On Bondsmith-spren: A Potential Answer to Why the Sibling Slumbers

[asmodeus Ferring]

We've all taken jabs at trying to figure out what the Sibling may be about.

The Community's Take
General consensus is that there's three Shards on Roshar, and three Bondsmiths, so if the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, and the Sibling are the three Bondsmith spren (which they are), then the Stormfather corresponds to Honor (which he does), the Nightwatcher to Cultivation (which "she" does), and the Sibling either corresponds to Odium, or is a mix in between Honor and Cultivation. For obvious reasons, it wouldn't make sense for the Sibling to be associated with Odium and still be a part of Surgebinding, so we tend to lean towards the "mix between Honor and Cultivation" more.

Another general thing we tend to believe about the Sibling is that they are tied to Urithiru in some way, and may power even power the city.

And the last well believed fact about the Sibling is that they are intricately tied to Stone. I know Calderis has a theory on why the Nightwatcher might be stone instead, but that's his to discuss.

I'm gonna try and offer a different take on some of these points, and provide additional context to others.

 

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Whose magic is Surgebinding?
The question asks it all. There's some fuzziness with what happened on Ashyn, but from what we know, the specific powerset of Radiant Surgebinding was first seen in the Honorblades. This implies that the exact specifics, at least, were first defined by Honor. If you look at the Heralds, we have 5 Male Heralds and 5 Female Heralds - a near perfect divide, with all the Male Heralds bunched up around what seems to be the Honor-half of the chart, whereas the Female Heralds bunched up around the Cultivation-half.

Then we have spren copying Honorblades. This fact alone makes things very fuzzy. On one side, the spren are... essentially on a spectrum of Honor and Cultivation, with some spren having more Honor and others having more Cultivation. Yet others, like the Stormfather and Nightwatcher, are almost guaranteed to be nearly a 100% one or the other. But the pattern breaks a little if you try and match the spren to the Heralds. By association,
        a.) Windrunners, Skybreakers, Willshapers, Stonewards and Bondsmiths should be closer to Honor, whereas
        b.) Dustbringers, Edgedancers, Truthwatchers, Lightweavers and Elsecallers should lean towards Cultivation.

And this works, until you look at the Bondsmiths. The Nightwatcher, who should practically be all Cultivation, is a Bondsmith spren, meaning that in Surgebinding, Cultivation is technically more present than Honor. This is despite Brandon telling us on atleast one occasion that the original Knights Radiants were focused more on Honor and his spren (which, depending on how you read it, could and couldn't conflict with Cultivation's presence in the magic).

There's a third way of dividing the system too. You could theoretically say that Surgebinding is of both Shards because
        a.) All Radiants speak Oaths, which come from Honor, and
        b.) All Radiants have to grow over a total of five Oaths, which evokes the presence of Cultivation

I'm going to put forth the idea that there is a third element here, but let's hold these two in mind, for now.

 

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When in doubt, stare at the Surgebinding Chart.
When most people think of what the Surgebinding Chart tells us, they tend to think that all it tells us is that there are 10 orders, 10 Surges, and that each order gets 2 Surges, and that each Surge is shared between two orders, in a cyclic pattern. Usually, we tend to think that all the extra connections don't matter, and that they're there just for fluff. But, @Master_Moridinfound something interesting. The extra connections start making somewhat more sense once you pull in the Soulcasting Essences. Here's the full graph, and because not all of you are maniacs who have it by heart, I've gone forth and labeled it too:

(it is definitely interesting that the whole thing looks like a gemstone)

Smoke, for example, is connected to Fire, Wind, and Oil. Stone connects to metal, crystal (both come from the ground), water (crem), and flesh/meat/sinew (don't ask). They don't all immediately fall in place, because we think there's more weight to these connections in a metaphorical or philosophical sense, and there are also some thematic Order connections that we're wondering about.

 

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The Actual Theory
However, an interesting thing happens when we zoom in on the Bondsmiths. Usually, when we think of the Bondsmiths, we think that they have two surges (Adhesion and Tension), and are adjacent to Windrunners (by Adhesion), and Stonewards (by Tension). Which is fine, except in the full chart, Bondsmiths don't have two, but three adjacent Orders:

 

The Stormfather tells Dalinar that his is the power of Connection, so I can see why "Sinew" or "Flesh/Meat" could be associated with his order. But the interesting thing is the three (yep, three) essences they connect to - Wind, Stone, and Pulp/Wood/Plant Matter.

I could sit here and establish a line of reasoning from the Essences to the three Bondsmith spren, but it's pretty simple from here on out. The Eila Stele mentions three Gods, of Wind, Spren and Stone.

The Wind can pretty easily be attributed to the Stormfather, both because wind, and because his relation to Honorspren and the Windrunners.

The Nightwatcher, by the virtue of color green, her home-base of the Valley and connection to Cultivation as "her heir", and indirectly through an excerpt from Rhythm of War, can associate with the Truthwatchers, the essence of Pulp/Wood/Plant Matter, and the "God of spren" from the Eila Stele. 

This leaves the Sibling, and Stone. So yes, I'm establishing a harder line of reasoning for why the Sibling should associate with Stone. But far more importantly, this establishes the Sibling and the Nightwatcher as being to the Stonewards and Truthwatchers what the Stormfather is to the Windrunners. And for more importantly, this can tell us a little bit more about the Sibling.

Earlier, I established two components in Radiant Surgebinding: Oaths from Honor, and Growth from Cultivation. Which works, until you consider that Radiance actually has three elements - the third is that all Radiants are also completely dependent on Stormlight, which is responsible for the literal radiance in Radiance. And even before the death of Honor, the Stormfather is disproportionally more important than any other spren to Surgebinding, as he is the source of all Stormlight. 

