TheFoxQR

Lightweaver Resonance is their ability to project on the people around them. Somewhat like how Shallan can capture the best in people - access to the Surge of Transformation allows her to "transform" people around her into this better/ideal version. One interesting thing is that because of this resonance, the name Lightweaver works on multiple levels. Not only do they literally "weave" stormlight into illusions, they also weave a metaphorical light into the people around them, where light means "happiness", "inspiration" or "contentment". I would say that Surges as concepts are separate from the Knights Radiant, who each access a version of their Surge, as facilitated by the spiritweb of the spren they bond. Dalinar having access to spiritual adhesion isn't a different version of the Surge, just a different way of accessing the same surge. Each order of Radiants accesses Surges in its own special way. Also, I speculate Truthwatchers would then have access to true spiritual Illumination. They "watch" the "truth", as opposed to weaving light.

I think that the the System that the Knights Radiant use is of Cultivation and Honor. First, I would like to propose the idea that just as the molecular structure of the metal shapes Preservation's investiture in Allomancy, the 10 Surges are shaped/defined by the 10 external planets in Greater Roshar. Possibly built into Greater Roshar by Adonalsium itself. Second, that Surgebinding was originally created by Honor for the Heralds in the form of Honorblades. In this, Honor created external Spiritwebs and gave them to the Heralds. This is where Honor defined Surgebinding. However, Cultivation took these spiritweb designs and fleshed them out as independent beings using a framework already existing on Roshar - the spren - wilfully cultivating the 10 KR spren. As all investiture in circulation on Roshar is of Cultivation and Honor, naturally the substance of these spren was of those two flavors. Ishar then may have designed the official mechanics of how a regular person would bond these spren - but these 10 kinds of spren were cultivated specifically to be capable of granting powers. Moreover, this framework is not so different from attracting spren in Fabriels - here the spren are attracted to people by personality. Voidbinding is Odium co-opting this system by corrupting the spiritweb designs and introducing Voidlight in the mix somehow. This is why the surge glyphs for Odium are partially reversed. Where Honor's original spiritweb designs (and thus by extension, the KR spren spiritwebs) interpreted the Surges one way, Odium's co-opting the Spiritweb may access it in another way. Lemme try and interpret Renarin in this way. The Surge of Illumination is all about illuminating something. For Lightweavers, the focus is on lies - on creating spiritual falsehoods or pseudo-ideals and channeling stormlight through them, creating illusions in the Physical. They "wove" (storm)light. However, Truthwatchers probably focused on the Truth. Instead of creating false ideals, they connected to true Ideals and made those manifest in the Physical. Thus a Truthwatcher would see the Truth - the Surge of Illumination would be more spiritual in flavor, like how Dalinar can use Adhesion more spiritually than Kaladin. For Truthwatchers, it would show them the true present or past. But Renarin's surge is pulling instead of pushing. He's still doing the same thing as regular Truthwatchers, except he's illuminating the future. This is what the Surge Glyphs in the Voidbinding chart are trying to convey - that Odium is inverting the way each Surge is manifest. It's still the same surge, just some aspect of it is reversed. Moreover, the Fabrial system may just be a way of trying and artificially emulating what happens naturally on Roshar. Many creatures have gemhearts and bond spren - with this spren bond doing different things. For the Chasmfiends, it makes them lighter. For the Singers, this does a LOT of different things. The Singers are almost composite souls, dependent on bonding a spren to be a proper, full spiritweb. This explains how bonding to a different spren can cause immense changes in their physical appearance. For them, the parts of the spiritweb that decide appearance are partially variable. I'm going to go ahead and speculate that in older times, Fabriels like the Oathgates were created twofold - not only did the Artificers of that time make physical Fabriels, they also cultivated specialist spren. Or got the shards to cultivate specialist spren for them. Case in point: the spren facilitating Transportation through the Oathgates. Also, isn't the name "Fused" telling? Fusion means to join two different things to make one. Where Regals bond to spren spiritwebs corrupted by Odium, the Fused would be two different singer spiritwebs... well, "fused" into one. We know that Singer cognition is partially driven by whatever parts if the spiritweb are external to them - this is why Mateform makes them extra horny, or Warform more aggressive. Hell, when they aren't bonded to anything, we get the Parshmen. Capable of understanding language, but incapable of any initiative. For the fused, this bond may be a bit more aggressive, with thought being driven almost completely by the external spiritweb of ancient singers.

