Something I noticed about Radiant Orders

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

So Guys, I noticed something about the Radiant Orders.

There are some Orders who favor one of their Surges over the Order, as seen in their name, their reputation and/or their actions on page, while others have two equal surges.

WR: Clearly favor Gravitation, I mean most of what they do is flying, it is even in their Name.

SB: They have more equal surges I would say. I mean they are both in the Name and they sometimes feel like WR that can destroy stuff.

DB: Probably Favor Division, I mean their Name makes it very clear what they do.

ED: I would say equal, their Name favors Abrasion but I think they are Healing/Progression is a core of what they do.

TW: I think they favor Illumination, yes we only saw enlightend TW but most of what they do is Vision/Spiritual Realm Stuff which is probably Illumination 

LW: Pretty Obvious favor Illumination, its in their Name and as long as its isnt absolutely necessary they only do Illusion

EC: Even though it isnt seen much on Page I would say they favor Transportation, I mean their Name is literally the application of Transportation

WS: I think they favor Cohesion, Its also in the Name, (shaping [stone] to their will) and all Venli does

SW: For them I am unsure because their Name isnt at obvious and we dont see much of them.

BS: No Idea honestly depends If their connection thing is just a diffrent expression of Adhesion or the Resonance between Adhesion and Tension.

I dont really know whats the point of this, its just something I noticed and wanted to share, maybe hear your oppinion about it.

 

[GG0z He/Him]

Nice! I noticed this too while reading SR, but we never really knew much about BS powers because Dalinar never really progressed in his Oaths and Navani didn’t do much either

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

To be fair, Navani has only been a Bondsmith for like 10 Days, its understandable that you dont do much progressing in that time.

Also when I first finished RoW I somehow thought the ending with Rlain set him up to be the Nightwatchers Bondsmith, like the Listener that connects/forges the Bond between Humans and Singers

[PanLin they/he]

 

On 4/30/2026 at 6:57 PM, Through the living Wahr said:

There are some Orders who favor one of their Surges over the Order, as seen in their name, their reputation and/or their actions on page, while others have two equal surges.

Interesting insight, and actually has a fun overlap with a theory I posted recently. Links in spoiler:

Spoiler

 

 

 

And a wee diagram to show how I'm visualising it:

Spoiler

 

As a quick summary of all the above, I basically think:

• There are different 'tiers' of Orders, based on their positioning in the Double Eye diagram. These aren't tiers of power level, more like tiers of increasing abstraction:
  • Primary: Bondsmiths, Truthwatchers (added in as extra Orders and therefore artificially closer to the Shards than the other Orders are)
  • Secondary: Windrunners, Edgedancers, Lightweavers, Stonewards
  • Tertiary: Skybreakers, Dustbringers, Elsecallers, Willshapers
• There are only 8 Surges across the Cosmere, and Honor basically squeezed a couple of extra ones in to make a neat 10-Surge system to fit nicely on Roshar:
  • Adhesion was added as Honor's True Surge (actually an application of Tension)
  • Progression was added as Cultivation's True Surge (actually an application of Illumination)

 

Also, going through them all, it feels like there might be a pattern that primary and secondary Orders tend to favour one Surge, and tertiary Orders tend to attune both their Surges equally (but I may well be taking some liberties just to make my theory sound more plausible ).

 

So, based on what you've laid out, I wonder if, had the Radiants been set up to have 8 Orders, Windrunners should have had access to Tension, and Edgedancers should have had access to Illumination, which is why they feel closer to Gravitation and Abrasion.

Further, it may just be the case that, in an 8-Surge system, all the Orders were supposed to have equal affinity to their two Surges, but the addition of Adhesion and Progression sort of made the whole thing a bit wonky. I'm going to take your original points and respond to each of them in a spoiler, using info from the list of Order descriptions on the Sanderson blog.

I'm also going to focus more on the canonical purpose and name of each Order—with so few in-text examples of most of the Orders, it's almost impossible to separate 'Order affinity' from 'personal preference/expression'.

Spoiler

WR: Clearly favor Gravitation, I mean most of what they do is flying, it is even in their Name.

Secondary. "I will protect"

Agreed, it's in the name—Windrunners favour Gravitation.

 

SB: They have more equal surges I would say. I mean they are both in the Name and they sometimes feel like WR that can destroy stuff.

Tertiary. "I will seek justice"

'Sky' + 'Breaker' = 'Gravitation' + 'Division'

 

DB: Probably Favor Division, I mean their Name makes it very clear what they do.

