asmodeus

lookee what we have here

Brandon has kinda literally already pulled force lightning into the Cosmere right under our noses. Stormform comes from the power of "God's own Hatred," and grants lightning powers that are really hard to control, and yet, give a euphoric sensation of power.

Hmmmmmmmmm. So to summarize, at this point, we have: Nahel/Lhel : Bond to Divinity/? Elithinathile: He who transforms Raboniel/Hariel: Lady of Pains or Wishes/? and then we have El, who use to also be Vyre (He who quiets).

I like the theory that Hoid was there to distract Rayse. I think Hoid went there to make Rayse look at him, which he obviously would do because he would be pissed after learning Hoid wrote the deal that bound him, and Hoid going out to tease him after something like that would've made sense to Rayse. But... I think that was part of the plan. Hoid's was the flashy part, something you want to look at, something you can't help but focus on, while the important sneaky stuff happens in the background. Specifically, Design went off chasing some enlightened spren. So... I wouldn't be surprised if Design was going to have a secret meeting with Sja-anat, under Rayse's nose. What would the outcome of such a meeting be? The most tantalising answer would be Enlightenment. It's possible that... given Hoid's speech about Lightweaving making things too easy for him, he's willing to give it up for some other power the Enlightened cryptics might be getting instead. Maybe Soulcasting is the one that would get replaced for him? There's a whole bunch of options, and Design might not get Enlightened and might be doing something else entirely, instead of meeting Sja-anat. Now, of course, Hoid's plan partially backfired - instead of Rayse, it was Taravangian, and we had some really creepy stuff happen there with Taravangian forcefully reaching in and playing with Hoid's memories, BUTT, Hoid's OG plan still worked, I think. Rayse or Taravangian, memory-rape or not, Odium still focused on him, and not on Design. We focused on him, and not on Design (or anyone/anywhere else, for that matter).

There is a wob about this, but it's not as direct as that, and piggybacks off of some in-world lore: which is based on the listener Song of Spren, of which we have the 9th and 10th stanzas: Now... the interesting question is, why can't Singers bond truespren like Syl and get forms out of that? For example, why is Venli's radiant-bond to Timbre not replacing her form-bond to that spren that grant her envoyform? And I think that would be in the same vein as "Why do Fused kill the Singer and take over their bodies, rather than just giving them some form?" Truespren like Syl and Pattern are probably just too big and smart for the form-granting nahel bond, the more advanced Knight Radiant-like nahel bond is probably their equivalent of the same thing. But... that's just speculation, we don't actually know.

I would like to see a fantasy protagonist that goes through all the big phases of life, and motherhood would definitely be a part of that, especially for a character that's newly wedded and happy, but still has a whole time gap to look forward to. I would want this of Kaladin and fatherhood too, eventually, though with him, there's not that obvious a path.

I've been thinking, what if Skybreaker and Dustbringer Division both allow for propulsion? That way, Skybreakers would be like the fighter jets of the Knights Radiant. With Adhesion and Gravitation, Windrunners have flexibility and agility. So it could be that the Skybreakers fulfill another niche, especially once they get plate. This niche of less agile, less flexible, but more destructive and faster-over-distance combatants. Where they would potentially be able to use Division and the more oxygen-rich Rosharan air to generate propulsion and achieve supersonic flight. That way, a group of Skybreakers flying in formation passing a village wouldn't be unlike a flight of low-altitude fighter jets, giving you this idea of where their moniker of Skybreakers might come from. This also helps with the Dustbringers. Where Edgedancers can slick themselves but have to gracefully skate, a Dustbringer could slick themselves with Abrasion, and then be able to use Division-based propulsion to travel quickly over land, giving them this niche of fast, mobile, land corps that can cover ground and deliver destruction where needed. A kind of land cavalry that, 1) brings Division-based destruction, breaking things, and 2) leaves behind a trail of dust and fire, as they use Division on the ground for propulsion, leaving a wake of dust behind them. The Dustbringers.

