theory Eight orders of the Double Eye

[TheWadehart he/him]

Hello all.  If this has been discussed before forgive the redundancy.  

So thinking about the Double Eye of the Almighty and of course the lines between the orders it occurred to me that if you removed the Bondsmiths and Truthwatchers you get a chart of something like this.  I am interested in feedback and critiques.  Thanks all.   P.S.  Please note the opposite corners.

Edited February 27, 2020 by TheWadehart

[Elegy he/him]

Neat concept! That said, I don't think it works out that well honestly, mostly because you picked the things that fit the system and just left out the ones that didn't. Although I can see that Truthwatchers and Bondsmiths might have some special position, but for the former, that's speculative.

Most of the time you go with the respective Order's first Divine Attribute (law for Skybreakers, creativity for Lightweavers, logic instead of wisdom for Elsecallers being questionable since they're different concepts, but they're related, so fair enough). Then in two cases you just use one of the two Surges (Decay for the Dustbringers and Re-/Growth for the Edgedancers), which I feel doesn't really do the trick because both Surges are used by one other Order (Decay by Skybreakers and Growth by Truthwatchers), so they are not specific to these and don't work that well to define/categorize them. Then, Freedom for Windrunners, I understand that people who "run the wind" seem free, but so do the Skybreakers, and the ideals of the Windrunners are concerned with other things than freedom.

So I what I mean is you're comparing very different aspects (partly ideals, partly Surges) of the Orders while putting these aspects in the same system, so that system is inconsistent. That said, I do think that the Eye certainly holds a lot of potential, and I'm sure there are things to unpack there. I think this is a step in the right direction.

[TheWadehart he/him]

34 minutes ago, Elegy said:

So I what I mean is you're comparing very different aspects (partly ideals, partly Surges) of the Orders while putting these aspects in the same system, so that system is inconsistent. That said, I do think that the Eye certainly holds a lot of potential, and I'm sure there are things to unpack there. I think this is a step in the right direction.

Leave it to me to throw something up on screen without explaining my concept well.     I was trying to display a gestalt of the spren/attribute/outlook/relationship of the orders.  Not so much what each spren is about or the attributes or what surges they may share, but what the general FEEL of the orders .  I am trying to flip it on its head, the fact that some of the spren share names of what i am describing is secondary (sort of like saying the spren was named AFTER the concept was conceived from Brandon's viewpoint.)

  Arrgghhh  I have this thing in my head and I cant explain it well!

And yes I did pick/choose the eight orders because the other two FEEL like statistical outliers.  As if they don't quite mesh with the others as yet.

[18th Shard he/him]

Just a note, neither decay nor growth are surges (which means there isn't anything unusual for that row, as neither are freedom, laws, logic, or creativity). 

The surge names are division and progression.

Edited February 28, 2020 by 18th Shard

[Elegy he/him]

7 hours ago, 18th Shard said:

The surge names are division and progression.

Yeah, but Division is officially the Surge of Decay, and Progression is officially the Surge of Regrowth. So that's rather nit-picky, in my opinion.

13 hours ago, TheWadehart said:

 I was trying to display a gestalt of the spren/attribute/outlook/relationship of the orders.  Not so much what each spren is about or the attributes or what surges they may share, but what the general FEEL of the orders .  I am trying to flip it on its head, the fact that some of the spren share names of what i am describing is secondary (sort of like saying the spren was named AFTER the concept was conceived from Brandon's viewpoint.)

Well, my main problem is that I don't fully understand what you're going for with the second colored circle from outside, because the terms in there don't follow a system, they seem kinda abitrary. It doesn't seem convincing to me that the Windrunners are Freedom in the same way that Skybreakers are Law and Edgedancers are Growth (because one is an association, one is a Divine Attribute and one is an ability), but they'd have to be those things in the same way to make the bigger schemes (like Society, Individual etc) seem logical. What I'm trying to say is, in order to make that larger system make sense, the components that create that system should follow the same rules. Because Decay and Creativity are not really comparable in what they mean for the respective Order. That would be Bravery and Creativity, or Decay and Light/Illumination.

