11thorderknight

Honestly, I think the original Radiants were all bonded to an Honorspren of some sub-type, with the sub-type/appearance determined by their exact Order. Thus, Syl, Wyndle, and Ym's confused lightspren are all equally Honorspren. Note that all of them have an appearance similar to "common" spren, but only visible (generally) to their Bonded Radiant. We don't know enough about Jasnah to know what her spren looks like, or even if she necessarily has one, though the shadow stuff from her chapter implies that she does. As for Shallan, Elhokar and the Cryptics, we don't know much at this point. Based on the overall spren pattern, I would say that the Cryptics are an entirely different class of spren, possibly related to Cultivation, possibly something else, and that their bonds are fundamentally different from Radiant bonds. In other words, their bondees will be Surgebinders, but not Radiants. However, I'm very torn on that, since I just don't see Shallan turning out to be something other than a Radiant. Bottom line - we'll find out in March.

Lift's food-to-stormlight thing is unique to her, likely a result of her visit to the Nightwatcher. I am convinced, pending evidence to the contrary, that all surgebinders can inhale stormlight. If you'll notice, Darkness has a pet Larkin to suck out Lift's stormlight from her. He then makes his minions keep all gemstones far away from her (raising chandeliers, etc) as they walk down the hallway. Now, Lift doesn't know what he's doing, probably because she's never had to access stormlight from gems. And Darkness doesn't know at this point what her Order is. But he does know that she has the Friction surge because he's seen her use it, so he knows she's either an Edgedancer or a Dustbringer (i.e. definitely not a Windrunner). So, at the very least, Dustbringers can access stormlight in gems at a distance (not just by touch). Also, while Lift has spoken the Second Ideal of the Edgedancers, she didn't do it during the Interlude. I think she did it before, and right before healing Gawx, she remembers it. Note her saying that she caught her "pet Voidbringer" with words. Also, the words in the Interlude are in italics, which is text for something the character is thinking, as opposed to quotation marks, which are spoken aloud. And we know from Way of Kings that the Words have to be spoken.

What I meant about kandra not being a "true" race was that, in order to be a kandra and not just a mistwraith, they had to have spikes. I wonder if Sazed would have changed that, at least in the ones that already existed, to make them independent of spikes.

So, since we know that Sazed made koloss a "true" race, not needing hemalurgic spikes, the question is - did he do the same to kandra? I mean, we know that they exist as mistwraiths without spikes, which are basically just stupid kandra. You'd think that amongst all his meddling, Sazed would have done something about that, wouldn't you? EDIT: Also, now that we have WoB confirmation that kandra can gain allomantic and/or feruchemical abilities via hemalurgy (which I've always thought to be the case) a kanda would be a pretty badass supervillain. He can take any form, hunts mistings and ferrings, and steals their powers, with the goal of becoming a truly immortal lord ruler....mwah-haha! Thoughts?

Well, Brandon's said multiple times that in the Cosmere, all things exist in all three Realms. However, Wyndle talks about his "transition" to the physical realm, and how it was difficult and left holes in his memory, even with precautions. So, my theory is that the Nahel bond allows spren to transfer their consiousness to the physical realm, and it also allows humans (at least in some circumstances) to transfer their consciousness to the cognitive realm.

Has anyone else noticed a pattern in the appearance of Nahel bonding spren? Kaladin, Windrunner - Windspren Lift, Edgedancer - growing vines, with crystals mixed in Ym, order 5 - Lightspren (Ym's own description) When we only had Syl as our reference, I assumed that bonding spren would appear as something related to the Essence of the Order they bound to. However, both Wyndle and Ym's spren don't fit the pattern. Instead, they seem related to one of the two Surges available to their respective orders. This also fits the pattern of the Order's names, in that the names seem much more closely aligned to one of the available Surges than the other. Strangely, however, the spren-surge and the name-surge are different. Examples: Windrunners; so named, presumably, because they can "run on the wind", i.e. fly. They do this using Surge 10/1, Gravity. Yet, Syl's appearance is that of a windspren, which is much more related to Surge 1/2, Pressure. Edgedancers; so named because they can both stick to things and slide on things using Friction. Lift's spren, while showing a few crystal qualities, looks like a growing vine, clearly related to Growth. Palah's order; don't know their name, but I'll bet it has something to do with growth and/or healing. Ym's spren looks like a lightspren. Lightweavers; clearly named after Surge 5/6, light. Don't know what a transformation-spren would look like, and I'd argue that the Cryprics are....well....cryptic enough at this point that we can't make any conclusions based on their appearance. But they certainly are not lightspren. Elsecallers; the name, while odd, obviously references change, i.e. soulcasting. (calling something "else" into existence than what's currently there). We don't know what Jasnah's spren looks like, other than that it has something to do with shadows. Venturing off into total speculation-land here, but there are lots of references in fantasy literature to shadows being related to travel, especially in another dimension. Also..."Shadesmar?" Bondsmiths; reference to the "bonds" perhaps, that give objects their shape/structure? This is the first order who's name seems to be related to their clockwise surge instead of their counterclockwise one. (i.e. no one named after transportation). Stonewards; we don't know what Surge 9/10 is, so not much room to speculate on. Order 10; no info.