I guess the only real point of contention between what you're saying and what I'm saying, right now, is whether there is a distinction to be made. Personally, I don't see a distinction, to me they're all just perpendicularities, and each, depending on how it's made and all, is going to have some characteristics unique to it. Like how Dalinar's perpendicularity has no liquid pool, he can just pinch the realms and create a pillar of Light, whereas the Well of Ascension was a pool that filled with glowing liquid-like Investiture over a period of 1024 years. Now, that being said, there is some kind of distinction between the shard's investiture investing a place and the vessel personally "going" to a place and investing in it. So... I could see certain perps having an additional significance to the vessel or the shard in some way. But in general, I just feel that calling something x's perpendicularity is just more writing convention, than something with massive realmatic significance.

I agree here. The fact that Ishar has people in Shadesmar, the fact that he's able to somehow reach in and "touch" spren in such a way that he can force them manifest physically in a very creepy, weird way, and the fact that the perp was meant to be a clear exit strategy makes me think that this is an ability he's familiar with. Though... when he gained it, I don't know. My only real take on this is that perps do not inherently require shards to make them, and since there are only really sixteen base "flavors" of investiture, there is nothing that realmatically stops you from creating 19 perps using... say pure Odium investiture. But, this is different from Odium actively going to a planet, investing in it heavily, and that creating a natural perp on that planet. You and I would call this perp "Odium's perp," which would make sense, because it is Odium's. But that is different from saying that Odium, the shard, only has one perpendicularity, as if it was a specific object in his possession. As you yourself point out, Drominad seems to have a naturally occurring perp simply because it is naturally invested enough to have one, and that perp is associated with Autonomy. There are other places that could have a perpendicularities made of... say pure... Ambition, outside of Threnody. Basically, what I'm trying to get at, is that discussion around opening a perpendicularity should be able to be done, without us having to think about it in terms of "how are these two people able to summon this one specific thing?" It's not shared, Dalinar does not have one instance of a perpendicularity, he has the ability open a new one, even if it is personally taxing to him, at will. Apparently, so does Ishar. At least nowadays.

I think we've been making an assumption in saying that Shards have a perpendicularity, almost like... a possession of some kind, in a "Hi, I'm Honor, and this here, is my perpendicularity" manner. The way the text talks about it may seem that way, but... I don't think that's quite the case. Any place where you can have enough investiture, you're going to be able to pierce the realms and have a perpendicularity. So... in that sense, "Honor's perpendicularity" is kind of not exactly a thing. Like... there is a small, weird perp even in the Highstorms, as they expose the gems to the spiritual, in that timeless moment that comes at their eye. There would have to be another kind of perp at the heart of the Sibling, too, and not that different from the Highstorm perp, except this one pulls invetiture from both Honor and Cultivation and mixes them together. So... what people like Dalinar and Ishar are doing then, is not strictly summoning "Honor's perp" to them, it... would have to be more "I'm going to use this power of Honor to open a perpendicularity here." Which would be actively different from Transportation, which would be more about travel, being "a force that pulls people through realms" and somehow also a force of motion, separate from gravitational acceleration. We've seen multiple powers interact with Connection, like how Illumination has a small Connection component to it, so... people with access to Transportation and Transformation being able to slip through realms would not exclusively limit the ability to open perpendicularities to them either. What the Bondsmiths do is more general, and is specifically opening a perp all the way through the spiritual, and pulling a Shard's power through it (which makes a lot of sense, considering at least two of the three bondsmith-spren are Light generators), whereas for soulcasting and for Transportation, you need to expend stormlight, and don't get a window into the spiritual to pull more of it through.

I'm aware. I just also had it in my notes, so it ported over when I copied the sentence.

Honestly, I don't think the answer is as simple as that. Plenty of things touch the spiritual realm, including Dalinar's (and Ishar's) perpendicularity and highstorms, which don't seem to render Ishar lucid. It's only when a new Bondsmith is sworn (Navani), that he gets a bout of lucidity. Now... it'd be interesting to see if this extends to someone like Kaladin, because if it does, then we might have a super long sequence in the fifth book, where to give Ishar five minutes of constant lucidity, some Radiant swears a new ideal every 30 seconds, and that would be a treat.

See, I immediately went in the opposite direction, in that they needed a solid, durable metal enclosure for the gemstone, but also something which doesn't start producing magical effects if the knife accidentally (or deliberately, I guess) traps a spren in it. And so the silver nickel alloy, which is magically inert, so they can use it to enclose and hold the gem, while not producing any magical effects either. (I guess they could use ralkalest/aluminium, which is a point in favor of there being some meaning behind this, but still.)

for the Dagger page, is the thing you're missing, I think.

