Reckoner89

Actually - the more I think about it - looking at the differences between Kal's, Teft's and The Lopen's third oaths, I've noticed a different pattern: Kal's third is about acting justly - protecting those he hates, so long as it is right - very Skybreaker Teft's third is much more about self-mastery, that he will protect himself from his own addiction - very Dustbringer The Lopen's third is much more about remembering the impact his actions can have on others - very Edgedancer So maybe it's not as simple as a straightforward progression in a clockwise direction. However, I do like the idea that a radiant progresses in their ideals by taking on aspects of other orders. It fits with the idea of the Bondsmiths being the leaders of the radiants overall and building bonds and connections between the orders. Given that it was Ishar who codified the Radiant Orders, this feels right

I quite like this theory - and I think there's something to it. I think it might be hard to be a bit too prescriptive in terms of what the actual wording will be though - as we have seen with the differences between Kal, Teft and The Lopen's oaths, they are unique to the individual. I also think the Lightweavers hugely screw with the system, because their oaths are all over the place (at least Shallan's have been). However, I think that might be compatible with what we know about the Lightweavers, and why the other spren distrust the Cryptics, as they are seen as not "playing by the rules". I think it's more likely that they follow a broad theme - as in the next ideal will be thematically similar to the core tenants of the next order. So we'd have Kal's 5th ideal being related to remembering. I think a good candidate would be something along the lines of "I will remember what I am fighting to protect". I think the direction Kal is going in giving up the obsessional aspects of his 2nd oath. That he will not be consumed by the fight. I think if we take the Skybreaker's 5th as a model, it is about taking on the highest understanding of the general theme of the order. That if you fight so much that you end up either neglecting or destroying the thing you were trying to protect in the first place, you haven't protected anything. This would also follow the pattern of Lirin basically teaching Kal all the oaths during his medical training. So using your system we should expect an individual's oaths to broadly conform to the following themes: 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Windrunner I will protect I will seek justice I will seek self mastery I will remember Skybreaker I will seek justice I will seek self mastery I will remember I will seek truth Dustbringer I will seek self mastery I will remember I will seek truth I will speak my truth Edgedancer I will remember I will seek truth I will speak my truth I will reach my potential Truthwatcher I will seek truth I will speak my truth I will reach my potential I will seek freedom Lightweaver Elsecaller I will reach my potential I will seek freedom I will be there when I'm needed I will unite Willshaper I will seek freedom I will be there when I'm needed I will unite I will protect Stoneward I will be there when I'm needed I will unite I will protect I will seek justice Bondsmith I will unite I will protect I will seek justice I will seek self mastery I've deliberately left the Lightweavers blank, because as I say, I think they are deliberately outside the system

I really enjoyed this book. I agree with a lot of the comments above, so I won't repeat them. A couple of things I'd like to mention are: 1) This is a love story - we've not really seen Brandon do that before (the only non-Cosmere book of his I've read is SP2 so sorry if there is another one out there). I thought he really pulled it off. Whilst it did conform to a lot of the tropes of a standard love story (they initially hate each other, increasing understanding and affection, the reveal of a massive character flaw/betrayal, and eventual reconciliation), I thought Brandon managed to do that without it seemed hackneyed. I also loved that he leaned into the aesthetic of the setting to tell the story; there were a couple of moments (the bit when they are flying in the tree stands out) which were genuinely beautiful. 2) A non-Cosmere Cosmere book - I really liked that this story felt quite low-stakes in the grand scheme of things. It had Warbreaker vibes in that sense. Obviously the stakes were huge for the characters, but the relative absence of active Shards or Worldhoppers (that can move), meant we could concentrate much more on our two protagonists and their story without much distraction. Again, really underlining this as a straightforward love story. 3) Brandon's been thinking about AI - I loved the lack of a villain in this book, just a rampaging, self-perpetuation machine. The fact that there isn't anything particularly malevolent about anyone/thing's Intent worked really well. I do find it funny that Brandon must have written this between 2020 - 2021 given how topical some of the themes feel and how AI has been in the news in the past few months. It feels like a really fresh book in that sense. Brandon seems to have anticipated a lot of the debates about AI generated art, the dangers of uncontrolled AI etc that we are having as a society after the advent of ChatGPT and other tools. He has also clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the Paperclip Maximiser Theory! I am still unsure which book I preferred between this and Tress. I think Tress was a more exciting book and the story felt a bit more pacey - there were more "oooooooh!" moments in Tress compared to Yumi. But I think Yumi is a more beautiful book. It was more likely to trigger a contented sigh in me compared to Tress.

