Highspren differences (RoW spoilers)

[WandererNearby]

Today I was thinking about how the highspren interact with their knights differently than any other order that we've seen so far. For one thing, they hang around in the Physical Realm to observe the squires. This seems weird to me because, if they are like the other radiant spren, they're running the risk of losing their sentience by hanging out too long in the Physical Realm. Second, the knight-spren relationship seems closer to a veteran-rookie relationship than a partnership based on the fact that the spren chooses when the knight completes their Crusade, the knight must get to the Second Oath before bonding a spren, and they seem to hide from their knight even after bonding. The biggest difference is how much control Nale has over the order. He can choose who joins and is the only 5th order knight around. I think there's a potential explanation for these differences: Nale has (maybe by accident) formed protobond with all of the highspren currently found in the Order which allows them to hang around like this and gives him more control over all of them. 

I think the timeline roughly goes like this: 

1. Before Nale joins the order, the differences are mentioned above is minimized outside of the fact that they're concerned with justice as police officers, judges, and etc. 
2. Nale joins and immediately has enormous influence due to the fact that he's the Herald of Justice. 
3. Nale ascends to the Fifth Order. 
4. Every Skybreaker after this feels weird about ascending to the Fifth Order because it would be strange to be his peer. 
5. The result is that Nale now is the Skybreaker Herald and routinely commands everyone including the highspren. The highspren get used to him commanding them over the centuries and may even view him like the Honorspren view the Stormfather. 
6. Eventually, Nale's "metaphysical mass" (for lack of a better term) as Herald, the centuries spent shaping the order into his own image, and the fact that the spren are used to him bossing them around, they develop a protobond with him which allows them to hang around much longer in the Physical Realm. 
7. Because the spren can spend so much time in Physical Realm, they walk into every bond after this with the assumption that they know more than their Radiant and should be treated as the senior member of the partnership. 

What do you think? 

[Ookla the Sibling]

10 minutes ago, WandererNearby said:

Second, the knight-spren relationship seems closer to a veteran-rookie relationship than a partnership

For some reason I really like this idea. When spren come through to the physical realm, they lose a lot of their memories and knowledge. When they bond their knight, it's kind of like the spren and the knight are growing and discovering themselves together, and it makes for a very interesting partnership. But here's the thing. If a spren has been around for literally thousands of years, and the person is just a regular person, once the spren gets their memories and their mind back, the relationship between them and the person seems like it would change. The spren is way older and knows way more. Why wouldn't they grow to have a sort of mentor/apprentice relationship?

This makes sense to me for older spren, although I guess in modern Roshar some of the spren are relatively young? I know Sylphrena is old because she survived the recreance, but the other honor spren are sort of newish and they've never bonded before.

If the highspren have been around since before the recreance, I feel that it is justified that they treat their knights like apprentices. 

Small tangent, but I wrote this whole thing with the word human and then had to go back and change it to person because I remembered that singers could also bond spren. I don't think person is species specific but who knows.

[Ookla the Bees]

This kinda doesn't really fit in with the other orders. Symmetry is their whole thing, why should the Skybreakers be so different?

I'm also not entirely sold on the idea that Nale is like the supreme leader of all the Highspren. Would all the other heralds have the same effect then? What about Shalash, or Talanel? Would they be able to tether all the spren of their order to the physical realm if they just bossed them around?

I guess the Recreance did kinda mess things up though. also what is a protobond

[alder24]

1 hour ago, WandererNearby said:

For one thing, they hang around in the Physical Realm to observe the squires. This seems weird to me because, if they are like the other radiant spren, they're running the risk of losing their sentience by hanging out too long in the Physical Realm.

We don't really know how this works. Yes, generally spren who are searching for their Knight will travel in PR and lose their cognitive functions - but this is how Syl did it alone. There are other spren that are doing similar things but differently. For example Cryptics are sending a committee of spren to accompany their soon to be bonded comrade, watch the potential candidates together and even evaluate and decide on their worthiness as a collective group - they are doing this from CR, as Shallan could see in WoK. Inkspren behaved similarly, a group of them were present when Ivory was testing Jasnah in WoR prologue. We even see this behavior in Honorspren as Phendorana accompanied fellow Honorspren to meet Kaladin's squires while being fully Cognitive at that time (OB ch 37). For me this means that Highspren just gather in CR, watch Skybreakers and their potential squires, judge them, and if they find them worthy of bonding, they form a bond and get pulled into PR while already being anchored to their Radiant - this might lessen the effect that transitioning to PR has on their mind. They are not doing this from PR, but CR, just like Cryptics or Inkspren did it. 