I'm not _too_ keen on Autonomy being dominating, tbh - I feel like what Autonomy's doing can easily be understood in terms of giving Autonomy, but also looking to the future. It's a balance between allowing people to be themselves, and even enabling them to express their own identity and make their own decisions on their own, but also making sure that they don't roll over someone else down the line.

I like this, a lot. I've seen Autonomy as the Shard of expression of self, and the opposite of control and conquest, but I didn't think to assign a thematic connection to identity, as a concept to it, and I love it. It's wouldn't be realmatic Identity, just like Honor isn't realmatic Connection, but is still thematically close to it because of his focus on bonds of different sorts. I'm actually kind of wondering if Willshapers, as an order, would find common ground with the Shard of Autonomy, just like Elsecallers would - in theory - to the hypothetical Wisdom/Prudence.

I found the idea to be pretty cool, but I'm not sure how to present it all that well. Hence this mess of a post From what I can find, every form of Colonialism - and there can be a lot of different kinds, apparently - involves the interest of "some other place" to be involved and be a driving force in things, even for internal colonialism inside one state. So... I'd love to see an argument of someone trying to explore this from a colonial perspective. Uhmm... okay, I edited the post to address some of this, but no, very little - if anything at all - in Roshar's history fits what you would call colonialism. It really doesn't. Colonialism is a specific thing, and economics are a central, driving aspect of it. Heck, if you really want to generalise economics into any kind of interest of a "distant" state, it _still_ doesn't fit what happened on Roshar, because there isn't any such "distant state" that could really fit. Now... can colonial factors have come into play later? Maybe. But again, there's not much in the history of Roshar where you can clearly establish the same kinds of colonial forces that were prevalent in our history, forces that we use to define Colonialism. We do have some "signs" that make people think that - slavery of Parshmen is a big one of those. In our world slavery is often tied to kinds of Colonialism, so it makes sense for people to see it and think Colonialism. But Roshar got to that stage in a very different way than we did. It's likely that the Radiants knew about some of what the Heralds had done (because of their close ties to spren and even Honor, and also Nale, a Herald, was literally a Skybreaker). If the Radiants were already planning a Recreance, fixing the Parsh, even if they could fix the Parsh, would have been an open question, given there would be no-one to watch over the Human race when those same Parsh were taken over / indoctrinated by the Fused the next time a desolation rolled over, without the Radiants and the Heralds. They would not know of the Everstorm and it's Parsh-fixing capability. So the enslavement of the Parsh would have come about through a very different sequence of events, driven by very different forces. Similarly, humanity didn't come to dominate Roshar wanting to exploit the Parsh or have any other sort of interest in greater Roshar - by all accounts, the Fused nearly wiped out humanity first (though, granted, we don't know how the souls that became the Fused died the first time over, but even that is a very small conflict, taking place in a segment of time that is nothing, compared to the vast history of Roshar), and then again every desolation. At that point, distrust of the Parsh as a species is justified (or at least, knowing what we know of Human nature, understandable), given that any living Singer could be sacrificed and taken over by the Fused. And then, when the desolations roll over, it's not like they had much guidance. Even less so after the earlier desolations, when even the Radiants weren't around. So... yeah. the history of Roshar has more elements in common with a species being introduced to a new ecology, and becoming an invasive species and coming to dominate that new ecology, maybe even drastically changing it, over time. At least, more in common with that narrative than with the traditional Colonial narrative.

