Traitor Orders

[+honorblades]

In light of some new info from Chapter 11, I’d like to put forth.. not a theory, just something I noticed. 

We have some vague hinting of the three orders that will largely break from the other Knights Radiant:

 

The Skybreakers: Or at least all those who follow Nale, of course. We will continue to see a few outliers such as Szeth, perhaps they will be led by him? In a recent WoB, Brandon said...

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I would blame some of how Nale is acting more on the highspren.

I think that this would suggest that even without Nale's direct influence, newer Skybreakers might be inclined to side against humanity, and therefore against the other Orders.

 

The Dustbringers: not a whole lot of evidence here, but from what Spark says, the Ashspren don’t seem to like humans. Malata of course also works for the Diagram, whose goals are opposed to those of the KR in most cases. However I believe it is important to remember that Malata was a Dustbringer first, then joined the Diagram, not the other way around. She was already predisposed to their ideals (as predicted by the Diagram, even):

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Spark is fine with what we're doing," Malata said, pressing her finger down and adding another swirl to the table. "I told you, the rest of them are idiots. They assume all the spren are going to be on their side. Never mind what the Radiants did to Spark's friends, never mind that organized devotion to Honor is what killed hundreds of ashspren in the first place." 

 

The Willshapers: Just the hint from this chapter... 

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Well, I have been contacted by a spren who represents an entire people in Shadesmar. They realize that perhaps we deserve a second chance more than humans do.

 

 

So, in summary of the little information we have, it appears that the Ashspren, Reachers, and Highspren all seem to be opposed to humanity and the KR orders. Could this be related to the Honorspren stopping bonding of new Knights? At this point, it seems like only the Cultivationspren are really enthusiastic about forming new bonds (and that is really only from the attitude of a spren merchant in the cognitive realm). This doesn't look good for the new Orders. Something will have to change soon. 

[Honorless]

I don't know about the Willshapers. We've met the Reachers, they aren't angry at the humans in the same sense as the Dustbringer spren or Stoneward spren, and the Highspren were apparently always more about the word of the law than the spirit:

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Stormlightning

How the heck is Nale's spren still with him? Is his spren as wacky as he is? Or is it dead, and he still carries it around?

Brandon Sanderson

Nale's spren is alive. The highspren... I would say "wacky" is probably a decent term for them. I would blame some of how Nale is acting more on the highspren. Obviously, it's partially being a Herald and all the things he's gone through, but they're all on board for this. So read that as you will.

Well, "all." The ones that are making Radiants of the Order are on board for it. You'll get to see Szeth interact with his just a little bit. There's not a ton of Szeth in this book, but you've got a few chapters. At least one, for sure. And he gets to interact with his spren, and you'll get a better picture of the highspren from that moment.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

But could be, could be, we'll see.

 

[Innovation]

7 hours ago, _edgedancer said:

The Dustbringers: not a whole lot of evidence here, but from what Spark says, the Ashspren don’t seem to like humans. Malata of course also works for the Diagram, whose goals are opposed to those of the KR in most cases. However I believe it is important to remember that Malata was a Dustbringer first, then joined the Diagram, not the other way around. She was already predisposed to their ideals (as predicted by the Diagram, even):

 Didn’t the Diagram actually try to make a Dustbringer? I remember reading somewhere, maybe in Oathbringer, that the Diagram recruited people with the right attitude and tried to attract a Spren to bond. 

[Karger]

8 minutes ago, Innovation said:

 Didn’t the Diagram actually try to make a Dustbringer? I remember reading somewhere, maybe in Oathbringer, that the Diagram recruited people with the right attitude and tried to attract a Spren to bond. 

They did.  Taravangian personally lead the project.

[+honorblades]

9 minutes ago, Innovation said:

 Didn’t the Diagram actually try to make a Dustbringer? I remember reading somewhere, maybe in Oathbringer, that the Diagram recruited people with the right attitude and tried to attract a Spren to bond. 

You are correct, and looking at the passage again I’m not sure I was right in my assumption. It could be the Malata was already a part of the Diagram and simply had the right aptitude to bond a spren. 

 

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Adrotagia had entered with Malata, the Dustbringer; they were growing in companionship as Adrotagia attempted to secure an emotional bond with this lesser Diagram member who had suddenly been thrust into its upper echelons, an event predicted by the Diagram—which explained that Dustbringers would be the Radiants most likely to accept their cause, and at that Taravangian felt proud, for actually locating one of their number who could bond a spren had not, by any means, been an assured accomplishment.

