Discussion on Enlightened Higher Spren

[Jace The Firesworn he/him]

I am facinated by Corrupted spren and I want to talk about them

1. What spren would more easily be enlightened?

2. What would they look like?

3. What powers might they give to bonded radiants?

This is all theoretical, so nothing is of the table.

What do you guys think?

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, Jace The Firesworn said:

I am facinated by Corrupted Enlightened spren and I want to talk about them

1. What spren would more easily be enlightened?

2. What would they look like?

3. What powers might they give to bonded radiants?

This is all theoretical, so nothing is off of the table.

What do you guys think?

1. What humans are more easily converted to a new religion? It's not radicalization, but it does seems to be a fundamental shift in they way they view the world. Mistspren and Reachers, for example, are both shown to still harbor much of the resentment that the Honorspren did in RoW (seen in Ch 34 when they areguue over the proposals to the Honorspren). As a group, they react differently - with some Reachers like Timbre trying to bond Singers - and some Mistspren like Glys being Enlightened. But those are both individual choices to try finding an alternative to bonding Humans in the same way it used to be pre-Recreance. So, what Higher Spren might be enlightened? I think they both have to question the old ways (Mistspren love questions, as seen when Shallan and Dreaming interact on the barge in Ch 24) and be searching for alternatives - while also be open to change. We don't really know enough about most of the Spren Races to generalize which might have memebers choose this option - though we do know enough about Cryptics that I would not be surprised to see some become Enlightened. For Radiant Spren:
   • Honorspren - I doubt any Honorspren would choose enlightenement
   • Highspren - We don't know enough to say if any would choose enlightenement
   • Ashspren - I think it's possible some would choose enlightenement (based on Malata's Spren Spark just wanting revenge and revenge could drive other Ashspren to choosing this)
   • Cultivationspren - I think it's possiible some would choose enlightenement - if just because it is another avenue of Growth to explore
   • Mistspren - We already know two examples that did choose enlightenement (Glys and Tumi)
   • Inkspren - We don't know enough to say if any would choose enlightenement
   • Lightspren - I think it's possiible some would choose enlightenement - though it seems most Reachers are choosing to bond Singers, this might be another path other Reachers would try.
   • Peakspren - Ua'pam's discussion of Peakspren "Nations" show there is enough variety that I could see some might choose enlightenement
2. Well, Enlighteneing seems to harden soft edges (see this Shallan Sketch) - fingers into claws, flower petals into glass shards, reflected light into a snowflake-like crystal, etc. Since Cryptics tend to have a curved fractal appearance that constantly shifts, it could just become a linear fractal (like the Jurassic Park example). Other examples would just be finding an analog, but unless you want to speculate on each Spren Race, it's difficult to both guess who might become enlightened and how they might change. We also do not yet know how Glys looks in the Cognitive Realm.
3. We don't know nearly enough to speculate here - see the (rather long) Truthwatcher thread debating on how much of what Renarin does is actualy different from the normal Truthwatcher surges. I'm going to say that my guess is that the Surges are the same, but the Resonance may be different (based on the idea that it was Renarin's Resonance that allowed him to combine Illumination and Growth to make the Illusion-Moash in RoW Ch 8).