Making sense of Symbiosis and the ecology of Roshar Symbiosis is defined as "interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both." Now, remove the Humans and Truespren out of the equation, and let's just look at all the various kinds of subspren and known fauna of Roshar. Take... for example, creationspren. Because of the singer forms, we know that when a Singer attracts and form-bonds with a creationspren, it grants them Artform. Singer psychology is influenced heavily by the particular form they are, which basically says that bonding to a spren in that way influences both they way they look and the way they behave. Another way to put it would be that the spren they bond to has a lot of say in both their physical and mental capabilities. Now, assuming this is true symbiosis, both participants should be getting something out of it. The benefits a form bond grants a Singer are well known and understood, but what do subspren get out of it? Unlike truespren, there is not desire for that spren to get out into the physical and get presence and capability there, because there isn't enough intelligence to them, and they are trapped in a gemheart the whole time anyway. We do, however, know something about this. Spren are creatures that depend on physical entities to perceive and feel things to even _exist_. When a person gets angry, they attract angerspren, because angerspren pretty much "feed" on the feeling and perception of anger from the person feeling it. This is because sentient beings feeling and perceiving anger as a thing is what _creates_ them in the first place. Creationspren are attracted to creative pursuits, because a living, physical being actively being creativity is what creates creationspren, and is thus also what sustains them. It is the equivalent of "food" for subspren, but it is also, in a way, a means for reproduction (somewhat iffy on this). So. What does a creationspren get out of giving artform to a singer? The answer is existence. If a Singer bonds a Creationspren to enter Artform, they are taking this literal living idea of creativity and creation into their very soul, which makes the Singer _more_ creative and oriented towards creative pursuits. BUT, as the Singer then makes art, and just becomes more creative in general, and is sort of motivated towards different kinds of creative pursuits, that then sustains and feeds the creationspren. That kind of cognitive activity (ughh, this is not the right phrase) is what gave rise to creationspren in the first place. It may even attract _more_ creationspren and feed more than just one creationspren. If living creatures in the Physical feeling, perceiving and personifying anger creates angerspren as a "species", and attracts and feeds individual angerspren, then it makes sense for an angerspren to put a Singer in a state of mind that tends towards getting angry, because that Singer getting angry not only feeds that one angerspren, but also potentially creates the conditions for _more_ angerspren to exist. And how can taking the literal living idea of anger into your soul _not_ make you more... "angry"? Your soul now literally has more anger in it. And voila, Symbiosis. The Singer got something out of it, the spren got something out of it. The singer got capability and tendency, the spren got to feed off that capability and tendency. Rosharan ecology can then be structured around this very careful balance of give and take between all manner of sentient creatures in the Physical, and all the various kinds of subspren that are given existence by the impact these sentient creatures have on the Cognitive. Humans are not Colonists, they're an Invasive Species So far, I think this was Adonalsium's original vision for the system - symbiotic life of this sort. Now... consider that because the Singers evolved in this ecology, they have certain characteristics because of this history. And every creature, no matter what ecology they grow in, has that. All ecologies are balance in this sense, and so every element of an ecology has advantages and disadvantages that help it maintain this balance. For example, because the Singers have natural access to literal living ideas, they evolved to be these compound creatures, where a Singer soul without the investiture