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In RoW we see Rlain teach humans a Rhythm that encourages lifespren to use stormlight and help plans grow faster. Is this Rhythm the Rhythm of Progression? And if so does this mean that each surge can be accessed with enough Light and the appropriate Rhythm?

I can’t find the quote, but sometime in RoW as Raboniel is corrupting the Sibling, Venli (I think) mentions she is using the Surge of Transformation. The Sibling reveals to Navani that Raboniel is Unmaking them. In WoR, Pattern implies that Shallan used the same Surge to convert the deserters, meaning that Transformation seemingly has uses beyond Soulcasting. Would it be too much of a stretch to assume Jasnah or a member of the Unseen Court could unUnmake (or Remake) one of the Unmade?

So, as far as I know, the only way we have seen or heard of the surge of transportation being used is as 'elsecalling' by which the user teleported into the cognitive realm. But there are several references, such as when Teft explains the radiants' abilities to Kaladin, that radiants could travel great diatances in an instant. Is this another use of the surge transportation? Is it perhaps the way that Willshapers use the surge, where Elsecallers travel to Shadesmar instead? Thanks in advance for your input.

Ok, so on the double eye of the almighty, the two orders in the middle are Bondsmiths and Truthwatchers. We have already seen that the Bondsmiths are like Honor’s main order, does this mean that the Truthwatchers are Cultivation’s Main order? Sanderson has said that Adhesion and Progression could be considered the “God” surges of Roshar. We have seen the god use of adhesion (summoning shardpool, binding realms) what is the Spirtual use of progression?

Ok so I have a couple theories on some of the things that Division can do in the Stormlight Archive. •Rot: someone using Division could theoretically cause something to rot, mold and die. •Blasts of Stormlight: similar to how Kaladin fire blasts of adhesive Stormlight that causes people and things to stick to it, a Skybreaker/Dustbringer can in theory fire blasts of Stormlight that burn through any thing or person that it touches.

Hello everyone. I expect you’ve all forgotten who I am by now since I haven’t posted here for a couple of years now (save for the odd signing report), life unfortunately got in the way. But I’ve been meaning to come back for a little while now, and I thought: what could be better than doing so with a theory post? Some things have been simmering in the back of my mind for a while now and I need to get them out. Hopefully you don’t hate what follows, and don’t end up wanting nothing to do with me (or tracking me down and lynching me ). So without further ado, allow me to present my first (and hopefully not last) theory. For this theory we need to consider all four of the end pages of the Way of Kings. All of the images that I’ve found of them on the internet separate them out into four different images, however I feel that each chart/map pair is supposed to be taken as a single diagram for reasons that I’ll give below. I’m therefore presenting them both here as they were in the book, and as I think they should be viewed. Much of the speculation surrounding the second chart has been that it pertains to Voidbinding in the same way that the first chart pertains to Surgebinding. I’ve been thinking for a while that this would be a very strange inclusion in the book since we’ve yet to see Voidbinding: it would be much like including a chart for Haemalurgy in the first Mistborn book. Additionally, two of the larger glyphs are not connected to the smaller symbols, which would seem to imply that there would be Voidbinders without powers, which would be weird. It’s also been suggested that it relates to the fabrials in some way, but I don’t see any real similarity between them. There are five types of fabrial that we know of, and no grouping of five in the chart; the fabrials are known to utilize the surges, yet it hasn’t been suggested up until now that the smaller symbols are Surges (at least not that I’ve heard of), and if they are why then are the larger glyphs each connected to two of the smaller ones as with the Radiant Orders? And how do the myriad of spren types used in the fabrials relate to the diagram? In short, I don’t think either of these speculations are correct. I’ve been trying to figure out what this chart is by analysing the symmetry of both charts, starting with the symbols for the Surges in the first chart and their equivalent symbols in the second. The first thing of note here is that the two sets of symbols are distortions of each other: part of each pair is the same, but the other part is opposed. As a result of this, whilst each of the surges has a single axis of reflectional symmetry, the