WOK: Horses

[Stormblessed]

They've been gathering gemhearts for years. But gemhearts this huge are rare, and prior to the discovery of the Shattered Plains, it had been quite some time since a large gemheart had been found. Unfortuntely, the people on Roshar are very bad at protecting endangered species.

[Stormblessed]

Maybe trapping spren in gems has something to do with the spren that appear when greatshells die. They could be... I don't know what you'd call them. Imprisonmentspren? Did Axies ever find those? Just a wild stab in the dark.

They may be wildspren, or strengthspren. Greatshell beasts imprison them in their hearts to give them the strength to carry their bulky exoskeleton.

[Harakeke]

edit: moved my post to the Thunderclast thread, because it didn't have anything to do with horses

[Stormblessed]

Does this mean that as Chasmfiend's grow, that there gemhearts become bigger? Do they even grow as they become older?

I made this theory a couple of hours ago on my Thunderclasts *WoK Spoilers* thread (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=7945.15):

New theory: Maybe voidbinding is about bringing stone to life using gemhearts. So any greatshell creature (e.g. axehound, chull, chasmfiend) are all creatures created in the past by voidbinding, but are now walking around aimlessly and reproducing until the next desolation, when the voidbringers will return and give the greatshell creatures a purpose.

[cromptj]

There were the special Ryshadium horses, though. Those weren't really described either, except that the rider doesn't choose his Ryshadium, the Ryshadium chooses you. That bonding process seems to be kind of interesting... We probably will find out more about it later either in a Dalinar flashback in a future book, or else one of the other characters gets a Ryshadium too.

sounds too much like eragon for my liking...

[krylea]

Isn't the surface of Roshar almost all rock? I don't know much about horses so i could be wrong, but wouldn't running on rock all the time tend to bruise their hooves?

[Stormblessed]

I assume they would wear horseshoes.

In Shin horses would never be allowed on rock, too sacred, so their hooves would unlikely be hardened to allow them to walk rock, but I'm sure there has been some evolution to give the horses a stronger hoof.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

There were the special Ryshadium horses, though. Those weren't really described either, except that the rider doesn't choose his Ryshadium, the Ryshadium chooses you. That bonding process seems to be kind of interesting... We probably will find out more about it later either in a Dalinar flashback in a future book, or else one of the other characters gets a Ryshadium too.

sounds too much like eragon for my liking...

*cough cough* If that's in Eragon, it was just stolen from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books.

[Stormblessed]

*cough cough* If that's in Eragon, it was just stolen from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books.

Not that I have anything against Eragon, or Christopher Paolini, in fact I love the books, but there are many parts of Eragon that seem to be influenced heavily by other fantasy books. Same goes for Terry Goodkind, and many other fantasy authors.

The lesson to learn from here is just how hard it is to be original in a genre which has been worked time and time again. The fact that Brandon's books have an air of originality, while still being true to the fantasy genre is very impressive. A bond between horse and rider in a fantasy book is a small thing. I don't even think it can be traced to one book in particular. Many fantasy books include some sort of bond between man and beast.

[Inkthinker]

Gandalf/Shadowfax.

And I'm certain that finding predecessors in earlier folk tales and legends wouldn't be difficult.

Bellerophon/Pegasus? Though I guess that was more a case of capture than bonding.