So my theory: All three Bondsmith-spren are intricately tied to Radiance itself. 
        a.) The Stormfather provides Stormlight, representing Honor's Power in Surgebinding
        b.) The Nightwatcher should be tied to Growth, representing Cultivation's association with Growth in Surgebinding
        c.) The Sibling should be the spren closely tied to Oaths themselves, representing Honor's association with Oaths in Surgebinding

And this works on multiple levels.

See, Stone being associated with the very concept of Oaths makes perfect sense - Stone is hard, and it weathers Storms but it doesn't break. An Oath, on a world where Honor resides, is this... abstract thing that must never be broken, and must weather all adversity. Perhaps this is also where the Oathstone of Truthless comes from culturally, and may have ties to Shin veneration of Stone.

Another potential way this works is if you look at Stonewards and their attributes - Dependable and Resourceful. It also works if you look at Taln, who was the only one of the Heralds by Aharietam to have never bent his Oath and let the Singers pass.

One thing that this implies is that out of the three Bondsmith, both the Stormfather and the Sibling are of Honor, and the Nightwatcher is of Cultivation.

Another thing this implies is the reason why the Sibling may have gone to sleep, at least from a narrative perspective. We have two things we know about this:

• Oaths are about perception and belief - a Knight Radiant and their spren must believe in them and they mean what the KR and spren believe they should. From the Gem archive, we have at least one excerpt which says that the Knights Radiant may have been questioning their own worthiness (perhaps soon after Honor "raved" at them), and that this might be tied to something happening to the Sibling.
• The Stormfather mentions that "you" (which I read as the humans) "have hurt them enough"

What I'm trying to get at, here, is that if the Sibling is... somehow intricately tied to the Oaths and the keeping of Oaths (Stone), then it makes complete sense that the mass breaking of Oaths at the Recreance was not pleasant for them. This means that as Radiants start speaking Oaths, the Sibling may start re-awakening. And if the Sibling is similarly tied to Urithiru, then the Sibling's re-awakening may be intricately tied to the re-awakening of Urithiru. This may be what the blob for RoW may be alluding to.

In conclusion, here's the structure I'm implying:

 

I want to dig into what I think this implies for the magic of Roshar in general here (including Voidbinding), but this is already too long, so for now this is it.

Edited April 23, 2020 by asmodeus

[Honorless Lord Ruler]

That is the best take I've seen on the Sibling since Calderis & Blightsong's Melishi imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram at cost to not only the Parshendi but also his spren.

I like the connections you make for the Sibling. Honorspren do make sense seen in this light, but aren't Cultivationspren closer to Cultivation than Truthwatcher spren? Then again the latter Order's symbol is green and in the shape of leaves. This is could possibly be a cultural thing among the spren like Brandon said

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Zas678 (paraphrased)

A question related to that. There's an idea going around that all the spren that can Nahel Bond, all Knight Radiant spren are called honorspren, and then Nohadon talks specifically about honorspren. Is that the case? You know, is it just the Windrunner spren, or is it all the spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I'm going to deal with this in the next book. So I'll just go ahead and let it be a literal RAFO. It is coming.

*interruption, leading Brandon to lose his train of though*

So what we are dealing with here is that all spren are indeed all pieces of the one who has gone, so those spren are all- except the Windrunner spren, the spren like Syl, have certain umm.

Zas678 (paraphrased)

Nohadon mentioned that "All the spren aren't as discerning as honorspren."

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

So there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves honorspren, if that makes sense, and there is some disagreement among scholars about which ones are really, you know "This is what defines an honorspren".

But the spren you are running into are all *inaudible* of either Honor or Cultivation, or some mixture between them. And you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation. That should be able to be *inaudible*.

Writing for Charity Conference (March 17, 2012)

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Dragon13

Syl identifies herself as an honorspren.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Dragon13

Would Wyndle identify himself as a cultivation spren?

Brandon Sanderson

He would definitely... Yes. I think you could say that he would.

Dragon13

By the same logic, would a voidspren follow the same naming convention, so to speak?

Brandon Sanderson

Here's the thing. Certain spren have decided that they are the most pure forms of Honor, or that they are the most pure form of whatever, where all of them are kind of... Syl's got a good argument for what she is. But there are other spren that would be like "well, I'm an honorspren too, I'm just this variety of honorspren." Does that make sense? Syl's like "I'm an American!" and I'm like "I'm an Nebraskan!" Yes, you're an American. I'm an American too. It's kind of similar to that. But she would be the most pure... many would view her as the purest form. Wyndle would view himself as the purest form of a Cultivationspren.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

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Brandon Sanderson

So all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. Um... There is some Odium influence too, but that’s mostly voidbinding, which is the map in the back of the first book.

But, but even the powers, it’s, it’s really this sort of thing. What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place.

Questioner

The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

Questioner

Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not.

 

[asmodeus Ferring]

On 4/12/2020 at 5:11 AM, R J said:

Honorspren do make sense seen in this light, but aren't Cultivationspren closer to Cultivation than Truthwatcher spren? Then again the latter Order's symbol is green and in the shape of leaves.

There is more in here that's weird. Truthwatchers are the order whose symbol looks like grass. Renarin sees. His Order has the color green, associated with Emeralds, soulcasting essence Pulp and Body focus hair. Interesting then, that Cultivationspren (the spren that make Edgedancers) are green and have hair made of vines. In the Physical, Cultivationspren look like growing vines.

SImilarly, Edgedancers are White (Diamonds), have the Soulcasting Essence Crystal and Body Focus of eyes. Yet, it's the Truthwatchers, whose spren manifests as a ray of light shining through glass and falling on a surface.

Now, Edgedancerspren, in the physical, do have crystal in the vines of their spren, and for Truthwatcherspren, when they stop, the light slowly emates from them and amkes the shape of growing plants and leaves.

Still, interesting, no?

