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Why does Regrowth work during suppression?


Seloun

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During the events of RoW in Urithiru, Lift is able to heal other people using Regrowth, despite Stormlight surges being generally suppressed:

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She found her way to one of the ventilation openings, and Wyndle made a ladder for her to climb up—the red chicken under her arm complaining softly about the treatment. Inside, safely around a few corners, she put the chicken on the floor, then pressed her hand to it again.

She pushed harder. When she’d tried to become awesome earlier, nothing had happened. But when she’d tried to heal, she’d felt something different—a resistance. So this time she pushed it, growling softly until … it worked. Stormlight left her, and the chicken’s wing healed. Her powers didn’t regrow the lost feathers, but in a moment the thing had rolled over and was picking at the bare skin on its side with a tentative beak. Finally, it looked at her and released a confused squawk.

Sanderson, Brandon. Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive) . Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. 

The passage also indicates Abrasion isn't working for Lift, a situation similar to Kaladin only being able to use Adhesion:

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Storms, that was a stupid thing to have not checked. Kaladin set down Teft’s legs and took his sphere pouch from his pocket, kneeling as he tried to infuse the ground.

It didn’t work. He frowned, then tried a different Lashing—the type that made things stick to other objects. Not a gravitational Lashing, but a Full Lashing. The one Lopen loved to use to stick people to walls.

That Full Lashing worked. When he touched his boot to that patch of stone, it stuck in place. He reclaimed the Light without any problems. So … Adhesion worked but Gravitation didn’t?

Sanderson, Brandon. Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive) . Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. 

Adhesion working seems to be something that Raboniel might have anticipated:

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“You’re a Windrunner,” she said. “You won’t hurt me if I’m not a threat.”

“Touching that gemstone makes you a threat. Step away.” She did, which meant walking toward him, clasping her hands behind her.

“What is it, do you suppose, that makes you able to continue using your powers? I’ll admit, I had worried about the Windrunners. They say your Surges are closest to Honor.”

Sanderson, Brandon. Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive) . Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. 

So for whatever reason, Adhesion is not being suppressed. This probably makes sense since the suppression effect was originally designed to suppress the Fused surges, of which there are only 9, and presumably don't include Adhesion, being Honor's special surge (sauce?):

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But there is one other. A man. He must be of the Fourth Ideal, but he has no armor. So … maybe of the Third, but close to the Fourth? Perhaps it is something about his closeness to my father—and his closeness to the Surge of Adhesion—that keeps him conscious. His power is that of bonds. This man is a Windrunner, but no longer wears a uniform.

Kaladin. “Can you contact him?”

Sanderson, Brandon. Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive) . Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. 

Therefore we can probably assume that the suppression effect only applies specifically to the surges expressed by the Fused. Since Lift can use Regrowth - with some difficulty - this suggests that the Fused aren't capable of Regrowth. The specific surge however is Progression, which allows for more than just Regrowth, but also rapid growth of plants (and possibly other effects).

As opposed to Lift's Regrowth being difficult to use, Kaladin doesn't seem to have any particular difficulty with Adhesion. However:

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“What you call ‘Lashings,’” Syl said to him, “are really two Surges working together. Gravitation and Adhesion, combined in different ways. You say Gravitation Lashings don’t work, and Adhesion ones do. What about a Reverse Lashing?”

...

The Stormlight resisted. As with the basic gravitational Lashing, he could feel the power, but something blocked it. However, the blockage was weaker here. He concentrated, pushing harder, and—like a floodgate opening—the Light suddenly burst from him. A Reverse Lashing didn’t glow as brightly as it should, considering the Stormlight. It was kind of inverted, in a way. But Kaladin’s actions were followed by a faint click.

Sanderson, Brandon. Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive) . Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. 

So an effect which is a combination of a blocked surge (Gravitation) and an unblocked one (Adhesion) works, but requires more effort, much like with Lift and Regrowth. But Regrowth doesn't seem to be a combination of multiple surges since both Truthwatchers and Edgedancers seem to express it in the same way (through just Progression), and the partial blockage for Regrowth specifically doesn't seem particular to Lift (since her Abrasion doesn't work at all). That seems to imply the Fused Progression surge is different from the Stormlight variant of Progression. I don't think Lift ever attempts to grow plants using Regrowth during the event, so it's possible it's just the fast growth of plants which gets blocked. At that point it almost seems like the two variants of surges are different powers altogether.