I was re-reading RoW chapter 97 "Freedom" as part of a Navani re-read I'm doing. This is the chapter where Navani successfully creates anti-voidlight. On this second read through I have so many questions about the implications of this chapter. As such this isn't so much a theory as a brain-dump of questions and speculations which I invite you to tear apart, offer objections to, or point me in the direction of WoBs which might shed further light. So the most important lines I want to draw attention in this chapter are Navani's hypothesis on what might allow the creation of anti-voidlight, and what the inspiration for this hypothesis was. First - Navani creates a vacuum and allows voidlight to travel through it saying "I believe this is the only way to completely separate Voidlight from the songs of Roshar" and Raboniel comments that Navani believes that light "doesn't emit the rhythm itself, but echoes it". Navani then wants the first thing the light "hears" when it touches matter is the anti-voidlight tone she has created. Second - Navani is inspired in this research by her knowledge of magnetism and the ability to change its polarity. She speculates "So were they really changing the polarity of the magnet? Or were they blanking the existing polarity - then rewriting it with something new?" We know that these speculations, true or not lead Navani to the breakthrough of creating anti-light, so there is definitely something to this. So my questions: 1) If one were to place an infused gem into a vacuum chamber and seal it, would the Light in the gem become blanked? Or does Light need to leave the gem within a vacuum to be blanked? 2) If Navani had instead been playing Honor's tone rather than the anti-Voidlight tone, would the gem have been infused with Stormlight? Or did the experiment only work because it was going Voidlight to anti-Voidlight, which is an easier conversion? 3) If the answer to the first part of question 2 is yes, then does that mean that all one has to do to convert one flavour of Light into pure unflavoured Light is seal it within a vacuum? 4) If a bunch of unflavoured Light gems were taken up in a space ship with a Radiant, would the Radiant be able to absorb them? 5) Could pure unflavoured Light be transported off Roshar without causing the many issues that have had trying to transport Stormlight? 6) If so, if a bunch of gems were blanked, placed in a vacuum chamber and taken to Scadrial and then the chamber was opened, would they remain blank or would the Light become Harmonylight? 7) Dalinar fills gemstones by opening a conduit to the spiritual realm. Presumably the Investiture there is of the pure unflavoured kind. Why does it immediately become Stormlight when Dalianr opens his perpendicularity? There are three tones of Roshar, why not a random assortment of Voidlight gems, Stormlight gems and Lifelight gems? I have many more side and supplementary questions about this, but seven is probably enough to be going along with. So - please tear all this apart!

