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Hoid and Surgebinding


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I was thinking about Hoid and a way for him to get all of the Surgebinding abilities, because this is Hoid and no doubt he does want them all.  As has been discussed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for him to swear oaths to a spren of every order.

I wonder if he is going to try and find a deadeye spren of each order and try to revive them, similar as to how Adolin is doing with Maya.  Granted this theory depends heavily on how the whole Adolin/Maya relationship plays out.

My thought is that when you revive a deadeye spren you can almost bypass the oaths.  The Nahel bond is a spren who is attracted to a person who has specific traits, while this bond seems fundamentally different.  I’m think that they’ll be able to form a new type of bond with access to a new (albeit related) form of Surgebinding.

I don’t think that it would be very difficult for Hoid to revive different deadeyes, seeing how Adolin did it pretty much on accident, and Hoid would actually know what he is doing, plus Hoid has ready access to the CR, which would probably make it easier.

I’ve also seen a WoB that said Hoid was very interested in one of the Kholins, and if this were the case I think Hoid would be very interested in Adolin and how his bond with Maya works out.

There are probably several hundred things wrong with this theory, so be sure rip to shreds for me :)

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This all seems plausible! Certainly, IF Adolin is actually on his way to reviving the Deadeyes then I think many people in the cosmere would be interested. You're right that Hoid would be uniquely well positioned to take advantage of a new form of magic appearing.

I do wonder how similar the new MayaBond would be to a Nahel bond. Personally, I think the spren will need to agree to the bond at some point. I don't think anyone would be able to force a spren into providing surgebinding. They can even get out of hemalurgic binding.

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The easiest way to revive a deadeye is for their Radiant to speak the oaths again like how Kaladin revived Syl. With that in mind I don't think you can revive a deadeye without being the type of person that would be a part of their Order already.

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I'm not convinced Hoid is interested in any of the other Orders. Lightweavers have Oaths he's uniquely suited to deal with, and the other Orders might bind him further in ways he can't/won't acquiesce to. Furthermore, Lightweavers' Illusions are something he's specifically interested in, as it is a direct improvement over his preexisting Lightweaving. 

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11 hours ago, Kon-Tiki said:

Furthermore, Lightweavers' Illusions are something he's specifically interested in, as it is a direct improvement over his preexisting Lightweaving. 

Actually, that is odd. He can already lightweave, albeit badly. Why does he prefer improving an existing ability over gaining a new ability? It seems he cannot fly or heal or soulcast. So why lightweaving?

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Hoid most certainly can heal, to the point that the only things he seems genuinely worried about are Nightblood and the Shards, specifically Odium. Brandon even pegged him as the person likely to survive to the end of a melee between all his characters, though his inability to harm people would kind of make determining a winner at the end futile since he wouldn't be able to do anything to the last combatant left standing.

Anyhow, since we don't know what Hoid's ultimate goal is it's difficult to say why he wants one given power over another, though with the caveat above it's safe to assume that he's going to be less interested in powers that can primarily/only be used to harm someone. But Lightweaving is known to be one of if not the first systems of magic he learned to use (non-canon though it is, Liar of Partinel suggests it was the first) and he's been unable to make full use of it for a time, so he wanted to get back to what he used to be able to do with it for whatever reason.

Kon-Tiki also gave another good reason why Hoid might avoid powers that seem incredibly handy, like Gravitation: Doing it would require him to make sacrifices he may not want to, or even be able to. For example, both ways of gaining access to that Surge would place behavioral checks on him that don't seem like the sort of thing he'd like. Bonding an Honorspren would require him to protect people and given his awareness of the big picture and how any given spren feels about that oath, it might just conflict with his statement to Dalinar that he would (albeit tearfully) allow Roshar to burn if it got him what he wanted. Likewise, being compelled to follow the law when you bond a Highspren? Nope, not a chance.

