#truthwatcher

- 💚❤️💙 -

This started off as a test because I wanted to figure out how I could paint stormlight and stained glass for another piece for them…

Truthwatcher shardplate!! it only took like an hour surprisingly

ref below v

my stormlight oc, lore, and her mistspren, khiteas, in his lance form

I was sure one of the early Truthwatcher Ideals was something about seeking truth even when you know it's gonna be uncomfortable to know. (Frex, you don't get to stop investigating the murder just because the evidence points to your sibling.)

Which is... a possible but low-fidelity interpretation of the book's version of #2 "I will seek truth wherever it is hidden". Then they list 3 as "I will reveal truth to all who seek it" and 4 as a personalized form of "I get that sharing major secrets can get people hurt"

It’s rant and ramble time. Feel free to correct me as I am not the best versed in this stuff so… I probably got a lot wrong. And these are also just thoughts and observations I’ve had basically in the past seven hours. Note: I know there’s a bunch of stuff in the handbook. I haven’t read it. Anyway:

In my weekly read through of the Renarin Supercut (thank you eternally @bornuntohimself) I noticed this epigraph:

And remembered the Truthwatcher part of #SaytheWords last year:

Which paints a bit of a different picture? Are Truthwatchers super secretive or do they love sharing what they find? 

So there are a few things to keep in mind:

Senne (who canonically authored the journal the second excerpt is from) is not completely objective and will often share her opinion on the orders. However, she is writing these as a part of her apprenticeship with Hoid and would be held to some academic standards… as well as the more relevant fact that these are supposed to give the READER a good idea of what each radiant order was/is like, so it would be strange for Brandon to write them in a way that favours showing a character’s bias instead of the actual truth. On top of that, Senne is a character created for the express purpose of writing these entries, so other than the few times she marks her own opinions I think we can take these as reasonably accurate impressions. 

Secondly, the first excerpt is from the in-world book Words of Radiance. That is written roughly two hundred years after the Recreance, whereas Senne writes her journal during the sixth Heraldic Epoch. (For those like me who are wondering how big a time gap that is— we really don’t know. Desolations are spaced inconsistently so anywhere from 400 years to 150? Plus the 200 post-recreance) So each account is approaching the order from a different angle. Senne lived in a time where Radiants were looked up to, and also brushed elbows with them a lot. We know little about WoR’s author but they had to have lived in a time with a lot of disdain for the radiants, and unless they were affiliated with Skybreakers they would have never known a Radiant personally. 

With that in mind; it makes a lot of sense that WoR has a more… cynical outlook on Truthwatchers than Senne does (Who also claims to like them in comparison to orders like the Windrunners). Radiant popularity was down, so to speak. And WoR tends to be more critical in general, though not without calling out its own biased sources. See:

Considering there’s no such mention for Truthwatchers, I’m assuming this is the Author’s best attempt to be objective with what material they have. 

So we’re assuming both accounts are close to objective perspective on Truthwatchers for their time periods, from outsiders.

THAT OUT OF THE WAY (screaming)

This leaves us with four options.

A) Brandon changed his mind. A bad answer but one we must consider, he’s absolutely done it before. Not much to say here just a #BrandoBlunder 

B) Senne’s journal is more accurate. She was living in the same time period as them and had primary sources available, so her word is more trustworthy. She says they readily shared what they’d found? Great! A lot of that was stored in Urithiru, and was lost by the time WoR was written, so the author had no idea about it. Plus, however unbiased the author was comparatively, they had very little or no access to primary sources, and were also living in a time where Radiants in general were very unpopular. So despite their attempts, the book mischaracterises Truthwatchers as secretive and closed off when in reality they were very enthusiastic about sharing the truth. 

C) Words of Radiance is more accurate. Senne herself admits to liking Truthwatchers, and had better connections to them. Even if she wasn’t part of their order she could have been closer to inside than out. Because of this she might be giving the impression that they were more open. WoR’s author has distance from the order, and despite the lack of resources the book is deemed to be reliable by Jasnah’s standards compared to others. This would imply that the author gives a more objective description of how the order interacted with others, that they were secretive and sneaky. (Bonus: if this is the assessment Jasnah is working off of in OB when she becomes suspicious of Renarin… it makes a bit more sense)

D) Both are equally accurate for different points in time. People change, and the orders clearly did too. As I referenced above, there’s no way to know the exact time gap between each excerpt. At the absolute shortest it would be ~250 years. Perhaps after Senne’s time, but before the Recreance, there was a significant shift in the order and its practices. It’s not so unlikely, but it would have to be a pretty major deal to completely switch like that.

On the topic of individual Truthwatchers… they don’t tell us much. Modern radiants are noticeably different from their historical counterparts, in small and big ways. From what I can see we know four regular modern Truthwatchers; Arshqqam, Ym, Dyel’s mother and Rahel. We haven’t seen much of any of them, honestly. But none seem particularly secretive. Less so than Lightweavers certainly, but that’s a different story. When it comes to our Enlightened Truthwatchers… we can’t really count them. Yes— they are both spies. Rlain officially and Renarin in practice. But also it’s confirmed that their oaths are not the same as the rest of their order so we can’t really extrapolate anything from them. Sorry. That does imply modern radiants lean more towards Senne’s assessment, if Rlainarin are supposed to be different… but again these are all modern radiants and not representative of the history of their order. 

Brandon’s other statements support that some individuals were very outspoken where others were reserved… which makes a fair amount of sense. There’s going to be differences. But considering those aren’t like, CANON canon and also I’m looking bigger picture I’m just keeping it a footnote.

Conclusion: my head hurts. And I’m probably missing a lot of bits here and there. And I’m not a historian. But I think it’s interesting that this order is depicted in multiple different ways within canon. 

Personally… I think Senne is closer to being right. She had better access to sources and despite her obvious bias she was trying to be somewhat objective. WoR’s author was also trying, but in times where the odds were stacked against them. 

I’ll also note that the coppermind has a slightly different take than either of the others:

This is just an excerpt again… go read the full page if you’re interested. It’s the coppermind, seriously. This is all from the Stormlight handbook which I HAVE NOT READ so I can’t confirm its accuracy… and also the coppermind isn’t in-world or canon so I didn’t discuss it. It’s still interesting though.

What if the Strawhats had a Knights Radiant order?? I tried assigning one to each order the best I could lol- what order would you assign them to?

Also bonus pics of some spren are included- I couldn't decide which version of the Sunny to do, so I did both!