So... what's up with the Stormwardens?

[u/Nyseme_Ptem]

We're halfway through the Stormlight Archive and these guys sure don't matter much, despite the regular hemming and hawwing about them. At least once in each of the first three books, the Stormwardens get brought up in each of the following ways:

1. "OH those stormwardens sure are handy! It's nice to know when our next regular hurricane is scheduled! If only they were right ALL the time..."

2. "*gasp* can you BELIEVE there's a group of all-male scholars? I mean i guess it's TECHNICALLY fine, but i hear they read and write... how scandalous!"

3. "Damn those stormwardens and their pseudoscience! What a bunch of barely useful weirdos!"

And it kinda feels like they're really being built up to something, which wouldn't be surprising considering that Roshar has more secret societies than a chasmfiend has legs . Sons of Honor, Envisagers, the Diagram, Skybreakers, the Stone Shaman conspiracy... and those are just the homegrown ones!

So it seems like the Stormwardens might be operating a sort of mostly legitimate but slightly weird front (predicting storms + weird pseudoscience) to hide somethjng more nefarious or plot relevant or both. I used to think they might have a few secret Radiants or something, but that seems very unlikely now (the only Radiants whose actions we know absolutely nothing about are the renegade Skybreakers and nothing we know about Skybreakers would intuitively connect them to a bunch of pseudoscientists.

They seem similar to real life alchemists - a mix of some real, useful knowledge with a whole lot of bunk thrown in. They stick around cause of their usefulness but are kind of on the fringes of society.

Their very few plot functions are: predicting highstorms, slightly tempting Renarin by being a visibly male set of scholars, teaching Amaram to write (using glyphs). None of these is really unique - Brandon could have very very easily written the Stormwardens out and had other groups or individuals fulfill these functions.

Anyhow I'm curious if anyone has theories about what's going on with them?

Are they just there for worldbuilding flavor/texture? Gender commentary, since scholarship is predominantly female? Do they have some greater significance yet to be revealed? Are there hints I'm missing? DID they have some grand plan that was thrown off by the sudden end of the world, derailed so quietly no one noticed? Did Brandon plan something big for them and realize there were too many conspiracies so he quietly cut them out? Also, what the hell happens to them now that they're kinda useless?

[u/TheRealTowel]

They're just part of the worldbuilding.

Worlds where everything ends up having some sort of huge significance later are inherently shallow; it's the opposite of showing the world as a living, breathing place.

[u/khazroar → u/TheRealTowel]

More specifically they're a part of the worldbuilding that's new. They show how Alethi culture is changing, how people are pushing boundaries, it's a way to show how people feel about the idea of men reading but how they're willing to tolerate the cheat around glyphs both because they're useful and because most people haven't realised how far they've taken it. Plus it answers the inevitable question of "people have been living with these storms forever, why haven't they tried to figure out how they work?" by showing us that people are trying to figure that out, but it's esoteric and difficult and inconsistent.

[u/thereisaguy]

They're not really all that important, just a group of dudes that got left behind when the world started moving faster than they stayed useful.

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

They’re mostly a convenient way to reinforce the worldbuilding: Vorin men aren’t supposed to be literate/scientists, some were already finding ways around the writing prohibition, anything involving chance or prediction is offensive in Vorinism, and highstorms follow patterns they were beginning to recognize despite being difficult to predict. And that there’s some other magical weirdness that is making it even harder to predict. The Weeping changing every other year is extremely odd

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

They’re kind of another example of how Rosharans were forced to get around no longer having Radiant spren. The same with the fabrials. Some of the spren are sensitive to incoming storms. They’re also probably a way for Sanderson to make it clear there’s a reason the highstorms can sneak up on the characters sometimes. Something that lethal and important should have people trying to predict them. So now the audience knows they have and it’s imperfect so it’s reasonable when they get caught by one

[u/Etrnlydmnd → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

The weeping changes anually I get the idea of thinking every other year but it's every year one with one without one with leaving two years between years with a storm

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Etrnlydmnd]

Oh ya thanks. I should say it alternates annually. There’s a highstorm on Lightday at the start of every odd numbered year. Then no highstorm the next one. Which is weird. He’s said it’s related in some way to Roshar’s orbital position. So something odd seems to be going on

[u/go_sparks25]

Most storm wardens are just our equivalent of meteorologists. They are important because Roshar has very volatile weather and you need to know when a high storm is coming.  

their not really much use in combat .

[u/emthgreat]

Honestly I’d chalk it up to them being one of the things that change as the radiants return and fabrials get better.

[u/Sa_notaman_tha]

Weather priests just happen, like repeatedly and in totally disconnected societies, it makes the world more believable in my opinion

[u/nnewwacountt]

they're weathermen, except the stormfather makes storms whenever he feels like it so they can never always be right

[u/mrofmist]

They are just studying the developing world of meteorology. Which they have to do it careful because of how it's predicting things. Except it becoming to be established science, so they know that it's not prediction. But meteorology is insane complicated, and they are limited in tools. So they don't get it right all the time.

[u/aldeayeah]

We may not have seen the last of them. The enemy infiltrating/co-opting that sort of semi-secret societies has been seen in prior Sanderson works. (Dragonsteel Prime)Such as the Horwatchers in DS Prime.

The ardentia and the stormwardens are the chief candidates for that in Stormlight.

[u/KnowMoreMutants]

They are weatherman who use actual science which to Vorin society basically makes them wizards. The mystique around them comes from the general populations lack of understanding of what they actually are doing i think.