Resonance of Radiant Orders? [Discussion]

[Sp00ks]

So, we know each Radiant Order has a "resonance" that occurs through having two different surges, much like Twinborn do in Mistborn. For example, it's known the Windrunners have a vastly increased number/strength of Squires, and the Lightweavers have some sorta memory ability. But what about the other orders? Any ideas? Off the top of my head, it seems to have something to do with the spiritual identity of the surges, since you could argue spiritual gravitation (drawing people to you) and spiritual adhesion (uniting people) would have that sort of effect. 

[NameIess]

1 hour ago, Sp00ks said:

So, we know each Radiant Order has a "resonance" that occurs through having two different surges, much like Twinborn do in Mistborn. For example, it's known the Windrunners have a vastly increased number/strength of Squires, and the Lightweavers have some sorta memory ability. But what about the other orders? Any ideas? Off the top of my head, it seems to have something to do with the spiritual identity of the surges, since you could argue spiritual gravitation (drawing people to you) and spiritual adhesion (uniting people) would have that sort of effect. 

I don't think that Radiant resonances are quite so clear-cut as one extra power. Lightweavers, for example, have incredible memory abilities, but are also far better at using illusions than we've seen the Truthwatchers be, and commonly use illusions (lightweaving) to change people or things (soulcasting).

That said, I think the Elsecaller's resonance is pretty obvious. A far closer relationship to the cognitive realm, resulting in them being much more naturally talented in skills such as soulcasting.

[Sp00ks]

44 minutes ago, Nameless said:

I don't think that Radiant resonances are quite so clear-cut as one extra power. Lightweavers, for example, have incredible memory abilities, but are also far better at using illusions than we've seen the Truthwatchers be, and commonly use illusions (lightweaving) to change people or things (soulcasting).

I don't really think this is a fair claim. We have seen two truthwatchers, one of which is Renarin who is probably a voidbinder. And the Stump didn't do much illumination. Meanwhile, a main character, Shallan, as well as several minor characters are Lightweavers. As such, I don't think it's exactly fair to say "Lightweavers are far better at illusions", they just have orders of magnitude more screentime 

[Honorless he/him]

Lightweavers have various mnemonic abilities (from the in-world Words of Radiance), so two of them might not necessarily manifest the same ability as their Resonance.

The Resonance seems to be connected to one of the Surges and the Order's role / central theme of their Ideals / Divine Attributes. Both Truthwatchers and Lightweavers seem to have the ability to peer into the perfect ideal self of others to some degree too, though that might not technically be a Resonance.

[Sp00ks]

7 hours ago, Honorless said:

Both Truthwatchers and Lightweavers seem to have the ability to peer into the perfect ideal self of others to some degree too, though that might not technically be a Resonance.

The only Truthwatcher we have seen do this is Renarin, who is a very very bad example of what normal truthwatchers can do. Has the Stump shown this ability?

[Honorless he/him]

44 minutes ago, Sp00ks said:

The only Truthwatcher we have seen do this is Renarin, who is a very very bad example of what normal truthwatchers can do. Has the Stump shown this ability?

True, though from their Order's name, I'd assumed this was something they all shared.

[crème de la crèmling]

I've been wondering if perhaps the Lightweavers' mnemonic abilities / Resonance might be connected to what Shallan refers to as a focus. Shallan needs to draw something typically before she can render it as an illusion, which her Memory ability helps her accomplish on the fly; this is thought, in-universe, to be why one of her Lightweavers (Beryl) can't change anything but her own face and why another (Vathah) is suggested to be the most naturally talented. It's been observed before that he's more like a method actor, just thinking like the thing he wants to create an illusion of. I would love to know how his mnemonic ability is different from Shallan's or Stargyle's, who is the other Lightweaver who talks about his ability to memorize things. 

Quote

Each of them did it differently--Shallan had explained that they each needed some kind of focus to make their Surgebinding work. Hers was drawings. Stargyle appeared to have a different method, something more akin to painting.

...

"I can keep it all in my head, so long as I focus on the colors." 

"The colors?" Dalinar said.

"I was a pigmenter's son growing up, Brightlord. I've always seen the world by its colors. Squint your eyes a little and everything is really just color and shapes."

