Reverse Lashing outside the Windrunners

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Can the bearer of Yelig-nar use Reverse Lashings?

[alder24]

33 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Can the bearer of Yelig-nar use Reverse Lashings?

It's a combination of two Surges, Adhesion and Gravitation. If Yelig-Nar can access Adhesion, they yes, if not then no. And we don't know which one is true. "Mythica" said Yelig-Nar has access to all Surges. However the book is a recent work and Raboniel claimed Adhesion isn't a true Surge. It is also unavailable to Odium's servants, which Yelig-Nar is. But there is also a WoB which said Fused are biased, so everything is possible.

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Yelig-nar had great powers, perhaps the powers of all Surges compounded in one. He could transform any Voidbringer into an extremely dangerous enemy. Curiously, three legends I found mention swallowing a gemstone to engage this process.

 

Spoiler

LettersWords

The Fused only use nine of the Surges (they don't use Adhesion), and Raboniel describes Adhesion as "not a true Surge." Does this mean, in its original form on Ashyn, Surgebinding had no equivalent to Adhesion, and it was created by Honor later?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a valid way of theorizing, and I would encourage you to go that direction. Raboniel is biased. So take those two sentences as separate things. Do be aware she is very, very biased, but also your theorizing could bear fruit going that direction.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

You can probably make a Fabrial that can use Reverse Lashing, just like other Fabrials using Surgebinding powers.

[+hwiles]

On 1/3/2024 at 4:49 PM, Oltux72 said:

Can the bearer of Yelig-nar use Reverse Lashings?

It's legitimately possible that they might not. Reverse lashings are theorized to be a resonance ability specific to invested arts users who control both adhesion and gravitation (edit: it sounds like i got the underlined text wrong, sorry). The famous example of being unable to access resonance abilities is the Lord Ruler who, despite being a full mistborn and feruchemist, possessed no complimentary resonant powers (such as Wax's "steel bubble" powers). My understanding till now has been that, once a being has access to more than a handful of distinct forms of invested arts, the interference and dissonance between those overlapping powers makes it progressively more difficult for resonance phenomena to manifest and be expressed. IE: if one possesses many individual powers, they may not be able to ever possess fine enough control over said powers to be able to leverage their "natural" synergies and complimentary derivative abilities between each other.

Edited January 9 by hwiles

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, hwiles said:

It's legitimately possible that they might not. Reverse lashings are theorized to be a resonance ability specific to invested arts users who control both adhesion and gravitation. The famous example of being unable to access resonance abilities is the Lord Ruler who, despite being a full mistborn and feruchemist, possessed no complimentary resonant powers (such as Wax's "steel bubble" powers). My understanding till now has been that, once a being has access to more than a handful of distinct forms of invested arts, the interference and dissonance between those overlapping powers makes it progressively more difficult for resonance phenomena to manifest and be expressed. IE: if one possesses many individual powers, they may not be able to ever possess fine enough control over said powers to be able to leverage their "natural" synergies and complimentary derivative abilities between each other.

That's not entirely true. Reverse Lashing isn't a resonance, having more squires is Windrunners resonance. 

Spoiler

Ray745

You have stated that each Knights Radiant Order gets their own unique ability, for lack of a better word, due to the combination of their Surges. For instance, you have stated this ability for the Windrunners is strength of squires. My question - is this due to the Nahel bond, or just inherent in the Surges combining. Would a non-Radiant get these abilities from the Honorblades, or would they be out of luck due to no Nahel bond?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! The unique abilities have more to do with the powers interacting, same as how Twinborn will often manifest some odd side effects of the powers interacting. But there are limitations. For example, Jezrien didn't actually have any squires, as none of the Heralds did.

General Reddit 2016 (Oct. 4, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Argent

There is a person on the forums who noticed that Shallan has this awesome Memory thing going on, Jasnah seems to have a really powerful, kind of, geolocation thing going on, Kaladin is a really good fighter - are those just their traits, or is there something supernatural going on?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something supernatural going on. Each Order... Well, how about this. If you look at the scholar interpretations, there are some scholars who think that these things are not supernatural, in the past, and some who said they definitely are. But many, if you look, many Lightweavers had powerful mnemonic abilities.

Argent

So it's definitely tied to the Orders?

Brandon Sanderson

It's tied to the Orders. Now, I am not going to say that you've got them all 100% correct, but each Order, there are things that come with Order, things that do not add up from simple the "you get this power plus this power," there is something else going on. And I would say that for Windrunners, watch the number of squires and the power of the squires... is abnormal for the Windrunners.

Argent

And each Order's squires are somehow different from the other Orders'?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeeeaaaah... some Orders don't have them, [that] is the difference.

Argent

 But some have more?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

 

Spoiler

ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

Since Shallan has a unique ability of memory from her blended surges, is fighting what Kaladin has?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. His unique ability is "strength of squires".

ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

And Jasnah?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

 

But it's true the more powers you have, the less resonance there is:

Spoiler

OrangeJedi

Do Mistborn have resonances?

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitantly* Everybody does, but they're not as pronounced.

