Aminar

44 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

The interesting thing though, is that while Windrunners and Lightweavers seem opposite, Kaladin gets along really well with all the Lightweavers he knows (Wit, Shallan, Tien, even Elhokar once he gets to know him). Shallan gets along well with Kaladin and all the windrunner squires. While I imagine him really clashing with the cold, heartless logic of Jasnah the Elsecaller and the Skybreakers. I wonder if there are some orders where the spren don't get along but the people do and some where the spren get along but the people don't.

As far as where the surges fit with the orders... Kaladin is a leader, he draws people towards himself (gravity) and binds them together (adhesion). Shallan transforms people by showing them better versions of themselves (illumination). Lift slides into cracks in society and heals people. Dalinar pulls people together and binds them together. The Skybreakers pull in people and divide them. The surges do seem to fit with their specific orders and their personalities.

I think you could twist those in every direction to make them fit. Shallan may shine a light on people, but she also does shadowy spy stuff. If you gave Windrunners her Powers you could talk about how Giving people the resources they need to succeed is the soul of good leadership. How he transformed Bridge 4. How he showed them the light in their dark situation. 

I'm still thinking Rock will end up a Bondsmith. Nothing brings people together like Stew. (Remember that Stonewards are basically the Radiant Infantry.) 

5 hours ago, Elegy said:

Ahh, now I understand, I didn't consider that, that's interesting. I think the Honorblades make that kind of unlikely, since they predate the Orders and already follow the same combinations of powers and were held by the according Heralds. Of course, the table positions could predate Honorblades and originally referred to the Heralds, but I don't think we have good hints for that...

The Orders being somewhat sorted after their roles in their society might also be connected to the Surges, since some of those are better for fighting, so the Orders who have use for those are clustered at one place and the ones who don't at another. Most of the Surges make practical sense for the Orders, after all.

But yeah, interesting ... Food for thought for sure!

I'm more talking in the meta-sense. If I were Brandon I'd be designing the system in a way where the orders follow a pattern. Given the surges don't, I'd think he'd start with the Oaths and meanings. And it's a lot easier to make a consistent feeling list like that with opposites than it is not. From there he ordered the powers in a way that created interesting capability dynamics.

57 minutes ago, Elegy said:

Yes, I agree, and that's basically what I was getting at: The table is sorted by which Order has access to which Surges, not by their themes. And if the Surges and the themes are not directly connected, there's nothing that indicates that the positions of the Orders are thematically relevant. The positions are only relevant for the Surges they have access to, is what I was trying to say.

I don't think its ordered by surges. I think the surges were basically dropped on top of the table. Like, they came second, largely arbitrarily. Because there is an order to the ideals. You can see that the orders related to the self are clustered(lightweaver, Elsecaller, Willshaper), as are the scholarly orders(Lightweaver, elsecaller, truthwatcher) and martial orders(Stoneward-Dustbringer, minus Bondsmith's who are generally leaders in charge of those orders while the other orders seem to have been more independent and mobile in their purposes, travelling Scholars, Regional Edgedancers, Willshapers building stuff, etc.) 

59 minutes ago, Elegy said:

The relationships between the Knights Radiant Orders have somewhat become one of my "Cosmere obsessions". These are some very interesting observations. However, I think that in order to understand how the Orders relate to each other physically on the chart, it's important to ask why the Orders are positioned the way they are. E.g. why are the Skybreakers between the Windrunners and the Dustbringers. And that's actually because they share the Surges. For all we know, there might not be another reason for Skybreakers being between Windrunners and Dustbringers and opposite to Lightweavers other than just them sharing Gravitation with the first and Division with the second, and are the farthest from the third in the Surge-based pattern.

So, from that perspective, it's not quite clear whether it's worthwhile to think about the physical relationships of the Orders on the chart in any other way than that - these share Surges, these don't, and so it goes in a circle. There could be a deeper scheme to this pattern, since the Surges and the Orders' themes might be inseperably connected in a thematical way (so which Order has which Surges is so profoundly dependent on what they represent that you would automatically create a thematical pattern by creating a Surge-based pattern), but for now, I personally am kinda reluctant about that and therefore prefer to think of the chart as just that - the Orders sorted after their abilities, not the themes they represent. Sorting them after themes, ideals and possibly even stuff like Spiritual/Cognitive or Honor/Cultivation might have completely different results.

