Surgebinding While Using Shardplate

[william.sexton3]

Here is the quote from the prologue of WoK: 

Quote

[Zseth's] lashings interfered with the gemstones that powered shardplate, and he had to choose one or the other. 

(emphasis added) So what does this say about the theories? If it isn't the shardplate or necessarily the investiture that messes with the lashings, but the gemstones.

[+hwiles]

Hmm.  Maybe Szeth just can't refrain from draining the gems installed in plate when he breathes in stormlight due to their proximity to him.  If a Surgebinder tries to breathe in light from a sphere that's 5ft away, I'd be willing to believe that they'd also breathe the light in from any other sources that are physically closer to them.  When Kaladin fights the Parshendi he breathes in the light from dozens of gemstones, many of which he wouldn't have had line of sight to, which shows that a surgebinder can breathe light in without having to see or know the location of its source, the limiting factor appears to simply be their distance from the source.  I believe Szeth demonstrates some measure of control at some point during his purging of Kharbranth, draining some spheres from his pouch but not others.  However, in that same vein, as the fighting gets progressively fiercer, he ends up just absorbing all of the light around him IIRC.

Newsletter spoiler:

Spoiler

Kaladin carries a bag of spheres while traveling back to Hearthstone and appears to be able to exercise some measure of control over how much light he breathes in at once (though he expresses the belief that he could've moderated it better if he was more experienced)

I'd guess that a surgebinder's ability to control which sources of light they drain when breathing in stormlight gets worse as they become more stressed and have to focus harder on fighting and staying alive.

[william.sexton3]

Quote

I'd guess that a surgebinder's ability to control which sources of light they drain when breathing in stormlight gets worse as they become more stressed and have to focus harder on fighting and staying alive.

Which would make complete sense, because the same is true of physical attributes, too. 

[Thunder_93]

Reading the 2 last comments, I've just had a thought...

Obviously, Kaladin should be stronger then a normal Shardbearer anyways (carrying Blade and Plate) anyways. But still:

I don't think Knight Radiants can breath in the Stormlight being hold of other Knight Radiants / Honorblade carriers (otherwhise the battle between Kaladin and Szeth would have been completly different).

But as the Gemstones of a Shardblade aren't "linked" or something to the owner, Kaladin should be able to just pull the Stormlight out of a Shardplate, and he's just completly immobile right?

Any thoughts why this shouldnt work?

[goody153]

I think i remember Kaladin breathing a "little" amount of stormlight from Szeth that he expelled(because he got hit or something iirc) at the first time they fought during Szeth's first attempt of assasination of Dalinar.

[william.sexton3]

@Thunder_93 I think that the shardplate interferes here. Szeth does this at the end of his battle Gavilar, but has to remove the plate first. He takes the plate off of the dying Galivar and uses the Gemstone then. restoring his reserves. 

[DrakeMarshall]

6 hours ago, hwiles said:

Kinda knitpicky, but we have WoB that a normal person can't bond an Honorblade, it can only be "given" to them.  It's perfectly unclear to me what that means exactly, but even though Szeth could summon the blade, it supposedly wasn't ever bonded to him.  I'm guessing you're right though that the Heralds will be more powerful than a normal Radiant, or exhibit some type of synergy with their blades.  A single Radiant being even close to as powerful as a Herald would be a weird balancing issue in my mind, but it could also serve as an explanation for how Honor was weakened enough for Odium to be able to kill.

This is very interesting... You see, basically what you are saying is, Brandon has confirmed there to be a way for a non-herald to use the honorblades like a herald did (and Szeth wasn't exhibiting this). So... It seems like Sanderson has deliberately left open the door for a non-herald to effectively become a herald later in the books, no? That would be exciting.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Nightblade]

So we know that the Radiants have 2 Surges, Could they have a 2 Spren? One Spren per Surge.

One spren would be the blade and one would be the plate? 

