[OB] Oathswearing and Surgebinding are Two Different Magic Systems

[ScavellTane]

35 minutes ago, Calderis said:

And if Ishar had the power to alter the magic system itself, then what need was there to make threats to get the surgebinders to go along? If that were the case they wouldn't have had a choice. It would be fall in line or kill your spren. 

I just don't see how it's possible, or how it fits. Imposing organization in the form of the Orders makes sense. Altering the magic system itself doesn't. 

IMO, Ishar (or convinced Honor) added Honors Oath influence unto the spren-bonding of Adonalsium. I don't think Ishar has the ability to alter the magic system as he sees fit. 

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Calderis he/him]

55 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

IMO, Ishar (or convinced Honor) added Honors Oath influence unto the spren-bonding of Adonalsium. I don't think Ishar has the ability to alter the magic system as he sees fit. 

That still doesn't answer the main issue though. One way or another the magic system is altered in that scenario. And Ishar threatened to kill every surgebinder if they didn't comply. 

Why was that necessary? 

[ScavellTane]

59 minutes ago, Calderis said:

That still doesn't answer the main issue though. One way or another the magic system is altered in that scenario. And Ishar threatened to kill every surgebinder if they didn't comply. 

Why was that necessary? 

Quote

“Our own natures destroy us,” the regal man said, voice soft, though his face was angry. “Alakavish was a Surgebinder. He should have known better. And yet, the Nahel bond gave him no more wisdom than a regular man. Alas, not all spren are as discerning as honorspren.” “I agree,” Dalinar said. The other man looked relieved. “I worried that you would find my claims too forward. Your own Surgebinders were… But, no, we should not look backward.”

 

Quote

"But as for Ishi’Elin, his was the part most important at their inception; he readily understood the implications of Surges being granted to men, and caused organization to be thrust upon them; as having too great power, he let it be known that he would destroy each and every one, unless they agreed to be bound by precepts and laws."

I think this is Ishar talking to the spren not the surgebinders.

The various Orders formed based on the various spren types.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Calderis he/him]

52 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

 

I think this is Ishar talking to the spren not the surgebinders.

The various Orders formed based on the various spren types.

I don't see any part of that entry that refers to the Spren in any way. 

And as I've said before the Oaths, which are currently in full effect, have done nothing to keep Malata from opening and Oathgate for the enemy. 

The Oaths in themselves do not achieve the intended goal. 

Additionally... Destroy the Spren? That seems like an even more difficult task than the surgebinders. 

[ScavellTane]

6 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I don't see any part of that entry that refers to the Spren in any way. 

And as I've said before the Oaths, which are currently in full effect, have done nothing to keep Malata from opening and Oathgate for the enemy. 

The Oaths in themselves do not achieve the intended goal. 

Additionally... Destroy the Spren? That seems like an even more difficult task than the surgebinders. 

Which is why Honor was concerned with the wording of the Oaths at his end. And the Heralds are concerned with the surgebinders without Honors presence to regulate.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Calderis he/him]

3 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

Which is why Honor was concerned with the wording of the Oaths at his end. And the Heralds are concerned with the surgebinders without Honors presence to regulate.

I'm sorry but for me at least it just doesn't add up. 

Creating the Orders does what the Oaths themselves do not. And imposing the Oaths upon them goes directly against the WoB I posted earlier in the thread that state that the Oaths are a natural outgrowth of the spren themselves and the concepts that they embody. 

Imposing the Spren's own nature upon them serves no purpose. They'd have chosen the same people for the same reasons anyway. 

Edited July 27, 2018 by Calderis

[ScavellTane]

The spren chose their Oaths and the Oaths formed into the various orders. Its the necessity of Oath-making that Ishar bind to them. Previously a surgebinder would not have needed any oaths to gain their full power.