I think this is from one of the older Knights Radiant, from when Honor was going mad close to his death. Probably not long before the Recreance. The Knights Radiant were guided by Honor for generations. Honor loved them. But by the time of his death, he was raving at them. He forsook them. Possible interpretation could be quite literal. Honor was the Shard the speaker's soul was made of. In other words, the investiture suffusing their spiritweb was of Honor. Particularly more likely if they were a Radiant of higher Oath, where the spren bond is supposed to practically fuse the spren and their Radiant into one entity. I have a feeling the Heralds' breaking the Oathpact may have played a role in Honor's mistrust of the Knights Radiant by the time he was dying. He didn't trust them to be Honorable anymore. Stormfather's stance against Humans throughout Books 1 and 2 is pretty indicative of what Honor may have been like then.

That a Shard's ability to see the future depends on how well they understand their own investiture, how astute the vessel is, and the very nature of their investiture. So more dynamic or "hotter" investitures like Ruin would by default see more in the near future, whereas "colder" shards like Preservation would see better further. Moreover, as realmatic investiture is the substance of matter and energy, the means of this future sight is their own investiture - so Ruin's futuresight would focus on possibilities motivated by Ruinous investiture. This directly leads into why Endowment is less concerned - the Returned on Nalthis are beings entirely invested with her investiture, and they only ever feed on Breadths, which is still her investiture. This forms a net of much more accurate and detailed futuresight in her own domain. Everytime someone dies, she (or an automated mechanism) determines what would happen if that person would be brought back. They may have some high level goals in mind - for e.g. looking for a way to fight against Odium, or spread knowledge of awakening. If the person can potentially accomplish some of this, she brings them back. This is why the Five Scholars were all Returned - Shasharra's entire Returned existence was to study Nalthis' magic, get inspired by Rosharran magic and try and duplicate that - directly creating Nightblood. Once she had done this and told Vasher how to do so, she had served her purpose. Vasher, however, may not have fulfilled all his purposes yet. Similarly, Vivenna may also be slightly more invested with Endowment, if only because of her Returned lineage. Not only this, but Odium's own perception of himself as Passion may mean he has a slightly flawed futuresight. Fortune and Destiny are opposites - like pulling and pushing on the same spiritual attribute/force. Fortune makes less likely things more likely to occur, in a way increasing randomness, whereas Destiny acts like a pin or some sort of tack, "pinning" a certain set of events, making them more likely to occur, but at the cost of decreasing the chance of anything else happening. Destiny was how Preservation insured the roles of Vin and Sazed in his plan, whereas tapping Fortune is what burning Atium does - it doesn't show you just one most likely set of events. It shows you all the likely things that could happen. Maybe this is also how Hoid's Oath works - he taps Destiny, always insuring that events where his help was needed and he was there are the ones that occur in actuality. The Central Pillar in Uruthiru (the one which housed Re-Shephir) was originally meant to serve as housing for the Sibling. Every Godspren has a home - The Stormfather has the Highstorms, the Nightwatcher has The Valley. So maybe, the Sibling, as a younger Godspren, was fashioned specifically to power an extensive and complex fabriel - one that channeled all 10 surges in various ways to accomplish many functions at Uruthiru.

