[OB] Dustbringer Spren

[Catladyman]

I know its been discussed here and there, but I feel like at this point it needs it own thread.

What type of spren does a Dustbringer bond??

Here's what we know about it..

Quote

“Well,” Shallan whispered, “she’s annoying.”

“Mmm…” Pattern said. “It will be worse when she starts destroying things.”

“Destroying?”

“Dustbringer,” Pattern said. “Her spren… mmm… they like to break what is around them. They want to know what is inside.”

Quote

“Malata,” she said. “Though I am not his. I came to him for convenience, as Spark suggested we might look to Urithiru, now that it has been rediscovered.” She surveyed the large auditorium. Shallan could see no sign of her spren

Given the fact that we had not even heard of honorspren, liespren, cultivationspren, or highspren before they started Bonding again, I think that Spark will also be totally new. My guess is that Spark is a curiosityspren. They would be obsessed with knowing how things work and what they're made of, like Pattern with lies. 

I see the initial meeting going like this, pretty much every time:

Proto-Radiant: I wonder [insert literally any question]

Curiosityspren: Well, you can blow it up.

PR: Hmm...

[vhaloth]

I think 'Curiosityspren' is more of a 'Willshaper' kind of thing spren rather than Dustbringers'.

IMO 'Valorspren' is much more like it since their primary divine thing is bravery. They would look like 'Flamespren' for their soulcasting property is 'Fire'. 
 

Quote

val·or

ˈvalər/

noun

 

1. great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle.

 

[Kingsdaughter613]

Science Spren? Because that was where my mind went as soon as I heard that description. Maybe Study or Knowledge Spren?

My thought for Willshaper Spren are Wild or Fantastic Spren. Possibly spelled Wyld, to make the use clearer.

[+Extesian]

Discoveryspren.

[Tarion]

It's interesting that everyone had such a positive interpretation of the Spren's intent. 

To me, it was much more disturbing - Destroying things to see how they work just makes me think of sociopaths. Nan Balat, tearing limbs off helpless creatures. And that fits with the distrust so many people have for Dustbringers. Constantly with a devil on their shoulder telling them that they don't need to deal with the niceties of society and that the best way to solve a problem is to reduce it to it's simplest components. 

Admittedly, I think this may be me reading it in view of where I think Oathbringer is going. I think it's going to show that not every Radiant Order is "nice" or even necessarily "good". Balanced by the "new" Parshendi (the Ex-Parshmen) being not necessarily evil.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Tarion said:

Destroying things to see how they work just makes me think of sociopaths. Nan Balat, tearing limbs off helpless creatures. And that fits with the distrust so many people have for Dustbringers. Constantly with a devil on their shoulder telling them that they don't need to deal with the niceties of society and that the best way to solve a problem is to reduce it to it's simplest components. 

Destructive potential is just scary for everyone, who doesn't hold it - it has nothing to do with sociopathy. I find it disturbing, that many are immediately jumping to conclusions and painting Malata and, by extent, Spark as not trustworthy or dangerous, just because she's a Dustbringer and maybe a bit socially awkward.

Even Dustbringers have oaths to adhere to and, tbh, I kind of begin to understand why they rather want to be called Releasers, when even we, just as readers, begin to immediately shun them.

I think Dustbringers bond some kind of higher version of flamespren. The name Spark also suggests something with flames.

Edited October 25, 2017 by SLNC

[Rasha]

Seing how things are made does not necessite to take them apart. One approach in science when you have an unknown system, and you don't know how it works, is to do Black box tests. You feed things into the box (inputs), and watches what it does to these things. You note the results (outputs), then feeds it different inputs until you figure out what the friggin black box does. 

 

Malata does that in every interaction she had on screen so far: she acted smiley and flirty on Dalinar, a ruthless Alethi warlord to see what would stick. Not so much apparently, and I have the feeling she knew after her try that she spooked Dalinar. So she tries something else with Shallan: she tries to act all sisterly with her, but Shallan, being the con artist she is, seems to see that it's just an act and is spooked. Of course she keeps the smile every time, as it is a kind of automatic reflex she has when interacting with people. Poor Malata.