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3 hours ago, Weltall said:

Kon-Tiki also gave another good reason why Hoid might avoid powers that seem incredibly handy, like Gravitation: Doing it would require him to make sacrifices he may not want to, or even be able to. For example, both ways of gaining access to that Surge would place behavioral checks on him that don't seem like the sort of thing he'd like. Bonding an Honorspren would require him to protect people and given his awareness of the big picture and how any given spren feels about that oath, it might just conflict with his statement to Dalinar that he would (albeit tearfully) allow Roshar to burn if it got him what he wanted. Likewise, being compelled to follow the law when you bond a Highspren? Nope, not a chance.

Hoid as a lawyer.  Shudders.

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6 hours ago, Weltall said:

Hoid most certainly can heal, to the point that the only things he seems genuinely worried about are Nightblood and the Shards, specifically Odium. Brandon even pegged him as the person likely to survive to the end of a melee between all his characters, though his inability to harm people would kind of make determining a winner at the end futile since he wouldn't be able to do anything to the last combatant left standing.

Anyhow, since we don't know what Hoid's ultimate goal is it's difficult to say why he wants one given power over another, though with the caveat above it's safe to assume that he's going to be less interested in powers that can primarily/only be used to harm someone. But Lightweaving is known to be one of if not the first systems of magic he learned to use (non-canon though it is, Liar of Partinel suggests it was the first) and he's been unable to make full use of it for a time, so he wanted to get back to what he used to be able to do with it for whatever reason.

Kon-Tiki also gave another good reason why Hoid might avoid powers that seem incredibly handy, like Gravitation: Doing it would require him to make sacrifices he may not want to, or even be able to. For example, both ways of gaining access to that Surge would place behavioral checks on him that don't seem like the sort of thing he'd like. Bonding an Honorspren would require him to protect people and given his awareness of the big picture and how any given spren feels about that oath, it might just conflict with his statement to Dalinar that he would (albeit tearfully) allow Roshar to burn if it got him what he wanted. Likewise, being compelled to follow the law when you bond a Highspren? Nope, not a chance.

I agree that Hoid would never bond spren that would place behavioral checks on him. That's why it all depends on how Adolin's bond with Maya plays out. If he gains access to stormlight/ surges without swearing the oaths, I think that's something Hoid would be very interested in. 

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I think he'll have to swear the Oaths to revive her fully and I expect them to end up with a basically normal Nahel bond by the end despite the unusual formation.

I also think Hoid was looking specifically for Lightweaving to fill in the shortcomings in his Yolish Lightweaving. and wouldn't be motivated to bond with more spren. Also I don't expect reviving dead blades to ever be common or easy.

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17 hours ago, Weltall said:

Hoid most certainly can heal, to the point that the only things he seems genuinely worried about are Nightblood and the Shards, specifically Odium. Brandon even pegged him as the person likely to survive to the end of a melee between all his characters,

Heal himself, but others? Or use the other features of Progression?

17 hours ago, Weltall said:

Anyhow, since we don't know what Hoid's ultimate goal is it's difficult to say why he wants one given power over another, though with the caveat above it's safe to assume that he's going to be less interested in powers that can primarily/only be used to harm someone. But Lightweaving is known to be one of if not the first systems of magic he learned to use (non-canon though it is, Liar of Partinel suggests it was the first) and he's been unable to make full use of it for a time, so he wanted to get back to what he used to be able to do with it for whatever reason.

True assuming he wants specifically Lightweaving, but why

  1. now?
  2. a spren, not a Honorblade
  3. or, if you go all in, why not Yelig-Nar?
  4. (assuming Ashyn magic is impossible for somebody with his healing factor)

And why Lightweaving. Hoid is from Yolen, so he got Yolish Lightweaving first. But why improve on it specifically? Sentimentality?

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2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Heal himself, but others? Or use the other features of Progression?

