Stormlight not equal to Voidlight?

[Ookla the Invariably Tired]

What is it exactly (if we know) that makes the Fused so much weaker than the Heralds? 

I saw a topic thread earlier, dont remeber which one or who said it unfortunately, that equated Heralds to Unmade, raditants to Fused, and regals in their own weird category, which seems very accurate to the book. We also know from Tanavast's memories that he imbued the largest portion of his power that he would give into the heralds, and that since there were only ten heralds, each could have more condensed power. However, they were made in similar ways, with both fused and heralds being made immortal and given access to the surges. Thus, it seems to me that at least some of this imbalance of power comes from stormlight being better, or at least more potent, than voidlight.

I believe it was Raboniel who talked to Navani in RoW about how Radiants were more powerful and could unlease their powers in a more spectacular way. Is that in part due to the bond they have with the spren? We also see repeatedly that radiants can utlize their abilites far better than fused can. For example, windrunners can use lashings while heavenly ones only seem to have one lashing, and masked ones are implied to have a very weak control over their illusions in WaT, with masked ones being barely reveant once, in Oathbringer. 

This to me implies a greater level of potency for stormlight, and I dont see why exactly. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[alder24]

14 minutes ago, Thalydon said:

What is it exactly (if we know) that makes the Fused so much weaker than the Heralds? 

I saw a topic thread earlier, dont remeber which one or who said it unfortunately, that equated Heralds to Unmade, raditants to Fused, and regals in their own weird category, which seems very accurate to the book. We also know from Tanavast's memories that he imbued the largest portion of his power that he would give into the heralds, and that since there were only ten heralds, each could have more condensed power. However, they were made in similar ways, with both fused and heralds being made immortal and given access to the surges. Thus, it seems to me that at least some of this imbalance of power comes from stormlight being better, or at least more potent, than voidlight.

I believe it was Raboniel who talked to Navani in RoW about how Radiants were more powerful and could unlease their powers in a more spectacular way. Is that in part due to the bond they have with the spren? We also see repeatedly that radiants can utlize their abilites far better than fused can. For example, windrunners can use lashings while heavenly ones only seem to have one lashing, and masked ones are implied to have a very weak control over their illusions in WaT, with masked ones being barely reveant once, in Oathbringer. 

This to me implies a greater level of potency for stormlight, and I dont see why exactly. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Stormlight and Voidlight are just a fuel to them and they have about the same potency. You can have a Radiant being fueled by Voidlight and they would use the same amount of investiture for the same effect as with Stormlight - in fact, Venli is able to use both lights to fuel her Surges and there is no difference between them.

The differences came from their Bonds and their nature. Fused are Cognitive Shadows Connected to Odium. Heralds aren't just Cognitive Shadows, they are the bearers of the Oathpact first and foremost, they hold pieces of Honor within themselves and their Connection to Honor is much greater due to the Bond and the Oathpact that binds them to him. Honor gave them Splinters that became Honorblades - pieces of Honor manifested in the Physical Realm that grants direct access to his power - and later Heralds also started to gain access to even more powers from Roshar itself, not just from Honor, but Honor let them do it more fully (WaT ch 120).

Fused aren't like that. They have Connection to Odium and this Connection allows them to use Surges, but they can only use one Surge, not two. Because they gain Surges from Odium through a different type of Connection, their abilities are slightly different than those of Radiants (but this is still the same Surgebinding).

Radiants bond with spren, Splinters of Honor and Cultivation, who are living manifestations of Surges. Each spren embodies two Surges and that's why Radiants can access two of them. Spren also mimicked Honorblades and are able to manifest as Shardblades and because of the structuralization created by Ishar (Orders of Knights Radiants were created by him), they can access more powers and a Shardplate with the Ideal system. The nature of the Nahel Bond and Radiants Ideals gives them more than Fused have.

[Ookla the Invariably Tired]

Good points. That makes me wonder how power scaling would be set up across the cosmere. Many seem to consider Radiants and stormlight the most powerful force in the cosmere, and they evidently hold great power. Led by the Heralds, I wonder if there are any who could stand against them.

