Aether

I must advice advice you to stay away from our Wafflesworn Mistress, lest you risk damnation itself. As long as she do not mind, you will be spared, but one mistake, just one misstep, and my dark powers shall envelop you and devour you whole. Chaos is but a consequence of the dark forces under my command.

Colour recognition, considering all the Waffle discussions lately?

Shardfork?

I now realise that my indexical nomenclature is have not been up-dated since my turn to the Dark side became official. You are hereby reborn as Listh Apprentice, and I rename myself Lord of Lists. The same goes for my honorary List Makers.

Wow! I am somewhat swamped now-a-days and was trying to find room for this next week-end, but now I do not have to, and it looks great! And as this is indeed a form of List, I am hereby anointing you to List Maker Apprentice. Great work, young Padawan! Well, technically, 'twas my Padawan that placed you there, but I have full confidence in her decision to do so. She probably had her reasons. EDIT: Seems like she ninja'd me. Up-vote young List Maker for taking responsibilities!

I am not sure we are treating Kaladin fairly here. I admit he seems to have learned Gravitation a bit fast, but to me it really seems to be the easiest one to learn. It doesn't take much thought other than keeping your head straight as you shift your gravitational pull. And he did practise it for several weeks by running (flying?) around the chasms. Adhesion, on the other hand, is difficult, and while he understands the basics, he is far from Szeth's level when it comes to its battle application. He even thinks to himself at one point that he wasn't sure how effective it will be in a fight without considerably more training (or something). In his battle against Szeth, he only used Gravitation and his Shard-weapons, and Syl was even doing most of the hard work on the latter one. Jasnah, I agree, has it hard. Anyway, I do not think it is the mastery of their surges which is the catalyst for an eventual change in eye colour. I reiterate that I think it has more to do with finally embracing one's Radiance (after reaching a certain threshold), or some other unknown factor. Either that or it works different for Lighteyes, as some have suggested.

Did someone say Aether? I mean, like, a bazillion times?

I meant specifically of the Transportation surge. I should have said so. And I am not sure how much she identifies herself as a Radiant. She's confident, sure, but I am not convinced she feels a strong attachment to her Radiancy yet.

She doesn't. She has no idea what she's doing:

Is there a transcription of this reading? I find it hard to hear what he says.

I find it likely that it is a family name, or a nickname given to a pair of brothers or something. But I agree, it sounds somewhat mysterious. I'll make sure to keep my eyes up for any new references to the name/nickname/whatever.

It was not mentioned in any book that I remember, but Brandon offered it up freely when asked:

Actually, given that Taln is the Herald of War, I think he might have one of the higher number of Squires. Bondsmiths, on the other hand, would have few if any, I think. Both because of the rather unusual nature of their Nahel bond, and because their first Ideal is aimed at everyone. They are the Knights that unite whole peoples, and I don't think they would develop particularly strong bonds to anyone in particular (other than what normal humans do). Lightweavers would likely have Squires, but I am conflicted on whether it would be on the higher or lower end. I feel like the Order would benefit from a small number of highly specialized Squires, but Shallan seem to be gathering an alarmingly grand number of Squire candidates. Edgedancers would likely have many Squires, for the same reasons that Windrunners have. Truthwatchers, on the other hand, will likely have none, or at least very, very few, given the secrecy and social ineptness associated with the Order. And if Jasnah is representative for the rest of her Order, I think the same goes for the Elsecallers, though probably more than the Truthwatchers if they have at all. I am unsure of how the Skybreakers would place. I find it likely that they will have squires, but I do not know if they would be on the higher or lower end. They could benefit both from a high number of "constables", though maybe even more so from a small number of highly specialized ones. We know too little about the remaining Orders.

