retitled 4. Some curious parallels between Moelach, the Silent Gatherers, and Edgedancers

[+asmodeus]

Table of Contents: 
4. Some curious parallels between Moelach, the Silent Gatherers, and Edgedancers
5. Truths and Secrets; Of Watching and Taking
3, 9. Ashertmarn and Nergaoul
1. Moash, Ba-Ado-Mishram and the Windrunners

Moelach and the Silent Gatherers have some interesting parallels and relationships to what we know of the Edgedancers.

Parallel 1: By Inversion of Ideals
Lift gives us two of the Edgedancer Ideals:
    2. I will remember those who have been forgotten.
    3. I will listen to those who have been ignored.

This is who Taravangian says the silent gatherers kill, to get Death Rattles:

Quote

“We try to select only the worst cases to move here, for once they are brought to this place, we cannot let them leave if they begin to recover.” He turned to Szeth, eyes sorrowful. “Sometimes we need more bodies than the terminally sick can provide. And so we must bring the forgotten and the lowly. Those who will not be missed.”

Parallel 2: By Inversion of Attributes
Edgedancer attributes:  Healing, Loving
Inference - Edgedancer Radiants usually serve as Healers, backed by having access to Growth and Regrowth by means of Progression. Both Lift and their ideals in general paint them as truly caring for the individual lives of everyone they help. To them, the ignored and the forgotten are an opportunity, for those are the people who need the most help and healing to make things better.

Relevant Epigraph: 

Quote

"The Edgedancers are too busy relocating the tower's servants and farmers to send a representative to record their thoughts in these gemstones. I'll do it for them, then. They are the ones who will be most displaced by this decision. The Radiants will be taken in by nations, but what of all these people now without homes?"

Inverted attributes:  Healing, Apathetic
The Silent Gatherers are literally Healers in a hospital, who kill apathetically because those deaths might give them more Death Rattles. They are Apathetic towards the individual, arguing that the individual suffering they cause will eventually help society. From a certain perspective, one could say that for them, the ignored and the forgotten are also an opportunity - here, these are the people who can be safely killed to get more Death Rattles.

Parallel 3: By Surges
Edgedancer surges:  Abrasion, Progression.
What about Moelach and his effects backs this? I’m basing my answer to this question entirely on specific interpretations of certain quotes. These are informed interpretations, but it does mean I could be way off.

First, here is a quote by the Stormfather:

Quote

No, the Stormfather said. He is far greater than I, but the power of ancient Adonalsium permeates him. And controls him. Odium is a force like pressure, gravitation, or the movement of time. These things cannot break their own rules. Nor can he.

This is relevant, because this introduces the idea of “the movement of time” being a “fundamental force” on the Double Eye, alongside “pressure” and “gravitation.” However, "pressure" and "gravitation" are accounted for on the list of the known 10 Surges, in Adhesion and Gravitation. This implies that some other surge fundamentally represents this "movement of time." Naturally, the the question arises - which one? 

Here's a definition of the word Progression, from Merriam Webster:

    1  a:   sequence of numbers in which each term is related to its predecessor by a uniform law

    2  a:   the action or process of progressing : ADVANCE

        b:   a continuous and connected series : SEQUENCE

    3  a:   succession of musical tones or chords

        b:   the movement of musical parts in harmony

        c:   SEQUENCE sense 2c

A quick google search brings up this, presumably from Oxford Dictionary:
    noun:   the process of developing or moving gradually towards a more advanced state.
                        • a succession; a series
            music  • a passage or movement from one note or chord to another.
             math  • short for arithmetic progression, geometric progression, or harmonic progression.
      astrology  • a predictive technique in which the daily movement of the planets, starting from the day of birth, represents a year in the subject's life.

So, yes. This could be very easily interpreted as the movement of time. Linear time can be interpreted as a progression, or a sequence... a string of moments, each moment coming after the previous one and leading to the next. Or call it a continous line, whichever works for your imagination. But time... progresses, it keeps on ticking. It moves on, marches forward. Constantly.

Forward movement along such a progression of time can explain what little we know of Growth.

