Stormlight Savants?

[Senor Feesh]

This has probably been covered (I've been out of the loop for a LONG time, still catching up) but has anyone raised the notion of Savant Surgebinders?

 

The reason I've been thinking about it:

 

Syl states to Kaladin at the end of WoR that someone using the Honorblade would need far more Stormlight than Kaladin himself - "dangerous amounts" of it.

 

Couple that with a WoB that using Stormlight is something akin to Allomancy in how it affects the sould (forcing power through creating 'troughs').*

 

 

So what would this DO to a person? How would Savant-surgebinding manifest? What might the drawbacks be?

 

 

*Will attempt to update thread with a link to relevant WoB later

[Quiver]

I need to do a Sandereread, I think. 

 

Anyway, it might not exactly be an answer, but I think I remember getting the impression that Stormlight could become addictive. Kaladin usually has a steady supply of charged gems on him, but whenever he lost his connection with Syl, he became sluggish and unable to really do things the way he did before.

 

It might not be what Syl means by "dangerous amounts" of Stormlight, but Kal does seem to like holding a little bit in as much as possible. We'll probably see any potential side-effects of it in Szeth next book, though.

[natc]

On the subject of stormlight burning (bigger) troughs in your spiritweb, I've honestly been thinking about something lately, since you need a gap in your spiritweb from some kind of trauma for the power to flow through in the first place, won't a honorblade just granting surges to its owners necessitate manually blowing a hole in your soul first? Possibly by brute force overflow of investiture? These are splinters we're talking about and all.

The only other known effects of investiture overload come from Vin, so one might actually ascend with enough stormlight . . . unless it is so uncontrollable compared to Mist that it tears your soul apart. Stormlight always gets described like a raging storm in their veins, while Vin mostly reported raw heat without much else, IIRC.

Edited March 6, 2015 by natc

[physicskid]

I think it will be interesting to find how this will affect the shallan storyline given that she seems to be using stormlight in more noncombat situations than kaladin, who dislikes what storm light does to him when he isn't on duty.

 

on the other hand kaladin uses storm light to stay on duty for unnatural amounts of time. this could lead him to become a savant.

 

PS Senor feesh I'm giving you an up vote for a badass profile pic. We spaceflight nerds have to stick together.

[Asha'man Logain]

On the subject of stormlight burning (bigger) troughs in your spiritweb, I've honestly been thinking about something lately, since you need a gap in your spiritweb from some kind of trauma for the power to flow through in the first place, won't a honorblade just granting surges to its owners necessitate manually blowing a hole in your soul first? Possibly by brute force overflow of investiture? These are splinters we're talking about and all.

The only other known effects of investiture overload come from Vin, so one might actually ascend with enough stormlight . . . unless it is so uncontrollable compared to Mist that it tears your soul apart. Stormlight always gets described like a raging storm in their veins, while Vin mostly reported raw heat without much else, IIRC.

Spook was the savant IIRC, Vin on the otherhand drew in large amounts of the body of a shard. Spook though, used his power so mch for so long that he got super-tin powers. Perhaps a Stormlight savant would have a similar effect and make what you can do much sronger than otherwise possible.

This could in fact be why the heralds are all a bit kooky, for thousands of years they had the honorblades, and when on roshar they likely used their powers non-stop as they had a desolation to fight. then suddenly gave up stormlight altogether.

[natc]

Stormlight is similar to Mist, which is why I brought up Vin instead of Spook for overdose cases. Because we know what happened there.

[Marns]

This is really interesting! But I don't have any idea what could do to a person. With Savants, the power increase considerably and changes the physiology. In the case of Surgebinder-Savant maybe what increase and change is the relation with the surges for example lose the correct gravity maybe?