[Sand Master]

7 minutes ago, Nightblade said:

So we know that the Radiants have 2 Surges, Could they have a 2 Spren? One Spren per Surge.

One spren would be the blade and one would be the plate? 

You're sort of asking two different questions here. Can a KR bond 2 spren? I think it's been determined that it's possible? I don't recall exactly what was said and I might be wrong but yeah, either way it seems unlikely.

However, that would (depending on the spren) give the KR three or four surges, not two. Each spren gives two surges. Honorspren (Syl) give Gravitation and Adhesion. Cryptics/liespren (Pattern) give Illumination and Transformation. Whatever type of spren Jasnah has gives Transformation and Transportation.

[william.sexton3]

Kaladin only has one spren, and he already has both surges (like @Sand Master said, Adhesion and gravitation) he can bind things together (adhesion) draw things to an item he is touching (adhesion and gravitation) and change the direction gravity effects him (gravitation). So a second spren would give him more surges, I think, but he already has two surges with just one spren.

[+hwiles]

44 minutes ago, Sand Master said:

You're sort of asking two different questions here. Can a KR bond 2 spren? I think it's been determined that it's possible? I don't recall exactly what was said and I might be wrong but yeah, either way it seems unlikely.

However, that would (depending on the spren) give the KR three or four surges, not two. Each spren gives two surges. Honorspren (Syl) give Gravitation and Adhesion. Cryptics/liespren (Pattern) give Illumination and Transformation. Whatever type of spren Jasnah has gives Transformation and Transportation.

6

WoB is that it's technically possible for a person to join multiple orders of Radiants.  It'd just be extremely difficult.  Truth be told, I can't imagine this ever happening on screen, it would present some weird balancing issues.  If you need convincing, just think about why The Lord Ruler didn't get his own series; he was too powerful, everything was easy, and he basically always won, lack of conflict or difficulty = crummy book.

@Nightblade you're on the right track with a popular theory that, I believe was discussed a bit earlier in this thread (too lazy to confirm).  Lots of people are speculating that Plate is made of spren, we just haven't really figured out how yet, or what the relationship is between a Radiant and the spren their armor is forged out of is.

[Rich2244]

35 minutes ago, hwiles said:

WoB is that it's technically possible for a person to join multiple orders of Radiants.  It'd just be extremely difficult.  Truth be told, I can't imagine this ever happening on screen, it would present some weird balancing issues.  If you need convincing, just think about why The Lord Ruler didn't get his own series; he was too powerful, everything was easy, and he basically always won, lack of conflict or difficulty = crummy book.

Just to add to that in the original WoK Kaladin took the blade and plate that he had the chance for early on but Sanderson said everything was too easy for him so he changed it.

On an earlier topic my thoughts were that a radiant or equivalent could drain stormlight from a 'dead' set of plate or gemstone in a 'dead' blade but a living one would hold stormlight like a human could, and could only be taken if it was forced out first.

[Oversleep]

54 minutes ago, william.sexton3 said:

draw things to an item he is touching (adhesion and gravitation)

That's just Gravitation. It works by creating a bubble imitiating the objects spiritual bond to the ground - simply put, you're making the object pull other things to it.

Adhesion is about 'glueing' things together.

[galendo]

7 hours ago, Nightblade said:

So we know that the Radiants have 2 Surges, Could they have a 2 Spren? One Spren per Surge.

One spren would be the blade and one would be the plate? 

To clear everyone straight on what (I think) Nightblood is saying, he's wondering if Radiants might be bonded to two spren, e.g., Kaladin is bonded to Syl and another spren we don't know about.  Syl would presumably grant Gravitation and the other spren Adhesion.

I doubt this theory for a number of reasons that mainly boil down to Occam's razor and a lack of evidence, but I thought I'd set the record straight.

[+hwiles]

13 hours ago, Oversleep said:

That's just Gravitation. It works by creating a bubble imitiating the objects spiritual bond to the ground - simply put, you're making the object pull other things to it.