Like many people, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the SA5 prologue since it was released. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but one that I want to focus on is the words that Gavilar says as potential oaths. The words Gavilar tries that the "Stormfather" dismisses are: "I swear this oath: to serve Honor and the land of Roshar as its Herald. Better than these did.” “If I should die, then I would do so having lived my life right. It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there." And then we get this moment: This immediately struck me as odd. If Gavilar is interacting with the Stormfather, his oaths should be similar to Dalinar's. I am assuming that Gavilar is already aware of the First Oath, as this seems to be reasonably common knowledge during the modern era. So we should be comparing these words to the Second Oath of the Bondsmiths. Dalinar’s second oath is “I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together.” In what way is “Give it to me. Now. I need it” almost this? The answer of course is that it isn’t, not at all. But Gavilar does not think he is becoming a Bondsmith, or even a Radiant. He thinks he is becoming a Herald. Is he right? I think he might be. We do not know the mechanism by which the Heralds became Heralds, but given this was a pact with Honor, the swearing of some form of oath is almost certainly part of it. What Dalinar does is swear to behave in a particular way, and that appears to be the same for most Radiants. The words that Gavilar is “close” with however, is a demand to take a particular position. Given what is required of the Heralds, an honourable being like Tanavast would only give this position to those who went into it willingly. It is not honourable to assign to someone eons of torment and torture without their informed consent. Proving Day appears to be a pivotal moment for the Heralds. Perhaps they were given a taste of what they were in for, and then asked if they were willing to take up that burden. The words they swear are not a commitment to behave in a particular way, but an affirmation that they are willing to take on the burden of being a Herald, and a request to take the powers that come with it. This would be much closer to the words Gavilar says. It's a small moment, but I think potentially gives us a big hint about the difference between becoming a Radiant and becoming a Herald. The other important aspect of this is that when Gavilar reveals that he would just give up each time he died and return, the "Stormfather" very quickly breaks with him and leaves him to die. The being strongly implies he has the power to prevent his death. The fact that Gavilar was "close" to becoming a Herald means he can't be allowed to live. This selfish man cannot be allowed to take up the mantle of being a Herald, it would quickly release the Fused. That's important to note, as there is a lot of speculation about if this "Stormfather" is in fact someone else. If this line of reasoning holds, we can be confident that this being is not under the influence of Odium or his forces. Odium would jump at the chance to have Gavilar become part of the Oathpact.

I am convinced that there is something wrong with the Stormfather in the prologue, and I am quite persuaded by the idea of a Stormfaker. However, there are aspects of the theory I struggle with. For example the creature/being recognises that there is something special about Dalinar: He also seems to recognise that Eshonia's special nature: These are both things we know that our Stormfather recognises. Then there is the moment that the "Stormfather" breaks with Gavilar: I found the font change really interesting. It goes from italicised to Small Caps that we are most familiar with from the books. (I don't think the formatting has transferred to this post). So there are aspects of this creature/being that are very like the Stormfather we know, but a lot that is very unlike him. Is there a mechanism whereby someone could "hijack" the Stormfather? I thought there might be a hint at this at the end of the chapter, where Szeth thinks Gavilar is talking to him, but Gavilar is talking to the "Stormfather". Would someone be able to fool both Gavilar and the real Stormfather simultaneously? If that's what is actually going on, then I think that would point to Ishar and his power set.

A very good and terrifying point. This probably means the personality of the Vessel is key to how the Shards combine. Sazed was able to become Harmony rather than Discord because he was uniquely capable of holding those two. Hmm - this is a good point. There's a WoB about why Sja-anat was able to recruit the Mistspren: I assume he will at some point reveal what it is about the Mistpren that makes most willing. I think the reasoning in my first post about it being distance from Honor is probably wrong and more likely to do with the culture/nature of Mistspren than some deterministic factor about the various levels of Honor and Cultivation in them. I think what I really want to know is if it is possible for Renarin and Rlain to use Illumination in the way Shallan can or not? We know that each order seem to master one Surge first and then the second. Elsecallers figure Soulcasting out before Lightweavers do. Are Renarin's issues to do with him not progressing far enough, or is it to do with what has happened to Glys? Will "regular" Lightweaving be permanently denied to him? If the answer is Yes, then my theory about him being potentially very powerful is wrong. If the answer is no...