[Frustration Lord Ruler]

On 4/11/2020 at 11:31 PM, asmodeus said:

See, Stone being associated with the very concept of Oaths makes perfect sense - Stone is hard, and it weathers Storms but it doesn't break. An Oath, on a world where Honor resides, is this... abstract thing that must never be broken, and must weather all adversity. Perhaps this is also where the Oathstone of Truthless comes from culturally, and may have ties to Shin veneration of Stone.

One thing that brings the Sibling back to Cultivation is something you missed for thinking like we do, on Roshar stone grows due to crem.

[asmodeus Ferring]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

One thing that brings the Sibling back to Cultivation is something you missed for thinking like we do, on Roshar stone grows due to crem.

I noticed it. See the Water-Stone connecting line.

You could argue that crem-water comes in Highstorms, so the Highstorms must also have a connection to Stone or Cultivation. That's not true, however.

Although, do we have anything that connects crem to Cultivation? Because if iirc, that's exactly what Calderis' theory was about.

Edited April 16, 2020 by asmodeus
punctuation

[Halyo_Alex Honorspren]

Just now, asmodeus said:

Although, do we have anything that connects crem to Cultivation? Because if iirc, that's exactly what Calderis, theory was about.

Well, Crem-water does provide the minerals for creatures to grow Gemhearts, and thus house a spren inside for their bond, like the Parshendi or the Chasmfiends. So yeah, that might count.

[agrabes Elantrian]

So to simplify your theory and make sure I'm following:

Bondsmiths are connected to three other orders - Willshapers, Windrunners, and Truthwatchers.  Those three orders' associated colors/elements are Stone, Wind, and Pulp.  Two of the three Bondsmith spren are generally known, each could reasonably be associated with Wind and Pulp (less so for pulp/Nightwatcher than Wind/Stormfather).  If pulp and wind are taken, logically the third should be associated with stone.  This makes sense so far.

Then, assuming the Sibling is the third Bondsmith Spren, it must be associated with stone.  Because it is associated with stone, you argue it should also be associated with the oaths in general.  And because it is associated with the oaths, then its slumber is caused by the mass breaking of the oaths.

I personally think this is quite a bit of a stretch.  I think the biggest evidence against the Sibling being associated with the oaths is that the Stormfather seems much more associated with the oaths.  He seems to be the one who watches over the Honorspren and has at least some influence over their oaths.  He seems to actively approve or deny oaths saying things like "These words are accepted."  At a minimum he does this for Syl, but he may do it for other spren as well.  Even if you could say that both the Stormfather and the Sibling are associated with the oaths, this would mean that the Stormfather should have also slumbered when the oaths were broken which did not happen.

Aside from that, I think it's also fair to say that it's really tough to link Nightwatcher to pulp/plant matter.  She doesn't seem to have any properties related to plants, aside from being associated with Cultivation who is associated with plants.  The things she does are not related to plant matter or growing plants.  So, if Nightwatcher isn't associated with "pulp" then why should the Sibling be associated with stone?  

I think the third connection between radiant orders is about personality affinities between typical members of those orders.  I seem to remember it being said in the books or in WoB that Windrunners and Lightweavers are naturally suited to work well together.  Though, I'll admit I can't find that reference now so it may have just been someone else's theory.  Or, it could be that the third line represents links between the essences as believed by the Vorin religion during the time of the books.  I think this was referenced in a WoB.

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William Anderson

Why are do the Windrunners, Elsecallers, Stonewards, and Dustbringers have an extra connection on the Surgebinding diagram? Why do the Edgedancer, Skybreaker, Lightweaver, Willshaper's have a broken connection on the diagram? What are the dragon type things in the back of the diagram?

Brandon Sanderson

The dragon type things are a certain animal you've seen several places in the story so far.

These connections will be explained eventually, but remember it's not the orders being connected, but instead their elemental representations. This diagram is very metaphysical, and some of the elements of it are cultural.

Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A (Aug. 13, 2014)

 

[Halyo_Alex Honorspren]

4 hours ago, agrabes said:

So to simplify your theory and make sure I'm following:

Bondsmiths are connected to three other orders - Willshapers, Windrunners, and Truthwatchers.  Those three orders' associated colors/elements are Stone, Wind, and Pulp.  Two of the three Bondsmith spren are generally known, each could reasonably be associated with Wind and Pulp (less so for pulp/Nightwatcher than Wind/Stormfather).  If pulp and wind are taken, logically the third should be associated with stone.  This makes sense so far.

Then, assuming the Sibling is the third Bondsmith Spren, it must be associated with stone.  Because it is associated with stone, you argue it should also be associated with the oaths in general.  And because it is associated with the oaths, then its slumber is caused by the mass breaking of the oaths.

I personally think this is quite a bit of a stretch.  I think the biggest evidence against the Sibling being associated with the oaths is that the Stormfather seems much more associated with the oaths.  He seems to be the one who watches over the Honorspren and has at least some influence over their oaths.  He seems to actively approve or deny oaths saying things like "These words are accepted."  At a minimum he does this for Syl, but he may do it for other spren as well.  Even if you could say that both the Stormfather and the Sibling are associated with the oaths, this would mean that the Stormfather should have also slumbered when the oaths were broken which did not happen.

Aside from that, I think it's also fair to say that it's really tough to link Nightwatcher to pulp/plant matter.  She doesn't seem to have any properties related to plants, aside from being associated with Cultivation who is associated with plants.  The things she does are not related to plant matter or growing plants.  So, if Nightwatcher isn't associated with "pulp" then why should the Sibling be associated with stone?  

I think the third connection between radiant orders is about personality affinities between typical members of those orders.  I seem to remember it being said in the books or in WoB that Windrunners and Lightweavers are naturally suited to work well together.  Though, I'll admit I can't find that reference now so it may have just been someone else's theory.  Or, it could be that the third line represents links between the essences as believed by the Vorin religion during the time of the books.  I think this was referenced in a WoB.

