Can you have more than one Resonance?

[Sophrosyne He/any]

Say Wax became an Elsecaller and had access to both surges. What resonance(s) would he get? Would he get any? Would he loss anything?

Resonances have been bothering me for a while. More specifically how we just don't know anything about them. We know that 16* (or 10?) abilities from being mistborn is too many to develop a resonance and we’ve only seen them a few time all in individuals with only two MOIs, Raidents and twinborn. Notably there’s no sign of them with aviar? That said, I've always just assumed that if you had 3 powers you'd get at least 3 resonances, but that’s just… That’s too many right? At one extreme a radiant twinborn gets 11 resonances. But the opposite is that the same person just loses access to their unique twinborn resonance? I suppose that Becoming Raident is worth it but it does feel weird. So since neither to me feels right I wrote this post to ask the above question.

[Myst He/Him]

10 minutes ago, Sophrosyne said:

Say Wax became an Elsecaller and had access to both surges. What resonance(s) would he get? Would he get any? Would he loss anything?

Resonances have been bothering me for a while. More specifically how we just don't know anything about them. We know that 16* (or 10?) abilities from being mistborn is too many to develop a resonance and we’ve only seen them a few time all in individuals with only two MOIs, Raidents and twinborn. Notably there’s no sign of them with aviar? That said, I've always just assumed that if you had 3 powers you'd get at least 3 resonances, but that’s just… That’s too many right? At one extreme a radiant twinborn gets 11 resonances. But the opposite is that the same person just loses access to their unique twinborn resonance? I suppose that Becoming Raident is worth it but it does feel weird. So since neither to me feels right I wrote this post to ask the above question.

My understanding is the powers all come together to form a resonance, and so you only ever have one. In this case, I believe what would happen is that the resonance would change. The reason we don’t really see resonance in mistborn is because it’s balancing so many different powers, some of which are opposites, if that makes sense.

I did a quick search on arcanum and the copper mind, and we don’t know much about them. What I said is really just my thoughts on it. 

We do know that resonances are kind of like becoming a savant, you get them by using two or more powers a lot. So it’s possible that if Wax became an elsecaller, if he just didn’t use the elsecalling abilities, his resonance wouldn’t change.

All this said, I’m not an expert on this, I’m sure there are people who know more about this than me, so don’t take what I say as fact.

[Treamayne]

42 minutes ago, Sophrosyne said:

Say Wax became an Elsecaller and had access to both surges. What resonance(s) would he get? Would he get any? Would he loss anything?

Resonances have been bothering me for a while. More specifically how we just don't know anything about them. We know that 16* (or 10?) abilities from being mistborn is too many to develop a resonance and we’ve only seen them a few time all in individuals with only two MOIs, Raidents and twinborn. Notably there’s no sign of them with aviar? That said, I've always just assumed that if you had 3 powers you'd get at least 3 resonances, but that’s just… That’s too many right? At one extreme a radiant twinborn gets 11 resonances. But the opposite is that the same person just loses access to their unique twinborn resonance? I suppose that Becoming Raident is worth it but it does feel weird. So since neither to me feels right I wrote this post to ask the above question.

Resonances are about changes to the spiritweb from at least two powers interacting and affecting each other (similar to how a Savant is changed by overusing one power and that warps their spiritweb to a detrimental degree). It's not a math problem - in that, for example, Jasnah wielding the Dustbringer Honorblade would develop a Resonance of Transformation and Division just because she has access to both surges that do not normally combine. It's not likely unless she was only using those two surges for years. It's about consistantly using more than one power so that, over time, both applicable portions of the spiritweb for powers are slightly altered and affect each other or affect the weilder. A Misting or Ferring wielding the Bands could, in theory, develop a Resonance if they were only using one other ability constantly. 

As a IRL example - let's say a person studies Calligraphic Chinese Characters. They put in hundreds to thousands of hours practicing stroke order and writing characters over and over. That method of writing will begin to change their normal native-language penmanship. Developing one skill affects other, related skills. In the Cosmere it so happens that this is about moving Kinetic Investiture based on the spiritweb and repeatedly doing so with a small amount of skills can affect the skills in that part of the Spiritweb. 

All of that said, we expect to get much more about Resonances in Era 3, as Scadrial begins applying Scientific Method to studying the Metallic Arts. 

WoBs:

Spoiler

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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

As far as Hemalurgy, when you give that-- when it's done to somebody, would that create a new resonance?

Brandon Sanderson

It's possible that it could. Though I'm gonna say, most of the time, no... Lots of things are possible, but I'll give you a "mostly no" on that one.

Questioner

What about savantism? Is that possible with Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it is.

Skyward Chicago signing (Nov. 16, 2018)

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Questioner

If a Radiant uses an Honorblade or binds a second spren, could they get new abilities/resonances by having access to Surges that aren't usually combined?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they could. Indeed.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

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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)

 

Hope that helps

[Sophrosyne He/any]

On 10/21/2025 at 8:33 PM, IHadAThought said:

All this said, I’m not an expert on this, I’m sure there are people who know more about this than me, so don’t take what I say as fact.

I'm not sure the experts know stuff like this it's just not information to draw much of a conclusion.

 

On 10/21/2025 at 9:19 PM, Treamayne said:

It's not likely unless she was only using those two surges for years. It's about consistantly using more than one power so that, over time, both applicable portions of the spiritweb for powers are slightly altered and affect each other or affect the weilder.

I hadn't considered any time aspect of it really. Though the thought that use of powers affects a resonace is kinda scary as they'd be in some level of flux all of if not most of the time if you had 3+ MoIs.