In the absence of true backward time travel, Regrowth can be explained as a form of backward movement of time - going back to a previous state/moment, to before you were wounded. Now, in practice and effect, this can get a little wonky, because of how this actually takes place by looking at ideals and such, but even then, this interpretation holds semantically.

The second surge of relevance is Abrasion. From the Merriam Webster website, this is the definition of Abrasion:
    1  a:   a wearing, grinding, or rubbing away by friction
        b:   Irritation
    2:   an abraded area of the skin or mucous membrane

A quick google search brings up this, likely from Oxford Dictionary:
    noun:   the process of scraping or wearing something away.
                • an area damaged by scraping or wearing away.

With these interpretations of Abrasion and Progression in mind, read what Jezrien has to say about Moelach:

Quote

“Moelach is close. I can hear his wheezing, his scratching, his scraping at time like a rat breaking through walls.”

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by asmodeus

[Ixthos]

@asmodeus Very well spotted! I also especially agree about Progression being a time surge as well as relating to life and possibly the branching possibilities - I think that will tie into both Edgedancers and Truthwatchers abiliites

Mistborn spoilers

Spoiler

I personally think that Truthwatchers correspond closely to the ideas of the Hybrid metals / temporal quadrant, with their abilities corresponding to both time - allomancy - and healing - feruchemy - just as Bondsmiths seem to tie to the Spiritual metals / enhancement quadrant. So progression tying to both healing and time would make sense.

 

The idea of Moelach being the twisted version of Edgedancers is very very fitting, and suggests the others tie to the other types of Radiants in a similar way, not just in powers but in attitude, being the twisted flip of their role rather than just their capabilities. Again, very well spotted!

[KandraAllomancer]

Great insights about Edgedancers and Progression, but I'm not sure if you got the right suspect. Moelach's ability sounds more like corrupted version of Progression + Illumination, which also fits nicely with futuresight granted by Glys. And I wonder if all 10 Voidsurges will be combinations of two KR Surges like this...

I think the twisted Edgedancer is actually Taravangian - Cultivation created a superpowered Edgendancer (Lift), so why not an anti-Edgedancer? A boon and a curse to the Knight Radiants, both ultimately her tools? Also, Edgedancer spren are Cultivationspren, so the whole thing has Cultivation written all over it

Edited December 26, 2019 by KandraAllomancer

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Ixthos said:

The idea of Moelach being the twisted version of Edgedancers is very very fitting, and suggests the others tie to the other types of Radiants in a similar way, not just in powers but in attitude, being the twisted flip of their role rather than just their capabilities. Again, very well spotted!

Quote

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)
#1 Share Copy

 

Play/Pause

 

XS-Terrain

Also, does each of the Unmade have a corresponding order of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Eh... Kind of.

XS-Terrain

Ok. So there are nine Unmade right, so which one is left out?

Brandon Sanderson

Bondsmith. But it's not as one to one, there's some fuzziness in there.

6 hours ago, asmodeus said:

What do you guys think?

I do think that your current analysis could well be correct although I personally matched him with truthwatchers.

Edited December 26, 2019 by Ookla the Prolific

[+asmodeus]

On 12/26/2019 at 10:20 AM, KandraAllomancer said:

Great insights about Edgedancers and Progression, but I'm not sure if you got the right suspect. Moelach's ability sounds more like corrupted version of Progression + Illumination, which also fits nicely with futuresight granted by Glys.

On 12/26/2019 at 10:22 AM, Ookla the Prolific said:

I do think that your current analysis could well be correct although I personally matched him with truthwatchers.

I can make far better arguments for another candidate to mirror Truthwatchers. I will eventually make that post.

Also, I know of that WoB, and over time, wrestling with it, I've come to think that it's not as explicit as it seems.

There's several, small things that make me think that there's a difference between a Knight Radiant Order, a Surgebinder, and the powerset of a Surge-pair. 

The Honorblades grant the powerset of a Surge-pair. This includes what you can do with that magic - so Jezrein's Honorblade is Adhesion + Gravitation, and it allows one to manipulate gravity, or stick things together, etc. This is the base magic granted to the Heralds.