 

(bold emphasis for what i'm specifically replying to)

Alternatively, the reason the Stormfather is doing those things right now is precisely because the Sibling is slumbering and can't do that right now. Additionally, he was given the power to create Honorspren by Honor himself, so of course he would watch over the Honorspren and their Windrunner bondmates, even if we ignore their relation via the other evidence asmodeus presented. He seems incredibly protective of the Sibling as well, as we see when Dalinar prods for more information on them, and perhaps that is in part why he felt obliged to take over those roles when the Sibling went into its slumber. I'm not saying he DEFINITELY took those roles from the Sibling, but it's a possibility that could explain this discrepancy in their roles as the Bondsmith Spren.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Halyo_Alex

[BrightLord Swageas Pahn Kahl]

Just a small little tweak to what you put in your opening statement.

I think that you're spot on with correspondence of males and females being with Honor and Cultivation respectively with the exception to Dustbringers and Willshapers.

Cultivation's orders tend to focus more on growth of some kind, which is commonly manifested in scholarly pursuits, hence Willshapers and their innovation.

Honor's orders tend to focus on oathkeeping, which is manifested in some directly physical and/or authority pursuit, hence Dustbringers and their guardianship.

[asmodeus Ferring]

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

Then, assuming the Sibling is the third Bondsmith Spren, it must be associated with stone.  Because it is associated with stone, you argue it should also be associated with the oaths in general.  And because it is associated with the oaths, then its slumber is caused by the mass breaking of the oaths.

I personally think this is quite a bit of a stretch.  I think the biggest evidence against the Sibling being associated with the oaths is that the Stormfather seems much more associated with the oaths.  He seems to be the one who watches over the Honorspren and has at least some influence over their oaths.  He seems to actively approve or deny oaths saying things like "These words are accepted."  At a minimum he does this for Syl, but he may do it for other spren as well.  Even if you could say that both the Stormfather and the Sibling are associated with the oaths, this would mean that the Stormfather should have also slumbered when the oaths were broken which did not happen.

Aside from that, I think it's also fair to say that it's really tough to link Nightwatcher to pulp/plant matter.  She doesn't seem to have any properties related to plants, aside from being associated with Cultivation who is associated with plants.  The things she does are not related to plant matter or growing plants.  So, if Nightwatcher isn't associated with "pulp" then why should the Sibling be associated with stone?  

I think the third connection between radiant orders is about personality affinities between typical members of those orders.  I seem to remember it being said in the books or in WoB that Windrunners and Lightweavers are naturally suited to work well together.  Though, I'll admit I can't find that reference now so it may have just been someone else's theory.  Or, it could be that the third line represents links between the essences as believed by the Vorin religion during the time of the books.  I think this was referenced in a WoB.

This is fair criticism, and reading back, I didn't really put my motivation down thoroughly.

It's been a tiny pet peeve of mine, ever since I've read OB, how important the Stormfather is to Surgebinding, or to all of Rosharan magic. Because all extensions of "natural" magic on Roshar (like Fabrials and Surgebinding) run and are completely dependent on Stormlight, which the Stormfather is intricately tied to.

It makes sense then, that Dalinar, being bonded to the Stormfather, can overcharge people with Stormlight. Without him, none of that magic has any fuel to work. Because that's the Stormfather and the Highstorms' role on Roshar - to provide Stormlight.

But it makes him uniquely and disproportionately more important in Surgebinding. In comparison, even before the death of Honor, the other two Bondsmith spren just don't have as clean roles associated with them. That's something that's been on the back of my mind for a while.

Then, on one of the conversations on Discord, we had this discussion on the Stone that Szeth was given as a Truthless. And it makes sense for a piece of stone to metaphorically be associated with a promise, right? Stone is something naturally hard, and it endures.

Another separate piece was about a discussion on the nature of Stonewards. What would they be like, as people? And there, we have this, from the in-world Words of Radiance:

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Now, as each order was thus matched to the nature and temperament of the Herald it named patron, there was none more archetypal of this than the Stonewards, who followed after Talenelat'Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of War: they thought it a point of virtue to exemplify resolve, strength, and dependability. Alas, they took less care for imprudent practice of their stubbornness, even in the face of proven error. 

Given Taln, and their attribute of Dependable, it seemed (and I'm still cutting some context here because it's been sometime since this conversation) that the members of this order stick to what they say, like holding to an Oath, but above and beyond what other Radiants also generally do. Like Taln holding to the Oathpact beyond reason.

And then there's this conversation in the community that I've seen about Oaths being of Honor and the progression of Oaths being of Cultivation. So when I saw the three connections of Bondsmiths, and I knew the Stormfather was associated with Stormlight and Winds, and I also had this background idea of Taln and the Stonewards being Oath-y, and this association of Stonewards and Oaths, I just put everything together to make one coherent idea.

Stone can be metaphorically associated with Oaths, and the Sibling should also be associated with Stone, which establishes a connection between Oaths and the Sibling and then taking this:

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"Something is happening to the Sibling. I agree this is true, but the division among the Knights Radiant is not to blame. Our perceived worthiness is a separate issue."

To mean that as Radiants lost faith in themselves as being worthy of the power they wielded, as they lost faith in their actions being the right course of action, and hence as they lost faith in their own Oaths (something which lead to the Recreance), the Sibling started going to sleep, and Urithiru started loosing it's Radiance. And at the recreance, as the Oaths are broken, that process is complete. The Sibling has been hurt enough, and completely goes to sleep. Urithiru goes completely dark.

In the end, I just like that narrative thread.

There is a big glaring whole in this theory - the Sibling should predate Surgebinding, so how did they get associated with Oaths so strongly? I don't know that.

 

32 minutes ago, BrightLordSwageas said:

Just a small little tweak to what you put in your opening statement.

I think that you're spot on with correspondence of males and females being with Honor and Cultivation respectively with the exception to Dustbringers and Willshapers.