of the spren is... atrophied, or incomplete. And thus, dullform being relatively more dull and stupid. This is a disadvantage of sorts - because the Singers can just "borrow" a lot of different kinds of capabilities from spren, they never needed to evolve these things in themselves, not fully. On the otherhand, it's also an advantage. Any Singer can be an artist, if they so wish. The Singers aren't better or worse as a species, they're just different, owing to how vastly different the ecology the live in functions and how different their evolutionary history would be in this different ecology. But this ecology is not where Humans evolved. Humans evolved on Ashyn, which - from what they brought over, at least - seems relatively more earthlike. They didn't have easy access to spren, nor did they live on a world with too much excess investiture, nor an easily accessible perpendicularity, not like Roshar. So... they are not a part of this careful balance that exists on Roshar. Moreover, because they didn't co-evolve with spren, their physiologies never relied on them, and so the capabilities that Singers could get from bonding spren had to have been an innate part of human souls and bodies. And this was fine, because in their native environment, this was how they stayed in balance. Why does this matter? Because, once the humans came over to Roshar, the balance of its ecology would have broken. Before, a Creationspren would have to hang out around a singer and enter into a form bond with them, getting trapped into their gemheart, for guaranteed sustainance. Now, with the advent of the humans, they no longer require to give Singers anything, they don't _require_ to enter a form bond to sustain themselves and maybe even create the conditions for more creationspren to exist. Nope. Now, with the humans, a creationspren can simply hang out around them, and still get fed. Because of the innate characteristics of the humans because of the conditions they grew up in, they would outclass Singers in their ecology. Humans, in the ecology of Roshar, would be an invasive species, whose very existence drastically affects the balance of Roshar's ecology. A Potential Sequence of Events Now, you might be asking why you should accept this line of reasoning. Well, because it leads to a set of circumstances which explains the God switching before the first desolation. It seems natural that with the advent of the humans, and Honor and Cultivation helping them, the Singers would feel threatened. Honor may have asked them to give Humans a chance, but Odium may have fed on this fear, and used it to start some sort of aggression, pitting Singer against Human. Honor may have given assurances to the Singers, but it may not have been enough, not with Odium there to stoke some fires. Moreover, spren are curious. They want to explore this new species, and Humans, despite being warned against it, maybe let them. Another reason for the Singers to feel more threatened. Not to mention, Roshar is a bit too high-oxygen, so fire is a lot more dangerous to use as a lighting source. So maybe Humans venture outside Shinovar in the early days just to farm some gemstones to use as a light source, nothing much more than that. But... the Singers see this as a further threat, maybe even seeing this as the Humans being out for blood. And, eventually ... conflict. An Odium influenced faction of Singers is afraid that the existence of humans on Roshar threatens the Singers as a species. Honor stays largely neutral and is pained, but Humans give as well as they get in the conflict. Odium creates the Fused, Humans are on a _real_ backfoot, things are going horribly, and when the Heralds go to Honor, he finally takes pity and facilitates the Oathpact, which, if you consider it, was still the neutral solution - imprisonment of immortal warriors of both sides. The rest, as they say, is literal history. TLDR In the end, the story of Roshar has pretty much no elements of known Colonialism, not in its early history. It, however, can have a lot more in common with the concept of a species suited to one ecology being picked up and put into a new ecology, and _becoming_ an invasive species in its new environment due to the natural advantages it brings over from it's own ecology.