 

All that doesn't mean that Malata is going to be evil or whatever, it's just that people in general don't like being put to test by others wanting to know what they are made of. If this is how dustbringuers interact with the world, I see why they make people uneasy. I just see a character arriving into an unknown setting and trying to understand the mechanics of how it works. And I just love her way of doing it, I am impatient of seeing her next different approach and how it will inevitably make her locutor uncomfortable. Because Malata is unable to see that the problem lies with her method, which makes people uncomfortable.

I think I can say that I already fell in love with the concept of her character (if I got it right).

Edited October 25, 2017 by Rasha
Words.

[Tarion]

12 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Destructive potential is just scary for everyone, who doesn't hold it - it has nothing to do with sociopathy. I find it disturbing, that many are immediately jumping to conclusions and painting Malata as not trustworthy or dangerous, just because she's a Dustbringer and maybe a bit socially awkward.

Even Dustbringers have oaths to adhere to and, tbh, I kind of begin to understand why they rather want to be called Releasers, when even we, just as readers, begin to immediately shun them.

I think Dustbringers bond some kind of higher version of flamespren. The name Spark also suggests something with flames.

I'm tempted to say "Entropyspren" or something - It fits with the flame idea and the Dustbringer powers/reputation. It's also a more abstract idea, which fits with the other Nahel spren we've seen. 

And I'm not saying that the Dustbringers are evil, untrustworthy or dangerous. But I wouldn't be surprised to see their spren being pretty alien. We've already seen aspects of Blue and Orange morality from Pattern, who was horrified by the concept of eating, but considers lies as good. If they're the Spren who give powers related to division and abrasion, who like to "break what is around them" what will they consider "good"? 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Tarion

[Ciridae]

22 minutes ago, Tarion said:

It's interesting that everyone had such a positive interpretation of the Spren's intent. 

To me, it was much more disturbing - Destroying things to see how they work just makes me think of sociopaths. Nan Balat, tearing limbs off helpless creatures. And that fits with the distrust so many people have for Dustbringers. Constantly with a devil on their shoulder telling them that they don't need to deal with the niceties of society and that the best way to solve a problem is to reduce it to it's simplest components. 

Admittedly, I think this may be me reading it in view of where I think Oathbringer is going. I think it's going to show that not every Radiant Order is "nice" or even necessarily "good". Balanced by the "new" Parshendi (the Ex-Parshmen) being not necessarily evil.

I'm as excited to meet Spark and see what Dustbringers are capable of as the next guy, but when I read that line my first thoughts were of 

Quote

Spoiler

the Terris boy Forch who cut open the child in Wax's flashback at the beginning of BoM. The way he says "I've just got to see what's inside. You know?" 

 

I think the Dustbringers will be one of the coolest orders, but the spren does scare me a bit. Maybe they are the Keenspren Wyndle mentioned?

Edited October 25, 2017 by Ciridae

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Tarion said:

And I'm not saying that the Dustbringers are evil, untrustworthy or dangerous.

It was more meant in reply to your statement, that you're surprised to see a general positive outlook of Malata's spren's intent.

See, the statement "Her spren… mmm… they like to break what is around them. They want to know what is inside." is so damnation vague, I don't see how you can read out any positive or negative intent out of it...

You can destroy to find something on the inside in both positive and negative ways. And, of course, the morality of it again is a matter of perspective.

Still, I'd argue, that many people on here are way too wary about Dustbringers and their spren, just because of what we have been told of them so far. It's prejudice at it's finest.

Edited October 25, 2017 by SLNC

[Tarion]

1 minute ago, SLNC said:

It was more meant in reply to your statement, that you're surprised to see a general positive outlook of Malata's spren's intent.

See, the statement "Her spren… mmm… they like to break what is around them. They want to know what is inside." is so damnation vague, I don't see how you can read out any positive or negative intent out of it...

You can destroy to find something on the inside in both positive and negative ways. And, of course, the morality of it again is a matter of perspective.

Still, I'd argue, that many people on here are way too wary about Dustbringers, just because of what we have been told of them so far. It's prejudice at it's finest.