Only the Honorspren chose specific people. All the other spren would likely have chosen anybody they could bond with.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Calderis he/him]

6 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

The Oaths created the various orders. The spren chose their Oaths. Its the act of Oath-making that Ishar bind to them. Previously a surgebinder did not need any oaths to gain their full power. Only the Honorspren chose specific people. All the other spren would likely have chosen anybody they could bond with.

I don't see how the text says that at all. The "less discerning" quote just means that, in Nohadon's opinion the Honorspren chose better than others. The idea that a spren, a living embodiment of a concept, would choose a person to bond with that did not in some way fit the Ideals they represent is ludicrous to me. 

The Orders are not just a bunch of Surgebinders. It is an order. It's is a group with their own traditions and rules. The "precepts and laws" spoken of in the Ishar entry. It's the difference between the Skybreakers that we see working within a set structure, and one lone person with a Highspren. 

The Oaths themselves are not going to accomplish what the Orders do. 

Where in the text does it say anywhere that surgebinders did not have oaths?

Edited July 27, 2018 by Calderis

[ScavellTane]

The surgebinders did not began as an Order. The Oaths and the Knights came later. The Oaths very much defined the Orders.

You believe the 'precepts and laws' concerns the Knights and their organization.

I believe it pertains to the spren. As we have seen they are to ones who choose.

They choose their person, they discern the oaths and the surgebinders adjust accordingly as the bridgemen are doing.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Calderis he/him]

9 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

The surgebinders did not began as an Order. The Oaths and the Knights came later. The Oaths very much defined the Orders.

I will continue to disagree here. The Oaths are a part of being  surgebinder. The organizations that are the Orders of the Knights Radiant are based around the specific spren types and the Oaths they share, but one does not in any way require the other. 

The Oaths are a natural outgrowth of the Spren themselves. Not an arbitrary addition. I will believe otherwise when there is textual evidence from a book or WoB, but as it stands now, there is nothing that says the surgebinders functioned without Oaths, just that they lacked organization, and that Nohadon had a preference for the attitudes of those chosen by Honorspren. 

Edited July 27, 2018 by Calderis

[ScavellTane]

 

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The Oaths are a natural outgrowth of the Spren themselves. Not an arbitrary addition. I will believe otherwise when there is textual evidence from a book or WoB, but as it stands now, there is nothing that says the surgebinders functioned without Oaths, just that they lacked organization, and that Nohadon had a preference for the attitudes of those chosen by Honorspren. 

The specifics of the Oaths perhaps. I believe the making of Oaths was mandated by Ishar.

The Oaths are part of being a Knight Radiant. A surgebinder does not need the Oaths as represented by the Fused.

[Rhapsody she/her]

13 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The Oaths are a part of being  surgebinder.

I agree with Calderis on this. And I also do not believe that Ishar changed the magic System. I think he only founded the orders.

To clarify that: Surgebinding on Roshar has in my opinion always involved the Oaths (as Brandon said they are a natural result from the Nahel Bond with a spren. So before the first Desolation we have many surgebinders each following their own (individualized, as we see if we compare the third oaths of Kaladin and Teft) set of oaths. Some may follow oaths conveying the same concept but they were no orders governing them. As you can probably imagine a bunch of people with the powers of a surgebinder each following their individual goals (even if all those goals are worthwhile) will create quite a lot of chaos. So what Ishar enforced was that surgebinders following oaths with the same underlying principle and bonding the same type of spren had to organize into an order and make rules each of them was to follow. I think at the same time Ishar codified the first oath into the form we now know (and love) though leaving each order the possibility to interpret it in their way.

Quote

A surgebinder does not need the Oaths as represented by the Fused.

we do not know what the Fused do to get their powers.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Rhapsody

[ScavellTane]

That's the thing though, if Ishar had demanded the surgebinders to unite why would Nohadon need to conquer? If Nohadon had united Roshar, why would there be division amongst the surgebinders?

[Rhapsody she/her]

because there's a difference between organizing a bunch of people into orders and uniting the nations of a continent.

