OrangeCat Posted December 14, 2020 Posted December 14, 2020 I'm wondering if anyone else read this passage from Syl's interlude in RoW where she is reflecting on her last radiant, Relador, and thought to themselves "huh, that sounds way more like an Edgedancer thing to do than a Windrunner thing to do"? Quote She barely remembered the place [Urithiru] from before, when she'd bonded with her old wonderful knight. He'd spent most of his life traveling to little villages, using her as a Shardblade to cut cisterns or aqueducts for the people. I realize this is at a point in the book where Kaladin is dealing with the idea of stepping away from the battlefield and could be read as showing "hey, you can be a Windrunner even if you don't fight", but I think it's interesting that it sounds sort of like Relador might have spent his whole life doing this and only fought in battles towards the end of his life when he died in battle, rather than bonding Syl while he was a soldier doing stereotypical Windrunner things and then retiring after the bond had already been established. The knights radiant quiz summaries describe the stereotypical radiant order behaviors I'm thinking of here (but the books push similar ideas for each order, just not as well summarized). For Windrunners it says: Quote They tend to be the most like conventional soldiers, believing in structures of command, team dynamics, and the importance of a squad of brothers and sisters. They often have larger numbers of squires than other Orders and focus more than any other Order on mastering their weapons. For Edgedancers it says: Quote Among the Knights Radiant, they see it as their duty to care for the people and are often less interested in war than they are about trying to improve the daily lives of the common folk. Often, a mid-sized town would have an Edgedancer or two on permanent assignment, where they’d use Regrowth to provide healing and would work for the common good of the town. I kind of want this to be a thing because it would imply that (for some unknown reason, probably related to being the "Ancient Daughter") Syl might be able to give Kaladin access to the surges of Gravitation and Abrasion at the same time, which seems like it would be such an amazing combo. I'm curious if other people have seen hints at similar Edgedancer/Windrunner weirdness with Syl? Or reasons this is probably just my wishful thinking?
Honorless he/him Posted December 14, 2020 Posted December 14, 2020 People aren't monolithic, and neither are spren actually. If you look at Kaladin, he listens to those who have not been heard, he's literally a healer! He's a soldier and he has chosen to stand where others fall. He has freed people from bondage and he's open-minded too. He has the characteristics to be an exemplary Edgedancer or Stoneward or Willshaper. The thing with the ancient Radiant Orders is that they lasted long enough for each Order to become a culture, but even so, there were still people who didn't fit the mold perfectly. I mean, a Knight Radiant is ideally someone who exemplifies their Order's characteristics but all you really need to be a Knight Radiant is convince a spren to Bond with you. Which Order you get depends on the spren, sometimes spren are attracted to people who exemplify certain characteristics, sometimes they choose to Bond certain people simply to try to help them, sometimes it's just a matter of convenience. Even if the Knight Radiant in question is a bastion of their Order's Ideals, they are still people with other facets to their personalities or they might choose to express their Ideals a bit differently. Same goes for spren, as we see in this book. Relador Bonded an Honorspren and the things he did were honorable things from his and his spren's point-of-view, and that's that, really. 2
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