Double Eye of the Almighty Lines

[WestTea he/him]

I am new here and I do not know if this topic has been covered elsewhere if it has could someone please direct me to a page with more information on the topic.

 

So I recently saw the double eye of the almighty with each of the positions filled in and started to look at the picture more closely, specifically at the lines connecting each of the circles. To my surprise I realized each order of the Knights Radiant do not have an equal number of lines touching them. There is a line that connects the wind runners and edgedancers and a line that connects the lightweavers and stonewards but this connection is not mirrored in any of the other orders. Does anyone know if these two lines have any significance for a connection between the aforementioned orders because it doesn't seem like Brandon Sanderson (or Isaac Stewart) would put something like that in just for aesthetic effect.

 

If anyone has any ideas as to why these lines might exists or if you have another piece of insight on the double eye of the almighty that I might not have noticed please let me know.

 

For reference here is the image of the double eye I was using.

  

[Moogle]

Hey there, welcome to the forums!

 

We've actually got a WoB on this which I have searched and searched for and I have been unable to find. It says, paraphrased, that the lines you speak of are a cultural artifact and represent connections between the Essences. For example, there's a connection between blood and air. I regret I can't actually find this. I know the WoB came from an interview around late last year; maybe someone else recalls it better than me?

[hoser he/him]

As far as I know, there is no authoritative explanation. 

 

My baseless speculation is that all the lines represent Knight abilities.  If we break the lines up as follows, we can speculate about their significance:

• Lines between Surges and Orders:  These could represent the Radiant access to the Surges, so the lines from Windrunners to Adhesion and Gravitation represent the Windrunner access to those surges. 
• Lines between surges:  These connect adjacent surges.  They could represent each order special ability (for example, if stormriding is the Windrunner special ability, the line between Adhesion and Gravity could represent it because only Windrunners share those surges)  These lines could also represent any ability that comes with access to those two surges (unique Windrunner abilities that are not their "special" ability). 
• Lines between orders: Each order is linked to their opposite order with a thicker line as are orders 1-4 and 6-9.  These could represent abilities shared by orders, or abilities that these orders have when acting in concert with the linked order.

/baseless speculation

[WestTea he/him]

Thank you Moogle! That helps me out a lot. In fact I hadn't even thought about how the essences fit into this, so that comment opens up more things for me to explore/research.

[Moogle]

Thank you Moogle! That helps me out a lot. In fact I hadn't even thought about how the essences fit into this, so that comment opens up more things for me to explore/research.

 

Here you go, the full WoB:

Q: Why are do the Windrunners, Elsecallers, Stonewards, and Dustbringers have an extra connection on the Surgebinding diagram? Why do the Edgedancer, Skybreaker, Lightweaver, Willshaper's have a broken connection on the diagram? What are the dragon type things in the back of the diagram?

A: The dragon type things are a certain animal you've seen several places in the story so far. These connections will be explained eventually, but remember it's not the orders being connected, but instead their elemental representations. This diagram is very metaphysical, and some of the elements of it are cultural.

(source)

 

I'm happy I finally found it. I've been saying "no, really, there's a WoB on this!" for the last forever and been feeling awful every time. My paraphrase of this was off, as I suspected. I was a little too certain on the 'cultural' thing being the reason Lightweavers/Windrunners were connected.