[ScavellTane]

Quote

"Malchin was stymied, for though he was inferior to none in the arts of war, he was not suitable for the Lightweavers; he wished for his oaths to be elementary and straightforward, and yet their spren were liberal, as to our comprehension, in definitions pertaining to this matter; the process included speaking truths as an approach to a threshold of self-awareness that Malchin could never attain."

I not sure how this helps my case. But why would a spren choose a bondmate that could not speak the Oath of its Order. Unless the bond was made without the Oath as a consideration.

[Rhapsody she/her]

2 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

I not sure how this helps my case. But why would a spren choose a bondmate that could not speak the Oath of its Order. Unless the bond was made without the Oath as a consideration.

I'm not sure if we can infer from the epigraph that a spren bonded Malchin. The only thing it seems to infer is that he wasn't suited to the ideals of the lightweavers.

[ScavellTane]

If he wasn't already bonded, why would he be mentioned at all in regards to the Lightweavers. Wouldn't another spren that would more coincide with his character have already chosen him.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Rhapsody she/her]

Well for one we do not know but there are several possibilities.

1. not everyone gets bonded by a spren. So perhaps he wanted to be a lightweaver but wasn't suited to it so no cryptic ever bonded to him. In Words of Radiance (the in world book) then his example was taken to explain the lightweaver ideals.

2. He was only ever an example and never a real person. Just a way for the in world Words of Radiance to explain how different orders went on with their respective ideals.

3. perhaps he was a squire. Meaning he exibited enough of the lightweaver characteristics to be made one but could never progress to the oaths because of his nature.

4. perhaps he was a lightweaver of a low ideal and because of the reasons stated in the paragraph never could progress beyond that.

in the paragraph nothing tells us if he has bonded a spren or not nor does it tell us if he has sworn oaths at all. All it says is that Malchin wished for the oaths to be straightforward but that wasn't the way of the lightweaver ideals, therefore he never could progress to the self-awareness that is the goal of a 5th ideal lightweaver.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Rhapsody

[Subvisual Haze]

I think the oaths are actually a safety layer artificially added to the existing surgebinding system.  Surgebinding is just related to closeness of the spren and Radiant and theoretically could very quickly offer the Radiant access to all their powers.  I think the oath system was added to prevent Radiants from accumulating power too rapidly or use it in a potentially world threatening manner.  I think the timeline roughly goes something like this:

• Out of control human surgebinder magic unleashes an armageddon-like catastrophe on Ashyn, permanently scarring the planet.
• Surviving humans from Ashyn are welcomed as refugees to Roshar by the Singers and their gods.  I think Ashyn style surgebinding naturally died out without the native Ashyn diseases to offer access to it.
• Humans and Singers eventually enter a widespread and long lasting war for species dominance on Roshar.  Odium takes the opportunity presented to insert himself into the conflict on Roshar (with the ultimate goal of destroying Honor+Cultivation).  Honor creates the Heralds and their powers as a way to counter Odium's own eternally living Fused and perhaps Unmade warriors.
• The spren unexpectedly mimic the surgebinding gifts Honor gave his Heralds to create a new form of human surgebinder to aid in the Desolations.  Now the access to surgebinding is linked to forming a bond with a higher spren, rather than linked to diseases as it was on Ashyn.
• The new Surgebinders are dangerous, as "not all spren are as discerning as Honorspren" per Nohadon in his first vision to Dalinar
• Nohadon lays down the philosophical basis of re-organizing the surgebinders into orders of Knights Radiant.  The in world book Way of Kings not only serves as the moral guidebook for KR, but his repeated central belief about "Journey before Destination" is incorporated into the first oath of all radiant orders.
• Ishi formalizes the process begun by Nohadon's philosophical theories, makes the swearing of oaths a prerequisite for KR advancement and surgebinding access.  The various orders are formalized and all eventually choose to accept an associated Herald as their patron (Nale being the last to do this).