OrangeJedi

Is that because they just have so many powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

[+hwiles]

51 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That's not entirely true. Reverse Lashing isn't a resonance, having more squires is Windrunners resonance. 

  Hide contents

Ray745

You have stated that each Knights Radiant Order gets their own unique ability, for lack of a better word, due to the combination of their Surges. For instance, you have stated this ability for the Windrunners is strength of squires. My question - is this due to the Nahel bond, or just inherent in the Surges combining. Would a non-Radiant get these abilities from the Honorblades, or would they be out of luck due to no Nahel bond?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! The unique abilities have more to do with the powers interacting, same as how Twinborn will often manifest some odd side effects of the powers interacting. But there are limitations. For example, Jezrien didn't actually have any squires, as none of the Heralds did.

General Reddit 2016 (Oct. 4, 2016)

 

  Hide contents

Argent

There is a person on the forums who noticed that Shallan has this awesome Memory thing going on, Jasnah seems to have a really powerful, kind of, geolocation thing going on, Kaladin is a really good fighter - are those just their traits, or is there something supernatural going on?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something supernatural going on. Each Order... Well, how about this. If you look at the scholar interpretations, there are some scholars who think that these things are not supernatural, in the past, and some who said they definitely are. But many, if you look, many Lightweavers had powerful mnemonic abilities.

Argent

So it's definitely tied to the Orders?

Brandon Sanderson

It's tied to the Orders. Now, I am not going to say that you've got them all 100% correct, but each Order, there are things that come with Order, things that do not add up from simple the "you get this power plus this power," there is something else going on. And I would say that for Windrunners, watch the number of squires and the power of the squires... is abnormal for the Windrunners.

Argent

And each Order's squires are somehow different from the other Orders'?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeeeaaaah... some Orders don't have them, [that] is the difference.

Argent

 But some have more?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

Since Shallan has a unique ability of memory from her blended surges, is fighting what Kaladin has?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. His unique ability is "strength of squires".

ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

And Jasnah?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

 

But it's true the more powers you have, the less resonance there is:

  Reveal hidden contents

OrangeJedi

Do Mistborn have resonances?

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitantly* Everybody does, but they're not as pronounced.

OrangeJedi

Is that because they just have so many powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

Darnit! Good catch, that's what I get for going by memory. Thanks!

[Iron-Eyes he/him]

Does the effect of resonance differ between person to person, or is it just the set resonance for that particular power set?

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, Iron-Eyes said:

Does the effect of resonance differ between person to person, or is it just the set resonance for that particular power set?

Depends on Context. On Roshar, the resonances are tied to the Orders by the nature of the Nahel Bond. However, it is implied that otherwise,  Resonance (if any - they don't always manifest) is more tied to the individual and how the powers are used and interact with their spiritweb. Unfortunately we have to wait for Era 3 to get most of these questions answered. 

 

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Argent

There is a person on the forums who noticed that Shallan has this awesome Memory thing going on, Jasnah seems to have a really powerful, kind of, geolocation thing going on, Kaladin is a really good fighter - are those just their traits, or is there something supernatural going on?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something supernatural going on. Each Order... Well, how about this. If you look at the scholar interpretations, there are some scholars who think that these things are not supernatural, in the past, and some who said they definitely are. But many, if you look, many Lightweavers had powerful mnemonic abilities.

Argent

So it's definitely tied to the Orders?

Brandon Sanderson

It's tied to the Orders. Now, I am not going to say that you've got them all 100% correct, but each Order, there are things that come with Order, things that do not add up from simple the "you get this power plus this power," there is something else going on. And I would say that for Windrunners, watch the number of squires and the power of the squires... is abnormal for the Windrunners.

Argent

And each Order's squires are somehow different from the other Orders'?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeeeaaaah... some Orders don't have them, [that] is the difference.

Argent

 But some have more?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

Quote

Ray745

You have stated that each Knights Radiant Order gets their own unique ability, for lack of a better word, due to the combination of their Surges. For instance, you have stated this ability for the Windrunners is strength of squires. My question - is this due to the Nahel bond, or just inherent in the Surges combining. Would a non-Radiant get these abilities from the Honorblades, or would they be out of luck due to no Nahel bond?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! The unique abilities have more to do with the powers interacting, same as how Twinborn will often manifest some odd side effects of the powers interacting. But there are limitations. For example, Jezrien didn't actually have any squires, as none of the Heralds did.

General Reddit 2016 (Oct. 4, 2016)

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yulerule

Okay, so Twinborn have [resonances], but full Mistborn don't, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

yulerule

So then I assume that a nonmagical person, like someone who doesn't have magic, holding the Bands of Mourning will not have no perks.

Brandon Sanderson

I would say they would not.

yulerule

Will a Twinborn that's holding the Bands of Mourning still have their original perk?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

yulerule

Or, if a Ferring is holding the Bands, and they use just one ability, will they develop a perk, tied to the one second ability they are using?

Brandon Sanderson

The longer they use it, the more likely that this is to happen.

yulerule

Using Investiture a lot over a long period changes your Spiritweb. So what happens if a nonmagical uses the Bands for a while?

