[OB] Why is Kaladin the only one doing his job?

[Korbin]

So reading Oathbringer I was really confused. The Knights Radiant was refounded and the numbers were increasing. But mostly with just more wind runners. Shallan is kind of training squires... But not really. Kaladin is the only one we see who actually is trying to get more radiants. He is recruiting squires and making the most of it. Because of this we have several new radiants. Rock, Teft, Lopen, and maybe a few others. But Jasnah doesn't have any squires. Shallan accidentally gets a few but she isn't even meaning to get them. Renarian isn't doing anything. Why is Kaladin the only one who actually is actively working to expand the knights radiant?

[Andy92]

One of the main traits associated with the order of Windrunners is leadership. Windrunners historically had the most squires, and while some other orders also had them, some didn't have any at all. 

I think Kaladin is simply grasping his role well as far as leadership and training his squires is concerned. Dalinar, as a Bondsmith, must lead the Radiants, not lead squires. The order of Lightweavers may have some squires (or at least Shallan was trying to figure that out in this book), but she doesn't have a group of people that follow her in the way Kaladin does. He's just farther ahead in the leadership role following his time with Bridge Four. 

[Greywatch she/her]

The Windrunners seem to have had lots of squires in past times, and so recruiting might be something that Windrunners favoured more than anyone else. The other characters in different Orders seem to be tackling the problem - Odium and the new Desolation - in ways that fit their goals, motivations, and preferred methods. I think we have such limited ideas of what the purpose of each Order used to be to say that only one guy is doing it "right".

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

Getting new Radiants is also dependent on the spren. The honorspren are willing to bond in large numbers again, but other types are more hesitant. Ivory says the other inkspren didn't want him to come over, and he's the only one willing to bond. Glys is weird, we don't really know if Renarin can have squires. 

[aemetha he/him]

I think this makes more sense if you look at each of the radiants from the ten in the battle (with one exception, see below) in turn.

• Kaladin - Windrunner. As noted already the windrunners have a lot of squires. Additionally, Kaladin is a captain in an army in which slightly more than 110% of the members really, really want to be windrunners. His pool of potential candidates is massive.
• Shallan - Lightweaver. Doesn't really have a large pool of people to choose from, but she is training pretty much the entire pool of people she has to choose from.
• Dalinar - Bondsmith. It's not unusual for there to only be one bondsmith, and there are a maximum of three. Not really something to be concerned about.
• Nale (not Szeth because Nale clearly has this leadership role) - Skybreakers. Nale is actively recruiting and training radiants, and has done so for millennia.
• Lift - Edgedancers. She's only ten, which in our terms is eleven (though admittedly has been ten for three years now). She also doesn't use the most basic mechanic of surgebinding - accessing stormlight - in a manner that anyone else could do. On top of that, she has an entire empire at her disposal. She's also very busy, Dalinar's lunch isn't going to steal itself. Probably best that Lift doesn't try to train people at this point.
• Taln - Stonewards. Well, he's been catatonic most of the time, which no doubt has impeded his ability to recruit new radiants.
• Ash - Dustbringers (presumed). Hasn't actually decided to fight yet. Malata is also a dustbringer, but she's on the other team and we haven't seen what they are doing.
• Renarin - Truthwatchers. Has a lot of issues with training people. He has difficulty with social interactions, and is probably not likely to attract a huge following from the people around him. We don't see him associate with anyone outside his family and bridge 4 (who are all windrunner squires). Also has a corrupted spren, meaning what a trainee learns is probably different to what he does.
• Jasnah - Elsecallers. Hates taking on wards. By her own admission is bad at it. Probably will have to do something like this, but finding time between being queen, world leading scholar and mentor to Shallan is going to be very limiting for her. I don't imagine this order expanding very rapidly.
• Venli - Willshapers (presumed). Hasn't had any opportunity to advance oaths or take on trainees.

[IllNsickly he/him]

I really don’t think we have enough information on what all of the Orders ‘Jobs’ are, though.

It is entirely possible that the Windrunners are simply the most visible order anyway. The certainly seem to be the most prolific. 

[Heir of the Void he/him]

19 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Shallan - Lightweaver. Doesn't really have a large pool of people to choose from, but she is training pretty much the entire pool of people she has to choose from.

