Saxsoon said:
That is definitely going to be interesting since we learned 4th ideal creates the shardplate. I honestly not sure where you go from there unless they no longer need to consume stormlight. Or they get something similar to Lift being able to create Stormlight on their own
**I reread my post and realized there are a ton of spoilers. I'm assuming no one is reading through these long posts in a Sanderson Stormlight thread if they haven't read through RoW. If so, that's on you. I'm not spoiler tagging all my damn posts.
The Lift thing is specifically a boon/curse from the Night-watcher/Cultivation. (lol... had to add a hyphen because of TexAgs censoring)
Also, I believe the Orders are all a little different. For example, Shallan was able to summon her Blade before swearing the 3rd ideal. If I'm not mistaken, "I killed my father" was her 3rd ideal and "i killed my mother" was her 4th. I can't remember if we got confirmation in RoW that Shallan is of the 4th Ideal or not, but I was always of that belief because of the last battle in Oathbringer where we see her in Plate.
They will have to always consume Stormlight because that is part of the Investiture of Roshar, and every planet in the Cosmere revolves around some form of Investiture. I don't know of a single entity in the entire Cosmere that does not require some form to use their magic/ability. I'm sure they do it the most efficiently at the 5th Ideal because each Ideal has allowed them to do so more so than the last.
I've read some theories about fabrials somehow being tied to the 5th Ideal, seeing as we still don't know how they are made. Apparently, a radiant of the 5th Ideal is incredibly rare. Most Radiants do not push themselves to that point, to achieve it. Because the most common fabrials are for Soulcasting, it would make sense that the most common fabrial is derived from a power of the Elsecallers, because one of their inherent qualities is to strive for excellence in their pursuits. So it makes sense there would be a greater percentage of 5th Ideal Elsecallers as opposed to the other Orders.