I read that to mean that the Nightwatcher judges you, in part, on what you ask for. Example: the guy that asked for help to feel his family during a famine got essentially what he asked for, and his curse was something that at first seems like a big deal, but ultimately was something that he got used to very quickly and didn't even notice - so, a temporary inconvenience that did no lasting damage. Unlike the guy with permanently numb hands, or Taravangian, or even Dalinar....

What's a larkin? I mean, I can gather from the context that it's the little animal that sucked up Lift's Stormlight. But where else have we seen one, and where did we get the name? What what does it have to do with the KR table?

Sorry, I'm gonna have to jump on the hate train here. The way soulstone is described, it's clearly a tool of convenience, and its convenience is dictated by the technological constraints of the setting. If there were Forgers on Earth, they'd probably be carving seals out of tungsten carbide blocks using argon lasers and diamond-tip burrs. You could just as easily argue that Aona's body is in squid ink, because that's what Shai uses to stamp things. On a completely unrelated note, did anyone else catch the reference to "the un-Forgeable metal"? One that happens to be relatively rare and hard to purify, and very soft, with a low melting point? Aluminum, anyone?

You're right - I stand corrected.

I couldn't have said it better! These are all aspects of Jasnah's own character, not her potential abilities with surgebinding, and say nothing about the likely role of Elsecallers as an order. I'm sure different orders each had their own unique strengths and ways to contribute, but at the end of the day, I'm sure each and every one was well represented on the battlefield. Also, despite all the cool things they can do with stormlight, it may well be that the most effective way to fight thunderclasts and voidbringers is to simply get in there with Blade and Plate and go at it old-school. And in that, all the orders would be equally capable.

Umm.....I think WoK made it pretty clear that Jasnah's bond is NOT to a Cryptic. That being said, we know by WoB that "honorspren" is a loose and somewhat ill-defined category, and that there is some method to the madness of who gets bonded. The big mystery at this point, in my opinion, is this: are the Cryptics simply the specific spren that bond to Lightweavers? Or, are they a class of spren that exist in parallel to honorspren and grant bonds to surgebinders or any order (in which case, the order is determined by the bondee's Ideals/personality etc)? If the latter is the case, do those surgebinders who bond Cryptics still qualify as Radiants, or are they on the road to something else?

That implies that there were Orders that were more "combat-aspected" than others. Given that the Radiants as a whole were founded to protect humanity against Desolations, this doesn't make sense. I can see individual Radiants being less combat-oriented than others - their powers don't give them any automatic skill in swordfighting, for instance - but I would have a hard time accepting that entire Orders were relegated to non-combat roles. Again, this is hard to get into without directly quoting the Lift interlude, but there is direct evidence there that Stormlight can be accessed without direct contact by a Radiant of her Order.

The "not checking a woman's safepouch" thing will last right up until the first female assassin is discovered. Reason enough for Lyss to keep her gender secret. And I agree on the confusion - when I first read the transcription, I did have a mental image of a Shardblade-wielding dude in drag :-)

Regarding Investiture not being hereditary - the United States presidency is not a hereditary office, yet in our relatively short history we've had two instances of father/son presidents, one instance of cousins, and came fairly close (and may yet get there) of a husband/wife pair. A person has to develop the attributes for the Nahel bond on their own, but on a medieval world, relatively few people have the opportunity to spend much time developing such attributes. The average person is fairly tied up with subsistence farming and hiding from highstorms.

I would think the Edgedancers would have been a combination of field medics, support troops, peacekeeping, and embedded first responders. In a way, the divergence of their surges is an asset - it's kind of nice for the support forces to have access to the kind of defensive maneuverability that Friction gives them. Plus, Growth would have been useful for a lot more than healing; I'm sure it's a much more efficient way of using Stormlight to make food that Soulcasting. I imagine Windrunners and #10 as light cavalry (extremely mobile, versatile), Skybreakers and Dustbringers as heavy artillery, Edgedancers and #5 as support troops/field medics, Lightweavers as scouts/spies, Elsecallers and Bondsmiths as logistics/communications/transport, and Stonewards as infantry. I'm super curious to find out what Surge #10 is going to be. I would think it would have at least some connection to living things, since order 10 is associated with animal life.