It's interesting, because I've been entirely positive about Dustbringers, deliberately assuming nothing bad about them until I read this chapter. On it's own, it is innocuous.

But it's also a really common serial killer trope. The idea of killing people to see what's inside them. As Ciridae points out, it's even one that Sanderson has used before. And this is a series in which we already have a character who enjoys torturing small animals. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Tarion said:

But it's also a really common serial killer trope. The idea of killing people to see what's inside them.

See, but that is something you (and many others) extrapolate out of it. Pattern's statement in itself is completely neutral.

3 minutes ago, Tarion said:

And this is a series in which we already have a character who enjoys torturing small animals. 

Balat has sociopathic tendencies, I don't know what that has to do with Spark's intent.

[Tarion]

4 minutes ago, SLNC said:

See, but that is something you (and many others) extrapolate out of it. Pattern's statement in itself is completely neutral.

Balat has sociopathic tendencies, I don't know what that has to do with Spark's intent.

Pattern's explicitly not neutral. He appears to agree with Shallan's read of her as "annoying" and then things that she'll get "worse" as she starts destroying things. The absolutely most positive reading from Pattern is still pretty negative. Not sociopathic, but negative all the same.

As for Balat's tendencies, the relevance is context. In a story in which a PoV character has expressed sociopathic tendencies, by an author who has used characters which kill things to see what's inside them, I don't think it's unreasonable to read "break things to see how they work" as sinister. 

Now, it's possible that Pattern is expressing something that we'd find mundane in a sinister way (As I noted he has done before), and that the Dustbringers are entirely benign.

[Leyrann]

42 minutes ago, Rasha said:

Seing how things are made does not necessite to take them apart. One approach in science when you have an unknown system, and you don't know how it works, is to do Black box tests. You feed things into the box (inputs), and watches what it does to these things. You note the results (outputs), then feeds it different inputs until you figure out what the friggin black box does. 

 

Malata does that in every interaction she had on screen so far: she acted smiley and flirty on Dalinar, a ruthless Alethi warlord to see what would stick. Not so much apparently, and I have the feeling she knew after her try that she spooked Dalinar. So she tries something else with Shallan: she tries to act all sisterly with her, but Shallan, being the con artist she is, seems to see that it's just an act and is spooked. Of course she keeps the smile every time, as it is a kind of automatic reflex she has when interacting with people. Poor Malata.

 

All that doesn't mean that Malata is going to be evil or whatever, it's just that people in general don't like being put to test by others wanting to know what they are made of. If this is how dustbringuers interact with the world, I see why they make people uneasy. I just see a character arriving into an unknown setting and trying to understand the mechanics of how it works. And I just love her way of doing it, I am impatient of seeing her next different approach and how it will inevitably make her locutor uncomfortable. Because Malata is unable to see that the problem lies with her method, which makes people uncomfortable.

I think I can say that I already fell in love with the concept of her character (if I got it right).

*gives the finger to the "you cannot give more reputation today" message*

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Tarion said:

Pattern's explicitly not neutral. He appears to agree with Shallan's read of her as "annoying" and then things that she'll get "worse" as she starts destroying things. The absolutely most positive reading from Pattern is still pretty negative. Not sociopathic, but negative all the same.

He neither agrees nor disagrees with Shallan on that. He just says, that Shallan will probably find her even more "annoying" when she starts destroying things. This is not agreement on his part.

[Tarion]

2 minutes ago, SLNC said:

He neither agrees nor disagrees with Shallan on that. He just says, that Shallan will probably find her even more "annoying" when she starts destroying things. This is not agreement on his part.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that. Pattern isn't good at extrapolating how Shallan will feel in the future - He spends a lot of time getting her to explicitly lay out why she says or does certain things. Understanding why Shallan found Malata annoying, tying that to Malata destroying things and then seeing that it'll annoy Shallan more is a level of nuance that I simply don't think he has. 

I also don't think he says that Shallan will find her more annoying. It takes a bit of contortion of the language for that to work. 

