Shallan's memory ability (it's not always beneficial)

[Pestis the Spider]

This is true, however I'm pretty sure Dalinar doesn't know that the Shardbearer was Shallan's brother, so Shallan would have no reason to to blame Dalinar for anything. He doesn't even know there is a connection there.

Yeah, but Shallan wouldn't know that Dalinar doesn't know. And that's a problem, especially that I find Shallan to have a tendency to blame everyone around but herself. She may actully simply assume that Dalinar knows. Or she could blame Dalinar for no reason, people sometimes do crazy stuff like that. 

[kari-no-sugata]

Can we keep things a bit more on topic please? Thanks in advance...

 

Regarding the various "passive" abilities each order might get from their spren, I have the following thoughts:

 

Lightweavers: certainly "memory" skills are a common trait and basically confirmed. I think there's a good chance that Shallan"s "coldness of clarity" mental state comes from Pattern too, at least in part - she kinda goes into a trance too when drawing and seems to find that quite mentally stimulating. The hardest one to guess is the "farsight" ability we see her do once when drawing (Yalb and Shalash) - I have a feeling it's from the Illumination Surge.

 

Windrunners: number of squires seems like a good bet - I wouldn't be surprised if Honorspren give Windrunners an innate ability to gather people around them. We've seen Kaladin mentally ride with the highstorms too, which seems unique to him (ie the Windrunners). I suspect Kaladin might get an innate sense of belonging in the air and this is where his "The wind is mine. The sky is mine." comment to Szeth comes from.

 

Elsecallers: maybe some kind of sense of location? Not enough information, really.

 

Skybreakers: detecting criminals? (the in-world WoR says not but it could be wrong or edited during the Hierocracy).

 

Truthwatchers: I think it's quite likely that Renarin's visions of the future come from his spren rather than Surges - since he has no control over them. Pattern and Syl both behave differently during highstorms.

 

Bondsmiths: do their uber haxor powers (that we have no idea actually are) come from a Surge or from the Stormfather? I seem to remember Brandon saying that one of the Surges is like the "god metals" - ie a "god Surge". It's possibly it could be a combination of both that Surge and the spren bond. Another thought I had is that since the Stormfather is the one spreading Stormlight all over the place, is it possible that Bondsmiths could somehow get Stormlight directly through their bond?

[Patrick Star]

Sorry about getting off-topic.

 

I believe that windrunners are the best pure fighters of the KR, which is likely a passive ability from the bond.  Kaladin has that mini-conflict where he says something like "and my fighting, that was you?" and Syl says "it was US", or something like that.  Seems like a passive ability to me.

 

WoR had something about the Skybreakers being incredible at debates (master debaters?), which could be their passive ability.  After all, it always helps to be able to justify your actions when you go around arresting everyone...

 

I agree with you on Renarin.  It didn't look like he was consuming stormlight during the visions.

 

As for the bondsmiths, I wouldn't assume anything yet.  Brandon said that Dalinar's bond to stormfather was something new and dangerous, which is a bit odd.

 

My personal thought is that another bondsmith (maybe the guy who enslaved the voidbringers?) was bonded to stormfather, and then broke his oaths, which is why Stormfather is so broken and angry right now (he's a much stronger spren, he may have been able to survive), and also why he thought that Dalinar would betray his oaths.  Just a theory, I have no evidence.

 

Or, of course, it could just mean that no bondsmith has ever bonded stormfather, but I don't buy that.