other symbols have no reflectional symmetry but instead have order 2 rotational symmetry. So what does this tell us? Well, by itself, not much; however it was then that I noticed the borders to these images. These are the same for each pair of images, however in the case of the Surgebinding chart the border has been reflected between the two, and in the case of the other chart it has instead been rotated by 180°. In other words: the transformation of the border matches the symmetry of the symbols in their respective charts. This is why I think that these images were placed together as they were in the book for a reason. If they were unrelated and hadn’t been created together (in world), then this pattern wouldn’t be observed, and I think that Brandon presented them to us like this for a reason. The fact that the two charts follow the same internal structure, with one juxtaposed by the map of Roshar in the Physical Realm and the other with the Cognitive version, suggests to me that these two charts are in fact the same chart but pertaining to different Realms. If I may reiterate, the symbols I was discussing earlier are the same but distorted from each other: I propose that they are both symbols for the surges, and that they are distorted because the surges themselves distort between the Realms. Or to put it another way, the powers behave differently in the Cognitive than they do in the Physical. This would mean that the larger set of Symbols in the Second chart also represent the Orders of the Radiants. I think this is supported by the fact that the glyphs in both charts share the same colouring and the same symmetry (1 axis of reflectional symmetry), thus suggesting that they are both representing the same thing (not distorted as with the Surges), but a different glyph is used because it’s a different aspect of the Orders. (It’s worth noting though that the Cognitive glyph for the Truthwatchers is unique in that the symmetry does change: it not only gains a second axis of reflectional symmetry, but it also gains order 2 rotational symmetry. I have no idea why this is the case, but with this in mind we should probably keep an eye on Renarin going forward: something is going on here.) The final thing to note with regard to the charts is that the connections between symbols are identical in both charts, save for one glaring difference. There are no connections from either the Bondsmiths or the Truthwatchers, to any of the Surges in the Cognitive chart. This would imply that if members of either Order were to end up in Shadesmar, then they would not gain other abilities related to the Cognitive, unlike for every other Order. But why would these two Orders be so much more limited? Well, I don’t think they are; I think instead that they are just aligned differently Realmatically. Consider what we’ve seen of Renarin and how it pertains to the Truthwatchers. We know that they have some capacity for future sight; however their Surges are Progression and Illumination, which (from what we have seen of those Surges elsewhere) have nothing to do with that ability. However we know that seeing the future is related to the Spiritual Realm, so it would follow that the Truthwatchers gain additional powers from their Surges, not in the Cognitive Realm like other Orders, but instead in the Spiritual Realm. Similarly, the Bondsmiths are speculated to have powers related to Bonds, which are a type of Connection. And we know that Connection is also related to the Spiritual Realm. So whilst the other Orders are aligned with the Physical and Cognitive Realms, Truthwatchers and Bondsmiths are instead aligned with the Physical and Spiritual Realms. And this means that Brandon must be hiding a third chart from us: the Spiritual Surgebinding chart. I was looking for textual evidence to support this theory when I remembered Jasnah’s plight from Words of Radiance. As we know she used the Transportation surge to escape into Shadesmar at which point she became trapped. But if the Surges behave identically in both Realms, why could she not just use it the exact same way to return to the Physical? We know from her unpublished scene that it’s not because she lacked the Stormlight to do so but rather because she needs a “junction”, such as Honour’s Perpendicularity, to do so. This sounds exactly like how someone without access to the Surge of Transportation would travel between the Realms, yet we saw that when she did rematerialize in the Physical she did not do so in a Shardpool, but rather in the middle of nowhere. This suggests to me that she did use Transportation, but it behaved differently, exactly as I proposed above. Which leads of course to the question of what the Surge is doing in the Cognitive, and I do have a suggestion for this. We know that the Cognitive Realm is far more malleable than the Physical