Could it be that you hit upon the basis of Realmatic Theory? Background Investiture could be the Spiritual Realm, the Framework is Cognitive Realm, and The Manifestation is the Physical Realm? Also, I don't see how it's a change in some fixed constant. When someone is storing healing, for e.g., they are taking from the energy that they are constantly expending to "heal" themselves. Everyone allocates some energy to it all the time, that's why we eat food. When someone is storing weight, they are storing their literal weight, in a similar way to the Surge of Gravitation. Their mass means less, it is affected less, simply because some of that potential is being exchanged for preservation's investiture. It's all rates, isn't it? The act of Storing or Retrieving uses Ruin's investiture to cause the corresponding change, whereas the stored Investiture is Preservation's.

Personal theory is Adonalsium was the original mega spren. As in, a big bunch of investiture that gained sentience - possibly coming together in accordance with life on Yolen. Kinda like symbiosis, where as life evolved, it pulled more and more investiture towards Yolen making Adonalsium more and more sentient and powerful, and as that happened it gave life more agency to change and grow. By the time Humans and Sho Del showed up, Adonalsium had become basically God - an independent entity that was intertwined with life itself, but at a much higher level and bigger scale.

I know, the point I was trying to make there was that the Human population on Scadrial has an independent origin - they have this unique genetic thing (that was deliberately put there) but they are still Humans. Could the Singers and Sho-Del have a similarly independent but connected origin? You make the same point as I was trying to - just because the singers developed independently on Roshar doesn't mean they have to be different from the Sho-Del. Granted, I haven't read Dragonsteel, which is why I'm speculating based on the Human example alone. Again, I'm not saying they are the same, just advocating for not discounting that idea. In the second paragraph, I was trying to highlight a different case - that when a Human population goes to a shardworld and starts internalising investiture there, then they start changing. We have a WoB that if a bunch of Rosharrans or Scadrians went and settled on Nalthis, then several generations down the line they would start being born with Breath. This is because investiture on Nalthis behaves that way. Something similar wouldn't happen on Scadrial unless they started breeding with people there. Similarly, natural violet eyes would not have been present in the original refugees from Ashyn - but now that genetic marker exists in the population because some individuals internalised Roshar's Honor based magic system and became Radiants. Again, even if they now move out, this marker has now been introduced into the population. Sure, it will eventually dilute and fade away - but for now, the specific changes that the Rosharran investiture ecosystem brings have been diffused among the population. The point is, whenever we see a species being specifically created an a planet (Scadrians, Singers, and presumably Sho-Del, Dragons, Yolish Humans), they follow the first case. When we have a species that comes to a place from outside, we have the second. So presumably, if Adonalsium created several different Humans independently, then they should have Scadrian-esque unique genetic markers that allow them to fully internalise the investiture cycle of their shardworld. However, by observation, we have a lot more examples of the second kind. It seems it is safer to assume that there only two independent origins of Humans - Yolish and Scadrian. Which then leads to the question - when did people move out from Yolen? If it was post shattering, then why has EVERYONE forgotten that origin, and have no recollection of the shattering or exodus? It seems more prudent to assume that pre shattering, Humans could make interplanetary travel, whether through the physical or cognitive, and get to all the different "Greater Roshar"-esque playgrounds of Adonalsium. Well, I'm not saying it became desolate or anything. And when I said Ecosystem, I meant the investiture cycle, not biological ecosystems. Just this, combined with Hoid's metaphor:

