Knights Radiant and Parshendi Vibrant

[Atlas333]

I'm not sure if this has been previously discussed but this line from oathbringer between Gavilar and Eshonai always intrigued me.

Quote

“I seek for an end to something that we never finished. My people were Radiant once, and your people—the parshmen—were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other in endless squabbles, without light to guide them, and your people are as good as corpses?”

It's heavily implied that he's talking about reclaiming the powers of the knight radiants but he uses a different term for the parshmen - vibrant - but they sound equal in terms of power.

What were these "vibrant forms?" (For lack of a better term).

This could be referring to regal forms or the fused but I don't think that's it; I don't think we've heard vibrant used to describe either.

This is my theory: vibrant forms are what happens when a parshmen bonds a true spren in a highstorm (ie taking the spren into their gemheart). Presumably this would give unique forms (such as a "lightweaver form") that grants access to the same surges but wouldn't have oaths and therefore be slightly weaker. This could be how the dawnsingers had access to cohesion. 

Perhaps this is why the spren left the parshmen for the humans. Vibrant forms were stagnant and didn't allow the spren to experience the world (they would be trapped in a gem heart after all). But this isn't really the focus of this theory.

 

Cons to this theory: Venli

Venli is clearly bonded to a true spren but is probably not in a vibrant form. There are two potential explanations. 

1.  Venli's gemheart is occupied by a voidspren which determines her form (envoy form).

2. She's bonded to a Timbre through the nahel bond, not the biological bond that grants parshendi forms.

 

Pros to this theory:

Beyond the quote from gavilar we have this WoB.

Quote

Questioner
What would happen if a Parshendi were to attract a spren and bring it into the Highstorm? Like, an Honorspren of some sort?

Brandon Sanderson
Sapient spren have a choice of whether they get bonded or not, unless you entrap them some way. But simply attracting them...simply going into the Highstorm with one wouldn't work, what you said is 'attracted a spren', so, to answer that actually... The thing is, honorspren, all the spren of Honor and Cultivation, not honorspren capital, Honorspren or whatever... The spren that create the orders of the Knights Radiant have not, in the past, been attracted to Parshendi because of certain events in the past.

Questioner
*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson
You'll have to Read and Find Out.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/34/#e5653

While this could be interpreted a few ways to me it sounds like a parshendi can bond a true spren in a high storm although it would have to be consensual. However, this bond could also be taken to mean a radiant bond but I personally doubt it.

Thoughts?

[alder24]

49 minutes ago, Atlas333 said:

This is my theory: vibrant forms are what happens when a parshmen bonds a true spren in a highstorm (ie taking the spren into their gemheart). Presumably this would give unique forms (such as a "lightweaver form") that grants access to the same surges but wouldn't have oaths and therefore be slightly weaker. This could be how the dawnsingers had access to cohesion. 

This has never happened in the past. The Song of Secrets tells us that spren refused to grant Dawnsingers Surgebinding instead they gave them to humans. 

Quote

The betrayal of spren has brought us here.
They gave their Surges to human heirs,
But not to those who know them most dear, before us.
'Tis no surprise we turned away
Unto the gods we spent our days
And to become their molding clay, they changed us. 

In RoW ch 67 it was further said that True Spren didn't bond with the Dawnsingers, but they were able to use Surges by singing. The Nahel Bond and Surgebinding powers given by it is something new, that rose from something that has existed before. 

Quote

Remember, the stones said. The ground in front of her stopped rippling and formed shapes. Little homes made of stone, with figures standing beside them. Shaping them. She heard them humming.
She saw them. Ancient people, the Dawnsingers, working the stone. Creating cities, tools. They didn’t need Soulcasting or forges. They’d dip lengths of wood into the stone, and come out with axes. They’d shape bowls with their fingers. All the while, the stone would sing to them.
[...]
“How?” Venli asked. “Radiants didn’t exist then. Spren didn’t bond us … did they?”
Things are new, the stones hummed, but new things are made from old things, and old peoples give birth to new ones. Old stones remember.