Adhesion is about 'glueing' things together.

 

I've been playing with the idea in my head that it's actually the combination of both surges.  IE: Anyone with the surge of Gravitation can perform a Basic Lashing (altering the direction and magnitude of the net gravitational force vector acting on a person or object), anyone with the surge of Adhesion can perform a Full Lashing (superglue two things together), but only someone with both (a Windrunner) can perform a Reverse Lashing (the specific mechanisms of this lashing are peculiar, it doesn't act like a normal gravitational field...) Kaladin vacuums up a whole mess of Parshendi arrows without getting pulled into the air (toward the arrows' collective center of mass).  Until we see what exactly Skybreakers can do this will just be speculation (unless there's already a WoB that I'm not aware of...) but to me, it seems like the Reverse Lashing would be a good candidate for being the perk that Windrunners get from their two surges.

Obviously, you might just be right and I could be making this needlessly complicated, but I wanted to throw my two cents out there. 

[william.sexton3]

8 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I've been playing with the idea in my head that it's actually the combination of both surges.  IE: Anyone with the surge of Gravitation can perform a Basic Lashing (altering the direction and magnitude of the net gravitational force vector acting on a person or object), anyone with the surge of Adhesion can perform a Full Lashing (superglue two things together), but only someone with both (a Windrunner) can perform a Reverse Lashing (the specific mechanisms of this lashing are peculiar, it doesn't act like a normal gravitational field...) Kaladin vacuums up a whole mess of Parshendi arrows without getting pulled into the air (toward the arrows' collective center of mass).  Until we see what exactly Skybreakers can do this will just be speculation (unless there's already a WoB that I'm not aware of...) but to me, it seems like the Reverse Lashing would be a good candidate for being the perk that Windrunners get from their two surges.

Obviously, you might just be right and I could be making this needlessly complicated, but I wanted to throw my two cents out there. 

That is exactly what I was talking about. The basic lashing is not really effecting just gravity... I always thought of this as combination of the two surges. (I'm not saying that all Orders of the KR have three abilities, but a basic lashing can't just be an effect of gravity, I think.)

[+hwiles]

52 minutes ago, william.sexton3 said:

That is exactly what I was talking about. The basic lashing is not really effecting just gravity... I always thought of this as combination of the two surges. (I'm not saying that all Orders of the KR have three abilities, but a basic lashing can't just be an effect of gravity, I think.)

2

I think you mean "Reverse," not basic.

Also, I found a relevant WoB:

Quote

Q. Are the two surges [That each Knights Radiant have access to] completely separate or can they be combined together? Something like maybe allowing a lightweaver to create a solid illusion by combining their illumination surge and their soulcasting?

A. Yes, they can, but it's not always directly obvious in a straightforward way, such as your example.

2

I suspect that Jasnah's soulcasting at a distance is going to be the combination of her transportation and transformation surges, but again, we'll see.  It's worth noting that each order should, in some manner, have its own unique abilities that none of the other orders have; they just won't necessarily always be particularly exciting or obvious...

[Sand Master]

15 hours ago, hwiles said:

I've been playing with the idea in my head that it's actually the combination of both surges.  IE: Anyone with the surge of Gravitation can perform a Basic Lashing (altering the direction and magnitude of the net gravitational force vector acting on a person or object), anyone with the surge of Adhesion can perform a Full Lashing (superglue two things together), but only someone with both (a Windrunner) can perform a Reverse Lashing (the specific mechanisms of this lashing are peculiar, it doesn't act like a normal gravitational field...) Kaladin vacuums up a whole mess of Parshendi arrows without getting pulled into the air (toward the arrows' collective center of mass).  Until we see what exactly Skybreakers can do this will just be speculation (unless there's already a WoB that I'm not aware of...) but to me, it seems like the Reverse Lashing would be a good candidate for being the perk that Windrunners get from their two surges.

Obviously, you might just be right and I could be making this needlessly complicated, but I wanted to throw my two cents out there. 