Yeah, but then take the Humans on Scadrial. They were made by just Preservation and Ruin, are basically the same as other Humans, and yet have completely internalized the metallic arts. Theoretically, if the Sho-Del are more investiture dependent than regular Humans, then they would adapt to a different ecology much more drastically - fain Sho-Del and Rosharran Singers could be the same species, they just fit into two very different ecosystems, and as such, have two very different but common biologies. Like two different kinds of Spiders - the daddy longlegs spider is very different from the tarantula spider, but they both belong to the same species. If Adonalsium made Humans on multiple planets independently, then that is a BIG deal. See, whenever we've seen a species deliberately built on a planet, the investiture cycle usually becomes inherent to it - for any Humans on a planet with a Resident Shard, the investiture eco-system has a tendency to seep in. For example, the origin of violet as an eye color on Roshar for lighteyes, or Breath on Nalthis. If this is true, and Adonalsium was Resident on Yolen, then any Humans he made on Yolen would be different from Humans he made elsewhere, and that has... implications. We know that the Shattering destroyed the investiture ecosystem (or investiture-cycle) on Yolen, and that it had a huge impact on the species on the planet (source: Hoid's comment on him being the bones of a species lying in a desert that was once a Sea). I haven't been a part of the community for too long. Have there been discussions on this before? If so, do you know how I could look them up? P.S. I know we've had "Yolish" as an adjective, but me personal headcanon word is Yolenite.

I've always wondered... since Greater Roshar was one of Adonalsium's playgrounds, are the Singers an equivalently independent race, like Human's, Sho Del, or the Dragons? Or are they related to the relatively unknown Sho-Del or Dragons? I don't really have time to dig it up right now, but there's a WoB that there were two conflicting ecologies on Yolen. Also, do we have a word on if Yolish life had colonies or outposts off-world, pre-shattering? The humans on Ashyn, Threnody, First of the Sun, etc. have to have come from somewhere. If so, are there any Sho-Del colonies/refugees?

I mean, that's a church with a literal Holy See. And the Bishops are all Paladins. Sign me the HIFL up.

Not saying it's a good idea. The bad idea was mostly just sending in the same people, essentially putting all the burden on a select few. But we know it still exists. If someone does end up with Honor, they could theoretically expand it, so that the title of Herald could be passed on. Or change its very nature. There's lots of different solutions there, if someone was only there to iterate on the idea.

Was just going through the coppermind recently, and something struck me regarding the names of the books for the Stormlight Archives. I know they are all in-world books, but what if there's more going on in there? Let's take a look at The Words of Radiance. It's the Lightweaver book (Light - Radiance), and the in-world WoR is an informational book containing lots of half-information on the KR, written 200 years after the Recreance. What do they end up doing? Mistaking the Parsh as Voidbringers because of incomplete information, remapping the Shattered plains to figure out where the Oathgate is without knowing all its purpose, and so on. Perhaps most importantly, it is also the book where we find out the truth about Oaths (the words of radiance) and what they are and how they fit into the magic system, through Shallan and Kaladin. And Dalinar formally swears in. The title then perfectly describes the book, and how it connects with the focus character. Take Oathbringer, for example. It's the Bondsmith book, and its Dalinar's book, and it's the story of why and how he became a Bondsmith, or a bringer of Oaths, so it fits that way. Symbolically, Dalinar has always been an Oathbringer. Under Gavilar, wherever he went, he brought the Oaths as an opposite of freedom. If Dalinar was coming for you, you either swore to be Highprince under Gavilar or ended up dying. By the time of the main story, he is Oathbringer because he brings widespread awareness and the knowledge of Oaths, and provides an open platform for people willing to swear the Oath of a Knight Radiant. Again, the title of the book directly describes the theme of the book, and how it connects with the focus character. What does this tell us about the Way of Kings being Kaladin's book? It's the Windrunner book, the Order associated with Jezrein, the King. It's named the Way of Kings. The context of the in-world Way of Kings is how Nohadon learnt to be a better king by taking the hard road and walking to Uruthiru. He argues he got to see the world in first person, and got to experience what it's like to actually be there, right alongside his people, on an equal footing with them. Kaladin has been through the bottom-most dregs of Alethi society, and still carries the brands on his forehead. He was born a dark eyes, who fought and earned his place as a light eyes, had this taken from him, and earned a real shardblade. One could argue he is going through that same ordeal, just a lot less literally and more symbolically. It is the Way of Kings to walk where those that follow them would walk, and understand what that walking is all about. And then there's this Death Rattle that's been bugging me for ages: "He must pick it up, the fallen title! The tower, the crown, and the spear!" Since there's only really one "spear" in SA so far, that's pretty much Kaladin. The Tower and The Crown is definitely Kholin. And last of all - Elhokar Kholin died right in front of him, and that's a major event in his journey. Technically, this could also refer to Kaladin saving Dalinar at the Battle of the Tower. But my suspicion is this foreshadows a moment when Kaladin picks up the Kholin banner in one hand, and Sylspear in another - it foreshadows the moment he chooses to accept the fallen title of a Kholin king and becomes King in his own right. Notice, Jasnah is a queen, so she can just be put in a position where she can't do that anymore. Or maybe they end up together. I don't know. Maybe the fallen title is Jezrien's. And maybe the spear doesn't refer to Kaladin at all, but to Oroden, or to someone else entirely. Again, I don't know, I'm just speculating. Kaladin doesn't have a last name, only Stormblessed - indicating he may be able to pick up the Kholin name. Kaladin Kholin does have a nice ring to it. The Stormblessed title itself could be foreshadowing - the current head of the Kholin branch is bonded to the Stormfather. Jezrien, the Windrunner patron's spot on the Heralds just opened up. My point being, what if Sanderson's pulling a Mistborn on us? What if Kaladin's end goal is to either take up the Kholin Banner and become king, or take up Jezrein's spot as a Herald? Maybe both? Maybe none. There's two more books to go... and he has two more Oaths to take. All I'm sure of is that big things are in store for him. P.S. - what did you guys think about that death rattle? Edit: reformatting and rewriting a bit.