Or maybe, all the Radiants can breathe in Stormlight. Lift is a completely unique case, and thus uninformative for purposes of this discussion. Though, even in her case, those around her who are in the know assume she can access Stormlight in lamps/chandeliers, etc. (Sorry for the vagueness....). Also, in the WoK Jasnah Soulcasting scenes, its always emphasized that Jasnah takes a deep breath right as she does a big Soulcasting.

This is exactly what I was getting at - in a fight, having Plate is a bigger advantage than having a Blade. The advantage of the Blade is that you always have it on you and it can't be stolen, and is easy to hide, whereas Plate has to be cared for, costs gems/money to fuel and repair, and must be elaborately put on and taken off.

Exactly my thought. Plus, I think a lot of the Herald faces are related to the theme of the chapter, not just who's featured. Oftentimes the two are one and the same, but not always. For instance, in all of the Palah-faced chapters, Shallan and Jasnah are researching, studying, etc. And also, despite the fact that Jasnah gets a fair bit of screentime in Way of Kings, she's never been featured as a viewpoint character in that book, she's always shown from Shallan's point of view. We'll see what the Herald heading is for her scenes in Words of Radiance.

That's exactly what I mean! I guess we don't know exactly what Transportation allows Jasnah to do with it, but we know the Silver Kingdoms had Oathgates and that, at least for the upper classes, it wasn't a big deal to hop all over the continent multiple times in a day. And even in current times, the handful of remaining Soulcaster fabrials are essential to the economy. So, completely aside from their role in warfare, how important to society would a group of people who combined these two abilities have been, or could be? By contrast, Kaladin can walk on walls and fly, and stick things together. He's a badass warrior, for sure, but other than that, his existence, or the existence of others like him, isn't a paradigm shift for how society functions. The only other game-changing ability on a larger scale that we've seen so far is Growth/Regrowth. I guess what I'm saying is, from what we've seen so far, if I could join any Radiant order I wanted based on current info, I'd choose the Elsecallers any day of the week and twice on Sunday :-)

Agreed. Also fits with his sidekick in the Jasnah prologue being Kalak, who, based on his lines in that scene goes from Resolute to whiny-little-b#$#h. I wonder if we're next going to see Palah burn down the Palaneum?

Well, that's the big mystery now, isn't it? :-) Maybe it's somehow related to a glowing black sphere...

Regarding Ym - first of all, wow! Very cool character. Props to B. Second - I doubt he's even found the First Ideal, let alone the second or third. His Spren doesn't speak to him, he doesn't really understand what's going on, and he says he's used Regrowth only a handful of times. Remember, you have to live the attributes in order to attract a spren, the formal Words come later. Also, despite the fact that he gives out a lot of shoes, it seems like his primary motivation in life is learning. I doubt Brandon is going to make his characters one-dimensional caricatures in order to perfectly match them up with Divine Attributes. For instance, Kaladin spends a lot of time sulking and being withdrawn rather than leading, Shallan does a lot of lying, and Lift does a lot of being-an-obnoxious-brat.

@Shardlet - I don't want to go quoting Steelhunt text on the forum since I'm not sure whether the quoted part was included in one of Brandon's readings. Let's put it this way - one of the characters in the Lift Interlude talks about how Lift got chosen to receive her bond. He could be accused of sounding whiny when he does this....wink wink, nudge nudge. It's explicitly stated that the Old Magic was a consideration. Alternatively - Do we know for sure that "Light" is the canonical name for Surge 5/6? Because Lightweaving magic, at least as we've seen Hoid use it, could easily be based on something a bit more abstract, like Perception for example, which could make Memory a derivative power of this Surge. So far, we don't know of any other Radiant order that shares a name directly with one of their surges.

Could someone post a transcript, or the audio link, to what Brandon said about Jasnah and Shallan entering Shadesmar? IIRC, every time we see Jasnah Soulcast, she either closes her eyes, or just does it so rapidly it looks like nothing happens. Also, the fact that her second Surge is Transportation confirms a theory I had a long time ago - that when she throws "lightning" at the thieves, what Shallan really sees is Jasnah moving to touch each thief so quickly she only registers as a blur of Stormlight. Or something to that effect. Also, also - I'm just a tad surprised that Brandon put Transportation and Transformation next to each other on the chart, thereby giving both to one order. It pretty much makes the Elsecallers the most powerful (or most useful, however you want to call it) order. Imagine, being able to both soulcast and teleport. "Oh, you can slip and slide and grow plants? How nice...."