More Radiant powers

[NameIess]

(All WoB's will be spoilered for length)

In WoR, during the arena fight, Kaladin does this:

Quote

Wind. Motion. Kaladin fought two Shardbearers at once, knocking their Blades aside with the helm. He couldn't attack--didn't dare try to attack. He could only survive, and in this, the winds seemed to urge him. Instinct . . . then something deeper . . . guided his steps. He danced between those Blades, cool air wrapping around him. And for a moment, he felt--impossibly--that he could have dodged just as well if his eyes had been closed. . . . You could not kill the wind. You could not stop it. It was beyond the touch of men. It was infinite. (WoR chapter 57, "To Kill The Wind" pages 670-671.)

In this and other scenes throughout the Stormlight archives, Kaladin has shown an affinity with the wind, like a sixth sense. In WoKP,

(WoKP spoilers)

Spoiler

When touching jade, Kaladin can see the winds. He can also manipulate the winds, but I'm guessing that that portion of his powerset was replaced by lashings. Also, seeing the winds was a passive power, which Kaladin needed to touch jade to use, but required no fuel from it, which is also similar to WoR, where the "wind-sense" went away when Kaladin's stormlight ran out, but didn't seem to be using any stormlight.

Based on Kaladin's display in the arena, as well as other times throughout the series that Kaladin displayed an affinity for the wind, we can conclude that Kaladin has some sort of power or powers that are not included in his surges or known resonances. On it's own, Kaladin having unexplainable powers doesn't really show anything, but I have noticed that Shallan also has powers that, although more subtle, are still unexplained. I'm not talking about Shallan's memories, those are the Lightweavers' resonance:

Spoiler

Wetlander

In addition to the two abilities given by each Surge, does a Knight Radiant Order have a third blended ability, the interaction of its two given Surges?

Brandon Sanderson

Not specifically as phrased there, but each Order has quirks that are unique to it. They are magical quirks, but it's not necessarily a blend of the powers.

Wetlander

So Shallan's Memories is kind of a...

Brandon Sanderson

Is associated with her Order, yes.

Wetlander

It's not just because she had that wonderful ability, and Pattern came along and went, "Oh, I like this one!"

Brandon Sanderson

No that is not necessarily what attracted Pattern.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing (Jan. 6, 2015)

I'm talking about Shallan's incredible creative abilities, the way she can draw so well, think up alternate personalities and disguises on the fly, and of course draw extremely quickly, all lead me to believe that she has an enhancement related to creativity and creating. Based on this, I theorize that Radiants have secondary powers based on the lesser spren their order is associated with. On to what I think causes it.

There are two reasonable and one unreasonable causes that I see. I'll start with the unreasonable one: I'm reading into it too much and Shallan doesn't have any powers, Kalaidin can see the wind because he is the "son of Tanavast"

Spoiler

Winds Alight (paraphrased)

In SA the Stormfather refers to several people as "Child of Honor", but only Kaladin as "Child of Tanavast". Is there significance to that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, there is.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

I don't think that there is any real evidence for this, so I can't draw any real conclusions.

The next explanation is probably the simplest: The Radiants get these powers because their spren are connected to the lesser spren. Syl, although she is not a windspren, still shares many of their characteristics of windspren, and refers to them as "cousins". Thus, because the Radiants are bonded to them, the spren transfer a part of their Connection to whatever it is that the subspren are connecte to. Windspren with Honorspren, Cryptics with creationspren, Bondsmith spren with gloryspren (Maybe, bondsmiths are weird), Elsecaller spren with logicspren (I think), and Cultivationspren with lifespren (I also think).

The third option is that the powers are simply a further extension of the resonances. After all, the resonances that we have seen are not really related to the powers of the Radiants, Shallan's memories are not really related to lightweaving and soulcasting, after all.

This next part has some minor spoilers from the Rythym of War preview chapters and some larger spoilers for The Way of Kings Prime, don't click on the spoiler if you don't want to be spoiled.

Spoiler

In the epigraphs, we learn that Logicspren are extremely important to fabrials. I would theorize that Elsecallers have an affinity to fabrials. in tWoKP, Shallan is an elsecaller, an she can manipulate the oathgates, even though regular awakeners can open, lock, and unlock them. Shallan forces an oathgate open despite it being locked. I would theorize that, although Jasnah might not be able to force oathgates open, she can manipulate fabrials to some extent.