RoW Chapter 98: An Unwholesome Shade

The appendix in RoW theorizes that Lightweavers need a mental connection to their subject, so I wonder if that is a part of it--the mnemonic ability helps create a connection with their subject. I tend to feel that Lightweavers Soulcast with their heart, and that they are bad at it is possibly because they are trying to imitate Jasnah's Elsecaller ways over doing what might be most natural to them.

Shallan very briefly talks about how Truthwatchers make illusions. 

Quote

They had managed to recruit several standard Truthwatchers--and they could create illusions like Shallan.

RoW Chapter 6: A Loose Thread

If the Stump has ever made an illusion, it's so good I can't even tell it's an illusion (or it's just not in my notes.) Later Kaladin will clarify that the number of standard Truthwatchers is actually just three (an editing error? or a personal Shallan error?), and Shallan will add in Chapter 26 that "the way Lightweaving worked for Truthwatchers seemed different" even excluding Renarin. Do they have a different method of coming up with the illusions, of connecting to the idea they want to bring to life? 

The Windrunner Resonance is something I think a lot about, too.

13 hours ago, Sp00ks said:

Off the top of my head, it seems to have something to do with the spiritual identity of the surges, since you could argue spiritual gravitation (drawing people to you) and spiritual adhesion (uniting people) would have that sort of effect. 

I have definitely been thinking along these lines! I have been thinking a lot about how Windrunner Adhesion is different from Bondsmith Adhesion lately. I'd like to jump off of this point here, of gravitation = drawing people to you, adhesion = binding people together; I know there isn't a lot demonstrated on Tension overall, but I think it does get used in Chapter 111 when Ishar somehow binds Sigzil and friends to the ground so that their powers view the stone as a part of their bodies. Here I think their personal Identity Tension was temporarily broken somehow, and then fused to the stone--this might be the Bondsmith's privilege, then, being able to truly unite something in such a way that its identity changes completely. I believe that Stormlight doesn't heal their headaches immediately because the Spiritual self it is trying to heal has been altered.

How I think this intersects with the Windrunner Resonance is that the people bound together by a Windrunner seem to see themselves more as individual members of a team, whereas the way Ishar binds people together, it is a cult where their personal identities are washed away. The Tukari don't really engage with Adolin or anyone else, they are totally dedicated to their purpose and their leader's ambitions ... but on the other hand, Kaladin has people painting shash onto their foreheads and joining the resistance, while talking about why they decided to do it. It's their choice to come on board with Kaladin's message, sometimes at great personal cost. He's always led like that, stating his purpose and beliefs and letting other people sign on if they want to. I wonder if his Resonance is subtly manipulating Connection in some way? Drawing the people most likely to be intrigued by his message towards him?

I can't really think of any other examples of what I think might be Resonance in another Radiant except for Lift. When I next re-read RoW, I think I'll keep my eye on Venli, but going back over Edgedancer, I wonder about the conversation Lift has with urchin in Chapter 6. Wyndle can't follow it at all, but Lift, who has never been to this place to hear its regional slang, has no problem understanding her and even speaking back in her dialect. When questioned, she just kind of shrugs and says "it felt right." If I had to guess, knowing that there are ways to use Connection to gain access to a local language and thinking about the general ethos of Edgedancers, I think that could be an example of Lift's Resonance. I think I've seen a thread somewhere even wondering how Lift is able to speak colloquially in Alethi when she may not have encountered much of the Alethi language before. This might be the answer. 

Now that I've talked myself through it, I wonder if Resonances might deal with Connection overall? Maybe as they "connect" two different powers, and connect the Radiant to the world? It's a thought I'll dwell on a little further. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by crème de la crèmling
Punctuation.

[Sp00ks]

17 minutes ago, crème de la crèmling said:

I've been wondering if perhaps the Lightweavers' mnemonic abilities / Resonance might be connected to what Shallan refers to as a focus. Shallan needs to draw something typically before she can render it as an illusion, which her Memory ability helps her accomplish on the fly; this is thought, in-universe, to be why one of her Lightweavers (Beryl) can't change anything but her own face and why another (Vathah) is suggested to be the most naturally talented. It's been observed before that he's more like a method actor, just thinking like the thing he wants to create an illusion of. I would love to know how his mnemonic ability is different from Shallan's or Stargyle's, who is the other Lightweaver who talks about his ability to memorize things. 