A curious case here is also Venli, who can use both Voidlight and Stormlight to power her surges (which are presumably Stormlight surges). The suppression effect stops her from using her powers with Stormlight:

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Timbre pulsed. She wasn’t convinced it would work with Stormlight, not with the tower’s defenses in place. Indeed, as Venli tried to do … well, anything with the Stormlight, she felt as if there were some invisible wall blocking her.

Sanderson, Brandon. Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive) . Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. 

But her powers work with Voidlight. So a big question is, could a Listener Edgedancer/Truthwatcher (Rlain...) using Voidlight use Regrowth? Or how does the type of Light interact with the mechanism of the surge? A similar question would come up with a Listener Windrunner with Adhesion.

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My take on the situation was that Lift has been (unknowingly) using Lifelight for Progression and Stormlight for Abrasion. The passages that involve her using stormlight during the Supression are told from her POV, but she usually eats (ie. creates Lifelight) before using her Progression surge. 

I'm not sure why it affects Shardblades, but the Supression mechanism seems to mostly block powering surges with Stromlight. Radiant surges powered via Voidlight are unaffected (see Venli), so I think it's possible that pure Lifelight is as well. 

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1 hour ago, Beltway2A said:

My take on the situation was that Lift has been (unknowingly) using Lifelight for Progression and Stormlight for Abrasion. The passages that involve her using stormlight during the Supression are told from her POV, but she usually eats (ie. creates Lifelight) before using her Progression surge. 

I'm not sure why it affects Shardblades, but the Supression mechanism seems to mostly block powering surges with Stromlight. Radiant surges powered via Voidlight are unaffected (see Venli), so I think it's possible that pure Lifelight is as well. 

Yeah, I'd agree with this. If you imagine the suppression as blocking 9 surges, powered by Stormlight, then the exceptions we've seen (Kaladin, Lift, Venli) all seem to make sense. Reverse Lashing being possible frankly makes less sense to me, since it does use Gravitation. It's also unexplained why Cultivation would power one of Lift's surges with Lifelight instead of Stormlight, but not the other.

Do we ever see Lift try and fail to heal using Stormlight from gems? That wouldn't be conclusive, since maybe her power is to convert Stormlight into Lifelight for Regrowth. I'm pretty sure we have seen her use food for both surges...

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4 hours ago, Seloun said:

During the events of RoW in Urithiru, Lift is able to heal other people using Regrowth, despite Stormlight surges being generally suppressed:

Lift is being able to do so. Lift's fuel is not straight Stormlight. Drawing conclusions from her is unlikely to lead to a valid.result.

3 hours ago, Beltway2A said:

My take on the situation was that Lift has been (unknowingly) using Lifelight for Progression and Stormlight for Abrasion. The passages that involve her using stormlight during the Supression are told from her POV, but she usually eats (ie. creates Lifelight) before using her Progression surge.

AFAIK Lift never breathed in Stormlight.

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Lift has NEVER breathed in Stormlight. She gets her powers only from eating. I theorized a whole lot on this, I will make a major post later. 

Spoiler

 

In summary: Investiture is part of the Ecology of Roshar. We know about Stormlight. We never see Lifelight.

Theory: Lifelight is made/generated by plants, is in all food everyone eats.

Lift converts Lifelight from food to Stormlight to power her Surges.

Under Stormlight suppression, she accumulates Lifelight. Progression can be powered by Lifelight, Abrasion cannot.

 

 

I may be completely wrong:

 

Spoiler

From when Lift is captured by Mraize? :

 

“But if your master does happen to everlocate Cultivation, suggest that he ask her precisely why she made an Edgedancer who is fueled by Lifelight and not Stormlight.”

 

Edited by yulerule
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Lift using Lifelight instead of Stormlight makes the suppression even more confusing, since she's clearly unable to use Abrasion, and it requires effort for her to use Regrowth. If it was merely a matter of the source of Light, it's unclear why the surges would operate differently. Even if it was somehow a matter of Lift being able to convert Lifelight into Stormlight, the basic premise that the surges are being suppressed differently remains - which was the primary point: the surges appear to be distinct somehow based on how the suppression was working.