 

Moreover Radiants didn't exist before the Heralds were established and given Honorblades by Honor. True Spren only then started to mimic Honorblades and began to give humans the ability to Surgebind, but they were not Radiants yet,  later Ishar established Knights Radiant, but this seems to be several Desolations after the First Desolation. Spren didn't give any Surgebinding powers via bonding before Heralds and their Honorblades appeared and this happened after Dawnsinger turned to Odium and Fused were made.

Based on that I think Gavilar was simply talking about forms of power. This is further confirmed by the context of Gavilar and Eshonai conversation - he was talking that he knew how to bring Listeners gods back to them and those gods are Fused and Voidspren, givers of Regal forms. 

Quote

“Now, now,” he said. “I’m going to help you, Eshonai. Did you know, I’ve discovered how to bring your gods back?”
No. She hummed to the Rhythm of the Terrors. No …
“My ancestors,” he said, holding up the fabrial, “first learned how to hold a spren inside a gemstone. And with a very special gemstone, you can hold even a god.”
“Your Majesty,” she said, daring to take his hand in hers. He couldn’t feel the rhythms. He didn’t know. “Please. We no longer worship those gods. We left them, abandoned them.”
“Ah, but this is for your good, and for ours.” He stood up. “We live without honor, for your gods once brought ours. Without them, we have no power. This world is trapped, Eshonai! Stuck in a dull, lifeless state of transition.” He looked toward the ceiling. “Unite them. I need a threat. Only danger will unite them.”
“What…” she said to Anxiety. “What are you saying?”
“Our enslaved parshmen were once like you. Then we somehow robbed them of their ability to undergo the transformation. We did it by capturing a spren. An ancient, crucial spren.” He looked at her, green eyes alight. “I’ve seen how that can be reversed. A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.”
“Insanity.” She rose to her feet. “Our gods tried to destroy you.”
[...]
“I thought you’d be pleased to hear that we are allies in seeking the return of your gods,” Gavilar said. She could almost hear the Rhythm of Reprimand in his dead words. “You claim to fear them, but why fear that which made you live? My people need to be united, and I need an empire that won’t simply turn to infighting once I am gone.”
“So you seek for war?”
“I seek for an end to something that we never finished. My people were Radiant once, and your people—the parshmen—were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other in endless squabbles, without light to guide them, and your people are as good as corpses?”
[...]
Gavilar removed something from his pocket. A sphere? It was dark, yet somehow still glowed. As if it had … an aura of blackness, a phantom light that was not light. Faintly violet. It seemed to suck in the light around it.
[...]
He patted her on the shoulder, then left the room. She stared at that terrible light, and—from the songs—knew it for what it was. The forms of power had been associated with a dark light, a light from the king of gods.

He specifically said the Parshmen used to be vibrant because now they are dull, mindless and with no Identity as it was all stolen from them when Mishram was imprisoned. Parshmen were vibrant before that, when they were in their forms of power granted by their gods - Voidspren. 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

On 5/13/2024 at 8:59 AM, alder24 said:

This has never happened in the past. The Song of Secrets tells us that spren refused to grant Dawnsingers Surgebinding instead they gave them to humans. 

In RoW ch 67 it was further said that True Spren didn't bond with the Dawnsingers, but they were able to use Surges by singing. The Nahel Bond and Surgebinding powers given by it is something new, that rose from something that has existed before. 

 

Moreover Radiants didn't exist before the Heralds were established and given Honorblades by Honor. True Spren only then started to mimic Honorblades and began to give humans the ability to Surgebind, but they were not Radiants yet,  later Ishar established Knights Radiant, but this seems to be several Desolations after the First Desolation. Spren didn't give any Surgebinding powers via bonding before Heralds and their Honorblades appeared and this happened after Dawnsinger turned to Odium and Fused were made.

Based on that I think Gavilar was simply talking about forms of power. This is further confirmed by the context of Gavilar and Eshonai conversation - he was talking that he knew how to bring Listeners gods back to them and those gods are Fused and Voidspren, givers of Regal forms. 