Cool - thank you - I didn't know about that WoB. I guess that mean the relevance of "truest surge" is much lower in terms of whats going on with Renarin's powers. So I think I should have been more precise in my original post. I am not saying Voidbinding and Surgebinding are the exact same thing. I am saying they are different versions of the same overarching magic system. So like Allomancy, Hemalurgy and Feruchemy are three different versions of The Metallic Arts, filtered through Preservation, Ruin and a combination of the two respectively. Raboniel tells us clearly that the Fused access the Surges: "We of the Fused know our Surge with an intimacy a Radiant will never know." (RoW, Chp 31) The Fused are accessing the Surges through Odium and the Radiants are accessing them through Honor and Cultivation. I think the problem is that we call what the Radiants do "Surgebinding" instead of Honor-binding and Culti-binding (for obvious reasons given how ugly those words are). I think Odium's line at the end of RoW about other Shards discovering the strength of Surgebinding is the key one. The implication is that there is a version of this overall magic system that uses the suffix "binding" that can be filtered through each of the Shards. My fundamental point is that as things stand, Renarin and Rlain are the only two beings we know of who can access their surges through three different Shards. The implication of that is that their potential power level is higher than that of most everyone else.

Thank you! Good I'm glad I haven't completely got the wrong end of the stick. So what makes you say this? As far as I can tell the Heavenly Ones are granted the "surge" of Gravitation through Odium and Kaladin accesses it through (mostly) Honor. The same fundamental force is accessed through two different Shards. I agree they are not "the same thing" in the sense the pathway is different, but they are resulting in the same effect. Yup - I'm guessing that's what has been called the Old Magic So as I said, this is probably the biggest problem with my theory. I'm not sure what you mean by a distinction. What I would say is; I spent Final Empire assuming there were at most 11 metals. Then by the time of BoM not only are there 16 (plus the god metals) and there are increasingly crazy ways of manipulating those metals. I guess I'm ready for Brandon to pull the rug out from under me again on the Surges.

