Renarin's Illumination

[Treamayne]

So, re-reading RoW, I found something in Ch 8 and had a thought. (Spoiler Tags for non-Stormlight Archive References)

We've known for a while that Renarin was having problems with his second surge - Illumination. They mentioned repeatedly in Oathbringer that he was having a problem making it work, even after lessons with Shallan. In Chapter 6 (and on the Coppermind, quoted below) we see him finally make some small illusions, as Navani notes:

Quote

As a Truthwatcher he would have access to the Surges of Progression and Illumination, however, his use of the latter surge is markedly different. Where standard Truthwatchers can use Illumination to create illusions in much the same way as a Lightweaver, Renarin can only summon lights. These lights sometimes act in strange and unnatural ways.

When we get to Chapter 8, we see Kaladin confronting Moash and when Renarin arrives:

Spoiler

RoW Ch 8

Quote

Light exploded into the room.

Clean and white, like the light of the brightest diamond. The light of the sun. A brilliant, concentrated purity.

Moash growled, spinning around, shading his eyes against the source of the light—which came from the doorway. The figure behind it wasn’t visible as anything more than a shadow.

Moash shied away from the light—but a version of him, transparent and filmy, broke off and stepped toward the light instead. Like an afterimage. In it, Kaladin saw the same Moash—but somehow standing taller, wearing a brilliant blue uniform. This one raised a hand, confident, and although Kaladin couldn’t see them, he knew people gathered behind this Moash. Protected. Safe.

The image of Moash burst alight as a Shardspear formed in his hands.

“No!” the real Moash screamed.

So, does that seem like Electrum Malatium to anybody else?

As if this image is what Moash could have been, had he made different choices. . .

My conclusion:

Spoiler

What if Renarin's Surge of Illumination is making Illusions similar to the Gold/Malatium shadows on Scadrial?

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Treamayne
Formatting/SPAG

[Frustration]

Renarin's surge of Illumination has been replaced by Voidbinding

[Kvothe the Bloodless]

Renarin's ability to see Moash's future in this case is most likely voidbinding, as prophecy and predicting the future is related to it. However, we don't know much about voidbinding, so I wouldn't rule out any possibilty of a relation to electrum burning.

[Treamayne]

6 minutes ago, Kvothe the Bloodless said:

Renarin's ability to see Moash's future in this case is most likely voidbinding, as prophecy and predicting the future is related to it. However, we don't know much about voidbinding, so I wouldn't rule out any possibilty of a relation to electrum burning.

Yeah, I said Electrum (which I will edit) when I should have said Malatium I think. I wasn't implying he saw Moash's future; it was that he was seeing who Moash could have been now had he made different choices in the past.

10 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Renarin's surge of Illumination has been replaced by Voidbinding

@Frustration  True - but "Void of Ilumination" sounds too weird. Voidbing Surge of Illumination?

Voidbinding is still manipulating the Surges, just though different means. So, at least to me, until we have a better vocabulary it's still the Surge of illumination - just through Voidbinding rather than Surgebinding.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Treamayne

[Kvothe the Bloodless]

2 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Yeah, I said Electrum (which I will edit) when I should have said Malatium I think. I wasn't implying he saw Moash's future; it was that he was seeing who Moash could have been now had he made different choices in the past.

Actually I think it should be gold if he's seeing what someone could have been

[Treamayne]

1 minute ago, Kvothe the Bloodless said:

Actually I think it should be gold if he's seeing what someone could have been

But Gold shows yourself, had your choices been different.

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Voidbinding is still manipulating the Surges, just though different means. So, at least to me, until we have a better vocabulary it's still the Surge of illumination - just through Voidbinding rather than Surgebinding.

We don't know that actually.

[Kvothe the Bloodless]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

But Gold shows yourself, had your choices been different.

Oh right I forgot. So yeah, I guess the closest allomantic power to voidbinding is malatium/atium

Quote

We don't know that actually.

Yeah, we have basically zero info about voidbinding, besides that it exists, so we can't really assume anything.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Kvothe the Bloodless

[Treamayne]

11 minutes ago, Frustration said:

We don't know that actually.

We do know that Voidbinding the Surge of Regrowth has (so far) been very similar to the surgebinding version. We also know that not all surges are, or will be, similar. Also, some relevant Words of Brandon: 

Spoiler

 

Quote

Chaos

You've recently said that Rosharans call everything Surgebinding. So my question is: does Khriss call what the Fused do "Surgebinding"?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Chaos

Interesting. We still don't know what Voidbinding is, but we'll get there eventually, I'm sure.

Brandon Sanderson

You will.

Quote

TheFoxQR (paraphrased)

Is there temporal symmetry in between the Surge-binding and void-binding charts, from the front and back covers of The Way of Kings? As in, Surgebinding is a re-emerging system of the past, vs Voidbinding being a newly emerging system that will fully exist in the future?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You can assume that Voidbinding has not been fully explored, but that parts of it have been looked into in the past. So I wouldn't say that temporal symmetry fully holds.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Treamayne

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

We do know that Voidbinding the Surge of Regrowth has (so far) been very similar to the surgebinding version.