For the rest of the orders, I feel that I don't have enough information to really theorize, but feel free to do so yourself!

[Vessel of Theory]

Spoiler

On 10/29/2020 at 9:36 PM, Nameless said:

(All WoB's will be spoilered for length)

In WoR, during the arena fight, Kaladin does this:

In this and other scenes throughout the Stormlight archives, Kaladin has shown an affinity with the wind, like a sixth sense. In WoKP,

(WoKP spoilers)

  Reveal hidden contents

When touching jade, Kaladin can see the winds. He can also manipulate the winds, but I'm guessing that that portion of his powerset was replaced by lashings. Also, seeing the winds was a passive power, which Kaladin needed to touch jade to use, but required no fuel from it, which is also similar to WoR, where the "wind-sense" went away when Kaladin's stormlight ran out, but didn't seem to be using any stormlight.

Based on Kaladin's display in the arena, as well as other times throughout the series that Kaladin displayed an affinity for the wind, we can conclude that Kaladin has some sort of power or powers that are not included in his surges or known resonances. On it's own, Kaladin having unexplainable powers doesn't really show anything, but I have noticed that Shallan also has powers that, although more subtle, are still unexplained. I'm not talking about Shallan's memories, those are the Lightweavers' resonance:

  Reveal hidden contents

Wetlander

In addition to the two abilities given by each Surge, does a Knight Radiant Order have a third blended ability, the interaction of its two given Surges?

Brandon Sanderson

Not specifically as phrased there, but each Order has quirks that are unique to it. They are magical quirks, but it's not necessarily a blend of the powers.

Wetlander

So Shallan's Memories is kind of a...

Brandon Sanderson

Is associated with her Order, yes.

Wetlander

It's not just because she had that wonderful ability, and Pattern came along and went, "Oh, I like this one!"

Brandon Sanderson

No that is not necessarily what attracted Pattern.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing (Jan. 6, 2015)

I'm talking about Shallan's incredible creative abilities, the way she can draw so well, think up alternate personalities and disguises on the fly, and of course draw extremely quickly, all lead me to believe that she has an enhancement related to creativity and creating. Based on this, I theorize that Radiants have secondary powers based on the lesser spren their order is associated with. On to what I think causes it.

There are two reasonable and one unreasonable causes that I see. I'll start with the unreasonable one: I'm reading into it too much and Shallan doesn't have any powers, Kalaidin can see the wind because he is the "son of Tanavast"

  Reveal hidden contents

Winds Alight (paraphrased)

In SA the Stormfather refers to several people as "Child of Honor", but only Kaladin as "Child of Tanavast". Is there significance to that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, there is.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

I don't think that there is any real evidence for this, so I can't draw any real conclusions.

The next explanation is probably the simplest: The Radiants get these powers because their spren are connected to the lesser spren. Syl, although she is not a windspren, still shares many of their characteristics of windspren, and refers to them as "cousins". Thus, because the Radiants are bonded to them, the spren transfer a part of their Connection to whatever it is that the subspren are connecte to. Windspren with Honorspren, Cryptics with creationspren, Bondsmith spren with gloryspren (Maybe, bondsmiths are weird), Elsecaller spren with logicspren (I think), and Cultivationspren with lifespren (I also think).

The third option is that the powers are simply a further extension of the resonances. After all, the resonances that we have seen are not really related to the powers of the Radiants, Shallan's memories are not really related to lightweaving and soulcasting, after all.

This next part has some minor spoilers from the Rythym of War preview chapters and some larger spoilers for The Way of Kings Prime, don't click on the spoiler if you don't want to be spoiled.

  Hide contents

In the epigraphs, we learn that Logicspren are extremely important to fabrials. I would theorize that Elsecallers have an affinity to fabrials. in tWoKP, Shallan is an elsecaller, an she can manipulate the oathgates, even though regular awakeners can open, lock, and unlock them. Shallan forces an oathgate open despite it being locked. I would theorize that, although Jasnah might not be able to force oathgates open, she can manipulate fabrials to some extent.

For the rest of the orders, I feel that I don't have enough information to really theorize, but feel free to do so yourself!

 

I like it

I'm not sure on what Kaladin being the child of Tanavast means, but I would guess that it means Kaladin is somehow close to Tanavast either through birth(hmmm) or through some kind of "choosing" thing that Tanavast would have done before dying.