I think to represent the feel of an Order best, it would make more sense to have two circles, one for the first Atttibute and one for the first Surge they learn (which is always the one next to them anti-clockwise) - so one concept and one ability per Order.

Does that make sense? 

[18th Shard he/him]

4 hours ago, Elegy said:

Yeah, but Division is officially the Surge of Decay, and Progression is officially the Surge of Regrowth. So that's rather nit-picky, in my opinion.

Well, my main problem is that I don't fully understand what you're going for with the second colored circle from outside, because the terms in there don't follow a system, they seem kinda abitrary. It doesn't seem convincing to me that the Windrunners are Freedom in the same way that Skybreakers are Law and Edgedancers are Growth (because one is an association, one is a Divine Attribute and one is an ability), but they'd have to be those things in the same way to make the bigger schemes (like Society, Individual etc) seem logical. What I'm trying to say is, in order to make that larger system make sense, the components that create that system should follow the same rules. Because Decay and Creativity are not really comparable in what they mean for the respective Order. That would be Bravery and Creativity, or Decay and Light/Illumination.

I think to represent the feel of an Order best, it would make more sense to have two circles, one for the first Atttibute and one for the first Surge they learn (which is always the one next to them anti-clockwise) - so one concept and one ability per Order.

Does that make sense? 

I don't think its nitpicky at all to point out the difference between a common application given to the surge and the surge's name itself. It's a bit like calling Adhesion 'Atmospheric Pressure'. Technically true but also misses some aspects of what the Surge is. But I think the OP wasn't referencing the Surge at all when he used those terms. Rather, as he said, he is talking about the 'feel' or gestalt of the order, which isn't a Realmatic principle - its a subjective one determined by perspective. He's noting the attributes that most fanart would think to draw or the characteristics that give an order their aesthetic, not anything more complex then that. I think interpreting this chart as anything more than that is missing the point. 

[Elegy he/him]

51 minutes ago, 18th Shard said:

I don't think its nitpicky at all to point out the difference between a common application given to the surge and the surge's name itself. It's a bit like calling Adhesion 'Atmospheric Pressure'. Technically true but also misses some aspects of what the Surge is. But I think the OP wasn't referencing the Surge at all when he used those terms. Rather, as he said, he is talking about the 'feel' or gestalt of the order, which isn't a Realmatic principle - its a subjective one determined by perspective. He's noting the attributes that most fanart would think to draw or the characteristics that give an order their aesthetic, not anything more complex then that. I think interpreting this chart as anything more than that is missing the point. 

But the chart is more than that - after all, it comes to conclusions. It doesn't just list "Freedom" for Windrunners and "Law" for Skybreakers, it takes the next step and adds them together as "Society". So yes, it is more complex than aesthetic/feel/gestalt, because due to these conclusions, it presents itself as a theory that tries to sort the Order into a system. And those are conclusions that you couldn't make based on fanart, association, aesthetic, etc. And maybe it's true and it's not meant as that, but due to those conclusions, the chart sure does a good job at making it hard to believe that it isn't. So I feel it's just common-sense to try to understand the reasoning behind these conclusions and criticizing them if they seem to lack reasoning. And I don't think all these particular conclusions in the chart hold up well because of the things I have mentioned above.

But I don't want to seem like I dislike the chart or anything - as I said, I support looking into the Double Eye more and I think it's a good step in that regard.

[Frustration]

Life cycle could be "change" instead, and Truthwatchers and Bondsmiths could be in "stability", as Truth, an Bonds don't change.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 28/02/2020 at 5:27 PM, Elegy said:

But the chart is more than that - after all, it comes to conclusions. It doesn't just list "Freedom" for Windrunners and "Law" for Skybreakers, it takes the next step and adds them together as "Society".

Edgedancers are even more into society, as are Bondsmiths or the Stonewards. The choice of sources for the conclusions seems to be a bit selective.