I don't see why you think that, when performing a Reverse Lashing, Kaladin should have been pulled into the air towards the arrows' collective center of mass. He's not giving the arrows a gravitational pull. He's giving one to the shield. Simply because the shield has an effect on the arrows, that doesn't mean it goes both ways. If you want to get extremely technical, every object with any amount of mass has some level of gravitational field, but because we're so relatively small it has basically no effect when compared to the strength of the planet's gravitational pull. The planet's gravity is also a large influence on a Reverse Lashing, according to the Ars Arcanum. The full entry of a Reverse Lashing in the Ars Arcanum is as follows:

Quote

REVERSE LASHING: GIVING AN OBJECT A GRAVITATIONAL PULL

I believe this may actually be a specialized version of the Basic Lashing. This type of Lashing required the least amount of Stormlight of any of the three Lashings. The Windrunner would infuse something, give a mental command, and create a pull to the object that yanked other objects toward it. At its heart, this Lashing created a bubble around the object that imitated its spiritual link to the ground beneath it. As such, it was much harder for the Lashing to affect objects touching the ground, where their link to the planet was strongest. Objects falling or in flight were the easiest to influence. Other objects could be affected, but the Stormlight and skill required were much more substantial.

This pretty much sums it up to me. The title even says: "giving an object a gravitational pull". Nothing about Adhesion there, and I can't see any reason why Adhesion would be needed to make this viable.

[Jaconis]

10 hours ago, Sand Master said:

I don't see why you think that, when performing a Reverse Lashing, Kaladin should have been pulled into the air towards the arrows' collective center of mass. He's not giving the arrows a gravitational pull. He's giving one to the shield. Simply because the shield has an effect on the arrows, that doesn't mean it goes both ways. If you want to get extremely technical, every object with any amount of mass has some level of gravitational field, but because we're so relatively small it has basically no effect when compared to the strength of the planet's gravitational pull. The planet's gravity is also a large influence on a Reverse Lashing, according to the Ars Arcanum. The full entry of a Reverse Lashing in the Ars Arcanum is as follows:

This pretty much sums it up to me. The title even says: "giving an object a gravitational pull". Nothing about Adhesion there, and I can't see any reason why Adhesion would be needed to make this viable.

Well, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If this magic is creating a force between the arrows to the shield, there is also a force pulling the shield towards the arrows. In your example with the earth, the gravitational force we feel pulling us down is mirrored on the earth, pulling it "up." As you said, that force is so small compared to the mass of the earth, and is countered by so many other objects of relatively similar mass all across its surface, in all directions, (on the scale of planets, a person and the Empire State Building are roughly the same, i.e. negligible), that the earth doesn't move. 

That said, my argument for why the shield wouldn't move is that the shield was attached to kaladins arm. Kaladin's mass + the shield's mass >>>> arrow's mass. He gets thrown back when they hit him, but now we're talking about energy and momentum, which the arrows have significant amounts of because of their velocity. 

This may be the reasoning, or this particular brand of the magic could be affecting Newton's Third Law such that there is no equal and opposite force, or it could just be something Brandon didn't think of, as it's one of the laws of physics that is not always easy to visualize. For instance, I saw a blog post awhile back by some physicist fan of Brandon's, criticizing Mistborn to say that if steelpushing generates enough force to throw someone in the air when they push on a coin on the ground, they should be thrown when they push on a coin in the air as well. The equal and opposite force is acting on them regardless. (The blog post, which I can't find now, went into far greater detail, so look for it if your interested or confused by my shoddy explanation). The only way to get the behavior we see in the books, which is that a mistborn drops a coin, starts pushing on it but doesn't start moving until the coin hits something, is if the mistborn suddenly starts pushing much much harder when the coin hits, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

Edited September 14, 2016 by Jaconis

[william.sexton3]

I believe that this is the forum you are talking about. 

[Jaconis]

36 minutes ago, william.sexton3 said:

I believe that this is the forum you are talking about. 

