Mr. Sanderson's works but I really love Way of Kings. Anyways, I've been lurking these forums for a few days and it seems pretty accepted that King Elhokar can soulcast due to the spren he sees identical to Shallan's. I think however that is not the case. This will be a pretty long and rambling post so please bear with me.

To start with in Chapter 60 where Dalinar has the vision with Nohadon, it is given that a) someone named Alkavish was a surgebinder and b) he did not have a Nahel bond with an honorspren. The logical conclusion is therefore that another type of spren can give surgebinding abilities.

1)   My first extrapolation from this was that if another spren can grant surgebinding, there seems to be no reason that honorspren themselves would be limited to surgebinding. I think that spren are not bound to any specific order of the Knights Radiant. Rather, they are attracted to, and form these Nahel bonds with people based on their actions. The bonds allow a connection to the cognitive realm which in turn allows people certain abilities depending on their persona. For example, Kaladin’s father is honorable (stealing the spheres notwithstanding) but instead of being a leader is more of a healer. He could have an honorspren bond which would fall under the 4th Radiant Order (Vev – Loving/Healing) rather than Kaladin’s order.
2)   Therefore, I think that Elhokar, despite having attracted one of Shallan’s “truthspren” (for the lack of a better name), is not a soulcaster. I think people here accept that soulcasters fall under the 5th (Palah) and 6th (Shash) orders due to Jasnah and Shallan respectively. Although we have not seen all that much of Elhokar, he does not really seem to fit either of those profiles (Learned/Giving or Creative/Honest).
3)    My final point regarding Elhokar might be a bit of a stretch but I think he’s unconsciously surgebinding! This would easily explain the cracked gemstones in his armor. The reason I think this is due to a few details which caught my eye in Chapter 12 Unity:
a.   
Quote
Fool boy, Dalinar thought, watching the king seem to hang in the air for a moment before he snatched the projecting rock and dangled.
  Could he possibly be lashing himself upwards here?
b.   
Quote
Adolin looked up just in time to see the king leap off the rock formation, cape streaming behind him as he fell some forty feet to the rock floor.
This is the same distance that Kaladin falls later on in the book. Perhaps Mr. Sanderson randomly picked 40 feet each time and it has no more meaning than that but my impression after reading some interviews and blog posts, is that even small details like this are carefully planned and inserted by him.

 I think these two taken together suggest at a little that Elhokar is surgebinding. He attempted to lash himself upward and then jumped down which weakened his gems enough to crack later on. Elhokar unknowingly surgebinding makes more sense than him unknowingly soulcasting.

My second theory which could entirely invalidate the previous theory is based on this image that I found on the wiki: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101004125554/stormlightarchive/images/b/b9/Heralds.jpg
The image suggests that each Radiant order has 2 different abilities and each ability is shared between two orders. It could be possible that the Alkavish in Dalinar’s vision might have belonged to the other order which has surgebinding. Kaladin’s order (Jezrien) might require an honorspren but the other order (either Ishar or Nalan) requires a different type of spren. Again this takes us back to Elhokar either being in Jasnah’s or Shalln’s order.  Given that we know that the orders will be remade, I don’t like the idea of two major characters being in the same order, especially this early in the series.

On a side note, Adolin seems to be the perfect founding member for the 3rd order (Chach –Brave/Obedient). Also I wonder if the giant flying insect creature on the linked image is the final metamorphosis of the chasmfiend. Anyways please post your thoughts and suggestions! It’s going to be a long two year wait for the next part in this series!

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