On the discord, there was a strong support a while ago for her final Oath to be along the lines of "I have always been Shallan." (I think this was Mori's theory originally, but I'm not a 100% sure on that.) But, imo, there's two interesting directions for Shallan to go: one is this, "I am Shallan" or "I have always been Shallan" way, which is is essentially saying that all her personalities are her fabrication, and that it's always been her in them. Another is something Wit implies, where the personalities don't go away, exactly, and the arc is more... "these exist, and the best path forward for me is to accept they are there, to stop being afraid and to stop hiding, and learn to live with them and control them, as opposed to letting them control me." The latter is what I'm personally leaning towards, because we know know that Sanderson has decided to treat her as a more authentic representation of DID. But then... there's also been subtle hints across WoR and OB that there's possibly still more to see in her own past, and Brandon's also implied that it will eventually be made clear when Pattern was attracted to her and exactly how far along she was before she regressed, so for all we know, we might even be up for a curveball like "I have never been Shallan."

I dunno if you know about this, but it's is a pretty cool resource, for those kinds of theorycrafting. Now, I've normally gotten a vibe of Stonewarding, from that Oath, personally, but I could totally see it being a Willshaper Oath. Things that may support this from the Willshaper blurb: Things that support the Stonewards, from their blurb:

"But asmodeus!" I hear you say, "didn't Hoid just bond a cryptic and become a Lightweaver? What's so strange about that?" Well, sir (or ma'am, or... whatever your predisposition may be), this is Hoid we're talking about. So let me start at the beginning. Part 1: Topaz and Vows There are quite a few WoBs on this, but I'm going with this one for now: We've known for a while that one of his earliest aliases was Topaz, and that it had to do something with an actual, in-world Topaz he was carrying, and that there was something magical or mystical about the whole affair. (note: I am deliberately not commenting on "Bearer of the First Gem," because I have no clue what to make of it.) Okay, so what about this is interesting? Because of what I'm choosing as the title, some of you probably already noticed that Topaz is indeed an actual polestone on Roshar, and yes, yes it is. In the magic of Roshar, Topaz is the ninth polestone - it soulcasts things to stone, and is associated with Taln and the amber eyes of the Stonewards. And, yeah, on its own, this doesn't really sound interesting, because what does Hoid have to do with Stonewards? You see, earlier this year, we had the Radiant Quiz drop, with its own associated lore drop on the Ten Orders of the Knights Radiant. And... there's something really rather interesting about it. (Okay, yes, there was a lot more than one just interesting thing about the whole matter, but what matters for out purposes is just one). We had it confirmed earlier that the little tag lines for each order on the order placards are the core concepts for each order, and also the canon theme for their second oaths in general. (source. Scroll down to the comments section for it.) So then, it is rather interesting to see the Stonewards having this: So, just to reiterate, Stonewards in general swear some variation of "I will be there when I'm needed" as their second Oath, or their first Order-specific Oath. So... why is this relevant? Some of you've already probably caught on, but here's an excerpt from one of my favorite chapters in OB (Chapter 68: Aim for the Sun): So... rather interesting that Hoid had a mystical Topaz (which eventually became the polestone of the Stonewards) and was named after it, and then also vowed to be exactly what a second oath Stoneward would swear to be. Curious, innit? Now, someone will probably say, "But the timelines don't match up!" and you wouldn't be wrong. But... consider, for a moment, that metal being special isn't something that just... came to be, one day, nor is it Scadrial specific. Metal was always special, and Scadrians are just inherently suited to utilise its special properties in a certain way. Yolen had lightweaving, even though it functioned differently from Rosharan lightweaving (since, you know, no spren or stormlight). So... it's not too farfetched to assume that colors and gems might also have something inherently fundamental to their nature, something that drove magic in two disparate places to... manifest certain common themes. Remember also that Roshar was created deliberately by Adonalsium, who had a certain vision for where they wanted the magic to go, and it's safe to assume the Yolen was also something heavily influenced by them. Another point of note is that a lot of people link Hoid's use of Fortune to this vow that Hoid made, which is fair, considering that he himself says this later, in this very chapter: And, again, fair. It could mean that this Oath of Hoid is what gives him his futuresight via some unknown magic, or that he chose his means of futuresight in a way that lets him fulfil his Oath. Note, also, that I'm not saying anything about him having access to stoneward surges - that's a whole another bag that I'm not willing to open right now. And... that's just section one of this post. Part 2: Hoid and the Buffet of Radiance For part two, I want to take a look at yet another excerpt from this chapter: So... this bit is kind of famous, because the idea of Wisdom (or Prudence) as Shard came from this quote. And... there's been a lot of speculation on whether the other things that Hoid compares to are also Shards or not. And, fair speculation. I want to offer an alternate take on things, however. See, earlier this year, we also got told this: Which tells us that a lot of Hoid's reasoning behind becoming more involved with the core cast is that he wants to get access to the magic of Roshar, and then to take it off-world. There's a lot to be said there, but the important thing is that this tells us his headspace and what's going on in his own head, when he's getting involved with the main cast - he's interacting with Shallan here not because she wants his help - though, he's helping anyway, no question - but part of his reason is to also figure out why she's a Lightweaver, how it all works, and how he can get access to it. There's another chapter later in the Kholinar sequence, "The Girl Who Stood Up," where I think he's helping