in terms of its geometry; it is after all shaped by the level of cognition in a particular area. I suggest that the Transportation Surge is capable of distorting it even further to the point that two different locations can actually overlap one another. With this in mind, after arriving in Shadesmar, the Elsecaller (or Willshaper) could travel to either the nearest junction, or to their destination in Shadesmar (whichever is closest). Then they could overlap their destination with the junction and thereby leave via the junction, but arrive at their destination in the Physical. There is an apparent problem with this however: it would mean that you would be required to travel through Shadesmar without the aid of the Surge to an extent, and as such it doesn’t allow for instantaneous teleportation. The Oathgates on the other hand, which we theorize to be fabrials that utilize Transportation, appear to do exactly this, thus contradicting my speculation. But, looking at this more deeply, I think there’s a way that it doesn’t have to be a contradiction. We know that each Kingdom had one Oathgate, plus there was an Oathgate at Urithiru; moreover each of the Kingdoms' Oathgates connected to the one at Urithiru, but not to each other. Travel via the Oathgates therefore, necessitates travel through Urithiru. This seems like a bizarre limitation to intentionally build into the system, especially for an organization that put such an emphasis on freedom of travel. I know that it’s been suggested that it was set up this way for the purposes of taxation, or as a symbol of some kind, but I think otherwise. What if Urithiru was built upon a junction? If this were the case then it would instantly work with my theory: every time you use the Oathgate you are already at one of the two places that you would need to be at. It also means that the gates were set up this way out of necessity: it would have been impossible to connect every gate to every other gate. And at this point I remembered the epigraph from chapter 35 of The Way of Kings: “The place nearest to Honour” sounds to me exactly like Honour’s Perpendicularity, which we know from Ivory’s testimony to be a junction. The first sentence also takes on greater meaning if this theory is true. If Urithiru is to be the centre of the Oathgate system, then it has to be built on a Perpendicularity. If there isn’t a Perpendicularity in Alethela, then it cannot be built in Alethela. Problems With the Theory Why couldn’t Jasnah use this second method to leave Shadesmar immediately? This is a huge gaping hole in the theory, and my only possible explanation for it is that she was simply too inexperienced with the Surge, or that she wasn’t at a high enough level in the Elsecallers at that point to be able to manipulate the Surge in that fashion. Ivory knew this so stated it as impossible for her to leave without being at a junction. I’ve been assuming, based upon Ivory’s testimony that a Perpendicularity is a junction, that the two are equivalent; however this isn’t necessarily true. Even if all Perpendicularities are junctions, this does not necessarily imply that all junctions are Perpendicularities. Therefore, there could have been something special about that location in which Jasnah reappeared, that meant that it was a junction even though there was apparently no Perpendicularity there. Therefore, this is not necessarily evidence for my theory. Jasnah’s subsequent conversation with Wit makes me think that it is unlikely that the location was special though. In Jasnah’s unpublished scene, we see Jasnah perform Soulcasting within Shadesmar, and it appears to function exactly like every other Soulcasting we’ve seen performed in the books. The only thing that I can think to explain this is that, since we know that performing a magic will have some effect across all three Realms, we saw the results of the Soulcasting as it appeared in the Physical Realm only. Something else would have occurred in the Cognitive Realm when she did this; but since Brandon stopped the reading at the exact point that we would have found out what this was, we can only speculate on it. Conclusion/TL;DR The mystery chart from the back of The Way of Kings is a Surgebinding chart for the Cognitive Realm. Each Surge Functions differently between the Physical Realm, the Cognitive Realm, and the Spiritual Realm. All Orders have powers associated with both the Physical and Cognitive Realms, except for the Bondsmiths and Truthwatchers which instead have posers associated with both the Physical and Spiritual Realms. The Transportation Surge allows for both travel into the Cognitive Realm, and the distortion of the Cognitive Realm’s geometry. Each Oathgate is connected to the central Oathgate at Urithiru out of necessity, not choice. Urithiru is built upon Honour’s Perpendicularity.