Brandon Sanderson

Same thing that would happen to someone else, um, it would have a definite effect on them. *laughter* It would change them, as... in similar ways. Not exactly the same, but in similar ways.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

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Questioner

I was wondering, with resonance. Is that a sort of constructive interference?

Brandon Sanderson

Constructed? No. Resonance is more about the way-- It's more of a natural interference.

Questioner

So what I mean like, you have two waves, right? And if their troughs, you know--

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, is that the formal term? For the constructed.-- Oh constructive? I thought you had said-- yeah. So yes, I would say that that is an accurate phrase. I mean obviously it's not exactly the same thing. But yeah, that's what I was looking at when I was building it, was kinda things like this with waveform patterns and whatnot. So yes. At least, it was inspired by this kind of idea.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

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Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The "perks" ("secondary effect born with interaction between powers") also has not a 100% sure name, but the main one at the moment is resonances....We will discovered a lot of the in the third trilogy where the Scientific Method would be applied to the magic.

Lucca Comics and Games Festival (Oct. 28, 2016)

 

 

[Iron-Eyes he/him]

Thanks, I'm assuming that the amount of people who were shown to have resonance in mistborn era 2 was Wax, with his steel bubble, and maybe Wayne with his ability with cadmium bubbles. And also, now that I think about it, could Miles' ability to ignore pain have been his resonance, or would that just have been a natural occurrence?  

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, Iron-Eyes said:

Thanks, I'm assuming that the amount of people who were shown to have resonance in mistborn era 2 was Wax, with his steel bubble, and maybe Wayne with his ability with cadmium bubbles. And also, now that I think about it, could Miles' ability to ignore pain have been his resonance, or would that just have been a natural occurrence?  

Correction, Wayne is a Bendalloy Misting, Marasi is a Cadmium Misting. 

It's really hard to say which abilities of Metalborns in Era 2 can be attributed to resonances. Wax's steel bubble can't be a resonance because a Coinshot in BoM uses the same power against Wax, in the train fight. It doesn't help that at first Wax was written as a steel Savant, but Brandon has to withdraw from this because it didn't feel right without Savant-like consequences. We don't know what Wayne's resonance is , but his ability to impersonate is not it. BoM ch 7:

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The brute smiled. Doors still rattled around him—he was a Coinshot, obviously, Pushing out with a bubble like the one Wax used. It even pressed a little on the metalminds Wax wore on his upper arms, which were resistant to Allomancy

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Warning, Evgeni. I'm really considering doing a backpedal on savants. The more i think about them, the less I'm not liking how my current course has them being treated in upcoming books. I think it deviates too far from my original vision.

Argent

Hey, I wouldn't normally contact you directly like this, but given that you thought it important enough to reach out and let me know you might change how savants work, I figured you probably wouldn't be too upset by this message. I replied to your Facebook comment, asking if you could clarify a little bit which aspects of savantism you are thinking of keeping and/or cutting. I don't need an essay on the topic (though you know I'd love one!), just some details on what we can consider canon for theories, and what we should be careful around.

Brandon Sanderson

Evgeni,

So here's the problem. The more I dig into savants in the later outlines, the more I feel that I'm in a dangerous area--in that I'm disobeying their original intention. (Which is that using the power so much that it permeates your soul can be dangerous, a kind of uncontrolled version of a spren bond.)

And so, I don't want to let myself just start making people savants right and left. It needs to be a specific thing. Wax is the troubling one, as I have him burning so much steel that he's well on his way, but isn't showing any side effects. If I'm going to give him savant-like abilities, he needs savant-like consequences.

That's the danger, just falling back on savanthood to do some of the things I want, so often that it undermines the actual point and purpose of them in the cosmere lore.

So if I backpedal, it will be to contain this and point myself the right way, sharply curtailing my desire to make people savants without their savanthood being an intrinsic part of their story and conflict in life. (Like it was for Spook, and is for Soulcasting savants on Roshar.)

Feel free to share this.

Argent

Okay, so - if you do decide to go this route, I see the story implications (larger focus on consequences, less easy to get to the point where a character can be considered a savant). What I am not sure about is the potential for a mechanical change. Would a backpedal on your side cause a conflict with information you've shared with us, in or out of your books? Are you saying that it's possible that Wax won't be considered a savant (if you can't squeeze a good ramifications plot for him that doesn't contradict the apparent lack of consequences so far, for example)?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't decided on anything yet. It's mostly consequences for the future--just a kind of, "be aware I'm not 100% pleased with how Wax turned out, re: savanthood and Allomantic resonance."

The idea of resonance is that two powers, combined, meld kind of into one single power. This is a manifestation of the way Shards combine. Wax was intended as a savant of the two melded powers. But without consequences in his plot, I'm not confident that I'll continue in the same vein for future books.

Footnote: The first message comes from Brandon reaching out to Argent (Evgeni) on Facebook with a follow-up regarding this entry. This rest is from a Reddit PM exchange between Argent and Brandon.
Miscellaneous 2016 (Dec. 15, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

I have a question about Wayne, are his skills of taking another personality, is it his trait, or something magical?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not magical, he’s just really good at it.

Kraków signing (March 21, 2017)