You also assume that the original 16 didn't once have the gravitas that most main characters do right now. It's centuries, nay millenia, of being godly powerful and yet unable to be all powerful, of knowing some of the deepest secrets of the cosmere, of shepharding investiture in their respective domains. Of being lonely as heck, holding power that constantly erodes your consciousness, pushing you towards enforcing a concept with a singlemindedness that would make fanatics and zealots go "damnation son!" Yeah, they're gods. But they're only human.

I'm not a 100% sure, but this is how I had it. Metal glows to Kelsier because he's an allowmancer. For him, metal is the lens through which Preservation's power shines. It is available to him. Any metal in the physical that he could have ingested and burned - and that has a reflection in the cognitive - would glow to Kelsier's eyes.

In WoKs, Moash gets introduced before anyone else in Bridge 4. Even before Rock.

Rayse - Never Gonna Give You Up Odium - Never Enough by Jenny Lind, You'll be Back from Hamilton Rashek - In the End by Linkin Park Sazed - Castle of Glass by Linkin Park Eshonai - Battle Symphony by Linkin Park Hoid - Take On Me, Life's for the Living by Passenger, Piano Man Wayne - What does the Fox Say Vyre - that censored version of the Gangsta Rap Dalinar - From Now On from The Greatest Showman The Knights Radiant - Holes by Passenger Raoden - The Spark by Spree Wilson and Afrojack Ruin - Give it Up by KC & the Sunshine Band Preservation - Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars And last but not the least, Brandon Sanderson and maybe Adonalsium - The Greatest Show from the Greatest Showman

I know about that, it's just... for some reason, I assumed that is NOT Autonomy's doing. Or maybe not all of Autonomy, at least.

Ooooh. I like this. It would explain so much. The bands were basically Kelsier's version of a fixed deposit, to be opened on a rainy day.