There are a few things about Nalan that have me curious about his (possible) abilities... and possibly the Skybreakers' as well. It's not really a proper theory or anything... but maybe you guys can help me figure this out and clear up my confusion. How many Nalan are we really dealing with, here? Here is where my confusion begins in Words of Radiance: Distance - (Interlude-2) We see Nalan in Iri hunting Ym. (Interlude-9) We see Nalan (aka Darkness) in Azir hunting Lift. (Chapter 88) We see Nalan in the Frostlands reviving Szeth (and offering him Nightblood). Iri, Azir, and the Frostlands are pretty far apart on the map of Roshar. Iri is far NorthWest, the Frostlands are far SouthEast, and Azir is nearer to the middle (but it's a little closer to Iri than the Frostlands). In any case, Nalan seems to be covering a lot of ground awfully fast during the events of WoR. How? I wonder how much time it really takes to travel across practically all of Roshar like that. If he is 'flying', then isn't that about the most overt way of getting around that he could possibly choose? If he is traveling by foot, then how would he cover so much ground so fast? Nalan's Minions- When he hunts Ym in Iri, he has no minions. When he appears in Azir, he has two minions. When he appears in the Frostlands, he again has no minions (and is carrying Nightblood). His minions are extremely knowledgeable about stormlight, investiture, and the like. One of them even has a shardblade... So I doubt that these minions were a couple of nobodies just drafted to help Nalan out in Azir only... and only for one case. Time - I'd be willing to believe Nalan simply travelled in one single direction during the events of WoR (First Iri, then Azir, then to the Frostlands) if it weren't for the time he spent on each case. In each case (Ym/Lift/Szeth) Nalan made it a point to explain how much work he'd put into each person. Nalan to Ym = "I had to look very hard to discover your indiscretion." Nalan to Lift = "Even the chaotic can be predictable with proper study.” (Presumably referring to her escape patterns, habits, etc.) Nalan to Szeth = "You? Not worthy? I watched you destroy yourself in the name of order, watched you obey your personal code when others would have fled or crumbled. Szeth-son-Neturo, I watched you keep your word with perfection..." On top of this, Lift already had prior experiences with him and knew he was dangerous. By the time she first saw him enter the palace during her story arc, she already had a name for him in her mind - Darkness. He seems to spend an awful lot of time and energy in each case and location he visits. Even understanding their laws and abiding by them. The mountains of paperwork he and his minions prepared in Azir to apprehend Lift could not have been an overnight task. To some extent, Nalan seems to have some roots in these places. His emotionlessness - When talking to Szeth: "He spoke the words calmly, without emotion." While chasing Lift: “'What was that?' Darkness asked, his voice cold, emotionless." Talking to Ym: “'You were an accomplice to murder,' the man said, pulling his gloves on more tightly, first one hand, then the other. He spoke with such a stark lack of emotion, he could have been conversing about the weather." Notable words from Lift: "He didn’t curse in annoyance. A fellow should curse. Made people feel real when they did that. But of course, Darkness wasn’t a real person. Of that, though little else, she was sure." and she also referred to him having "dead eyes" when she first saw him. All of Nalan's emotionlessness makes me feel like something more is going on than just a personality flaw. Are we dealing with more than one Nalan? Is it possible that we are dealing with Nalan's self-puppets somehow? ...mere husks of "Nalan Prime" whom we haven't really seen yet? Can he somehow use his Division surge to split thereby making "copies" of himself? Is the Nightwatcher involved? ...Or is he getting the help of an Elsecaller? Is he 'flying' and somehow avoiding detection from the general population? What the crap is going on? Am I missing something super simple, here?

Apologies if this has been brought up before. It's been a while since I frequented the Stormlight board. My question is a simple one: why doesn't the Abrasion Surge allow its users to slick the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet? It seems a fairly arbitrary limitation, and the closest I can come to a logical solution is that somehow the calluses on these parts of the body interfere with the Surge. Is there a better explanation?