Tertiary. "I will seek self-mastery"

So I can definitely see the argument here, but I think Dustbringers are more equal, especially when considering that a lot of them prefer the term 'Releasers'. It sounds like other people see them as Division-focused, but they see themselves as more balanced. It also fits the theme of self-mastery better if they aim to use both equally (fun parallel with Elsecallers).

 

ED: I would say equal, their Name favors Abrasion but I think they are Healing/Progression is a core of what they do.

Secondary. "I will remember"

Tbh I think you were right the first time! Edgedancers heal, sure, but more like field medics. Truthwatchers generally stay away from the battlefield and fulfil the dual roles of strategists and healers. Edgedancers zip around all kinds of hostile environments as medics, scouts, messengers, basically anything that benefits from someone with mastery over friction (and therefore speed/access/etc).

 

TW: I think they favor Illumination, yes we only saw enlightend TW but most of what they do is Vision/Spiritual Realm Stuff which is probably Illumination 

Primary. "I will seek truth"

So, based on my 8-Surge theory, Progression is just another version of Illumination (manipulation of perception across realms), which means Truthwatchers (like Bondsmiths) kind of just have two expressions of the same Surge. With this view, I'd say Truthwatchers favour Illumination, which covers Progression too anyway.

 

LW: Pretty Obvious favor Illumination, its in their Name and as long as its isnt absolutely necessary they only do Illusion

Secondary. "I will speak my truth"

Yep, no notes. 

 

EC: Even though it isnt seen much on Page I would say they favor Transportation, I mean their Name is literally the application of Transportation

Tertiary. "I will reach my potential"

I mean, I feel like the 'Else' part applies to both Trans- Surges, and Jasnah went to great lengths to be able to use Transformation without people suspecting her of being a Radiant. But yes, agreed that we haven't really seen enough in-text to say either way.

 

WS: I think they favor Cohesion, Its also in the Name, (shaping [stone] to their will) and all Venli does

Tertiary. "I will seek freedom"

I was actually a bit disappointed that we didn't see more Willshaper abilities in the book that was supposed to focus on them (but that's probably only because I'm a Willshaper and wanted to learn more about them). Again, not really enough evidence to make concrete conclusions.

 

SW: For them I am unsure because their Name isnt at obvious and we dont see much of them.

Secondary. "I will be there when I'm needed"

Yep, agreed!

 

BS: No Idea honestly depends If their connection thing is just a diffrent expression of Adhesion or the Resonance between Adhesion and Tension.

Primary. "I will unite"

Similar to Truthwatchers, I think the two Bondsmith Surges are technically just two versions of Tension, so, again, I'd say Bondsmiths favour Tension in an enhanced way thanks to the extra power from Honor's version of it.

 

On 4/30/2026 at 9:06 PM, Through the living Wahr said:

Also when I first finished RoW I somehow thought the ending with Rlain set him up to be the Nightwatchers Bondsmith, like the Listener that connects/forges the Bond between Humans and Singers

This would've been class.

[earthexile]

I think a lot of the names of the Orders, and the core identity of the Orders, comes largely from the *interaction* of the Surges. They're layered and interconnected, the way the Realms are. The Windrunners and Skybreakers both fly but not the same way, because their flight interacts with their other power. Windrunners have additional control over the pressure and movement of the air, Skybreakers just slam through the world.

Shallan does a whole lot of Transformation in tandem with her Illumination, I think she's just not understanding it that way. The way Kaladin's Spiritual Gravitation makes him someone who draws men like a magnet, Shallan is Transforming her own spirit when she invests so much of herself, along with power, into her alter selves. She's Transforming others when her art resonates with them in a way that makes them truly want to be their best self all of a sudden. "Weaving light" in the mystical sense of adding something noble and healing to the world. 

In contrast, Jasnah has incredible command over the states of matter, and can comprehend and visualize things like molecular chemistry in detail, so her Transformation of physical things is amazing. But we rarely see her persuade anyone to anything, the way a Lightweaver can. She changes you through force of will and the raw application of knowledge and power. Get your sword out and see how much good it does you, idiots. Things are going to be different now. If we found a glyphpair for Else Caller and tried to translate it, we might come up with Difference Orderer, or Change Demander. Like "I call for things to be else."

I like to play these kinds of twisty games with words, and when I apply it to the Radiant Orders I get the impression Brandon is doing a lot of the same stuff. He's gone out of his way to introduce all these ideas about how Rosharan languages work, and why words might be considered or read in certain ways, and such. I think there is a little crystal of poetic meaning and inference built into all these names.