Lopen only gained the ability to consciously draw on Stormlight at the end of WoR. It is likely that Kaladin had been drawing upon it unwittingly for almost a year by the time he learned to do it willingly. Teft and Skar (and Lopen and likely others) were likely doing the same, breathing in only very small amounts of Stormlight, giving them an edge, but not a obviously miraculous one. As to how Teft could have missed the signs, he was oblivious to the existence of Squires in the first place, and he did not really start to suspect Kaladin before he survived a Highstorm. Neither Teft nor Skar had done so at this point. You do give some good alternative candidates, but I think most of them are stretching plausibility: Nalan: the WoP implies visible signs. There is nothing, as far as I can gleam, that suggests anyone of Szeth's victims in the prologue have anything at all boosting them. And by the way, I think there is reason to assume that Honourblades would not grant the ability to bond Squires. If Gavilar was a proto-Radiant, he might have had Squires, but there is nothing that suggests this in the prologue. Elhokar is a more likely candidate, but no. Just no. I myself think that Yalb is indeed a Squire by WoR (or will be when he return to Shallan's herd), but he likely was not there yet in WoK. Indeed, I do not think Shallan was even capable of forming Squire bonds in WoK, as she only "rebonds" Pattern on her way to the Shattered Plains. And she would not immediately have left to chase after Jasnah, so if Balat had access to Stormlight healing (which I do not think he had, as the bond with Pattern was more or less innert at this point), his leg would probably have been in a better shape than it is. Adolin is a likely candidate for Squiredom if Bondsmiths have any at all, but I don't think the Thrill was failing him before his duels in WoR, though I will have to look this up. Something is going on with Elhokar, but I do not think it is Squiredom. Again, no visible clues that Baxil and his comrade, and it is highly unlikely that his mistress would have her Honourblade, and we have WoB that states that the Heralds would not have access to Surgebinding without it. Skar and Teft are, in my (far from) opinion, the best candidates by far, And I would argue that they are indeed the only ones.

By process of elimination. There are nothing in Dalinar's visions that could conceivably be interpreted as Squires, and the only (known) Radiants at that point is Shallan, Kaladin and Jasnah, of which only Kaladin have anyone he considers really close. Peter's wording imply heavily that there should be visible signs of it, and in Kaladin's case, he himself remarks that Teft's head-wound was remarkably less serious than he had originally assumed. Skar was rather badly hurt in his foot, but was walking around like it didn't matter by the end of the day (and the next day, in WoR, where Kaladin comments on his wound again). Though they have not directly said that Teft and Skar were already showing early signs of Squiredom towards the end of WoK, I think it is close to as certain as we can.

I misspoke. It is a WoP, but just as valid. Kurk cited it here. Oh, I agree that a Knight Radiant would be highly useful, but I find it highly unlikely that they would have one amongt their numbers at this point in time. I had not considered, by the way, the extreme usefulness of having a Radiant in the Seventeenth Shard, if they could harness and control his ability to "bond" Squires. Though I don't think they will have one for some time, good catch!

I might have gone at it a too fervently, but I was merely trying to show that the speculation is faulty at best, and parts of it is undoubtedly wrong. Teft does talk about the Radiants with the others, but I didn't think that he mentioned the first Ideal specifically. Now that you point it out, I believe you're right. But as Moogle points out in this excellent Thread, the First Ideal is somewhat formless on its own. While the Squires (and the Radiants) might have tried to live by it, it does not seem to grant any particular powers or potential by itself. Indeed, it seems too open to interpretation to shape the morals of its adherents on its own, without further Ideals. I did by the way forget to point out that I do in fact agree with entropicscholar on his first assertion: I do think it has to be a mutual respect and loyalty, though. Bridge Four gets their Squire abilities from their close relationships and friendships with Kaladin, and he is fiercely protective of them, just as they are of him.

They already are, Mistress. Both cockroaches and rats alike have been ordered to keep away from our precious resources and watch from the shadows.

Rampant conjecture, I suppose. There is a common hypothesis on the Forum that Knight Radiants would develop gemhearts, and this would only be a few step further along that path.

Pardon me for assaulting your theory, but I consider Squires as a speciality of mine. See my "Effects of Squirearchy" Thread for a compilation of all known information about them. . As Swimmingly already pointed out, Kaladin is not a full Radiant at three Oaths, and he had Squires well before he got to his third one. There are likely more, but both Teft and Skar healed disproportionally fast respectively from a head and foot wound, and this has been confirmed by WoB to be early signs of Squiredom. . So when it comes to your rules: . And as to your consequences:

No rat need steal food from me. Rats and other pests respond to my beckoning; they follow my command. And as long as they obey, my minions shall receive their due reward. The Darkness is merciless, but not without its boons.

Great minds think alike, I suppose.

I'd be interested in reading it, but differences in time regions might make it difficult for me to give you any pointers before you turn it in.

Do you mean 70 percentage points, or 70%? Because the latter is would be 22,5%, not 5%.

If it ever becomes a problem, I'll let them vote on it.