Kaladin's Vision

[Kelek's Breath he/him]

Does anyone know what Kaladin is seeing in TWoK Ch. 46, Child of Tanavast, when he is riding the storm?

 

...Something drew his attention. Strange  flashes of light. He blew toward

them at the forefront of the storm. What were those lights? They came in

burst, forming the strangest patterns. Almost like physical things that he

could reach out and touch, spherical bubbles of light that vibrated with

spikes and troughs...

 

He goes on to see Szeth standing over 2 dead people.

Are the flashes stormlight that Szeth is drawing from the air?  But the Highstorm hasn't reached him yet? Is Kaladin seeing how stormlight usage looks in the cognitive/spiritual realms? Nothing in the books shows stormlight/investiture appearing in this form, and Szeth's surges don't give him any lightning throwing capabilities.

If anyone has an answer, please feel free to help me understand this.

[Sirce Luckwielder he/him]

Here is the entire passage below. For backstory, this is when Kaladin IS the highstorm. He goes over the land, seeing people. This scene is where he can see Azir and Szeth killing some more targets for Tarivangian.

Something drew his attention. Strange flashes of light. He blew toward them at the forefront of the storm. What were those lights? They came in bursts, forming the strangest patterns. Almost like physical things that he could reach out and touch, spherical bubbles of light that vibrated with spikes and troughs.

As the highstorm, we don't know if Kaladin has senses that are above the normal five. There is a chance that the vibrations that he sees are investiture in use. Even though the highstorm hasn't reached them, Szeth wouldn't be attacking unless he had spheres with at least some Stormlight in them. It does, after all, say that these flashes are "spherical bubbles of light." Perhaps they vibrate from Stormlight. Look at the women's script.

http://coppermind.net/w/images/Women%27s_script_Makabakam.svg

It too looks like spikes and vibrations. If you remember, causing vibrations on a plate of sand with a bow will make the symbols of the different cities. With these three instances, I think this all points toward key elements on Roshar. Perhaps it is the Spiritweb, who knows. I am not sure what this all is, but I am just saying that I think it is all connected.

Here is the rest of the passage that deals with Kaladin seeing Szeth if anybody needs it and doesn't have the book handy.

Kaladin crossed a strange city laid out in a triangular pattern, with tall peaks rising like sentries at the corners and center. The flashes of light were coming from a building on the central peak. Kaladin knew he would pass quickly, for as the storm, he could not retreat. Ever westward he blew.

He threw open the door with his wind, entering a long hallway with bright red tile walls, mosaic murals that he passed too quickly to make out. He rustled the skirts of tall, golden-haired serving women who carried trays of food or steaming towels. They called in a strange language, perhaps wondering who had left a window unbarred in a highstorm.

The flashes of light came from directly ahead. So transfixing. Brushing past a pretty gold-and red-haired woman who huddled frightened in a corner, Kaladin burst through a door. He had one brief glimpse of what lay beyond.

A man stood over two corpses. His pale head shaved, his clothing white, the murderer held a long, thin sword in one hand. He looked up from his victims and almost seemed to see Kaladin. He had large Shin eyes.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Sirce Luckwielder

[Moogle]

Seems to be Shard-o-vision.

 

Mistborn spoilers:

Compare to Vin:

Bright points of light, dotting the landscape, shining like flares. She drew closer, trying to figure out what they were. Yet, just as it was difficult to look directly at a bright lantern and see what was emitting the light, it was difficult to discern the source of this power. She figured it out as she reached Luthadel. A large glow was coming from the broken palace. Most of the light was shaped vaguely like . . . Spires. Metal. That’s what caused the glowing power. I was right. Metal is power, and it’s why Ruin couldn’t read things written in steel. Vin turned away from a brightly shining spire.

...

Something else drew her attention. Something moving into Luthadel, flying on spears of light. Elend.
...

He raised his sword high and charged. ELEND! Suddenly, Elend burst with a brilliant energy, so bright that Vin gasped. [Mooglenote: This is when he burns atium.]

 

The peaks and troughs describe the motion of a traveling wave, and we've had plenty of descriptions of Investiture as being like waves (Allomancy perceiving them as sound, or 'beats', the Parshendi detecting the highstorm through the sound it makes, etc.).

Edited March 4, 2015 by Moogle

[Bort he/him]

Shard-o-vision. I like that.

I think the flashes Kaladin sees are when Szeth uses stormlight.

[Kelek's Breath he/him]

Seems to be Shard-o-vision.

 

So, are you implying Kaladin is seeing through the Stormfather's eyes here?

Because we certainly don't have any other descriprions of stormlight from Rosharans that are like this description.

And can he see through the Stormfather because he is joined to Syl who is a small piece of Honor?

