WoK: Spren and Hoid (spoilers)

[XoVeR]

Ok I just finished the Book and I must say it was a really good read, and I am obviously lost in some areas, but I will definitely re-read the series to get a better understanding.

Now there is two questions I wanted to ask and to get people's opinion on.

1. First question is about Hoid (Wit).  He was my favorite character in the book especially when he said the "Insluts" line.  He is a jester who is paid by the king to insult other people of high standing.  To me that is genius, but besides the point.  I am confused to what his whole role in this series is.  I know he is a Worldsinger and Sigzil's master.  He is bright and I would like to say he is concerned about the world but two things stick out. Why does Sigzil not want to be found by Hoid, and in the end of the book I was confused to how he knew Odium (I assume that was Odium) at the end of the book.

2.  If people have read the Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher, you would know what Furies are. In Codex alera furies are everywhere and all alerans have access to the powers granted by certain Furies.  Air Furies give increased speed, and the ability to fly.  Earth Furies give increased strength and the ability to influence emotions.  Water Furies give the ability of healing and shapeshifting.  Metal Furies give the ability of increased endurance and mastery of metal weapons.  Fire Furies give the ability to induce anger, control fire, and manipulate energy.  Wood Furies gives the ability to bend flora to you will and camoflauge.  Now in WoK you have Spren.  To me it seems like Spren act like the furies in Codex alera. Granted they're are a lot more spren, and they do not only effect the elements but emotions as well.  I assume though that Spren gives ability to people as well.  My question is though, does different spren give different powers to people like Deathspren giving a person the mastery over death, or a Windspren giving the ability of flight, or can only certain type of spren interact with only a certain amount of people?

[ryos]

Hoid is a recurring character—he's been in all of Brandon's Cosmere books (Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, Way of Kings). Usually, his appearances amount to cameos, and we saw a lot more of him in this book, but confusion and mystery surrounding him is the norm.

We know that he is quite old, that he was present at the Shattering, has the ability to move between worlds, and likely possesses a large number of unknown powers. We know he's one of the good guys, opposing Rayse (Odium), who he knew from before the Shattering. He seems pretty untouchable by anyone who's not a god, which is probably how he gets away with acting like a prick.

A while back, there was a "Svudu cage match", which is where a bunch of nerds get together and argue about whose character could beat up the most other characters. When it came time for the finals: Rand al'Thor vs. Jaime wossname (from those books by a guy named George or something), George saw the writing one the wall. There was no way Jaime would win in a straight-up fight. So he made a proposal: All of mine vs. all of yours. Bring your top five from not only the WoT, but any of Brandon's books as well, and I'll bring my top five.

Brandon's comment? "If I can bring Hoid, the J man's toast." As if Rand Al'Frickin'Thor weren't enough. The moral of the story? Don't mess with Hoid. Dude's got all kinds of crazy crap up his sleeve.

[Andrew the Great]

Yeah, Hoid appears in all of Brandon's books except Alcatraz and the Wheel of Time (and presumably Scribbler, but I don't know that).

It was nice to finally get to interact with Hoid and learn more about him, but there's still a lot more that we don't know about him. In addition to knowing that he was present at the Shattering, it seems quite likely that he is bound to one of the Shards of Adonalsium himself, as this would explain many of his abilities (ie planet-hopping). Although he could potentially have other powers that account for this.

Essentially, Hoid is the awesome. And he makes all of us theorizing fanboys rather gleeful, as he's given us all sorts of interesting things to theorize about over the years.

I don't think that the spren are as much like furies as you think they are. Spren seem to be less sentient, although I imagine that if many more start forming bonds like syl, we could see that. Note, however, that there are WAY more types of spren than there are furies, and the furies seem to be more elemental in nature while the spren seem to correspond to pretty much anything and everything. There are thousands of types of spren. Sure, a windspren is going to be slightly similar to an Air Fury, but I'm pretty sure there's no equivalent in codex alera for Intoxicaspren, or whatever it was the scholar guy discovered by getting incredibly drunk.

