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What about the Voidspren and Renarin


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Even if he is not a truthwatcher, having a navel bond makes him able to heal himself. Alas, he may even be Kaladin's lackeys and heal himself just like the bridge four. The point is, he never heals or even offers to heal even his family. Why? What is he afraid of if he is a KR?

What is he so afraid off? Well, how about the fact he had little idea he was a Radiant, and has visions of the future he was always told were of the Voidbringers. He was an anomaly for all his life, he does not want to be an aberration as well.

Plus, he does not seen specially devoted to Kaladin like the Bridgemen are. That means he is most likely not an squire.

And we see 2 truthwatchers if he actually is one. This is not normal as for other orders we've seen, there is only 1 instance, and it's for good reason: the spren are not trusting enough, and they're still testing the humans. And the other truthwatcher's situation is very different from Renarin's. First of all, for whatever reason, Ym didn't heal his sight. Secondly, his spren shines, matching the illumination part of the order's powers. Unless the comet-like spren Kaladin saw was Renarin's spren, we saw nothing like Ym's around Renarin.

There are bound to be more Knights of each Order as the books go on. Who is to say Nale didn't sucessfully kill Lightweavers or Edgedancers in the past, or that the Truthwatcher spren are more willing to bond because they predicted the inevitability of the True Desolation?

Plus, some spren are better at hiding. The fact we didn't see Glys is irrelevant.

Edited by DreamEternal
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It's also possible that Glys might have been the Nahel spren of a female Truthwatcher who died in the recent past. When the Nahel bond was transferred to Renarin, Glys could have kept his identity and pronouns from the former bond.

 

I think that some unusual aspects of Renarin's experience as a Knight Radiant could have been caused by a different kind of spren bonding process. It could have been the Rosharan version of Hemalurgy. There are still eight books left, so I'm sure there's a lot we don't know about the magic systems of Roshar. 

Edited by Paliah
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Even if he is not a truthwatcher, having a navel bond makes him able to heal himself. Alas, he may even be Kaladin's lackeys and heal himself just like the bridge four. The point is, he never heals or even offers to heal even his family. Why? What is he afraid of if he is a KR?

 

And we see 2 truthwatchers if he actually is one. This is not normal as for other orders we've seen, there is only 1 instance, and it's for good reason: the spren are not trusting enough, and they're still testing the humans. And the other truthwatcher's situation is very different from Renarin's. First of all, for whatever reason, Ym didn't heal his sight. Secondly, his spren shines, matching the illumination part of the order's powers. Unless the comet-like spren Kaladin saw was Renarin's spren, we saw nothing like Ym's around Renarin.

 

There is a WoB which explains why we aren't seeing Glys: it is a combination of his ability and Renarin's reluctance to display him.

 

 

There are bound to be more Knights of each Order as the books go on. Who is to say Nale didn't sucessfully kill Lightweavers or Edgedancers in the past, or that the Truthwatcher spren are more willing to bond because they predicted the inevitability of the True Desolation?

Plus, some spren are better at hiding. The fact we didn't see Glys is irrelevant.

 

Yes, I agree. Brandon confirmed we would see multiple knights per Radiants as soon as book 3. 

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I'm sorta, vaugeky, half-heartedly tossing around a theory that Voidspren are just spren that have been tarred by the Recreance, the same way the Knight Radiants have.

(Which means the Knight Radiants ARE the Voidbringers, but...like I said. Very half-heartedly. But it would explain why a Radiant has surges that are associated with Voudbinding, if it's really nothing but a cultural thing...)

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I'm sorta, vaugeky, half-heartedly tossing around a theory that Voidspren are just spren that have been tarred by the Recreance, the same way the Knight Radiants have.

(Which means the Knight Radiants ARE the Voidbringers, but...like I said. Very half-heartedly. But it would explain why a Radiant has surges that are associated with Voudbinding, if it's really nothing but a cultural thing...)

That sounds unlikely, since only prescience is explicitely said to be of Odium.

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So Renarin from book 2 cannot be a Truthwatcher.

What.

I mean, you are certainly picking at straws here. We have seem Ym for a total of one scene before he was killed, and Renarin revealed himself, becoming a "on-screen" Radiant much later.

So far there has only been one on-screen living Knight per Order.

Edited by DreamEternal
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So Renarin from book 2 cannot be a Truthwatcher.

 

No. On the contrary. Brandon has explicitly stated we must be prepare to see multiple knights per Order. The Ym is a Truthwatcher doesn't prevent Renarin from being one as well, but this is beside the point. Renarin has been confirmed as a Truthwatcher.

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Storms! I really don't hope that renarin is the traitor,I kinda like the lad,but seriously though when was it mentioned that precognition is a trait of the voidbringers? Do you have any reference?

text?

 

Don't have the book on hand now, but look for scenes in WoK when Adolin and Dalinar are discussing the latter's visions. IIRC, one of them is worrying that it's Voidbringers somehow influencing Dalinar, because future sight is supposed to be of them. It's been mentioned several more times in the book, and at least once in reference to the scribbles on the wall in WoR.