The appendix in RoW theorizes that Lightweavers need a mental connection to their subject, so I wonder if that is a part of it--the mnemonic ability helps create a connection with their subject. I tend to feel that Lightweavers Soulcast with their heart, and that they are bad at it is possibly because they are trying to imitate Jasnah's Elsecaller ways over doing what might be most natural to them.

Shallan very briefly talks about how Truthwatchers make illusions. 

If the Stump has ever made an illusion, it's so good I can't even tell it's an illusion (or it's just not in my notes.) Later Kaladin will clarify that the number of standard Truthwatchers is actually just three (an editing error? or a personal Shallan error?), and Shallan will add in Chapter 26 that "the way Lightweaving worked for Truthwatchers seemed different" even excluding Renarin. Do they have a different method of coming up with the illusions, of connecting to the idea they want to bring to life? 

The Windrunner Resonance is something I think a lot about, too.

I have definitely been thinking along these lines! I have been thinking a lot about how Windrunner Adhesion is different from Bondsmith Adhesion lately. I'd like to jump off of this point here, of gravitation = drawing people to you, adhesion = binding people together; I know there isn't a lot demonstrated on Tension overall, but I think it does get used in Chapter 111 when Ishar somehow binds Sigzil and friends to the ground so that their powers view the stone as a part of their bodies. Here I think their personal Identity Tension was temporarily broken somehow, and then fused to the stone--this might be the Bondsmith's privilege, then, being able to truly unite something in such a way that its identity changes completely. I believe that Stormlight doesn't heal their headaches immediately because the Spiritual self it is trying to heal has been altered.

How I think this intersects with the Windrunner Resonance is that the people bound together by a Windrunner seem to see themselves more as individual members of a team, whereas the way Ishar binds people together, it is a cult where their personal identities are washed away. The Tukari don't really engage with Adolin or anyone else, they are totally dedicated to their purpose and their leader's ambitions ... but on the other hand, Kaladin has people painting shash onto their foreheads and joining the resistance, while talking about why they decided to do it. It's their choice to come on board with Kaladin's message, sometimes at great personal cost. He's always led like that, stating his purpose and beliefs and letting other people sign on if they want to. I wonder if his Resonance is subtly manipulating Connection in some way? Drawing the people most likely to be intrigued by his message towards him?

I can't really think of any other examples of what I think might be Resonance in another Radiant except for Lift. When I next re-read RoW, I think I'll keep my eye on Venli, but going back over Edgedancer, I wonder about the conversation Lift has with urchin in Chapter 6. Wyndle can't follow it at all, but Lift, who has never been to this place to hear its regional slang, has no problem understanding her and even speaking back in her dialect. When questioned, she just kind of shrugs and says "it felt right." If I had to guess, knowing that there are ways to use Connection to gain access to a local language and thinking about the general ethos of Edgedancers, I think that could be an example of Lift's Resonance. I think I've seen a thread somewhere even wondering how Lift is able to speak colloquially in Alethi when she may not have encountered much of the Alethi language before. This might be the answer. 

Now that I've talked myself through it, I wonder if Resonances might deal with Connection overall? Maybe as they "connect" two different powers, and connect the Radiant to the world? It's a thought I'll dwell on a little further. 

What a great post! Your ideas about the Lightweavers are super interesting and make a ton of sense. And we seem to agree on windrunning.

The bondsmithing idea seems to make sense but I'd like to throw my two cents in, as I think you sorta brushed over the Tension aspect. The idea of increasing the tension is to increase the strength or rigidness of something right? I believe what Ishar was doing in that scene was spiritually increasing the strength (tension) of their connection (adhesion) with the ground. He increased it to such a degree that their spiritual identity may have fused with the ground temporarily which completely screwed over their surgebinding. 

As for edgedancers, yeah, I think it's their communication skills. People have asked Brandon this but he RAFO'd it sadly. But it makes sense. Especially since abrasion/progression would be something like removing removing that which seperate them (abrasion) and such that they can help one another (progression). 

The other orders are really hard since we have seen so little of them. Truthwatchers are perhaps the weirdest named order since it doesn't really relate to either of their surges much (Renarin not withstanding), whereas every other order sorta does. Maybe the name comes from whatever their resonance is? It can't be future sight like Renarin has, since that's seen as an evil thing culturally, so maybe they have some sorta lie detector ability? Idk how that would work.

Elsecallers (we've only seen the one) seem to either have a much greater connection to the cognitive realm, or have some innate sense of direction, evidenced by Jasnah immediately knowing where the nearest town was at the end of Words of Radiants when talking with Hoid. 

