Living plate across orders

[Atlas333]

Through the preview chapters, we've now gotten a look at our third set of living plate. That's still barely enough to make generalizations about living plate but it is interesting to consider how each of them is different.

Kaladin's - I feel this is the one we know the most about. It functions as a normal shardplate but has the additional ability to form around other people if Kaladin tells them to. The obvious question is if this is a feature of all living plate or just Windrunners. Given their focus on protecting people it would make sense they have this additional protection ability. 

Shallan's - Shallan only recently got her armor but we've already seen a few key differences between her's and Kaladin's. The most obvious is that it can't form around other people the way Kaladin's can; while it has the ability the target is unable to move which makes it good for restraining people. But why can't the armor move? Is it because it's "unpracticed" as Shallan suggests or is it just a quirk of lightweaver plate? Or is this true of all the other orders? Additionally, Shallan's plate has the ability to manifest as any beads she wants in the cognitive realm. This makes sense as creationspren often take the form of objects in the physical realm but it seems like a strange ability to me as lightweavers don't have the surge of transportation. I would almost expect this ability from elsecaller plate. 

Jasnah's - The first set of living plate we were introduced to but to me, it's among the most frustrating. For the most part, it behaves exactly as you would expect dead plate. Granted Jasnah is pretending to be a normal shardbearer and this was living plate's first appearance so this shouldn't be too surprising. The only thing of note is that Jasnah's plate has flint and steel "affixed" to her gauntlets to allow her to set things alight. This could be an aspect of her plate (the ability to change its substance) but it could just as likely be affixed through mundane means. 

 

Honorable mention is the plate we see in The Sunlit Man but I don't remember it doing anything worth mentioning. 

 

If I missed anything in my observations please let me know. Really, this just leads me to a set of questions that I feel aren't new despite having new information. 

- can all living shard plate form around people?  If so what determines if the target can move or not? Or is it unique for each order? Or is it dependent on the radiant? Perhaps dependent on their combat experience (in other words the knight's familiarity with armor).

- do all shardplate have an additional "function" (forming around others, manifesting beads, etc.) or are they fairly uniform across orders?

[the_archduke]

Did you read this week's chapters?  Some juicy details about Shallan's plate.

[Atlas333]

2 minutes ago, the_archduke said:

Did you read this week's chapters?  Some juicy details about Shallan's plate.

Yes, but I don't remember anything too crazy besides Shallan's creative application of her plate. Did I miss anything else?

[Elite01]

Its interesting that Shallan can form plate around others just like Kaladin, the difference being she needs to be touching them while Kaladin did not. I think the difference is because of the type of spren. I imagine wind spren are faster/more free while creationspren would have a hard time shooting across a room. 

 

I think its safe to assume each shard plate will have a different ability but they might not be that flashy. I don't think its worth much but in Dalinar's vision where he fights the midnight essence creatures doesn't he see a edgedancer with plate in that vision? 

[logicless.bt]

If the name of the platespren really does correlate with the manner of power the Shardplate gives, we can make educated guesses. The issue is that there's significant overlap between the type of spren and the powers that those Radiants already get.

Stonewards get bind spren, so they'd probably be able to affix their Plate to surfaces -- but that's not much different than using Cohesion to morph stone around you.

Skybreakers get gravitationspren. What power could they possibly give that Lashings don't already? Making yourself heavy via your plate isn't that different than lashing yourself downward. Same with flamespren for Dustbringers: they can burn things with their Platespren ... or with division, the power they already have.

It gets even harder with emotion spren. Does joyspren plate just center you emotionally? Logicspren plate make you smarter? What would the difference be between logic spren and concentration spren? Talking it through makes me hesitant to believe that the kind of plate spren indicates the power of the plate.

[Etedbert he/him]

I’ve been trying to find where we were told this, but I remember it being revealed during the RPG kickstarter that radiant plate does not have unique abilities based on the order. I will update here if I manage to find whoever said it.
 

I think it’s more likely that Shallan’s weird experience with her plate is a result of her double bond/reforming her bond with Testament, rather than evidence of unique plate abilities for each order. (As cool as that would be).
Shallan manipulating the shape of her plate is something any Radiant should be able to do, it’s an extrapolation of the way plate forms to fit whoever is wearing it. Janah probably did the same thing in RoW to make her flint and steel gloves to ignite soulcast oil on the battlefield. People wearing Shallan’s plate being unable to move is certainly odd, but it seems to be a way of helping her give mental commands to the plate. When she puts it on Red in chapter 16, she tries commanding the spren to form around him, but they’re confused until she grabs his arm to help them visualize where to go. She even struggled forming the plate around herself correctly the first time. I think this is maybe because of her split mind, rather than a unique feature of lightweaver plate. It’s not that her spren can’t form armor correctly, it’s that she has trouble commanding them to do so, possibly from her split, but equally possible is that it’s because of her imbricated spren bonds.