 

Then again, it's not necessarily a conclusive proof that Renarin bonded an Odiumspren. There are some people on this forum theorizing that the people who reformed Vorinism and started to say that futuresight is evil were actually influenced by Odium to say so, to discredit any potential agent of Honor. 

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Storms! I really don't hope that renarin is the traitor,I kinda like the lad,but seriously though when was it mentioned that precognition is a trait of the voidbringers? Do you have any reference?

text?

 

Don't have the book on hand now, but look for scenes in WoK when Adolin and Dalinar are discussing the latter's visions. IIRC, one of them is worrying that it's Voidbringers somehow influencing Dalinar, because future sight is supposed to be of them. It's been mentioned several more times in the book, and at least once in reference to the scribbles on the wall in WoR.

 

Then again, it's not necessarily a conclusive proof that Renarin bonded an Odiumspren. There are some people on this forum theorizing that the people who reformed Vorinism and started to say that futuresight is evil were actually influenced by Odium to say so, to discredit any potential agent of Honor. 

 

Fret not, I'm always here to drop some citations. For your perusal, times when it's mentioned that future sight is of Odium, bolding mine:

 

“The problem, bright one,” Kadash said, “was mysticism. The priests claimed that common men could not understand religion or the Almighty. Where there should have been openness, there was smoke and whispers. The priests began to claim visions and prophecies, though such things had been denounced by the Heralds themselves. Voidbinding is a dark and evil thing, and the soul of it was to try to divine the future.”

--WoK 18, Highprince of War

“What else would I do?” Kaladin said, stupefied.

“There are many professions open to men with a good mind and training. If you really wished to study all the arts, you could become an ardent. Or perhaps a stormwarden.”

Stormwarden. He reached by reflex for the prayer sewn to his left sleeve, waiting for the day he’d need to burn it for aid. “They seek to predict the future.”

“It’s not the same thing. You’ll see.”

--WoK 44, The Weeping

He accepted stormwardens now, though when they’d first grown popular, he’d rejected their aid. No man should try to know the future, nor lay claim to it, for it belonged only to the Almighty himself.

--WoK 60, That Which We Cannot Have

 

“How? By making me into some kind of mystic? Many will think that the breeze of these visions blows too close to prophecy.”

You see the past, Father,” Renarin said. “That is not forbidden. And if the Almighty sends them, then how could men question?”

--WoK 61, Right For Wrong

Around the perimeter of the den, various games were in progress. None of them were overt games of chance—no dice throws, no bets on card flips. There were games of breakneck, shallowcrab fights, and—oddly—guessing games. That was another oddity about Vorin peoples; they avoided overtly guessing the future.

...

Even here, in one of the vilest pits in the city—where women walked with their hands exposed and men spoke openly of crimes—nobody risked offending the Heralds by seeking to know the future. Even predicting the highstorms made many uncomfortable.

--WoK I-6, A Work of Art

 

And from Words of Radiance:

The sign on the wall proposed a greater danger, even, than its deadline. To foresee the future is of the Voidbringers.

—From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jeseses 1174

--WoR 5, Ideals

The ardents would condemn the prophecy as a prank at best, or blasphemous at worst. To foretell the future was forbidden. It was of the Voidbringers. Even games of chance were suspect, for they incited men to look for the secrets of what was to come.

--WoR 8, Knives in the Back; Soldiers on the Field

 

Our gods were born splinters of a soul,

Of one who seeks to take control,

Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.

They are his spren, his gift, his price.

But the nightforms speak of future life,

A challenged champion. A strife even he must requite.

—From the Listener Song of Secrets, final stanza

--WoR 34, Blossoms and Cake

She still wasn’t sure what she thought of those fellows—they spent too much time talking about numerology and reading the winds. They called it a science in an attempt to dodge Vorin prohibitions of predicting the future.

--WoR 35, The Multiplied Strain of Simultaneous Infusion

 

“The Almighty’s path for me is a strange one,” Dalinar said. “Why do I need to get the information this way? Scratches on the ground or the wall? Why not say it to me plainly in the visions?”

It’s foretelling, you realize,” Adolin said softly. “Seeing the future. A thing of the Voidbringers.

--WoR 50, Uncut Gems

“I can see it,” Renarin answered feverishly, his voice echoing in the chamber. Ardents who had been studying part of the murals looked up at him. “I can see the future itself. Why? Why, Almighty? Why have you cursed me so?”

--WoR 85, Swallowed by the Sky

 

So, yes the Vorin adherents are fairly convinced that future-sight is evil and of the Voidbringers. Hence why, even if Renarin's powers aren't Voidbinding, he'd have more than enough reason to keep them hidden from everyone. Nobody wants to get denounced by the church as a heretic and Voidbinder. Renarin doesn't have the protection of Dalinar's confidence and status as a Highprince. He's already an outcast, and terribly unsure of himself. When he starts seeing the future, he does everything he can to hide.