I think the point is that she isn't making any real effort towards it. Which is understantable, as she is insane, and doesn't really seem to keep on being a Radiant, given that she spends so much time apparently trying to ignore the fact that she is one.

The Bondsmiths are capped at three and probably don't have Squires, and Renarian is different and probably has different rules. Beyond that, Words of Radiance (in-universe) noted that the Truthwatchers were enigmatic and didn't speak of what they did, which makes it sound like they'd have few squires.

27 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Nale (not Szeth because Nale clearly has this leadership role)

I disagree. Szeth has sworn his Third Oath (to Dalinar), which puts him at the same stage of advancement as Kaladin and Teft when they both began swearing Squires, and Teft is definitely in a position subordinate to Kaladin and can still get his own Squires, so I don't think there's a rule that a Radiant has to be a supreme authority to get minions.

Granted, Szeth would probably have a hard time finding Squires, given that he isn't very good at being a person, but if Dalinar told him to, I'm sure he would give it a serious effort.

Personally, I hope Nightblood becomes his squire. Because Nightblood with Surgebinding seems like something that could not possibly go wrong.

34 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Malata is also a dustbringer, but she's on the other team and we haven't seen what they are doing.

One of Dalinar's visions (the one where they were chasing a Voidspren at the Purelake) featured a Dustbringer (a Radiant with ruby-glowing Plate) who had a whole company of soldiers who were reveled to be squires when the Thunderclast attacked.

47 minutes ago, aemetha said:

• Taln - Stonewards... Ash - Dustbringers

Not quite - the Herlads, with the exception of Nale, aren't Radiants. They (had) the same Surges by way of their Honorblades, but this would only be true is Nale was incorrect in stating that he was the only one who had joined his own order.

[Greywatch she/her]

Another thing is that at the point they are now, they aren't focusing on recruiting from the general populace (perhaps Windrunners excepted?). We don't know if it even works that way for other Orders; people used to go to Urithiru and just join the Knights Radiant, but we have no idea how that process even worked. Right now, our main characters are in a position where they know that spren are bonding with people out there, somewhere, and are focused on bringing existing Knights Radiant together. Even that much was extremely difficult/impossible because Nale had been killing them all up until very recently.

I also don't necessarily think they should be focusing on recruiting - too much, too fast. Recruiting people isn't the only way they can do their jobs of defeating Odium, and I doubt it'd be viable to expect them to tackle the Desolation and lead dozens/hundreds of people suddenly at once, complete with training and mediating issues and re-inventing Knight Radiant society wholecloth again.

[Watchcry he/him]

1 hour ago, aemetha said:

I think this makes more sense if you look at each of the radiants from the ten in the battle (with one exception, see below) in turn.

• Kaladin - Windrunner. As noted already the windrunners have a lot of squires. Additionally, Kaladin is a captain in an army in which slightly more than 110% of the members really, really want to be windrunners. His pool of potential candidates is massive.
• Shallan - Lightweaver. Doesn't really have a large pool of people to choose from, but she is training pretty much the entire pool of people she has to choose from.
• Dalinar - Bondsmith. It's not unusual for there to only be one bondsmith, and there are a maximum of three. Not really something to be concerned about.
• Nale (not Szeth because Nale clearly has this leadership role) - Skybreakers. Nale is actively recruiting and training radiants, and has done so for millennia.
• Lift - Edgedancers. She's only ten, which in our terms is eleven (though admittedly has been ten for three years now). She also doesn't use the most basic mechanic of surgebinding - accessing stormlight - in a manner that anyone else could do. On top of that, she has an entire empire at her disposal. She's also very busy, Dalinar's lunch isn't going to steal itself. Probably best that Lift doesn't try to train people at this point.
• Taln - Stonewards. Well, he's been catatonic most of the time, which no doubt has impeded his ability to recruit new radiants.
• Ash - Dustbringers (presumed). Hasn't actually decided to fight yet. Malata is also a dustbringer, but she's on the other team and we haven't seen what they are doing.
• Renarin - Truthwatchers. Has a lot of issues with training people. He has difficulty with social interactions, and is probably not likely to attract a huge following from the people around him. We don't see him associate with anyone outside his family and bridge 4 (who are all windrunner squires). Also has a corrupted spren, meaning what a trainee learns is probably different to what he does.
• Jasnah - Elsecallers. Hates taking on wards. By her own admission is bad at it. Probably will have to do something like this, but finding time between being queen, world leading scholar and mentor to Shallan is going to be very limiting for her. I don't imagine this order expanding very rapidly.
• Venli - Willshapers (presumed). Hasn't had any opportunity to advance oaths or take on trainees.

