Syl's status as Ancient Daughter: why?

[galendo]

So I've been wondering about Syl's status as Ancient Daughter.  According to the book, she's one of only "a handful" of honorspren created by the Stormfather pre-Shattering (that's Honor's shattering, not Adonalsium's), which makes her a sort of lighteyes among the honorspren.  She's the only one of those who escaped the Recreance, making her situation downright unique.  A fair bit of importance is put on her status.

Which leaves me to wonder: why?  But the status by itself seems unnecessary from a pure plot perspective.  It's a reason for the honorspren to want to lock her up; but if that were the only purpose, just disobeying the Stormfather should be enough for that.  Brandon Sanderson is too good a writer, I think, to add such detail needlessly.  It's possible that it's just a bit of random flavor/background to flesh Syl out a bit more, but 1) honestly, does she really need more characterization?  With or without her background, she's got a pretty identifiable and well-defined character already.  It's not like being the honorspren version of royalty is adding anything by itself.  There's already plenty of royalty in SA.  Also, 2) when was the last time that a character's backstory didn't end up mattering in a Sanderson book?  Space in Stormlight books is at a premium.  I can't quite imagine he'd go through such effort if Syl's status weren't going to be plot-critical sometime in the future.

But burned if I can figure out how.

The obvious answer, that Syl and Kaladin's bond is somehow different as a result of her status, but we have a WoB rejecting that idea.  The only ideas I've been able to come up with are the following:

1) Syl will interact more with honorspren in the future, where her status will affect their interactions.  The counterpoint to this is that, well, we haven't seen much of it so far.  In the physical realm, Syl is given the cold shoulder by the other spren because she disobeyed; in the cognitive, she's captured and stuffed in a hold.  There isn't really any indication that she's being treated differently than any other truant would be, for better or for worse.  And it seems somewhat unlikely that Kaladin and Syl will be traipsing back through Shadesmar a second time.

2) Being created directly by the Stormfather, presumably Syl has more Connection to him than other honorspren would.  I could see this mattering in the future, in theory, but it's not quite clear to me how.  The only time we've seen Connection mattering that I can recall is when picking up a Shard or fast-learning a language, and neither quite seem to apply unless the Stormfather's going to lose his consciousness while his power remains intact, which seems rather unlikely.  Granted, however, I'm not that much of a Cosmere scholar compared to some on these boards, so there could easily be something I'm missing here.

3) Perhaps the honorspren the Stormfather made post-Recreance are fundamentally different than those from before.  The Stormfather-Tanavast amalgamation might have been more paranoid/more controlling when he made honorspren marque two.  It is perhaps noteworthy that only Syl was willing to defy him to go searching for a bondmate.  Still, this would not matter narratively unless Syl were to defy him at some future point while the other honorspren obeyed.  Since the other honorspren have started bonding now, this seems less likely.

So that's where you all come in.  Can anyone think of additional reasons, or of additional reasoning for or against the above ideas?  Am I reading too much meaning into a bit of flavorful fluff?  What do you think?

[goody153]

Ancient Daughter isn't really anything other than a title pertaining to the original honorspren who were formed by honor instead of stormfather.

Aside from the nobility treatment in the shadesmar it is nothing really special. 

[YKDG22]

I figured it was a power potential kind of thing, in Mistborn didn't the power erode over time(more mistings/less Mistborn, but also weaker). I assumed she has a higher ceiling of strength with her bond like Elend.

Edited January 26, 2019 by YKDG22

[insert_anagram_here]

I definitely think it's an important detail, particularly the fact that she came out unaffected by the Recreance because of it.

Can you please post this WoB?:

2 hours ago, galendo said:

The obvious answer, that Syl and Kaladin's bond is somehow different as a result of her status, but we have a WoB rejecting that idea.

 

[Void89 he/him]

It could also be that it is "only" important for kaladins growth, and his view of nobility - helping him to accept who and what he is now and help him to get rid of that scar of his for one thing... I also do think it's important but maybe in a more subtle way

[Kon-Tiki he/him]

I think Syl is diffrrent from the other Honorspren as men's ideas about what honor is have changed since the Recreance. Honor before was a lot more about making and keeping oaths, defending the defenseless, etc. Modern Vorin honor is a lot more about war and dueling and fighting to defend your name. Its a more medieval sense of honor. And the Honorspren have pretty clearly picked up on that as they tried to take over Shadesmar recently. Syl was not made from that kind of Honor. And I don't think its an accident that she's bonded someone who is pretty solidly outside the Vorin social structure and really doesn't see honor or battle the way normal Alethi do. Someone who's immune to the Thrill. I expect there will be a lot of conflict between Syl and the other Honorspren (I'm looking at you, Phendorana), especially since Syl is sort of de facto in a position of authority

[galendo]

11 hours ago, goody153 said:

Ancient Daughter isn't really anything other than a title pertaining to the original honorspren who were formed by honor instead of stormfather.