I suppose it doesn’t matter too much, as my main point still stands: the ashspren don’t like humans as a whole. 

[Aon Tia]

I agree that Ashspren do not like humans as of now but does it really mean that all of them are on-board the anti- human bandwagon just like Malata’s spren or is Spark (I think her spren is called) an exception here as well? I mean spark wants to destroy radiants by helping T and does not mind working for odium! Is there any indication that suggests that other Ashspren will also join them?

 

Same for willshaper spren, I think Venli and timbre are hoping that more of her spren will join in, once Venli finds suitable candidates. 

Edited September 16, 2020 by The Traveller

[Potus]

Brandon has also said that Dustbringers will not be portrayed as edgy evil people. He understands that's what they may seek from their name and surges, but we should expect that not every Dustbringer will be against the KR. 

He doesn't want them to fall under that stereotype

Edit: found some WOBs

Clayton

I think you said you started with the Surges and worked from the bottom up. So what was the hardest Radiant Order to conceptualize in terms of virtual or ideal and powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Cracking how I wanted the Dustbringers to work was probably the trickiest of them all, because I knew that we were going to have (not to give spoilers) some things happening with the Dustbringers that would predispose readers toward them in a certain way that I did not want the Radiant Order to exemplify. And I wanted to be sure what I thought the distinction was and why it was possible that they could go in a different direction. (Trying to circumlocute all of these things to not spoil you.) They were the hardest, probably.

 

Priddling

I was sorted into Dustbringer/Windrunner. Before I choose I'd love to know, are the Dustbringers going to be as bad chull as they sound?

I'm a martial artist and the thought of controlling your power speaks to me. But perfecting your weapon is also windrunner.

Brandon Sanderson

They will be--but it will take a few books into the back half before we really get into them and their ways.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Potus

[Chana]

Wasn't Diagram's goal to save humanity though? Like from what I remember from Oathbringer T wanted to make a deal with Odium that his people will be saved and then become a king of as much as possible so that as many humans are saved. 

[+honorblades]

On 9/18/2020 at 1:44 PM, Potus said:

Brandon has also said that Dustbringers will not be portrayed as edgy evil people. He understands that's what they may seek from their name and surges, but we should expect that not every Dustbringer will be against the KR. 

He doesn't want them to fall under that stereotype

This is true, but keep in mind I am not claiming that any of these Orders, or their members, are evil. Even Nale's Skybreakers are not evil, I would even call them justified in their own way. I am simply suggesting that some of the KR Orders would have opposing goals to the rest of the Orders. It is odd to me that we won't see much of the Dustbringer's perspective until later in the back 5, I wonder if there will be a Dustbringer main character at that point? 

 

On 9/20/2020 at 7:20 AM, Chana said:

Wasn't Diagram's goal to save humanity though? Like from what I remember from Oathbringer T wanted to make a deal with Odium that his people will be saved and then become a king of as much as possible so that as many humans are saved. 

I suppose it depends on your view of morality, but Big T is definitely an "ends justify the means" kind of guy. So sure, he is saving some people, but he is also sacrificing many more. Does the cost outweigh the benefit? 

 

On 9/15/2020 at 11:00 PM, The Traveller said:

I mean spark wants to destroy radiants by helping T and does not mind working for odium! Is there any indication that suggests that other Ashspren will also join them?

Good point, there is no direct indication of this, it is just an assumption I have made based on the nature of spren as we have seen. I am assuming that many spren communities are like-minded, but this may not necessarily be the case. Spark could be an outlier among the Ashspren. 

[Chana]

15 hours ago, _edgedancer said:

I suppose it depends on your view of morality, but Big T is definitely an "ends justify the means" kind of guy. So sure, he is saving some people, but he is also sacrificing many more. Does the cost outweigh the benefit? 

I mean yeah I'm not saying that it's a good idea or that I agree with him. It's just the whole point of diagram was to save humanity from the desolation. It's through very questionable means but still the argument that if ashspren hate humans they will want to join diagram and that's why dustbringers are most compatible seems a bit reductive to me. The whole situation is not as black and white. I always saw the comment about dustbringers being most likely to join is that they agree with ends justify the means ideology. And you have to remember that at the beginning he wanted to save basically the whole world so at that point if you genuinely believe that stopping the extinction of the entire human race can be avoided by killing some people first it's just a bit different morally. Don't get me wrong, I don't think what he did was right but sometimes there is no right choice.

That being said much of that changed now that Odium saw through his plans and I am very curious how the Diagram is going to act now and how will they justify everything considering now the benefits are much much smaller