A Surgebinder, like Kaladin, is a living expression of a Surge-pair. This includes the powerset of that Surge-pair, but it also means that Kaladin has to be a specific kind of person. The ideals and attributes that are associated with his Surge-pair are natural extensions of Adhesion and Gravitation filtered through the visual of Honor and Cultivation, and Kaladin also has to incorporate that inti his very existence. This is an extension of the magic, and this is a Surgebinder, who is also a Radiant, but this doesn't necessarily make him a member of the Order of Windrunners.

A Knight Radiant Order, I don't think is inherently magical (though at this point it might as well be) - it is an organization that is made up of a specific flavour of Surgebinders. For this to unilaterally exist, Ishar had to play a hand in things, asking of spren and men so that all Surgebinders would always view themselves as Knights Radiant, and all of them always belonged to their orders. But this had to be accomplished, and is not inherently a part of the magic, though I suspect things have changed enough that any non-order Surgebinders probably won't show up.

Now, I'm equating The Silent Gatherers to the Surgebinders of the Edgedancer Order, minus the powerset (for now atleast. Them not having powers now doesn't mean they will not have powers eventually. It doesn't mean they will either, but it also doesn't discount them from gaining them in the future, particularly now that Odium has an incentive to back the Diagram Organisation.)

I'm equating Moelach to the Vedel and the Edgedancer Honorblade, except in this case, it's not a sword, but an entity with some level of sapience. He has the powerset, but without any of the extra faff that a Surgebinder has to go through/uphold/be/qualify with. Or in his case, the mindless-ness excuses him from the requirement of having a particular personality. It's different in some way.

Edited February 3, 2020 by asmodeus

[Ixthos]

@Ookla the Prolific I know the Unmade match the orders, but I originally thought it was more in the sense of how their powers matched up, rather than in role, like the Midnight Mother for Lightweavers was because of her abilities to make constructs that tried to mimic what she saw, rather than being tied to the idea of making lies real. The idea of the unmade being tied to the way the orders functioned wasn't something I'd previously considered, though in hindsight - if this theory is right - it makes a lot of sense.

[Karger]

36 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

The idea of the unmade being tied to the way the orders functioned wasn't something I'd previously considered, though in hindsight - if this theory is right - it makes a lot of sense.

Hm.  Food for thought.  I had not considered the inverse.

[Argent]

This seems like a solid foundation. It's not much of a theory just yet, most observations, but I think they tie in nicely and could lead to something. Whether that something is real(matic) or thematic remains to be seen. 

[Honorless]

Great to see you're still working on this theory, @asmodeus! I like this interpretation of Moelach a lot, though I have to admit that I too associate him more with the Truthwatchers

I hope you don't edit the previous mega-theory completely and just make a new thread!

I am interested to see which Unmade you think mirrors the Truthwatchers. Looking forward to it and more, if you have them!

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

16 hours ago, Ixthos said:

The idea of the unmade being tied to the way the orders functioned wasn't something I'd previously considered, though in hindsight - if this theory is right - it makes a lot of sense.

I like this theory . I really problem I have is I can’t seem to find an opposite for 2 unmade . Off the top of my head the thrill and Yelignar.

       The thrill I would say opposite would be Bondsmith . They unite instead of divide . While the thrill is pure chaos . Brandon says the Bondsmith are not represented by an unmade . So unless I’m not understanding what he meant and I’m oversimplifying this I’m confused

        Yelignar has all 10 surges . You swallow a gem and your body is taken over . I can’t seem to find a opposite . Maybe Willshapers 

     Anyways can somebody tell me what orders the Thrill and Yelignar oppose? 

[Honorless]

15 minutes ago, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

I like this theory . I really problem I have is I can’t seem to find an opposite for 2 unmade . Off the top of my head the thrill and Yelignar.

       The thrill I would say opposite would be Bondsmith . They unite instead of divide . While the thrill is pure chaos . Brandon says the Bondsmith are not represented by an unmade . So unless I’m not understanding what he meant and I’m oversimplifying this I’m confused

        Yelignar has all 10 surges . You swallow a gem and your body is taken over . I can’t seem to find a opposite . Maybe Willshapers 

     Anyways can somebody tell me what orders the Thrill and Yelignar oppose? 