For example, Skybreakers and Dustbringers seem to be opposites to me in some ways. Every sequence of oaths represents a specific development, a character arc that is loosely demanded from every member. The Skybreakers start off following one specific code of law, but with every oath, they become more about representing justice yourself instead, with the last oath being themed towards becoming the law - they learn to be confident in their decisions even without the law. The Dustbringers, on the other hand, are hot-headed, and from what we know (which admittedly isn't much), their Knights Radiant Order arc seems to be directed towards becoming more controlled and obedient. So the Skybreakers are overly obedient and must become more confident on their own. The Dustbringers, on the other hand, are over-confident and have to become more obedient.

So, what I'm trying to say is, the Orders are probably all related in a very intricate system, but I'm not completely sold on that system being what the chart depicts. There are probably a lot of other ways the Orders could be sorted instead.

I think the orders started from their ideals and Spren types. The surges are more or less random in order. What does Gravity have to do with honor or law? Why aren't Cohesion and Division next to eachother? What does Growth have to do with The Truth? 

With the new information about the orders I got to thinking about how odd it is that Windrunners(Honor Spren) and Edgedancers(Cultivation Spren) aren't opposite one another with the other orders rnning a spectrum from cultivating orders to honorable orders. And that got me thinking about whether or not Windrunners and Lightweavers semi-opposite relationship isn't reflected in the other orders. I think they are. 

Let's look at the pairings. 

Windrunners have Honor Spren. They focus on protecting others and leadership. Their motivations are external and about their own actions. But we can see the biggest difference here in Cryptics and Honor Spren. Lies and Honor. 

Now we rotate a step. Skybreakers and Elsecallers. This one is much more pronounced. Skybreakers are about erasure of the self. They make no decisions, they swear to an external code, while Elsecallers are about the perfection of the self. They seek to be the best version of themself. 

Another step and we have Dustbringers vs Willshapers. Dustbringers embody With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. They're focused on absolute discipline and self sacrifice. Willshapers are focused on personal freedom and increasing the freedom of others. In a sense this is very similar to Elsecallers and Skybreakers. 

Next Up, Edgedancers and Stonewards. We don't know much about Stonewards. They're an odd order but they're described as very martial. Edgedancers are healers, they're their for the forgotten and underprivileged. They embody the difference between Kaladin's Kill to Protect and Lyrin's you cannot kill to protect. I think this is probably the weakest adversarial relationship. 

And the last dichotomy is likely the most important. Bondsmith's and Truthwatchers. Bondsmith's value unity. Truthwatchers value Truth. We can see this dichotomy everywhere. Governments have a terrible time with transparency. Leaders have to know things most people don't. But without oversight this can get skewed. Bondsmiths have to walk the boarder between Tyrant and Leader. We can see how Dalinar's attempts to unify have been dishonest and hidden things. We can see how he's been outed and how the Truth destroyed Unity. But how important that Truth was is also evident. And so I finally understand why Bondsmith's and Truthwatchers occupy that central space among the orders. They both are needed for good leadership. You need unity, but that unity has to come with oversight. 

7 hours ago, SanderFan69 said:

I think the Dustbringers were one of the biggest orders. I remember Malata saying something about hundreds of ashspren being killed during the Recreance which would put them at a higher number than stonewards and windrunners per Dalinar's vision.

This is actually one of the more confusing parts about the series. Like, we know there's a lot of High Spren now. But the Spren Civilizations basically went through a Desolation with the Recreance. Pattern talks about there not being many Cryptics who remember when the Radiants were around because they were all killed. And that's raises a lot of questions. Were there just a few hundred Spren that would cross over and the rest just stayed behind? No retirement. No rotation? Or did most Radiants break their oaths and kill their Spren at some point? And if so, what happened to the Shards? 

9 hours ago, Darth_Hel said:

So, the magic not knowing how to interpret that, is that just because Cultivation's Shard literally can't do it because its so counter to the Shard's intent? So, if Preservation had been asked for this boon could he have granted it? I know compounding can sort of do it, but eventually age overpowers it, but could Preservation have granted the boon if he was asked by someone?

Not really. Cultivation is changing something to make it fit a goal. Changing strawberries to be huge through crossbreeding. Keeping a Bonzai Small for aesthetic appeal. Trimming Lilacs to get as many flowers as possible. Moving Lift partially into the cognitive as a tool againat Odium. Pruning Dalinar's memories so he could grow into the Bondsmith. Cultivation's intent is pretty wild in that its very freeform, but has to be kind of, schemy and indirect. 