True assuming he wants specifically Lightweaving, but why

  1. now?
  2. a spren, not a Honorblade
  3. or, if you go all in, why not Yelig-Nar?
  4. (assuming Ashyn magic is impossible for somebody with his healing factor)

And why Lightweaving. Hoid is from Yolen, so he got Yolish Lightweaving first. But why improve on it specifically? Sentimentality?

Adonalsium's Shattering had an effect on magic.

Quote

Questioner

Did the Shattering of Adonalsium have a chance of a breakdown of the magic system on the planet of its creation?

Brandon Sanderson

There was an effect. Breakdown might not be the exact right phrase, but it could fit, but there was definitely an effect.

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

Futhermore it's said that at the time of WoK Hoid's magic wasn't fully functional so perhaps Rosharan Lightweaving could make up for that.

(spoilered for length)

Spoiler

Stormlightning

Where you *inaudible* Hoid as a Lightweaver in Era 2?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was a Lightweaver in Dragonsteel.

Stormlightning

I mean a spren Lightweaver. Unless the timeline's still, really--

Brandon Sanderson

Meaning was I planning for him to become a Lightweaver?

Stormlightning

Before Era 2 since we thought Era 2 was going to be Era 3.

Brandon Sanderson

 Hoid has never quite stopped being a Lightweaver. He is very happy to be fully empowered with things.

Stormlightning

Does that mean he was not fully a Lightweaver?

Brandon Sanderson

You will find out someday. His magic was not fully functional, but he was Lightweaving in Way of Kings

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

 

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3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

True assuming he wants specifically Lightweaving, but why

  1. now?
  2. a spren, not a Honorblade
  3. or, if you go all in, why not Yelig-Nar?

1. 'Because Hoidsense'. As he tells Shallan (and we've known from WoB) he uses some application of Fortune to know where he needs to be, but not why. He's pretty convinced in that scene that the reason he was drawn to Kholinar at that time was to find that Cryptic. Why? Because Fate Says So. :P In the more Watsonian vein, bonding anything but a Highspren was largely impossible for a stretch of several thousand years and he might not have really needed full Lightweaving capabilities earlier when it might have been easier to find a Cryptic looking for a bond partner, or he might not have known how to get a spren offworld at the time. Hoid knows almost everything but he's not omniscient.

2. He may not actually know where to find them, or he may know the Shin have them but for whatever reason he chose not to grab one of the appropriate blades. Or possibly since an Honorblade's bond is shallower it would have some limiting effect on his ability to Lightweave that he doesn't want.

3. Because the only two things we know for a fact have Hoid genuinely worried for his safety are Nightblood and Rayse, with the other Shards being a distant third. Looking to bond a splinter of Odium is quite literally the last thing Hoid would ever want to do since he knows that Rayse wants very much to kill him (to the point that Hoid thinks he'd destroy an entire city on the chance he might kill him in the process) and has the power to do it. Plus, as we've seen bonding Yelig-nar is storming deadly to your health so even if it was connected to some completely different shard that wouldn't bring down the literal wrath of god on Hoid's head, I don't think he'd want to take that chance.

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the Honorblades are significantly less stormlight-efficent.

also, stealing one would be very attention grabbing. He probably doesn't want to deal with the Stone Shamans and the possibility that Odium would either directly notice the the3ft or notice the reactions and track him down from that.

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I already said something similar this on a different thread relating to Hoid but that was before I found this one but a friend of mine pointed it that since Hoid had bonded to a Spren he is, for now, stuck on Roshar. So he had to have a good reason for bonding.  Also I really want to see a conversation between him and the Cryptic. Especially if that one's anything like Pattern.

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It's possible to travel to other worlds while you're bonded to a spren just like it's possible to worldhop while you're a Cognitive Shadow like the Heralds and it's not super-hard to do but it requires some knowledge (WoB contains a Mistborn spoiler). Hoid may or may not have already known the trick going in but if he didn't then he's probably going to either figure it out quickly or track down someone on Roshar who could tell him how it works. He already knows one person he could go to who's figured it out (assuming he's aware they're on Roshar at least) and it probably wouldn't be too hard for him to get ahold of Khriss (by way of Nazh, who's been hanging around the same parts of Roshar) if he needed to since she's almost certain to be able to tell him how to do it, at least from a theoretical perspective.

