Stormlight Archive Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Wyndle
Lift Wyndle

Lift and Wyndle
Fan art by The Airsick Lowlander[1]

Biographical information
Race Spren
Ethnicity Cultivation
Nationality Shadesmar
Gender Male
Status Alive
Abilities Nahel bonding, affording Surgebinding
Social Information
Title(s) Cultivationspren
Occupation Edgedancerspren
Appears in Words of Radiance, Arcanum Unbounded, Edgedancer, Oathbringer

Wyndle is a Cultivationspren that Invests those Knights Radiant Surgebinders who are Edgedancers, such as Lift, with the Surges of Abrasion and Progression (i.e., manipulating friction and the power of Growth).[1]

Wyndle frequently complains that he was told to bond Lift, while his preference was for a person of importance. The Ring instructed Wyndle to bond Lift as she had visited the Nightwatcher and received a boon.[1]

Through their bond, Wyndle is responsible for Lift's "awesomeness", but she refers to him as a Voidbringer.[1]

Lift isn't supposed to be able to touch Wyndle, but she can. He states that he doesn't have enough presence in the Physical Realm, even with their bond, that she must be stuck partially in the Cognitive Realm. She thinks this is gibberish.[2]

He cannot believe that this is now his existence. Emphatically, he states that he was a gardener. Respected.[2]

"Now, everywhere I go, people look at us as if we're going to pick their pockets."[2]

Wyndle then brings up Ym (without naming him) and comments that what a nice co-existence he could've had with the cobbler.[2]

Appearance[]

Wyndle appears as a coiled or expanding vine, sometimes with multiple faces, or " ... a dark green, fungus-like creep of vines ...".[1] Sometimes, he has bits of crystal growing out of him along the vine's length, which jut out unexpectedly.[3] Further, he has strange eyes grown from crystals, and his lips formed of a tiny network of vines.[4][5]

When he moves, he doesn’t wiggle like an eel. He actually grows, leaving a long trail of vines behind him that soon decay into dust. This he is able to do with superfast speed, matching Lift's pace.[3]

He has stated that he can't be seen other than by Lift because, for the most part, he exists in the Cognitive Realm, but that he's moved his consciousness to the Physical. He has also said that he can make himself invisible to anyone, but that it's not easy for him to do so compared to other spren who are more skilled at this. Still, nobody can touch him but Lift, who asked for something unspecified when she visited his mother.[1]

When he smiles, his expression appears in successive patterns of his growing vines. Each image of the smile is slightly different, grown one after another, like a hundred paintings. The vines would make a smile, yet none of them was the smile. It was, somehow, all of them together. Or perhaps the smile existed in the spaces between the images in the successions.[6]

Personality[]

Wyndle can be quite sarcastic. When Lift mentions to him that she should acquire a Shardblade, he initially shifts uncomfortably, then groans loudly, and eventually responds to her with aserbic wit.[4]

Character[]

Wyndle senses that everything is wrong, and nothing makes sense. He expresses that bonding Lift was supposed to be more difficult than it was. Memories come to him fuzzily sometimes, but he does remember more and more. He didn't go into the trauma he thought he'd endure, which might be due to Lift's ... unique circumstances. Even so, he wants her to know that something big is coming.[4]

Knowledge[]

Wyndle admits that he doesn't know a lot about humans, but that he'd believed that what had 'happened' to Lift was natural, though might appear disconcerting.[3]

He does, however, know about Shardblades, and Lift guesses as much. Still, he tells her that she must discover what he knows about them on her own.[4]

When she threatens to bite him, he states that even if his crystals wouldn't break her teeth, his mass would give her no sustenance, as it would break down into dust.[4]

When she tells him that he's supposed to obey her, that he isn't following the rules, he states that he is indeed; that she doesn't know them. And, that he's a gardener, not a soldier, and he won't have her hitting people with him.[4]

Wyndle knows that it would take Lift more energy in Stormlight to grow plants that she might eat than the sustenance they would provide, as determined by the laws of the cosmere. Further, that these are laws even she cannot ignore.[4]

When asked by Lift what these 'eyes' he says Darkness has, the eyes she can't see, Wyndle replies that he will have a spren. Further, that it's likely to be invisible to her and anyone else but Darkness himself. He thinks that this is the case with most spren in the Physical Realm, but he doesn't remember all the rules.[7]

Wyndle knows that there are Words that Lift must say in order to evolve their relationship. That they are more ... ideas, living ideas, with power. That she has to let them into her soul ... let him into her soul.[6]

When Lift tells him that she wants control of her life, Wyndle replies that he knows little of the way her world works, but that her desire is a reasonable one.[8]

Abilities[]

Through his bond to Lift, Wyndle is able to manipulate natural objects in a manner that appears to animate them in ways so they are seen to have faces and/or grow into useful, organic structures, like a 'ladder' or a 'ledge'. He can also grow, from seeds, such a structure as a vine, which often have smooth and faceted crystals growing through its tendrils. Once created and then used, the vine vanishes, " ... becoming crystal and disintegrating into dust."[1]

Wyndle seems to have the most recollection of his existence in the Cognitive Realm of any spren. But ...

"Thieving in the night, chased by abominations. I was a gardener. A wonderful gardener! Cryptics and honorspren alike came to see the crystals I grew from the minds of your world. Now this. What have I become?"

–Wyndle to Lift[1]

He is able to wind himself around Lift's limbs, twisting around her body. For her, this tickles, the way his main vine shoots out tiny creepers that stick to her skin to keep it in place.[2]

Wyndle is able to infiltrate a space within which Skybreaker apprentices are located because he believes that their spren cannot see him. In this, he is correct, and therein he learns that they know who a certain person is whom they are after.[9]

In recalling that Wyndle became a brand of metal when she confronted Darkness at Tashi's Light Orphanage in Yeddaw, Lift tells Wyndle he doesn't have to be a sword. He says he must be metal. That there is a connection between a spren's power, when condensed, and metal. Lift doesn't care about swords. Wyndle does wonder what he'd look like as one. He said there is something stately about a Shardblade, something to be displayed. He thinks he would make a fine one. Very regal.[10]

Shadesmar[]

"While in Shadesmar, I had collected the most magnificent collection of the souls of chairs from your side! I cultivated them, grew them into grand crystals. I had some Winstels, a nice Shober, quite the collection of spoonbacks, even a throne or two!"

–Wyndle to Lift[3]

"Plants? Well, we have them in Shadesmar, but I'm no pedestrian gardener. I'm an artist! Why, I was planning an entire exhibition of sofas when the Ring chose me for this atrocious duty."

–Wyndle to Lift[3]

Notes[]

Here's the thing. Certain spren have decided that they are the most pure forms of honor, or that they are the most pure form of whatever, where all of them are kind of ... Syl's got a good argument for what she is. But there are other spren that would be like "well, I'm an honorspren too, I'm just this variety of honorspren." Does that make sense? Syl's like "I'm an American!" and I'm like "I'm an Alaskan!" Yes, you're an American. I'm an American too. It's kind of similar to that. But she would be the most pure ... many would view her as the purest form. Wyndle would view himself as the purest form of a cultivation spren.

Brandon Sanderson[11]

References[]

Advertisement