New Info Upon Rereads

[the Gleeman he/him]

Ok, so I'm rereading WoR for the third time when I noticed a couple interesting things 

 

1. The man who gives Szeth his new blade was the same man Jashnah thought about watching in the prologue. It was not the Herald Nin
2. The various spren of different orders (Syl, Pattern, etc.), so far, have matched the essences/soulcasting properties of their order's first surge. ie. Pattern seems to be made of a liquid or ink, Syl is similar to windspren, Wyndle seems to be plants, etc. 
3. A KR can get more power out of a gem that aligns with his/her order

Has anyone else noticed new info upon rereading the SA series? If so, what have you noticed?

 

Edit: #3: no idea where that came from

Edited March 1, 2015 by the Gleeman

[Darkness he/him]

1. Yes it was the same man. I honestly think it still is the herald Nin/Nalan/Darkness/whatever. What's the passage that says it isn't?

2. Pretty cool observance. I hadn't made it. Do you think it will end up being important? Also, it's interesting to note that the interlude with the healer (Ym?) showed his spren as being a fairly timid ball of light, I believe.

3. Sorry, what? Where is that?

Edited March 1, 2015 by Darkness

[the Gleeman he/him]

on #3: yeah, I wrote these down on a sheet of paper to transmit to here and cannot find this anymore. sorry 

 

But as more evidence to the connection between orders and their properties, the divine attributes go with the personalities of the people who enter their orders. Could we potentially use this to predict the other order personalities or who might join which order?

[Darkness he/him]

Oh indubitably! Personalities and personal convictions, mixed with having fractures in your soul, seem to be the qualifying factors for Surgebinders in general. In the beginning, the spren probably bonded Surgebinders whose ideals matched well with the spren-type. After that the Heralds eventually chose to sponsor one group of proto-Heralds (I say proto to represent Surgebinders with a Nahel bond, but no specific Herald sponsor and therefore perhaps lesser organization/integration into the Knights Radiant as a whole). Once sponsorship was formalized, I would even go so far as to suggest the potential Knights' personalities might reflect the associated Herald's to a large degree.

The largest indicator should (in my mind) remain how closely the Surgebinder's natural inclinations align with the spren-type's intent. The ideals would probably have come after as Radiants became more organized and likely serve to formalize the intent.

However, if you mean "divine attributes" as essences/soulcasting properties, it gets fuzzy for me. Which is the 'first' surge if all orders only have 2 and both are shared with another order? Also, I don't see Jasnah as particularly 'oily', although she can be dark

[hoser he/him]

1. I'm with Darkness on this one.  What is the supporting evidence for this contention?  The crescent scar seems to be quite distinctive and consistent.  And I would expect Darkness to know about his namesake .

[skaa he/him]

The various spren of different orders (Syl, Pattern, etc.), so far, have matched the essences/soulcasting properties of their order's first surge. ie. Pattern seems to be made of a liquid or ink, Syl is similar to windspren, Wyndle seems to be plants, etc.

I have a pretty old thread about the relationship between KR spren, the Essences, and the Orders. I updated the thread's OP recently to reflect the info we've gotten from WoR, though the Stormfather is currently giving me trouble. He is the spren of the Sinew Order of Bondsmiths, but he doesn't seem to even appear to be made of sinew/flesh. Though I suppose a fleshy-looking spren would look kind of weird.

Edited March 2, 2015 by skaa

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Wouldn't a spren made of Flesh just be a person?

[galendo]

Which is the 'first' surge if all orders only have 2 and both are shared with another order?

I don't claim to be know about the rest of your post, but I think I can answer this one.  The Orders can all be placed in a circle connected by their surges (like if the Windrunners were first, the Skybreakers would be next), so if you just go in the list in one direction, each order has a "first" surge and a "second" one.  (The "first" and "second" part is arbitrary but consistent.  If you traversed the list in opposite order, which surge is first and which is second is interchanged, but the point stands.)

 

The other part of the Gleeman's claim, I think, is that each order is comparatively better with one of their surges than the other, and that the spren's appearance reflects the primary surge.  I don't think we have enough information to know if this is correct or not (ideally, we'd want to know the comparative abilities of Radiants from at least three consecutive Orders), but it does seem plausible.

[Darkness he/him]

Well, we do know that Shadesmar was mainly the domain of the Elsecallers... but that might have to do with their associations with the ruling spren there, or any number of other things. I guess you could say it's due to their main surge being transformation. But then, doesn't transportation also use Shadesmar?

[galendo]

Well, like I said, I don't think we have enough information yet to draw a conclusion.  But it's entirely possible that the two uses of Shadesmar require different abilities.  We've seen tranformation (where you basically have to convince the thing to change by bribing it with Stormlight), but we haven't seen transportation yet.  Maybe it requires a different set of skills.

[skaa he/him]

Wouldn't a spren made of Flesh just be a person?

That's an interesting way of looking at it. If you're correct, then maybe that's why Bondsmiths have the ability to affect the bonds of other men. I still don't know what the spren of storms (Stormfather) has to do with Sinew, though.

[natc]

Well, we do know that Shadesmar was mainly the domain of the Elsecallers... but that might have to do with their associations with the ruling spren there, or any number of other things. I guess you could say it's due to their main surge being transformation. But then, doesn't transportation also use Shadesmar?

Not entirely sure why there has to be the "main" surge. I feel Elsecallers having soulcasting is if nothing else a byproduct of the surge requiring Shadesmar access and them being able to Elsecall (transportation) into that realm in the first place. Lightweavers are so lie-centric as well that it'd be weird if they couldn't convince something (besides sticks apparently) to be something they aren't. Yet the surge-based ability named after them is Lightweaving of Illumination.

There's really no obvious pattern besides their names and ideals being thematically appropriate to their combination of powers, AFAIK.

[Darkness he/him]

Me neither. I view the whole thing as a continuous circle, without 'first' or 'second' surges. I was just exploring the OP's idea a bit