[Wolpertinger]

I sort of noticed the spren-fury thing as well.

 Insofar as I could tell most furies in Codex Alera weren't sentient or were barely sentient - being mindless forces of nature until bound by an Aleran. Seemed like the only ones capable of being almost-sentient in their own right were the massive uber-furies representing mountain ranges, oceans, volcanoes, etc. Even they seemed 'dormant' unless awoken by a person, though.

Though you are right in that Spren are much more numerous and varied than Furies (though furies have many aspects to them, while spren are more singular seeming), they just seem to be a similar idea represented in a different way. Or perhaps a different idea represented in a similar way? We probably won't know 'till we know the real 'secret' of the Spren, which I have no doubt will show they're far more than just the odd.. pixies everyone in-world seems to think they are.

[luminos]

Just to note, the guy with the shardblade/dawnblade at the end of the book that Hoid recognizes is not Odium, but Talenel, the only Herald that didn't abandon the oathpact in the beginning of the book.

[kain243]

Think I heard brandon mention codex alera books in one of the recent writing excuses episodes.  He said he liked the book a lot.

I haven't read these books yet.
He had written way of kings before he read Codex. 

[Munin]

For what it's worth, though, the idea of spirits in various things is hardly original to the Codex Alera.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Jim Butcher took it from Pokemon, after all.

[RicksterBLM]

as for the Spren,  if you look at the back of the book there's a table describing the 10 virtues, they're associated spren, and the kind of power that comes with it.  There's probably a very good reason Vorinism pushes people to choose a virtue and excel at it since it was more likely to attract a spren and therefore towards becoming a Radiant.

I'm going to guess that when the Radiants betrayed everyone, the Spren stopped bonding with people (or the Spren gave up on the Radiants causing them to lash out and betray everyone?).  Either way, net result, no more radiants.  Spren seem to become more aware the longer they become attached to a person (as seen by Syl) and then go back to being mindless after that.

[JustTee]

as for the Spren,  if you look at the back of the book there's a table describing the 10 virtues, they're associated spren, and the kind of power that comes with it.  There's probably a very good reason Vorinism pushes people to choose a virtue and excel at it since it was more likely to attract a spren and therefore towards becoming a Radiant.

I'm going to guess that when the Radiants betrayed everyone, the Spren stopped bonding with people (or the Spren gave up on the Radiants causing them to lash out and betray everyone?).  Either way, net result, no more radiants.  Spren seem to become more aware the longer they become attached to a person (as seen by Syl) and then go back to being mindless after that.

This actually seems to be the best thing anyone's said yet.



In regards to planet hopping -- How come nobody is freaking out (like I did) when I read Shallan went to Cosmere?

Don't you think that'll be how people start planet hopping? I think it definitely has to relate in some way.

[Random112]

Okay, I have read that series and also found it quite enjoyable, but I think there are some serious differences between spren and furies. Spren, it seems, come from everything. Most seem to be either created by or come around because of events- LifeSpren around plants, etc., DeathSpren when something is dying, FireSpren around fires, HonorSpren are drawn to the honor of a person, you get it. Furies were independent creatures that had no need of any triggering event to exist. And you could use a furie's powers to change someone's emotions but I don't recall wild furies being able to do so.

Also, I don't remember where in WoK it says that spren directly change someone's emotions. I remember people reacting to them and becoming happier or sadder but that doesn't mean the spren intended that to happen. Just because I see a deer eating and it makes me happy for example doesn't mean the deer chose to do so. It doesn't have that power ( O.o;; or does it? ).

And as far as we've seen thus far, DeathSpren come around when something is dying, they don't bond to people to give people that mastery. The only type of Spren we know to confer powers are HonorSpren- but are there different types of HonorSpren that confer different powers, or are the ones that give powers other than Kaladin has other types of Spren? We know there were 10 orders of the Knights Radiant and I imagine they are each linked to one of the Ten Essences, particularly after the very end of the book when Talenel'Elin introduces himself as "Stonesinew, Herald of the Almighty" and it matches another of the 10 Essences we see in the back of the book. Kaladin's is obviously Zephyr.

