Parts in Way of Kings

[bartbug he/him]

Hi all. 

Since I'm kind of new to the site, I'm not entirely sure if this has been brought up before. But has anyone else noticed how in the title pages for parts 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the Way of Kings, they have various Radiant Blades? And only ONE of these is the Windrunner. I'm not sure what the other ones are, but I think that one of them stands for Shallan's order, and the other one could show which order Dalinar or Adolin belongs to.

Once again, I'm sorry if this has already been brought up.

[Natans he/him]

Yes =) But good catch.

 

I think that there is a topic where this was discussed, let me see if I can dig it up.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Well, upon checking, they seem to correlate with the first five orders of KR. (Windrunners, Skybreakers, Dustbringers, Edgedancers, and Palah's orders respectively)

[Argent he/him]

Numbers, people. The design of each Blade corresponds to a specific Order, which corresponds to a specific Herald, which in turn corresponds to a number. The first Blade resembles the glyph of the Windrunners, whose Herald is Jezrien - inspiration for the number Jes, or one. The second Blade leads to the number Nan - two. And so on.

 

It blew my mind when I found out about it. That and how the parts' names form the ketek we see in the end.

[callumke he/him]

I hate to point this out guys, but there are not 5 different blades. There are three. As far as they relate to the parts of the WoK they go 1,2,3,2,1. The Windrunners sword adorns part 1 and part 5. Symmetry, yo. It is the same pattern as the Ketek.

 

You can see the detailed swords at this link http://isaacstewart.com/images/wok/tWoK_ICONS-webres.jpg from Issac's site. 

It is clear that the first sword is an elongated version of the windrunner symbol. The second two are less clear, but are probably from orders 2 and 3. Probably. 

[Ethrien he/him]

Thanks for the link FireArcadia, went to check my copy after reading this and found the Gollancz edition (softcover) has the same sword (Windrunners) on every part. The third sword is almost definitely the third order (Dustbringers), its the only one to curve that way and there is a similar design at the center of the glyph and the swords pommel. The middle sword has a few possibility considering general shape, however it still best matches order two (Skybreakers) especially when you look at the design in the center of glyph and blade. Oh also the original poster did only refer to three distinct swords, even if it wasn't particularly clear.

 

And only ONE of these is the Windrunner. I'm not sure what the other ones are, but I think that one of them stands for Shallan's order, and the other one could show which order Dalinar or Adolin belongs to.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Ethrien

[callumke he/him]

Interesting, the Gollancz hard cover had the three different swords, that was what I used for reference. And thanks, I obviously didn't read The OP close enough!