As for Stonewards, Willshapers, Dustbringers, and Skybreakers, I've got no ideas lol. Maybe Szeth or Venli have shown something, but I don't recall anything. 

[crème de la crèmling]

12 minutes ago, Sp00ks said:

The bondsmithing idea seems to make sense but I'd like to throw my two cents in, as I think you sorta brushed over the Tension aspect. The idea of increasing the tension is to increase the strength or rigidness of something right? I believe what Ishar was doing in that scene was spiritually increasing the strength (tension) of their connection (adhesion) with the ground. He increased it to such a degree that their spiritual identity may have fused with the ground temporarily which completely screwed over their surgebinding. 

I was thinking in the other direction! As in breaking their Spiritual "surface tension" so to speak; but this may in fact be more like Cohesion based on what I remember Venli doing in RoW. I hope that one day the difference will be a little clearer! But I think your interpretation could also be supported by the text. Here I'm thinking specifically of Dalinar fixing the temple in OB Chapter 59. He describes how the stones still view themselves as a beautiful carving and he shoves them together with great effort. So with Adhesion creating the bond, and Tension reinforcing it, they become one object again. An interesting thing to note is how the spren of the temple cry out with many different voices, despite longing to be one, and hurting because the broken pieces are now separated. It takes time to begin to see oneself as something different.

There's another Edgedancer who gets some screen time in RoW, Godeke! I didn't remember him immediately. I traced him through the book very quickly, but I didn't see anything that struck me as a Resonance, like Lift's odd communication thing or otherwise. In the encounter with the Tukari, he tries asking if they speak Thaylen (I think) but as it turns out they can speak a little Alethi, so no translation is needed.

I've also wondered if Jasnah knowing where the next town is reflects her ability to look into Shadesmar and see a bunch of little lights out in the distance ... to me this seems about as equally likely as an innate sense of direction. I would love to know what Jasnah's Resonance is. Just to stir up some alternate thoughts, I wonder if maybe it might have to do with logically mapping out what people might do, what might happen? Jasnah is always setting up social domino situations where it can only play out the way she wants it to.

Truthwatchers I have thought a little about; in general, I get the sense that they are always observing and taking note of things--not to remember or celebrate people for their own sakes like an Edgedancer, or to use it to engage with people like a Lightweaver, but more to put it into context and sort it out. I have absolutely no clue what their Resonance is. But Renarin is always chasing his way towards an answer and intuiting sometimes where to find it--I'm thinking specifically of the gemstone library here. Even the Stump has hints of this; when she's advising Adolin on his appeal to the honorspren, she's right that their guilty conscience can't be played on because they don't feel guilty. The only way to get through to them is to speak to their personal sense of honor--which eventually happens! Maya makes them feel guilty about taking her choice from her, and appeals to their sense of honor through her own. The Stump has a vague sense of what might actually work, based on what little information she has. With a little knowledge (Illumination?), things can be guided into growing in the desired direction (Progression?) 

The Radiants who explore their powers on screen are definitely the ones with a lot more information, and it helps that Shallan and Kaladin are functioning in groups now with a lot of comparisons to be made. Another interesting question that I don't have an immediate answer to is when exactly a Resonance begins to take effect. Kaladin doesn't get the ability to take on squires until after he attains Ideal 3, as far as I remember. Shallan begins with the series with her Resonance, but is difficult to pin down personally. She does offhandedly mention that because Ishnah has her Shardblade, according to the Windrunners she should be off collecting her own squires, etc. but the Lightweavers choose not to structure themselves that way. Lift, as I recall, spends a lot of Edgedancer being this close to Ideal 3, in the way that Kaladin was close to Ideal 4, so perhaps her communication ability could still be mapped to a Resonance, but of course there's no definite answer there as to what it really is. So Venli might not manifest a Resonance yet anyway (but who knows). I haven't thought extensively about Szeth yet, sadly.

Just more thoughts and questions.

[Sp00ks]

1 hour ago, crème de la crèmling said:

I haven't thought extensively about Szeth yet, sadly.

Well, book 5 is supposed to be his book, so I'm sure that we will learn a decent amount about him and the Skybreakers. Speaking of, do you recall Nail doing anything in Edgedancer/Oathbringer/RoW that could suggest anything?