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On 18.8.2019 at 5:30 PM, Oltux72 said:

Actually, that is odd. He can already lightweave, albeit badly. Why does he prefer improving an existing ability over gaining a new ability? It seems he cannot fly or heal or soulcast. So why lightweaving?

 

As has been already mentioned, he can heal, but he also can fly, after a fashion. He is a

Spoiler

Mistborn

 

, after all. His Cryptic will give him soulcasting as well. As far as I can see the one other Order whose power-set might have been interesting to him and whose Oaths are bound to be rather flexible are the Willshapers. Transportation could have been extremely useful to any worldhopper, but is invaluable to one who can power it with the investiture that is readily available to them, as Hoid doubtlessly can. However, he also seems to aim for getting magic from as many Shards as possible, so he needs to ration his spirit-web, maybe. How much powers can he stuff in it, before it breaks apart like a rotten cloth? Also, it is possible that adoption of an "orphaned", just transferred to the physical spren, which couldn't afford to be too choosy was the only situation where he could form a Nahel bond at all. 

As to why he wouldn't just nab one of the Honorblades - maybe he knows that they are needed on Roshar to fight Odium? Or maybe because unlike the Nahel spren, who are all, with a possible exception of the Stormfather, a mix of Honor and Cultivation, the honorblades were of Honor alone.

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10 hours ago, Weltall said:

It's possible to travel to other worlds while you're bonded to a spren just like it's possible to worldhop while you're a Cognitive Shadow like the Heralds and it's not super-hard to do but it requires some knowledge (WoB contains a Mistborn spoiler). Hoid may or may not have already known the trick going in but if he didn't then he's probably going to either figure it out quickly or track down someone on Roshar who could tell him how it works. He already knows one person he could go to who's figured it out (assuming he's aware they're on Roshar at least) and it probably wouldn't be too hard for him to get ahold of Khriss (by way of Nazh, who's been hanging around the same parts of Roshar) if he needed to since she's almost certain to be able to tell him how to do it, at least from a theoretical perspective.

*sigh* I guess, I was hoping that Hoid would be stuck on Roshar so that we might see more of him in SA 4. 

Edited by Hoid/Wit
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4 minutes ago, Hoid/Wit said:

*sigh* I guess, I was hoping that Hoid would be stuck on Roshar so that we might see more of him in SA 4. 

I imagine he will stick around for the rest of the current arc given the fact that he seems interested in seeing Odium defeated.

After that

Spoiler

We know he was on Scadrial during the events of Era 2, but we don't know exactly when that takes place relative to the SA timeline except after book 5 and possibly during the gap between arcs.

 

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So just want to be clear from the get go, I am not saying Hoid won't try to help Adolin and Maya bond, nor am I saying Hoid would not take an interesting in Adolin. Just saying that as per the WoB below, Hoid does not take an interest in someone just because they are a radiant, or going to become a radiant. 

 

Jeremy (paraphrased)

Does Wit specifically treat people differently when he knows they're going to have a spren bond? (E.g. Renarin, Dalinar)

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, Wit treats people differently, but it is not because of present or nascent spren bonds. He has an opinion of what each person needs to hear. He isn't always correct in this opinion, but he tries to give people what he thinks they need. In Dalinar's case, he simply has too much respect for the man to be glib. In Renarin's case, he believes that the boy has had more than enough breaking down, and is much more in need of building up.

When Worlds Collide 2014 (Aug. 9, 2014)

 

As to his lightweaving, becoming a lightweaver and his feelings on soulcasting (though one of the WoB is not canon yet):

 

Questioner

So Hoid has a Cryptic.