Hmm. Thanks for that, though I'm pretty sure that's not what I was thinking of, as I originally saw this years and years ago, around WoK release. As is said there, the assumption needed to make the Third Law not be violated doesn't always hold true in the text, but enough to get it to work for his purposes. 

[Sand Master]

3 hours ago, Jaconis said:

Well, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If this magic is creating a force between the arrows to the shield, there is also a force pulling the shield towards the arrows. In your example with the earth, the gravitational force we feel pulling us down is mirrored on the earth, pulling it "up." As you said, that force is so small compared to the mass of the earth, and is countered by so many other objects of relatively similar mass all across its surface, in all directions, (on the scale of planets, a person and the Empire State Building are roughly the same, i.e. negligible), that the earth doesn't move. 

That said, my argument for why the shield wouldn't move is that the shield was attached to kaladins arm. Kaladin's mass + the shield's mass >>>> arrow's mass. He gets thrown back when they hit him, but now we're talking about energy and momentum, which the arrows have significant amounts of because of their velocity. 

This may be the reasoning, or this particular brand of the magic could be affecting Newton's Third Law such that there is no equal and opposite force, or it could just be something Brandon didn't think of, as it's one of the laws of physics that is not always easy to visualize. For instance, I saw a blog post awhile back by some physicist fan of Brandon's, criticizing Mistborn to say that if steelpushing generates enough force to throw someone in the air when they push on a coin on the ground, they should be thrown when they push on a coin in the air as well. The equal and opposite force is acting on them regardless. (The blog post, which I can't find now, went into far greater detail, so look for it if your interested or confused by my shoddy explanation). The only way to get the behavior we see in the books, which is that a mistborn drops a coin, starts pushing on it but doesn't start moving until the coin hits something, is if the mistborn suddenly starts pushing much much harder when the coin hits, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

Sure each action has an equal and opposite reaction. But the amount of force needed to change an arrow's flight path in the air is not much. Meaning that the reactionary force on Kaladin wouldn't be that strong either. As for the steelpushing argument, I think there may be a misunderstanding going on. Both the ground and the air push back on the coin with the same amount of force that the coin pushes on them, not with the amount of force that the steelpush puts on the coin. The coin doesn't need a lot of force to push on the air and move it. The ground, on the other hand, can take (and therefore provide) much more force. It's the same as if you were trying to physically push something through the air, as opposed to straight down. Moving your hand through the air doesn't push you back, does it? You have friction with the ground, and even if you didn't, your inertia would keep you from moving very much anyway. But if you push against the ground, you go up. That's how push-ups are possible. Steelpushing is basically just a really long arm that pushes on things.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Sand Master

[Krandacth]

I always visualised steelpushing a coin into the ground in the same vein as pushing a coin through the air towards the ground, and steelpushing against a grounded coin like doing a press up. Exert the same explosive force downwards in both cases and, in the former, the coin moves and you do not, while, in the second, you move and the earth does not.

The primary difference is Steelpushing doesnt involve any moving parts that can be put under strain by the impact implicit in moving from the former to the latter.

On the original topic:

Quote

From the Ars Arcanum:

At its heart, this Lashing created a bubble around the object that imitated its spiritual link to the ground beneath it.

To me this implies a reason that Kaladin and/or shield were not pulled towards the arrows. If the shield imitates the spiritual link it has to the earth, then the strength of pull on other objects becomes as strong as that of the planet, and its resistance to the inverse of that pull becomes as strong as that of the planet.

Note this means that any force not the result of its own borrowed gravitational field would still be able to move the shield as if it were just a shield, hence the impact knocking Kaladin backward, but would render the shield virtually unaffected by the pull it exerts on the arrows.