Another factor can be that spren don't immediately lose their mind after their Radiant dies - Yunfah in RoW had been hanging around for months without a bond and was still fine. Skybreakers might act similarly - they have a pool of squires ready for their Highspren for when one of the Skybreakers dies, a Highspren can choose someone new to bond almost immediately, without losing their mind in PR. And we saw 2 Skybreaker squires dead in Edgedancer novella, I would guess they at least attracted their spren at that point, because they gained Nale's attention.

1 hour ago, WandererNearby said:

the knight must get to the Second Oath before bonding a spren

That's not the whole thing. This is no different from Windrunners or other orders. There is more Radiant candidates than spren, thus there are more squires than spren ready to bond. The job of a squire is to attract a spren, this can be done before the 2nd Ideal, but it is spren who decides who's worthy of bonding (Honorspren Yunfah narrowed down his candidats to 5 squires). Szeth did it, his Highspren was already watching him before he swore the 2nd ideal, and Nale originally thought that Szeth might be able to skip straight into the 3rd Ideal. OB ch 90&92:

Quote

“The Herald,” Ki said, “originally thought that you might skip to the Third Ideal because of your past."

[...]

“You may. Justice will serve you until you attract a spren and swear to a more specific code. During my prayers last night, Winnow proclaimed the highspren are watching you. I won’t be surprised if it takes mere months before you achieve the Third Ideal.”

Edit: True is that it was said that they will bond a spren after swearing the 2nd Ideal, and this will bring them into the 3rd Ideal - this might be simply because of their highly hierarchical approach and traditions that lasted through Recreance.

 

1 hour ago, WandererNearby said:

I think there's a potential explanation for these differences: Nale has (maybe by accident) formed protobond with all of the highspren currently found in the Order which allows them to hang around like this and gives him more control over all of them. 

I think that might be problematic for Highspren - they have a proto-bond, which is a bond, and for them to bond with another Radiant, they would have to break it. And we know what happens to spren with broken bonds. Their behavior and different approach to treating their knights might be explained simply by having a different culture, and as Honorspren showed us, they can simply respect Heralds enough to value their opinion and revere them - for Highspren this would be overly emphasized as Nale became the embodiment of law, not just because of his 5th Ideal, but because of his history of respect he had to the law. Plus, their admiration for hierarchy would play a role of them allowing Nale to become the leading figure of Skybreakers, just like in Honorspren, even Syl mentioned that Honorspren are searching for a leading figure and they will obey Kal's orders, just like soldiers will obey orders of their commanding officer - Yunfah's case. RoW ch 10:

Quote

He’s acting mad, Syl said. But I do think he’ll agree if you push him. He respects you, and honorspren like hierarchy. The ones who have joined us did so against the will of the general body of their peers; they’ll be looking for someone to be in charge.

Because of that I think Highspren simply radicalized over millennia, they weren't dragged by their proto-bond to Nale, but rather due to their admiration and respect to Nale as the Herald of Justice, they slowly shifted in their beliefs to be willing to side with Singers and Odium - which isn't an isolated example. Many other spren are willing to do that as well, most notably Lightspren, Inkspren (agreeing that Singers are the rightful rulers of Roshar just like Nale argued), Ashspren and even some Honorspren are talking about it, Highspren being the first to side with Singers and Odium isn't out of ordinary considering what every spren thinks of Humans after Recreance.

1 hour ago, WandererNearby said:

• Before Nale joins the order, the differences are mentioned above is minimized outside of the fact that they're concerned with justice as police officers, judges, and etc. 

Disagree, just as Cryptics are different, Highspren are different as well. Their culture is simply unique, and thus their treatment of their Radiants is also different. 

1 hour ago, WandererNearby said:

• Every Skybreaker after this feels weird about ascending to the Fifth Order because it would be strange to be his peer. 

While I agree this certainly is a factor to some degree, I think it mostly boils down to how difficult it is for Radiants to reach 5th Ideal, esspecially Skybreakers who have to became the embodyment of law. The 5th Ideal happened under Nale's command in the past, but even reaching 4th Ideal takes decades of work, most would be stuck on 3rd Ideal. OB ch 90:

Quote

The Ideal of Law,” Ki said. “It is difficult. You must become law, become truth. As I said, it has been centuries since that was achieved.”
“Nin told me we were to follow the law—something external, as men are changeable and unreliable. How can we become the law?”
“Law must come from somewhere,” another of the Skybreaker masters said. “This is not an oath you will swear, so don’t fixate upon it. The first three will do for most Skybreakers. I was of the Third Ideal for two decades before achieving the Fourth.”

 

Overall this is an interesting theory. I don't agree with it, but we don't know for certain what's happening with Highspren yet. For me it just seems natural that they simply have a different culture and a different approach to the bond, resulting in what we see. We saw behaviors like this among other orders and true spren, so I don't think Highspren behavior is that outstanding.

Edited November 2 by alder24