Shallan, but at the same time also trying out her (and by extension, Rosharan) Lightweaving, to see whether he likes it or not. Specifically, here: And it continues on from here. And as I said, I think what's really happening in this scene is that sure there's a really interesting story that we want to break apart and find meaning in, and maybe Hoid is here because his access to fortune brought him here (again, not the point of this post), but how he's really approaching the scene (as in, from his point of view) is that he's helping, but also... sort of taking the reigns, on her Lightweaving, and taking the magic out for a test drive, to see how it feels, and whether he likes it. So it only stands to reason that if Hoid wants access to Surgebinding, and if he's really decided to leverage this opportunity (the coming of the final Desolation and the spren suddenly becoming bond-happy) to come and get Surgebinding, then it only stands to reason that he would do some soul searching and try and figure out which order of Knights Radiant he actually wants to be, and what he actually wants out of the end of the world (which, again, would be inline with him being chosen to become a Lightweaver - he's trying to find himself, and wondering who he is, as a person, and how he wants to live the rest of his life; he's trying to attain a measure of self-awareness. For someone immortal, Oaths like those of Radiance hold a lot of weight, because he's essentially choosing to be a certain way and uphold whatever ideals he speaks for the rest of posterity). So, going back in time to Chapter 68, when he's talking to Shallan and saying this: He's essentially saying what he thinks of himself - he's telling Shallan, and by extension Pattern, that he's done some soul searching, and he's trying to spread the message that he could be ready to bond too, and that there are some juicy truths he can tell, by dangling a little tidbit of information. But also, to us, I think this tells us which of the Orders he's considered and discarded. Now, I'm about to paste something that's might make some of you nope out, but hang in there, I'll walk you through it. So, let's take a look at the Surgebinding Chart: In general, this is the pattern: every Order, on the Surgebinding Chart, is connected to two Surges (the ones that they have). Then, you get a line connecting from each Order to two of their "adjacent" orders - these are the Orders they share a Surge with. And then, each Order is also connected to the order directly opposite to them, on the chart. And then lastly, there are the two lines I've highlighted in red, which are an anomaly and I'm not going to talk about them in this post, because boy have we speculated on them. But, if you look at the Lightweavers, they are connected to three orders: Elsecallers, Truthwatchers, and Windrunners. And here, I think the Hoid quote is relevant, because he's lowkey telling us that he's considered Orders that are "right next to" the Lightweavers on the chart, and found them (or himself) wanting. He is not well suited to the Windrunners, as kindness and compassion is not something he makes the point of his life. He isn't driven by the desire to protect those who cannot protect themselves, because he is old enough and has lost enough people that that doesn't really move him anymore as deeply (something the Windrunners struggle with, as evidenced by both Kaladin and the unnamed Windrunner from the gem archives). He's seen how the Cosmere can mistreat the innocent (Tien, anyone?), and that leaves him disinclined towards kindness. He is not a wise man, and he is not well suited to the Elsecallers, whose attributes are literally "Wise" and "Careful." If Sanderson can drop a hint to an unnamed shard in here, I don't think he wouldn't. And then there's a greater question about certain realmatic things in the Cosmere that I don't think digging into here makes sense, but... yeah. So I'm not saying this isn't a hint to a Shard, I'm saying that it's both - Hoid telling us that he's considered Elsecallers and found himself not suited to their ideals, by quipping that he's not into a Shard that resonates with some of the core concepts of their order all that much. It's kind of like saying, "I'm not a huge fan of Preservation" to say "I wouldn't make a great Windrunner," or "I'm not really that into Ruin" to say the same for Skybreakers or Dustbringers. And, lastly, Hoid is also not a Truthwatcher, as he's not a cynic who wants to seek out the truth behind the lies. He's not driven by the desire to find out and expose lies, nor is he driven by the desire to ferret out the deep secrets of nature. He's seen enough evil out there that he's a little too jaded for that to drive him anymore. If he did decide to become a cynic, he would be very likely to go full on scornful (his... quips, as Wit, and his jib at Sadeas in this very conversation are only proof of this). However, Hoid is strange, he's a very weird man, and he has a lot of truths to tell. He, as he has aged, has only grown more strange, as a person. Hoid... is a good fit for the Lightweavers. And then he dangles a juicy Truth about his own self: "I am the bones of a foreign species left drying on the plain that was once, long ago, a sea. A curiosity, perhaps a reminder, that all has not always been as it is now." So... yeah. I think this was both Hoid being sincere about himself, but by being sincere, also running a marketing campaign at the same time. About the lines in red on the Surgebinding chart, I'm not specifically looking at the red line from Lightweavers connecting to Stonewards (given section one of this post) as particularly relevant, but... ehh. It could be relevant. There's also one more thing I want to say, but... this post has gotten long, already, so I'm just gonna leave this crackpot here: What if Hoid, having already sworn something along the lines of what Stonewards would swear way back when, volunteered as the original candidate for Taln's position? What if Taln was chosen because Hoid, for whatever reason (I have my suspicions), backed out? This is probably not gonna get all that many comments, but ehh... I just wanted to say this and get it out there.

shrugs. What I said before is how the quiz considers it.

I like that idea for the ideal, but I'm a little uncertain of the exact form. Actually, Truthwatchers are pretty close to being smack dab in the middle, with a sliiight leaning towards the Letter of the Law. Skybreakers, on the other hand, are pretty hardcore Letter.

The archetype used in the quiz itself is "Maker."