Brandon Sanderson

It is heavily implied that Hoid is trying to get this Cryptic to--

Questioner

And Soulcasting in some sense or another transports someone into Shadesmar. So does he no longer need a perpendicularity?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Hoid has been breaking certain rules along those lines for a long while. I guess he's not breaking any actual rules... He has found, by Stormlight, to do things in ways that others are not using. How about that?

Questioner

That is excellent.

Brandon Sanderson

He is looking forward to having a spren bond that will make things like this easier...

And, audio recorder, that one is not quite canon yet. The one about Hoid.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

 

Stormlightning

If Hoid could have picked to join any order of the Knights Radiant, regardless of the Oaths he had to swear, just the powers, would he have picked Lightweaver?

Brandon Sanderson

He would have.

Stormlightning

Tell me more!

Brandon Sanderson

Lightweaving matches him very well, he's quite familiar with it and experienced with it. He's very good at using it and he likes it.

It's the fulfillment of a long, long quest of his to finally get full access to Lightweaving.

Stormlightning

Even though he had some sort of Lightweaving?

Brandon Sanderson

He did have some sort of, yes. He's a very very happy Hoid.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 7, 2018)

 

 

Stormlightning

You've talked about how Hoid really appreciates his new Lightweaving abilities, but what about the Soulcasting side of things?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you'll have to see.

Stormlightning

Is he excited about that, or does he already have all of that?

Brandon Sanderson

No, he doesn't have all of that. He knows more than a lot of people do, and knows to be more-- frightened of Soulcasting than others are. Frightened is perhaps the wrong term. Wary. 

FanX Spring 2019 (April 19, 2019)
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Sorry!  I'm still hung up on this but this will be my last comment about it, this is why I was thinking that Hoid would be stuck on Roshar.

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

Now that Hoid has bonded a spren, is he locked on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that is a problem. Something will happen that is relevant. RAFO.

 

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3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

So just want to be clear from the get go, I am not saying Hoid won't try to help Adolin and Maya bond, nor am I saying Hoid would not take an interesting in Adolin. Just saying that as per the WoB below, Hoid does not take an interest in someone just because they are a radiant, or going to become a radiant. 

[snip]

Stormlightning

You've talked about how Hoid really appreciates his new Lightweaving abilities, but what about the Soulcasting side of things?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you'll have to see.

Stormlightning

Is he excited about that, or does he already have all of that?

Brandon Sanderson

No, he doesn't have all of that. He knows more than a lot of people do, and knows to be more-- frightened of Soulcasting than others are. Frightened is perhaps the wrong term. Wary. 

FanX Spring 2019 (April 19, 2019)

I like the sound of that one.  I generally considered Soulcasting to be one of the powers with far more potential to become brokenly overpowered (right up there with Forgery), with the biggest limiter being the actual advanced knowledge/Understanding the Surgebinder in question could leverage, and Hoid has more than anyone born since the Shattering.  

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On 8/17/2019 at 10:48 AM, Not-So-Logicalspren said:

My thought is that when you revive a deadeye spren you can almost bypass the oaths.  The Nahel bond is a spren who is attracted to a person who has specific traits, while this bond seems fundamentally different.  I’m think that they’ll be able to form a new type of bond with access to a new (albeit related) form of Surgebinding.

Maybe this is more of a "what will happen with Adolin/Maya" tangent than "What can Hoid do to get Ten Surges", but my take on what "reviving a bond with a deadeye spren" would mean is not so much a "bypass" as an imbalanced, imperfect bond.

As we've seen, for a spren to be able to manifest in the Physical Realm as a Blade (or spear, or fork, etc.) in the first place requires a Nahel Bond with a living Radiant of the Third Ideal. A "deadeye" Blade is a spren that had formed such a bond, then had that bond broken while they were summoned in the Physical Realm. (It's still not clear to me that a spren like Syl, if Third Ideal Kaladin were to "go naughty" again, would just appear as a Blade when that happened, or if what we saw in the Recreance wasn't some kind of explicit intention on the part of the forswearing Radiants to leave behind Shards of power.)