6 hours ago, first void said:

I mean her ability of regrowth. This ability ( as well as the baseline radiant healing) would encourage her to grow. The old magic would be trying to keep her from growing. I figure that the radiant ability would be able to make headway. So she might start growing as she develops as a radiant. On the other hand, the old magic might just have some effect im not accounting for.

Why would Regrowth encourage her to grow? Regrowth is just healing. And she's not constantly using her surge on herself. It's not a constantly active superpower. 

It's important to remember that Cultivation is just as much about the pruning shears as she is the planting. A Bonzai Tree kept tiny for a purpose is well within and arguably central to what Cultivation is. If she wanted Lift to stay 10 forever she could have made that happen, regardless of her Surges, but she didn't. She gave Lift something different. And we need to stop referring to what happened to Dalinar, Lift, and Taravangian as The Old Magic. The Nightwatcher is the source of the Old Magic. Cultivation can do so much more and doesn't have to follow rules she doesn't want to, so long as they are in line with the purpose of cultivating. Grow or shrink. Prune or Plant. 

5 hours ago, first void said:

This still sounds like a recent development for her, and to get wyndle she would have had to say the first oath. This implies some form of personal development. This might have messed with the old magic.

13 is a pretty standard age for a girl to start menstruating. Given Lift's tendency to burn through Calories I'm surprised she'd have it at all. So I doubt the old magic wearing off is the culprit. 

10 hours ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

But you can't use Abrasion to climb walls, if you don't have a force towards the wall. The way friction works is that there is a force opposing relative motion between two surfaces which maxes out at a value. This value depends upon normal force between two objects. On a straight wall, you can't apply any such force because it will simply throw you of the wall.

Depends how velcro'd the friction gets. It would require practice and athleticism, but increasing the friction could make it doable. I still think with enough friction you could basically make steps in the air. Might be a surface tension thing though and those don't mix. 

10 minutes ago, Hentient said:

Okay okay, to be clear i'm not saying that the surges are different from order to order. Im saying that the unique combination of surges that an order has lets them do things that the other two orders with their surges cant. Its called Resonance, and it happens to anyone that has access to two surges (We also see it in Twinborn). To quote the coppermind:

The coppermind only has these two orders, but thats because we just havent seen it happen much with other orders. This is probably why Jasnah was able to soulcast so effectively In the Battle of Thaylen City, because she was in the cognitive realm and the spiritual realm at the same time (Probably). 

Im just saying, without knowing the Resonance of the other orders, im not sure we can really judge them.

Right. But we know next to nothing about those and they're not really related to the surges so they aren't predictable enough to matter at this point. 

13 minutes ago, Hentient said:

One thing to consider is each order has a special way their surges work together (An example being lightweavers can give weight to their illusions) and we havent seen what that is for most of the orders, so it might be hard to know exactly who is the most useful.

That's not really true. Gravity is the same between Skybreakers and Windrunners. We don't know what a Truthwatcher's lightweaving is like but it's likely exactly the same, minus the Mnemonic ability kind of augmenting it. But there is no real evidence Surges vary by order beyond Bondsmiths and lots of evidence they aren't different in execution. 

Soulcasting is inarguably useful. But I would argue Growth is the most useful. It's easy to destroy people. Healing is something else. And insta-fertilizer to boot. It isn't as much food as Soulcasting, and it can't make tools. But no tool is as valuable as a person. People can make just about anything.

From there it's a question of Truthwatchers or Edgedancers. And while I'm biased towards Edgedancers I think Truthwatchers are probably more valuable. Friction is nifty, but Illumination has some real concrete uses, from entertainment to education to infiltration. 

37 minutes ago, cfphelps said:

The time when Dalinar pulls Venli into the vision and Odium breaks in strongly hints at Dalinar having plate, since he uses his hand against stone to slow his descent down a rock wall when the area is crumbling down around them,which Venli notices.

That implies adhesion and stormlight healing just as much, if not more. His surges cover it all just fine. 

On 6/11/2020 at 4:04 AM, Lccaseiro58 said:

This one is oddest to me, i never expected Edgedancers to be ahead of Windrunners and Skybreakers in Honorable actions when the spren of the last two are the ones that identify themselves as "closest" to Honor.

I'm more surprised by Skybreakers given the way they've been portrayed. Loopholes and brutality in spades, all to keep a worse thing from maybe happening. 