2.  If people have read the Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher, you would know what Furies are. In Codex alera furies are everywhere and all alerans have access to the powers granted by certain Furies.  Air Furies give increased speed, and the ability to fly.  Earth Furies give increased strength and the ability to influence emotions.  Water Furies give the ability of healing and shapeshifting.  Metal Furies give the ability of increased endurance and mastery of metal weapons.  Fire Furies give the ability to induce anger, control fire, and manipulate energy.  Wood Furies gives the ability to bend flora to you will and camoflauge.  Now in WoK you have Spren.  To me it seems like Spren act like the furies in Codex alera. Granted they're are a lot more spren, and they do not only effect the elements but emotions as well.  I assume though that Spren gives ability to people as well.  My question is though, does different spren give different powers to people like Deathspren giving a person the mastery over death, or a Windspren giving the ability of flight, or can only certain type of spren interact with only a certain amount of people?

[VegasDev]

And as far as we've seen thus far, DeathSpren come around when something is dying, they don't bond to people to give people that mastery.

So to be clear, when people mention Deathspren, are they talking about the people with wavy lines where their heads should be?

[Erunion]

And as far as we've seen thus far, DeathSpren come around when something is dying, they don't bond to people to give people that mastery.

So to be clear, when people mention Deathspren, are they talking about the people with wavy lines where their heads should be?

No, the wavy line-head spren are an unknown type of spren that seems to confer the ability to soulcast without a soulcaster.
Deathspren are the black, insect-like spren that people who are on the verge of death see. (Note Kaladin's viewpoints after surviving the highstorm, he sees deathspren shortly before he is given stormlight-infused spheres which bring him back from the point of death.)

Just had an interesting thought; Honorspren bond with people to make them surgebinders, (or windrunners if you prefer). Another type of spren (Soulspren? Truthspren perhaps?) bonds with a person allowing them to soulcast.
Now, there is a fabrial that allows you to soulcast without being bonded to a spren, so could there also be a fabrial that allows you to surgebind (or windrun, if you prefer) without being bonded to an honorspren? Perhaps this is related to the glowing glyphs on the Radiants armour, and their brightly glowing shardblades? 

[XoVeR]

as for the Spren,  if you look at the back of the book there's a table describing the 10 virtues, they're associated spren, and the kind of power that comes with it.  There's probably a very good reason Vorinism pushes people to choose a virtue and excel at it since it was more likely to attract a spren and therefore towards becoming a Radiant.

I'm going to guess that when the Radiants betrayed everyone, the Spren stopped bonding with people (or the Spren gave up on the Radiants causing them to lash out and betray everyone?).  Either way, net result, no more radiants.  Spren seem to become more aware the longer they become attached to a person (as seen by Syl) and then go back to being mindless after that.

So if this theory is correct than that is exatly what Furies are before they were bonded to Alerans.  In the Last book for Codex alera "First Lord's Fury"  Alera explained that she was one of the first Furies to bond to a human and was not interested in human kind whatsoever, but sort of became intrigued with Alerans over time, and began lending wisdom of furies to Alerans (she in fact does not bond with anyone but, lends her assistance to the House of Gaius which is a whole nother can of beans)

If the threoy that spren were once bonded to humans then lost there bond, they would be pretty similar to furies in that sense.  Spren bonding to humans makes human a radiant which can be compared to a fury making a human a furycraftor.  Both gives humans more powers than they would of had normally.  Both are usually non sentient, but can form a bond with humans. Both give powers based on they're virtues.

And yes Jim butcher created Codex alera on a bet he had to make a book based on two bad ideas.  The lost Roman Legion, and Pokemon

[XoVeR]

Oh and one last thing.  Is This book tied in any other ways to Brandon Sanderson's other books, other than just Hoid.

Give me some examples.  I think I need to read those as well, to get a better understanding of this book.