Cultivation's orders tend to focus more on growth of some kind, which is commonly manifested in scholarly pursuits, hence Willshapers and their innovation.

Honor's orders tend to focus on oathkeeping, which is manifested in some directly physical and/or authority pursuit, hence Dustbringers and their guardianship.

Mmhmm, I don't disagree with that per se. The Order associations I made was with Herald-gender though, and the Willshaper patron - Kalak - is male, while the Dustbringer patron - Chanarach - is female. Hence Willshapers being more Honor and Dustbringers being more Cultivation on that list.

Edited April 16, 2020 by asmodeus
coherance :p

[Halyo_Alex Honorspren]

3 hours ago, asmodeus said:

There is a big glaring hole in this theory - the Sibling should predate Surgebinding, so how did they get associated with Oaths so strongly? I don't know that.

I have heard a theory that might seem a bit crazy, but if it's even close to correct it would be one heck of a prediction.

the tl;dr since I can't recall all of the specifics is that the Sibling is the actual, post-ascension child of Honor and Cultivation, which would "have an effect" on the child according to this WoB:
 

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Questioner

He wanted to know, if a pregnant woman took up one of the Shards--one of the sixteen Shards--would the child <still be born without> any god powers?

Brandon Sanderson

It would have an effect.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

Perhaps that effect would be due to the child's Connection to the Shard and its Vessel, and if both parents had taken up Shards at the shattering, that would make the Sibling half Honor and half Cultivation, as many people seem to believe.

And it would give a powerful reason for the Sibling to represent Oaths. They're the child of Honor and Cultivation, a literal representation of their love and their oaths to marriage, in a sense. The Sibling would not exist without that oath, or wouldn't likely exist. And with the parents they have, potentially literally inheriting some of Honor's Investiture (which also presents an interesting possibility for why Odium was able to splinter him despite being bound to Braise, but that's a theory for another time), they would be inclined to upholding oaths by nature of Honor.

Additionally, Cultivation calls the Nightwatcher her "child", and with how the Stormfather was uplifted to sapience/sentience by Honor, it stands to reason that those two would consider themselves siblings to Honor and Cultivation's vessels' child.

so tl;dr (again) the Sibling is the biological child of Tanavast and Cultivation's vessel, changed by the Ascension of their parents to shardhood and the type of Shards they took up. subsequently because of the relationships between Cultivation/Nightwatcher and Honor/Stormfather, the latter of those pairs consider themselves siblings to Tanavast and Cultivation's child.

I know this is probably WAY past crackpot but I love it all the same. Feel free to destroy it with facts and logic though.

[Frustration Lord Ruler]

18 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I know this is probably WAY past crackpot but I love it all the same. Feel free to destroy it with facts and logic though.

Is that a Ben Shapiro reference?

[agrabes Elantrian]

15 hours ago, asmodeus said:

This is fair criticism, and reading back, I didn't really put my motivation down thoroughly.

It's been a tiny pet peeve of mine, ever since I've read OB, how important the Stormfather is to Surgebinding, or to all of Rosharan magic. Because all extensions of "natural" magic on Roshar (like Fabrials and Surgebinding) run and are completely dependent on Stormlight, which the Stormfather is intricately tied to.

It makes sense then, that Dalinar, being bonded to the Stormfather, can overcharge people with Stormlight. Without him, none of that magic has any fuel to work. Because that's the Stormfather and the Highstorms' role on Roshar - to provide Stormlight.

But it makes him uniquely and disproportionately more important in Surgebinding. In comparison, even before the death of Honor, the other two Bondsmith spren just don't have as clean roles associated with them. That's something that's been on the back of my mind for a while.

Then, on one of the conversations on Discord, we had this discussion on the Stone that Szeth was given as a Truthless. And it makes sense for a piece of stone to metaphorically be associated with a promise, right? Stone is something naturally hard, and it endures.

Another separate piece was about a discussion on the nature of Stonewards. What would they be like, as people? And there, we have this, from the in-world Words of Radiance:

Given Taln, and their attribute of Dependable, it seemed (and I'm still cutting some context here because it's been sometime since this conversation) that the members of this order stick to what they say, like holding to an Oath, but above and beyond what other Radiants also generally do. Like Taln holding to the Oathpact beyond reason.

And then there's this conversation in the community that I've seen about Oaths being of Honor and the progression of Oaths being of Cultivation. So when I saw the three connections of Bondsmiths, and I knew the Stormfather was associated with Stormlight and Winds, and I also had this background idea of Taln and the Stonewards being Oath-y, and this association of Stonewards and Oaths, I just put everything together to make one coherent idea.

Stone can be metaphorically associated with Oaths, and the Sibling should also be associated with Stone, which establishes a connection between Oaths and the Sibling and then taking this:

To mean that as Radiants lost faith in themselves as being worthy of the power they wielded, as they lost faith in their actions being the right course of action, and hence as they lost faith in their own Oaths (something which lead to the Recreance), the Sibling started going to sleep, and Urithiru started loosing it's Radiance. And at the recreance, as the Oaths are broken, that process is complete. The Sibling has been hurt enough, and completely goes to sleep. Urithiru goes completely dark.

In the end, I just like that narrative thread.

There is a big glaring whole in this theory - the Sibling should predate Surgebinding, so how did they get associated with Oaths so strongly? I don't know that.

I think your point about the Stormfather is interesting - I've never felt he was too powerful or too central to the story.  The whole recharge/overcharge thing at least as I understand is not a normal power of the Stormfather/Dalinar.  It was something that happened once due to unique circumstances.  The Nightwatcher seems to be equally powerful in a different way and can do things that the Stormfather can't do.  She is the source of the Old Magic, just like the Stormfather is the source of Surgebinding.  The Sibling we just know too little about to say, but you have to assume it is just as powerful in its own way.