[Moogle]

So, are you implying Kaladin is seeing through the Stormfather's eyes here?

Because we certainly don't have any other descriprions of stormlight from Rosharans that are like this description.

And can he see through the Stormfather because he is joined to Syl who is a small piece of Honor?

 

I'm not sure what the exact mechanism is, I'm just saying it matches the vision Shards have. If I had to speculate, and I'm quite uncertain, I'd guess this "riding the storm" means he sees through the storm, and not the Stormfather. Possible reason he's got a connection to the highstorm would through Syl's connection to wind, or perhaps her connection to the Stormfather. However, I do not believe Dalinar will be similarly riding the storm, so assigning it to a connection to the Stormfather seems to be dangerous territory.

 

Anyways, we know that Radiants 'compress' the Realms, and we know that in the middle of a highstorm Kaladin went somewhere else (the place of blackness), so if I had to guess the reason he sees the way he sees is that he's straddling all three Realms at once because the highstorm is compressing them all. The reason he's seeing the light in a special manner could be because Investiture acts like a beacon in the Spiritual, and this is how his brain is interpreting it (as beacons of light).

 

I imagine a lot of the lights he sees could be gemstones. The legends of the Purelakers saying that the holy grottos or whatever hide you from the eyes of the evil god strongly suggest gems serve to blind Shards on Roshar. Though, in the quoted vision, the lights appear to be Szeth's use of Stormlight, which also matches Shard-o-vision (which similarly detects the use of magic as light).

 

Again, massive speculation, and I'm too uncertain to say anything for sure. (Though I am quite confident the highstorm compresses the realms, and I strongly suspect Shard-o-vision being what it is comes about in part as a result of viewing all three realms.)

 

Also: we do have descriptions of Stormlight that match that description. When Kaladin looks at a sphere closely, he realizes the light is flickering and is not at all constant. This would match the peaks-and-troughs he sees, or at least be another way of looking at it. If you graphed the intensity of the light coming from a filled gemstone, I'm 99% confident you'd get the peaks-and-troughs thing on your graph, or at least some sort of wave thing.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Moogle

[+Slowswift he/him]

Mistborn spoilers:

Compare to Vin:

Bright points of light, dotting the landscape, shining like flares. She drew closer, trying to figure out what they were. Yet, just as it was difficult to look directly at a bright lantern and see what was emitting the light, it was difficult to discern the source of this power. She figured it out as she reached Luthadel. A large glow was coming from the broken palace. Most of the light was shaped vaguely like . . . Spires. Metal. That’s what caused the glowing power. I was right. Metal is power, and it’s why Ruin couldn’t read things written in steel. Vin turned away from a brightly shining spire.

...

Something else drew her attention. Something moving into Luthadel, flying on spears of light. Elend.

...

He raised his sword high and charged. ELEND! Suddenly, Elend burst with a brilliant energy, so bright that Vin gasped. [Mooglenote: This is when he burns atium.]

 

Reminds me of how in Jasnah's POV from the Stormlight 3 excerpt on tor, (tagged in case anyone hasn't read it)

the cognitive manifestation of the lives of the people on board manifest as bright lights.

[Lord Pifferdoo he/him]

It could be that he slipped into the Spiritual Realm

[Aleksiel]

I imagine a lot of the lights he sees could be gemstones. The legends of the Purelakers saying that the holy grottos or whatever hide you from the eyes of the evil god strongly suggest gems serve to blind Shards on Roshar. Though, in the quoted vision, the lights appear to be Szeth's use of Stormlight, which also matches Shard-o-vision (which similarly detects the use of magic as light).

 

I like this, it gives a new dimension to the saying one should always keep an infused sphere for luck. 

[AerionBFII he/him]

The Voidspren Syl sees in book 2

[ccstat he/him]

I believe he is seeing Szeth's surgebinding. It sounds very similar to the way Allomantic copper senses investiture, with different patterns corresponding to various types of power. Stormlight is a much flashier power, so it is visualized rather than heard/felt. (That visualization could also be a function of realm compression, per Moogle's suggestion, though it makes sense to me that it is at least partially because of how stormlight works.)

[Honor's Radiance]

Reminds me of how in Jasnah's POV from the Stormlight 3 excerpt on tor, (tagged in case anyone hasn't read it)

the cognitive manifestation of the lives of the people on board manifest as bright lights.

 

Maybe he's seeing the lives of the people around Szeth, then.

 

And light is a wave, of course, so it's not surprising that there are analogies between the behaviour of Stormlight and other manifestations of Investiture through sound. I'd assumed the Light was like fire, and the flickering of fire was what Kaladin was seeing in the gemstones, but I suppose he could be more sensitive to the E/M waves as a Radiant and be able to see them.