[Rhapsody she/her]

32 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

• Out of control human surgebinder magic unleashes an armageddon-like catastrophe on Ashyn, permanently scarring the planet.
• Surviving humans from Ashyn are welcomed as refugees to Roshar by the Singers and their gods.  I think Ashyn style surgebinding naturally died out without the native Ashyn diseases to offer access to it.
• Humans and Singers eventually enter a widespread and long lasting war for species dominance on Roshar.  Odium takes the opportunity presented to insert himself into the conflict on Roshar (with the ultimate goal of destroying Honor+Cultivation).  Honor creates the Heralds and their powers as a way to counter Odium's own eternally living Fused and perhaps Unmade warriors.
• The spren unexpectedly mimic the surgebinding gifts Honor gave his Heralds to create a new form of human surgebinder to aid in the Desolations.  Now the access to surgebinding is linked to forming a bond with a higher spren, rather than linked to diseases as it was on Ashyn.
• The new Surgebinders are dangerous, as "not all spren are as discerning as Honorspren" per Nohadon in his first vision to Dalinar
• Nohadon lays down the philosophical basis of re-organizing the surgebinders into orders of Knights Radiant.  The in world book Way of Kings not only serves as the moral guidebook for KR, but his repeated central belief about "Journey before Destination" is incorporated into the first oath of all radiant orders.
• Ishi formalizes the process begun by Nohadon's philosophical theories, makes the swearing of oaths a prerequisite for KR advancement and surgebinding access.  The various orders are formalized and all eventually choose to accept an associated Herald as their patron (Nale being the last to do this)

That would be a beautifully logical timeline except Brandon Brandon himself tells us they are a natural outgrowth of the spren (se below). So not an artifical safety layer.

Quote

Blightsong

Were the ideals of the Knights Radiant consciously chosen, or did they happen naturally?

Brandon Sanderson

*apprehension*. This is one of those vague ones in that yes and no. They are a natural outgrowth of the spren, but the spren are a natural outgrowth of human's perception of natural forces, but the spren are sentient, so I would say it's a little more by instinct than not. For example two Knights Radiant in the same Order might speak the words differently, but the concept is the same. You will see this happen in a future book, where a Windrunner will speak the oaths. It's a slightly different take on the same concept. Some are moreso, like Shallan's oaths are very individualized truths, so.

source

 

[ScavellTane]

As I've pointed out, the individual Oaths may have came from the spren. But the act of having to make the Oaths came from Ishar. That specific WOB doesn't discount Oath-making being separately added to surgebinding/spren-bonding.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Rhapsody she/her]

3 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

As I've pointed out, the ideals of the Oaths may have came from the spren. But the act of having to make the Oaths came from Ishar. That specific WOB doesn't discount Oath-making being separately added to surgebinding/spren-bonding.

Yes, it doesn't discount that. But in @Subvisual Hazetimeline he said that Nohadons philosophical beliefs were incorporated into the oaths and that is in my opinion and also by your explanation above discounted by the WOB. Sorry if I didn't elaborate enough on which part of Subvisual Hazes post I thought was discounted. In retrospect it wasn't as clear-cut as I thought.

[ScavellTane]

Sure, but that specific threat by Ishar would have been made before the Orders were founded. Ishar demanded Oaths, it doesn't mean that it was codified there and then. Ishar would have only been able to officially approve of the Orders on the next Desolation once everything have been formalized.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane

[Rhapsody she/her]

do you think Ishar would just have accepted the ideals the spren came up with while he was in Damnation without wanting to have a say in them in the least? and if he tried to change them in Retrospect after orders were already founded and probably in place for a long time do you think that they would have let that happen so easily?

[ScavellTane]

Why not? Honor was around to steer everything. Ishar wouldn't have needed to micro-manage everything.

Honor may not directly affect the happenings in the Physical Realm, but surely he could manage the spren.

Edited July 27, 2018 by ScavellTane