We'll see more of Yelig-Nar and the mechanics of what exactly he does.

So far we know that 1) he grants access to all 10 Surges

2) you have to swallow a gemstone

3) your willpower has to be strong or you will be consumed by him

4) violet crystals form from his host, which seems to be the colour of Voidlight

 

I'm going tentatively with Windrunners for now...

Edited December 27, 2019 by Honorless

[Aon Tia]

17 minutes ago, Honorless said:

I'm going tentatively with Windrunners for now...

I can see that especially since both the times we had Yelignar facing Kaladin. It seems that windrunners are going to deal with yelignar, where shallan is dealing with midnight mother Reshephir. 
 

[Honorless]

53 minutes ago, The traveller said:

I can see that especially since both the times we had Yelignar facing Kaladin. It seems that windrunners are going to deal with yelignar, where shallan is dealing with midnight mother Reshephir. 
 

Yeah, it fits narratively plus they are somewhat contrasting. Windrunners are about putting others before oneself, Yelig-Nar seems opposite to that: your own will instead of your convictions and a greed for self-empowerment

[Aon Tia]

And instead of protecting, yelignar is all about destruction. 

[+asmodeus]

On 12/27/2019 at 6:18 AM, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

Anyways can somebody tell me what orders the Thrill and Yelignar oppose? 

Nergaoul, I'm leaning on attributing to the Stonewards.

Windrunners are taken in my current model. The open slots are Skybreakers, Willshapers, and Elsecallers. Yelig-nar can go in place of the Skybreakers (Amaram and Aesudan can be considered Vain but Confident -> believing their own hype over any external code of law, which is the exact opposite of the Skybreaker progression - of giving oneself to an external code of law due to a desire to be just but lack of confidence in one's own ability to distinguish good from evil, and then through experience, slowly gaining confidence in one's own ability to subjectively interpret and apply the more objective code/law chosen. And Yelig-nar could consume by Division) or the Elsecallers (some inversion of Wise and Careful also fits them just as much, and one could say that Yelig-nar is using their individual bond with the three realms to Transport himself slowly in the physical, slowly making them undergo a twisted Transformation to make a vessel for him, with all the crystals spouting out of them and their hearts getting replaced with gemhearts and all).

Though, as you people've mentioned, there are thematic parallels between him and Willshapers too. So, I'm still leaving him open.

Wow, that is super condensed, and heavy reading. Sorry!

Edited February 3, 2020 by asmodeus

[+ILuvHats]

12 hours ago, Honorless said:

I'm going tentatively with Windrunners for now...

Plus, Yelig-Nar is known as the Blightwind, which literally sounds like an inversion of the Windrunners. 

[Gilphon]

I'm very skeptical about trying to associate the Unmade with the Orders. Like Brandon's phrasing is very hesitant in that WoB; implying at least to my eyes that any associations that exist are loose and unclear.

[+Extesian]

I like this. I agree Progression is probably a temporal thing, but more from the perspective of taking the Spritual Ideal of the object and using investiture to (in the case of growth) accelerate natural growth or (in the case of regrowth) provide accelerated spritual healing. So I don't think regrowth actually looks back in time, but looks at the spiritual ideal (which is timeless). But it's essentially accelerating time. I don't think it can decelerate or reverse time. 

I also think your tie with abrasion is a bit tenuous. Im also wondering if it fits a bit better with truthwatchers, illumination feels very death rattle-ish, pulling from futuresight in the spritual realm. But i like the connections with the silent gatherers. What you need is a convincing explanation for why those surges would result in using the spark of death to fuel futuresight. Again, i feel that's easier with illumination but maybe there's a way to tie it to abrasion. 

Coz yeah I'm pretty convinced generally that the Unmade do each achieve their powers through a distorted use of the normal surges. I'm not convinced that the Unmade represent two surges, I think it may just be one each. But this seems like a pretty reasonable guess. And a good analysis.