Shallan says she's annoying, not that she found her annoying. Pattern says that it (Meaning her being annoying) will get worse. They're both speaking objectively - there's no subjectivity to their statements, which is what it would require for your reading. There's no "probably" to it, either. He states, outright, that "it will be worse". 

But at this point, we're getting to a degree of nitpicking that's unhelpful, I think. We'll see within the next month which of us is right

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Tarion said:

Shallan says she's annoying, not that she found her annoying. Pattern says that it (Meaning her being annoying) will get worse. They're both speaking objectively - there's no subjectivity to their statements, which is what it would require for your reading. There's no "probably" to it, either. He states, outright, that "it will be worse". 

*sigh*

Maybe he just doesn't like destruction, but I'm annoyed that everyone is already starting to paint Dustbringers as something scary and dangerous, possibly serial killer level cutting open people "to find out whats inside"

Come on now... Ever heard of the benefit of the doubt?

And I hate prejudice.

Edited October 25, 2017 by SLNC

[Steeldancer]

4 hours ago, Extesian said:

Discoveryspren.

This is more likely to be Willshaper spren. 

I was thinking Couragespren. 

And as noted in my own thread dustbringers would make great quantum physicists

[Tarion]

5 minutes ago, SLNC said:

*sigh*

Maybe he just doesn't like destruction, but I'm annoyed that everyone is already starting to paint Dustbringers as something scary and dangerous, possibly serial killer level cutting open people "to find out whats inside"

Come on now...

Look, my first interpretation of Pattern's words was that it was reminiscent of a serial killer. This wasn't me nitpicking to try to find something bad about Dustbringers. I've already said that I don't think that Dustbringers are necessarily evil, but that their Spren might have an alien enough morality that we find them disturbing. This isn't unique to Dustbringers. Cryptics are initially revolted by the concept of eating but like lying, whereas Syl has no problems with eating, but hates lies. Some Orders would disapprove of Adolin brutally murdering Sadeas, others (Including the Dustbringers) would approve. 

I don't know what to tell you. I read that line, my mind goes somewhere specific. Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's not. But I've laid out why I think it holds up. I'm not writing off the order because their Spren are potentially creepy, but as we've seen from Oathbringer so far, I don't think the lines of good and evil are going to be as simple as "Knights Radiant = Good, Parshmen/Parshendi = Evil".   

[Leyrann]

2 minutes ago, Tarion said:

Look, my first interpretation of Pattern's words was that it was reminiscent of a serial killer. This wasn't me nitpicking to try to find something bad about Dustbringers. I've already said that I don't think that Dustbringers are necessarily evil, but that their Spren might have an alien enough morality that we find them disturbing. This isn't unique to Dustbringers. Cryptics are initially revolted by the concept of eating but like lying, whereas Syl has no problems with eating, but hates lies. Some Orders would disapprove of Adolin brutally murdering Sadeas, others (Including the Dustbringers) would approve. 

I don't know what to tell you. I read that line, my mind goes somewhere specific. Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's not. But I've laid out why I think it holds up. I'm not writing off the order because their Spren are potentially creepy, but as we've seen from Oathbringer so far, I don't think the lines of good and evil are going to be as simple as "Knights Radiant = Good, Parshmen/Parshendi = Evil".   

While it certainly won't be simple, I do think that we also can't write off a whole order of the KR as evil. After all, all Knights Radiant share the same First Ideal: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.

We know that these ideals aren't just some funny thing - you have to hold to them to remain a KR. Therefore, it seems safe to assume that a KR can't simply ignore "life before death" at once (and remain a KR, that is).

[Tarion]

Just now, Leyrann said:

While it certainly won't be simple, I do think that we also can't write off a whole order of the KR as evil. After all, all Knights Radiant share the same First Ideal: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.

We know that these ideals aren't just some funny thing - you have to hold to them to remain a KR. Therefore, it seems safe to assume that a KR can't simply ignore "life before death" at once (and remain a KR, that is).

No, probably not. I'd be very surprised if the average Dustbringer was actively evil. 

But I also think there's a lot of really dark readings for "Life before death" that would fit, if some Orders are okay with murdering Sadeas. Even looking at Kaladin, who can kill Parshendi (People who are, at the end of the day, fighting to survive themselves) in order to protect. There's a fair amount of flexibility as to what they actually mean. 