Aside from the nobility treatment in the shadesmar it is nothing really special. 

This isn't quite right (though it's what I thought on my first reading as well; seems an easy mistake to make).  The spren on the ship is quite clear that Syl was made by the Stormfather:

Quote

"The Stormfather created only a handful of children.  All of these, save Sylphrena, were destroyed in the Recreance, becoming deadeyes."

 

10 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I definitely think it's an important detail, particularly the fact that she came out unaffected by the Recreance because of it.

Can you please post this WoB?:

She came out of the Recreance unaffected because she wasn't bonded at the time.  If I understand correctly, she went mostly catatonic after losing her Radiant and managed to sleep through the Recreance and the next several hundred years, before presumably waking up when she got whatever APB warned the spren that another Desolation was fast approaching and it was time to get bonding.

As far as the WoB, ask and ye shall receive:

Quote

Argent [PENDING REVIEW]

Syl's status as the Ancient Daughter. Does that make her Nahel bond with Kaladin different from other Windrunner's Nahel bonds? 

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No. 

Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

 

9 hours ago, Void89 said:

It could also be that it is "only" important for kaladins growth, and his view of nobility - helping him to accept who and what he is now and help him to get rid of that scar of his for one thing... I also do think it's important but maybe in a more subtle way

I thought this might be it, too; forcing Kaladin to accept lighteyes by making Syl a lighteyes of sorts.  The only issue with this is that Kaladin seems already to have accepted lighteyes.  He gets along swimmingly with Shallan, Adolin, and Dalinar; has nothing against Jasnah; has more-or-less forgiven Laharl and Roshone; and was pretty shell-shocked when Elhokar bought the farm.  He didn't need Syl's status for all this change; it had already happened by the time of the reveal.  Unless he does some serious backsliding in the next book, Syl's status in this regard seems unnecessary.

9 hours ago, Kon-Tiki said:

I think Syl is diffrrent from the other Honorspren as men's ideas about what honor is have changed since the Recreance. Honor before was a lot more about making and keeping oaths, defending the defenseless, etc. Modern Vorin honor is a lot more about war and dueling and fighting to defend your name. Its a more medieval sense of honor. And the Honorspren have pretty clearly picked up on that as they tried to take over Shadesmar recently. Syl was not made from that kind of Honor. And I don't think its an accident that she's bonded someone who is pretty solidly outside the Vorin social structure and really doesn't see honor or battle the way normal Alethi do. Someone who's immune to the Thrill. I expect there will be a lot of conflict between Syl and the other Honorspren (I'm looking at you, Phendorana), especially since Syl is sort of de facto in a position of authority

Ah, now this is a clever idea.  People's perception of honor has changed over time, so perhaps the newer honorspren reflect this newer version of honor while Syl remains true to the older variety.  Making use of this does require future Syl/honorspren interaction and conflict, which still doesn't seem to be on the table but suddenly doesn't seem nearly so farfetched as it did before.  I like this idea a lot.  Good job.

[goody153]

Ok so it wasn't honor but stormfather who made Syl. Still she's just an ordinary honorspren. There's really nothing special about her that gives Kaladin an edge other than she basically disobeyed direct orders to do what her calling requires her and that Kaladin started the chain of Radiants being on public eyes.

[Void89 he/him]

How can you say that? I mean did you meet a lot of Honorspren lately besides Syl?

Yeah, didn't think so either. Also I'd say Syl is pretty special, considering that she was the only spren going for kal, there are a ton of honorspren in shadesmar and they didn't give a crap. Kal has now basically 1 year or so more experience with his power than any other windrunner there will ever be..

I'd say that's a decent edge

[insert_anagram_here]

15 hours ago, galendo said:

As far as the WoB, ask and ye shall receive:

Quote

Argent [PENDING REVIEW]

Syl's status as the Ancient Daughter. Does that make her Nahel bond with Kaladin different from other Windrunner's Nahel bonds? 

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No. 

Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

 

 

 

Ah yes, thank you! See, the exact wording matters in WoBs. It says that the Ancient Daughter status doesn't mean anything directly different in regards to the nahel bond. This and her being unaffected by the Recreance are not connected in this line of thought. Not all Ancient Daughters would have a different nahel bond. So it is still possible that her nahel bond with Kaladin is different in comparison to other Windrunners, not because she is an Ancient Daughter, but because she was unaffected by the Recreance and an indirect result of that.

Maybe the Windrunner who was bonded to her pre-Recreance is important. Even if their nahel bond was severed she didn't become a Deadeyes. I'll pay more attention to these mentioned details on my WoK re-read.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

She didn't become a deadeye cause he just died is all. It was extremely traumatic for her because she was very young at the time, but an older more experienced spren would have come through it okay. Nothing special going on there.

I suspect Syl's status will come up again and have social and political importance even if it doesn't have a tangible effect on the nahel bond.