Adhesion (WoR Spoilers)

[Zenith]

Going through WoR again, I found myself questioning what exactly the Adhesion surge does, as it seemed a little...underwhelming at the time.

 

We know the Windrunner set of powers comes from a combination of Gravitation and Adhesion, the Full Lashing in particular being a direct result of Adhesion (according to The Coppermind, anyway). Let's break down what we know about the Full Lashing -

1: By pooling Stormlight into an area the user can make things stick there. This bond is incredibly strong - most materials will break before the bond will (according to the Ars Arcanum, which is not infallable, (due to being written in-universe) but really trustworthy)

2: The bond is limited by the amount of Stormlight put into it.

That's all we really get from the Windrunners for Adhesion...but we know each Surge belongs to two orders, so I took the liberty of looking up the other order that has Adhesion, and I was surprised - the Bondsmiths.

 

Of course, we don't know that much about the Bondsmiths, but we can speculate. Many guess that the Bondsmiths create Shardplate, and I'm inclined to agree. Assuming all Bondsmiths bond to extremely powerful spren such as the Stormfather, I would tenatively guess that their surges are more powerful than the surges of other orders, due to their spren being much more powerful. Now, what does this have to do with Adhesion? Well, I think a combination of an incredibly powerful Full Lashing and some friction manipulation allows Bondsmiths to create Shardplate. Shardplate needs Stormlight to run, and adheres to the user's body and other pieces of shardplate, suggesting that a Full Lashing might be used to create it. In addition, Shardplate becomes weaker after other pieces are broken, but does not fall off the user without help. The Shardplate itself breaks before the bond between the other pieces does.

 

Of course, this is all just speculation, but I've got even more speculation to back it up. Let's look at the attributes of the heralds who patron the orders. Jezrien - the Windrunner's patron - is associated with Protecting and Leading.Ishar - patron of the Bondsmiths - is associated with Pious and Guiding. What do these two patrons have in common? Leadership attributes, specifically Leading and Guiding. What am I getting at? Squires. The windrunners had an unusual amount of squires (look at Kaladin - he made squires out of most of Bridge Four, and I think he was actually in the process of doing that to Elhokar too (due to him stopping seeing Cryptics after he starts becoming aware of and looking up to Kaladin)), and I'm not sure how many the Bondsmiths would have, but Dalinar is a Highprince and leads a great number of people. I would like to suggest that Adhesion might have something to do with how many squires an order can have. Getting squires might be like the squires adhering to the main Knight Radiant, and isn't exactly out of line with what else is shown of Knight Radiant abilities. Look at the Lightweavers:

These Lightweavers, by no coincidence, included many who pursued the arts; namely: writers, artists, musicians, painters, sculptors. Considering the order's general temperament, the tales of their strange and varied mnemonic abilities may have been embellished

From In-universe Words of Radiance (emphasis mine) - this implies that most, if not all, Lightweavers had some sub-powers similar to Shallan's supernaturally good memory. I don't think it would be too unusual for the Order or Surge (not sure which), to grant some other abilities not directly associated with the usage of stormlight. Anyway, I've been going on for far too long and that's just a theory of mine. Thoughts?

[Guest]

I disagree about the Bondsmiths being the only Order to make Shardplate. Based on Dalinar's flashbacks, each suit seems to be attuned to the individual wearing it, meaning that although there may be a "standardized" way of making it, it is likely made by each individual.

As for the rest, I generally agree. Kaladin got Bridge Four to "adhere" to each other, while Shallan "Soulcast"/"Transformed" her bandit group (and herself)

[Moogle]

I wouldn't say Adhesion is entirely underwhelming. We've only seen it used for Full Lashings so far, and it seems to be related to atmospheric pressure.

 

Kaladin does a Stormlight-explosion which knocks Parshendi down at the end of WoK (as well as a summons a bunch of wind when he revives Syl at the end of WoR), which may be a use of Adhesion. No other Surgebinder has received such an effect, which hints in that direction.

[sprint]

 

 

Many guess that the Bondsmiths create Shardplate, and I'm inclined to agree.

 

Hadn't seen this theory before... Any source for it?

Dalinar has outright been told by the Stormfather that (paraphrasing here) "he will be a radiant without shardS" (emphasis mine). If Bondsmiths 'make' shardplate its not like the Stormfather could forbid it to him.  

As an aside - I'm hope the Stormfathers words might be rescinded in book 5 to allow Dalinar access to an 11th hour superpower.  Although Dalinar might be Overpowered anyway, we still don't know how his surges interact, but its stated in many other threads that his order is always of very limited numbers.

 

The more popular theory is that shard plate is formed of lower order spren associated with the higher order spren that forms the nahel bond with the knight radiant (e.g. wind spren are lower order spren associated with honour spren etc). Thinking of the wind spren spiralling around Kaladin as he flys (technically falls in a specific direction) after Seth...

 

As for adhesion we have seen multiple applications - consider the training kaladin does with Rock and others of bridge four in the chasms (as already pointed out above).  Will adhesion progress as Kaladin speaks more oaths?  You mentioned squires - this is 'binding' people together and would seem to be a very powerful ability very much related to adhesion.  Maybe an offshoot of Gravitation is drawing suitable candidates for squires to him - would help explain why Windrunners had more than most other orders...

 

sorry for lack of references, too tired to look them up now.

Edited July 8, 2015 by sprint

[natc]

Adhesion is no less underwhelming than Abrasion is, honestly. It's mundane, doesn't as blatantly break physics, but has many practical uses. Not everything is as spectacular as falling in the wrong direction.

[Arondell]

Since the other name for the Adhesion surge is "Atmospheric Pressure" that could give some hints as to things that might be possible.  When Kaladin first learns to lash himself upwards he notices that the air at high altitude doesn't seem to feel thinner.  His ability to sense incoming highstorms might also be related to that since atmospheric pressure is an important measurement in weather forecasting.

[Seloun]

My working theory is that Adhesion is helpful for flight and is being used by Szeth/Kaladin unconsciously. Assuming Windrunners are better at flight than Skybreakers (given the name, nature of their spren and Kaladin's 'owning the sky' thing), it seems reasonable to postulate Adhesion is the difference. My guess is that it acts sort of like a virtual airfoil, giving them better maneuverability (and more efficiently) than just Gravitation alone.

[VindicationKnight]

Honestly the Full Lashing is extremely useful, it's just not as dramatic. There are all sorts of combat uses for bonding objects together especially since it's his only real ranged power and he can affect a large area. Szeth uses it often compared to Kaladin who's relatively inexperienced with it.

 

I also personally suspect the 'shockwave' power is linked to Adhesion, but we'll probably have to wait for more evidence to say for certain.