[Dofurion]

7 hours ago, Etedbert said:

I’ve been trying to find where we were told this, but I remember it being revealed during the RPG kickstarter that radiant plate does not have unique abilities based on the order. I will update here if I manage to find whoever said it.
 

I think it’s more likely that Shallan’s weird experience with her plate is a result of her double bond/reforming her bond with Testament, rather than evidence of unique plate abilities for each order. (As cool as that would be).
Shallan manipulating the shape of her plate is something any Radiant should be able to do, it’s an extrapolation of the way plate forms to fit whoever is wearing it. Janah probably did the same thing in RoW to make her flint and steel gloves to ignite soulcast oil on the battlefield. People wearing Shallan’s plate being unable to move is certainly odd, but it seems to be a way of helping her give mental commands to the plate. When she puts it on Red in chapter 16, she tries commanding the spren to form around him, but they’re confused until she grabs his arm to help them visualize where to go. She even struggled forming the plate around herself correctly the first time. I think this is maybe because of her split mind, rather than a unique feature of lightweaver plate. It’s not that her spren can’t form armor correctly, it’s that she has trouble commanding them to do so, possibly from her split, but equally possible is that it’s because of her imbricated spren bonds.

I found a couple of WoB's about it.

Quote

YaBoiAlex 

I ask this in a vague manner intentionally, but can we expect to see the Shardplate spren of other Orders being able to do different things on command depending on the kind of spren? Kind of like how Kaladin commanded the windspren to form plate on others and hold back the storm?

Brandon Sanderson 

RAFO!

General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 22, 2020) 

Quote

FrodoFighter

Kaladin sending out his armor to save other people, is that something all Radiants can do or is that a Windrunner thing only?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that. Let's just say it's going to depend on a variety of things. Definitely other Windrunners can do it.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

[Atlas333]

21 hours ago, Etedbert said:

I’ve been trying to find where we were told this, but I remember it being revealed during the RPG kickstarter that radiant plate does not have unique abilities based on the order. I will update here if I manage to find whoever said it.

I didn't even consider the RPG but you've got a point. I do remember that Lightweaver's have the ability to form their plate around a willing character. Granted all we got was a preview so the full release could reveal that this character is immobilized but that feels unlikely. Additionally, the RPG isn't going to be a perfect 1:1 implementation of the books (for example, skybreakers don't have to wait until their 3rd ideal to get division) so this could be one area the RPG also isn't accurate.

However, to me, I think the easiest solution is that Shallan is being weird (yet again). I would chalk her rigid armor to her general lack of knowledge of how plate functions (kind of similar to how Auxilary in TSM can only form into objects Nomad understands) which means as she gets more experience her armor will likely lose this quirk. 

[logicless.bt]

On 10/24/2024 at 12:53 PM, Etedbert said:

I’ve been trying to find where we were told this, but I remember it being revealed during the RPG kickstarter that radiant plate does not have unique abilities based on the order. I will update here if I manage to find whoever said it.

I kind of remember something similar, but it doesn't quite add up tbh. Creationspren form Shallan's Plate, and she is able to use those platespren to create whatever she needs within Shadesmar (iirc it was not a Fortune effect, right?). That's a unique ability based on Plate right there.

[feruchemicalrockband]

I had a theory a while ago that radiant plate may have abilities based on the Radiants two surges. So Kal's plate's ability to bond to other people is an affect of Adhesion, and Shallan's Lightweaver plate has the ability to imitate Shadesmar beads due to Transformation. Each type of plate would abilities for the primary and secondary surges available to the Radiant.

So Windrunner plate has an Adhesion effect and a Gravitation effect. Skybreakers have the same Gravitation effect and a Division effect.

This theory died when I found out about the RPG information, but maybe Brandon just didn't want to reveal Radiant plate abilities there.

 

Hmm. This is a sidebar, but I wonder if the Alethi tradition of kings lending plate to worthy soldiers came from Windrunner radiant plate. Alethkar is heavily associated with Windrunners after all, and one of the Windrunner attributes is leadership. Maybe Alethi kings started the tradition to deepen the association of light eyes to Radiants?