I think Radiants will form teams like Bridge 4 (Windrunner/Truthwatcher). So a squire may be noticed by any number of spren 

I also believe that Szeth ought to train everyone about all the surges. I'm not sure he'll be willing to do so if he's committed to being Dalinars bodyguard. 

[Vortaan he/him]

Also: Windrunners are the most tactically viable order of KR for their current needs. They need scouts and something to counter the flying Fused, so it makes sense that they are focusing their efforts on finding more Windrunners. 

[aemetha he/him]

54 minutes ago, Heir of the Void said:

Not quite - the Herlads, with the exception of Nale, aren't Radiants. They (had) the same Surges by way of their Honorblades, but this would only be true is Nale was incorrect in stating that he was the only one who had joined his own order.

Yes, I understand that. I am basing this list off the ten individuals who were implied to be representing the ten orders in the battle. Taln and Ash as far as we know haven't joined orders, but there is reason to suspect they will join orders (Taln his own, Ash possibly a different one). Regardless, they were included in the observation Dalinar made.

[Heir of the Void he/him]

6 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

I also don't necessarily think they should be focusing on recruiting - too much, too fast. Recruiting people isn't the only way they can do their jobs of defeating Odium

Well, they certainly need manpower. They're looking at a war on several differnt fronts, some of them quite far from an Oathgate (northern Jah Keved, for example), and likely with multiple field armies operating on each front (required troop density still seems to be far too high to allow the sort of continuous fronts seen in both World Wars, however), so they have a lot of boxes they need to be able to fill. Beyond that, they need to be able to counter the airborne Fused, given that they are so hard for normal soliders to fight back against - and if they have access to Reverse Lashings and thus functional immunity to projectile weapons, then the only way normal soliders can fight them is in close combat, with is a losing proposition for obvious reasons. 

13 minutes ago, Vortaan said:

Also: Windrunners are the most tactically viable order of KR for their current needs. They need scouts and something to counter the flying Fused, so it makes sense that they are focusing their efforts on finding more Windrunners. 

Totally agree regarding the need for fliers - even if Navani's plans for flying ships pans out, I'm not sure what they could arm them with that would allow them to fight Fused effectively. Archers would have too small an engagement envelope as well as being hard countered by Reverse Lashings, and crossbowmen provide only slight improvement on those fronts in exchange for not having the volume of fire needed to engage a small target maneuvering quickly in three dimensions. Neither seems likely to cause much harm to a Fused holding Voidlight, either. 

Beyond that, they could probably use more Elsecallers and Lightweavers to augment their supply of Soulcasters, and probably a few Stonewards for battlefield control.

[Greywatch she/her]

Just now, Heir of the Void said:

Well, they certainly need manpower. They're looking at a war on several differnt fronts, some of them quite far from an Oathgate (northern Jah Keved, for example), and likely with multiple field armies operating on each front (required troop density still seems to be far too high to allow the sort of continuous fronts seen in both World Wars, however), so they have a lot of boxes they need to be able to fill. Beyond that, they need to be able to counter the airborne Fused, given that they are so hard for normal soliders to fight back against - and if they have access to Reverse Lashings and thus functional immunity to projectile weapons, then the only way normal soliders can fight them is in close combat, with is a losing proposition for obvious reasons. 

I'm not saying they shouldn't be recruiting at all, but what I am saying is that one, the Windrunners seem to be the Order most helpful to the military problem. Windrunners seem the ones most focused on fighting the enemy, and also one of the two Orders who can fly. So it's also in line with your point that they also are the ones who are recruiting the most, but it's also starting to seem like that they might be the only Order who recruits like this.

Using other examples - the other Orders are being built but most more slowly, and it's not the humans' fault at all.