But I can see the Edgedancers. Windrunners often have to kill to protect. They're a very martial order and war is always more, ends justify the means. Edgedancers are doctors, therapists, social workers. People who, in our society, are held to incredibly rigorous (to the point they can be ridiculous) ethical standards. HIPPA is incredibly frustrating sometimes.

He goes where he is needed. I don't think he was needed that night. 

2 minutes ago, Philomath said:

I’ve definitely thought that Abrasion should allow for increased friction though it hasn’t yet been seen in the books. And your thought of that being how they actually go across the thinnest of wires/ropes is excellent. I imagine some instances of increased friction might look similar to some uses of Adhesion. (Considering Kaladin’s use of Adhesion to climb chasm walls.) But the fundamental science/mechanisms of how they work is different. 
 

I’m not sure how many surges we can look at yet to see if you can affect things in multiple ways. But Gravitation is one we can look at. Though it is all referred to as lashings, they are technically used to increase or decrease gravitational pull in a given direction. It may just depend on what fundamental force each surge represents. 

It likely depends. But Gravity doesn't really decrease. It just can pull in multiple directions at different intensities. It's still all a pull. I foubt we'll see growth/regrowth as decay. But it seems very likely that friction, and possibly strong and weak force are more malleable. 

4 hours ago, Cammac said:

For a dustbringer I think lightning/electricity can be a possibility. Using abrasion to create friction in the air, creating an electric charge or increasing the friction in their body to create a static electric charge.

If they increase the friction of water or themselves enough, could they walk on water?

Pretty sure they could run on air with enough stormlight. 

On 6/1/2020 at 6:29 AM, robardin said:

The way he describes it as a journey [to the for Truths leading to the Fifth Ideal] as "starting negative" maybe implies that it turns to the positive for the later Truths, hey? Interesting.

That is often how maturity is gained. I have done these bad things. I have grown in these ways. I'm not the awful person I believe myself to be. 

He doesn't use the Stormfather as a Sword. He slams raw investiture/stormlight in the Oathgate and makes it work. (Possibly with a form of Adhesion given the connection mentioned) 

And yes, the stormfather is saying no Shardblade because it makes him vulnerable to being killed and he won't do that. It's him saying, Nope, won't do that. And so far as I can tell it's worked. It's not that no Bondsmith have ever had Shards. It's that being a Shard is a vulnerability for the Spren. 

Yep. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do with fiction as an idea. Increase the fiction of the air Kaladin is falling through and you get something a mix of horrific and awe inspiring. Reduce it and suddenly there is no terminal velocity. 

38 minutes ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Hot take: we only have one dustbringer because they're usually not the type to geek out about books on the internet. 

Yep. They're too disciplined and productive, making choices that use their time wisely.

9 minutes ago, Tiberius Gracchus said:

The Radiants didn't continue after the Cognitive Genocide (good term btw) it is suggested that the Recreance took place immediately after that. (The Radiants are seen abandoning Roshar during wartime) it is my view that the factional fighting between Radiant orders, Honor's madness, the fear of destroying Roshar and the instability of Urithiru (Re-Shephir and The Sibling) first convinced the Knights to slowly dissolve the orders and downscale surgebinding but then the unexpected disaster of the Cognitive Genocide was the factor that forced the Radiants to abandon their shards immediately en masse. (and imho the Skybreakers would have fully disbanded with the others without Nale's personal intervention)

The timeline suggests they left Urithiru after the Cognitive Genocide but continued for some time after that. Or at least that was what the Crystal Epigraph's seemed to suggest that was what was happening. I remember it being suggested that the Feverstone Keep Vision wasn't exactly factual, so much as a symbolic version of the Recreance. 

15 minutes ago, Tiberius Gracchus said:

I am pretty sure that the more complicated explanation of the Recreance is canon, it is just rather poorly communicated in OB, (a lot of the details around the additional factors are hidden in epigraphs and the reveal of the Elia Stele is given more narrative weight) 

I don't find the complicated version all that convincing either. They destroyed the planet with unrestrained power granted by the god of make decisions with your feelings. All it takes is one look at the Thrill to realize how the planet was destroyed, and why the Nahel Bond largely invalidates that. I can see it causing unrest and some people to forsake their oaths. But all the orders but the Skybreakers? It doesn't make sense to me. People don't act in that uniform a manner because of something that happened millenia ago. There's a reason there's a million different variations of a handful of major religions out there. People can't all agree the Earth is Round, let alone that they should abandon protecting the world. The Cognitive Genocide and enslavement of the Singers is far more devastating a choice. The Radiants actually did that and kept going. But it's so much worse.