Correlations between Surges and Essences

[Sirce Luckwielder]

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?

[Moogle]

There's definitely a strong correlation between Surges and spren appearance. I did some predictions here. Most notably, the Truthwatcher spren is literally growing light (Growth + Illumination). It's hard to argue against the idea, I think. (Only update of note I have to that thread is that I'm actually convinced Eshonai might have attracted a Willshaper spren already, so I consider it marginally more likely cometspren may be Willshaper's spren. Comets are made of metal, so it'd work. The fact that the cometspren throws off light doesn't really fit, though.)

 

Gemstones shouldn't matter for Stormlight efficiency, as far as I know, but it's a possibility. Each order is definitely linked to a gemstone via their eye color + Shardblade color. (I still like the theory where all Surgebinders gain gemhearts.)

 

Lightweavers being linked to blood is not something that really made sense to me, but Darnam/Outis/whatever he's calling himself now made an interesting connection when he said that Pattern travels by skimming under the surface of objects like blood. Shallan's first Soulcasting was also turning something to blood. I'm not sure if the essences will match up very nicely for most spren, though. Truthwatchers/Edgedancers seem like they should be swapped on the chart (Wyndle representing pulp, Ym's representing lucentia).

Edited February 2, 2015 by Moogle

[WeiryWriter]

So, there are some good ideas here, but there is not a direct one to one relationship between Surges and Essences, they are off-set by one (so each Surge is related to to adjacent Essences and vice versa).  The best representation of this is the Double-Eye of the Almighty (which is often referred to as the Surgebinding chart):
 


The big, colorful glyphs are the Fundamental Glyphs and represent the Ten Essences (and their related gemstones, Order, Herald, etc.) while the smaller glyphs are the Surges.  So Zephyr/Windrunners (in the upper right, the blue one) is connected to the glyphs for Adhesion and Gravitation.  Gravitation also connects to Vapor/Skybreakers.  Which in turn connects to Division.  And so on and so forth.

 

So technically, as far as we can tell, the Edgedancers are related to the Surge of Progression, but not the Essence of Pulp (at least not directly).

[Oudeis]

Comets are made of metal, so it'd work.

 

Ehh..... just a minor point of clarification. Actual comets are made of ice, but there are plenty of astral-body comet-shaped things which are made of metal, so the point is valid. Eshonai just doesn't know her astronomy very well and uses the wrong term.

 

Thank you for the shout-out for my blood theory! (The most recent name is because my Greek buddy didn't like the transliteration system I was using, he says anyone who actually speaks Greek will have an easier time with Oudeis than Outis).

 

Pointing out, yes Shallan's first Soulcast was to blood, but that's because she was holding the garnet Kabsal gave her, and Soulcasting cares which gem you get your Stormlight from. Could be coincidence, could be thematic, or maybe something about her Lightweaver nature made Kabsal choose to use a garnet lantern that day for light.

 

Back to Eshonai's spren... Spren are shaped by human thought. So if her spren really is supposed to represent metal the way the other spren we've seen so far mimic their Essence, and it appears as an asteroid, does this imply that enough people realize that rocks falling from the sky sometimes contain metal to be in the zeitgeist? Then again, I'm still not sure why rain means candles with eyeballs, so not every spren is a direct connection to what people actually envision when they think of the thing.

[skaa]

My Essences-Surge theory is still undergoing some major revisions and will probably be significantly different in a few weeks (especially its Part III), but you could check it out now if you like, Sirce.

Spren are easy to link to the Essences, but trying to link the Essences to the Orders' Surge pairs caused me endless amounts of stress until I decided on a whim to look for alternative Surge pairs for each Essence, and found a combination that fits perfectly. Now I just have to find a better explanation for it than what I had before, because my current explanation (that Tanavast consciously fiddled with the Surges) had met with conflicting WoB. Hence the need for revision.

Edited February 3, 2015 by skaa

[Sirce Luckwielder]

Wow. Thanks skaa. This is impressive.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Sirce Dawnwielder