cometaryorbit

I think the Surges associated with each Knight Radiant Order, as well as their positions on the Double Eye diagram ("Surgebinding chart"), show which are "more of Honor", which are "more of Cultivation", and which are a more nearly even mix of the two. What we know: -Syl (a Windrunner spren) is an honorspren. The Windrunner surges are Adhesion and Gravitation. -Wyndle (an Edgedancer spren) is a cultivationspren. The Edgedancer surges are Abrasion and Progression. -The Bondsmith spren include the Stormfather (who is "of Honor") and the Nightwatcher (who is "of Cultivation). These spren are unique & of exceptional power/status. -The Lightweavers do not swear Oaths after the First Ideal, but advance by personally relevant truths instead. The chart: http://coppermind.net/w/images/TWoK_Front_Endsheet.jpg The Surges: Well, that's interestingly vague. There's two ways to read the "not a codified part" - either that these powers aren't Surges at all, or that they aren't separated / distinguished from other Surges the way the God Metals are in the Metallic Arts. If Progression and Adhesion "could be considered as such", that does imply the Surges proper are meant. I'd suggest that it's actually all four top and bottom Surges - Tension, Adhesion, Progression, and Illumination - which are the purer expressions of the Shards; one directly, one more symbolically. Adhesion is Honor as bonds, Tension is rigidity - symbolic of fixity of purpose. Progression is Cultivation as growth; Illumination is knowledge and art. The Orders: I believe the "top of the chart" - Stonewards, Bondsmiths, and Windrunners - are of Honor; the "bottom of the chart" - Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, and Edgedancers - are of Cultivation; and the "sides" - Elsecallers, Willshapers, Skybreakers, and Dustbringers - are closer to even (with the Willshapers and Skybreakers inclining to Honor and the Elsecallers and Dustbringers inclining to Cultivation). Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that their spren are strictly of that shard. Surely honorspren and cultivationspren are; but the Nightwatcher is a spren of Cultivation, and yet the Bondsmiths almost certainly are an Honor-aligned order. "Bonds" seem to be absolutely core to the Intent of Honor. Rather, I think the specific positions on the chart are significant. Windrunners (Honorspren) and Edgedancers (Cultivationspren) are on the right side. These "right corner" Orders' spren are the purest expressions of the Shards. Lightweavers (Cryptics) and Stonewards (???) are on the left side. The Lightweavers are interesting because of their Truths; IMO this is an expression of Cultivation as "personal growth". Extrapolating, the Stonewards must represent Honor in some unique way, but their spren aren't necessarily 100% Honor. I'd further speculate that like the Cryptics, the Stonewards' spren will have a name that doesn't include "spren". Bondsmiths (unique spren) and Truthwatchers (???) are in the center. We know far less here, but the Bondsmiths' bond to the unique superpowerful spren suggests that there must be something very special about the Truthwatchers, as does Renarin's foresight combined with the Very Big Deal made about foresight in Vorinism. With a wild leap, I'd suggest that these central Orders are in some way critical to tying the whole KR System together, keeping it functioning.

Bronze Savantism just expands your Seeking range, and Bronze Savants usually don't even notice. So it doesn't have to be dramatic.

Ancient Rome supposedly had a higher population density than that (I've seen 125,000/square mile quoted, based on a population of 1 million and 8 square miles in the city itself - those are probably rounded numbers though). The Romans had multi-story buildings - at one point tenement heights were limited by law to 70 feet, so they had the technology to build at least that high - but not as good as Elendel's.

The 15 generations between Breeze and Wax does seem like a lot, but 9 in 340 years implies a generation time of ~38 years. That's really high, especially in a lower tech culture; it would take very unusual circumstances to get that in a human population, and I don't think you could get that high in a growing population, barring really advanced medical technology or magic to extend fertility into later years. 25-30 seems more likely, which would imply ~11-14 generations in 340 years.