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6 hours ago, yulerule said:

Lift has NEVER breathed in Stormlight. She gets her powers only from eating. I theorized a whole lot on this, I will make a major post later. 

  Hide contents

 

In summary: Investiture is part of the Ecology of Roshar. We know about Stormlight. We never see Lifelight.

Theory: Lifelight is made/generated by plants, is in all food everyone eats.

Lift converts Lifelight from food to Stormlight to power her Surges.

Under Stormlight suppression, she accumulates Lifelight. Progression can be powered by Lifelight, Abrasion cannot.

 

Except Lift can eat food on other worlds for power.
 

Gary Singer (paraphrased)

Could Lift convert food from other cosmere worlds into Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Lift's Spiritweb has something changed about it to allow converting mass to Investiture directly.

Out of Excuses 2016 (Sept. 23, 2016)

 

Personally I think its more that Progression is the Truest Surge of Cultivation (Or at least the closest to her given that apparently all but Adhesion are mixes) and that its more resistant to suppression. Lift being close to Culti probably helps a great deal in the same way that being close to Honor apparently helped Kal.

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I also think it likely that it's due to the "closeness" of a Surge to a Shard. I think it may also be a matter of using the proper light in conjunction with that surge. Kaladin uses stormlight (Honor's Light) to power Honor's most pure surge. Lift uses lifelight (Cultivation's Light) to power Cultivation's most pure surge. I'm curious if another Edgedancer would have been able to make Regrowth work using stormlight while under suppression, if they had been awake.

 

Edit: That is, if Progression truly is the most pure "Cultivation" surge, as Adhesion seems to be for Honor.

Edited by Xenon
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There's two issues I have with the 'Regrowth is the Cultivation surge' hypothesis:

1) Why are the other Edgedancers/Truthwatchers completely out of it, then? Shouldn't they be somewhat resistant like the Windrunners? (and presumably Bondsmiths, but the only one at the time isn't there, obviously)

2) Adhesion doesn't show up as a Fused surge; Progression does (or at least, I presume it does; one possibility is that it doesn't or the Void variant is somehow different than the Stormlight variant). So there's something different going on.

As noted originally, Lift has difficulty using Regrowth in a similar way Kaladin has difficulty with the Reverse Lashing - it takes more effort but it can get through. The most reasonable analogue might be that Regrowth is also a multi-surge effect like the Reverse Lashing; the main reason this doesn't seem to work is that both Edgedancers and Truthwatchers appear to be able to use it, while only sharing Progression - unless there are multiple ways of generating Regrowth. The other reason is that it would still require one of the surges to be unaffected somehow. Or the Stormlight Progression surge is actually partially independent of the Voidlight Progression surge - and if that's case, would a Voidlight user with a Nahel bond providing Progression be able to use Regrowth?

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I think this has a lot of variables at play rather than just being lifelight only being used for the progressision surge. I think what is happening is a combination of the tower only blocking the Nahel bond and it's ability to use the surges related to honor, however the more heavily invested, the more resistance to this you have, Kaladin was the first windrunner after Honor's death, and we have seen that investiture with nowhere to go tend to spill out violently when a path is finally made. So this is why he can resist the suppression, combined with Adhesion not being a surge that Odium can block, and Kaladin's closeness to the 4th ideal.

For lift her connection to Cultivation also invests her more strongly than an average radiant, and the fact that it is a connection to Cultivation is like part of why progression continues to work for her, despite her bond with Windle being suppressed, the fact that she has the connection to Cultivation, is an Edgedancer (arguably the most cultivation related order), and has access to Lifelight, are like all factors as to why she is awake and can use Progression but not Adhesion.

Edited by signspace13
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We really don't know enough about how suppresion works to know for sure, specifically how it targets the powers to suppress. Perhaps Lift generates a mix of Stormlight and Lifelight; using Lifelight as fuel for Progression. Perhaps, given Cultivation's proximity to the tower, she was fueling the Regrowth herself, using Lift's intent as guide of where to use it. I'm also interested in how Regrowth woke up Teft.. Would it have worked on the non-Windrunners?