Elsecallers? Ivory is the only one who broke away from the inkspren, against his people's wishes. Can the humans force the other resistant inkspren to accept them? No. What about the Dustbringers? It seems like the ashspren don't want to be aligned with the other Radiants at all - maybe recruiting more of the Dustbringers would only be building up their enemies. Willshapers? The Reachers don't seem all that interested in creating more Knights. Cultivationspren? They decided to send one. The Skybreakers are still going strong, but even though they're taught to fight and can fly, they aren't the soldiers of the Knights Radiant, they're the police - and up until again, very recently, they were going around killing any Knights of other Orders who bonded spren. How could our guys recruit them when that was happening?

It goes on and on - this is a combination of many different issues on why the Radiants have been so slow to come back this time and why it isn't their fault. I also believe that the Windrunners are more the soldier than any other Order, and the other Radiants might join the fight but simply with fewer people and with different methods. I expect we are definitely going to see more Radiants coming up in the next few, but it's also unfair to expect that all Orders should operate like the Windrunners, when we've had every indication that it's normal they should be built up the most.

[aemetha he/him]

1 minute ago, Greywatch said:

I also believe that the Windrunners are more the soldier than any other Order, and the other Radiants might join the fight but simply with fewer people and with different methods

I think the stonewards may fit in the soldier category, possibly better than windrunners. We haven't seen much of them, but what we have seen indicates it is the case. They are said to most closely match their herald.

[Greywatch she/her]

Just now, aemetha said:

I think the stonewards may fit in the soldier category, possibly better than windrunners. We haven't seen much of them, but what we have seen indicates it is the case. They are said to most closely match their herald.

Being that we haven't seen literally anything of them yet, and how the Heralds don't necessarily line up that well with the Orders who followed them, I don't disbelieve you, but there's a serious lack of evidence. From the WoR epigraphs below:

Quote

There came also sixteen of the order of Windrunners, and with them a considerable number of squires, and finding in that place the Skybreakers dividing the innocent from the guilty, there ensued a great debate.

Quote

Now, as each order was thus matched to the nature and temperament of the Herald it named patron, there was none more archetypal of this than the Stonewards, who followed after Talenelat’Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of War: they thought it a point of virtue to exemplify resolve, strength, and dependability. Alas, they took less care for imprudent practice of their stubbornness, even in the face of proven error.

In terms of numbers, we only see comments on the the amount of people associated with the Windrunners. Stonewards might have similar personalities to Taln, but those virtues aren't exclusive to soldiers, and we don't see any comment on their numbers or purpose. They might turn out to be like that in future books when we see more of them, but just based on what we've actually seen, I can't agree or disagree yet.

[Song she/her]

Remember, Kalladin didn't mean to create squires, he is just a natural leader and the first person to have a group of people who knew about his powers. It was only after this team started to exhibit powers that he began to actively recruit. And who wouldn't want to be a Wind runner.

Sja anat spoke to Shallan about building trust so she could find a home for her children. I wonder if Renarin might end up with a whole lot of corrupted spren squires like himself at some stage?

[Heir of the Void he/him]

9 minutes ago, Song said:

I wonder if Renarin might end up with a whole lot of corrupted spren squires like himself at some stage?

Possibly other corrupted spren Radiants. Squires don't have spren. But that is actually an interesting plot point - I assume a home means some corer of the Cognitive Realm, but I guess we don't know. I'm not sure if there would be enough of them to establish their own Spren City.

Also, Renarian x Sja-anat is now my OTP.

[Subvisual Haze]

They don't know what they're doing, and some of them are personality-wise very ill-equipped to act as leaders to other future Radiants.

Even Jasnah, who in contrast to everyone else seems to have a firm grasp on what is happening and what she needs to do, is crippled by a lack of interpersonal skills.  She is filled to the brim with useful information, but can't seem to share it with others without them feeling like they're being lectured.

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

2 hours ago, Greywatch said:

Being that we haven't seen literally anything of them yet, and how the Heralds don't necessarily line up that well with the Orders who followed them, I don't disbelieve you, but there's a serious lack of evidence. From the WoR epigraphs below:

In terms of numbers, we only see comments on the the amount of people associated with the Windrunners. Stonewards might have similar personalities to Taln, but those virtues aren't exclusive to soldiers, and we don't see any comment on their numbers or purpose. They might turn out to be like that in future books when we see more of them, but just based on what we've actually seen, I can't agree or disagree yet.