He specifically said the Parshmen used to be vibrant because now they are dull, mindless and with no Identity as it was all stolen from them when Mishram was imprisoned. Parshmen were vibrant before that, when they were in their forms of power granted by their gods - Voidspren. 

Is there not a glaring inaccuracy to the Song of Secrets, in that we know the Dawnsingers used a surge to shape Roshar? At least, when Venli is using her powers and communing with the stone of Urithiru, it recognizes her by ancestry and power, does it not?

Wouldn't that imply that something is either being lied about (by omission possibly) in the Song of Secrets? I recognize that they were able to sing and shape Stone, but at least from the way the stone interacted with Venli, it feels like it's a spliting of hairs as to how/why the spren "sided" with humans vs them surgebinding. The Dawnsingers still used at least one surge? Also, there was interbreeding between humans and singers at the time, which makes me think that the interaction with the spren had to be more nuanced than simply ditching the Singer race. It may be as cut and dry as presented in the song, but that feels wrong to me.

Honestly the entire transition of humanity from Odium to Honor/Cultivation and the Singers from H/C to O...makes very little sense to me. The argument that the Singers weren't as emotional as the humans so the spren ditched them, except that the "less" emotional race then joined with the god of emotion?

Like I said, I may be totally off base here, but I had felt that just about everything from that time, whether from humans or Singers, was questionable?

Edited May 16, 2024 by JohnnyKaizen

[alder24]

1 hour ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Is there not a glaring inaccuracy to the Song of Secrets, in that we know the Dawnsingers used a surge to shape Roshar? At least, when Venli is using her powers and communing with the stone of Urithiru, it recognizes her by ancestry and power, does it not?

I quoted this section. Those powers didn't come from the Nahel Bond. 

1 hour ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Wouldn't that imply that something is either being lied about (by omission possibly) in the Song of Secrets?

Or by the time of the Last Legion Singers had already forgotten about Dawnsinger's ability to sing and Stoneshape. It had been thousands of years of Desolations that were as brutal to Singers as they were to humans. And if in every Desolation humans were losing knowledge and technology, Singers suffered the same fate.

1 hour ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I recognize that they were able to sing and shape Stone, but at least from the way the stone interacted with Venli, it feels like it's a spliting of hairs as to how/why the spren "sided" with humans vs them surgebinding. The Dawnsingers still used at least one surge? Also, there was interbreeding between humans and singers at the time, which makes me think that the interaction with the spren had to be more nuanced than simply ditching the Singer race. It may be as cut and dry as presented in the song, but that feels wrong to me.

Honestly the entire transition of humanity from Odium to Honor/Cultivation and the Singers from H/C to O...makes very little sense to me. The argument that the Singers weren't as emotional as the humans so the spren ditched them, except that the "less" emotional race then joined with the god of emotion?

Like I said, I may be totally off base here, but I had felt that just about everything from that time, whether from humans or Singers, was questionable?

That's true. Song of Secrets don't tell the full story, they are biased (most likely due to the passage of time, forgetting about the past, or the first Fused lied about the reasons for siding with Odium to gain support of other Dawnsingers). Dawnsingers did something that made Spren side with humans, they offended spren. Leshwi suggested that by saying to Venli that "they’ve forgiven us."

That's why the Venli's conversation with stones is so important as in it they've confirmed that the Song of Secrets were correct and spren didn't bond Dawnsingers back then. The Nahel Bond is something new that follows an old pattern.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

20 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That's true. Song of Secrets don't tell the full story, they are biased (most likely due to the passage of time, forgetting about the past, or the first Fused lied about the reasons for siding with Odium to gain support of other Dawnsingers). Dawnsingers did something that made Spren side with humans, they offended spren. Leshwi suggested that by saying to Venli that "they’ve forgiven us."

That's why the Venli's conversation with stones is so important as in it they've confirmed that the Song of Secrets were correct and spren didn't bond Dawnsingers back then. The Nahel Bond is something new that follows an old pattern.

Ok yeah, that makes more sense in context. And the "they've forgiven us" line from Leshwi does certainly imply a whole book's worth of info. So I think we're on the same page.