Depends how many kids they tended to have, and how bad infant mortality is/was on Scadrial. I'd assume given the generally Edenic environment, disease is pretty rare, so it's probably quite low. (Hmmm... given Sazed altering the population, I wonder if Scadrians have no genetic disorders?) On the other hand, if infant mortality was that low, I'd expect a much larger population - especially since generation times seem short. Wax is 16th Lord Ladrian; Breeze was 1st, so 15 generations. Spook had 'over a dozen children'. Say 15. If each generation had 3 surviving children on average, there would be "just" ~6570 direct descendants of Spook in the 15th generation, but if it was 4 (doubling each generation) then ~491,500 - almost 1/20 of the world's population. And that's not including people in the immediately older & younger generations.

Double Steel would be incredibly scary; an evil Steel Compounder could do enormous damage, but probably not take over the world. Zinc Compounding might let a person who already had the right talents and skills to be a politician / demagogue be a fearfully effective one, but I don't think it would do it 'by itself' for an 'average' person. Mental speed alone may not let you do stuff that would otherwise be beyond you even given enough time - it depends on whether the 'intuitive leaps' are just a result of thinking really really fast. And if you use Rioting heavily in public, and become famous, it'll quickly become known you're a Rioter, which will make people suspicious of you. In Era 2 (when Twinborn are around) emotional allomancy is well-understood & Seekers aren't that rare. Depending on what exactly you can do with Connection besides speak foreign languages, it might actually be better than Zinc Feruchemy for this purpose - despite the lack of Compounding. Aluminum bullets?

Hmm, OK, so probably nothing to outright contradict my theory (which is that the Surges and Double Eye/Order chart show which spren are of which Shard). Perhaps I was oversimplifying. Surgebinding itself might be of Honor only. Possible, but IMO it's quite likely more complex than that. My own very tentative view is that Fabrial Science is 'of' Adonalsium and pre-Shattering, and Surgebinding is 'of' Honor plus Cultivation (with Honor's Intent defining the system but Cultivation primarily providing the Investiture). Voidbinding might be purely of Odium or some weird interaction-formed system (the term 'binding' might suggest an Honor component). I think it's also quite possible that Fabrial Science and fauna/Parshendi spren binding are really 2 parts of one magic system.

Inquisitors are created by Hemalurgy, true, but their actual powers are Allomancy and Feruchemy. And Koloss are not terribly impressive, really. They are surrounded in legend & fear, and when we see them as enemies they are largely facing poorly trained men where that makes a big difference. But when people actually stand against them, they're not terribly effective. Elend killed one with just a knife when he wasn't even an Allomancer yet, and Vin can kill them with coins - they're much stronger than humans, but they don't seem to get proportionate resilience. A Koloss is made from 5 people, and they're definitely not worth 5 human soldiers in battle. Probably not even 2, if the humans aren't overwhelmed by the sight of them. Without the fear factor, I think a phalanx formation could defeat them at 1:1 or worse odds.

Well, either shardplate doesn't count as a metal allomantically (in which case Vin couldn't burn it) or it counts as a non-allomantic metal (and probably kills her) or it counts as a god metal (and does something unpredictable to us). Metal, sure. Mists are raw Investiture like Stormlight, though. He probably couldn't use mists without more Connection to Preservation, but I don't think the different magic systems is the issue. Breath, Stormlight, and Mist are as far as I know all "pure Investiture". It might exist, but I've never seen it. There are WOBs about them being hard to Push and Pull, as well as this: That implies that they are of a Hemalurgically viable metal, and the same metals work for all the Metallic Arts... Well, (Edgedancer spoilers) Well, I think a honorspren shardblade would be Tanavastium. A cultivationspren shardblade would be Cultivation's god metal. The other 8 would presumably be different alloys of the two?