Whether the Sibling is associated with the oaths like that, I'm not so sure.  I think it's all circumstantial evidence you've put together.  The Stonewards and their personalities being tied to Oaths is an interesting idea.  It just feels a bit too loosely connected for my personal preference.  You're saying "The Sibling might be associated with Stone", "The Stonewards seem to take Oaths more seriously than other orders," and putting those together to get "The Sibling is associated with the Oaths."  I think your individual ideas are good - it's just layering them all together that starts to stretch things for me.  I'm not saying it's impossible but it feels like a pretty tenuous thread.

My personal thoughts on the Sibling are that it's more of a formless/flavorless mass of investure.  What makes me think that is because it's always described so generically - no one says what it was like or what it did.  Most people think it is what powered Urithiru and the Stormfather is protective over it.  That to me indicates it is childlike and in need of protection.  I think the Radiants used it to power Urithiru thinking it was completely unintelligent and just a big "battery" they could use for their own purposes.  They trapped it in a fabrial, probably the giant gemstone that Shallan finds.  I think this is the abuse that the Radiants did to it.  I think around the time of the Recreance, they learned it was at least partially intelligent and self aware and felt bad for what they had done.  Not seeing a need to maintain Urithiru because they thought there were not going to be any more desolations, they released it from powering Urithiru and it went to sleep.

[SwordNimiForPresident Dakhor Monk]

@asmodeus

I'm unclear as to why the orders are more associated with either Shard in this theory. Is it simply the male/female divide? I've always operated under the assumption that each order got one of its surges from each Shard. Honor's surges control rules or forces, and Cultivation's are all about change.

 

I dumped it in a spoiler to keep it from being a wall of text.

Spoiler

Cultivation gets:

-Adhesion: Combining two things to make something new.

-Division: Breaking something down into a simpler form.

-Progression: Growing or healing.

-Transformation: The most literal expression of change.

-Cohesion: Changing the shape of something.

Horor gets:

-Gravity: a fundamental force.

-Friction: Not a fundamental force, but a result of electromagnetism, which is.

-Illumination: Frequency and vibration.

-Transportation: This one stumped me for a while, but Realmatics would be part of physics in the Cosmere, so it stands to reason that it would be represented as a Surge.

-Tension: Another result of electromagnetism.

This was the assumption I have been operating under, so I'm just curious if there is anything beyond sex that was being used to divide up the chart.

Edit: tagged the OP

Edited April 17, 2020 by SwordNimiForPresident

[asmodeus Ferring]

8 hours ago, agrabes said:

I think your point about the Stormfather is interesting - I've never felt he was too powerful or too central to the story.  The whole recharge/overcharge thing at least as I understand is not a normal power of the Stormfather/Dalinar.  It was something that happened once due to unique circumstances.  The Nightwatcher seems to be equally powerful in a different way and can do things that the Stormfather can't do.  She is the source of the Old Magic, just like the Stormfather is the source of Surgebinding.  The Sibling we just know too little about to say, but you have to assume it is just as powerful in its own way.

There's a difference. The Old Magic is not nearly the same as the Highstorms, it's more... it's like a one-off thing. It's not some passive feature of the world that just exists, and has become central to the ecology. It's more, people can choose to go to Cultivation and/or the Nightwatcher, and she will tweak them in a certain way, and then that tweak stays with them. It's not really a coherent system, it's more people explaining a service the Shard provides, for reasons the Shard has already given.

The Stormfather is _not_ the source of Surgebinding. The Stormfather is the spren of Highstorms, and that has been a feature on Roshar that predates even the Shattering. The Highstorms shower the world with investiture, and the ecology of the world has evolved to both take into account the coming of such violent storms, the investiture they provide, and the spren that for some reason seem to form on Roshar. Surgebinding is certain spren copying something that Honor did with the Honorblades, and exactly how all of that works is still extremely uncertain. But because the Highstorms have always existed on Roshar, magic that stems from elements of the ecology and nature of that world also uses it's latent way to access investiture, and hence the Radiants are dependent on the Highstorms for access to Stormlight.

The Nightwatcher has not had anything like this. [Spoilers for an excerpt from Rhythm of War] 

Spoiler

The Lift excerpt tells us that the Nightwatcher was deliberately kept separated from Humanity, because Cultivation didn't want her to be influenced by their perception too much, as the other spren are (evidenced by their change in genders among themselves). Which only makes her participation in Surgebinding as a spren of the Bondsmiths weird.

As for this:

8 hours ago, agrabes said:

My personal thoughts on the Sibling are that it's more of a formless/flavorless mass of investure.  What makes me think that is because it's always described so generically - no one says what it was like or what it did.  Most people think it is what powered Urithiru and the Stormfather is protective over it.  That to me indicates it is childlike and in need of protection.  I think the Radiants used it to power Urithiru thinking it was completely unintelligent and just a big "battery" they could use for their own purposes.  They trapped it in a fabrial, probably the giant gemstone that Shallan finds.  I think this is the abuse that the Radiants did to it.  I think around the time of the Recreance, they learned it was at least partially intelligent and self aware and felt bad for what they had done.  Not seeing a need to maintain Urithiru because they thought there were not going to be any more desolations, they released it from powering Urithiru and it went to sleep.

I don't think this works given what we already know of the Radiants and that whole era. I can tell you my reasoning for why it doesn't work if you want me to.

 

5 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

@asmodeus

I'm unclear as to why the orders are more associated with either Shard in this theory. Is it simply the male/female divide? I've always operated under the assumption that each order got one of its surges from each Shard. Honor's surges control rules or forces, and Cultivation's are all about change.

 

I dumped it in a spoiler to keep it from being a wall of text.

  Reveal hidden contents

Cultivation gets:

-Adhesion: Combining two things to make something new.

-Division: Breaking something down into a simpler form.

-Progression: Growing or healing.

-Transformation: The most literal expression of change.

-Cohesion: Changing the shape of something.