I definitely agree with you that Shallan has some mad lass drawing skills, to be able to see something once and then draw it better than she saw it. That's pretty crazy, and while I'm not good at art and do not have a photographic memory, I can't really imagine a non-Cosmere human being able to do what she does. Kaladin definitely has some strange thing going on. I looked for jade in the ten essences and didn't find it, so I'm officially guessing that it's just a Kaladin thing to be able to "see the winds" and have such an affinity for them.

I haven't re-read SA yet and so I don't remember many of the details, but does anyone know if we could find a "special ability" for Renarin, Malata, Venli, Dalinar, or Jasnah? I'd imagine we could find one of them.

[Knight of Iron]

I don't know much what I'm talking about when I'm talking about Resonances, but these additional powers you speak of could be related to them. As in, I always figured Shallan's artistic ability and creativity come in part due to her Resonance, the mnemonic abilities.

[NameIess]

3 hours ago, Vessel of Theory said:

I like it

Thank you!

3 hours ago, Vessel of Theory said:

Kaladin definitely has some strange thing going on. I looked for jade in the ten essences and didn't find it, so I'm officially guessing that it's just a Kaladin thing to be able to "see the winds" and have such an affinity for them.

I think that stormlight will likely replace jade, although we don't really have any information on it other than that Kaladin ran out of stormlight during the arena, and then lost access to whatever wind powers he was using.

3 hours ago, Vessel of Theory said:

I haven't re-read SA yet and so I don't remember many of the details, but does anyone know if we could find a "special ability" for Renarin, Malata, Venli, Dalinar, or Jasnah? I'd imagine we could find one of them.

Renarin isn't exactly a normal case of a Truthwatcher, I doubt that Bondsmiths are typical enough for us to even notice unusual powers, and we haven't seen enough of the others to really tell.

[Ceradis]

Just something to add about Kaladin’s specific affinity to the wind. This strange ability seems to be growing stronger as he progresses. In Oathbringer, Kal is actually able to (somewhat) control the wind; he creates a pocket of calm wind in the highstorm when trying to help people get to safety before flying back to Urithiru. He also senses that he can do something similar when flying the team that’s meant to unlock the oathgate to Kholinar.

Not sure if this is something specific to him individually or to the windrunners in general though.

[kaellok]

On 10/29/2020 at 7:36 PM, Nameless said:

I'm talking about Shallan's incredible creative abilities, the way she can draw so well, think up alternate personalities and disguises on the fly, and of course draw extremely quickly, all lead me to believe that she has an enhancement related to creativity and creating. Based on this, I theorize that Radiants have secondary powers based on the lesser spren their order is associated with.

In WoR, Kaladin's ability to fight is seriously degraded when he's busy betraying the Oaths he's made.  We're all but flat-out told that him being such an amazing fighter is due to something going on with his Bond.

In Oathbringer, when Shallan is busy diving into personas specifically so that she can hide from the pain of the Truths that she spoke, in Shadesmar especially it's called out repeatedly how her drawings are alternating between awful and amazing.  This is more subtle, but still a very strong indication that her being an amazing artist is due to something going on with her Bond.  (Also the moment when she flat-out tells Adolin that she thinks she's a cheater and that it's all from the magic, and he's like, is that really different from me being a world-class duelist just because I happen to have had access to the world's best trainers ever since I was 4?)

So I'm 100% sure that those two are at least strongly influenced by the super-natural.  (It could easily be that Kaladin can fight so well because he 'feels' the winds, and he's spent years relying upon it without ever knowing it, and so when it's suddenly gone he doesn't know how to fight.  So not supernatural itself, but supernatural-adjacent.  Similar to Shallan's skill with drawings being so inextricably linked with her Memories.)

The main thing that we've seen with Dalinar is to be stronger than he should be, or possibly more akin to tougher.  Shrugging off wounds that should have felled him, standing before a chasmfiend and saying 'no, I'll crush you', etc.  That might be something more directly related to Dalinar and the effects going on with him than any knock-on effects from Resonance that Bondsmiths get.

We have barely seen anything from Jasnah, but the glow of geometric patterns that Adolin sees surrounding her might be be related.  Probably much more likely to be proto-formation of Plate (or possibly after-image of Plate being dismissed), but that's all I can come up with.

And every other Radiant we have seen on screen is significantly different than 'normal', and so drawing conclusions would be difficult if not impossible.