 

Now, just because the ardentia says that future sight is of Odium, I don't necessarily believe that means it's true. There's a long and proud tradition of in-universe religions not knowing what's really going on. That said, that belief came from somewhere. Was it passed down from people who actually saw Voidbinding? Was it a teaching picked up after the Hierocracy? Did the Heralds warn against future sight? Is there something about it in The Arguments? We don't know. 

 

I am a proponent of the idea that Renarn's abilities aren't Surgebinding (or at least not Surgebinding on their own or a normal expression thereof) but that has less to do with what the ardentia teaches and more to do with the fact that his visions don't line up with what is known about Surgebinding. The fact that the church specifically warns against it only reinforces the theory, in my opinion.

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Perhaps the reason vorinism teaches about futuresight being evil is due to what happened during/proceeding the 99th desolation. Maybe a truthwatcher, or Paliah himself, foresaw that if 9 heralds abandoned the oathpact, the desolations would stop for a time and they would be freed from their oaths. I can imagine that after coming to this realisation he went to some of his herald buddies and was like "Yo, this is wack, wanna bail?". The church would see this particular order of the KR as the ones that instigated the heralds to abandon humanity, and condemn them and their particular abilities. This condemnation would, over the years, be altered to what we see in the present era.

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  • 1 year later...

Sorry for necroing, but I'm a bit baffled that so many people seem to think Renarin's ability is inconsistent with Truthwatchers. 

We've seen exactly one chapter from the perspective of a proto-truthwatcher. And in that chapter we've seen:

Quote

“I . . .” the spren said. “I . . .” The spren’s form shook suddenly, then grew more intense, like light being focused. “He comes.”

Ym stood up, suddenly anxious

Quote

“He’s still here,” the spren whispered.

Ym looked up toward the doorway out onto the night street. The urchin was there?

Something rustled behind Ym.

Ym's spren clearly sees the future. 

Now, you might say that it's not the same, because it's not Ym seeing the future but his spren. Well, why was Syl able to stick stuff together before Kaladin was? Why Pattern can reproduce sounds before Shallan can? It's quite obvious for me, that spren have similar abilities to their Radiants. And Ym was very early on the path of Truthwatchers, his spren was still quite slow-minded and didn't even give her name. It's possible that healing is the first ability manifested in Truthwatchers, as both Ym and Stump (from Edgedencer) do it naturally. Renarin might be more advanced. His spren has enough memory to tell him the name of the order. So Renarin could be able to see the future himself. 

The one thing that is weird about him though is that he cannot stop himself from writing down what he sees. I don't however think that is enough to suspect he bonded a voidspren. He's abilities seem normal. 

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2 hours ago, strumienpola said:

Ym's spren clearly sees the future. 

Does she? It sounds to me more like she sees the present, just a more expanded version of it. Her words sound like the words of someone who is aware of more things ("he comes", "he is still here"), not necessarily of someone who sees the future (in which case she might've said something like "he'll come tonight").

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She's barely speaking at that time. Her conversation with Ym shows that. And "he comes" she says before he shows up, so that's forseeing. But even if she just knows things she is not supposed to know, it's still consistent. 

Renarin says "It's come. We're dead", also in present simple. Before that - "It's comming" in present continuous. 

Edited by strumienpola
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On 4/19/2017 at 5:59 AM, strumienpola said:

Sorry for necroing, but I'm a bit baffled that so many people seem to think Renarin's ability is inconsistent with Truthwatchers. 

I'll pop in to respond on this count, since I think my theory is probably the one that's swayed so many people in this direction.

What struck me about Renarin's abilities and the reason why I don't think they're normal surgebinding is the involuntary nature of them. Though we see Shallan and Kaladin surgebinding accidentally without realizing it, we never see other surgebinders being forced to use their abilities actively against their will. We don't see instances where their bodies are taken over and controlled by their powers, leaving them helpless.

I mean, Renarin falls to the floor, crying and screaming "Almighty why have you cursed me so?" That doesn't feel right.

Quite clearly at the end (and with plenty of hints leading up to it), Renarin is not fully in control of himself when the visions take over. He's forced to write or carve while he's in the throes of it, something he'd never do of his own volition. I mean, on one hand, it's deeply unmasculine, even if they're just glyphs, which is something Renarin's already very insecure about, but also, if he's going to so much trouble to try to hide the fact that he's having visions, why leave very obvious evidence behind that someone's seeing things, like number countdowns and written prophecies? My answer: he didn't have a choice.

And though Brandon has confirmed that there is an involuntary element to Renarin's visions, he has not confirmed whether or not they're surgebinding. I got a hard (and evil laughing) RAFO on that question.

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I get that, I can see there is something wrong, but I just don't think it's voidbinding, because I believe in Ockham's razor problem solving, and if Brandon said binding with voidspren is very hard for people, I think there is little chance that this happened to Renarin. Instead I would be looking for parallels somewhere else. You see, Renarin is not the only character we know that has episodes of not being able to stop himself from writing at the walls. My personal guess is that Cultivation decided that extreme times need extreme methods. Can't blame her. 

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