If this effect was described as giving the object a gravitational field, or applying a force like amplified gravity, then either the shield would become too heavy to lift, or yes, would be pulled into the air. But that isn't the explanation given. This obviously isnt the same mechanic as a ironpull

Edited September 14, 2016 by Krandacth
getting back on topic

[+hwiles]

@Sand Master First, Newton's Third Law, if the shield pulls on the arrows, the arrows pull on the shield.  There are things in the Cosmere that appear to be capable of violating Newton's three laws...so they're more like his three suggestions in this case.  Not hard proof that Kaladin should have been launched into the air, just evidence that something wonky is going on when he uses a Reverse Lashing that can't just be explained by gravitational fields/forces; he appears to be doing something other than just manipulating gravity, whatever Khriss thinks.  I'm not sure how much force is required to alter the trajectory of an arrow, maybe this was a poor example on my part.

My argument is primarily grounded in the hypothesis that access to a single surge grants a Radiant the ability to manipulate a single force of nature (or creation or whatever) in a single and, more or less, well-defined way.  We don't have hard evidence for this yet, just little hints and consistencies, which is why I consider it a hypothesis instead of a theory.

For example, Transformation allows a Radiant to soulcast (which is pretty straight-forward), Regrowth allows a Radiant to accelerate cellular growth/division, Adhesion allows a Radiant to use stormlight to glue things together, ect.  This is similar to how a single metal on Scadrial gives access to a single power, for a lurcher, there's no such thing as a "specialized version" of iron-pulling, the idea doesn't make sense unless you have access to another power, an iron-pull is an iron-pull and it always works the same way (though technically the power can vary with the user).  It would be sort of weird and inconsistent with other magic systems across the Cosmere if Surges had "specialized" uses that granted access to additional abilities.  Sanderson has, in the past, tended toward relatively highly specialized magic systems; ie: small numbers of very specific powers that characters use inventively to solve problems (the exact opposite of lots of other epic fantasy series where some grand wizard happens to have a different spell for every occasion.)

Spoiler

(I'm looking at you, "OcculusRepairo!") 

I'm making the claim that a Basic and Reverse Lashing are very different and operate by legitimately different mechanisms, which is an indication that they are not, in fact, both automatically granted by wielding the Surge of Gravitation; one of them (which I'm guessing is the Reverse Lashing) is granted to Windrunners as a result of holding the combination of Gravitation and Adhesion.  We already have WoB stating that the power/ability granted by blending a Radiant's surges won't necessarily immediately make sense or be obvious; this is consistent with Twinborns on Scadrial, Wax's Steel-bubble is completely unintuitive in my mind, but it's pretty widely accepted that it's his unique ability that originates from blending Feruchemical iron and Allomantic steel.  I'll be the first to recant all of this if we see a Skybreaker perform both a Basic and Reverse Lashing, but until then I think there's reasonable evidence and consistent patterns that the door should be left open.  

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

First, Newton's Third Law, if the shield pulls on the arrows, the arrows pull on the shield.

If we consider Kaladin's weight that the shield would have to pull away from, that might explain why there isn't much movement. It could even be the fact that he was running in that way to begin with making it even less noticeable.

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

My argument is primarily grounded in the hypothesis that access to a single surge grants a Radiant the ability to manipulate a single force of nature (or creation or whatever) in a single and, more or less, well-defined way.

I am not going to fully believe/refute it until we get evidence proving one way or the other, but that's how it is with theories.That having been said, I don't really have much trouble with this, as you explained it rather well. Only real exception is Regrowth, as bringing the newly dead back to life seems a bit beyond cellular growth/division.
I could make an argument about Cohesion, but it doesn't really fit with what I feel that you're arguing.

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

Wax's Steel-bubble is completely unintuitive in my mind, but it's pretty widely accepted that it's his unique ability that originates from blending Feruchemical iron and Allomantic steel.

This is genuinely the first time I have ever seen/heard this on here. I've seen the bubble being argued as a sign of Savantism maybe twice total, but never something like this. I'm somewhat curious, but this probably isn't the place for it.

Edited September 14, 2016 by The One Who Connects
Wording