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I assumed it was because progression is the purest surge of Cultivation like adhesion is for Honor. I don't know if this is completely wrong or not, but while I was reading, I thought the suppression worked best on the surges of both Honor and Cultivation due to the Sibling being of both Honor and Cultivation. Interesting tidbit: Windrunners have honorspren, and edgedancers have cultivationspren. 

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I wonder how this ties into the Radiant healing ability. Lift could heal the unconscious Radiants out of there comas, but their own healing couldn't do it. It wasn't completely suppressed, because Kaladin was still able to heal when he was wounded. Did he stay conscious because his extra connection gave him extra healing compared to everyone else? Also, if healing wasn't completely suppressed doesn't that mean it doesn't work the same way other Radiant abilities do?

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In addition to being able to create her own Investiture from food, Lift also is less fixed to the physical realm than other humans.  She can physically touch her spren, can see Szeth's spirit shadow imperfectly attached to his body, and she just wanders into Dalinar's vision with Gaz and later Odium.  I think just having one leg in the cognitive realm so to speak somehow makes her use of Regrowth less inhibited by the disruption field.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Progression is probably close to Cultivation, not quite as close as Adhesion is to Honor, but close. The Orders corresponding to the female Heralds seemed to be closer to Cultivation, plus the two Orders with access to Progression: Truthwatchers and Edgedancers, the former's glyph is green and resembles foliage, and the latter's Radiant spren call themselves Cultivationspren (and look like it too!).

Plus, if Lift being able to use it was only due to her using Lifelight rather than Stormlight, why couldn't she use Abrasion?

If Lifelight, Cultivation's Investiture, is better for using Progression than Abrasion, why might that be so? 

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I think another big, related question is why progression can wake radiants up. My guess is that, like others have suggested, Progression is closer to Cultivation in some way, which means when you're healed with it that creates a temporary connection between you and Cultivation. The connection to a shard other than honor, like we see with Venli and Lift, wakes the radiant up for a bit

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As others have said, I'm of the opinion that Lift was sufficiently changed by Cultivation so as not to be affected by the Sibling's defenses being inverted. Her use of Lifelight is potentially unique throughout all of Rosharian history and so was not taken into account by Raboniel. While progression is clearly a Surge that is more closely aligned with Cultivation, I think it's more important that Lift's Surges are powered through Lifelight.

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On 11/19/2020 at 1:03 AM, Seloun said:

But her powers work with Voidlight. So a big question is, could a Listener Edgedancer/Truthwatcher (Rlain...) using Voidlight use Regrowth? Or how does the type of Light interact with the mechanism of the surge? A similar question would come up with a Listener Windrunner with Adhesion.

Rlain would have to let a voidspren into his gemheart and have his spren trap it there in order to use voidlight, this is why venli can use voidlight. 

Unclear whether he would have to adopt the form of a regal or another form of power as well. 

But yeah I like this question though I have zero theories about it right now

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22 hours ago, Jon said:

It was kind of my take that each order has a primary and secondary surge, and that the suppression was enough to lock out their secondary surge, but not the primary one. 

That is a good thought, but then the surges don't add up. If Lightweaving is the primary surge for Lightweavers and Progression, like you suggest, the primary surge for Edgedancers, then there's nothing left for the Truthwatchers in between. And if Edgedancers have Progression and Windrunners Adhesion, you have three surges left between them (Gravitation, Division, Abrasion) but only two Orders (Skybreakers and Dustbringers).

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On 11/21/2020 at 1:21 AM, Seloun said:

2) Adhesion doesn't show up as a Fused surge; Progression does (or at least, I presume it does; one possibility is that it doesn't or the Void variant is somehow different than the Stormlight variant). So there's something different going on.

Meh, my take on this is that Odium's just lying to the Fused to avoid giving them Connection powers, which he doesn't want to give them. I think he's probably fully capable of granting it if he wants to.

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Lift is special. she does not get knocked out because shes Lift special. so much for that.

the surges are part Cultivation and part Honor. as per Raboniels explanation.

since Kaladin is fueling his Surges by Stormlight he can keep using the surge closer to Honor.
as Lift is fueling her Surges by Lifelight she can keep using the surge close to Cultivation.

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