Horor gets:

-Gravity: a fundamental force.

-Friction: Not a fundamental force, but a result of electromagnetism, which is.

-Illumination: Frequency and vibration.

-Transportation: This one stumped me for a while, but Realmatics would be part of physics in the Cosmere, so it stands to reason that it would be represented as a Surge.

-Tension: Another result of electromagnetism.

This was the assumption I have been operating under, so I'm just curious if there is anything beyond sex that was being used to divide up the chart.

Edit: tagged the OP

You didn't have to tag me.

hmm. This is another way of looking at things, and to be completely frank, I don't think this works as well. Adhesion, Gravitation, Cohesion and Tension are all about bonds, which should be Honor's purview, thematically. Similarly, Abrasion, Progression, Illumination, and Transformation are all based more around changing things, which should make them fall under Cultivation's purview, thematically. Division and Transportation are in the middle.

Even Orders, by philosophy and themes, lean under the two Shards almost exactly along the Male-Female divide. The Windrunners and Skybreakers are extremely Honorable, and we can argue that the Willshapers and Stonewards should be too. Bondsmiths are weird. But Elsecallers, Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, Edgedancers, and Dustbringers should have a lot of Cultivation in their theming. I can't really explain it well, because to me this is more intuitive, and I can't really explain it without using my Order predictions, because I've held those in my head for significant periods of time at this point.

[SwordNimiForPresident Dakhor Monk]

12 minutes ago, asmodeus said:

You didn't have to tag me.

hmm. This is another way of looking at things, and to be completely frank, I don't think this works as well. Adhesion, Gravitation, Cohesion and Tension are all about bonds, which should be Honor's purview, thematically. Similarly, Abrasion, Progression, Illumination, and Transformation are all based more around changing things, which should make them fall under Cultivation's purview, thematically. Division and Transportation are in the middle.

Even Orders, by philosophy and themes, lean under the two Shards almost exactly along the Male-Female divide. The Windrunners and Skybreakers are extremely Honorable, and we can argue that the Willshapers and Stonewards should be too. Bondsmiths are weird. But Elsecallers, Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, Edgedancers, and Dustbringers should have a lot of Cultivation in their theming. I can't really explain it well, because to me this is more intuitive, and I can't really explain it without using my Order predictions, because I've held those in my head for significant periods of time at this point.

Thanks for the response, I was just curious about why you had grouped them that way. Seems perfectly plausible. I think I will still group them my way in my head, but maybe Brandon will prove me wrong.

Either way it is an interesting theory, and a very detailed explanation.

[ScavellTane Gyorn]

If we didn't have confirmation that the Stormfather is merged with Honor, I would put the Stormfathers/Highstorms alignment more towards Odiums notion of himself as Passion.

Edited April 18, 2020 by ScavellTane

[Gilphon Svrakiss]

On 4/16/2020 at 7:00 PM, asmodeus said:

There is a big glaring whole in this theory - the Sibling should predate Surgebinding, so how did they get associated with Oaths so strongly? I don't know that.

I don't know if can say with certainty that the Sibling does predate Surgebinding. Like we know that the Nightwatcher was created post-shattering, so it's not like they're fundamental beings that have always existed or anything like that.

Perhaps... and I'm just spitballing here, and haven't thought this through in any level of detail- the Sibling was created when the Knights Radiant and the Oaths were established? Like they were created for the purpose of managing the Oath system? Or, wait, no, Urithiru was created before then, so that can't quite be what happened. Maybe they were created to run Urithiru, and then their power was expanded to include the Oaths once the Radiants were established?

[Chiberty Shade]

On 4/17/2020 at 6:09 PM, asmodeus said:

Even Orders, by philosophy and themes, lean under the two Shards almost exactly along the Male-Female divide. The Windrunners and Skybreakers are extremely Honorable, and we can argue that the Willshapers and Stonewards should be too. Bondsmiths are weird. But Elsecallers, Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, Edgedancers, and Dustbringers should have a lot of Cultivation in their theming. I can't really explain it well, because to me this is more intuitive, and I can't really explain it without using my Order predictions, because I've held those in my head for significant periods of time at this point.

Quote

Questioner

As you look at the Double Eye, is there a pattern for Honor and Cultivation's disparate influences on each Surge or Order?

Brandon Sanderson

There are philosophers who think that there are, but-- it is more straightforward than those philosophers think it is.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

People tend to put way too much focus on this chart. Really, we should look at the orders themselves, instead of the chart they've been put on.

Quote

Questioner

Hi. I have two questions about the Cosmere. The first one is if a Radiant can have a bond with two spren, and the other one is if Truthwatcher spren are related directly with Cultivation or the Nightwatcher?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so RAFO on if a Knight Radiant can have two spren. But the second question was, "Are spren of Cultivation?" One more time?

Questioner

If the spren of the Truthwatchers are related directly with Cultivation or the Nightwatcher? Or both?

Brandon Sanderson

So, most of the sapient spren that form the Orders of Knights Radiant are related to a mixture of Honor and Cultivation. Some lean one direction much more than the other, and the spren of the Truthwatchers leans toward Cultivation.

Footnote: Brandon has previously said that it's theoretically possible to bond two spren. NOTE: This link needs to be updated once the correct entry has been added to Arcanum.
EuroCon 2016 (Nov. 5, 2016)

"Some." For some orders, is pretty clear if their oaths are more Honor or Cultivation. Windrunners, Skybreakers, and Stonewards are very much Honor, and Edgedancers, Truthwatchers, and Lightweavers are very much Cultivation. Willshapers' focus on things like discovery makes them seem more Cultivation-like. Elsecallers' focus on logical consistency makes them seem more Honor-like. For Bondsmiths and Dustbringers, it's not really clear. Even if you don't get a clean division of the chart, that's okay, since Brandon has made it clear that it's just an in-world chart with some--but limited--relevance.

