zehguga

Hi all, first post here despite having lurked for a while. After finishing Words of Radiance and reading some theories being thrown around, I got to thinking of how each Surge "manifests", so to speak, and came up with a couple of ideas. 1) Cognitive and Spiritual effects of Surges From Word of Brian and Ars Arcanums (Arcana? Arcani?) from other Cosmere books, we know that forms of Investiture can be primarily Spiritual, Cognitive or Physical, so this line of thought might not even be valid reasoning. While we don't have direct contradiction, however, I will forge ahead. The more explored Surges so far have been the ones that Windrunners and Lightweavers have access to, namely Adhesion, Gravitation, Illumination and Transformation. We've also seen some Progression, a bit of Abrasion and a glimpse of Transportation. There might have been some unnoticed effects of other Surges being used, but I will exclude those from discussion unless they are explicitly shown. There has also been much speculation as to what effects the other Surges can produce. While all of those seem to have their roots in the Spiritual and/or Cognitive Realms, all of their effects seem to happen in the Physical Realm. An example of this would be a form of the Gravitation Surge, the basic Lashing, which changes the spiritual gravitational connection of an object from the planet to some other direction/location. The root of it is in the Spiritual Realm, but the effect is Physical. Now, if you look at something like the Metallic Arts on Scadrial, you will notice things like Soothing and Rioting, storing Identity, Investiture, determination, and several other effects (and stealing all of those) where the manifestation doesn't seem to relate to the Physical Realm. The AonDor system on Sel can be thought of as similar (several Aons have "abstract" meanings, such as Spirit, Love, etc, which wouldn't at first glance, be Physically inclined). Nalthis seems to be a mix, where Breath can grant Investiture to an object and Commands, convey some Cognitive aspect to whatever has been Awakened, which then affects the Physical Realm. Surges seem to be the odd one out, so far. Granted, it's early in the series, but that also allows some speculation on our part. My line of speculation is that at least some Surges have forms that we haven't seen yet, where they affect the Cognitive or Spiritual Realms. It would make a lot of sense, I think, for the Cohesion Surge to have a form where it would function possibly similar to tapping Feruchemical Duralumin, and possibly the Division Surge granting some function similar to storing Feruchemical Duralumin (or maybe the Cohesion Surge can be "reversed" like the Abrasion Surge, to create a bonding or inimical effect between people). From the Words of Radiance (the in-universe book) epigraphs, it seems like Orders such as the Bondsmiths, Elsecallers and Willshapers had administrative, guiding or ruling roles in society, or at least among the Radiants, while Skybreakers were recognizably good at judging. It would also make sense that the specific Surges of certain Orders could help them in their roles, possibly through these Spiritual or Cognitive effects. 2) Surges manifest differently between Orders This is more from a perspective of what seems to make sense, so to speak. Windrunners are purportedly the masters of the sky, flying around and being all comfortable up high. However, from what we see of Kaladin and Szeth, the only Surge they use while flying individually or fighting in the sky is Gravitation, and then only through the basic Lashing. Skybreakers, theoretically, have access to the exact same thing. Why wouldn't they be just as at home in the skies as Windrunners? Obviously the Adhesion Surge could help (decrease air pressure in front of you to fly faster, be less bothered by the wind, not have your skin flayed off by 500kph winds, etc), but that would require the Surge to work in the way we expect, and for Szeth not to be familiar with the more nuanced uses of the Surges outside of the Three Lashings. I recognize that this theory (if it can be called that) is slim, hanging from very few uses of Surges that we have seen, and one point against it is that both Ym and Lift, though being from different Orders, used Progression in the same way (Regrowth, to heal other people). But that can be explained by having adjacent Orders being able to access certain forms of the same Surges equally, but not others (eg, Skybreakers could maybe use a Reverse Lashing but not a basic Lashing). Having an off-topic comment right in the first post feels weird, but I want to make on anyway: haven't seen it mentioned in the forums yet, but my idea for one of the remaining Ideals for the Windrunners: "I will protect people from themselves, when needed." Comments and thoughts are welcomed, as seems to be the norm in these forums. I apologize for any grammatical or spelling mistakes, or oddly structured sentences and paragraphs, I'm not from an English speaking country. Cheers!