I was just reading the Bands of Mourning Epilogue, and I came across this: I've been convinced for a while now that Autonomy's intention is to make things as "independent" as possible, taken to an extreme. As such, it is the exact opposite of Unification. If Trell here is indeed Autonomy, then its primary reason behind isolating Taldain would be to stop it from interacting with other planets - making life on Taldain stand on its own, independent of anything else. Because if you're capable of interacting with someone else, then pesky stuff like trade comes into play - which could be seen as a form of co-dependence. This is what it tried to do on Scadrial. But it realized that Scadrial is moving too fast, and with the guidance and protection of Harmony, would have space travel soon, way before Trell had any chance of taking control and isolating it/putting it in technological stasis. Maybe this is why it is helping Odium at all - from its perspective, Odium is taking out shards that are not "Independent", so of course it would lend a hand. Besides, shardless planets are prime targets for it to start making its own pantheons on (because all that investiture is just sitting around with no owner, allowing Autonomy to come in and start making mega-spren like separate and independent "avatars", like Patji on First of the Sun), allowing it to control advancement on the planet - exactly like it did on Taldain. That is, of course, assuming Taldain's isolation is Autonomy's doing. Speculation on the plot of the Lost Metal:

Wasn't he a full mistborn? Also, he - even if only momentarily and imperfectly on the greater cosmere scale - actually held a Shard. That's more than Elend or even Rashek got. I'd imagine he's pretty buff on his own. And since Allomancy is all about Spiritwebs, I doubt his skill would change depending on body. In fact, his natural propensity towards Ruin would probably make him amazing at figuring out Hemalurgy too. Yeah... Kelsier OP. Can't wait to see him in action now. He could probably teach the Knights Radiant about what being truly skilled with power means.

lmao, that would be hilarious. Especially considering the fact that he probably wouldn't know about the very concept of electricity. He would have no clue what he got until he zaps someone, and even then he would probably go "... the ever moving storms did I get?"

Personally, I think Ishar has a hand in the disappeared shards. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out that it was Ishar who came up with the "attaching gems to dead shards to connect with them" idea. He certainly had the knowhow. As far as the description of shard blades locking them into one form idea is concerned? I don't know. You make some valid points, but I'm not completely convinced.

This might have to do with the way surges work in Voidbinding. Maybe a Void surge is the exact mirror of its corresponding Radiant Surge. Let's for a moment assume that the fused are different from actual Void Knights - and that Renarin is one of these "Void Knights". Now I'm gonna speculate that for a Normal Truthwatcher, the surge of Illumination shows the "Truth", and is a way of seeing the past/present ideal using the spiritual realm (something similar to such allomantic effects). And for Renarin, we know it shows the future. However, regrowth seems to work normally for him. Maybe, the symbols are half-flipped because the Void Knights depicted there-in have one surge flipped and working in a mirrored manner (at least when compared to their Radiant counterpart), while the other surge works normally. In a sense, it's trying to convey that each corresponding voidbinder-surgebinder pair is 50% the same (have one surge that works similarly) and 50% opposite (have one surge that works in the same way but achieves the opposite thing). Maybe this gives us a hint to the mechanics of Surgebinding? We already know that spren exist on a spectrum between Honor and Cultivation. Maybe the difference in the way different orders access the same surge is because it comes from different sources? So, for e.g., for a Windrunner, Honor gives Adhesion and Cultivation gives Gravitation, where as for a Skybreaker, Honor gives Gravitation and Cultivation gives Division (ergo for a Bondsmith Division would come from Honor, and so on) In this case, an argument could be made that Odium replaces one of these with Himself for Void Knights. So when Sja-Anat "corrupts" a spren, that spren now lies on an Odium-Cultivation spectrum (or Odium-Honor spectrum) instead of the original Cultivation-Honor spectrum, and this is why the flip happens?

If anything, that's a hint to how she soul casts. Unlike Shallan, she doesn't convince things, she demands them to change with sheer willpower. I always took Wit's three kinds of men story to be allusions to the three Rosharran shards. The first one is Honor, who died standing against the boulder. Then Odium - the void who asks people to do terrible things in his name by telling is the one who makes them do it. And the third, Cultivation, quietly studying and nudging events from the shadows.

Fair. I wasn't sure exactly what OP was talking about. Now I am.