Killing to protect is explicitly okay. Preemptive killing is explicitly okay (Or maybe vengeance killing, depending on which parts of Sadeas' murder appeals to each Order). Would all of the Orders disapprove of killing innocent Parshmen, knowing what Shallan knew in WoR? Maybe not. 

But I could totally see the Dustbringer being the moral compass for their Spren, rather than the other way around (And I'm totally fine with that). 

[Steeldancer]

6 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

While it certainly won't be simple, I do think that we also can't write off a whole order of the KR as evil. After all, all Knights Radiant share the same First Ideal: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.

We know that these ideals aren't just some funny thing - you have to hold to them to remain a KR. Therefore, it seems safe to assume that a KR can't simply ignore "life before death" at once (and remain a KR, that is).

Ah, but life before death can mean many things. Does this mean life before death for the Knight themself? Does it mean as long as you're saving more people then you're killing, you're all right? Or does it mean you shouldn't kill at all? 

Calderis has discussed this many times, and I don't know as much about the different interpretations. But I'm sure he would be happy to enlighten you. 

[Calderis]

24 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

While it certainly won't be simple, I do think that we also can't write off a whole order of the KR as evil. After all, all Knights Radiant share the same First Ideal: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.

We know that these ideals aren't just some funny thing - you have to hold to them to remain a KR. Therefore, it seems safe to assume that a KR can't simply ignore "life before death" at once (and remain a KR, that is).

First things first, that doesn't mean what Teft has lead you to believe. 

@SLNC I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think it's as straightforward as you want it to be.

The Releasers disliked the Dustbringer moniker specifically because of its similarities to the word Voidbringers. "Releaser," unless it's specifically speaking about setting something free, has plenty of negative connotations of its own. 

@Steeldancer I was getting to it already, lmao. 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Calderis

[kari-no-sugata]

4 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

While it certainly won't be simple, I do think that we also can't write off a whole order of the KR as evil. After all, all Knights Radiant share the same First Ideal: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.

We know that these ideals aren't just some funny thing - you have to hold to them to remain a KR. Therefore, it seems safe to assume that a KR can't simply ignore "life before death" at once (and remain a KR, that is).

I think it's already been established (on the forums at least) that the First Oath is rather vague and open to interpretation, far from strict and not obviously "enforced". I suspect it was more of a way to promote unity between the various groups of Surgebinders who eventually became the organisation known as the Knights Radiant.

More significantly I would say are the suggestions that the Heralds (particularly Ishar) would not have accepted the Orders if they didn't agree to be bound by laws etc. In other words, the Heralds would have never permitted the Knights Radiant if they thought (at the time) that they were malign. While I'm sure that there were plenty of disagreements between the Orders it does seem that they generally managed to work as a team for a long time even without the Heralds. Obviously we'll have to wait and see exactly what happened though.

In summary, I would say that it's like this: each Order had different spren that sought different sorts of people. Some Orders were more diverse than others. But each Order had their own tendencies and depending on the situation some Orders would agree and some would disagree on various points (and that there could also be differences of opinion within an Order). I also expect that the differences between the spren of the Orders was more significant than the differences between the Knights. Even so, they were able to function as an organisation for a long time. Clearly the Orders had to accept some differences between them but I find it hard to believe that it would have been acceptable for one of the Orders to be "evil". I think most Orders would find the others to be strange or hard to understand at times, some more than others. So just because there's differences of opinion that doesn't mean much by itself. To give a specific example, Shallan hasn't exactly warmed up to Dalinar and Renarin either, and it also took her some time to warm up to Jasnah and Kaladin.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The Releasers disliked the Dustbringer moniker specifically because of its similarities to the word Voidbringers. "Releaser," unless it's specifically speaking about setting something free, has plenty of negative connotations of its own. 

Ech. Maybe I'm just reacting this harshly and sympathize because I only see prejudice and general condemnation with how the Dustbringers are being handled. I hate this rust. Even in real life.

Edited October 25, 2017 by SLNC