We haven't seen Voidbinding other than Renarin

[Treamayne]

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

We haven't seen Voidbinding other than Renarin

Fact (assuming Renarin really is Voidbinding - which is RAFO, but heavily supported) and hopefully Rlain in SA5. 

But we have seen Renarin use Regrowth, and we have seen Lift use Regrowth the same way. So:

• If Renarin is Voidbinding
• and his expression of Regrowth matches Lift
• then at least some expressions of Voidbinding are the same (or so similar that spotting a difference is difficult)

Coppermind:

Quote

Renarin's ability to see the future is related to the Voidbinding chart,^[6] though the precise relationship between his powers and Voidbinding remains unclear.^[7]

WoB:

Quote

Argent

Let's talk about Renarin, and Voidbinding. So, with that page we talked about, Renarin Voidbinds. I asked about visions, you pointed to Voidbinding chart, he Voidbinds. Is that using Stormlight to power abilities different from the Surgebindings we've seen?  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

Argent

Is that what voidbinding is? 

Brandon Sanderson

No, but close. You're on the right track. We are gonna get into that, I'm not gonna tell you what the chart means, and things like that. But yeah, something really weird is happening there.

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Treamayne

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Fact (assuming Renarin really is Voidbinding - which is RAFO, but heavily supported) and hopefully Rlain in SA5. 

But we have seen Renarin use Regrowth, and we have seen Lift use Regrowth the same way. So:

• If Renarin is Voidbinding
• and his expression of Regrowth matches Lift
• then at least some expressions of Voidbinding are the same (or so similar that spotting a difference is difficult)

Coppermind:

WoB:

 

I would say Renarin only uses Voidbinding with Illumination.

[Treamayne]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I would say Renarin only uses Voidbinding with Illumination.

So, running with that idea:

Would you expect that an "Enlightened" version of other Radient Spren would also offer 1 Surgebinding and 1 Voidbinding ability?

Example, if we saw an Enlightened Cultivation Spren bond a Radiant, we would expect thier first ability (Abrasion) to be a regular Surgebinding, but thier version of Progression would be the Voidbinding version?

[Frustration]

Just now, Treamayne said:

So, running with that idea:

Would you expect that an "Enlightened" version of other Radient Spren would also offer 1 Surgebinding and 1 Voidbinding ability?

Example, if we saw an Enlightened Cultivation Spren bond a Radiant, we would expect thier first ability (Abrasion) to be a regular Surgebinding, but thier version of Progression would be the Voidbinding version?

That would be my prediction.

[Letryx13]

I think Moash's reaction to Renarin relates more to how Odium can't see Renarin's future, or those around him. WHich means that as soon as Renarin is close enough to Moash, Odium can't keep up the connection to Moash, which is why Moash got overwhelmed and ran.  Similar to to what happened to him at the Uritheru (I think Hoid mentioned something about how Odium can't see people at the tower when it's protections are up), so Renarin's obscuring probably has the same effect.  The anti-voidlight tone probably played a role, but I think the tower's defenses did too. 

13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I would say Renarin only uses Voidbinding with Illumination.

I agree with this. Illumination seems a surge closer to Honor while Progression matches Cultivation. The Sibling referred to Adhesion as Honor's truest surge, which suggests that there is varying level of alignment among the ten surges to the two Shards. And if Odium's power was going to influence Honor's or Cultivation's, it makes sense to me that it would impact Honor, since Odium and Honor are both power's related to emotion and mindset. 

So Odium's power would impact Illumination instead of progression.

 

To your other point, if it were a Corrupted/Enlightened (I like the term Blended myself) cultivation spren, I also think there would be one altered surge, but I'd lean toward it being Abrasion, not Progression. I hope it happens in the back half of the series so we can see a few other raidants of this type.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Letryx13

[Returned]

There's something similar in Renarin's use of Regrowth too. When he heals Adolin at the paddock, Adolin has a vision of himself perfected. That's pretty similar to the vision of Moash-- it's Moash, perfected.

[The Bookwyrm]

1 minute ago, Returned said:

There's something similar in Renarin's use of Regrowth too. When he heals Adolin at the paddock, Adolin has a vision of himself perfected. That's pretty similar to the vision of Moash-- it's Moash, perfected.

Isn't the reflection of a person or a thing in the Spiritual Realm an image or representation of their perfect selves, an image of what they could be? Maybe Renarin's powers are based on the same principles of Malatium, but slightly skewed toward the hypothetical choices that point toward a person's Spiritual aspect.

Though I'm pretty sure all the temporal metals have something to do with the Spiritual realm, considering all moments are at one there. I think.