This is based on celder23761's question at the Firefight prerelease about Adolin's Shardblade being previously owned by an Edgedancer. He noticed that there was a description of Adolin's Blade appearing in the form of vines in his hand before fully becoming formed. Since Lift's spren, Wyndle, makes her "awesomeness" visible to her in the form of vines, he connected the two and received a positive answer to his question. Notice in the Ars Arcanum the order of the Surges. Edgedancers use the fourth and fifth surges: Abrasion and Progressiom. Now look back one page at the table of the Ten Essences. The fourth and fifth Soulcasting properties are (4) quartz, glass, and crystal, and (5) wood, plants, and crystal. On page 683 Lift describes Wyndle thus: "Wyndle grew up to her, leaving a small trail of vines that people didn't seem to be able to see. The vines hardened after a few moments of sitting, as briefly becoming solid crystal, then crumbling to dust." Let's break this down: the fourth and fifth Surges of those listed in the Ars Arcanum just happen to be the ones that apply to an Edgedancer. The fourth and fifth Soulcasting properties of the Ten Essences list just happen to contain vines and crystal, which is what Wyndle manifests as. My theory is that we can connect the Surges to the table in this manner and perhaps find out something about the other Surges. Maybe the orders can draw Stormlight better from gemstones that fit their Surges, I don't know. Look at some other Surgebinders: Windrunning uses the first two Surges on the list: Adhesion and Gravitation. Looking at the Soulcasting properties, they are (1) Translucent gas, and air, and (2) Opaque gas, smoke, and fog. Syl can be tied to these in the form that Kaladin sees. Lightweaving uses the sixth and seventh Surges on the list: Illumination and Transformation. The Soulcasting properties for these are (6) blood, and all non-oil liquid, and (7) All kinds of oil. From my view, it seems that with Pattern's ever-shifting form this could apply to him in a way. What thoughts does everybody have on this?

(Warning 1: I will try my best to avoid talking about the plot of Words of Radiance here, but if you think new magic system-related revelations are spoilers, then I suggest you stay away from this thread. Warning 2: I am not a physicist. Do not take physics lessons from code monkeys posting on fantasy fiction fansites.) IRL, Most physicists believe that the four fundamental physical interactions (the electromagnetic, weak, strong, and gravitational forces) were once combined as a single unified force. A "unified field theory" is one that tries to explain how these fundamental interactions (that seem to work in their own fields) can be described within the framework of a single field, as a single unified force. According to the currently-accepted model of physics, the unified force first split into the gravitational force and the electronuclear force. Then the electronuclear force split into the strong force and the electroweak force. Finally, the electroweak force split into the electromagnetic and weak forces. All of that supposedly happened well within the first second after the Big Bang. Cool, eh? So why am I talking about real world fundamental forces in the Stormlight Archive forum? It's because I think the ten Surges on Roshar are Brandon's way of playing with the concept of fundamental forces in a fantasy setting. Here's a WoB from a Seattle signing last year: So, if Brandon thinks fundamental forces are cool, then maybe he finds the idea of a unified field theory to be cool as well. I'd like to propose that he somehow incorporated that concept into his Surge system. With that, allow me to present my own take on a Unified Surge Theory. Table of Contents Part I: The Unified Surge and Decay Part II: The Unified Surge and Transformation Part III: The Unified Surge and Energy Conclusion Part I: The Unified Surge and Decay IRL, the apparent breakdown of the hypothesized unified field into its separate aspects is explained by theories filled with all sorts of crazy (but fascinating) math. Fortunately, Roshar is a fictional world where things (e.g. the mechanism by which a Unified Surge separates into the ten Surges) can be made a lot more simple using fantasy logic. *commences fantasy logic* Since a Unified Surge should contain the potential of all the Surges, it must have the power of Division inside of it, by which it could divide itself. Simple, eh? Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. A Unified Surge would also have the power of Cohesion, and therefore resist Division. But the fact still remains that there are ten separate Surges instead of just one. It means that the forces within the hypothetical Unified Surge cannot be perfectly symmetrical, and it is therefore not perfectly stable. This suggests that the Surge of Division is stronger than the Surge of Cohesion on Roshar, and that the Unified Surge decays via a series of divisions occuring right after Division overcomes Cohesion. Still with me? So far we've determined that a hypothetical Unified Surge combines all the Surges, and that it somehow decays. Have we seen anything like this? Why, yes. We have seen something like this. I think it's very likely (if not obvious) that Stormlight itself is the Unified Surge. It is through the infusion of Stormlight, after all, that Surgebinders and fabrials access the Surges. Also, we know that after a certain period of apparent stability, Stormlight eventually degrades, dissipating into the atmosphere. This is consistent with the previously described decay of the Unified Surge. This fits really well with the fact that Stormlight is a form of Investiture. I believe that the Surges are manifestations of various aspects of the Power of Creation that Adonalsium Invested on Roshar along with his spren, and Stormlight is the concentration of those aspects. In other words, Stormlight is exactly the thing that Surgebinders bind. Stormlight is the Surge. Now, the fact that the Unified Surge dissipates is definitely a problem for Rosharian Investiture. Szeth complains about losing Stormlight so quickly. Even Kaladin has to deal with this, although to a lesser extent. We know that the Stormfather regularly collects the dissipated Stormlight and and transports them into gemstones every highstorm, but won't it be nice if people could somehow make Stormlight stay put on a more permanent basis, like the Breaths on Nalthis? How do we fight the decay of Stormlight? I've mentioned in another thread that this impermanence of Investiture might be solved by transforming it into Innate Investiture. This, I think, is the purpose of the Nahel bond system that Honor's spren invented. I believe the Nahel bond is a manifestation of the Adhesion Surge applied to both Stormlight itself and a human soul. The stronger a Nahel bond is, the more Innate the act of Stormlight-holding becomes, the better the bond between Stormlight and the Radiant. To make another physics analogy, this is akin to how neutrons are a lot more stable when bound inside a nucleus than when it is free. By boosting Adhesion between Stormlight and the Surgebinder, the Nahel bond actually boosts the aspect of Cohesion within Stormlight, which is normally unstable, allowing it to fully counteract the natural dominance of Division and become stable.

I'm coming off a high of the Taravangian-esque diagramming happening in the "Hidden Things in the Map of Roshar" thread. So on that note, let's look at some cool things. I looked at one of the endsheets for Way of Kings, and I found this funny little glyph (rotated): I realize that there's speculation that this endsheet relates to Cultivation and has little to do with Honor and Surgebindings, but the two diagrams align so beautifully--lines and everything--that I figure that it has to be more than that. Also, the same lady hinted at being Cultivation is also found in the Shadesmar map, and as Shadesmar definitely has to do with more than Cultivation, I don't think I'm necessarily off the mark. If you overlay the colorful diagram with the Knights Radiant diagram--especially as highlighted and labeled by an earlier user--you'll notice that this corresponding Surge is that of Cohesion, which is shared by the Stonewards and Willshapers. You'll also notice, on the glyph that I highlighted, that it has a passing resemblance to Roshar's geographic makeup. I don't know exactly what the Stonewards and Willshapers did, but they were together capable of Cohesion, Tension, and Transportation. Dalinar's visions have ordered him to "unite them," and we ended Words of Radiance with the idea that he needed to unite the Knights Radiant--their different orders. I believe that the different orders, working together, were capable of doing much more than flying through the sky, healing mortal wounds, or just generally being "awesome." I believe that they might have had a role in the creation of Roshar itself--or that the powers they eventually wielded may have been utilized in its creation. Of course, someone might come along and say "that glyph doesn't mean anything like that." Still a cool thought.