So if Adolin does indeed continue to "revive" Maya, he'll be "kind of" bonded to a "sort of" Cultivationspren of the Third Ideal. (Cue the obligatory Princess Bride quote: "mostly dead, is slightly alive!") However, that Third Ideal level bond wasn't formed in symbiosis with HIM, so I don't think that means he gets the same Surges at the same power level that an Edgedancer of the Third Ideal would have done (i.e., Lift as of Oathbringer).

Or maybe it would. We shall simply have to RAFO.

We've seen from Lift and Kaladin's progression that just being of the First Ideal, or approaching it mentally and spiritually without having said the exact Words, is enough to draw in Stormlight. (Or in Lift's case, to metabolize food to become Invested as the equivalent of drawing in Stormlight. I'm sure she gets more "efficient" with that just as other Radiants do with Stormlight the further she advances in Ideals.)

So my personal prediction is that a reviving Maya will "sort of" be of the Third Ideal, in that she can be summoned/dismissed as a Blade and sense and communicate things in the Physical Realm like incoming threats to Adolin. And that any "scarred-over bonding" she manages with Adolin will start letting him hold Stormlight like a proto-Edgedancer or one of the First Ideal would. (I think that has already been seen to happen: he took suspiciously less damange than he ought to have in the battle of Thaylen Fields, as if he'd unconsciously healed a bit with Stormlight the way a nascent Kaladin had done). And she may or may not be able to form a true Nahel bond with him to enable him to gain Surges and advance further in Ideals, due to the "scarring".

It'd be really cool if Adolin could in fact start progressing as an Edgedancer, but with a handicap to Lift, like he has to work twice as hard to get to the Second and Third Ideal as a normal Radiant would, due to having to "break the scar tissue" on Maya as well as forming his own bond with her at that level. And then only when he gets as far as the original Radiant who broke the oaths with her, will she be fully revived.

Edited by robardin
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1 hour ago, Quantus said:

I like the sound of that one.  I generally considered Soulcasting to be one of the powers with far more potential to become brokenly overpowered (right up there with Forgery), with the biggest limiter being the actual advanced knowledge/Understanding the Surgebinder in question could leverage, and Hoid has more than anyone born since the Shattering.  

I do agree, there seems to be a lot more going on with soulcasting than we know, and it is one of the powers I am most interested in learning more about!

1 hour ago, robardin said:

(It's still not clear to me that a spren like Syl, if Third Ideal Kaladin were to "go naughty" again, would just appear as a Blade when that happened, or if what we saw in the Recreance wasn't some kind of explicit intention on the part of the forswearing Radiants to leave behind Shards of power.)

Brandon confirmed that after the third ideal, if Kaladin broke the oaths, Syl would be locked into shardblade form, though since Kaladin is the oath swearing knight that broke them, it would be easier for him to revive her via re-swearing the oaths. 

Quote

So if Adolin does indeed continue to "revive" Maya, he'll be "kind of" bonded to a "sort of" Cultivationspren of the Third Ideal. (Cue the obligatory Princess Bride quote: "mostly dead, is slightly alive!") However, that Third Ideal level bond wasn't formed in symbiosis with HIM, so I don't think that means he gets the same Surges at the same power level that an Edgedancer of the Third Ideal would have done (i.e., Lift as of Oathbringer).

Nothing to do with your theory, but as an aside, do we have a WoB that Maya is from a 3rd ideal radiant? Since she is a shardblade, we can assume the radiant is at least 3rd ideal, but she could potentially be up to 4th, or 5th ideal. The windrunner and stoneward radiants in Dalinar's vision all had their shardplate, so theoretically they were all at least at their 4th oath. So Maya could be 3rd, 4th, or 5th oathed radiant spren. 

Edited by Pathfinder
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