So we know that Kaladin (Windrunner) is bonded to an honorspren and Lift (Edgedancer) is bonded to a cultivationspren, and that all the Nahel-bonding spren exist on a spectrum / continuum from Honor to Cultivation. Other than the Windrunners and Edgedancers, and the Nightwatcher/Stormfather who are 2 of the 3 Bondsmith spren, do we know from the text or WOB which Orders are "more Cultivation" and which are "more Honor"? (I have a theory about the Shard - Surge - Order associations being shown on the Double Eye chart, but don't want to post a theory that's disproved by stuff we already know.)

Yeah. Preservation is definitely not purely Good, Ruin not purely Evil. Preservation approved of TLR's tyranny because it kept the world in stasis, though probably not his mass executions (or at least wouldn't have if he'd had his full sanity, which he didn't by the time TLR came along). I've argued elsewhere that Honor may not be blameless in Roshar's bloody Desolation cycle. An honorspren is "spirit of oaths. Of promises. And of nobility", according to Syl. Oaths followed 'blindly' can lead to all kinds of bad things, especially oaths of vengeance or oaths of loyalty sworn to a leader who turns out to be evil. Nobility can mean moral nobility/nobility of purpose, which is definitely good, or aristocracy, which may not be.

Yeah. Copper is cheap, certainly for a noble, and if you have enough metal there's really no disadvantage to having Copper on all the time unless you are a Mistborn or standing close to an allied Seeker.

Well, in response to a question about 'could you spike out Miles' healing with bullets', the WOB focused on how you'd need to hit the exact right spot and have the right Intent (requiring knowing about Hemalurgy), but not that spiking with bullets was inherently impossible.

I think Ruin/Ati was warped in an unusual way. When Ruin talks to Vin he acts like "this is how things should be, it's natural for everything to end, it's time". IMO the Shard of Ruin warped the mind of Ati so that he came to see destroying things and people as 'for their benefit'. He probably saw himself as generous and kind even at the end.

IMO Preservation is preservation of others (Preservation sacrificed himself, in fact). I think Preservation as a specifically named divine attribute isn't drawn from Christianity but from Hinduism - in the Trimurti view of the Hindu deities Vishnu is the Preserver. Yeah, IMO this is the Trimurti again - Ruin is essentially Shiva the Destroyer. This ties into the "Ruin isn't evil" thing. Ruin is terribly destructive in HOA, but his isolated state is in a sense "unnatural", "out of balance". Incorporated into a whole (either Harmony or Adonalsium) he can be more positive. The fire that allows the forest to renew itself, overturning of structures and ways that have outlived their usefulness to allow for change and growth, killing parasites and germs to allow for healing.

In the Parshendi song epigraphs of WOR, there are several references to the Parshendi gods that... really don't seem to fit the Unmade, or even an association with Odium at all. -- from Ch. 16 epigraph -- Ch. 22 epigraph -- Ch. 25 epigraph The weirdest thing here is "Though its coming brings the gods their night, / It obliges a bloodred spren." That seems to imply that the 'bloodred spren' (presumably the Odium-spren that controls the Stormform Parshendi) is in opposition to 'the gods'. But shouldn't the Unmade be on the same side? "Though crafted of gods, / It was by Unmade hand" also seems to set up an opposition, or at least to distinguish the Unmade as a separate class within 'the gods' in general. And how can nimbleform -- one of the "normal" forms, which doesn't take over the Parshendi -- be attributed to the Unmade? I'm thinking that the original Parshendi gods were the native spren of Roshar, before the Shards ever showed up, and that these are the spren involved in the 'normal' forms like nimbleform, warform, etc. But when the Odium-spren arrived, they took over so completely that the current-day Parshendi don't clearly remember there was ever another set of 'gods'.

Sounds likely. The Lightweavers not having Oaths after the First Ideal, but instead "personal growth" truths, is probably a Cultivation thing.

Fjordell land being Jaddeth makes sense, IIRC Jaddeth is supposed to dwell underground. But the Earthquake was within Arelon, which is presumably Devotion-aligned.