Edited April 19, 2020 by ChickenLiberty

[galendo Artifabrian]

18 hours ago, Gilphon said:

I don't know if can say with certainty that the Sibling does predate Surgebinding. Like we know that the Nightwatcher was created post-shattering, so it's not like they're fundamental beings that have always existed or anything like that.

I could be wrong -- I'm not completely up on all the latest and greatest WoBs -- but I'm fairly certain that the Nightwatcher was created pre-shattering.

[Gilphon Svrakiss]

[Rhythm of war excerpt spoiler]

Spoiler

No, the Nightwatcher is definitely post-shattering; Wyndle talks about her origins a bit in an excerpt from a Lift interlude that Brandon read recently:

Quote

“I have met the Nightwatcher,” Wyndle said. “She does not think the same way the rest of us do. Cultivation created her to be apart, to be separate from mankind, unconnected. She wanted to create a daughter whose shape and personality would not be influenced by the perceptions of humans. This makes the Nightwatcher less... well, human than a spren like myself. Still, I don’t believe her capable of lying. It isn’t something she could conceive of, I believe.”

She was intentionally created by Cultivation. Presumably after she arrived on Roshar, but certainly post-shattering.

 

[Karger Unmade]

2 hours ago, Gilphon said:

[Rhythm of war excerpt spoiler]

Kind of a stretch.  That hasn't been edited for continuity if I understand the process correctly.  It could also just be that Cultivation made some kind of alteration down the road with an preexisting spren.

[asmodeus Ferring]

On 4/18/2020 at 2:11 AM, ChickenLiberty said:

People tend to put way too much focus on this chart. Really, we should look at the orders themselves, instead of the chart they've been put on.

I very much disagree - this is not Mistborn. There, the inaccuracy of the magic charts make sense, as information is being actively suppressed in that world, and we were always going to get the magic explored (introduced and tidied up) several times over, so those charts evolving over time is fine.

Stormlight is very different in that regard. The Charts and Religions of this world were deliberately created to carry information as succinctly and in as condensed a manner as possible. Moreover, we're 3/10ths through the story, and we have't gotten that charts updated, and the full narrative itself is going to be covering a period less than a century. While there is some avenue for evolution, it is more likely that the charts hold relevant information than not - particularly when, unlike Mistborn, we still haven't gotten the system and the charts explained to us. Them being wrong doesn't make much sense, because we don't even know what they mean, so there's no payoff. In contrast, we were taught and told exactly what the 10 metals chart was, and why people believed it to be true, before expanding on it and telling us why it was wrong. The 11th metal's very existence, from the beginning of the story, is a potential sign that what people understand is not quite complete, and this plays a crucial role in the whole narrative.

Here, we still don't know exactly who made the charts, why they made it this way, and what they meant to convey through it. So then what's the point of having two charts, if they were never even going to be explained?

Regarding the two WoBs you posted, I've read them both very differently from you.

When Brandon says it's more straightforward than they think in-world, to me it seems the Orders clearly lean or cleanly stem from one shard or the other, and aren't just vaguely "more influenced by x."

When Brandon says "Some lean one direction much more than the other," I read it as "Some lean one direction much more than the other direction, while others lean much more in the other direction" not "Some lean one direction much more than the other spren, who don't lean strongly in any direction." 

6 hours ago, galendo said:

I could be wrong -- I'm not completely up on all the latest and greatest WoBs -- but I'm fairly certain that the Nightwatcher was created pre-shattering.

2 hours ago, Karger said:

Kind of a stretch.  That hasn't been edited for continuity if I understand the process correctly.  It could also just be that Cultivation made some kind of alteration down the road with an preexisting spren.

The Stormfather, in some form, predating the Shattering makes sense. The Highstorms were always around, and the mechanism by which spren naturally form on Roshar has also been around since then. As intelligent life existed and likely depended on the Highstorms exclusively for investiture and crucial portions of their life-cycle (Singers depend on the Highstorms to form-change, including switching between fertile and non-fertile versions of their gender), a personification of those storms, and as such a spren of the storms having formed is perfectly reasonable.

What would have been personified to form the Nightwatcher?

This doesn't mean she absolutely can't predate the Shattering - we don't know her well enough to say she doesn't play a crucial role in the ecosystem of Roshar, like the Stormfather does. But still.

Edited April 19, 2020 by asmodeus

[Karger Unmade]

1 minute ago, asmodeus said:

This doesn't mean she absolutely can't predate the Shattering - we don't know her well enough to say she doesn't play a crucial role in the ecosystem of Roshar, like the Stormfather does. But still.

Well she does predate surgebinding.  It also seems odd that she is considered the stormfather's counterpart and equal in a lot of ways but is not of a similar "age."

[Gilphon Svrakiss]

That doesn't seem particularly odd to me. Lots of siblings are different ages. 

Quote

Them being wrong doesn't make much sense, because we don't even know what they mean, so there's no payoff. In contrast, we were taught and told exactly what the 10 metals chart was, and why people believed it to be true, before expanding on it and telling us why it was wrong.

There's a distinction I think you're missing here. Chicken Liberty isn't saying the chart is wrong, he's saying that people tend to read too much into it. 

Like- I find that idea of looking at the connections by associating the soulcasting properties to be pretty persuasive. That works well enough that it's probably intentional. And it's kind of the only explanation we need for why the chart looks the way it does? Well, that and associating each order with the ones it shares a surge with, and putting the male heralds on top and the female heralds on bottom. That's a lot of accurate information being represented there; we don't need to go looking for anything more. Trying to pull stuff like how much Honour vs. Cultivation there is any given order out of it.

I also feel like pointing out that the chart is not all editions of the books- as someone who read WoK and WoR in paperback, I had no idea the charts even existed until I went online- so I don't think we should except them to a unique source for anything particularly important. 

Edited April 19, 2020 by Gilphon