Tldr; any Shard can give access to Surgebinding and that means Renarin is the most powerful mortal in the Cosmere (and now Rlain too) This is my first post here after recently and very heavily falling down the rabbit hole of the Cosmere after a friend recommended the books. Apologies if my ideas/theory are old hat or well-trodden. Along with being my favourite (mostly) non-viewpoint character, I can’t help but think there is something very important about Renarin and what he represents. We’ve known for a while that there is something “off” about his powers and this has been treated with suspicion by other characters in the story, to the point where Jasnah was prepared to execute her cousin. My argument here is that far from being “off”, Renarin’s powers are what Rosharan Surgebinding can be at its full potential. The theory relies on a few assumptions and assertions: 1) Odium is one sixteenth of God’s power. As such, it is neither “good” or “evil”, but simply a force in the universe. We think of Odium as being the “bad guy”. He does indeed seem pretty unpleasant: cruel, capricious, power-hungry and arrogant but I suspect this is more to do with Rayse than Odium itself. Sazed/Harmony thinks that it is the power that wishes to destroy. Hoid thinks differently. As much as I love Sazed (and in most debates I’d side with him) if it’s an argument against Hoid, I think Hoid might be in the right. We can see when Taravangian takes up Odium that he is able to consider the urges of the power in a different way. Cultivation also seems to think the right Vessel would be able to contain this force. Hoid tells us that Rayse was always a pretty bad guy. 2) Combining more Shards with Odium will temper its destructive Intent and create something different and almost certainly better. We know that the combination of Shards is possible (see Sazed/Harmony). As Frost tells us in the Second Letter; “He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context.” Giving context to this hatred will allow it to be channelled into something more productive. We can see the combination of Stormlight and Voidlight gives Warlight. There’s an assumption that if you were to combine Odium and Honor would get a new Shard called War (as Ruin and Preservation became Harmony). Many theorise that Dalinar will ascend to become this Shard at some point in our story. 3) Odium is as much a part of Roshar as Honor and Cultivation. We know that Roshar pre-dates the Shattering, so the Investiture of the planet arrived when Honor and Cultivation settled there. Odium has now been part of the Rosharan system for millenia, it’s reasonable to assume it’s Investiture has now saturated the place to enough of an extent that it is comparable to that of Honor and Cultivation. We can see this in the Singers’ use of Rhythms, they can attune to the Rhythms of Odium. Given that Roshar’s natives can attune to these Rhythms, we can be sure Odium is pretty much embedded in the planet. 4) Surgebinding and Voidbinding are two names of the same thing There is a thread on this forum about Division being Odium’s “truest surge” and one of the first objections was that Odium doesn’t have surges, he has Voidbinding. I found this point fairly meaningless. It seems obvious to me that the processes of Surgebinding and Voidbinding are the same process channelled through different Shards. The “surges” are described as the fundamental forces of the Cosmere which individuals can access through a splinter of a Shard (spren). R-Odium tells Dalinar he is preparing for “the [war] that will begin when the gods of other worlds discover the strength of Surgebinding” and earlier says that he is planning for combat with those that are “not nearly as well trained”. The implication of these two statements is that Surgebidng is available via any of the Shards. All they need to do is create spren of themselves and allow mortals in their domains to bond them. Let’s call this kind of magic “Investbinding”. The Knights Radiant are Investbinders who access the Surges through some combination of Honor and Cultivation in varying degrees. The Fused are Investbinders who access the Surges only through Odium. - So back to Renarin. We know Glys has been “Enlightened” by Sja-Anat. Enlightenment has a lot of meanings in Western culture, a whole philosophical movement is named after it. But if we take the literal meaning, “to make luminous”, in other words, to give Light; this might shed light (get it?) on what is going on. Glys has been granted access to Odium’s Light, in other words, Glys can allow Renarin to Investbind through Honor, Cultivation and Odium. I suspect there is a reason it was a Mistspren that was the first to do this. Truthwatchers are the mirror to Bondsmiths in the Surgebinding chart, i.e. furthest from Adhesion or Honor’s “truest surge”. It would be a spren that had the least influence from Honor that would be prepared to consider allowing Odium’s Light in. There are several implications if this theory is true, which I’ll outline in brief below, but the one I want to concentrate on here is what it means for Renarin’s powers. Renarin seems perfectly capable of using Progression (healing). He is also becoming increasingly proficient with Odium’s version of Illumination (his future-sight). However, he is still having issues with using Illumination in the way other Radiants (including other Truthwatchers) use it. My theory is that Progression is the “truest surge” of Cultivation and so Illumination is closer to Honor. Honor and Odium are especially at odds, and Odium’s light’s influence is making it difficult for him to use his Illumination in the way Shallan can. However, he can combine Cultivation and Odium’s version of Illumination and show what growth and future sight result in (Moash’s better self). However, Navani and Raboniel have shown us that with effort, you can combine Odium’s and Honor’s lights. So I am sure Renarin will get there eventually and be able to replicate Shallan’s version of Illumination. However, the crucial point is that he can access his surges in three different ways as opposed to the usual two. If Odium is correct and that Surgebinding is the strongest form of Investiture in the Cosmere that would mean the Renarin (and now Rlain too) is the potentially the most powerful mortal in the Cosmere, he can access two of the fundamental forces of the Cosmere in three different ways. If all the truespren are able to gain access to Odium’s Light then this will mean they can all grant three ways of accessing the fundamental forces of the Cosmere. It’s important to remember the first assumption I made here, that there is nothing “evil” about Odium. It’s just a force in the universe. It might mean that those spren that have access to Odium’s Light view the world in a slightly different way, but one of the themes of RoW was that spren can change and develop over time. They can evolve. Sja-Anat seems opposed to R-Odium’s goals. The origin is not their destiny. But more significantly, what this theory would imply is that each Shard could give even more Light. A Spren that comes into contact with Endowment could get another source of Light via Enlightenment. This is why the potential for spren to leave Roshar is so important for the Ghostbloods, we are talking about access to huge levels of power. So, to conclude this ramble, Renarin has access to two fundamental forces of the Cosmere in one more way than almost all others do. This makes his potential power level highest of every mortal we have met so far in the Cosmere Other implications of this theory The Shards can create many different types of Investiture. In theory Honor could use Allomancy and Endowment could use Surgebinding. The Old Magic might be the magic system Cultivation used before she got on board with Surgebinding. There may be an Honor-based magic system that predates Surgebinding If each Shard has a “truest surge” there should be 16 Surges, not 10 (I’ll admit this probably is a big problem with this theory)