Stalvern wrote:Lashing works both ways. It can be based either on direction or on specific objects. Both are used numerous times in the prologue and are differentiated.
The difference there is that when Szeth of Kaladin does it, they physically touch whatever they're lashing, feed stormlight into it, and then choose a specific direction for that thing to fall. Toke can't do that, everything he does is centered around him. True, he can move objects, but that's just another way to use his anchors. If he anchors himself to something heavier than him, he falls toward it. If it's lighter than him, it falls to him. Since he can change how hard gravity pulls on him, making himself lighter or heavier, he can even pull things that are technically heavier than he is. But the catch is that while Szeth and Kaladin can lash things anywhere, anything Toke pulls on will come straight toward him.
Besides that, Szeth and Kaladin's powers both have other aspects to them, like making like making an object pull on another object. Toke's one and only power is to alter his own personal field of gravity. Not only that, but he has to have a physical object less that fifty feet away from him to anchor himself to. He can't turn the world upside down and fall into the sky, he can't fall sideways and fly across the entire country, and he can't touch an object and have it shoot away from him. Yeah, the walking on walls part is similar to Szeth and Kaladin's basic lashings, but I feel like I'm still doing my own thing since I'm limiting Toke to that and none of the other fancy tricks Kaladin can do. Not to mention that there's about a dozen other types of power people can have in Stormlight, so Kaladin's aren't even given that much attention after their first introduction.