Spoiler

The Returned seem to be highly invested beings wielding power directly from Endowment as cognitive shadows, but as they stand, only Susebron and the scholars have demonstrated significant levels of power. However, other unbounded beings at high heightening could replicate feats demonstrated by Susebron. It seems likely that a person at the tenth heightening could go toe to toe with a herald. However, the Heralds have healing and immortality, while none of the known heightening levels grant either, with the fifth heightening merely granting agelessness.  I would argue that stormlight beats breaths if the radiant/heralds are given time to adjust to what they are up against. Much of the power that breaths provides against radiants, as seen in Kaladin's fights with Vasher, comes from confusion and, as Hoid would say novelty. However, the powers wielded by the Heralds in WaT, those of the ancient gods of Roshar, would help give an edge. Additionally, I doubt any Awakener below the sixth heightening could pose a threat to even a radiant, so fielding a sufficient force to defeat an army from Roshar would be nearly impossible. Roshar takes this one. A being like the Lord Ruler, a full allomancer and full feruchemist, could likely pose a great threat to a world like Scadrial, but on Roshar I think they would have more trouble, as so much of an allomancer or feruchemist's abilities come from metal, something that would be largely unavailable on Roshar. I think even a twinborn could beat a Radiant on Scadrial, if both had access to their powers, but the Heralds and higher oath radiants could likely pose an incredible threat to even a powerful twinborn. 

Its interesting how powerful the nahel bond has proven to be. The direct connection to a sentient piece of a shard, something not seen anywhere else, is remarkably powerful. It poses many interesting questions about the future of the Cosmere, as each system develops the ability to travel to other worlds. 

Edited December 24, 2024 by Thalydon

[alder24]

10 hours ago, Thalydon said:

Good points. That makes me wonder how power scaling would be set up across the cosmere. Many seem to consider Radiants and stormlight the most powerful force in the cosmere, and they evidently hold great power. Led by the Heralds, I wonder if there are any who could stand against them.

Spoiler

The Returned seem to be highly invested beings wielding power directly from Endowment as cognitive shadows, but as they stand, only Susebron and the scholars have demonstrated significant levels of power. However, other unbounded beings at high heightening could replicate feats demonstrated by Susebron. It seems likely that a person at the tenth heightening could go toe to toe with a herald. However, the Heralds have healing and immortality, while none of the known heightening levels grant either, with the fifth heightening merely granting agelessness.  I would argue that stormlight beats breaths if the radiant/heralds are given time to adjust to what they are up against. Much of the power that breaths provides against radiants, as seen in Kaladin's fights with Vasher, comes from confusion and, as Hoid would say novelty. However, the powers wielded by the Heralds in WaT, those of the ancient gods of Roshar, would help give an edge. Additionally, I doubt any Awakener below the sixth heightening could pose a threat to even a radiant, so fielding a sufficient force to defeat an army from Roshar would be nearly impossible. Roshar takes this one.

A being like the Lord Ruler, a full allomancer and full feruchemist, could likely pose a great threat to a world like Scadrial, but on Roshar I think they would have more trouble, as so much of an allomancer or feruchemist's abilities come from metal, something that would be largely unavailable on Roshar. I think even a twinborn could beat a Radiant on Scadrial, if both had access to their powers, but the Heralds and higher oath radiants could likely pose an incredible threat to even a powerful twinborn. 

Its interesting how powerful the nahel bond has proven to be. The direct connection to a sentient piece of a shard, something not seen anywhere else, is remarkably powerful. It poses many interesting questions about the future of the Cosmere, as each system develops the ability to travel to other worlds. 

 

This is a Stormlight only forum, you should edit your post and hide non-Stormlight content inside a spoiler box. Cosmere spoilers:

Spoiler

Roshar was said to be a high investiture world, which means Radiants move a lot of investiture compared to other worlds, like Surges uses more Stormlight than what burning metals give you or what you can store in metalminds. Breaths or the Dor would be considered a lot of investiture, but Breaths are hard to get in large quantities, unlike lights on Roshar. 

Spoiler

Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

Why are Invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.

1.) The ability to Push/Pull an Invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the Investiture.

2.) Further, Invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that a Hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to Push/Pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.

3.) The amount of Investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that Hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of Investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

Brandon said that theoretically you can Push/Pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could Push/Pull Shardblades/Plate.

DragonCon 2012 (Sept. 4, 2012)

 

Spoiler

tskyeguye

From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Skrimyt

Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?

Brandon Sanderson

Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.

But RAFO to specifics.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)