Radiants and Honorblades

[The Grumpy Elantrian]

So I've been wondering, what exactly would a radiant bonding an honorblade entail?

For one, would a radiant actually be able to bond an honourblade in the first place? Yes they can hold it without the screams but does their bond with a spren interfere here.

But if they could and were to do so, then presumably they would gain the ability to use the surges associated with that honorblade. Once they have done this, would they still face the issues Szeth did with Jezrien's honorblade? Where stormlight would leak more quickly and such? Or would those things be overcome by their status as a radiant and the powers which come with that. 

Further, if this were possible, then how many could one person bond? Would it be possible to have a Windrunner say who then bonds all the honorblades and becomes a mega radiant? Or would the bonds interfere and get all confused?

I welcome any input. 

[+Zodiac]

Well the thing about having to many powers is they would lose their resonance. We see Nale has both is honor blade and radiant blade, so we know their is some benefit to having both, but we don't know how much that has to do with being a herald.  Besides all that, I don't think it would be beneficial to have that many surges in one person when you could give 10 blades to 10 different people. 

[Calderis]

A Radiant would gain abilities from holding an Honorblade like anyone else. 

It wouldn't really do anything extra, even if it had the same powers they already. 

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a non-Windrunner picked up Jezrien's Honorblade would they gain Windrunner powers as well?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a Windrunner picked up that blade, would their abilities be enhanced?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There would be some compounding but strength is not as much an issue with Surgebinding as is the strength of the spren bond and how much Stormlight you are using.

source

 

[galendo]

4 hours ago, Zodiac said:

Well the thing about having to many powers is they would lose their resonance. We see Nale has both is honor blade and radiant blade, so we know their is some benefit to having both, but we don't know how much that has to do with being a herald.  Besides all that, I don't think it would be beneficial to have that many surges in one person when you could give 10 blades to 10 different people. 

Not to nitpick too much, but we don't actually know that Nale gets a benefit by having both.  He might just have his Honorblade because it's his, for instance.  Or because he feels responsible for it and doesn't want it in unworthy hands.  Or because he considers emblematic of his continued upholding of Honor's plan (in his admittedly somewhat twisted view).

It's also worth noting that you can get all the surges with 5 blades, so the choice is really between having two "super-Radiants" versus ten regular ones.  My suspicion is that the flexibility of having five "regular" surgebinders is still greater than the power of one "super" surgebinder, but it's worth noting that there are advantages to having a lot of firepower combined in a single package.  For instance, if you need to get your force to the battlefield, getting the super-surgebinder there is going to require only a fifth as much Stormlight as getting the 5 regular ones there, which leaves you more Stormlight for the actual fight.  So it's not a question with a completely clear-cut answer.

Still, probably the best squad you could build is to give each of your Radiants one additional Honorblade.  That gives you ten Radiants with access to four surges each, along with the option of having your spren be a shield for your off-hand while still having a Blade in the other.  After that, there just isn't as much use for extra Honorblades.  The first Honorblade grants a doubling of surgebinding options and lets you use both hands -- the second Honorblade only grants a 50% increase in options and no additional physical combat capability.

So give all your Radiants one extra Blade.  That provides the best balance between flexibility and sheer raw power.

[Dahak]

5 hours ago, galendo said:

Still, probably the best squad you could build is to give each of your Radiants one additional Honorblade.  That gives you ten Radiants with access to four surges each, along with the option of having your spren be a shield for your off-hand while still having a Blade in the other.

Presumably they'd also get the five relevant two power synergy effects and three and four power synergies on top.

OIf course we also know from WoB IIRC that you can bind more than one spren if you can hack both sets of oaths and nahal bonds are more stormlight efficient.

[CrazyRioter]

If you have too many powers at once you lose the resonances. Of course we don't know how many is too many.

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Dahak said:

Presumably they'd also get the five relevant two power synergy effects and three and four power synergies on top.

That's possible, I tend to think an addition of a single power is going to change the resonance though. 

I think of it like musical chords. The resonance is the extra oomph you get from the right combination of notes. 

There's always some resonance between two powers, but above that they need to either mesh properly to give something... Or they interfere and you lose it. 

I don't think it's possible to have more than one. For now we have to wait and see though. 

[StrikerEZ]

52 minutes ago, Calderis said:

That's possible, I tend to think an addition of a single power is going to change the resonance though. 

I think of it like musical chords. The resonance is the extra oomph you get from the right combination of notes. 

There's always some resonance between two powers, but above that they need to either mesh properly to give something... Or they interfere and you lose it. 

I don't think it's possible to have more than one. For now we have to wait and see though. 

As someone who has taken (basic) music theory, I wanna add something.

Assuming Brandon is basing his idea of Resonances on actual music theory, you could probably have about 5-6 different powers and still get a Resonance, though anything higher than that could get funky. 

[Dahak]

On 04/09/2018 at 3:51 AM, Calderis said:

That's possible, I tend to think an addition of a single power is going to change the resonance though. 

I think of it like musical chords. The resonance is the extra oomph you get from the right combination of notes. 

There's always some resonance between two powers, but above that they need to either mesh properly to give something... Or they interfere and you lose it. 

I don't think it's possible to have more than one. For now we have to wait and see though. 

We got told that there was a limit on number of powers above which you don't get resonances. But since the example for that was Mistborn, who have something like the equivalent of 16 to 64 surges depending how you count, there is plenty of room for extras from 3 or 4 powers.

Myself I'm seeing it more as synergy effects or possibly constructive interfereance..