Or Kelsier's "Sovereign" body is a kandra using Kelsier's old bones. Maybe he put his soul in a spike and Spook stuck the spike in a mistwraith. It doesn't seem like you could spike a Cognitive Shadow, but maybe the process involved is something else. Maybe Kelsier could infiltrate himself into an already charged spike (rather than charging it with himself), or use it as a bridge of sorts. I don't know where Spook would have gotten that much, though. There are no Splinters of Ruin or Preservation.

Re burning piercings: why doesn't Vin vaporize her spike? Does she never burn duralumin with bronze, even testing it?

That would be interesting. However, if Autonomy's goal is to prevent Shards having control over less powerful beings, one would think Harmony would be one of the last targeted, because he is so non-interventionist and so powerful. He helps Wax out a bit, but doesn't do anything as overt as Endowment Returning people or Odium causing Desolations. Given that Endowment is alone and more active, it's odd she hasn't been Splintered...

Well, there's a story in Vin's time that he was... I really doubt he was burned actually to a skeleton, all soft tissues gone. I'm not sure you could even do that without either some really flammable chemicals/very powerful oxidizer that wouldn't be available at that tech level, or far more time than a super-strong super-fast person would give you -- even without him actively healing as he burned. Flesh is very water-rich thus not particularly flammable. He probably just walked out of a burning building, on fire, and the story grew from there. Re how he got his head chopped off, he probably was just sloppy... he lets himself get stabbed in TFE. He probably just misjudged a hit from overconfidence.

Kingship doesn't really have much to do with one of the Heralds betraying the others either. Also, I'm not sure the statement even makes sense in relation to the Heralds - the Heralds already "betrayed" the Oathpact (and apparently Taln - "The burdens of nine become mine"). And the Diagram says that the Unmade are a distraction that he can't help but think about. It wouldn't be surprising for the topic to circle back to the Unmade. Unknowable at this point, though - hopefully there'll be more Diagram material in Oathbringer. The other thing I considered is that it refers to one of the Highprinces, but this epigraph is very late in WOR, so we already know Sadeas is evil. (But is he actually a traitor? Hmm... maybe one of the other Highprinces was working with the Parshendi or is influenced by an Odium-spren?) Sure, but indirectly can mean pretty much any degree of connection. It's not clear to me that the Oathpact actually has any imprisoning function at all. (My personal theory is that the Oathpact just made the Heralds incredibly powerful as Honor's Champions, so Odium had to fully Invest in the Roshar system to produce Champions to match them. Being Invested is actually what traps Odium, but since he was driven to that measure by the Oathpact, it's the indirect cause.)

Depends on how much he knows about the underlying mechanics of Surgebinding and Desolations (the way they used to work, anyway). It might be quite predictable if you understood the Realmatics of it sufficiently - we don't, but a Herald might. Oh I agree that he's bound and that Tanavast had something to do with that. But if it's only indirectly a result of the Oathpact destroying the Oathpact might not accomplish anything. The True Desolation probably would free Rayse/Odium, but we don't know how.

I'm not sure Ishar lied. He's wrong about there not being a Desolation beginning, but that doesn't mean he's lying - he could just be wrong, especially since this Desolation doesn't seem to fit the historical pattern. There was no Everstorm before, for example, and Jasnah & Hoid talk about how it is different this time. "One is almost certainly a traitor to the others" probably doesn't refer to the Heralds. They aren't an united group anymore as far as I can tell, and the other 2 quotes from the "Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer" are about the Unmade. I don't know that that follows. Definitely Desolations happened with Honor there, but that doesn't mean that Honor's death didn't open up a new vulnerability. Do we actually know that? IIRC there's a quote that the connection is only indirect. It could well be that Honor and the Heralds' attack pushed Odium into Investing in Braize, and the Investing is the direct cause of him being unable to leave. If so, the failure of the Oathpact wouldn't necessarily free Odium.