We've seen Stonewards a few times in Dalinar's vision. They were in the vision of the Recreance coming back from the front lines, and the female Radiant in the Starfalls vision was one. Interestingly, both times they were with Windrunners. I don't have any evidence beyond that, but I suspect the Stonewards and Windrunners were the two primary combat orders and that their surges and combat abilities complement each other very well. 

[Korbin]

4 hours ago, Heir of the Void said:

Personally, I hope Nightblood becomes his squire. Because Nightblood with Surgebinding seems like something that could not possibly go wrong.

How exactly would this even work?!? Can an object that was instilled with life from investing bond a spren?

3 hours ago, Heir of the Void said:

3 hours ago, Vortaan said:

Also: Windrunners are the most tactically viable order of KR for their current needs. They need scouts and something to counter the flying Fused, so it makes sense that they are focusing their efforts on finding more Windrunners. 

Totally agree regarding the need for fliers - even if Navani's plans for flying ships pans out, I'm not sure what they could arm them with that would allow them to fight Fused effectively. Archers would have too small an engagement envelope as well as being hard countered by Reverse Lashings, and crossbowmen provide only slight improvement on those fronts in exchange for not having the volume of fire needed to engage a small target maneuvering quickly in three dimensions. Neither seems likely to cause much harm to a Fused holding Voidlight, either. 

I don't think that we should say that only one type is important. I think they are all important. And just because the windrunners are good physically I think we should understand that this is a war on many fronts as well as in many ways. Each order can help in its own way.

[Vortaan he/him]

20 minutes ago, Korbin said:

I don't think that we should say that only one type is important. I think they are all important. And just because the windrunners are good physically I think we should understand that this is a war on many fronts as well as in many ways. Each order can help in its own way.

That's not what I said. I said they need scouts, and they are aware what Kaladin can do. It makes sense that they'd try to recruit the Order they know about that has immediately useful skills.

[Greywatch she/her]

31 minutes ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

We've seen Stonewards a few times in Dalinar's vision. They were in the vision of the Recreance coming back from the front lines, and the female Radiant in the Starfalls vision was one. Interestingly, both times they were with Windrunners. I don't have any evidence beyond that, but I suspect the Stonewards and Windrunners were the two primary combat orders and that their surges and combat abilities complement each other very well. 

Oh, for real? Do you have a chapter/WoB, I wanna go see.

[Vortaan he/him]

3 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

Oh, for real? Do you have a chapter/WoB, I wanna go see.

It's likely given their Ideals that Windrunners and Stonewardens threw themselves into combat a lot. The Stonewarden record from those humming gemstones says something about looking to sacrifice himself and Windrunners are all about protection. I can see Skybreakers being involved a lot too, depending on what they swore to in their Ideals. If we're just going by what orders would have been most likely to be on the front lines, I can easily see those three from the orders we have examples of. I'm still not really sure what Dustbringers were about, and Edgedancers were probably more involved in helping the common people. Truthwatchers, Elsecallers, and Lightweavers seem to have been regarded as the more scholarly Radiants and while I'm certain some of them fought, maybe even a majority, they were probably like Jasnah, Renarin, and Shallan, fighting in specific missions where their skills would be useful. Spec ops instead of frontline fighters.

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

14 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

Oh, for real? Do you have a chapter/WoB, I wanna go see.

Well, the Starfalls vision was WoK ch 19, though Dalinar only notices the shards, not surges and we only know the orders from the Dhardplate colors. The Recreance vision is WoK ch 52. I also forgot a vision in OB ch 38, when Dalinar sees a Stoneward use their powers, though there aren't any Windrunners obviously floating around that time. The Stoneward uses tension to change a cliff face so it has handholds, summons a Shardhammer, and charges toward Voidbringers. 

[Greywatch she/her]

53 minutes ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Well, the Starfalls vision was WoK ch 19, though Dalinar only notices the shards, not surges and we only know the orders from the Dhardplate colors. The Recreance vision is WoK ch 52. I also forgot a vision in OB ch 38, when Dalinar sees a Stoneward use their powers, though there aren't any Windrunners obviously floating around that time. The Stoneward uses tension to change a cliff face so it has handholds, summons a Shardhammer, and charges toward Voidbringers. 

Oh, okay, awesome. Yeah, I wish we knew any of their oaths or ideals, so I think it's still too hard to say, but them being out and about with Windrunners on the front lines bodes well for this idea.